Be careful what you say about "crappy midi-like instruments". Being a musician who uses "crappy midi-like instruments" in the studio, don't assume they are all the same. If someone were to come out with a better version of what this thing is that used real sampled sound synthesis, and some of the other fabulous modeling syths, you quite possibly could come up with something pretty serious. I'll give em that; where trying to "listen" to something, guess what note and instrument its coming from and try to make a MIDI track out of it could be interesting, we have already been doing this for some time. Someone now is maybe trying to take it to the next level -- next Christmas's high demand high tech toy. Just a thought.

The only potential problem with this is that this is Mr. Steve Ballmer we're talking about. The same person who believes that if you own an iPod, you are stealing music illegally even if you purchased it from iTunes! I do not trust anything about Mr. Ballmer, nor anything that emanates from his oral device!

I loaded Vista Ultimate onto a laptop that gave me a good usability index (per Microsoft), and when it was finished loading and properly configured, Vista is horridly slow compared to XP. There was a site a while back that published some speed tests and comparisons of Vista, and found it to be quite contrary to Microsoft's adverts. I proved it again with my own laptop. So ultimately, the hard drive was pulled and set aside--maybe for some later tests. But in all; I've found that from a usability standpoint, I won't use it because its too slow and sluggish. I wonder how much Windows 7 will be akin to Vista even though Microsoft says it was completely rewritten. Was it really?? I seriously doubt it.

Mr Ballmer himself will absolutely not sit still for this to happen. The "method" will be disclosed as being copyright by Microsoft and that Samba is infringing on Microsofts patented trademark of "Active Directory". You watch. A Quash order will be forthcoming.

This is blatantly a troll article. Plain and simple. Such utter nonsense.

Simply put, this is another example of the lawyers polluting their own land. There are stats used to test and validate the devices meet specifications without need of the source code, but apparently the tests and references themselves are now called into question. This is pissing in the same chair that you sit in for the lawyers. This will come back to haunt them.

I put them all into a zip-able anti-static bag, and that then is placed in the side pouch of our camera bag. The only ones not in there are microSD's that are installed in my sticks that stay with the laptops. Not lost one yet.

Its been pretty evident that they (RIAA litigation teams) have been soiling in their own yards for some time. Unfortunately this is going to have undesired consequences to many of us that were not foreseen. Such as the bit where in Texas, you cannot work on a PC for another person without a Private Investigators license. Last I heard, they're still fighting this one. I don't want to have to carry a 4 year degree in criminal justice just so I can fix PC's for clients at some ridiculous low price just to compete with the dumb geeks at Worst Buy. There are others unintended consequences as well.

Who's to say that the RIAA didn't decide in a corporate meeting recently that; "Hay team, it looks like we've gotten as much as we're going to get out of this cash cow. All that we've made thus far has been safely squirreled away in Swiss accounts now so I think it is about time we consider disbanding starting by dropping Media Sentry. We don't want to pay those buffoons any more of our money anyway."

Now that we will soon have President Spend-Thrift Obama in power, Viacom and Time Warner will ultimately have to play fair or be swallowed up in one governmental agency or another for it. Since Viacom was seeking an increase in revenue stream from these particular shows in question, this generally means that Mr. Obama will simply make them pay more taxes. He did say during his campaign that he would be increasing taxes on everyone! So as a result, all you American (socialist) citizens will either get to see your shows, or they will be shut down by the Feds for non compliance of the new tax rules. And; since a contract was now satisfied, you know dang good and well that the cable companies involved here are simply going to pass these hiked costs on to their subscribers. You cannot avoid it. So that might mean soon people will be calling in to lower service tiers or cancel service.

We used to live in a time where if the companies in question raised the rates for services, and you the consumer did not like the new rates, you could cancel it and eventually; given enough cancels, they'd either lower the price back down again to regain subscribers, or go under and out of business. Doesn't seem to be that way any more now. Too bad. We're all soon going to be at the 50% tax rate here in the USA and for what?? So everyone can watch Spongebob, and some of the other dribble they call art on the tube?? Oh; 2009 is going to be an interesting year. How many more companies are going to do the tax-rate hike-tax hike-rate hike thing...

Face it. The only person standing to make any money back out of this class action suit, is the suit!! The lawyer his/her self. Everyone else stands to collect nothing but a bunch of grief and hassle from all of this.

Why not approach it this way. You now know what you are up against. Nothing spells it more loudly than to disconnect from cable providers and go with alternatives; ie Dish Network, RCA, etc.. When they have to resort to out right lies on their advertising trying to get people to come back, then they get sued for false advertising to boot. They'll loose their market simply by loss of customers. Everyone knows already that Comcast's cable internet is a joke. They bring you in for $30 a month for 3 months, then you get zapped for $70 a month after that and for service that many times is not any better than DSL in download. Then ever notice how Comcast NEVER talks about upload speed??!!! There's a reason for that! My DSL has a fairly symmetrical 1.0mb upload to the download 1.5mb. Comcast will never ever talk about that. I can get up to 5Mb here on DSL and others can get even higher.

Comcast's TV has always been a joke and they haven't changed a thing. What makes them think after Feb 17th, I'm going to call them??? Their TV ads here all represent a concept to the consumer that there is no other alternative but Comcast when TV goes digital. I wonder why they haven't been called on the carpet for that.

Actually he has a rather large catalog of games that most of which are playable online or multi-user and our house has 9 computers and is wired/wireless to the hilt. I don't know about decline in PC games as they keep coming up with them and we keep spending on them. I have curtailed some of it as it's getting out of control. When he begins to earn his own money he can buy the stuff he wants. Right now, he can play Xbox 360 when we go over for band practice as our fearless leader's kid has one and they do that every Friday night... Thats good enough. Someone elses headache.

I can fully expect that out of a product sold to business or some "profession". However you are dealing with "consumer electronics" now and these are a bit different animal. They should have done a better job with this since it's targeting the consumer arena.

After having listened to my 14 year old son, I will likely not ever buy another Microsoft product. I have an original XBox that gave out 2 years after it was bought. Cost of repair exceeds value of unit. Oh well. My son is pestering me to buy a 360. I've been putting it off as there just isn't enough money for it now. Now to add to this, I have yet another reason not to ever buy one. And I'll print out a copy of the page and attach it to the wall in my son's room. He's not going to like it but thats the breaks.

You can't do that man! They'll just turn around and sue you anyway because you are in "proximity" to the sound or could "see" it when walking past that theater. So your guilty and must be made to pay.

This whole thing just goes to show that a:) the lawyers suing on behalf of the record companies don't give a flat fuck about anything the judges have to say; and 2:) in this case specifically, to have quite literally told this specific judge to fuck off and die. They'll do what they want.

You are now beginning to witness the folding of American law and justice. This is where someone in a movie once said that in the future, they abolished all lawyers. Hmmm; could there be some credence to that thinking..??!!