Comment Re:ummmm.... (Score 1) 102
Well, I guess the firmware blocks downloads via their APN.
Submission + - Could a meteor have brought down Air France 447? 1
niktemadur writes: In light of an Air Comet pilot's report to Air France, Airbus and the Spanish civil aviation authority that, during a Monday flight from Lima to Lisbon "Suddenly, we saw in the distance a strong and intense flash of white light, which followed a descending and vertical trajectory and which broke up in six seconds", the Cosmic Variance blog team on the Discover Magazine website muses on the question "What is the probability that, for all flights in history, one or more could have been downed by a meteor?". Taking into account total flight hours and the rate of meteoric activity with the requisite mass to impact on Earth (approximately 3,000 a day), some quick math suggests there may be one in twenty odds of a plane being brought down in the period from 1989 to 2009.
Intriguingly, in the aftermath of TWA flight 800's crash in 1996, the New York Times published a letter by Columbia professors Charles Hailey (physics) and David Helfand (astronomy), in which they stated the odds of a meteor-airplane collision for aviation history up to that point: one in ten.
Submission + - WARNING: driver updates causing Vista deactivation (apcmag.com)
KrispySausage writes: "After weeks of gruelling troubleshooting, I've finally had it confirmed by Microsoft Australia and USA — something as small as swapping the video card or updating a device driver can trigger a total Vista deactivation.
Put simply, your copy of Windows will stop working with very little notice (three days) and your PC will go into "reduced functionality" mode, where you can't do anything but use the web browser for half an hour.
How can this ridiculous situation occur, and what is Microsoft's response... read on."
Put simply, your copy of Windows will stop working with very little notice (three days) and your PC will go into "reduced functionality" mode, where you can't do anything but use the web browser for half an hour.
How can this ridiculous situation occur, and what is Microsoft's response... read on."
Submission + - Linus Torvalds speaks out on future of Linux (apcmag.com)
SlinkySausage writes: "Linus Torvalds has laid out his plans for the future of Linux, including the 3.0 kernel [there probably won't be one], problems with the Linux release cycles and which distro he personally runs on his home PC. "'Compile everything by hand' ones simply weren't interesting to me," Torvalds says. And there was that time he was bitten by a ferocious real-life penguin. The interview on APCMag.com is interesting reading."
Microsoft Says "War on Terror" is Overblown 666
SlinkySausage writes "The endless security measures imposed on society as a result of the "war on terror" have become overblown and intrusive, according to Microsoft Redmond senior security analyst Steve Riley. He made the comments in a talk at day one of Tech.Ed Australia about software security. Riley also fessed up that Microsoft cocked up XP from a security perspective. "We let you down with XP," he said.
Microsoft also showed a very interesting new desktop virtualisation technology called SoftGrid, which allows applications to be virtualised individually, rather than a whole OS. Think Virtual PC or VMware, but instead of virtualising an OS, just a single application is virtualised."
Submission + - War on terror overblown, says Microsoft (apcmag.com)
SlinkySausage writes: "The endless security measures imposed on society as a result of the "war on terror" have become overblown and intrusive, according to Microsoft Redmond senior security analyst Steve Riley. (The same can be said for some security measures *cough*Vista UAC*cough*). He made the comments in a talk at day one of Tech.Ed Australia about software security.
Riley also fessed up that Microsoft cocked up XP from a security perspective. "We let you down with XP," he said.
Microsoft also showed a very interesting new desktop virtualisation technology called SoftGrid, which allows applications to be virtualised individually, rather than a whole OS. Think Virtual PC or VMware, but instead of virtualising an OS, just a single application is virtualised."
Riley also fessed up that Microsoft cocked up XP from a security perspective. "We let you down with XP," he said.
Microsoft also showed a very interesting new desktop virtualisation technology called SoftGrid, which allows applications to be virtualised individually, rather than a whole OS. Think Virtual PC or VMware, but instead of virtualising an OS, just a single application is virtualised."
Submission + - Why Linux has failed on the desktop: Con Kolivas (apcmag.com)
SlinkySausage writes: "Linux is burdened with "enterprise crap" that makes it run poorly on desktop PCs, says kernel developer Con Kolivas who recently walked away from years of work on the kernel in despair. APCmag.com has a lengthy interview with Kolivas, who explains what he sees is wrong with Linux from a performance perspective and how Microsoft has succeeded in crushing innovation in personal computers."
Submission + - Inflight internet returns to the skies -- Qantas (apcmag.com)
SlinkySausage writes: "Australian international airline Qantas has just announced inflight broadband will be available across all classes in its new fleet of A380s, as well as laptop power in economy and internet access in the seat-back entertainment system! It is also retrofitting existing 747s with elements of the scheme. Interestingly, it is also offering USB and RJ45 (!!) ports to every passenger but has yet to disclose what these will be used for. Full story at APC Magazine."
Microsoft Pleads With Consumers to Adopt Vista Now 912
SlinkySausage writes "Microsoft has admitted, in an email to the press, that 'some customers may be waiting to adopt Windows Vista because they've heard rumors about device or application compatibility issues, or because they think they should wait for a service pack release.' The company is now pleading with customers not to wait until the release of SP1 at the end of the year, launching a 'fact rich' program to try to convince them to 'proceed with confidence'. The announcement coincides with an embarrassing double-backflip: Microsoft had pre-briefed journalists that it was going to allow home users to run Vista basic and premium under virtual machines like VMWare, but it changed its mind at the last minute and pulled the announcement."
Submission + - Don't wait for Vista SP1, pleads Microsoft (apcmag.com)
SlinkySausage writes: ""Some customers may be waiting to adopt Windows Vista because they've heard rumors about device or application compatibility issues, or because they think they should wait for a service pack release," Microsoft has admitted in an email. The company is pleading with customers not to wait until the release of SP1 at the end of the year, launching a "fact rich" program to try to convince them to "proceed with confidence". The announcement coincides with an embarrassing double-backflip: Microsoft had pre-briefed journalists that it was going to allow home users to run Vista basic and premium under virtual machines like VMWare, but it changed its mind at the last minute and pulled the announcement."
Submission + - The darkside of Google taking over your ISP's emai
SlinkySausage writes: "Google is offering ISPs the opportunity to turn over their entire email system to Google, with all customer email hosted as Gmail accounts. This would allow Google to rapidly grow its userbase (it trails a distant third to Yahoo Mail with only 51million users compared to Yahoo's 250million and Hotmail's 228 million users.) There are some obvious benefits to end users — Google is offering ISPs mailboxes of up to 10GB per user. But APCMag.com has posted an interesting piece looking at the "dark side" of the deal, not least the fact that it simply reinforces the attachment people have to their ISP's email address, making it much harder to change ISPs if a better deal comes up. Question is: is a 10GB ISP mailbox for every ISP user a sufficient benefit to outweigh the numerous downsides?"
Submission + - Microsoft to dump 32 bit after Vista
SlinkySausage writes: "Microsoft has used its annual hardware engineering conference to announce that Windows Vista and Server 2008 will be the last versions of Windows capable of booting on 32-bit CPUs such as Intel Pentium 4 and Core Duo. AMD, which introduced 64-bit CPUs early much to the derision of Intel, which said there was no use for them at the time, must be delighted with Microsoft's decision. Owners of first generation Intel Macs which used (32-bit only) Core Duo CPUs may not be so happy."
