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Microsoft

Submission + - Russia targets dissidents with anti-piracy raids (nytimes.com)

Submitted by Jeremy Erwin
Jeremy Erwin writes: The Russian Government is using the pretext of software piracy to suppress dissident organizations, seizing computers and shutting down websites, regardless of whether the targeted groups actually use unlicensed software. Similar groups, allied with the government, remain immune to harassment. The New York Times article notes that Microsoft's behavior has not been completely above board.

Comment Re:New headline (Score 1) 620

by pat sajak (#33200320) Attached to: <em>EVE</em> Player Loses $1,200 Worth of Game Time In-Game
CCP is one of the few companies that understands it's player-base and consistently treats them right. EVE players do not want to be babysat. They do not want to be protected from their own stupidity. If they want to be able to take a risk, they don't want some in-game barrier preventing them from doing what they want with their own (virtual) property. And so, CCP lifted the restrictions on PLEX, with a HEAVY warning as to what could happen if a player choses to leave a station with PLEX in the hold. So what does this guy do? He takes 74 of them, in a KESTRAL (which, for those unfamiliar with EVE, is basically a newbie ship). No amount of armed escorts would have made a difference because this ship will be rubble in 2 shots. This person chose to gamble, and they lost.
Earth

New Batfish Species Found Under Gulf Oil Spill 226

Posted by timothy from the had-to-flush-'em-out-somehow dept.
eDarwin writes "Researchers have discovered two previously unknown species of bottom-dwelling fish in the Gulf of Mexico, living right in the area affected by the BP oil spill. Researchers identified new species of pancake batfishes, a flat fish rarely seen because of the dark depths they favor. They are named for the clumsy way they 'walk' along the sea bottom, like a bat crawling."

Comment good luck (Score 3, Insightful) 90

by pat sajak (#32783110) Attached to: Diaspora On Schedule, One Month In
i wish them the best (and will sign up when i can) but i can't help but think this will fail hard. the vast majority of facebook users are not concerned with privacy, rather they actively seek to do away with it. they want to make sure each of their 700 friends knows every inconsequential detail of their daily lives; facebook provides them with the platform to do this, diaspora likely will not. diaspora may find a niche but i can't see it taking a significant dent out of facebook's market share.
Movies

The Hurt Locker Producers Sue First 5,000 File-Sharers 861

Posted by Soulskill from the tilting-at-windmills dept.
Voltage Pictures, the production company behind 2008's Oscar-winning Iraq war film The Hurt Locker, today sued 5,000 people who illegally downloaded the movie over BitTorrent. Quoting CNET: "Attorneys for Voltage wrote in the complaint that unless the court stops the people who pirate The Hurt Locker then Voltage will suffer 'great and irreparable injury that cannot fully be compensated or measured in money.' Voltage has asked the court to prevent those who downloaded the movie without paying for it from downloading its movies ever again, and order them to destroy all copies of The Hurt Locker from their computers and any other electronic devices they may have transferred the film to. As for monetary damages, the movie's producers want those found to have pilfered the movie to pay actual or statutory damages and cover the costs that went into filing the suits." According to the complaint (PDF), the 5,000 infringers are known only by their IP addresses at this time.
Space

Fastest (and Most Compact) Stellar Spinner Confirmed 47

Posted by Soulskill from the getting-dizzy-now dept.
gregg writes "HM Cancri has been confirmed as a binary system of two white dwarfs orbiting each other so closely that they complete one orbit every 5.4 minutes; they are separated by a mere 8 Earth diameters. 'These are the burnt-out cinders of stars such as our Sun, and contain a highly condensed form of helium, carbon and oxygen. The two white dwarfs in HM Cancri are so close together that mass is flowing from one star to the other. HM Cancri was first noticed as an X-ray source in 1999, showing a 5.4 minutes periodicity, but for a long time it has remained unclear whether this period also indicated the actual orbital period of the system. It was so short that astronomers were reluctant to accept the possibility without solid proof. '"
Microsoft

Bing Gains 10% Marketshare 514

Posted by CmdrTaco from the nowhere-to-go-but-up dept.
samzbest writes "According to ComScore's qSearch, Microsoft's retaliation against Google search, Bing, has gained significant market share, now facilitating close to 10% of US searches. That's a gain of two large points in five months."

Comment nope. (Score 1) 849

by pat sajak (#30139192) Attached to: Can We Really Tell Lossless From MP3?
I can't. I just deleted a crap load of .flac files after downloading the .mp3 versions and not being able to tell the difference while listening through some pretty decent headphones. I'd rather have a few more free gigabytes. 256 and 320 bitrate are great, 128 is another story.
News

FOSS Sexism Claims Met With Ire and Denial 1255

Posted by ScuttleMonkey from the girls-don't-write-foss dept.
Last Friday Bryce Byfield gave us a little insight into the fallout surrounding his article on sexism in the FOSS world. Unfortunately it seems that FOSS junkies did little better than the rest of the world with respect to sexism, displaying similar levels of denial, abuse, and ignorance. "But the real flood of emotion comes from the anti-feminists and the average men who would like to deny the importance of feminist issues in FOSS. Raise the subject of sexism, and you are met with illogic that I can only compare to that of the tobacco companies trying to deny the link between their products and cancer. Because I took a feminist stance in public, I have been abused in every way possible — being called irrelevant, a saboteur, coward, homosexual, and even a betrayer of the community. I know that many women in the community have been attacked much more savagely than I have, so I'm not complaining. Nor am I a stranger to readers who disagree with me, but the depth of reaction has taken me back more than once. I think the reaction is an expression of denial more than anything else."

Comment Re:Better get out more (Score 1) 183

by pat sajak (#29562761) Attached to: Carl Sagan Sings
Music comes in many forms, and different genres appeal to different people. Listen to some film soundtracks, and ambient music (Brian Eno) and you might find that quiet subtlety can be beautiful.

Comment Re:The Wii is on the way down (Score 1) 163

by pat sajak (#29296773) Attached to: Nintendo Releases Wii Browser For Free, Updates Flash
I can't see that being a major cost component. The accelerometer is in the Wii's controller, which alone retails for $49. This article on Tom's Hardware says that the Wii's manufacturing cost has actually gone down 45% since launch. http://www.tomsguide.com/us/nintendo-wii-price-drop-costs,news-3758.html

Comment Re:The Wii is on the way down (Score 4, Insightful) 163

by pat sajak (#29282539) Attached to: Nintendo Releases Wii Browser For Free, Updates Flash
I don't know about that... Remember when the Wii was the "cheap" system? Now we have a $200 xbox and a $300 ps3, both half their original launch prices. But the Wii has actually gone up from $269 to $279 (inflation?). (Canadian prices) There's a reason the other guys are aggressively lowering their prices...

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