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Businesses

Lawsuit Shows Dell Hid Extent of Computer Flaws 272

Posted by Soulskill from the computer-may-or-may-not-generate-black-holes dept.
Geoffrey.landis writes "According to an article in the New York Times, documents revealed in a lawsuit against Dell show that the computer maker hid the extent of possible damages due to a faulty capacitor in the computers it shipped from 2003 to 2005. Dell employees were told, 'Don't bring this to customer's attention proactively,' and 'emphasize uncertainty.' (PDF) 'As it tried to deal with the mounting issues, Dell began ranking customers by importance, putting first those who might move their accounts to another PC maker, followed by those who might curtail sales and giving the lowest priority to those who were bothered but still willing to stick with Dell.' In other words, the most loyal customers got the worst treatment."
Encryption

British Teen Jailed Over Encryption Password 1155

Posted by CmdrTaco from the yeah-good-luck-with-that dept.
An anonymous reader writes "Oliver Drage, 19, of Liverpool has been convicted of 'failing to disclose an encryption key,' which is an offense under the Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act 2000 and as a result has been jailed for 16 weeks. Police seized his computer but could not get past the 50-character encrypted password that he refused to give up. And just to get it out of the way, obligatory XKCD."
The Internet

Bittorrent To Replace Standard Downloads? 591

Posted by samzenpus from the sharing-the-load dept.
Max Sayre writes "Have you ever tried to download an operating system update only to have it fail and have to start all over? What about patches for your favorite games? World of Warcraft already uses Bittorrent technology as a way to distribute large amounts of content at a lower cost to the company and faster speeds to all of their clients. So why haven't they replaced the standard downloading options built into any major OS? Companies like Opera are including the downloading of torrents in their products already and extensions have been written for Firefox to download torrents in-browser. Every day Bittorrent traffic is growing. Sites like OpenBittorrent already exist and DHT doesn't even require a tracker. So why isn't everyone doing it? Is it finally time to see all downloads replaced with Bittorrent?"
Music

Anti-Piracy Lawyers Caught Pirating Each Other 131

Posted by samzenpus from the dog-eat-dog dept.
An anonymous reader writes "We would like to think that the lawyers that are prosecuting alleged copyright infringers are practicing what they preach, but it looks like one of the most high profile firms involved in such cases are just as guilty of stealing others' work as those who are downloading illegal media."
Microsoft

66% of All Windows Users Still Use Windows XP 931

Posted by samzenpus from the if-it-ain't-broke-don't-fix-it dept.
An anonymous reader writes "Almost one year after the introduction of Windows 7 it appears that the hype surrounding it has faded. The overall market share of Windows has turned into a slight decline again. Windows 7 is gaining share, but cannot keep pace with the loss of Windows XP and Vista. Especially Windows XP users seem to be happy with what they have and appear to be rather resistant to Microsoft's pitches that it is time to upgrade to Windows 7."

Feed Engadget: Best Buy's Insignia Kix: please make it stop (engadget.com)

From feed by engfeed

Filed under: Portable Audio

Look out Apple, Microsoft, SanDisk and anyone else who actually gives a damn about DAP design, features and quality: Best Buy still has a horse in this race. We were positively floored by the unadulterated horror of last year's NS-DVxG DAP from Best Buy's in-house Insignia brand, and now here comes the Insignia Kix to provide a low-cost, 1-inch screened entry to Insignia's shoddy lineup. The player supports MP3, WMA, WAV and Audible, sports an FM tuner, runs for 30 hours on a lithium-ion battery, and stores 1GB of your tunes for $60. We suppose we can't rag on 'em for building a USB mass storage device, but that's about as positive as we're going to get for this one.

[Via dapreview]

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Office Depot Featured Gadget: Xbox 360 Platinum System Packs the power to bring games to life!

Feed Engadget: Patent investigation could force hard drives off US market (engadget.com)

From feed by engfeed

Filed under: Storage

This one's still a ways off, but the International Trade Commission has just launched a patent investigation into five manufacturers that could result in a ban on hard drive imports if the agency finds evidence of infringement. The patents, which are owned by Californians Steven and Mary Reiber, cover a method of using "ceramic bonding tips" on the internal wiring of the drives, and the couple claims Western Digital, Seagate, Toshiba, Hewlett-Packard, and Dell have all infringed. Much like the Qualcomm case, the ITC has a variety of ways of dealing with the situation and the parties have a lot of methods of appeal, but products that infringe on US patents are barred from being imported, so this initial determination will set off a lot of dominoes when it gets made in 45 days. Details are still pretty sketchy on what exactly the ITC is investigating, but we'll definitely keep you updated as we get more info.

Disclaimer: Although this post was written by an attorney, it is not meant to be legal advice or analysis and should not be taken as such.

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Office Depot Featured Gadget: Xbox 360 Platinum System Packs the power to bring games to life!
Windows

Windows XP SP3 Build 3205 Released w/ New Features 286

Posted by Zonk from the new-tricks-for-an-old-dog dept.
jBubba writes "Windows XP SP3 build 3205 is the first official & authorized release of the next Windows XP service pack; and has been made available to testers as a part of the Windows Server 2008/Windows Vista SP1 beta program. NeoSmart Technologies has the run-down on the included 1,073 patches/hotfixes including security updates. Contrary to popular belief, Windows XP SP3 does ship with new features/components, most of which have been backported from Windows Vista. Some included features: 'New Windows Product Activation model: no need to enter product key during setup. Network Access Protection modules and policies have been brought to XP after being one of the more-well-received features in Windows Vista. New Microsoft Kernel Mode Cryptographic Module - the Windows XP SP3 kernel now includes an entire module that provides easy access to multiple cryptographic algorithms and is available for use in kernel-mode drivers and services. New "Black Hole Router" detection - Windows XP SP3 can detect and protect against rogue routers that are discarding data.'"
The Courts

Submission + - Judge bars RIAA prez from testifying in P2P case (arstechnica.com) 3

Submitted by Eskimo Joe
Eskimo Joe writes: A federal judge surprised observers in the Captiol v Thomas file-sharing trial today by barring RIAA president Cary Sherman from testifying. 'After a brief recess this afternoon, plaintiffs' counsel Richard Gabriel and defendant's counsel David Toder made their cases before the judge as to the relevance of Sherman's testimony. Toder argued that Sherman's testimony was not relevant to the question at hand, the fact of whether Thomas was liable for copyright infringement. Gabriel said that Sherman would be able to tell the jury why this case was significant, and more importantly, describe the harm the RIAA believes piracy has caused to the music industry. "I don't want to turn this case into a soap box for the recording industry," Toder argued in response.' Testimony wrapped up today with closing arguments expected Thursday morning.
Space

Will China Beat the United States Back to the Moon? 482

Posted by Zonk from the they'll-make-the-trip-from-the-earth-to-the-moon dept.
MarkWhittington writes "During an address on the space economy to coincide with the fiftieth anniversary of the start of the space age, NASA Administrator Michael Griffin made the assertion that China would beat the United States back to the Moon. 'Americans will not like it, but they will just have to not like it. I think we will see, as we have seen with China's introductory manned space flights so far, we will see again that nations look up to other nations that appear to be at the top of the technical pyramid, and they want to do deals with those nations. It's one of the things that made us the world's greatest economic power. So I think we'll be reinstructed in that lesson in the coming years and I hope that Americans will take that instruction positively and react to it by investing in those things that are the leading edge of what's possible."'"

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