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Comment Re:Great hardware specs (Score 1) 323

What a about tool costs and production time? Even if Plastic and Aluminum are the same cost (and I don't know that they are) they use different production techniques. Plastic is made with molds, whereas I believe with Aluminum you have to cut it out of a block, which might take longer, and also leaves you with a lot of "left over" scraps that will have to be recycled before they can be used again.

Comment Re:More power is nice, but has everyone forgotten. (Score 2, Informative) 323

I'm currently using that same machine you have as an (interim) HTPC machine. Swapped Win 7 64 bit to 32 bit (due to the low memory), upgraded to the latest drivers and Flash 10.1 Handles 1080p MKV's just fine, as well as 720P YouTube (1080 drops some frames on fast movement). The only problem is that Hulu apparently isn't taking advantage of the new Flash beta, and still seems to run 100% on the CPU rather than offloading to the GPU like YouTube now does. So for Hulu it can only handle the standard def video. 480P Hulu is fine windowed, but scaled to 720p or 1080p, it drops frames really bad.

Comment How about a web browser? (Score 1) 542

Any news on a web browser being built-in with free 3G like all the Kindles? I have a Kindle 1 and was going to buy the International until I heard about this new reader. It looks nice, but I've found I actually enjoy reading blogs and other sites on my Kindle. This will be what makes/breaks it for me about jumping ship from Kindle to B&N.

Comment Its causing my system to crash (Score 1) 535

I built myself a new computer about 1 month ago. Completely new install of XP, and I've only been installing programs as needed/wanted. In the last week I've had two bluescreens happen. What did I do a week ago? I installed Google Earth. And in both cases of blue screen, the app that was listed as causing the fault in the debug was the Google Updater. So hopefully removing Google Earth fixes this. The only other "google app" I run is Picasa, which I don't think uses the Google Updater.
Robotics

University of Maryland Team Wins Robot Sub Competition 44

William Cox writes "A team from the University of Maryland has won the 11th Annual International Autonomous Underwater Vehicle Competition, held in San Diego, CA, this weekend. Twenty-five teams from around the world (US, Canada, Japan, and India) built autonomous submarines to complete a series of tasks using vision recognition, autonomous navigation, and sonar. Maryland unseated the 3-time record holder, University of Florida, to win first place. University of Texas at Dallas took 2nd, and a Canadian team, École de Technologie Supérieure, took 3rd."
The Courts

RIAA's $222k Verdict Is Likely To Be Set Aside 224

NewYorkCountryLawyer writes "Apparently the RIAA's 'big gun' didn't fare so well this morning in Duluth, when he tried to persuade the judge in Capitol v. Thomas that the part of the Copyright Act which says 'by sale or other transfer of ownership, or by rental, lease, or lending', can be disregarded. According to an in-person account by Wired.com the Judge indicated that he is likely to grant a mistrial, setting aside the $222,000 jury verdict based upon his incorrect jury instruction, and that he will probably hand down his decision in September. Just yesterday some of the same lawyers got rebuffed by the US Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit in their attempt to argue that Cablevision's online storage for its customers constitutes a copyright infringement, in Cartoon Network v. CSC Holdings. There, too, the content owners had argued that the wording of the Copyright Act did not mean what it said. There, too, the Court politely but firmly disagreed."
Microsoft

Why Microsoft Cozied up to Open Source at OSCON 325

This year at OSCON it seemed that you couldn't throw a stone without hitting someone from Microsoft (and in fact, I'm sure several people did). They were working very hard to make themselves known, and working desperately to change public opinion of Microsoft's involvement in the open source community. Linux.com's Nathan Willis took a look at what they were preaching, with a hefty dose of skepticism, and tries to postulate what the "angle" is. Of course, the powers that be at Microsoft may have finally seen the writing on the wall and felt the pressure from Google enough to alter their strategy a bit. For now I guess we'll have to wait with guarded optimism (or laughable contempt, depending on how old/jaded you are).
Upgrades

AMD Fusion Details Leaked 94

negRo_slim writes "AMD has pushed Fusion as one of the main reasons to justify its acquisition of ATI. Since then, AMD's finances have changed colors and are now deep in the red, the top management has changed, and Fusion still isn't anything AMD wants to discuss in detail. But there are always 'industry sources' and these sources have told us that Fusion is likely to be introduced as a half-node chip."

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