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Sony

Sony Pictures CEO Thinks the Net Wasn't Worth It 562

rossturk writes "Michael Lynton, CEO of Sony Pictures Entertainment, said, 'I'm a guy who doesn't see anything good having come from the Internet, period.' Why? Because people 'feel entitled' to have what they want when they want it, and if they can't get it for free, 'they'll steal it.' It's become customary to expect a somewhat limited perspective on things from old-world entertainment companies, but his inability to acknowledge that the Internet has changed everything makes me think he's a very confused man. Is this when we all give up hope that companies like Sony Pictures can adapt? Will we look back on this as one of the defining moments when the industrialized entertainment industry lost touch for good?"

Comment Summary of the exploit (Score 1) 242

For those who've no time or inclination to read the article:

1) The attacker should first modify system MTRR
register(s) in order to mark the region of system
memory where the SMRAM is located as
cacheable with type Write-Back (WB).

2) Attacker now generates write accesses to
physical addresses corresponding to locations
where the SMRAM is located.

3) Finally attacker needs to trigger an SMI, which
will transfer execution to the SMM code. The CPU
  will start executing the SMM code, but will be
fetching the instructions from the cache first.

Announcements

Shuttleworth Announces Karmic Koala 305

An anonymous reader writes to mention that Mark Shuttleworth has announced the next release in the horribly alliterative Ubuntu family, "Karmic Koala." The new version hopes to include a newer, shinier, faster startup, better small screen support, a spruced-up desktop look (no more brown), and many minor tweaks and updates. "A newborn Koala spends about six months in the family before it heads off into the wild alone. Sounds about perfect for an Ubuntu release plan! I'm looking forward to seeing many of you in Barcelona, and before that, at a Jaunty release party. Till then, cheers."

Comment Re:nVidia is doomed. (Score 1) 115

I hate to say it because they do good work, but I think nVidia is ultimately doomed as it is today. Everyone rips Intel's integrated 3d graphics but they just keep getting better every year.

And nVidia's graphics aren't getting any better? A GPU and a CPU stuffed together into the same chip will always be a low-cost/low-power/low-end solution, can never come close to the capability of a GPU that has the whole die to itself. If Intel/AMD has ~2B transistors in a chip that are divided between a general-purpose CPU and a GPU, can that ever match a 2B transistor discrete GPU + a discrete CPU? Unlikely. Plus, CUDA has put forth interesting possibilities for putting the GPU to other uses.

Although AMD should have bought nVidia instead of ATI, they do own ATI, and so have a pretty good graphics system on their own.

And they should have taken nVidia down with them, instead of ATI, like their doing now. They did nVidia a favour by going for ATI instead.

Eventually, both AMD and Intel are going to wind up with 3d calculations on the die in some fashion, and that's going to leave nVidia for what?

See above. Keyword: Discrete GPUs.

Communications

CMU Video Conference System Gets 3D From Cheap Webcams 94

Hesham writes "Carnegie Mellon University's HCI Institute just released details on their "why-didn't-I-think-of-that-style" 3D video conferencing application. Considering how stale development has been in this field, this research seems like a nice solid step towards immersive telepresence. I was really disappointed with the "state-of-the-art" systems demoed at CES this year — they are all still just a flat, square, video stream. Hardly anything new. What is really cool about this project, is that researchers avoided building custom hardware no one is going to ever buy, and explored what could be done with just the generic webcams everyone already has. The result is a software-only solution, meaning all the big players (AIM, Skype, MSN, etc.) can release this as a simple software update. 'Enable 3D' checkbox anyone? YouTube video here. Behind the scenes, it relies on a clever illusory trick (motion parallax) and head-tracking (a la Johnny Lee's Wiimote stuff — same lab, HCII). It was just presented at IEEE International Symposium on Multimedia in December."
Red Hat Software

Red Hat Set To Surpass Sun In Market Capitalization 221

mytrip writes "In what may come to be seen as a deeply symbolic moment in the history of operating systems, Red Hat is on the verge of surpassing Sun Microsystems' market capitalization for the first time. Sun, perhaps unfairly, represents a fading Unix market. Red Hat, for its part, represents the rising Linux market. Given enough time for its open-source strategy to play out, Sun's market capitalization will likely recover and outpace Red Hat's."

Comment Re:Where the moneys at yo! (Score 2, Informative) 203

Unfortunately for you, Indians aren't exactly flocking to the US for treatment. It's actually the other way round, since quality medical care is available for a fraction of the US price here (for those above the poverty line), which has spawned a whole "medical tourism" industry. The doctors here are as good as anywhere else in the world, and make very good money. Most successful doctors I have known have been very compassionate people. Good luck to you, kid.
The Internet

China Makes Arrests To Stop Internet Porn 204

thefickler writes "The Chinese Government is expanding a crackdown on Internet pornography. Xinhua news agency, which is owned by the government and can safely be used for reporting in China, says the campaign to scrub the country's Internet of 'vulgar' content has so far resulted in 29 criminal cases. Police have ordered the removal of 46,000 pornographic and other 'harmful' items from websites. The latest crackdown comes after official warnings of rising social unrest as the economy slows. It's no coincidence that this year is the twentieth anniversary of Tiananmen Square, or, to use the acceptable nomenclature, 'the June 4th incident.'"

Comment Re:Kill!!! (Score 1) 855

That's not surprising. It happens with regularity in my company. QA often reports errors by taking snapshots of the error screen/kernel panic with a reasonably high megapixel camera, since the errors are often screen corruption and kernel panics. IMHO it's a perfectly legit thing to do, taking camera shots, they just need to have enough details so that us devs don't go blind trying to spot the details.
Businesses

Amazon.com Reporting This Holiday Season Their "Best Ever" 314

In a refreshing break from all the doom and gloom, Amazon.com is calling this holiday season their best ever. Reporting a 44 percent rise in the number of items sold, they are refusing to provide actual dollar amounts, so it is still a very subjective measurement. "Amazon customers ordered more than 6.3 million items on Dec. 15, compared with roughly 5.4 million on its peak day last year, the company said. It shipped more than 5.6 million products on its best day, a 44 percent rise over 2007, when it shipped about 3.9 million on its busiest day. The company did not provide dollar figures and wouldn't say whether the average value of orders had changed, and the jumps it reported Friday are in line with increases Amazon has seen since it started releasing the figures in 2002."

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