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Slashback: Solidity, Sneakiness, Recovery 185

Posted by timothy from the tidbits-from-dandridge-tn dept.
The first slashback of normal time (not Daylight Savings) in a while, tonight with news of 3Dwm's continuing progress, ways brave OS X pioneers can bravely reclaim their lost MP3 files, and a word of caution on HP's upcoming digital-audio playbox.

Vivid Video, take note: NickElm writes: "The 3Dwm project, already featured twice before on Slashdot (the last time little more than a year ago), is still alive and kicking and making steady progress. This summer, we added CSG support, full VNC interaction, and our first real application (a 3Dwm clock). To top it off, Xybernaut recently donated two wearable computers to the project, perfect platforms for this kind of thing. 3Dwm packages have existed for Debian for quite some time, and we were just now adopted by Mandrake as well. What are you waiting for, download it and try it out for yourself! Still far from a complete user environment, but we're getting there..."

Do you want your iTunes iBack, little iBoy? pinqkandi writes "Apple has released some tips on getting back your data lost by the iTunes Installer for Mac OS X. If you haven't written to the partition where the loss occured, you should be able to get it back with Tech Tool Pro or Norton Utilities. Apple's tips warn to NOT use a Volume Recover feature in these utilities, but instead use their tools to recover lost data. Also, boot from a CD before recovering data, and also follow your utility's maker's directions. Unfortunately, no free utilities are listed for the recovery."

The sort of details you'll find on page 17 in small print. ARP writes "A while ago RatedPC brought us some scoop of HP's upcoming Digital Entertainment Center de100c. At first this unit seems to be a perfect addition to home theatre systems right? Well, you better forget about it if you think you are going to use it to share music or make your own CDs from your MP3 collection. What HP hasn't told us is they have been seriously whipped by DRM (Digital Rights Management). An internal FAQ has revealed that users will be unable to use CD-RWs to burn off their own CDs. You will need to buy "Digital Audio Discs" and royalties from these discs are distributed to artists via the RIAA. And you can't transfer your songs to your PC either. Without a doubt RIAA's foothold has extended much above just this. Don't be surprised if it won't play your MP3 collection because they are not digitally signed. The problem is that RIAA will be riding high on HP success with this product and their grip will be firmer when it comes to controlling what you will do with your music."

A similar problem affects the otherwise very cool-looking Terapin video recorder, which I would pick up in a heartbeat if it worked with regular CD-Rs. The HP website talks about burning tracks to CD, but makes no mention of such restrictions; I hope this is simply bad information, but it seems quite likely that "burning to CD" in this case will mean burning to industry-sanctioned CDs with their accompanying surcharge. Can anyone provide further information?
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Slashback: Solidity, Sneakiness, Recovery More

Slashback: Solidity, Sneakiness, Recovery

Comments Filter:

  • Vivid Video? (Score:3, Funny)

    by geekd ( 14774 ) on Tuesday November 06, 2001 @08:07PM (#2530544) Homepage
    I don't get the reference to Vivid Video [vividvideo.com].

    What does a major porn distributor have to do with 3Dwm?
    • Perhaps I'm retarded, but I didn't see a reference to Vivid Video. Or it could be because it's after 5:00 and my brain is worn out for the day. I don't know either.
      • It's right at the top of the article here on ./:

        Vivid Video, take note: NickElm writes: "The 3Dwm project, already featured twice before on Slashdot (the last time little more than a year ago), is...

    • Re:Vivid Video? (Score:3, Offtopic)

      by timothy ( 36799 )
      Vivid is known for putting to use some of the interesting features of the DVD format (like multiple angles / "story" jumping akin to Choose Your Own Adventure, but ... with naked people) while mainstream filmmakers mostly haven't.

      One of the features they have apparenly added is a 3-D walkthrough as a menu-choosing function (navigate choices by browsing, first-person-like through a hallway in their simulated House O' Skin). Perhaps someone with a functioning DVD player can better comment on this.

      Added to which, they have a big online / computer interest if not presence (the vivid studio head, whose name I forget, gets shown / interviewed on TV sometimes talking about such), so this seems like a natural fit for them.

      timothy
      • Thanks. That's probably it.

        I haven't seen a Vivid movie in years. Too tame for my taste, although their girls are *hot*
      • One of the features they have apparenly added is a 3-D walkthrough as a menu-choosing function (navigate choices by browsing, first-person-like through a hallway in their simulated House O' Skin). Perhaps someone with a functioning DVD player can better comment on this.

        This is a gerat feature if you like the idea of walking through down a hallway (replete with crappy texture mapping) in order to get to the, ahem, content. Personally, I think that the main reason to buy DVDs is to avoid cumbersome access times. On the plus side, they do manage to cram a lot of, ahem, content onto those DVDs. Definitely a value.

        BTW, this feature works on both my laptop and my DVD player.
      • Timmy... you, uhhh, seem to know your porn distributors rather well.

    • I'm in trouble now... (Score:5, Funny)

      by tjgrant ( 108530 ) <tjg.craigelachie@org> on Tuesday November 06, 2001 @08:22PM (#2530622) Homepage

      So I clicked on the link looking for enlightenment, and all it was was some porn site.
      Then the boss walked in...
      Then the popups started popping up.
      "Yes, I was doing my job I was reading Slashdot and the article linked...
      "...Oh, never mind"

    • Here comes captain obvious to save the day. The refernce to Vivid Video is because the 3Dwm project is about Human/Computer Interaction. High Tech porn... Human/Computer Interaction... High Tech Porn... HUMAN/COMPUTER INTERACTION..


      To top it off, Xybernaut recently donated two wearable computers to the project, perfect platforms for this kind of thing.


      Can I make it any clearer?

  • Apple giving an even more helping hand... (Score:5, Informative)

    by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday November 06, 2001 @08:07PM (#2530546)
    Apple is offering users who lost data using the initial version of the iTunes 2.0 for OS X installer both reimbursement for purchase of Norton Utilities and/or data recovery services.

    http://newforums.macnn.com/cgi-bin/ultimatebb.cg i? ubb=get_topic&f=45&t=000637
    • is there any real numbers on how many people were effected by this? i installed 2.0 (the Bad Apple) on the boot partition of a multi-partitioned disk and have not had any trouble at all. i am not claiming it is a hoax, because it obviously is not. but on the other hand i don't think this was a rampant DOS4 like mess.
    • "Apple is offering users who lost data using the initial version of the iTunes 2.0 for OS X installer both reimbursement for purchase of Norton Utilities and/or data recovery services."

      As they should. Although, they shouldn't have erased my files to begin with.

      Now, how do I start my broken Mac again?

  • I can't say I'm totally suprised by the move from HP. With their upcoming merger with Compaq, there is no doubt that they are worried about possible legal action from others while they are vulnerable. This move by them for DRM is really only to protect themselves. I don't like it, but I can't really blame them.

    As for the 3Dwm, great idea! I hope you guys keep it going. Something like that could be very good for UIs in the future.

    And the Apple stuff. Hmm. Not an Apple user myself since Elementary School, so I won't seriously comment.

    • Re:It's Unfortunate, but not unexpected (Score:5, Funny)

      by b_pretender ( 105284 ) on Tuesday November 06, 2001 @08:10PM (#2530564)
      It's not just legal action. The RIAA has time and time again been connected to the mafia and some major organized crime. When this is the case, then it lobbying and court battles aren't the only things you have to worry about. You have to worry about arson, death to loved ones, and your own personal safety.

      Probably the only large group with more connections than the RIAA is the MPAA.

    • So what do you get for the royalties you pay for the media?

      I would presume (not assume, since, well, statistics aren't on my side) that you are buying the rights to make a legal copy of some music onto that disk.

      So using this burner and media, I would be able to make mix-cds for my friends w/o infringing any copyrights? I mean, I am already allowed to make mix-cds for myself, as per fair-use, so I must be getting SOMETHING for the extra money I pay, no? And since you say it is for royalties, that must mean that ANOTHER legal copy was created by my copying (as you only pay royalites on each song once).

  • ITunes Recovery (Score:4, Interesting)

    by Alien54 ( 180860 ) on Tuesday November 06, 2001 @08:08PM (#2530554) Journal
    If you haven't written to the partition where the loss occured, you should be able to get it back with Tech Tool Pro or Norton Utilities.

    Which is what any data recovery pro could have told you.

    But many modern systems are sold with only one partition. and there is the added question of virtual memory systems such as used in Mac and windows. The Mac OSX setup, based on BSD, should not have this as a big issue, if they use the typical swap partition.

    (and some people wonder why you would not put it all into one large partition!)

    • Well, it really doesn't matter how your partitions are arranged if you end up doing 'rm -rf /' as root - anything that's mounted is going to get wiped. That said, there are of course still very good reasons to partition one's drives.
    • This bug only happened if you had multiple partitions.

    • Re:ITunes Recovery (Score:5, Informative)

      by victim ( 30647 ) on Tuesday November 06, 2001 @08:43PM (#2530702)
      People with only one partition were not harmed. You had to have more than one partition and have one of them named like the first one with another word after it. "Disk" and "Disk 2" would do it.

      Very few mac users use more than one partition. There isn't a compelling reason for most people.
      • I and all the mac users I know use multiple partitions... especially usefull is the deicated 1 GB scratch partition for photoshop...
        • Hear hear to that. I have an old 2 gig hard drive that I use solely as a scratch partition for working in photoshop and illustrator. Very handy when keeping my larger drive from constantly being written to by two or three programs at the same time (like downloading mps and working at the same time).
    • Mac OS X does not use a separate swap partition by default; the swap files are in /private/var/vm unless the user put them somewhere else.

      As others have said, this bug did not erase the disk mounted at / ; it only erased partions mounted in /Volumes. (OS X mounts every partition except / at "/Volumes/Partition Name" (note the space, which is, of course, what caused the problem).
    • poeple partition their drives to reduce fragmentation and reduce the size of clusters. It's a habit from Win9x I suppose. Smaller cluster Sizes reduce space wastage and access times. Unix uses somethign different though.
      • I don't know about others' reasons, but I have separate /tmp and /var partitions to prevent a compiler crash from corrupting my / filesystem. I have separate /home and /usr/local partitions so I don't have to reinstall all the non-distro stuff I've added to my system if I reinstall the OS or install a newer version.

  • Yeah, yeah. Unless they GIVE IT AWAY, no one will buy it.

    Good riddance.
    • ...Which is precisely what they do with their printers. They give them away, sometimes even losing money initially, but wait... people need... toner! Yeah that's it, we'll charge an arm and a leg for finely ground plastic!

      To be semi on-topic, I can't believe that HP's new mp3 device is so limiting. It seems that the old HP would have gone with what people really want, and not bow to the RIAA and all this digital protection crap. Look what happened with Napster: You used to have one mp3-sharing company to kill, now you have 50 small, flexible, and no-one-person-owns-me mp3 sharing networks/programs. They really shot themselves in the foot on this one!

      Viva la resistance.

  • iTunes (Score:5, Informative)

    by BoarderPhreak ( 234086 ) on Tuesday November 06, 2001 @08:09PM (#2530558)
    I downloaded iTunes v2.0 when it came out, and promptly installed it. Luckily, my drives were named without spaces, etc. and I escaped the wrath of the unquoted "rm -rf" bug.

    I managed to get v2.0.1 later this weekend and re-installed, just to be on the safe-side, and in case there were any other changes.

    The improvements like the EQ, crossfade and faster burning are nice. It doesn't crossfade when burning, though, which stinks - but otherwise you couldn't track-change. You can burn MP3 CDs now, too.

    A costly upgrade for some... ;) But pretty darned nice if it works out, which should be for the majority of the people.

    Hey, give Apple a chance - they're a little new to this Unix thing. Heh. MacOS X fully rocks.

    • Re:iTunes (Score:2, Insightful)

      by reddeno ( 155457 )
      Ahhh... but you can crossfade with tracks! Just don't use audio padding.

    • Re:iTunes (Score:2, Interesting)

      by Espresso_Boy ( 225886 )
      they're a little new to this Unix thing.

      Actually, Apple had it's own Unix a long time ago. It was called A/UX and it ran on many of the 68k macs (no PowerPC). It was pretty slick. It had this cool System 7 intigration thing, and IIRC it could run normal MacOS binaries. Pitty Apple hasn't opensourced it, or at least made it free. The people in comp.unix.aux are really informative if you have any questions.
    • Luckily, my drives were named without spaces, etc. and I escaped the wrath of the unquoted "rm -rf" bug. Drives named with spaces weren't the only victims of the iTunes Installer Bug. My 60 GB Hard Drive has three partitions. I installed iTunes on the first and lost all data on the second, which was a single word "That". Interestingly enough, my third partition, named "The Other Thing" was untouched. The problems with the installer went far beyond those that have already been reported.
  • According to this page [macnn.com] Apple is offering to reimburse users who lost data from iTunes 2 for Norton Utilities and data recovery services.

    It's nice that they're doing the right thing.

  • "Unfortunately, no free utilities are listed for the recovery."

    Well, for what it's worth, us Mac users are already used to paying out the nose for stuff. I happen to have both Norton Utilities and TechTool Pro actually, and I don't know a Mac user who doesn't have one or the other. They're excellent resources in a pinch.

    For those of you who claim that with "Apple's stuck-up attitude about it's OS" that it should come with these sorts of utilities, understand that Norton Utilities for the Mac is much different from Norton "Let's baby the infantile user" Utilities for Windows. TechTool Pro and NU bring out the power users in the Macintosh community. Oh...and IAAPOBIHAMAW. (I am a PC owner but I have a Mac at Work)
    • I used to have a high opinion of Norton Utilities-- until I paid through the nose for a version (6.0 something) that didn't boot my iBook (500 Mhz) because the install disk didn't have a recent enough finder (I needed 9.1)-- and that I was unable to get it working in OSX. My problems were unrelated to the iTunes fiasco.)

      Does anybody know how how to burn a bootable Norton Utilities CD (with System 9.2)? Is it posssible to do this using the Apple CD Burner program?
  • According to this account [macnn.com], Apple is making it right.
    He offered to reimburse me for the purchase of nortan utilities, and to have it sent to DriveSavers (apparently a company that recovers data from harddrives) on Apple's dime.

    While the whole situation sucks, at least steps are being taken in the right direction. Anyone have confirmation of the account? How about accounts of other companies taking similar steps. I am quite curious.

  • HP success? What are you smoking? (Score:4, Insightful)

    by Rick the Red ( 307103 ) <Rick.The.Red@nOsPaM.gmail.com> on Tuesday November 06, 2001 @08:14PM (#2530580) Journal
    The problem is that RIAA will be riding high on HP success with this product and their grip will be firmer when it comes to controlling what you will do with your music.

    This is not a problem, it's a blessing, as at $1000 HP will sell few of these. Then we can all point to the RIAA's DRM component as the reason for lousy sales (it's certainly a major reason I wouldn't buy one, even at half the price). To make this work, everyone here should write HP a nice snail-mail letter politely telling them that you were interested in the de100c until you learned of the DRM crap.

  • Did slashdot not update their clock?

    It appears the slashdot's clock is an hour fast... I'm in the CST zone and it's about 6:15pm, EST is only 1 hour ahead and should be about 7:15pm, but the timestamps on the article and the other comments is 8:00.. ??? 45 mins off???

  • HP dec (Score:4, Insightful)

    by Dolly_Llama ( 267016 ) on Tuesday November 06, 2001 @08:18PM (#2530607) Homepage
    There is always a problem in introducing more restrictive formats into a generally open market. Ok, here goes: HP markets a box with a 40GB disc to store MP3s and a CD-RW to burn said music.

    Pros: Looks pretty and fits in with the rest of my entertainment system, neato little remote, able to d/l new music (marginal in my skeptical opinion)

    Cons: I gotta buy a $6 (?)dollar blank disc so that Britney isn't robbed of her royalties, potentially "signed" format preventing me free movement of my files from the device, to my PC, to my iPod, whatever. Also, broadband link to my music collection, potentially showing them, what music I have, and what I'm listening to (marketing anyone?)

    Here's my solution. Buy yourself a cheap old box (I a P3 350 on ebay for under $100), throw a big HD and a CD-RW on it, and hide it in your entertainment system. Not as pretty, sure, but cheap, and no big brother RIAA.

    • Here's my solution. Buy yourself a cheap old box (I a P3 350 on ebay for under $100), throw a big HD and a CD-RW on it, and hide it in your entertainment system. Not as pretty, sure, but cheap, and no big brother RIAA.

      I have a similar setup, but I've found that a true 1U rack computer with a CD-RW and an SB Live works terrific, and looks really awesome on your stereo rack. I can't afford it by any means, but a local HiFi outfit had a rig setup with one (on a Tag/McLaren setup no less) that was just kick ass.

  • Music only CD's (Score:4, Informative)

    by bbk ( 33798 ) on Tuesday November 06, 2001 @08:18PM (#2530608) Homepage
    The HP recorder probably only writes to the "CD for audio recorders" - the ones they sell for standalone CD->CD consumer audio devices. Nothing new for that market segment.

    The media generally costs twice as much as normal CD's, even though it is basically identical - the extra is for the RIAA tax that is placed on the media.

    BBK
    • twice as much? You mean I can buy these for $0.60? My cds cost me $30 or less for 100, and I'm not talking about crap brands either. Any of the music ones are always much, much, much higher just for a couple bits pressed into them and royalties to go to the RIAA (since how do they decide which artists get the cash?)

  • HP Madness (Score:3, Interesting)

    by Alien54 ( 180860 ) on Tuesday November 06, 2001 @08:23PM (#2530625) Journal
    What HP hasn't told us is they have been seriously whipped by DRM (Digital Rights Management). An internal FAQ has revealed that users will be unable to use CD-RWs to burn off their own CDs. You will need to buy "Digital Audio Discs" and royalties from these discs are distributed to artists via the RIAA. And you can't transfer your songs to your PC either.

    the thing to do here is to go into stores and badmouth it to the sales reps, tell them that they'll get a bunch of returns and it is a bogus system because the customers can not use the device the way they think they could.

    Now sales geek do _not_ like dealing with customer returns from angry customers, and likes to know about insider secrets so that customers will think he has a clue.

    So talk up the bad points - special HP only CD Media, etc.

    "yeh, you can't use the regular blanks, you got to use their special cd blanks. and it can only be played on their machine, no place else. It is as bad as the ink cartridges. A real dog man."

    make this stuff go the way of the DIVX format. (remember that?)

    • How soon before someone says "NICE HARDWARE" like the I-Opener or Cue Cat and replaces the OS for something useful? Anybody up to hacking this geek box? I would love to see a new OS for it listed online.
  • First of all, you might be interested to know that 3DWM is now available for Mandrake Linux (RPMs, here [3dwm.org]).

    Second, some thoughts on how the iTunes fiasco can hurt Apple. Not only does this further embarass the company but also goes to say that their bug fixing department can't really be trusted too much. This was a rather large bug and suggests that not too much testing was done. If Apple becomes known for releasing buggy software that crashes your computer then they might dig themselves even deeper graves in the tech industry.

    Onto the third subject, he says that you cannot transfer files from the HP Digital Entertainment center to your PC. Two things. One, the device has USB ports. Something tells me that people will find a way to hack it. Second, the part about not being able to use CD-RWs (you have to pay for special RIAA approved discs) is probably also hackable in some way shape or form. The RIAA will never win.
  • Not after the RIAA did the deal to make sure the iTunes deleted all those naughty MP3 files of N'Sync and Britney! Stop it! Take the hint! Bad! Bad!

    (Then again, deleteing a disk full of N'Sync and Britney tunes * IS * a good thing)
  • Pardon my ignorance, but it's my understanding that the only difference between regular CDR's and CDR-Audio (outside of the outrageous price difference) is a "few bits" that are burned onto the media to tell the device, "Hey, I'm a CDR-Audio disk".

    Accordingly, wouldn't it be possible for someone to write a utility that will write those "few bits" onto a regular CDR and solve the problem?

    Or am I missing something here?
    • Huh? I haven't seen different CDRs for data and audio in a long time. I've recently burned audio CDs usign Xcdroast on these 'general purpose' CDRs without problems, and they even play in my ~10 year old AKAI player without a glitch.
    • I bought some "audio" CD-Rs at the local shop a while back. The guy behind the counter kept saying "No! Audio only! Won't work!" despite me saying "Yes, it will" a few times. They're Imation-brand, 25 discs on a spindle. Backed up my Mac just fine using Toast.

  • RIAA walking a well-travelled road (Score:3, Insightful)

    by HalfFlat ( 121672 ) on Tuesday November 06, 2001 @08:42PM (#2530697)

    I know it's not the same, but it does feel similar to what the MPAA tried to pull with Divx. Divx of course failed because customers didn't want to buy crippled equipment, and rightly so. Perhaps HP will face a similar response here.

    Region coding is another example of crippling for profit, but unlike say Divx, it didn't affect the majority of customers. In the major markets of US and Japan, only a few would seek to play DVDs from outside their native region. Europe was more badly affected, and DVD still hasn't taken off in Australia really, due to the paucity of region 4 releases outside the big titles.

    HP's crippling though would become apparent everytime one tried to record on it. What is Digital Audio Media, other than a disingenuous choice of name? I'm presuming it's the same as the (expensive) CD-Audio disks, which or course are just CD-R with magic mark on it for the benefit of (presumably) the RIAA.

    Similar shenanigans killed DAT as a home medium, but maybe the other features of the HP device will win out. Recording aside, it does look like a nice piece of kit.

    • Region Coding (Score:2, Informative)

      by SiriusBlack ( 313236 )
      Actually, region coding has resulted in the wide availability of DVD decks altered defeat region coding (and Macrovision) in Europe and Australia. (Although it seem Phase II DVDs are designed to make this impossible by requiring the drive itself to enforce region coding, not the DVD player firmware).

      • I believe region coding is actually illegal in New Zealand. The Kiwis have a law against using artificial means to prevent people from importing goods; maybe they're free-trade nuts, I dunno.

        but the upshot is that Kiwi DVD players will all play back all regions.

  • Quake WM (Score:2, Interesting)

    by Keighvin ( 166133 )
    The best stuff is always rejected. Anywho: there's another 3DUI project in the works using the Quake engine, up on Source Forge [sourceforge.net]. It's a Win32 shell replacement for now with the possibility of integration into a Linux distro later; if it survives.
  • The first slashback of normal time (not Daylight Savings)

    That should be Daylight Saving.

    Note there is no "s" at the end of Saving.

    Please remember this in the future.

  • distributed to capitalist pigs (Score:3, Insightful)

    by SubtleNuance ( 184325 ) on Tuesday November 06, 2001 @08:55PM (#2530736) Journal
    these discs are distributed to artists via the RIAA

    that is probably not exactly correct, according to this account [salon.com] at salon.com [salon.com], the artists are the LAST people that are likely to see any of this money...

  • Hp trying to cater to a non-market (Score:3, Interesting)

    by Lumpy ( 12016 ) on Tuesday November 06, 2001 @08:55PM (#2530740) Homepage
    First off, anyone deep in the mp3 world would never ever buy something like that. You already have several devices that are worlds better and cheaper. and finally..... The mp3 user already has a computer and a CD burner is $59.00 at Best buy.

    No DRM crap, and no content control.

    If you really want that integrated device do a searxh for linux and CAJUN on google and build one yourself for less, without DRM, and get higher quality playback (esp if you use a SB Live or better Sound card)

    Nice try HP, I'll keep using my audiotron and my PC which does more and was less money with the network wiring,100base switch and wall plates for the Cat5 cable.
  • The problem is that RIAA will be riding high on HP success with this product and their grip will be firmer when it comes to controlling what you will do with your music.

    The more you tighten your grip, RIAA, the more digital music files will slip through your fingers.
  • This isn't surprising. The RIAA crammed through a terribly nasty piece of legislation several years ago called the AHRA. This is what required the consumer electronics vendors to implement SCMS (the so-called "copyright" bit), and more or less killed DAT. It also created a tax on audio media.

    Now the theory was that this tax was compensation for the copies of your music that you make. Any copies made on taxed media were presumed non-infringing. Now, RIAA hasn't kept that end of the bargain, but that shouldn't surprise you.

    Why two kinds of CD-Rs? Simple. Computer have always been exempt from the AHRA, hence no required DRM (even something as feeble as SCMS) and no media tax. But the consumer CD-R burners are considered consumer electronics, and are thus subject to the AHRA. RIAA managed to lobby/browbeat/threaten the CD burner vendors into a standard for detecting taxed media and only burning to it. I think they'll play CD-Rs from a PC, but they won't burn to them.
  • I had hopes for the HP unit, but hearing this I will avoid it like a Hand Addressed Envelope full of white powder.

    We all know that this stuff is simple with a linux box. Why dont we get together, and build up a mini-distribution and software for a roll your own version of this.

    Find a smallish PC box that can do reasonable audio in and out, tv out, cdrw, IR for remote control. The software is there, it just has to be put together to make it appliance simple to use.

    Make it so simple to install, setup, and use that even a windows user can do it :-)

  • Priceless (Score:4, Interesting)

    by Snafoo ( 38566 ) on Tuesday November 06, 2001 @11:21PM (#2531076) Homepage
    * One Microsoft-bought double-agent at Cupertino: $4million
    * Two covert lunch meetings with top RIAA officials: $120

    * Steve Jobs' Facial Expression: Priceless.

    The only thing that could possibly make it better (for the bad guys, you troll-modding trigger-finger amateur 'moderators'!) would to have the installer play the 'sosumi' System 7 beep

    (for those not hip to the jive: Apple promised recording company Apple Records Inc. that it would never, ever record any sounds sohelpthembunny, but they did anyway, so they named the sound 'sosumi'.
    )

    • Re:Priceless (Score:2, Informative)

      by CottonEyedJoe ( 177704 )
      Actually, Apple didnt agree not to make "Sounds" but did agree that their computers would not be used for "music" including "chords" which is what the sosumi sound is albeit a slightly discordant one.
  • But I predicted the RIAA's foothold in HP's device when the story broke last time:
    http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=23075&cid=2486 850 [slashdot.org]

    Here's to hoping that set-top fails faster than DivX.
  • Rumors are that CD-Audio format media benefit from some strip of data that enables them to be used in regular, standalone CD recorders. Is this true? What is the actual difference between these and regular CD-R's? Is there a program to convert them, or is it on a hardware level?

  • The front page of 3dWM's website asks, "Why Not?" The reason not to is given by their own promotional material. They note that the command line is 1-D, the desktop is 2-D, and their product is 3-D. Well, not quite. It's still being displayed on a 2-D device (a monitor), and it's still controlled and manipulated by a 2-D device (a mouse). 3-D user interface paradigms hold promise when the parts that interface with the user are actually 3-D (think: volumetric displays; hand-mounted, motion-sensing pointing devices). Otherwise, getting things done becomes more difficult and less intuitive.

  • AHRA mandates DRM, royalties for all dig. aud. (Score:3, Informative)

    by beland ( 237766 ) on Wednesday November 07, 2001 @06:07AM (#2531840) Homepage

    "More information" indeed. I can't believe no one's mentioned this yet, but...

    Chapter 10 of 17 USC (federal copyright law) requires that all manufacturers and importers of digital audio devices in the US incorporate Serial Copy Management System or similar systems into their devices, and pay royalties into a central fund. These royalties are then distributed to the American Federation of Musicians, the American Federation of Television and Radio Artists, music publishers, lyricists, and directly to "interested copyright parties" which includes copyright owners (potentially studios) and artists themselves.

    In return, the public is granted the right to make unlimited copies of music on digital audio devices, though of course they may not circumvent copy protection if it is turned on. (The law does not require that all artists enable it.)

    Note that "digital audio devices" do not include general-purpose computers. Sorry, all you peer-to-peer fans. Thank the Audio Home Recording Act. (Not the DMCA.)

    See the full text [cornell.edu] of the law yourself.

    Everyone should know this, right? Maybe I only think so because I'm writing my thesis on the topic. 8P

    -B.

  • like all of you here who are so for the break up of MS. I don't like Bill Gates' business practices any better than you do, but what I hate is the federal gov't becoming involved in an industry that depends on inovation.

    If you love something, set it free, if it comes back, it is yours forever, if the fed gets it, it never was.

    Never has there been a bigger life sucking entity than the US Fed govt. They produce nothing, yet we gladly give them more money to produce even more nothing.

    The bottom line is if they suceed in breaking up MS, then who knows what is next. Some lame ass congressman or senator finds out that Linux is free, and not subject to federal taxation, declares that it is evil on the basis of so and so.....
    sound familiar, it should.

    This country is founded on the free market system. Let the market work as it should.

    If you think the HP device is a unique device, just wait. Before long, all consumer electronics will have to pass the "Copyright protection test" where the various industry leaders vote on how big a piece of the pie they are intitled to. Think back 30 or so years when the IBM clone first came out. If that where to happen now, it would be killed by legislation and copyright infringment litigation.

    So the next time you start getting excited about MS being broke up, remember that your pet ox is the next one in the goreing queue.

  • Not Surprising (Score:2, Interesting)

    by TheCodeFoundry ( 246594 )
    The digital-audio disc requirement shouldn't be surprising; it's a consumer electronic device; since it's not a PC, it's not excluded from the existing legislation on this.

    But if it doesn't play non-signed MP3's it will go nowhere. I'd be surprised if that turns out to be true, though.
  • (ok, I know this is flamebait...)

    * You'd pay a predefined tax every time you bought an empty bottle
    * The water would be poisoned in such a manner that you could drink it but you couldn't let friends have a sip
    * You couldn't transfer the water from their bottle to a different container (people in uniforms would knock down your door and throw you in jail)
    * You couldn't *describe* a manner in which to extract water from their bottles and put it into a different container (again, you might get thrown in jail)
    * The government would be lobbied so that all manufacturers of bottles of any type must conform to the rules the RIAA sets out, namely not allow the transfer of contents between bottles. This might even extend to straws or spigots. It would also obviously impact containers that were never specifically intended or designed to contain water.
    * You might not even be able to resell the bottled water if you didn't use it, or found you didn't like it
    * The price of water would go through the roof
    * The water would taste like crap anyway, all the good springs having long since run out of business

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