Tags: firefox, internet explorer, safari, netscape
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BMW develops ecofriendly city-car
With gas prices on the rise again, hybrid vehicles once again come to mind.
But let's face it, those Toyota Priuses make you look as hip as if you were wearing Tevas to a night club.
All the style conscious tree huggers therefore should be rejoicing that BMW is developing a city vehicle that will get 100 miles to the gallon, including BMW styling and coolness.
At such fuel consumption rates, it also starts to make sense to use a hybrid vehicle. Because the current generation of hybrids are lacking in several areas, as the NY Times pointed out recently. A fuel sipping hybrid only really benefits in the city. On the highway the electric motor won't do you any good, just forcing you burn gas to haul the battery's weight around.
Even worse, some of the new hybrids such as the Ford Escape Hybrid and Lexus RX Hybrid are still gas guzzling monsters. They're just somewhat less gas guzzling monsters.
Consumers aren't biting, and wisely so. Driving a Toyota Prius Hybrid for five year and 75,000 miles is likely to save the owner a whopping $300, while some of the other models actually cost more than a gasoline vehicle.
Lexus RX Hybrid: posing as eco-friendly but guzzling at a rate of 31 miles per gallon in the city and 27 per gallon on the highway.
Tags: hybrid, bmw, toyota prius, lexus RX hybrid
April 29, 2006 at 02:40 AM | Permalink | Comments (6) | TrackBack
Student busted for PSP porn
Police in Bismarck have charged a 14 year-old student with a class C felony after he brought porn images to school on his Sony PSP.
Well, that and showing it to his fellow students, which in legal term amounts to "promoting obscenity to minors".
The student got into even more trouble when he retaliated against a fellow student who had told on him, scratching him a key. It just goes to show that nothing good comes from porn.
April 29, 2006 at 02:30 AM | Permalink | Comments (121) | TrackBack
F-Secure casts some stones
Blogs can be a powerful tool to spread information, but this week we were saddened when F-Secure chose to use its blog to wrongly accuse vnunet.com of spreading misinformation (full disclosure: this blog is part of vnunet.com and its author is a vnunet.com employee).
Vnunet.com reporter Matt Chapman at the Infosec security expo in London spoke with F-Secure's UK country manager, who told him about a new Symbian worm that allegedly sends text messages to premium numbers. Smelling an interesting news story, Iain assumed that a country manager for F-Secure qualified as a trustworthy news source, and proceeded to write his story.
F-secure on Thursday responded on its blog, claming that Iain had his facts mixed up. But while the blog post was written at F-Secure's corporate headquarters in Finland, they failed to check with either F-Secure UK or with vnunet.com. While accusing vnunet.com of poor reporting, they failed to check their facts and rushed to conclusions.
An audio recording soon popped up that set the record straight (audio linked below). While it took some time and several friendly emails, F-Secure has now updated its blog and removed all accusations against vnunet.com.
The question remains how many of the people who saw the original blog posting will also read the updated version. Blogging isn't just nice PR tool, but comes with a certain responsibility too.
But no hard feelings.
Misinformation can lead to embarrassing situations
Photo: steven todey
Tags: f-secure, security, blogosphere
April 29, 2006 at 01:12 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack
Microsoft ups the piracy stakes
Microsoft's latest security update offer a little more than just that. Users running a pirated copy of the operating system found out that they will now receive periodic, nagging reminders of the fact that their copy of Windows failed to pass an authenticity test.
But rest assured, the reminders are easily defeated.
This is just another step in a never ending game of cat and mouse between pirates and commercial software makers.
But how long will Microsoft continue to play nicely? If the company can give you a nagging reminder, it can wipe your entire hard drive. That potential threat plus the fact that using pirated software is just as bad as stealing beer from the super market, should be enough reason to stop using illegally copied software.
Besides, there are plenty of free software applications available. All the more reason to go for the free beer instead of stealing some.
Tags: Microsoft, windows genuine advantage, piracy
April 28, 2006 at 01:38 AM | Permalink | Comments (2) | TrackBack
Sun's new corporate strategy
Observing Sun sometimes can be like watching a metronome in action, swinging back and forward and touting every new product as the next big thing that will squash IBM, Intel, Dell and HP (either one or all of them, depending on the day of the week).
But after seeing Sun's "wheel of strategy", it all made sense again (click on the image to view a slightly larger version).
Via: JWZ
Tags: sun microsystems, strategy, jonathan schwartz, scott mcnealy
April 27, 2006 at 11:01 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack
Intel's admits to harsh market realities
Intel is preparing a new reorganisation to meet " business realities", Intel CEO Paul Otellini said at a financial analyst conference this morning.
These things always sound so much better after they are polished up by public relations. But the reality is that Intel failed to anticipate AMD's competition as well as several market trends.
Demand for PCs is starting to level off, and Intel's premium brand positioning makes it a second tier supplier for price conscious markets that show the most growth.
The chipmaker meanwhile is using its platforms to ignite demand for its forthcoming processors. The Viiv platform for instance will entice consumers to put a PC in their living room where there was none before, allowing Intel to sell additional processors. Meanwhile the vPro platform promises to reduce desktop maintenance costs. Those cost savings, Intel hopes, will persuade businesses to purchase systems with the latest Intel chips instead of opting for an older (and therefore cheaper) model.
But it will take several months because those efforts will provide any pay-off. In the mean time Intel will have to see how AMD continues its march forward, and rubs in the Intel's past mistakes.
As Intel is shaking up things, perhaps its time to reconsider the "Leap ahead" new corporate tagline as well.
Mr. Otellini on Monday, facing a leap backwards in the comapny's financial succes.
Tags: intel, AMD, corporate restructuring, paul otellini
April 27, 2006 at 07:43 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack
Yahoo ships do-it-yourself Tivo
Yahoo has released a free application that transforms your computer into a digital video recorder that you can hook up to your television.
The Yahoo! Go TV software provides an interface that can be used from a living room couch, featuring large buttons and icons. And as an added bonus you get some free internet television content in the form of music videos.
A television tuner card is required to record television shows, but the software is worth a look even without one, because the application also plays photo slideshows, DVDs, as well as movies and music stored on your computer hard drive.
Yahoo! Go TV essentially gets you a Viiv PC without the Viiv price tag and the need for Windows XP Media Center Edition. If Yahoo would only provide a version for OS X or Linux, then they can really give Intel and Microsoft a run for their money.
Yahoo Go TV is available for US users only, but the site will still let you download and install the application from anywhere in the world. It will check your location based on the IP address, but instructing your firewall to block all traffic from "YGTV.exe" will solve that problem (although it will also disable all the online features). You could try using a proxy server based in the US, but that requires a bit more of an effort.
Tags: yahoo go TV, yahoo, intel viiv, microsoft, windows xp media center edition, WinMCE
April 27, 2006 at 05:36 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack
Yahoo prepares YouTube competitor
Yahoo! could be looking to expand its Yammy video hosting service to regions out side of South Korea, where the service was developed.
David Rice, the a vice president for product strategy with Yahoo International touted the service as "YouTube on steroids".
He declined to comment on Yahoo's plans (if any) to launch the service outside of Korea, but was quick to add that "video is very important for us."
Yahoo so far has missed out on the user generated video trend, instead linking to videos that are hosted on third party websites as well as YouTube.
This is admittedly a case of reading between the lines. So to let you judge for yourself, I've posted an audio segment where Rice talks about the Yahoo!'s plans for online video.
David Rice
Scribbling the grand Yahoo! vision on the whiteboard
Tags: yahoo, google, youtube, yahoo video, david rice
April 27, 2006 at 12:44 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack
Investors say: Yeah! McNealy's gone, and quickly come to their senses
Sun Microsystems' stock price celebrated McNealy's departure for about 1 hour this morning before it dropped back to it pre-shake up level.
Sun needed some new leadership, but the brief spike demonstrated that investors realized his departure won't result in an instant turnaround.
The fact remains that Sun is struggling to reach profitability. And it might have a nice product technology portfolio, but great technology doesn't always translate into great revenues.
Sun is actually living proof of that. It's up to Schwatz to proof that he can break out of that cycle.
tags: sun microsystems, scott mcnealy, jonathan schwartz
April 25, 2006 at 08:01 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack
Former CA chief takes responsibility for his greed
CA's former boss Sanjay Kumar has pleaded guilty to charges that he manipulated the company's revenues.
A sentence has yet to be set, but the big question isn't about Kumar's jail term, but about what will happen to an outrageous bonus package.
Manipulating CA's revenues allowed Kumar to qualify for a $100m bonus. The figure is outrageous by itself, but even more so because the company prided itself with contributing to several charities – Kumar himself fled Sri Lanka because of the conflict going on there.
The company had a number of pet charity projects. During CA World in 2003 for instance, the company handed out chips to delegates that represented a donation that they could make one of several selected charities. During his keynote presentation at the show, Kumar displayed a video of puppy-eyed children that were saved by those charities.
"I always get a little wet in my eyes when I see that," he commented after the video ended.
That's the same feeling that investors must have gotten when Kumar entered his guilty plea yesterday, admitting that he defrauded them out of millions for his personal financial gain.
Kumar
Photo: CA
Tags: CA, sanjay kumar, fraud, white collar crime, computer associates
April 25, 2006 at 07:52 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack
Where's online video heading? Don't ask the pros
Consumers this year are being flooded with online video services, ranging from Google Video to Sling Media to MTV overdrive.
But do these folks know what they are doing? How do they plan to make money with online videos?
"We don't know. It's so early now that we are seeing a lot of experimentation going on," said Rob Bennett, general manager for MSN Entertainment and Video Services during a Churchill Club roundtable discussion on Monday evening.
Google chimed in, adding that the company doesn't event want to be in the online video hosting business and compete with YouTube. Instead the search engine just wants to index online video. It is hosting the content only because no-one else will.
MTV meanwhile is making great inroads into providing its content over the internet and to mobile devices. But it too is merely pushing TV content onto the internet.
The Churchill Club event had some great panellists who are leading the industry. But they mostly demonstrated that it currently doesn't take much to lead. If any of them has a vision on where online video will go, they did a great job at hiding that information.
It merely enforces one of the comments from the Cubebreak.com video (a parody), where the VP of sales summarizes the mission of the online video site as: "You take bored idiots from their desk to the video site and then we sell ad space around the videos."
left to right:
Rob Bennett, General Manager, MSN Entertainment and Video Services, Microsoft
Jennifer Feikin, Director of Google Video, Google
Blake Krikorian, Founder & CEO, Sling Media
John Papanek, Senior Vice President and Editorial Director, ESPN New Media
Ben White, Vice President, Digital Media, MTV
Tags: churchill club, google video, msn, sling media, slingbox, mtv overdrive, online video
April 25, 2006 at 07:16 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack
McNealy rides into the sun
Sun chief executive Scott McNealy today stepped down, allowing for his long time lieutenant Jonathan Schwartz to take over as the company's new boss. Sun under McNealy's leadership rose to great heights, and made a record plunge.
As Sun was trying to cope with the dotcom bubble's burst, its customers decided to embrace Linux and industry standard servers, creating even more problems for the server maker. After losing the dotcom business, now its clients in banking and finance started to run away.
There have been plenty of calls for McNealy to step down. He allegedly was ready to leave in 2001, but then changed his mind, causing COO Ed Zander to step down instead. He later went on to lead Motorola, which is doing remarkably well under his leadership.
McNealy has a lot to brag about, but his legacy has also been blemished.
McNealy at the RSA Conference earlier this year
Tags: sun microsystems, scott mcnealy, jonathan schwartz
April 25, 2006 at 01:33 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack
Intel travels further down the platform road
Intel this morning launched its vPro business desktop platform.
Similar to the way that Intel Centrino informs consumers that a laptop has build-in Wifi, vPro touts several management and security enhancements that will promise to cut the cost of managing desktop computers in company networks.
The brand will bundle several Intel chipset technologies including Intel Active Management Technology and the VT virtualization technology. And of course, Intel vPro requires one of the company's latest processors: the Conroe chip that will start shipping in the third quarter of this year.
This is a play against AMD, using the bundling of non-processor technologies to increase the Intel market share.
Buyers furthermore don't really care about Intel making faster chips anymore. Creating a new platform allows Intel to talk about innovations and new features that are relevant.
Tags: Intel, AMD, vPro, centrino, Viiv
April 24, 2006 at 07:27 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack
Beware of the Denial of Digg attack
For bloggers and site operators, Digg is a great tool to attract visitors to your website, but as the service is attracting more visitors, the company is tweaking its service to prevent manipulation and outright fraud. Some of those measures however create an opportunity for a new kind of fraud.
Digg's largest problem is that people will use multiple accounts to get their submissions lots of votes and have them promoted to the front page, where they'll get loads of visitors.
The site battles this by banning such accounts. Users furthermore can flag stories as dupes or inaccurate, where a certain number of flags will result in removal from the front page, instead demoting the Digg to a naughty folder.
A third anti-gaming measure however could be pure gold for anyone who's seeking to hit his competitors: Digg will blacklist entire URLs if they are repeatedly linked to manipulation schemes.
The scenario is as follows: I have 50 Digg accounts and use those to submit and promote stories from my blog . Digg will find out and ban the accounts. But I'm the stubborn type and create another 50 accounts, and another 50. Digg will respond by blacklisting my blog's URL, preventing any stories from getting submitted. Problem solved.
But now I'm competing with another blog, and I just hate their guts. So instead of promoting my stories, I'll promote theirs, over and over again. Until Digg blacklists their URL. Now I've cut off a very welcome source of traffic.
Let's call it the "Denial of Digg" attack.
Tags: digg, denial of digg attack, web2.0, manipulation
April 21, 2006 at 09:10 PM | Permalink | Comments (2) | TrackBack
This week in pissed off at Google
The Artists Rights Society, a group representing the estates of more than 40,000 visual artists, is pissed off at Google.
The search engine had the audacity to honour the birthday of painter Joan Miro, one of the group's "clients", through a special version of the Google Logo. The logo did use some elements from Miro's paintings, causing the ARS to cry foul over copyright infringement.
The logo itself isn't violating any copyrights. And if this were some kind of satire, this surely would have been protected as free speech. So what is the big problem here?
Tags: google, artists rights society, Joan Miro
April 21, 2006 at 05:45 PM | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBack
Google readies Orion implementation
Google is testing a new way to present search results that reminds a lot of the Orion technology that the company acquired earlier this month.
The screen shots here (and shamelessly copied below) are pretty clear: each link comes with an "expansion" option that offers additional information on the linked website, related links and an expanded quote from a relevant section of the site.
April 21, 2006 at 01:13 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack
Social websites have a social responsibility
Digg is under fire once again. The "social news website" allegedly isn't as social as it claims to be.
It turns out that stories critical of Digg have a habit of disappearing, using submitting such stories tend to get banned and the sites blacklisted.
Digg claims that such incidents simply prove that their system works: stories get demoted because users flag them for inaccuracies; banned accounts are typically the result of people maintaining multiple accounts to artificially inflate support for their Diggs, and as a result can lead to blacklisting of URLs.
Many users wonder why some stories make the Digg front pages, and even more must sit in despair to see how their submission never make it past five votes. But in some cases there is just too much proof of manipulation, as the Forevergeek blog points out.
As Digg grows, the site will become an ever more attractive target for manipulation schemes. And the only way for the service to defeat attacks it to greatly increase transparency.
Why not publish a list of blacklisted URLs and user accounts with an explanation of why they were banned? Why not provide a visual tool that shows patterns in user behaviour, allowing us to see if people are teaming up or simply have common interests?
The user flagging system too is up for review. Negative stories about Apple or Digg, to name two examples, have a tendency to get flagged as inaccurate, simply because users don't want to hear about it and refuse to believe them.
Digg got big because it provided a transparent way to select relevant news, but it's resorting to elitist, intransparent policies to deal with growing pains. You can't just mix and match Web2.0 methods with old economy methods, you have to go all the way.
Tags: manupulation, digg, web2.0
April 20, 2006 at 11:17 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack
Staging a race between OS X and Windows
Now that you can run both OS X and Windows on Mac Hardware, can we get some accurate performance comparisons?
One gamer decided to do a little test to see if OS X was actually any faster than Windows on his Mac Book Pro. He installed Boot Camp with Windows XP on his Mac Book Pro, and put World of Warcraft to the test by jacking up the graphics settings to the max. OS X presented him with 15 to 20 frames per second, making the game "barely playable". Windows XP running on the same system got him a more decent 35 to 40 frames per second.
The question remains how much weight this test has. I could imagine that the World of Warcraft makers spent some time tweaking the game to run well on Windows systems, but didn't the same effort in its OS X version.
Tags: OS X, windows, boot camp, apple, world of warcraft
April 20, 2006 at 08:49 PM | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBack
Bill Gates, go home!
Paul Thurrott is dealing Microsoft a dose of extra bitter truth about its forthcoming Windows Vista operating system.
"Windows Vista is a disappointment. There is no way to sugarcoat that very real truth," he writes in a column.
May I shamelessly add that I reached that conclusion several months ago? But Paul does a great job lining up all the disappointments in a monster column, in the process demanding that Bill Gates steps down from his job as chief architect.
Now there's a thought…
Gates gets some ass whooping by Steve Ballmer at CES last January
Tags: Windows, windows vista, bill gates, microsoft
April 20, 2006 at 01:49 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack
Apple finds a second home
Apple is preparing to build a new 50 acre campus to complement its current campus. Apple chief executive Steve Jobs told the city counsel of Cupertino.
The facility will be expensive, Jobs said, but the alternative would have been to move to a more remote location. Construction won't be finished for another 3 to 4 years.
Watch the full addresss here
Actual map here. Green: new campus location (the area north of Pruneridge Ave).
Red: Apple's current corporate headquarters.
Tags: apple, cupertino, real estate
April 19, 2006 at 11:35 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack
Nokia beats China at its own game
A popular wisdom says that the West can't compete with low cost manufacturers from China, especially not in the Chinese domestic market. But Nokia has proven those sceptics wrong.
The mobile phone manufacturer last year increased its Chinese market share to 27 per cent while local manufacturers lost 10 per cent points to a combined share of just under 30 per cent.
Nokia takes China by storm
April 18, 2006 at 06:33 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack
How to lure middlemen into your money laundering operation
Today two emails sneaked past the spam filter, which normally is working fairly well.
Both emails offer me jobs, one from the head of human resources with a maker of Ukrainian folk instruments, looking for a "manager" and requires internet access and the ability to check email several times a day. The other came from a "broker" representing several non descript firms based in Asia.
All I have to do is process payments in exchange for a guaranteed monthly commission of $2000 to $5000. I receive the funds and then send them on. I'm holding all the cards here. What could go wrong?
The fact is that both emails come from identity theft rings who need oblivious middlemen as part of their scams.
After they have broken into user's bank accounts, they need to transfer the money to a middleman who then uses an untraceable wire transfer to get the funds to the criminals. A few hours or days later, the victim will come banging at the "payment processor's" door to demand his money back.
By then the fraudsters have purchased a tropical island, and you'll be stuck with an headache, as you're an accomplice in all kinds of crimes.
At least the Ukrainian spam email took the effort to make it's scam look slightly credible, providing a company name and referring to instruments like the Cymbalum, Trembita and Bandura. They all exist, but I doubt there is much of a market for them outside of Ukraine.
Bandura player
Tags: security, identity theft
April 18, 2006 at 06:30 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack
Give Web2.0 a chance to get hyped
The poor Web2.0 hype just doesn't seem to get off to a proper start.
Having the experience of the internet bubble, people are ready to expose the empty promises and flawed business models or tomorrow's losers far before those companies can work up any hype.
Enough is enough. There are vast groups of scam artists who are in dire need of some blind faith, but just don't get their fair chance.
With this in the back of your head, watch this hilarious video from Cubebreak.com.
Tags: web 2.0, revver, youtube, hype
April 18, 2006 at 05:04 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack
Wikipedia questions existence of Wikidedia critics site
"Just who would want to vandalise a [Wikipedia] entry on cheese," started a story by The Guardian last week.
Wikipedia's response: probably a bunch of hoaxers or exposed frauds.
The Guardian's story pointed to the Wikitruth.info website which takes a critical look at the online collaborative encyclopaedia, blasting its elitist editing process.
The article however failed to ask Wikipedia itself for comment. When TechWeb did, Wikipedia founder Jimmy Wales claimed that the site is a hoax. Or at least that the people behind the site aren't Wikipedia editors but more likely were ousted in the past.
Wikitruth.info is suspect for its failure to list any contact information. On the other hand, online communities are known to shoot first and ask questions later. In a society with such (a lack of) moral values, you don't always want your real name to be out in the open.
Wikitruth has a major credibility issue. That doesn't mean that the site isn't genuine, but at this point, the is insufficient information to back up any credibility claims.
Tags: wikipedia, wikitruth, Jimmy Wales
April 18, 2006 at 02:10 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack
Oracle dreams of Oracle Linux
An Oracle Linux distribution could be a next step for the company, chief executive Larry Ellison said has said.
While such a move makes perfect sense for Oracle in its quest to transform the database vendor into a one-stop-shop for corporate software (aka: creating a full software stack), the true question is if this will solve any real world problems.
Organisations today admittedly are needlessly spending money to make software work together, and buying all your code from a single company could allow for more closely integrated tools. Ellison in the interview referred to the Microsoft model of creating a set of tightly integrated and certified applications that over time have forced out the competition.
Microsoft buyers however often take a business look at IT. Users there put up with a vendor lock-in because for their specific environment, it offers the most cost effective solution.
Unix and Linux users however typically approach their IT environments from the technology side. They pick their applications based on principles and believes, believing for instance that open standards in the long term are better for business because it ensures that they can use upcoming technologies, even though they might cost more in the short term. Or a belief that dealing with a potpourri of software vendors fosters diversity and competition.
An Oracle Linux distro furthermore adds more complexity before it eliminates any. The software will appeal to current Linux users, who are likely running on Red Hat or SuSE.
They also run more than just Oracle software. Until independent software developers start certifying their applications for Oracle Linux, no current Linux users will migrate.
The alternative then is to have Oracle Linux run side by side with the Red Hat systems. How many IT administrators will start jumping up and down at the idea of having to increase the complexity and number of support vendors for their systems?
Tags: oralce, larry ellison, linux
April 17, 2006 at 07:51 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack
Battle of the browser icons
If browser icons had personalities, at least the browser war would be a lot more amusing.
April 17, 2006 at 05:52 PM | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBack
Gaming world should take a taste of capitalism
Communism guided economies don't work if they have to compete with capitalism. The Soviet Union tried it for about 70 years, China for 40. The last holdouts are starving their citizens to death while they refuse to face the reality of their shattered dreams.
Then why do online games like World of Warcraft and Lineage 2 continue to battle the free market in their games?
If thirteen-year-old gamer Jordan Miller <a href=">pays somebody to play WoW for him to make his character more powerful, he's considered a cheater. The same goes for games who purchase virtual currency, weapons or characters on auction websites.
These kinds of fraud are extremely hard to detect, and therefore even harder to root out.
The solution is simple. Embrace the free market. World of Warcraft developer Blizzard Entertainment could make a handsome penny if it starts selling its virtual currency and goodies itself. In fact, the company might even be able to lower the monthly subscription fee that gamers have to pay.
Just like digital music stores won't eliminate music piracy, just like watermarks in bank notes won't stop all forgerers, games that subdue to the market forces won't put the Chinese click farms out of business. But most gamers will go the path of least resistance.
And it will allow game developers to focus on the true cheaters who are hacking games to give themselves an unfair edge over their fellow gamers.
Lineage 2 screenshot
Tags: gaming, MMORPG, lineage 2, world of warcraft, WoW
April 15, 2006 at 01:08 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack
Paypal founders play movie mogul
Paypal founders play movie mogul The new movie "Thank you for smoking" has a link to Silicon Valley, reports Forbes, in that it is funded by the same people who founded Pay Pal and struck it rich in 2002 when they sold the company to Ebay for about $1.5bn. The trio collectively made $300m.
The geeks-turned-millionairs sunk about $4.5m in the movie project, which takes a cynical look at the tobacco industry.
April 14, 2006 at 11:54 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack
Apple dumps old G4 Mac Minis at Costco
Apple is getting rid of its old G4 powered Mac Mini computers at Costco, the store where America buys its cat food and pallets of toilet paper at steep discounts.
The $699 price tag gets consumers a 512Mb Mac Mini with a 80Gb hard drive, as well as a wireless keyboard and mouse, which originally weren't included with the Mac Mini. It also comes with a three year warranty, where the Apple stores only offers 1 year (updated: initiaily said 90 days, which is Apple Care support, not warranty)
Apple has used Costco before to get rid of excess inventory. The retailer last February received a batch of G5 iMacs after Apple introduced its Intel powered iMacs. Similarly, the Mac Mini has now been equipped with Intel processors, making the G4 models obsolete.
The offering allows Apple to get rid of excess inventory, but selling Apple computers at Costco isn't without risk. The store isn't exactly known for its attention in its in store displays. Especially this caged presentation (see picture below), makes the Mac Mini look far less impressive than in a Mac store, analyst firm Current Analysis points out (report available to subscribers only).
Photo: current analysis
April 14, 2006 at 06:19 PM | Permalink | Comments (13) | TrackBack
AOL gives fuel to anti-AOL lobby
If you're facing fire over your proposed pay-for-spam Goodmail Certified Email programme, the worst thing you can do is start playing evil games.
Let's start off by doing a little experiment: send an email message to any of your buddies with an AOL account and make sure that the text "Dearaol.com" is in there. The message will bounce within seconds and the error message will point you to this webpage, explaining that there is "at least one URL in your email that is generating substantial complaints from AOL members".
The DearAOL.com webpage is set up as a lobby against AOL's Goodmail Certified Email programme, which promises to give preferential treatment to mass email senders that pay the provider a fee. So the provider's decision to block the messages is stinky to say the least.
AOL no doubt will come out later with an explanation that something went wrong with its spam filters. And perhaps some smart spammers actually spoofed the URL in their phishing emails and V1agra advertisements. But AOL had better show some pretty convincing evidence to back that up.
Because the way it looks now, the provider is trying to muzzle critics, and thereby is increasing their credibility.
Goodmail diagram - click for larger view
Tags: AOL, goodmail, eff, email tax
April 14, 2006 at 12:54 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack
Apple shows users the meaning of "Beta"
Apple's Boot Camp beta isn't a smooth ride to all users. In some cases, the application will mess up the OS X partition and leave the owner with a Windows XP system only. Oh dear.
Naturally, this is a beta, so any tester is using the application on test systems only, and made a backup first… right?
After all, the first thing you see if you open Apple's PDF with instructions is a warning, telling you that this is trial software and so on.
So if things go wrong, don't come whining, don't bang your little fists on the table and demand that Apple creates a fix for a problem that you could have prevented from happening.
You wanted to play with fire? Fine. Now deal with the burns.
Tags: boot camp, apple, os x, beta
April 14, 2006 at 12:04 AM | Permalink | Comments (3) | TrackBack
Crux of a successful online porn business
Quote of the day:
"I'm sorry my porn stars don't look used up yet."
Steve Jones, 39-year-old father of two who runs the Lightspeed Media Corp. porn empire that specialises in "barely 18 year old" models, in an interview with WSJ.com.
The story puts a human face on an industry that is operating in the shadow of society.
photo: Tom de Bruin
Tags: porn
April 13, 2006 at 06:23 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack
Sun isn't ready to give up on thin clients
Sun today unveiled two new version of its Sunray thin client computers.
The server maker and its thin client computers are joint at the hip, because the Sunray epitomizes Sun's marketing tagline that "The network is the computer". It lets users log in on any system in the world, giving them instant access to their data and applications (except for some network latency).
While thin clients have been anything but a overwhelming success, Sun is staying committed to the product group, slowly ironing out some of the device's shortcomings.
The Sunray 2 for instance now supports Windows, providing users access to a familiar operating system.
Last year at an open house for its Sun Labs research arm, Sun also showed off several projects that aim to increase acceptance for the Sunray. The Chameleon technology for instance allows applications to be delivered over a network, regardless of the operating system that it's running on.
Thin clients might still be waiting for their break through, but Sun is indicating that it's willing to wait as long as it takes.
The Sunray 2 might be more secure than a traditional PC, but it's still just as ugly
Tags: Sun Microsystems, sunray, wyse, neoware, thin client
April 13, 2006 at 02:14 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack
Really, I'm full
Russian designer Dima Komisasarov has come up with a USB flash drive that inflates as stores more data.
The design is merely a concept, no actual units exist. But the designer is looking for manufacturers.
File under: useless gifts for gadget geeks.
April 13, 2006 at 01:24 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack
Blackberry goes commie
The Chinese state run China Unicom telecommunications provider claims to have launched a Blackberry rip-off, and is calling the device a Redberry.
The communist nation is receiving its first push email device courtesy of Facio Software, which provides the required technology.
The Red, to assure you, refers to the colour of Unicom's new logo, not to the colour that symbolized the international socialist movement.
This story is tickling the hoax radar if you ask me, especially because there is a complete lack of pictures of the device.
April 13, 2006 at 12:59 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack
Search for Martians almost over
The SETI at home project is threatening to call it quits because it's running out of funds.
A special site is soliciting donations, but even if this fundraiser saves the project, it will have to continue to without support from the University of California.
SETI at home was a fun concept when it started in May 1999 at the height of the dotcom craze. It combined people's fascination about the possibility of extraterrestrial life with the (then) new concept of grid computing. It gathered about 5.2 million participants, making it the largest public grid project to date.
Regardless, for anyone praying that there is life somewhere out there, consider these points: if there is life on other planets out there, there are tons of them. The chance that we are the most evolved and technologically advanced is extremely slim.
Therefore, if long distance space travel is possible, any aliens would have landed here ages ago.
So we either really are alone, or there is no way to travel between stars.
If this makes any sense, uninstall your SETI at home application and start contributing to a grid project with a greater benefit to humanity such as FightAIDS@Home or Folding@home projects.
April 12, 2006 at 07:03 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack
Getting rid of Dell's crappy software
Computer makers more and more have a tendency to pre-load software onto new consumer systems. But all these free trial versions and handy patch monitoring tools in most cases are unwanted and tend to slow down system startup times.
"It’s a very dissatisfying experience to pull a brand new computer out of the box and be spammed with a bunch of trial software," noted one software developer. Instead of dwelling in his dissatisfaction, he want to work and created the "Dell De-Crapifier".
The application promises to remove unwanted software that comes bundled with a new Dell, and it should be easy to create a similar application for computer systems from other vendors.
The Dell De-Crapifier is available for download here.
Disclaimer: this application isn't certified and I didn't test it. Use at your own risk.
Tags: dell, decrapifier
April 11, 2006 at 11:55 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack
Microsoft ventures into legislation drafting
Microsoft in all its kindness has assisted the state of Oklahoma in drafting an anti-spyware bill.
But low and behold: Microsoft made sure to insert a rule there that gives the company the right to legally spy on your computer.
The law gives software makers the right to enter consumers computers for "detection or prevention of the unauthorized use of or fraudulent or other illegal activities in connection with a network, service, or computer software, including scanning for and removing computer software prescribed under this act.”
The law effectively entitles Microsoft or Adobe or any other legitimate software vendor to remove spyware from your computer, or any other application that they feel like removing, be it a competitor's tool or pirated copies, as well as read or copy your data. And there is nothing that the user could do against it.
Microsoft meanwhile keeps wondering why people can't get over the impression that the company is evil.
Tags: microsoft, spyware, legislation, oklahoma
April 11, 2006 at 11:31 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack
Why is a Las Vegas slot machine is more reliable than electronic voting?
What's the fundamental difference between a democratic election and casino gambling? In both cases parties have an incentive to cheat, but in a casino the guest should expect to loose, while in an election citizens should expect an honest and transparent process.
Then why on earth is there better oversight on Vegas slot machines than on electronic voting machines?
The state of Nevada has a copy of all the source code of slot machines, performs surprise inspections and checks the integrity of the manufacturers. None of that is happening for electronics voting machines.
As a society, we are saying that we value our democracy less than a gambling game that is designed to make us loose.
Photo: Paco Sancho
Tags: diebold, electronic voting, las vegas, slot machine, gambling
April 11, 2006 at 11:08 PM | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBack
Microsoft endorses outside supplier for Hotmail virus scanning
Microsoft might be about to unveil a major assault on the security market when it launches its OneCare suite of security products in June, the company today gave a strong indication that its OneCare technology isn't capable of doing any heavy lifting.
Instead of having OneCare protect Hotmail users from receiving and sending viruses, Microsoft renewed its contract with Trend Micro, one of the world's three largest security vendors.
Hotmail once again proves to be an embarrassing failure point for Microsoft. When Redmond acquired the service in December 1997, Microsoft vowed to migrate the service from Unix to a Windows platform. But even today, numerous accounts are running on the old Unix systems. Only accounts with a 250Mb inbox are running on Windows machines, while any of the 10Mb accounts are still powered by Unix.
There is nothing wrong with running your service on competing technology. Especially since Hotmail offers a vast volume of messages that requires scanning that's beyond the scope of a consumer offering. But that's exactly why it would have been a great endorsement for Microsoft's security products if they were deemed powerful enough to serve Hotmail. Now that honour goes to a provider who competes with Microsoft in the client anti-virus market.
Microsoft might not be saying that OneCare isn't good enough, but it certainly is saying that Trend Micro is better.
Tags: Microsoft, trend micro, hotmail, onecare
April 10, 2006 at 11:28 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack
Red Hat puts Jboss out of its suffering
Red Hat today said that it has purchased Jboss for about $420m. Jboss makes one of the largest open source Java application servers.
Jboss is said to have been on the auctioning block for some time now, and evil tongues for years have been saying that the company was struggling to find paying customers and attract developers to its software.
The companies in their press release mumbled some about Red Hat readying the world for open source Service Oriented Architectures (SOAs), but that seems mostly a PR strategy to recruit some hype words to cover up some obvious and large gaps in this story:
- Jboss' flagship product is an application server.
- Red Hat in 2004 launched an application server based on the (competing) JOnAS technology.
- Jboss portays itself as a middleware vendor offering, among things, a portal and messaging server.
- Red hat in 2004 acquired the Netscape Enterprise Suite and ever since has been releasing parts of the suite as open source and has launched a directory and identity server based on that code (that is: middleware)
- In a rare comment about the overlapping portfolios, Red Hat CEO Matthew Szulik said that he expected to continue the work on JOnAS, but declined to comment on plans for product integration.
It's doubtful that Red Hat has built up a large customer base with its middleware portfolio, but that doesn’t take away the fact that there are some large overlaps in the software that the two companies offer.
That alone is reason enough for current users to start pressing Red Hat for details on their plans.
Jboss CEO Marc Fleury, last week during a panel discussion at Linuxworld in Boston
Tags: red hat, jboss, linux, open source
April 10, 2006 at 10:29 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack
Google snaps up developer of "revolutionary search technology"
Online search today really isn't very good. Try finding for instance a store in your area that sells refrigerator parts that's open on Sundays, and you you'll realize that there is much space for improvement.
Some believe that the Orion technology could be the answer. Enough so that all the major search providers have raced to hire 26-year-old Israeli doctoral student Ori Alon who build the technology at the University of New South Wales in Australia.
In addition to pages that relate to a certain keyword, Orion also presents users with a list of other topics related to the key word, allowing them to quickly pick the most relevant search result.
A search for "American Revolution" for instance would list results in subcategories including American history, George Washington, American Revolutionary War and Boston Tea Party.
Google and Allon don't give out much details. The Sydney Morning Herald has a quick Q&A with the developer on its blog, as well as a more informative news piece.
Tags: search, google, orion, yahoo, MSN
April 10, 2006 at 06:47 PM | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBack
Squabbling about an information slip
Microsoft's OneNote software might have limited appeal to most users, the application this morning once again proved it vallue.
Amazon's web services evangelist Jeff Barr last week at LinuxWorld in Boston gave a presentation about its Mechanical Turk service.
The service itself has been in beta since late last year, and the company so far hasn't said when it plans to launch the service. So in the Q&A section after his presentation I asked him. His answer: some time in the first half of this year. Since that's relevant information, it ended up in a news story on vnunet.com.
This morning came a call from Amazon's public relations department, alleging that there had been some misunderstanding about this date.
And that's why I love Microsoft Onenote. As the name suggests, the application lets you to take notes, but more importantly it records audio next to the notes, allowing the user to jump to quickly jump to the section in the recording that corresponds with the text that he typed.
So when Amazon called, it took less than a minute to find the relevant passage in the recording and and convince the company that there was no "misunderstanding".