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Feed Engadget: The Engadget Interview: Sir Richard Branson, Chairman of Virgin Group (engadget.com)

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Filed under: Features, Transportation


digg_url = 'http://digg.com/offbeat_news/The_Engadget_Intervi ew_Sir_Richard_Branson_Chairman_of_Virgin_Group'; Yesterday we sat down with Sir Richard Branson, Chairman of Virgin Group, in the first class cabin of Air Colbert on the inaugural flight of Virgin America. Richard's day started with a rush through NY rain to make the plane that morning, and was losing his voice on top of it, but he was nice enough to spend a some minutes with us chatting up a few of his myriad of companies. We requested to speak to him about Virgin Galactic, but he isn't allowed to comment on the current situation due to an ongoing investigation into the explosion at Scaled Composites.

Thank you for talking with us today. Congratulations on the flight!

Thank you very much.

How are you liking it?

[Laughs] Well, I'm biased. And we've spent years and years trying to get this Virgin born and off the ground, and so many people have put so much time and effort and sweat and toil into it. Our competitors have tried to smother it at birth and make sure it never happened, but now it's finally happened. It's the perfect birth, I can't think of anything I'd change. She's a beautiful baby, has got beautiful eyes, and I'm very very proud of her, very proud of what everyone's done to get this.

It's definitely been a well publicized fight to make this happen, what made it worth three and a half years to launch Virgin America?

I think anybody who's traveled on the legacy carriers in America will know why people have to fight to try to compete with them. The quality of their service is almost non-existent. I wouldn't say that's particularly the fault of their crews, it's the tools that those crews have been given by their masters, or they haven't been given any tools, and the end result has been... If you look at any poll of the best airlines in the world, I've never seen an American carrier come anywhere but very very near the bottom. So, in a situation like that, it's right for Virgin to come in and shake up that industry. The very fact that we come in and we offer that equality will mean that will lift those legacy carriers, it'll be actually good for them. They'll have to compete back, and I'm sure they will. But, you know, it's up to our team that we always remain one step ahead.

Continue reading The Engadget Interview: Sir Richard Branson, Chairman of Virgin Group

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

Feed Engadget: Vista Performance and Reliability Pack hits the web prematurely (engadget.com)

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Filed under: Desktops, Laptops

Don't look now, but Microsoft is apparently readying a Vista Performance and Reliability Pack for release, and while it's certainly not available through Windows Update just yet, that doesn't mean it's not hiding elsewhere. Reportedly, the aforementioned pack and the Vista Compatibility and Reliability Pack will institute a number of welcome fixes and performance increases in a variety of areas, and though the list is indeed lengthy, a few notables include:
  • Increased compatibility with many video drivers.
  • Improved visual appearance of games with high intensity graphics.
  • Improved quality of playback for HD DVD and Blue-Ray disks on large monitors.
  • Improved reliability for Internet Explorer when some third party toolbars are installed on Vista.
  • Improved reliability of systems that were upgraded from XP to Vista.
  • Resolves an issue where creating AVI files on Vista may get corrupted.
  • Improves the performance of Vista's Memory Manager in specific customer scenarios and prevents some issues which may lead to memory corruption.
So if all the red flags prove correct, Vista users can eagerly await an official release of the updates, or if you're the adventurous type, you can bypass the whole "waiting" thing altogether and get your download on immediately.

[Via TechSpot]

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

Submission + - Ted Stevens' Home Raided

Submitted by el_munkie
el_munkie writes: It appears that the home of Senator Ted Stevens is in the process of being raided by the FBI and the IRS. According to the article, a remodeling project at Stevens' home and the involvement of Veco, an oil company, are the focus of the raid.

Feed news.com: NowPublic is now funded (com.com)

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Blog: "Citizen journalism" hub NowPublic has raised $10.6 million dollars in venture capital following the $1.4 million last year in angel funding reports VentureBeat.
Privacy

Letter Casts Doubt On Yahoo China Testimony 59

Posted by kdawson from the what-did-they-know-and-when dept.
Saint Aardvark writes "A hand-written letter has surfaced that sheds new light on the case of Chinese reporter Shi Tao. The letter (PDF), believed to be from Chinese police, 'is essentially a standardized search warrant making clear that Chinese law enforcement agencies have the legal authority to collect evidence in criminal cases. This contradicts Yahoo's testimony (PDF) to Congress in 2006 that they 'had no information about the nature of the investigation.' 'One does not have to be an expert in Chinese law to know that 'state secrets' charges have often been used to punish political dissent in China,' says Joshua Rosenzweig, manager of research and publications for The Dui Hua Foundation. Shi Tao was sentenced to 10 years in prison for his reporting on the Tianamen Square massacre."
Wii

Wii Puts Japanese Television Under Pressure 98

Posted by Zonk from the must-not-see-teevee dept.
Knuckles writes "The Times reports that Japanese consumers have been 'abandoning television' in order to play with Nintendo's Wii. Recent figures from Japan's audience-tracking firms show that 'last week was the first in nearly two decades where no single show on any commercial station attracted more than a 9 per cent audience share ... According to one senior executive of the country's largest commercial television channel, Fuji TV, families who used to tune in to its colourful diet of soap operas, panel games and comedy variety shows may, instead, be drifting away and choosing to spend the same, economically-critical golden hour time playing on their Wii.'"

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