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Comment It's not even a ribbon (Score 1) 1124

by ben there... (#29520845) Attached to: Firefox To Replace Menus With Office Ribbon

It looks more like IE7 or Chrome than it does any version of Office.

They:
- hid the menubar.
- condensed common menu items into Page and Tools drop-downs, to apply to the current page and whole app, respectively.
- merged the search and address bars (which imo should never have been separate--I always hide the search bar).
- merged some other buttons (stop/reload etc.).
- plan to simplify the 4 different ways to access bookmarks.

Full description of mockup here: https://wiki.mozilla.org/Firefox/Sprints/Windows_Theme_Revamp/Direction_and_Feedback

Other than a brief mention of possibly adding ribbon styling, none of the above looks much like Office ribbons to me.

Comment WinMo had it first (Score 1) 54

by ben there... (#29445115) Attached to: iPhone As a PC Game Controller

GRemote on Windows Mobile (*shocker*) did it first. Air mouse over bluetooth or wifi, anyone? Click and drag works, on screen scrollwheel works, everything is rebindable. Also works as touchpad, joystick, and game wheel for racing games.

It can be used exactly like the wiimote is used for menus except there is more than one interface you can use depending on what you're trying to control. For example, one that prominently displays media play/pause buttons.

On my HTC Fuze, it feels like a very solid, very capable remote and air mouse. Works with all games, apps, and of course also the Windows desktop.
Hardware Hacking

Build Your Own Open Source Twittering Power Meter 31

Posted by timothy from the diy-with-some-help dept.
ptorrone writes "Open source hardware company 'Adafruit Industries' has released a 'Tweet-a-watt' kit. It's an open source power monitoring kit that mods an off-the-shelf power meter which can 'tweet' (publish wirelessly) the daily KWH consumed & Cumulative Kilowatt-hours to your Twitter account, Google App Engine, Facebook, IRC, whatever ... They recently won the 'GreenerGadget' design competition and have now released an open source hardware kit."

Comment Re:Many variables (Score 1) 603

by ben there... (#25919935) Attached to: 18% of Consumers Can't Tell HD From SD

The primary reason I like the digital channels is that they are true 16:9 widescreen. Opening up the edges of the scene makes a much bigger difference than the horizontal resolution, as far as I'm concerned.

Except that's only true for some films and some shows. Many others recorded over the last several years actually show more of the scene in the full-screen version, whereas the wide-screen version is just the full-screen version with the top and bottom cropped off. It completely depends on how it was filmed and the transfer process.
Google

Google Re-Refunds Video Purchases 129

Posted by Zonk from the who-would-have-thought dept.
holymodal writes "In a new post to the Google blog Bindu Reddy, the Google Video product manager, admits that only offering refunds via Google Checkout was a bad idea: 'We should have anticipated that some users would see a Checkout credit as nothing more than an extra step of a different (and annoyingly self-serving) kind. Our bad.' Google now plans to issue customers a full credit card refund, while allowing them to keep the Checkout credit and extending the life of purchased videos another six months."
Supercomputing

Submission + - DDR4 RAM released by Hynix

Submitted by
nithinraju
nithinraju writes: "The Technology is developing daily and it causes great changes in our daily life. A Real proof for the above statement is the DDR4 RAM released by Hynix . HynixSemiconductor has developed a 512Mb graphic DDR4 memory that can process DVD-quality movies of 12 hours in a single second. Running at a voltage as low as 1.5V,the graphic chip of Hynix Semiconductor is suitable for next-generation notebook PCs.It also supports all interfaces required by next-generation graphic memories.Certainly, this is a good news for those who are expecting better performance from their computers."
Privacy

TiVo Selling Data on Users' Watching Habits 244

Posted by Zonk from the that-little-antenna-guy-is-watching-you dept.
Gyppo writes "The San Francisco Chronicle reports that TiVo is collecting and selling data on what parts of broadcasts people are rewinding for review and what commercials they are skipping. The data collection is part of a service the company provides to advertisers and television networks, collecting anonymous data on their users' commercial-watching habits. The data they provide is a random subset of their overall userbase, detailing which commercials are skipped and which are actually watched. The article mentions the possibility for privacy abuse, but with this application of technology Tivo is not providing access to what any one individual user watches via the service."
Media

RIAA Members Sue Allofmp3.com Over Infringement 323

Posted by Zonk from the long-time-coming dept.
fair_n_hite_451 writes "To the surprise of no one, several members of the RIAA have filed suit against MediaServices, the operators of Allofmp3.com. The suit was filed for Wednesday, primarily by Arista Records LLC, Warner Bros. Records Inc., Capitol Records Inc. and UMG Recordings. The language of the litigation was very confrontational; The companies claim the site sells millions of songs without paying them 'a dime'. 'The defendant's entire business ... amounts to nothing more than a massive infringement of plaintiffs' exclusive rights under the Copyright Act and New York law.' AllofMp3 has always maintained that a Russian licensing group makes their business legitimate, while the RIAA here claims the organization has no authority to make such a deal."
Microsoft

Get on the 'Gates for President' Bandwagon 654

Posted by Zonk from the jobs-for-vice-president dept.
netbuzz writes "Dilbert's Scott Adams kicked off the idea in his November 19th blog post, saying there isn't anything wrong with this country that President Bill Gates couldn't cure in less time than it takes to get a new operating system out the door. Today, the idea is moving forward with a brand-new 'Bill Gates for President' Web site. Adams is also back on the campaign trail, flogging the site and Gates' candidacy." A blog post at Network World includes a lot of eye-rolling about this idea, but neither Adams nor the folks at the 'Gates for President' website seem to be taking this lightly.

Video of Fedora On PS3 331

Posted by kdawson from the dual-boot dept.
klippoth writes, "I just thought I would let you guys know, not only do I have Fedora Core 5 for PPC installed on my Playstation 3, but I video-captured running through the boot loader to demonstrate how it works. And yes, I am selling the PS3 on Ebay, although that was not my original intention. But hearing about people making ten grand... well, let's just say my love for my PS3 is NOT unconditional. Metal Gear Solid 4 doesn't come out for another year anyway! (Although it seems that sales of PS3s are starting to slow down... oh well, I can think of worse things to be stuck with!!)"

Leopard Vs. Vista 420

Posted by kdawson from the why-apple-wins dept.
Rockgod writes to point us to an ongoing series of articles, "Leopard vs. Vista," by Daniel Eran. The latest is part 4, Naked Sales, and it's a meditation on hardware without Windows, Apple's strategy of hardware-software integration, and the dissatisfactions that arise from the creative tension between Microsoft and hardware manufacturers. (The earlier articles in the series are linked form this one.) From the article: "The vast majority of PCs come with Windows pre-installed, and actually can't be sold without it. Leading PC hardware makers can't freely advertise PCs sold without Windows, or with an alternative OS such as Linux, without having to pay Microsoft significantly more for every other OEM license they ship. That's why all name brand PCs prominently repeat their own version of the cult-like phrase 'Dell recommends Windows XP Professional,' as if there were a choice in the matter and they thought it would be helpful to provide some guidance... Apple's current Get a Mac advertising campaign doesn't compare Mac OS X to Windows, it compares the complete experience of a Mac with that of a PC. After all, Windows is only half of what's wrong with the PC as a product."

Voting Machine Glitches Already Being Reported 742

Posted by Zonk from the go-vote dept.
Neovanglist writes "CNN, FOX, and MSNBC are reporting that voting machines in three states (Ohio, Indiana, and Florida) have already been showing issues, both in the machines themselves and in the training of poll attendants, causing many districts to switch to paper ballots." From the article: "Voters put the Republican congressional majority and a multitude of new voting equipment to the test Tuesday in an election that defined the balance of power for the rest of George W. Bush's presidency. Both parties hustled to get their supporters out in high-stakes contests across the country, Democrats appealing one more time for change, and appearing confident the mood was on their side. Republicans conceded nothing as their vaunted get-out-the-vote machine swung into motion." If you're in the U.S., and you haven't voted already, go do it!

Republican Robocall Pretexting Campaign 674

Posted by kdawson from the dirty-tricks-and-phonespam dept.
WCityMike writes, "In 53 Congressional campaigns across the country, including the Pennsylvania 6th, the Connecticut 4th, the North Carolina 11th, the New Hampshire 2nd, and the Illinois 6th and 8th (and possibly all races), the National Republican Congressional Committee is conducting a $2.1 million campaign to make it appear as if Democrats are spamming callers with telemarketing calls. The NRCC hired Conquest Communications Group to conduct a massive nationwide robocalling campaign with calls specifically scripted to appear as if they're coming from the Democratic candidate — in violation of FCC regulations on such 'robocalls,' which requires the identity of the caller to be stated at the beginning of the message [47 CFR 64.1200(b)(1)]. The call begins with 'Hello. I'm calling with information about,' and then says the name of the Democratic candidate. There is then a pause; if the recipient hangs up here, they will receive repeated calls back with the same message, potentially up to 18 times or more (according to one callee). If the callee doesn't hang up, they hear a smear message from the machine about the Democratic candidate. The NRCC thinks the legality of the calls is, conveniently, a 'complicated legal question that's not going to get adjudicated this weekend.'" Update 20:47 GMT by SM: Thankfully we all learned how to deal with these folks last week.
User Journal

Journal Journal: In case you're wondering what that rejected submission is: 3

Journal by ben there...

I posted a journal entry asking anyone to help me figure out what it takes to get moderation ability. Silly me checked the Submit checkbox, thinking it would post to my journal only if I checked that. I should have read the sidebar *below* that more carefully. ;-)

Anyway, I figure I post too much or refresh the front page too many times to be selected as moderator or something. :-(

Let me know if there is a trick I'm not aware of.

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