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Music

Sony, Universal Hope To Beat Piracy With 'Instant Pop' 369

Posted by timothy from the trying-to-quote-get-with-it-unquote dept.
Hugh Pickens writes "The Guardian reports that Britain's two biggest record labels, Sony and Universal, plan to beat music piracy by making new singles available for sale on the day they first hit the airwaves hoping the effort will encourage young people to buy songs they can listen to immediately rather than copying from radio broadcasts online. Songs used to receive up to six weeks radio airplay before they were released for sale, a practice known as 'setting up' a record. 'What we were finding under the old system was the searches for songs on Google or iTunes were peaking two weeks before they actually became available to buy, meaning that the public was bored of — or had already pirated — new singles,' says David Joseph. Sony, which will start the 'on air, on sale' policy simultaneously with Universal next month, agreed that the old approach was no longer relevant in an age where, according to a spokesman for the music major, 'people want instant gratification.'"

Comment Re:The Bad Keyboard Trend Continues (Score 1) 332

by Samah (#34785362) Attached to: Will Touch Screens Kill the Keyboard?

Then, everyone moved to the quiet keyboards that use the rubber sheet and the dielectric, and it had less of a tactical response.

They provided me with one of those at work and they're just plain awful to code with. I ended up ordering one of these:
http://www.geek.com/articles/games/review-filco-majestouch-keyboard-2010045/
Mechanical with Cherry MX brown keyswitches. Sooooo nice for coding and general typing.
Patents

Zynga and Blizzard Sued Over Game Patent 179

Posted by Soulskill from the swinging-for-the-fences dept.
eldavojohn writes "Thinking about developing a game involving a 'database driven online distributed tournament system?' Well, you had better talk to Walker Digital or risk a lawsuit, because Walker Digital claims to have patented that 'invention' back in 2002. The patent in question has resulted in some legal matters for the makers of 'Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 1 and 2, Call of Duty: Black Ops, Call of Duty: World at War, Blur, Wolfenstein, DJ Hero 2, Golden Eye 007, World of Warcraft and its expansions, Mafia Wars, and many others.' Walker Digital (parent company of Priceline.com) said it's not sure how much damages are going to be, and requested that through discovery in the court. If you think Walker Digital is not a patent troll, check out their lawsuit from two months ago against Facebook for using privacy controls Walker Digital claims to have patented. It would seem that any online competitive game that uses a database to select and reward contestants in a tournament could potentially fall under this patent — of course, those with the deepest coffers will be cherrypicked first."

Comment Re:decent touch screen keyboard? (Score 1) 112

by Samah (#34381064) Attached to: Microsoft Patents Shape-Shifting Display

Not much good for an ATM though if you have someone waiting in line.

"Please enter your PIN."
*user types PIN...*
"1...5...7...9"
"You have $500,000 in your account."
*user gets mugged*

Not saying that it would be stupid enough to speak your PIN as you type it, but I wouldn't like random strangers knowing how much money I have in my account.

Comment Daggerfall (Score 2, Insightful) 518

by Samah (#34302268) Attached to: FPS Games That Need a Remake
Seriously. First Person RPG, but a decent remake would be epic. That world was HUGE. Not Minecraft huge, but it'd take you many hours to walk from one side of the country to the other. That's not even including the convoluted procedural dungeons.
Open Source

Where Do I Go Now That Oracle Owns OpenOffice.org? 510

Posted by timothy from the why-do-you-hate-america dept.
eldavojohn writes "So I noted that there was better support for my processor in the latest BIOS for my mainboard. After downloading the update, there was a .doc file containing flashing instructions. No matter, I have OpenOffice.org installed on this machine and just opened it up. And, as should be no surprise, there was an Oracle logo splash screen while OpenOffice.org 3.2 started up. At my job, I've had a less than favorable history with Oracle that I'm not going to get into — rather let's just say I never want anything to do with them again. Including installing any of their software on my machine. So I'm facing a dilemma. I've looked into the forked LIbreOffice but that's still in beta and I'm a little wary of depending on that. Has anyone used LibreOffice (it's installing as I type this) extensively? Does it handle complex Powerpoint files okay? Is there some alternative out there that I'm completely overlooking for open source? Can anyone convince me that there's no reason to fear the Oracle OpenOffice.org? Will it remain the de facto standard? Will it eventually lock me into a commitment with Oracle? If you get by without one of these heavyweight monster editors, what do you use and how do you handle doc, ppt, (etc.) extensions?"
Earth

Humans Will Need Two Earths By 2030 738

Posted by samzenpus from the so-long-and-thanks-for-all-the-petroleum dept.
An anonymous reader writes "A recent report warns that humans are overusing the resources of the planet and will need two Earths by the year 2030. The Living Planet Report tells that the demands on natural resources have doubled in the past 50 years and are now outstripping what the Earth can provide by more than half."
Robotics

Robot Controlled By Rat Brain 170

Posted by samzenpus from the we're-gonna-need-a-smarter-trap dept.
kkleiner writes "Kevin Warwick, once a cyborg and still a researcher in cybernetics at the University of Reading, has been working on creating biological neural networks that can control machines. He and his team have taken the brain cells from rats, cultured them, and used them as the guidance control circuit for simple wheeled robots. Electrical impulses from the bot enter the batch of neurons, and responses from the cells are turned into commands for the device. The cells can form new connections, making the system a true learning machine."

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