Comment just to point out... (Score 1) 270
X-37B not X-38B (there propably is a difference... whatever)
Submission + - NY Legislature rejects "Microsoft amendment (computerworld.com)
An anonymous reader writes: Finally, some good news on electronic voting. The New York state legislature
rejected an amendment proposed by Microsoft's lobbyists which would have gutted New York's requirements for voting machine vendors to turn over their source code to the state Board of Elections.
Assemblywoman Barbara Lifton commented: "The voting machine vendors have known for two years what our laws said. Now they're saying that those parts of their systems using Microsoft software have to be proprietary? It's just wrong."
Assemblywoman Barbara Lifton commented: "The voting machine vendors have known for two years what our laws said. Now they're saying that those parts of their systems using Microsoft software have to be proprietary? It's just wrong."
Submission + - Intel Patches Flaws in Processors 4
Nom du Keyboard writes: According to this article in The Inquirer and this Microsoft Knowledge Base article, a fix for some significant problems in many of Intel's most recent processors, including Core 2 Duo E4000/E6000, Core 2 Quad Q6600, Core 2 Xtreme X6800, XC6700 and XC6800 has been quietly released. Details on just what has been fixed are scanty (it's called a "reliability update"), however, it's probably more important than either Intel, or Microsoft, is openly admitting. Does this give the feeling of a cover-up?
Journal Journal: Look how supermodels really look.
Feed News: Google improves Maps with street views, miniapps (macworld.com)
Submission + - New Zealand rejects Office for Macs.
An anonymous reader writes: The NZPA is reporting that the New Zealand Ministry of Education has declined to renew a licensing deal for MS Office on 25,000 Macintosh computers in the countries schools. The Education Minister, Steve Maharey, has even gone to suggest schools use free alternative NeoOffice. However a school Principal has spoken out against the decision, claiming the NeoOffice website warned users to expect problems and bugs, saying: "That's not the sort of software we should be expecting kids in New Zealand to be using."
Submission + - Is parallel programming just too hard?
pcause writes: There has been a lot of
talk recently about the need for programmers to shift paradigms and begin building more parallel applications and systems. The need to do this and the hardware and systems to support it have been around for a while, but we haven't seen a lot of progress. The article says that gaming systems have made progress, but MMOGs are typically years late and I'll bet part of the problem is trying to be more parallel/distributed.
Since this discussion has been going on for over a decade with little progress in terms of widespread change, one has to ask is parallel programming just too difficult for most programmers? Are the tools inadequate or perhaps is it that it is very difficult to think about parallel systems. Maybe it is a fundamental human limit. Will we really see progress in the next 10 years that matches the progress of the silicon?
Since this discussion has been going on for over a decade with little progress in terms of widespread change, one has to ask is parallel programming just too difficult for most programmers? Are the tools inadequate or perhaps is it that it is very difficult to think about parallel systems. Maybe it is a fundamental human limit. Will we really see progress in the next 10 years that matches the progress of the silicon?
Submission + - Storing Music for Personal Use Online is Illegal
An anonymous reader writes: In a court case of JASRAC vs. Image City, The Tokyo District Court handed down a ruling that says Image City's MYUTA service is guilty of copyright infringement. MYUTA is an online music storage service that allows users to upload music from their own CDs etc. to a central server from which they can download to their cellphones to listen to. Music uploaded to the central server is accessible only by the user who uploaded it and can only be downloaded to their cellphone. Despite the music only being stored for personal use, the ruling reasoned that the act of uploading music to a central server owned by a company is the equivalent of distributing music to that company. This has implications for other services such as Yahoo! Briefcase which could mean Yahoo! is gulity of copyright infringement if any of its users store music in their account for personal use. Google's translation can have a go at the original Japanese article.
Feed MPAA claims prevention of 31 illegal recordings of Spider-Man 3 (engadget.com)
Filed under: Home Entertainment
We resent writing about the MPAA, simply because every time the organization makes a statement it invariably exposes some aspect of its backwards perspective. This time the Association has made the rather preposterous claim that the efforts of staff and customers in preventing illegal recordings of Spider-Man 3 gave the film "a fair shot at its record-setting opening." In all, 31 people were caught illegally recording the movie, a figure which is apparently thanks to night vision equipped cinema staff (motivated by a $500 reward for each case) and reporting from the patrons themselves in a few cases. The logic that this in some way helped assure that the film would be a commercial success is shaky at best: it only takes a single recording for the film to become "pirated." And of course, if the system for detecting illegal recordings of movies is working so well, why do we still have to sit through those patronizing anti-piracy PSAs?[Via TechDirt; Image credit]
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Office Depot Featured Gadget: Xbox 360 Platinum System Packs the power to bring games to life!
Journal Journal: Quad boot on a MacBook Pro
The goal is to be able to natively boot 4 Operating Systems on my laptop, a first-generation MacBook Pro 15.4". These notes detail how I succeeded or failed.
My short-term goal is to run the following OSes:
- Mac OS 10.4 -- Tiger
- Windows XP
- Windows Vista
- Linux
My medium-term goal is to run the following OSes:
Feed Engadget: 1, Fake Engadget store: 0 (engadget.com)
Filed under: Announcements
Remember that fake Engadget store in Malaysia that stole our name and logo and then pretended they'd never heard of us when one of our readers dropped by and called them on it? Well, we have some good news: the bastards are out of business! Or at least they've stopped using our name! Not sure exactly what happened, but reader Kurt Low dropped by the Midvalley Megamall in Kuala Lumpur the other day and discovered that the "Engadget" store had been replaced by a new tech shop called "fixIT.com". (We thought that maybe they'd decided to rip off some other tech site, but a visit to fixit.com reveals only a placeholder for a site that doesn't exist yet.) Anyway, big ups to all our Malaysian readers for boycotting the "Engadget" store, looks like we won this round!
[Thanks, Kurt]
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Office Depot Featured Gadget: Xbox 360 Platinum System Packs the power to bring games to life!
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...when fits of creativity run strong, more than one programmer or writer has been known to abandon the desktop for the more spacious floor. - Fred Brooks, Jr.
