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Comment: Re:I repudiated copyright, and recommend others do (Score 2, Insightful) 275

by Gyppo (#25461415) Attached to: Learning To Profit From Piracy
Willing to put in the time and being able to put in the time are two very different things. I have a full time job, house and family. There is no way I could take off more than a few days to tour to promote my band's album. Saying if you don't tour you don't deserve to be paid for your music is ridiculous. True that just because we created an album, we don't necessarily deserve to be paid for it, but if somebody wants to own our music, that also doesn't mean they get it for free. Of course they need to pay for an album. XTC has not toured for over 10 years. So you think people should just be able to take their music because they don't tour?
Games

Writing the Bioware Way 25

Posted by Zonk
from the assuming-you-have-the-tools-and-the-talent dept.
Thursday at GDC Austin featured several excellent presentations, but the cap to that day's writing track was without a doubt BioWare's discussion of their writing processes, tools, and the creation of the Xbox 360 title Mass Effect. The talk detailed the numerous revision processes their work goes through, as well as the shape of their writing team across a project's lifetime. Read on for notes from the session, and impressions from the short amount of in-game footage they showed during the event.

Engadget: Solar-powered plane breaks unmanned flight record->

From feed by engfeed

Filed under: Transportation

According to a BBC report today, a UK defense firm called Qinetiq has developed and tested a lightweight, solar-powered plane which has just broken the world record for longest unmanned flight. The plane, known as the Zephyr, spent 54 hours in flight using only self-recharging solar power, thus breaking the 30-plus-hour flight of the previous record holder, the US Air Force's Global Hawk surveillance craft. Although the record has been smashed, the plane won't be eligible for entrance into the "official" record books due to a late announcement of the feat, though another 33-hour flight might make the cut. The plane -- which has a wingspan of 59-feet -- is controlled from the ground after a hand liftoff, and is capable of cruising at 58,000 feet. According to the designers, the Zephyr is, "Going to go a lot higher and a lot further," and added that, "You ain't seen nothing yet." Indeed, ICEMAN, indeed.

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Office Depot Featured Gadget: Xbox 360 Platinum System Packs the power to bring games to life!


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Nintendo

Big Plans for Wii Lightsaber Game->

Submitted by
Moelman
Moelman writes "During a demonstration for LEGO Star Wars: The Complete Saga for Wii at the Activate Asia Pacific conference, LucasArts' own Mark Montuya made a comment that LEGO Star Wars: The Complete Saga for Wii is "just a taster" for a future release of Wii lightsaber combat. This sound bit brings the hopes and dreams of geeks everywhere to a reality, implying that LucasArts is already hard at work on a game to use this functionality. Montuya would not comment further on how it would work, but issues that would seem to be difficult to overcome would be how to portray the lightsaber clashing against another object or lightsaber."
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Programming

Free Pascal 2.2 has been released->

Submitted by
Daniel Mantione
Daniel Mantione writes "Free Pascal 2.2 has been released. Several new platforms are supported, like the Mac OS X on Intel platform, the Game Boy Advance, Windows CE and 64-Windows. Free Pascal is now the first and only free software compiler that target 64-bit Windows. These advancements were made possible by Free Pascal's internal assembler and linker allowing support for platforms not supported by the GNU binutils. The advancement in internal assembling and linking also allow faster compilation times and smaller executables, increasing the programmer comfort. Other new features are stabs debug support, many new code optimizations, resourcestring smartlinking and more.

Further, Free Pascal has become extremely powerfull in developing portable software over the last years. The release article explains why."
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Engadget: HD video: iPhone unlocked on camera from start to finish->

From feed by engfeed

Filed under: Cellphones, Features


Ok, here it is, the first time on camera you've seen a real iPhone software SIM unlocked from start to finish (and not done with the demo app iPhoneSIMfree sent out last week). The last iPhoneSIMfree unlock video we had only showed of the end result of a successful iPhone unlock, which took place off-camera. This time we're doing the entire process, which we confirmed earlier this morning, on video. For quick reference, here are the steps we took on camera:
  1. Started with AT&T SIM inserted
  2. Inserted T-Mobile SIM, showed that it produces invalid SIM error (expected behavior for a locked iPhone)
  3. Connected to iPhone over SSH
  4. Transferred iPhoneSIMfree unlock app over SCP
  5. Restarted SpringBoard (iPhone default application launcher)
  6. Ran iPhoneSIMfree app
  7. When complete, iPhone shows that T-Mobile SIM no longer produces invalid SIM error, instead asks for activation (expected behavior for an iPhone that has a valid SIM, but is not yet activated)
    [Prep for re-activation off-camera using iAsign (unlocked, but still activated with AT&T)]
  8. Activate iPhone with T-Mobile SIM using iAsign
  9. Make call to another phone
  10. Activate iPhone again with AT&T SIM using iAsign
Granted, we don't expect end-users to take all these steps when unlocking their iPhone -- we just went a little overboard here so everyone can see the release software is functional, and unlocks iPhones as advertised. Embedded player after the break, download links coming shortly (sorry, HD video takes forever to render and upload).

Continue reading HD video: iPhone unlocked on camera from start to finish

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Office Depot Featured Gadget: Xbox 360 Platinum System Packs the power to bring games to life!


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Engadget: China announces CH-DVD, a new high definition DVD standard->

From feed by engfeed

Filed under: Storage

As if two different high definition DVD standards weren't enough for the world, China has gone ahead and said "actually, it is, at least for the western portion of it." The Optical Memory National Engineering Research Center has announced CH-DVD, a high definition DVD standard based on the DVD Forum's HD DVD, but with additional Chinese-owned technology tacked on. This additional technology takes the form of advanced copy protection designed to prevent the spread of pirated content. A new foundation called the China High Definition DVD Industry Association will be promoting the format, with the aim of launching a hardware player in 2008, and getting content producers on board before that.

[Thanks, cullen and JL]

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Office Depot Featured Gadget: Xbox 360 Platinum System Packs the power to bring games to life!


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It's funny. Laugh.

Police Busted When Tracking Device Found On Car 367

Posted by kdawson
from the george-orwell-meets-the-keystone-kops dept.
uh oh notes a story from Down Under where a police investigation came to a screeching halt as a man being investigated by the police found tracking devices in two of his cars, ripped them out, and listed them on an auction site. "Ralph Williams, of Cromwell, said he found the devices last week in his daughter's car, which he uses, and in his flatmate's car after the cars were seized by police and taken away for investigation."
Television

No More TV Listings For MythTV Users 1

Submitted by
Ryan Brown
Ryan Brown writes "Since September 1st, the free XML TV guide service at zap2it labs has shut its doors due to misuse issues as well as internal business issues. Now that Linux users, and most PVR users for that matter, are nearing the end of their last fetched TV guide, what free alternatives exist that can replace this much needed service?"

Engadget: RFID implants linked to cancer in lab tests->

From feed by engfeed

Filed under: Wireless

As if pain, conspiracy, big brother, and lack of necessity weren't already enough to deter you, the average Joe or Jane, from getting a subcutaneous RFID chip implant, a number of studies over the past decade have amassed which link the chips to malignant tumors in animal tests. Besides the potential foul play going on at the FDA and VeriChip Corp. that got the chips approved for human use in 2004, studies showing as little as 1% cancer rates in lab animals led researchers to note that the aggressive tumors which immediately encased the implants with cancerous cells were "clearly due to the implanted microchips". Probably not the news some 2,000 US RFID implantees (including Mythbuster Kari Byron, who got a chip injection on-camera last week) want to hear, but the sooner you can deal with it, the better, says we.

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Office Depot Featured Gadget: Xbox 360 Platinum System Packs the power to bring games to life!


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United States

U.S. Dogs Rabies-Free

Submitted by
westlake
westlake writes "The Center for Disease Control has declared the U.S. free of the canine rabies virus. Rabies remains endemic in the wild, of course, and not all domesticated animals are vaccinated. Rabies kills about 55,000 people a year world-wide, and it is not a pleasent way to go. I haven't forgotten — and will likely never forget — my first uncensored look at the course of the disease."
Portables (Apple)

iPhone Price Cut - Planned All Along?->

Submitted by
Macthorpe
Macthorpe writes "A blog entry by Robert Cringely relates a story from several years ago with some relevance to the recent iPhone price drop — surmising that Job's personality and other miscellaneous factors show that the iPhone pricing fiasco was planned from the start. From the article: "Had nobody complained, Apple would have left it at that. But Jobs expected complaints and had an answer waiting the $100 Apple store credit. This was no knee-jerk reaction, either [...] most importantly, those who bought their iPhones at an AT&T store will have to make what might be their first of many visits to an Apple Store. That is alone worth the $50 per customer this escapade will eventually cost Apple""
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The Internet

Web 2.0 Bubble May Be Worst Burst Yet 417

Posted by Zonk
from the not-the-bubble dept.
athloi writes with a link to an editorial by John Dvorak over at the PC Magazine site. Rather than his usual tilting at windmills, Dvorak turns his attention to possibility of another big internet economy 'pop': "Every single person working in the media today who experienced the dot-com bubble in 1999 to 2000 believes that we are going through the exact same process and can expect the exact same results — a bust. It's déjà vu all over again. Each succeeding bubble has been worse than its predecessor. Thus nobody is actually able to spot the cycle, since it just looks like a continuum. I can assure you that after this next collapse, nobody will think of the dot-com bubble as anything other than a prelude." It certainly seems like another burst is imminent; will this one be worse than the original, or have less of an impact?

Military justice is to justice what military music is to music. -- Groucho Marx