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Television

Time To Ditch Cable For Internet TV? 321

Posted by Soulskill from the slowly-but-surely dept.
itwbennett writes "A flurry of announcements from YouTube, Boxee, Dell and Clicker on Thursday brought good news for anyone considering canceling their cable service in favor of internet TV. First, YouTube announced that within the next few days it will start offering full 1080P HD streams; better than your cable company can offer. Next, Boxee announced a 'Boxee Box' that promises to make it easier to get the content off your computer and onto your TV. Or you could hook up Dell's Inspiron Zino HD instead. 'This is an 8" x 8" PC running Windows 7 (with an option for Ubuntu) that you certainly could use as a desktop machine, but the form factor just screams 'Hook me up to your TV!' via its HDMI port,' says Peter Smith. And, last but not least in this roundup of announcements is the launch of Clicker, a programming guide for internet TV that aims to help you find what you want, when you want it."
Microsoft

Submission + - Microsoft outage takes down all sidekicks (engadget.com)

Submitted by
Chaostrophy
Chaostrophy writes: "Apparently while doing an upgrade on the servers, something went wrong, and they went down about 6:30am Pacific time. This means that every single Danger Inc (now owned by Microsoft for about a year and a half) Hiptop device is just a dumb phone. Every T-Mobile sidekick, and the other carriers who have the are affected.

On Twitter, #tmobilesucks is the number two topic.

http://www.engadget.com/2009/10/04/dangers-server-woes-leave-sidekicks-in-the-lurch/

http://www.boygeniusreport.com/2009/10/04/t-mobile-sidekick-users-left-in-the-dark-as-data-outage-continues/

http://www.hiptop3.com/archives/get-a-credit-for-the-sidekick-data-outage"
The Matrix

Submission + - Entanglement Could Be A Deterministic Phenomenon (technologyreview.com)

Submitted by
KentuckyFC
KentuckyFC writes: "Nobel prize-winning physicist Gerard 't Hooft has joined the likes of computer scientists Stephen Wolfram and Ed Fredkin in claiming that the universe can be accurately modelled by cellular automata. The novel aspect of 't Hooft's model is that it allows quantum mechanics and, in particular, the spooky action at a distance known as entanglement to be deterministic. The idea that quantum mechanics is fundamentally deterministic is known as hidden variable theory but has been widely discounted by physicists because numerous experiments have shown its predictions to be wrong. But 't Hooft says his cellular automaton model is a new class of hidden variable theory that falls outside the remit of previous tests. However, he readily admits that the new model has serious shortcomings saying it lacks some of the basic symmetries that our universe enjoys, such as rotational symmetry. However, 't Hooft adds that he is working on modifications that will make the model more realistic (abstract)."

Comment Re:Notepad++ (Score 1) 1131

by Chaostrophy (#26721283) Attached to: Favorite text editor?

Well, in Unix I use emacs or vi (just because it's fast and everywhere), so no need. For windows, I want something I can run on a flash drive (portableapps.com) as I often move desk to desk.

Comment Headhunter? (Score 1) 205

by Chaostrophy (#26444651) Attached to: Most Popular Free, Arena-Style FPS?

I still miss the Quake I/II mod Headhunter, very nice in that it had strategy without teamplay, is there anything else that is more complex than deathmatch but doesn't have teams? Not to knock teamplay, but when your teammates are pickup game players who are not interested in having a clue (we need more than just me to guard the flag folks!).
Privacy

Submission + - FBI audit finds widespread abuse in data collectio

Submitted by
Pritchard1
Pritchard1 writes: "If we violate the law, ignorance of the law is not an acceptable rationale. Why is it for a Government agency? http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20070614/tc_nm/fbi_patr iotact_abuses_dc_3;_ylt=AgAaotQ923PNz1otcRKmX54E1v AI FBI audit finds widespread abuse in data collection 2 hours, 25 minutes ago WASHINGTON (Reuters) — An internal FBI audit has found the agency violated rules more than 1,000 times while collecting data on domestic phone calls, e-mails and financial transactions in recent years, The Washington Post reported on Thursday. ADVERTISEMENT The number of violations uncovered by the audit was far greater than those previously documented in a Justice Department report in March, the Post said. The vast majority of newly discovered violations were instances in which telephone companies and Internet providers gave agents phone and e-mail records the agents did not request and were not authorized to collect, the Post said. The agents retained the information in their files, which mostly concerned suspected terrorist or espionage activities, according to the report. The new audit covers just 10 percent of the FBI's national security investigations since 2002, so the actual number of violations in the FBI's domestic surveillance efforts probably number several thousand, bureau officials told the newspaper in interviews. The Justice Department audit found 22 violations in a much smaller sampling. Of the more than 1,000 violations uncovered by the new audit, about 700 involved the provision of information by phone companies and other communications firms that exceeded what the FBI's National Security Letters had sought, the Post said. However, some two dozen of the newly discovered violations involved agents' requests for information that U.S. law did not allow them to have, the audit found. National Security Letters allow the FBI to compel the release of private information such as communications or financial records without getting court authority. Their use has grown exponentially since the September 11, attacks, the Post said. More than 19,000 such letters were issued in 2005 seeking 47,000 pieces of information, it said. "The FBI's comprehensive audit of National Security Letter use across all field offices has confirmed the inspector general's findings that we had inadequate internal controls for use of an invaluable investigative tool," FBI General Counsel Valerie Caproni was quoted as telling the Post. Caproni said that steps have been implemented since March 2007 to fix the problem. FBI officials said the audit found no evidence that any agent knowingly or willingly violated the laws or that supervisors encouraged such violations, the Post reported. Rather it showed that many agents did not understand or follow the required legal procedures and paperwork requirements when collecting personal information, the Post reported."
Linux Business

Submission + - Dell offering Ubuntu XPS, featured on front page

Submitted by stoomart
stoomart writes: When going to www.dell.com today, I was surprised to see their Ubuntu product line staring at me. After clicking on the link, another surprise was that they are now offering an XPS 410 N with Ubuntu.

This is very cool to me because it seems that they are actively trying to validate their other products to run Ubuntu. Hopefully this leads to a choice between MS Windows and Ubuntu when choosing any product.
Music

Submission + - Nine Inch Nails fans subsidize pop music

Submitted by allcoolnameswheretak
allcoolnameswheretak writes: Based on a comment made by Nine Inch Nails frontman Trent Reznor, it seems that UMG counterbalances "having to discount" pop music by charging high prices for records of bands that have a "true fanbase".

Quote from nin.com:

As the climate grows more and more desperate for record labels, their answer to their mostly self-inflicted wounds seems to be to screw the consumer over even more. A couple of examples that quickly come to mind: * The ABSURD retail pricing of Year Zero in Australia. Shame on you, UMG. Year Zero is selling for $34.99 Australian dollars ($29.10 US). No wonder people steal music. Avril Lavigne's record in the same store was $21.99 ($18.21 US). By the way, when I asked a label rep about this his response was: "It's because we know you have a real core audience that will pay whatever it costs when you put something out — you know, true fans. It's the pop stuff we have to discount to get people to buy." So... I guess as a reward for being a "true fan" you get ripped off.
Power

Submission + - Saudi Arabian Oil production in terminal decline

Submitted by
msevior
msevior writes: "The The Oil Drum is running a detailed analysis of all the publically available data surrounding the world's largest oil field, Ghawar in Saudi Arabia. The analysis finds a large fraction of the field is in terminal decline which explains why Saudi Arabia has been decreasing Oil Production over the past year, despite the substantial run up in Oil Prices. With Saudi Arabia in terminal decline it is likely the world has passed Peak Oil production."
It's funny. Laugh.

MIT Hacks XKCD Talk With AACS key 161

Posted by kdawson from the hacking-101 dept.
Reader Hanji alerts us to a hack pulled off when Randall Munroe, author of the popular webcomic XKCD, spoke at MIT by invitation of the Lab for Computer Science. MIT hackers dropped hundreds of labelled playpen balls onto the audience from hatches in the ceiling. The labels bore XKCD's logo as well as the recently discovered 16-byte AACS processing key. At another point in Munroe's talk he was stalked by remote-controlled mechanical velociraptors; but fortunately he had been supplied with a squirt gun full of grape juice.

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