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+ - Mass Manufacturing of Defective Products

Submitted by
LostIt1278
LostIt1278 writes "Companies have been selling less than quality software for years and they have been getting paid for it. It seems that worked out so well that now manufacturing and selling defective hardware is common place. Every time I drive the 20 miles to get to the "city" to buy anything I have to drive back 2 days (give or take a week) to return at least half the items I bought because it has a manufacturer's defect. Example (TRUE!!) I received an XBOX 360 as a gift for the holiday season in December. It has already been returned because it decided that it wasn't an XBOX 360. When inserting a game (any of them!) it told me to please place the disc in an XBOX 360 to play it. I know, no big surprise there, everyone has been having problems with the poorly made 360. I have also had to return a $60 wireless Guitar Hero guitar controller (the yellow button didn't work), an original XBOX controller (made by Pelican that just made you spin in game), a PSP with a scratch on the backside of the LCD screen, 2 Mad Catz racing wheels for the original XBOX (I was told they shipped a whole batch of defective ones and not to buy anymore from that store), 2 Toshiba laptops (1 hard drive failure in the first month, the other a defective touch pad I noticed out of the box), an iPaq Pocket PC that refused to acknowledge any SD card, and that's just what I've returned recently. I have my own IT business and I spend a lot of money on technology. I, personally, am sick of having to drive 40 miles round trip every time I buy something just because some manufacturer wants to shave a few more pennies off of their costs by making their products cheap. Am I the the only one seeing this trend grow? It's getting a bit ridiculous and it's only getting worse. I literally have to return half of the items I buy. When will it end or won't it? How do we stop such a wide spread trend? I haven't even mentioned the some what often "less than helpful" customer service I've received while returning defective products. That's a topic all to itself but maybe another article eh Best Buy?"
User Journal

Journal: Great new addicitve online puzzle game: Bloktonik

Journal by pixcom
Quite possibly the next Bejeweled, a very addicitive online puzzle game by Robotube Games: Bloktonik http://robotubegames.com/play_game.php?gameid=33 The latest puzzle game addiction has arrived. Bloktonik, already available around the world on Mobile Phones, is now playable online in this new, deluxe version! Bloks come raining in from 4 directions, and it's your job to land them on the central cluster, based on the direction they
Google

+ - Google 'Metaverse' rumour re-ignited

Submitted by
jasoncart
jasoncart writes "Rumours of a of a persistent world 'game' from Google have been re-ignited this week, with analyst Michael Eisenberg of Benchmark Capital caught ruminating on the prospect of a Google-engineered 'metaverse'. Several sources point towards this new online world, which Google could use as a new method for delivering context-sensitive advertising."
Education

+ - OSSDI to Distribute OpenOffice.org in Schools

Submitted by
Xampper
Xampper writes "The Open Source Software Distribution Initiative (OSSDI) is a new organization planning to distribute open source alternatives to expensive commercial software packages, primarily in education. Initially, OSSDI will be focusing its efforts on giving away professionally pressed CD-ROMS containing the OpenOffice.org software suite within school districts in poverty-stricken regions. These distributions will give students access to a professional office suite, which they might otherwise be unable to afford, while spreading awareness of open source software."
Television

Gates Proclaims Internet to Revolutionize TV in 5 Years 314

Posted by CmdrTaco
from the for-some-of-us-it-already-has dept.
adamlazz writes "With an explosion of online video content on sites like YouTube and Google Video, Bill Gates believes that the Internet will revoloutionize the television within the next 5 years. 'I'm stunned how people aren't seeing that with TV, in five years from now, people will laugh at what we've had,' Gates told business leaders and politicians at the World Economic Forum. "
AMD

+ - Anyone else confused by AMD?

Submitted by
Alfius
Alfius writes "I'm the proud owner of an high end Nvidia590 skt AM2 motherboard which I bought last summer, I furnished it with the rather low end single core Athlon 3800+ on the understanding that AMD would be releasing a conroe beating quadcore chip sometime in 2007. Since then I've read many seemingly conflicting reports about how/when/what AMD will actually be producing quad core wise. I find this whole 4x4 or should I say 2x2 business exceedingly confusing to say the least, and then there's socket F which I thought was supposed to be a server socket, and what really is AM3 anyway? Does anyone have the facts, can I look forward to quad core goodness on my AM2 board anytime this year? Or should I just forget all about it and buy an x2?"
Announcements

+ - "Masters of Doom" Movie in production

Submitted by
hunter_invul
hunter_invul writes "Well the movie "Masters of Doom" is in production. The movie is more of a documentary about id Software's beginning up until now, including material about both John Carmack and John Romero {at least the book did}. The movie was originally a book named, of course "The Masters of Doom" and was very good, so it sounds real interesting for both gamers and people who like to see what goes on behind the scenes when making a game {like me}. And it looks a lot better than "DOOM" the movie!"
Communications

+ - Stress-testing and the Verizon G'zOne cellphone

Submitted by
abkaiser
abkaiser writes "You can dunk it under water. Put it in the oven and crank up the heat. Drop it, smack it, treat it like the hunk of plastic that it is. And yet this is a cellphone. I got my hands on the Verizon G'zOne, a phone designed for high-abuse environments. Come for the test methodology, stay for the photo of a cellphone cooking in an oven."

People who develop the habit of thinking of themselves as world citizens are fulfilling the first requirement of sanity in our time. -- Norman Cousins

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