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Microsoft Brings Back DRM 414

Posted by timothy from the perhaps-skydiving-is-not-for-you dept.
Barence writes "Microsoft yesterday unveiled its MSN Mobile Music service — and a surprise return to digital rights management (DRM). While companies such as Apple and Amazon have finally moved to music download services free of copy protection, MSN Mobile locks tracks to the mobile handset they are downloaded to. It also charges more than the other services per track, and offers no way to transfer your tracks to your new phone when you upgrade. The company's Head of Mobile UK spoke to PC Pro about the launch, but his answers are almost as baffling as the service itself. Best quote: Q: 'If I buy these songs on your service — and they're locked to my phone — what happens when I upgrade my phone in six months' time?' A: 'Well, I think you know the answer to that.'"
PC Games (Games)

Gamers Don't Need Vista or DX 10 Says Carmack 257

Posted by Zonk from the stick-with-what-works dept.
Freshly Exhumed writes "In an interview with Marcus Yam at Daily Tech legendary PC/Console game creator John Carmack holds forth on DirectX 10: 'Personally, I wouldn't jump at something like DX10 right now. I would let things settle out a little bit and wait until there's a really strong need for it.' and then zings Microsoft's marketers over DX10's mandatory use of the Vista OS: 'Carmack then said that he's quite satisfied with Windows XP, going as far to say that Microsoft is artificially forcing gamers to move to Windows Vista for DX10.' There are a few good tidbits on Xbox 360 vs. PS3 development, and a fairly clear disinterest in Wii as a platform for his company's products is shown."
Debian

Debian Delayed by Disenchanted Developers 329

Posted by CmdrTaco from the look-at-all-that-alliteration dept.
Torus Kas writes "Debian GNU/Linux 4.0 was supposed to be due by December 4 and development is currently frozen. Apparently the saga was triggered by disenchantment towards funding of $6,000 for each of the 2 release managers to work full-time in order to speed up the development. Many unpaid developers simply put off Debian work to work on something else."

Site Says 'Go Away!'; Federal Court Says No 546

Posted by CowboyNeal from the best-laid-plans dept.
CaptainEbo writes "Michael Snow was the webmaster of Stop Corporate Extortion, a private support group website for 'individuals who have been, are being, or will be sued by any Corporate entity.' In order to access his site, users were required to register a username and password, and agree to a statement saying they were not associated with DirecTV, Inc. Several defendants in suits brought by DirecTV would discuss their cases on Snow's site. When DirecTV's employees and lawyers ignored Snow's user agreement and accessed his site anyway, Snow sued, claiming they violated the Stored Communications Act (SCA) by accessing his site without authorization. In an unanimous opinion, the Eleventh Circuit rejected Snow's suit."

Ars Technica Reviews the MacBook 453

Posted by Zonk from the shiny-will-not-sway-me dept.
phaedo00 writes "Ars Technica has performed another of their in-depth and thorough hardware reviews. The subject in this review is the newly released MacBook. From the article: 'The Apple portable web site proudly announces that the "family is finally complete." What began with an announcement from Steve Jobs at the MacWorld conference in January has come full circle with the release of the MacBook this week. Every Apple laptop is Intel powered and moving in what I would consider is the right direction. The laptop line is finally better delineated by pro and consumer features, and the prices have been fixed at points that better reflect the minute differences in the models.'"

Comment Standard Error (Score 1) 255

by eXocomp (#14363925) Attached to: Women Now Outnumber Men Online

If you call the poll answers 0 for "not online" and 1 for "online", standard error can be calculated easily. First, standard deviation = square root of [mean of squares - square of mean]; both 0 and 1 are identities under squaring, so the mean of the squares is the same as the mean. So, stddev = sqrt(0.67 - 0.67^2) = 0.470. Standard error is calculated by dividing this by the square root of the number of samples; 0.470/sqrt(6403) = 0.00588.

That's an error of +-0.59% for both percentages, making the difference between 66% and 68% even less significant. The fact that only two digits of them are presented adds another +-0.5% error for both values, in a flat distribution. I don't know how to calculate the resultant significance, but it's pretty damned negligible.

If I've made an error, someone please correct me.

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