Comment I believe it's called (Score 1) 295
"retire", not "kill".
Comment Sooo, essentially... (Score 2, Informative) 211
... the Stasi of the IT world or am I misreading this? The wording seems intentionally diffuse.
Microsoft Wants To Participate In SVG Development 292
rossendryv writes "After many years of fighting against the standard, Microsoft announced they are joining the WC3's SVG working group to help with the development of SVG. 'We recognize that vector graphics are an important component of the next-generation Web platform,' said Patrick Dengler, senior program manager on Microsoft's Internet Explorer team in a blog post."
Comment Re:Consoles (Score 1) 536
That very much depends on where you live. Over here in Europe all you need is PlayTV (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PlayTV) to record live TV and do all the usual stuff you'd expect from a DVR.
True, it doesn't let you run your own applications, but then again I'm struggling to come up with anything I'd want to run on a media centre other than - well - media players.
Comment Consoles (Score 1) 536
Why isn't anyone mentioning the consoles?
Both the 360 and PS3 offer Netflix streaming...
The PS3 is a rather capable media player overall... DVD/BluRay, MPEG via DLNA, Netflix, PSN video store, recognises external USB storage so you can play your movies off it etc.
Comment Re:Seriously? (Score 2, Informative) 153
I use one of these at home and while it's not the best pick for moving large amounts of data between machines, it's a good solution for sharing an internet connection without having to run wires all the way around the flat.
I tried WiFi, but it's an old victorian house in central London and something seems to cause massive interference. Not persistently, but every odd minute I'd lose the connection to the router.
The bottom line being: I don't think anyone is trying to argue that these things are going to replace wires or WiFi for the common case. There are situations - like mine - though where they're a very convenient solution.
T-Mobile G1 Rooted 246
An anonymous reader writes "T-Mobile's G1 phone, the first commercially available Android based phone, has been rooted. The exploit is extremely simple to execute, just requiring you to run telnetd from a terminal on the phone, and then connecting to the phone via telnet."
Microsoft Announces Windows Azure, Cloud-Based OS 419
snydeq writes "Microsoft today introduced Windows Azure, its operating system for the cloud. The OS serves as the underlying foundation of the Azure Services Platform to help developers build apps that span from the cloud to the datacenter, to PCs, the Web, and phones. Cloud-based developer capabilities are combined with storage, computational, and network infrastructure services, which are hosted on servers within Microsoft's global data center network."
Google Launches Lively, an Avatar Based 3D World 358
no.good.at.coding writes "Google has launched a Windows-only, in-browser (you need to install a client first, though) 3D avatar world — Lively — that you can embed in websites and use to interact with other people. It's not as expansive as Second Life yet, but expect things to get better."
Excavations at Stonehenge May Answer Questions 160
Smivs writes "The BBC are getting set to fund a dig at
Stonehenge in Wiltshire, England. The two-week dig will try to establish, once and for all,
some precise dating for the creation of the monument. An article from the BBC news website explains how the dig will investigate the significance of the smaller bluestones that stand inside the giant sarsen pillars. 'Researchers believe these rocks, brought all the way from Wales, hold the secret to the real purpose of Stonehenge as a place of healing. The researchers leading the project are two of the UK's leading Stonehenge experts — Professor Tim Darvill, of the University of Bournemouth, and Professor Geoff Wainwright, of the Society of Antiquaries. They are convinced that the dominating feature on Salisbury Plain in Wiltshire was akin to a "Neolithic Lourdes" — a place where people went on a pilgrimage to get cured. Modern techniques have established that many of these people had clearly traveled huge distances to get to south-west England, suggesting they were seeking supernatural help for their ills.'"
Ray Tracing To Debut in DirectX 11 219
crazyeyes writes "This is breaking news. Microsoft has not only decided to support ray tracing in DirectX 11, but they will also be basing it on Intel's x86 ray-tracing technology and get this ... it will be out by the end of the year!
In this article, we will examine what ray tracing is all about and why it would be superior to the current raster-based technology. As for performance, well, let Intel dazzle you with some numbers. Here's a quote from the article: 'You need not worry about your old raster-based DirectX 10 or older games or graphics cards. DirectX 11 will continue to support rasterization. It just includes support for ray-tracing as well. There will be two DirectX 11 modes, based on support by the application and the hardware.'"
Submission + - CCC Distributes Fingerprint of Interior Minister (heise.de)
Andreas writes: "With the latest edition of its official magazine Die Datenschleuder, the Chaos Computer Club (CCC) just published the fingerprint (and a corresponding fingerprint dummy) of German Interior Minister Wolfgang Schaeuble in response to Germany's increasing use of biometric data."
Submission + - Details emerge over DivX Stage6 closure (techcrunch.com)
An anonymous reader writes: On Monday, DivX announced that it would be shutting down Stage6 effective February 28th, stating "continued operation of Stage6 is a very expensive enterprise that requires an enormous amount of attention and resources that we are not in a position to continue to provide", and that they "tried really hard to find a way to keep Stage6 alive, either as its own private entity or by selling it to another company. Ultimately neither of those two scenarios was possible". But research from Techcrunch reveals a very different story.
DivX informed investors that in July 2007 "the Company's board of directors approved a plan to separate the Company's Stage6 operations into a separate private entity". Co-founders Darrius Thompson and Jordan Greenhall (who stepped down as DivX CEO) together with a team of around 20 other DivX employees then raised nearly $27M in funding to separate Stage6. Allegedly, after a battle of egos the DivX board cancelled the spin-off at the last minute causing key Stage6 founders to resign and most of the Stage6 team to quit.
Quoting Techcrunch,
"All in all, Stage6 was preparing to close a $27 million round. DivX was to retain 20% ownership in the new funded entity. Not only was DivX to receive a substantial chunk of equity in the new company, they'd be able to get the operating costs, estimated to be around $1 million/month in CDN costs alone, off their books. And Stage6 was to give most of their 2008 revenues back to Divx as well."
DivX also generates revenue by bundling software from Yahoo! with their downloads. Techcrunch reports, "Our sources estimate that half that, or around $8 million/year, was due to Stage6 downloads. And that share was growing — 2008 toolbar revenues may have been as high as $10 million, making Stage6 almost breakeven.". SEC filings show that similar distribution of Google software by the company in 2007 accounted for approximately 20% of revenue.
The closure of Stage6 may lead to repercussions beyond the companies financial statements. Whereas distribution of Yahoo accounts for an estimated 20% of revenue, nearly all of the remainder is derived "from the licensing of our technologies to consumer hardware device manufacturers, software vendors and consumers", according to the SEC filings. Stage6 was to be tightly integrated with the recently announced DivX Connected platform, and DivX relies upon content created in its format to grow its licensing business. For the past 30 days Stage6.com has sustained an Alexa rank better than 100.
Techcrunch writes, "Three weeks ago, we hear, DivX re-approached Greenhall and asked if they'd like to do the original deal. Greenhall declined."... "At the end of the day DivX threw out the baby, the bathwater, millions of dollars in revenue and tens of millions of users."
If the Techcrunch story is accurate it would appear that DivX has been less than honest about the closure of Stage6 to their users, and that there may be questions for the DivX board surrounding their fiduciary duties and duty of care. DivX declined to comment on the Techcrunch article.
Might Stage6 still come back from the grave?
DivX informed investors that in July 2007 "the Company's board of directors approved a plan to separate the Company's Stage6 operations into a separate private entity". Co-founders Darrius Thompson and Jordan Greenhall (who stepped down as DivX CEO) together with a team of around 20 other DivX employees then raised nearly $27M in funding to separate Stage6. Allegedly, after a battle of egos the DivX board cancelled the spin-off at the last minute causing key Stage6 founders to resign and most of the Stage6 team to quit.
Quoting Techcrunch,
"All in all, Stage6 was preparing to close a $27 million round. DivX was to retain 20% ownership in the new funded entity. Not only was DivX to receive a substantial chunk of equity in the new company, they'd be able to get the operating costs, estimated to be around $1 million/month in CDN costs alone, off their books. And Stage6 was to give most of their 2008 revenues back to Divx as well."
DivX also generates revenue by bundling software from Yahoo! with their downloads. Techcrunch reports, "Our sources estimate that half that, or around $8 million/year, was due to Stage6 downloads. And that share was growing — 2008 toolbar revenues may have been as high as $10 million, making Stage6 almost breakeven.". SEC filings show that similar distribution of Google software by the company in 2007 accounted for approximately 20% of revenue.
The closure of Stage6 may lead to repercussions beyond the companies financial statements. Whereas distribution of Yahoo accounts for an estimated 20% of revenue, nearly all of the remainder is derived "from the licensing of our technologies to consumer hardware device manufacturers, software vendors and consumers", according to the SEC filings. Stage6 was to be tightly integrated with the recently announced DivX Connected platform, and DivX relies upon content created in its format to grow its licensing business. For the past 30 days Stage6.com has sustained an Alexa rank better than 100.
Techcrunch writes, "Three weeks ago, we hear, DivX re-approached Greenhall and asked if they'd like to do the original deal. Greenhall declined."... "At the end of the day DivX threw out the baby, the bathwater, millions of dollars in revenue and tens of millions of users."
If the Techcrunch story is accurate it would appear that DivX has been less than honest about the closure of Stage6 to their users, and that there may be questions for the DivX board surrounding their fiduciary duties and duty of care. DivX declined to comment on the Techcrunch article.
Might Stage6 still come back from the grave?
Comment Re:On-site tech support is key. (Score 1) 416
Working 2 minutes from Apples Regent Street (London) store and having had a few problems with my MacBook I can say that Apple is no better than any of the other retailers if not worse.
You'll need to get yourself an appointment first. No problem if you paid the extra 200 pounds for pro care; you can book up to 14 days in advance. If you're sane however, you can only make bookings for the same day on their website. I stayed awake til midnight a couple of times before I got fed up and realized that there's absolutely no point in trying.
I thought the idea was at some point: Walk into the store, make an appointment, come back later; but that's definitely not the case.
I used to have a dreadful Dell notebook, and while the thing itself was rubbish, the service was a lot better than what I experienced with Apple.
You'll need to get yourself an appointment first. No problem if you paid the extra 200 pounds for pro care; you can book up to 14 days in advance. If you're sane however, you can only make bookings for the same day on their website. I stayed awake til midnight a couple of times before I got fed up and realized that there's absolutely no point in trying.
I thought the idea was at some point: Walk into the store, make an appointment, come back later; but that's definitely not the case.
I used to have a dreadful Dell notebook, and while the thing itself was rubbish, the service was a lot better than what I experienced with Apple.
Submission + - Wal-Mart scams Millions with gift cards. (rightanglebuilders.com) 1
Nathan Wiering writes: "Wal-Mart Scams millions.
By: Nathan Wiering.
Every year after Christmas thousands of shoppers return to the store to return items but this is not the only reason people return to the stores. There are also many people that go to the stores to purchase something with the gift card they received for Christmas. Today Wal-Mart's Gift card system went down in the early morning hours. I called around trying to get the exact time, but I was told they didn't know exactly when the system had gone down only that it had been down all day nation-wide.
Customers that came shopping at Wal-Mart with their gift cards weren't able to use the cards. Instead they had to either use another payment method or leave without the items that had just spent valuable time gathering. A majority of the people simply paid by another method, because they didn't want to spend all the time shopping a second time, figuring they would use the gift card for some other products.
When I called around I also asked when the system was expected to be back up. I was told they didn't know when the system would be back up. On the Wal-Mart website there was no mention of the outage which seems strange because the system went down nation-wide.
Is this just bad timing for all the people shopping with their gift cards on the day when the most gift cards are used, or is it a well planned scam made to earn Wal-Mart millions. I can't say for certain, but the facts point to a well planned scam. Whether a scam or not, this could possibly double Wal-Mart's after Christmas gift-card sales."
