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Handhelds

GameStop To Build Its Own Gaming Tablet? 53

Posted by Soulskill from the company-destroying-optimism dept.
itwbennett writes "GameStop has been on a roll lately, purchasing both Impulse and Spawn Labs in the past week. Now it's ready to go after those casual gaming dollars, but first it needs to put a gaming tablet in your hands. GameStop President Tony Bartel told CNBC that his chain is going to start selling tablets later this year: 'If we can work with our partners and the OEMs and they come up with a great tablet that is enabled with a great gaming experience and coupled with a bluetooth controller, then there's no need to go out and develop our own. But if we can't find one that's great for gaming, then we will create our own.'"
Announcements

Submission + - Dell Abandons It's Customization Roots (latimes.com)

Submitted by LiveFreeOrDieInTheGo
LiveFreeOrDieInTheGo writes: Dell intends to scale back it's build-to-order model to reduce costs; meanwhile, Dell intends to increase prepackaged systems. The goal: $3B USD savings by 2011. The downside: customers expect Dell to build-to-order. The deeper downside: Dell will outsource more production (assembly). The upside: this could open the door to agile competitors.
United States

Journal Journal: We Are Not a Democracy So Stop It 10

Journal by pudge

Overheard on a Sunday show today: the notion that Bush should consider pulling out, because, well, we just had a national election where people clearly expressed their preference for that.

I disagree with the fact presented in that question, but more importantly, the premise based upon that fact is utterly flawed. We do not have a democracy, we have a republic, and the reason we have an electoral college is first and foremost to insulate the President from the will of the people.
Microsoft

Submission + - Submitting Federal Proposals Requires Windows

Submitted by Petronius Arbiter
Petronius Arbiter writes: The US federal government is requiring that proposals for grants etc be submitted using a common system at http://grants.gov/ . That's would be a good idea, except that, effectively, you must use Windows and Explorer. See http://www.grants.gov/resources/download_software. jsp :

To operate PureEdge Viewer, your computer must meet the following system requirements: Windows 98, ME, NT 4.0, 2000, XP... PureEdge on Grants.gov will not run within the Firefox browser.


They do have a Citrix substitute for non-Windows users. However:

Note that a limited amount of users can access the Citrix Server at any one time... Finally, you will find the best time to work and submit an application via Citrix is during off-peak hours, usually between 10 p.m. and 10 a.m., EST.


Finally, if your organization has more than 10 non-Windows users, they want you to add a dedicated Windows box to handle the traffic.

Why is it legal for the federal government to require applicants to use an expensive, proprietary system with terrible security? This is particularly surprising because many technical people, from program officers to computer administrators, in the government personally like open source and detest MS.

As a crazy guess, over 100,000 different people each year submit proposals. That's 100,000 people who must have MS Windows licenses whether they want to or not.

Anyone who was concerned about the open format fight in Massachusetts last year should be concerned about grants.gov.

Finally, for National Science Foundation clients, this is a big step backwards. NSF has had an excellent online system, http://fastlane.nsf.gov/ for years. Fastlane has no bias towards MS. However, by federal edict, NSF people must also use grants.gov.
Communications

Inside the iPhone — 3G, ARM, OS X, 3rd Partyware 318

Posted by kdawson from the informed-speculation dept.
DECS writes "After heading off the top ten myths of the iPhone, Daniel Eran of RoughlyDrafted has written a series of articles looking 'Inside the iPhone,' exploring (1) why Apple didn't target faster 3G networks, (2) a substantiated look at how the iPhone is indeed running OS X (contrary to reports that it isn't), and (3) what it means to users and developers, and how ARM is involved, in Mac OS X, ARM, and iPod OS X, and why the supposedly 'closed' system Apple describes for the iPhone won't preclude third party development."
Security

Submission + - Password management memory tools

Submitted by
New Media Blogger
New Media Blogger writes: "A co-worker of mine recently got burned hard because they used the same password for all of their online accounts. This experience led me to compile a list of easy-to-use password management memory tools (all free, of course), which make it infinitely easier for me to keep track of my dozens of passwords. I am sure many of the Slashdot crowd have memory tools of their own — what are you favourite password memorization tools?"

Suing Google Over Pagerank 427

Posted by CmdrTaco from the this-can't-be-the-first-time dept.
Yardboy wrote in to tell us about a story from Reuters describing a lawsuit by parental advice company Kinderstart.com against Google for 'charging it unfairly deprived the company of customers by downgrading its search-result ranking without reason or warning.' Kinderssart claims Google is responsible for 'a "cataclysmic" 70 percent fall in its audience -- and a resulting 80 percent decline in revenue.' I guess the courts will now decide: Can google taketh what they giveth?

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