Comment Re:Widespread interest (Score 1) 187
I completely agree. I find two party systems encourage going negative. It doesn't matter how bad you make yourself look when attacking the other party, as long as you make them look worse.
Sony Finally Turning a Profit On PS3s 117
When the PS3 launched in 2006, estimates pegged the price of producing the consoles to be as much as $250 more than the price at which they were sold. Production costs have dropped since then, but there have been several price cuts as well. Now, almost four years later, Sony Worldwide Studios president Shuhei Yoshida says they're finally turning a profit on the hardware.
"This year is the first time that we are able to cover the cost of the PlayStation 3,' Yoshida said. 'We aren't making huge money from hardware, but we aren't bleeding like we used to.' In May, Sony began shipping new PlayStation 3 consoles with smaller and more cost-effective graphics chips. Now, Yoshida said, Sony is looking at replenishing retail stock that has been running on empty since January rather than cutting the price. 'When we bring the cost of hardware down, we are looking at opportunities to adjust prices if we believe that will increase demand,' he explained. 'At the moment, we are trying to catch up our production.'"
Comment Our customers keep asking for IPv6... (Score 1) 340
but we keep having to telling them there's no demand for it. I mean can't they understand that there's no business case for it if none of customers want it. Oh wait...
Comment Re:bill, don't throttle (Score 1) 640
You don't pay for "X bandwidth" on home internet connections, you pay for a particular type of connection with a theoretical maximum that the provider makes quite clear a) you may never actually reach (eg: due to unavoidable technical limitations like distance from the exchange) and b) they are under no obligation to deliver at all, let alone constantly.
And I'd be totally happy with that if ISP's were required to advertise their oversell ratio right next to their maximum speed and be legally held to that oversell ratio. That way, when deciding which ISP to sign up with, I can compare them on that basis.
If that's too much government intervention then at least make the ISP's publish their current oversell ratio, so that you can decide to drop them if it starts to suck too much.
Comment AMD does not recommend... (Score 1) 303
AMD does not recommend pouring liquid nitrogen on your head or on your friend's head...
Unless, of course, your friend works at Intel.
US Army Files Found On Second-Hand MP3 Player 184
MichaelSmith writes "A New Zealand man who bought a second hand MP3 player from a store in the US found it loaded with the names and personal details of American soldiers, as well as a mission briefing and information about equipment.
Chris Ogle says he will return the unit to the US Defense Department if asked, and that it never worked as a music player anyway.
A
slightly different version of the story is available from TVNZ."
Comment Re:Not banning plasmas. (Score 4, Insightful) 278
If I'm willing to pay the money to power my appliance, and the power company is making a profit off me, who exactly is losing?>
Joe Next Door loses when electricity rates go up in reponse to the increased electricity demand. They likely won't come down until years after a new generation plant is built to pay off the cap-ex. So your increase in demand is being subsidized by your Joe Next Door paying more for the same amount of electricity, or by his reduction in electricity use to maintain the same agregate demand.
Seriously, it's the magic of the invisible hand that issues like that are taken care of.
In this case, the pressure to improve power efficiency would have been delayed while waiting for the invisible hand to stop scratching its ass.
On the broader issue of global warming, waiting for the invisible hand to correct the market is a non-starter. By the time market pressures build enough for people to notice, the damage has been done. The damage needs to be done (ie population reduction due to decreased food production) for there to be a market pressure.
Technologies To Watch Fail In 2009 108
An anonymous reader writes "Microblogs, targeted advertising, social news, online video, streaming music, and enterprise social networking are among the technologies that will probably fail in 2009, according to a new report from Internet Evolution. The report cites revenue figures, failed or non-existent business models, and an overabundance of 'me-too' start-ups, combined with the current recession, as reasons the aforementioned technologies might not survive the year. 'Whereas the past couple of years have been defined by overcrowding and overfunding in the Web 2.0 space, and an onslaught of startups with no purpose or plan to make money, this recessionary year is likely to see more due diligence on the part of VCs, allowing strong companies and technologies to emerge from the smoldering pile of dead ones.'"
Facebook Nudity Policy Draws Nursing Moms' Ire 904
HSRD writes "Web-savvy moms who breast-feed are irate that social networking sites like Facebook and MySpace restrict photos of nursing babies. The disputes reveal how the sites' community policing techniques sometimes struggle to keep up with the booming number and diversity of their members."
"See-Through" Touchscreen Solves Fat Finger Problem 170
Urchin sends along a New Scientist writeup on Microsoft Research's nanoTouch prototype, a way of operating a touch screen from the rear (video here). The prototype will be presented at the Computer and Human Interaction conference in Boston, Mass., in April 2009. Coming soon to a wristwatch or neck pendant near you. "Electronic devices have been shrinking for years, but you might be forgiven for thinking that one that's only a centimeter across would be just too difficult to operate. Microsoft Research's new nanoTouch device suggests otherwise. Touch-screens are difficult to control with any precision — the fingers get in the way of the tiny targets you're trying to hit. But putting the touch interface on the rear of the screen instead gives users more precision because they can still see the whole screen as they interact with it. Microsoft Research has produced a prototype device called nanoTouch with a rear-mounted touch interface. User tests show it lets users accurately and reliably hit targets just 2 millimeters across on a screen under a centimeter across."
Java Performance On Ubuntu Vs. Windows Vista 258
Henckle writes "Phoronix did a comparison of the Java performance between Ubuntu and Windows Vista. They tested both Java and OpenJDK on Ubuntu 8.10 and Java on Windows Vista Premium SP1, all with stock configurations. To no-one's surprise, Ubuntu was faster in a majority of the tests. The two OSs were similar in ray-tracing, and Vista was faster at Java OpenGL due to shortcomings with the Linux graphics driver."
Linux Compatibility With VR Goggles? 170
WorldWarCheese writes "Many's the time I wish I had a little more mobility or comfort with my computer. Laptops are OK, but anyone interested can see right onto my screen; and a laptop doesn't quite have that 'cool' factor that VR goggles / headsets do. The problem is, whenever I've looked at the options, Linux compatibility is not mentioned. Is there a VR headset out there that is compatible with Ubuntu? If not, what could I do to make it compatible, and how feasible would that be?"
Toshiba To OEM Laptops With OpenSolaris 226
ruphus13 writes to tell us of Sun's latest attempt to drive OpenSolaris adoption. The company has inked a deal to pre-install OpenSolaris on Toshiba laptops. "Slowly but surely, major laptop vendors are taking to the idea of shipping systems with pre-loaded open source operating systems. The latest case in point is Toshiba — one of the longest-standing players in the market for portable computers — and its new plan to pre-install Sun Microsystems' OpenSolaris on its laptops. The machines are supposed to ship in early 2009."
1/3 of Amphibians Dying Out 467
Death Metal sends in a Scientific American article reporting that 2,000 of 6,000 amphibian species are endangered worldwide. A combination of environmental assaults, including global warming, seems to be responsible. "... national parks and other areas protected from pollution and development are providing no refuge. The frogs and salamanders of Yellowstone National Park have been declining since the 1980s, according to a Stanford University study, as global warming dries out seasonal ponds, leaving dried salamander corpses in their wake. Since the 1970s, nearly 75 percent of the frogs and other amphibians of La Selva Biological Station in Braulio Carrillo National Park in the Caribbean lowlands of Costa Rica have died, perhaps due to global warming. But the really bad news is that amphibians may be just the first sign of other species in trouble. Biologists at the University of California, San Diego, have shown that amphibians are the first to respond to environmental changes, thanks to their sensitivity to both air and water. What goes for amphibians may soon be true of other classes of animal, including mammals."
Early Voting Problems, Open Source Alternative 164
Techdirt makes note of some problems cropping up already for early voters in the presidential election. CNN covers some of the issues, including machines in a West Virginia county which recorded some votes incorrectly because of an alignment error. A lengthy discussion of the problems was also featured on NPR. Reader Rooked_One points out a related story at NPR about a voting program called PVOTE, written in Python and only 500 lines long. "Pvote is not a complete voting system. It is just the software program that interacts with the voter. Other necessary functions, such as voter registration, ballot preparation, and canvassing, are not part of Pvote. It is especially important that the voter interaction be correct because it is the only part of an election that must take place in private, whereas all other parts of an election can and should be subjected to public oversight and verification."
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