... but calling librarians "the Google before Google" is like calling slippery mud "the wheel before the wheel".

Sure, most readers on /. will agree. But most of the people playing Minecraft aren't readers on here, they're little kids aged 7 or over, playing their little hearts out. And they'll play Minecraft from whatever supplier will keep the service and the brand going for the next couple of months, or years if MS is lucky.

You could have mentioned a bunch of non-Apple phones available right now, with far higher ppi than those two Apple devices - without fancy future "in 5 years"-tech. And I'm not talking obscure brands either. But I guess that was kinda the whole point right? A small advertisement with a tech article hardly anyone on here will read.

... that /. is still mostly a local US site. "Anyone" of course refers to "anyone in the US".

Most photocopiers aren't on the internet and even if they are, the essential risk and impact attached to failure is far lower than that of a business PC running XP.

I don't see how the Apple one even maps to the XP question. The problem is with support of an essential piece of software being discontinued.

Google Wave was free and never sold or supported as a piece of business software as far as I know. Apart from that, the Wave protocol is open and you were able to migrate the content to open alternatives at the time.

Windows XP is an essential piece of software to many, replacement of which is neither trivial nor free. It's almost exclusively used on machines that frequently (or continuously) require internet access and the software didn't come for free in most cases. You can call OEM versions free, but we know that's not exactly true.

The article seems to make the point that, unless MS extends support, it's only fair (and possibly legally enforceable) to make MS share the source with parties that want to support XP and offer assistance to such parties. Or, just release the source outright.

... the only way this would have truly impressed, if the algorithm had come up with Beethoven's 9th for Clockwork Orange.

Social media simply haven't matured to the point where it makes sense to standardize interfaces and infrastructure. Since all of them are allowed to use proprietary interfaces, there is no chance of integration and people are forced to move to the same network to find each other. As soon as I'd be able to read your Facebook post on my Google+ and you'd be able to read and respond to my tweets from your Linkein account, that need goes away. Stuff like RSS was a nice try, but that only carries the content, not the entire service.

But I don't think it will happen anytime soon, at least not without government interfering and I don't think the times are very conductive to that. The reason I say that is the battle for the app space. Suppliers need their proprietary protocols, so they can force you to use their apps and that's one of the ways to control what services and advertisements reach you. Ask yourself: why do we have protocols like XMPP, but do we still need Whatsapp, MSN, ICQ, Facebook Messenger, Telegram, Google Hangouts, etc. etc.? Again, the protocol doesn't effectively carry the service, but that doesn't mean the services shouldn't support the standard. The companies providing these services have too strong an incentive not to standardize, that outshines any and all incentives that might cause them to.

If the research shows that relaxing, avoiding stress and using your brain to think about imaginative things is healthy - say so. I'll happily increase the time I spend fishing and soaking up sun at the beach while reading a scifi novel.

None of that stuff has anything to do with religion per se though.

Is Slashdot hoping to borrow some of the success of popular questions on Quora? Because there is little or no news value in it... See here http://www.quora.com/Computer-... for 203 answers and counting.

The court didn't "forbid" anything like reselling games. They simply agreed with the EULA stipulation that you're not allowed to transfer ownership of an *account*. This actually makes perfect sense.

The fact that Steam also disallows/lacks the functionality for the transfer (gifting or resale) of used games on Steam, simply means there's a market for other providers to start a platform that would allow sale and resale of games. Of course, they might have some trouble attracting large game publishers, but that's another matter altogether.

I agree with your point about it being Anglo-centric.

Unless of course the Igbo-speaking Nigerians really wanted a ".automotive" TLD, the Japanese wanted ".bicycles" or the Yoruba in Benin wanted ".healthy". :)

... and gets arrested.

Skynet? Really? That's the one thing /.-readers can think of that could go wrong with this technology?

So, as long as we don't develop self-aware AI that somehow decides to rise against its creator, we're fine with having weaponry that can acquire and engage human targets autonomously? We're fine with armies of these devices at the direction of a few mad men, with just a single conscience deciding the fate of thousands instead of having a human at every trigger?

We should oppose this type of weapon for the same reason we feel it's well beyond humane to use nukes, chemical weapons or even cluster munition. Because these weapons kill indiscriminately and wholesale, at the direction of perpetrators of crimes against humanity.

And don't start about the military command structure and how everything is ultimately always at the command of the commander in chief, because all evidence shows that the weak point always lies with the soldier that has to pull the trigger and decide to kill a fellow human being. And personally, I like it fine that way.

... the /. reporter can go find a stand that has a halfway decent camera with a microphone that actually works first and then use that to shoot the video.

Shows what you know. And the dolts marking this "Interesting", I suppose.