Comment Re:Gee... (Score 1) 535
Who cares if other companies already opened brick and mortar stores? Does that automatically mean that Microsoft can't ever open their own store?
Comment Re:Cold Turkey? (Score 1) 504
The guy asking the question calls himself "ubergamer1337". Draw your own conclusions.
Logitech Makes 1 Billionth Mouse 456
Smivs writes "Logitech has hailed as a major landmark the production of their one billionth computer mouse.
The news comes at a time when analysts claim the days of the mouse are numbered.
'It's rare in human history that a billionth of anything has been shipped by one company,' said Logitech's general manager Rory Dooley.
'Look at any other industry and it has never happened. This is a significant milestone.'
The computer mouse will achieve a milestone of its own next week when it turns 40.
It was 9 December 1968 when Douglas C. Engelbart and his group of researchers at Stanford University put the first mouse through its paces."
Monty Python Banks On the Long Tail Via YouTube 222
JTRipper writes "Monty Python seems to have done the right thing. Instead of issuing take down notices of their videos on YouTube, they are doing it better themselves with their own YouTube channel. They are putting all their clips (including snips from their movies) up in a decent resolution, with the only caveat being a link to buying the movies and TV episodes from Amazon."
A Telescope as Big as the Earth 172
Roland Piquepaille writes "A week ago, seven telescopes around the world were linked together to watch a distant galaxy called 3C273 in real time and create a single world telescope. The data from these telescopes, which are located in Australia, China and Europe, was streamed around the world at a rate of 256 Mb per second. One of the Australian researchers involved in the project said that it was the first time that astronomers have been able to instantaneously connect telescopes half a world apart. He added that 'the diameter of the Earth is 12,750 km and the two most widely separated telescopes in our experiment were 12,304 km apart.'"
Submission + - Arm wrestling machine recalled for breaking arms (computerworld.com)
Lucas123 writes: "After three players broke their arms while wrestling with a Japanese arcade machine, the manufacturer promised to remove all 150 of the mechanized appendages. Said game maker Atlus' spokeswoman: "The machine isn't that strong, much less so than a muscular man. Even women should be able to beat it.""
Submission + - NASA announces "bizarre star" (nasa.gov)
Andrew Stellman writes: "NASA astronomers held a press conference announcing that a new ultraviolet mosaic from NASA's Galaxy Evolution Explorer shows a speeding star named Mira that's leaving an enormous trail of "seeds" for new solar systems. Mira is traveling faster than a speeding bullet, and has a tail that's 13 light-years long and over 30,000 years old. The website has images and a replay of the teleconference."
Submission + - Citrix Announces Acquisition of Xensource (citrix.com) 1
dch24 writes: Citrix announced today in a press release that they will acquire XenSource for $500M. Over at ZDNet UK, "XenSource is a small company, claiming 500 paying customers and 5,000 production users."
This comes hard on the heels of the VMWare IPO. An eWeek article suggests, "The Citrix-XenSource deal might pressure VMware to drop the price on some of its products. To increase the pressure, Citrix announced that it will begin selling XenSource's products through its roughly 5,000 channel partners."
How will this affect the open-source Xen hypervisor? The press release says, "The acquisition will also strengthen each company's strong partnership with Microsoft and commitment to the Windows platform." Does that mean a change in direction?
This comes hard on the heels of the VMWare IPO. An eWeek article suggests, "The Citrix-XenSource deal might pressure VMware to drop the price on some of its products. To increase the pressure, Citrix announced that it will begin selling XenSource's products through its roughly 5,000 channel partners."
How will this affect the open-source Xen hypervisor? The press release says, "The acquisition will also strengthen each company's strong partnership with Microsoft and commitment to the Windows platform." Does that mean a change in direction?
Submission + - Publisher of Eminem songs files suit against Apple
mattpm writes: "CBC reports that 'the publisher of rapper Eminem's music is suing computer giant Apple Inc. for selling downloads of the musician's songs without permission.
While Apple has an agreement with Universal Music Group, the record company that owns the recordings, it doesn't have a deal with the publishers — Eight Mile Style — who own the rights to the scores and lyrics.'
Which raises the question yet again: who actually owns the rights to published music and what slice of the profits are the artists actually getting from on-line sales(despite Eminem not exactly being a starving artist)?"
Submission + - BBC's iPlayer fails to excite UK users
Peter Kinkington writes: According to CNet.co.uk, the web-based TV download service created by the BBC is in no uncertain terms a pile of junk. In this rather scathing article, CNet points out five things that are wrong with it, including the lack of control over the bandwidth it uses, DRM and bad picture quality. Reading user comments from the original launch article, it seems like many UK iPlayer users agree with CNet, which is a shame considering the BBC's long standing commitment to producing quality content.
Submission + - FCC unveils 700MHz auction rules (arstechnica.com)
Peanut writes: The FCC has finally published the rules governing the upcoming 700MHz spectrum auction. It's a mixed bag: there's a limited open-access provision covering devices and applications, but not the four conditions Google was looking for. Bidding will be completely anonymous for the first time, and the FCC also mandated that some of the spectrum be reserved for a public safety network like the one envisioned by Frontline. Google's open-access suggestions also came under criticism by one of the GOP commissioners during the hearing. 'According to McDowell, wealthy corporations don't need government regulation in order to do what they want — a clear shot at Google, who is free to bid on the spectrum and offer it at wholesale rates if it chooses to do so. As Copps pointed out, though, incumbent businesses are generally willing to pay a "blocking premium" in order to keep new players from entering a market, and would no doubt attempt to pay a premium simply to keep a company like Google from doing this.'
Submission + - UK rejects lengthening of copyright (yahoo.com)
timrichardson writes: The British Government has rejected extending copyright for sound recordings. This is an important development in the face of trends to extend copyright duration, although it leaves British copyright protection for music recordings at a shorter duration than for written works. The decision was despite fierce lobbying from the large British music industry. The music industry will now lobby direct to the European Commission, but without the support of the national government, its position is significantly weakened. British copyright for music recordings therefore remains at 50 years after the death of the artist, in contrast to 95 years in the US and 70 years in Australia.
Submission + - Court convicts Skype for breaching GPL
terber writes: In Munich a German court once again upheld the GPL2 and convicted Skype (based in Luxembourg) of violating GPL by selling the Linux-based VoIP phone "SMCWSKP 100" without proper source code access. Skype later on added a flyer to the phones with an URL where to obtain the sources, but the court found this insufficient as this was in breach of GPL section 3. Plaintiff was once again Netfilter developer Harald Welte, who runs http://gpl-violations.org/. The decision is currently only available in German at http://www.ifross.de./ News source (German): www.golem.de/0707/53684.html
Submission + - DNS Hole Puts E-Mail at Risk
t2000kw writes: According to a PC World article, "a compromised DNS server could send browsers to malicious Web sites and cause problems with directory services and e-mail."
A recently announced vulnerability in Microsoft's DNS server could allow such a thing to happen, potentially redirecting email and even allowing the hacker to gain access to DNS logs, identifying sites that users visit and even redirecting users to false baking sites without their knowledge, gaining access to their personal information. Corporations are more vulnerable than most consumers because large ISPs generally run non-Microsoft DNS servers. More evil deeds that could be perpetrated are discussed in the full article here:
http://www.pcworld.com/article/id,130728-c,onlines ecurity/article.html
A recently announced vulnerability in Microsoft's DNS server could allow such a thing to happen, potentially redirecting email and even allowing the hacker to gain access to DNS logs, identifying sites that users visit and even redirecting users to false baking sites without their knowledge, gaining access to their personal information. Corporations are more vulnerable than most consumers because large ISPs generally run non-Microsoft DNS servers. More evil deeds that could be perpetrated are discussed in the full article here:
http://www.pcworld.com/article/id,130728-c,online
Submission + - RIAA Admits ISP's Have Misidentified "John Doe
NewYorkCountryLawyer writes: "The RIAA has sent out a letter to the ISP's telling them to stop making mistakes in identifying subscribers, and offering a "Pre-Doe settlement option" — with a discount of "$1000 or more" — to their subscribers, if and only if the ISP agrees to preserve its logs for 180 days. Other interesting points in the letter(pdf): the RIAA will be launching a web site for "early settlements", www.p2plawsuits.com; the letter asks the ISP's to notify the RIAA if they have previously "misidentified a subscriber account in response to a subpoena" or became aware of "technical information... that causes you to question the information that you provided in response to our clients' subpoena"; it requires ISP's to notify the RIAA "as early as possible" as to whether they will enter the 180 day/"pre-Doe" plan; it mentions that there has been confusion over how ISP's should respond to the RIAA's subpoenas; it noted that ISP's have identified "John Does" who were not even subscribers of the ISP at the time of the infringement; and it requested that ISP's furnish their underlying log files as well as just the names and addresses, when responding to RIAA subpoenas."
