Comment Gold farmers rejoice! (Score 1) 217
Well at least the out of work gold farmers and character levelers have a new career opportunity.
Comment Out of work gold farmers rejoice! (Score 1) 201
Well at least there are other career options for all those out of work gold farmers and character levelers...
IPv6 and the Business-Case Skeptics 297
Julie188 writes "Experts keep screaming that the IPv4 sky is falling. Three such experts were recently asked point-blank to state an irrefutable business case for moving to IPv6 now, and their answer was more plausible than the old refrain (the lack of addresses and a yet-to-be-seen killer IPv6 app). They said that there isn't a business case. No company that is satisfied with all of its Internet services will need to move, even in the next few years. They also pointed out that Microsoft is a unique position in the industry both causing and hindering IPv6 adoption — causing through its IPv6 support in its OSes, and hindering by not extending IPv6 support into very many of its apps."
Mozilla Admits Firefox EULA Is Flawed 312
darthcamaro writes "Mozilla has now come around and is taking seriously the concerns of Ubuntu and others about the Firefox EULA, which we discussed vigorously the other day. In fact Mozilla told InternetNews.com that the EULA itself is flawed and will be replaced with something else. Quoting Mozilla Chairperson Mitchell Baker from the article: 'There is a need for something, something to explain the license[.] I'm not sure I would call it a EULA because that has a meaning to many people of adding restrictions to software and we won't be doing that. We'll be having a license agreement much as Red Hat has a license agreement that says the software is available under the GPL and don't use our trademarks et cetera. So we'll have a license agreement but we won't think of it as a EULA.'"
Submission + - 2008: Year of the Linux Desktop
rstrohmeyer writes: "Over at Maximum PC, we're betting that Linux will pick up unprecedented momentum in the coming year. With phenomenal new distros, swelling international support, and a little extra momentum from Dell, we think Linux is poised to exploit the current atmosphere of doubt surrounding Vista and pick up serious traction in '08. But we want to know what you think. Head over and weigh in with your comments."
O2 Offered iPhone Contract in UK 178
davidmcg writes "There has been speculation on who will provide the service for iPhone in the UK. Now, the answer has been provided. It seems that O2 has been offered the contract to provide telephony services in the UK for the iPhone. It seems that the iPhone should be available in the UK in time for Christmas. O2 have refused to confirm or deny these reports, so is it yet another unconfirmed iPhone rumor or is it fact? We can only wait to find out."
Feed Garmin, MapQuest offer interfaces (com.com)
Blog: Garmin offers some APIs so Web sites and its GPS units can communicate, while MapQuest announces a beta version of an ActionScript interface for Flash fans.
Feed Roomba revisions coming in September? (engadget.com)
Filed under: Household, Robots
There's not much that gets us more excited than new cleaning bots -- yes, we're unabashed iRobot fanboys -- so we always want to be the first to know when a fresh product comes along (we did a little happy dance with our dog when the Roomba for Pets was announced earlier this month). Luckily, then, we caught wind of the linked thread on Roomba Review (your home for all things, um, Roomba), in which a purported insider delivers some details and pics of upcoming revisions to the Scheduler, Discovery, and Roomba Red models: the 560, 530, and 510 (whose supposed retail packaging is pictured above), respectively. New features are said to include a 'lighthouse (peripheral to indicate which room is cleaned)' and integrated display, with upgrades also coming in the form of a redesign (pictured after the break), easily-swappable parts (wheels, motors, etc.), greatly improved battery life (1,500 hours versus the current 350, allegedly), and automatically-activated virtual walls. Pricing will range from CAD$300 to CAD$450 ($279 to $418), according to the RR member, so now we have to squirrel away at least that amount of dough along with however much more it's gonna cost to pick up those completely new bots we've been promised for the holidays.
[Via Electronista]
Continue reading Roomba revisions coming in September?
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Office Depot Featured Gadget: Xbox 360 Platinum System Packs the power to bring games to life!
Feed News: Palm to launch new mobile device (macworld.com)
The Secrets of Firefox about:config 263
jcatcw writes "While Firefox is very customizable, many of its settings aren't in the Options. Each setting is named and stored as a string, integer, or Boolean in a file called prefs.js and accessed via about:config from the nav bar. Computerworld provides instructions on 20 tweaks for speeding up page loads, making tabs behave, reducing memory drain, and generally making the interface act the way you want it to. Customization also comes through the must-have FF extensions (but be sure to skip these)."
Submission + - Does ZFS makes expensive NAS/SANs obsolete?
hoggoth writes: As a common everyman who needs big fast reliable storage without a big budget, I have been following a number of emerging technologies and I think they have finally become usable in combination. Specifically, it appears to me that I can put together the little brother of a $50,000 NAS/SAN solution for under $3,000. Here's how:
Get a CoolerMaster Stacker enclosure like this one (just the hardware not the software) that can hold up to 12 SATA drives. Install OpenSolaris and create ZFS pools with RAID-Z for redundancy. Export some pools with Samba for use as a NAS. Export some pools with iSCSI for use as a SAN. Run it over Gigabit Ethernet. Fast, secure, reliable, easy to administer, and cheap. Usable from Windows, Mac, and Linux. As a bonus ZFS let's me create daily or hourly snapshots at almost no cost in disk space or time.
Total cost: 1.4 Terabytes: $2,000. 7.7 Terabytes: $4,200 (Just the cost of the enclosure and the drives). That's an order of magnitude less expensive than other solutions.
Add redundant power supplies, NIC cards, SATA cards, etc as your needs require..
So storage experts, tell me why this is or isn't feasible!.
Get a CoolerMaster Stacker enclosure like this one (just the hardware not the software) that can hold up to 12 SATA drives. Install OpenSolaris and create ZFS pools with RAID-Z for redundancy. Export some pools with Samba for use as a NAS. Export some pools with iSCSI for use as a SAN. Run it over Gigabit Ethernet. Fast, secure, reliable, easy to administer, and cheap. Usable from Windows, Mac, and Linux. As a bonus ZFS let's me create daily or hourly snapshots at almost no cost in disk space or time.
Total cost: 1.4 Terabytes: $2,000. 7.7 Terabytes: $4,200 (Just the cost of the enclosure and the drives). That's an order of magnitude less expensive than other solutions.
Add redundant power supplies, NIC cards, SATA cards, etc as your needs require..
So storage experts, tell me why this is or isn't feasible!.
Feed Google Maps takes it to the streets (com.com)
New street-level view in Google Maps shows panoramas and offers zoom-in feature to read signs.
Images: Google's view from the street
Images: Google's view from the street
Feed Bacterium Curbs Several Insect Pests (sciencedaily.com)
A bacterium discovered by Agricultural Research Service (ARS) scientists that is toxic to Colorado potato beetle also has been found to be toxic in varying degrees to gypsy moth, small hive beetle and tobacco hornworm.
Feed Drilling In Bristol Bay Could Be Nail In The Coffin For World's Most Endangered (sciencedaily.com)
Fifteen cetacean species occur in Bristol Bay, a spectacularly rich area of marine life, including the endangered bowhead, blue, fin, sei, humpback and sperm whales. A planned lease sale area in Bristol Bay overlaps with critical habitat designated for the eastern North Pacific right.
Feed Innovation Comes To Backyard Grills... After The Patent Expires (techdirt.com)
If you look through the history of economic innovation (at least over the last few hundred years), you notice a pattern: for all the talk about how patents are required for innovation, true innovation only seems to occur after key patents expire. The history of the steam engine is quite instructive on this, but it's true of many other inventions as well. For Memorial Day this past weekend, the Associated Press ran an article all about the sudden rise in popularity of infrared grills for home use. Despite the technology first being invented in the 60s (for drying paint on cars), it was a very limited market until the key patent expired in 2000 and real innovation could occur that would allow such grills to be produced economically for backyard use. Chances are the market is a hell of a lot bigger today than it was before the patent expired. However, there's an even bigger point hidden towards the end of the article. The traditional patent defenders always claim that without a patent, the original inventor will simply get left behind. However, that's not at all what happened here. Char-Broil, makers of popular backyard grills could have gone out on its own and produced their infrared cookers without the help of Thermal Electric Corp., who held the patent. However, knowing that Thermal Electric Corp. understood the technology better than anyone else, they still formed a strategic alliance with them for the production of Char-Broil's grills. In other words, the patent slowed down the production of backyard grills in the space, which have only enlarged the market. At the same time, the loss of the patent hasn't destroyed Thermal Electric's ability to profit. Far from it: it's opened up new opportunities for it.
