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Television

Submission + - Blu-ray won't play Profile 2.0 Discs 4

Submitted by
Reservoir Hill
Reservoir Hill writes: "Blu-ray may have taken a commanding lead in the next-generation format war but Betanews is reporting that early supporters of Blu-ray will be left out in the cold when the Blu-ray Disc Association introduces BD Profile 2.0, expected to arrive in October. Unlike HD DVD, which mandated features such as local storage, a second video and audio decoder for picture-in-picture, and a network connection from the very beginning, the companies behind Blu-ray took a different approach to keep costs down. "We should have waited another year to introduce Blu-ray to the public, but the format war changed the situation," said one manufacturer. Representatives at the Blu-ray booth at CES said that the PlayStation 3 is currently the only player they would recommend, due to upcoming changes to the platform. Asked if they were concerned about a backlash from early adopters who supported the format from the beginning, one representative said: "They knew what they were getting into.""
Google

Submission + - Father of web 2.0 slams Google OpenSocial

Submitted by Stony Stevenson
Stony Stevenson writes: Tim O'Reilly, the father of the term 'web 2.0', has denounced Google's OpenSocial as "boring" and a "full blown disappointment". OpenSocial offers a standard for applications on social networks that allow developers to market applications on any network supporting the standard. The standard does not unlock data from the participating network, however, which might have allowed a MySpace user to exchange messages with a LinkedIn user, for example.

In a posting on a company blog, O'Reilly described the lack of data sharing as a "fundamental failure " to understand two key principles of web 2.0: open data and loosely coupled applications or services. "We do not want to have the same application on multiple social networks. We want applications that can use data from multiple social networks," he said.
Music

Submission + - Can Govt Study Says P2P Downloaders Buy More Music 2

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: Michael Geist reports that a newly study commissioned by the Government of Canada, which includes some of the most extensive surveying to date of the Canadian population on music purchasing habits, finds what many have long suspected — there is a positive correlation between peer-to-peer downloading and CD purchasing. The Impact of Music Downloads and P2P File-Sharing on the Purchase of Music: A Study For Industry Canada was conducted collaboratively by two professors from the University of London, Industry Canada, and Decima Research, who surveyed over 2,000 Canadians on their music downloading and purchasing habits.
Biotech

Submission + - Virus Contributes to Honeybee Disappearance

Submitted by adagioforstrings
adagioforstrings writes: Scientists have discovered a virus dubbed IAPV which may be a contributing factor or marker for colony collapse disorder, or CCD. Many viruses have been discovered in bees, but only IAPV seems to link to CCD. Researches suspect the virus may be from bees imported from Australia. Chemicals and pesticides are also being considered as causes for the collapse.
Privacy

Submission + - Rick Rubin discloses Sony rootkit called home

Submitted by caffeinemessiah
caffeinemessiah writes: Rick Rubin, the legendary music producer, recently signed on as co-head of Columbia Records, which is owned by Sony BMG. In a recent New York Times interview (on pg. 4 of the online version), he discloses (possibly accidentally):

It was the highest debut of Neil [Diamond]'s career, off to a great start. But Columbia — it was some kind of corporate thing — had put spyware on the CD. That kept people from copying it, but it also somehow recorded information about whoever bought the record...
Seems like the rootkit might have been a little more than your vanilla invade-your-rights-DRM scheme.
Republicans

Submission + - Ron Paul Delegates Locked Out of Straw Poll (abovetopsecret.com) 1

Submitted by TheSkepticGuy
TheSkepticGuy writes: Several stories are emerging that Ron Paul is doing very well in Republican straw polls, but is being neglected by mainstream news. Now we find one group of Ron Paul delegates actually being locked out of a straw poll. "The Convention center opened at 9am and was supposed to allow delegates to vote until around 1pm. At 10 am the security gaurds locked the doors and stopped anyone from entering who did not have a pre printed pass." Video and first-person account at AboveTopSecret.com
Microsoft

Submission + - Obtaining the spec for Office's Binary Formats (microsoft.com)

Submitted by
mastropiero
mastropiero writes: "During the discussion about the vote of certain country in the september ballot for Microsoft's infamous OOXML, a Microsoft-apologist linked us to an article in Microsft's knowledge base that specifies a process to obtain the specifications for Word, Excel, Powerpoint, and Drawing. It apparently comes with a covenant not to sue implementors and you also need to register in order to obtain the specs."
Movies

Submission + - Paramount rejects Blu-ray, adopts HD DVD

Submitted by Bdazed
Bdazed writes: After more than a year of testing both formats, Paramount Pictures has picked HD DVD as its format of choice, abandoning Blu-ray despite having released more than 20 Blu-ray movies in the last year. Paramount says HD DVD is cheaper and more suited for the market.The fact that HD DVD is getting new support despite being in second place underscores how unsettled the market is.
Movies

Submission + - DreamWorks Animation, Paramount choose HD DVD (reuters.com)

Submitted by
An anonymous reader writes: LOS ANGELES (Reuters) — Viacom Inc's Paramount Pictures and DreamWorks Animation SKG Inc said on Monday they will release their DVD titles exclusively on HD DVD, the high-definition digital movie format whose sales have lagged those of rival Blu-Ray so far this year.

Paramount, which distributes DreamWorks Animation's DVDs, settled on HD DVD after determining that the format offers better quality and lower-cost players and lower manufacturing costs, the studios said in a statement.
Linux Business

Submission + - Taking LINUX to the races

Submitted by
PrvtBurrito
PrvtBurrito writes: "Chastain Motorsports is running a fundraiser to raise money to brand their Indy 500 entry car with Linux and Tux. Bob Moore, a Indianapolis native and proponent of Linux has gotten support of the racing team, a marketing firm and others in his quest. In order to succeed in this community driven effort, Bob needs to raise $350,000 before May 21st. After four days, they have raised more than $2,000. You can view status of the effort at Tux500.com."
Linux Business

Submission + - Tux at the Indy 500

Submitted by zerk
zerk writes: Indy500.com is running a story about how our favorite penguin may be going for the ride of his life at this year's Indy 500! I always knew Linux was fast... but who knew it was this fast!?!

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