Comment Oh, good... (Score 2, Insightful) 212
That means more customers for Nintendo and Blizzard Entertainment / Activision then...
Sony May Charge For PlayStation Network 212
In an interview with IGN, Sony's VP of marketing, Peter Dille, responded to a question about the PlayStation Network by saying that the company is considering charging for the service. He said, "It's been our philosophy not to charge for it from launch up until now, but Kaz recently went on the record as saying that's something we're looking at. I can confirm that as well. That's something that we're actively thinking about. What's the best way to approach that if we were to do that? You know, no announcements at this point in time, but it's something we're thinking about." This follows news of a customer survey from last month that listed possibilities for subscription-based PSN features.
Comment Re:What's being ignored (Score 2, Interesting) 280
>>I keep hearing fans can do it better but virtually everything I've seen is poorly written, silly acting and poor production values.
Portal, the game and the independent movie.
AIDS Vaccine Is Partially Successful 317
ifchairscouldtalk writes "A Phase III 'RV 144' study in Thailand succeeded in reducing HIV infection rate in trial with 31.2% effectiveness. The study was conducted by the Thailand Ministry of Public Health and used strains of HIV common in Thailand. It is not clear whether the vaccine, which combines AIDSVAX with Aventis Pasteur ALVAC-HIV canarypox vector, known as 'vCP1521,' would work against other strains in the United States, Africa or elsewhere. Strangely, the vaccine had no effect on levels of HIV in the blood of those who did become infected, providing 'one of the most important and intriguing findings' of the trial, according to Dr Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, which is one of the trial's sponsors."
Firefox To Replace Menus With Office Ribbon 1124
Barence writes "Mozilla has announced that its plans to bring Office 2007's Ribbon interface to Firefox, as it looks to tidy up its 'dated' browser. 'Starting with Vista, and continuing with Windows 7, the menu bar is going away,' notes Mozilla in its plans for revamping the Firefox user interface. '[It will] be replaced with things like the Windows Explorer contextual strip, or the Office Ribbon, [which is] now in Paint and WordPad, too.' The change will also bring Windows' Aero Glass effects to the browser." Update: 09/24 05:01 GMT by T : It's not quite so simple, says Alexander Limi, who works on the Firefox user experience. "We are not putting the Ribbon UI on Firefox. The article PCpro quotes talks about Windows applications in general, not Firefox." So while the currently proposed direction for Firefox 3.7 involves some substantial visual updates for Windows users (including a menu bar hidden by default, and integration of Aero-styled visual elements), it's not actually a ribbon interface. Limi notes, too, that Linux and Mac versions are unaffected by the change.
Finding the First Trillion Congruent Numbers 94
eldavojohn writes "First stated by al-Karaji about a thousand years ago, the congruent number problem is simplified to finding positive whole numbers that are the area of a right triangle with rational number sides. Today, discovering these congruent numbers is limited only by the size of a computer's hard drive. An international team of mathematicians recently decided to push the limits on finding congruent numbers and came up with the first trillion. Their two approaches are outlined in detail, with pseudo-code, in their paper (PDF) as well as details on their hardware. For those of you familiar with this sort of work, the article provides links to solving this problem — from multiplying very large numbers to identifying square-free congruent numbers."
Comment Re:Nothing to see here, carry on... (Score 1) 320
Not necessarily. The police chief is a public figure, which means he also has to prove that the defamation was also accompanied by malice. That is notoriously difficult to do in a court of law.
The other question is who is going to pay for the legal fees. If I was a citizen I would seriously question this. In addition most lawyers won't take defamation suits on contingency because of the small settlements usually gained.
All in all I suspect that this is mostly an effort to intimidate.
The guy should be sacked.
Comment Re:Dial-up a decade ago (Score 1) 251
I'm sorry, but can you explain what your sig means tepples? Is it meant to imply a comparison to other countries or to point out existing solutions?
Comment Re:Don't worry (Score 1) 91
How true. My ignorance is honest; their ignorance is derived from knowing just enough to get themselves into trouble.
The older I get, the more I realize that what I was "taught" in higher education was based on shaky or uncertain principles and I had to accept that what I actually know may not be entirely true or accurate at any time, ever.
Comment Precedent (Score 1) 555
I dont recall the specifics, but wasn't there another case a while back involving whether it was child pornography when it was a drawing of a child (ie completely fabricated)? This would be the closest thing to a precedent I can think of.
Comment Re:I disagree. (Score 1) 251
why are DVD sales dramatically declining?
Market saturation?
I can get almost every movie I want (older titles) borrowed, used, or from the library. VHS tapes wear out much faster than DVDs, and even when a DVD gets scratched, a little polishing compound will bring it back. I saw some DVDs at Staples that would self destruct after 48 hours. For $0.25 - $0.99 I might have tried one, but the titles were terrible and they wanted $5.00 each. No thank you.
A lot of the online content was never available on DVD because it didn't have enough audience to justify a pressing. Online will take over because it offers relatively instant gratification, a big feature that DVD and Blu-ray can't match. People like getting what they want.
Comment While... (Score 1) 174
While I don't cheer the information, the frankness impresses me.
Comment I originally read that as Wrath of the Lion King (Score 1) 121
Thus, leading to several seconds of confusion on my part ... (when did Blizzard team up with Disney? Is it April Fool's already? etc. ... )
Submission + - eBay pulls Google ads (bbc.co.uk)
odoketa writes: "According to the BBC, it seems Google scheduled a meeting to promote their payment system on the same day as the big eBay meeting, and this made eBay mad enough to pull their ads with Google. According to the story, eBay says it's merely an 'ongoing experiment' on their marketing."
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