MS Blog Announces Windows 7 Plans for New and Improved Bloat

Talk about not learning from one’s mistakes…

The Windows 7 Team
There’s a lot to building an org structure for a large team, but the most important part is planning the work of the team. This planning is integral to realizing our goal of improving the overall consistency and “togetherness” for Windows 7. So rather than think [...]

Next Generation SSDs Delayed Due to Vista

Vista is the gift that just keeps on giving …
Speaking during SanDisk’s second-quarter earnings conference call, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer Eli Harari said that Windows Vista will present a special challenge for solid state drive makers. “As soon as you get into Vista applications in notebook and desktop, you start running into very demanding [...]

Wall-Mart Puts the Muscle on Warner and BMG to Ditch DRM

You all know those stories we hear about the E-v-i-l Wal-Mart muscling the poor manufacturers and distributors to lower prices. Well this time Wally World is using its power for the forces of Good!

A Tipping Point For MP3s
(waaaay down the article we find this little nugget of good news)
… mass merchant Wal-Mart [is] alerting [...]

Amusing: Windows XP Outshines Vista in Benchmarking Test

This made me chuckle, (I may have even chortled)

Windows XP outshines Vista in benchmarking test
New tests have revealed that Windows XP with the beta Service Pack 3 has twice the performance of Vista, even with its long-awaited Service Pack 1.
Vista’s first service pack, to be released early next year, is intended to boost the operating [...]

Mac OS 10.5 Leopard Hacked to Run on PCs

PC World tell us …
Leopard Hacked to Run on PCs
The OSx86 Scene forum is offering full instructions on how to install the newest Mac OS on Windows PCs.
The cat and mouse game between hackers and Apple takes another move, with news that Apple’s new Leopard operating system has already been successfully installed on Windows PCs.
The [...]

Zhelatin Worm; Botnet Spread to 10 Million PCs, Now Via Automated Blog Postings

ARS Technica tells us that the Zhelatin gang’s “Storm Worm” has now evolved way beyond spam and infected e-card greetings.
The “Zhelatin gang”—named after the trojan it installed—was responsible for what started out as the “storm worm.” First spotted earlier this year, the spread of the “storm worm” started via e-mails purporting to provide [...]

Vista Beta Service Pack 1 “Upgradeable Version” Now Leaked

According to eWeek a new Vista beta service pack is now available. One which can be used as an “Upgradeable Version” for existing Vista installations. eWeek article here:
(yea I know there is one of those “Flash Annoyance” things, just click passed it)

Vista Beta SP1 Leaked

Over the Aug. 24 weekend, a new Vista beta [...]

LG DVD Drive: 8X DVD+R 8X DVD+RW 4X DVD+R DL 8X DVD-R 6X DVD-RW 12X DVD-ROM 16X CD-R 16X CD-RW 32X CD-ROM CD, DVD: 2MB BD, HD: 4MB Cache SATA Super Multi Blue BD Burner and HD DVD Reader

Really! Thats the name of the LG Model GGW-H10NI DVD Burner.

What an absolute joke. Not the LG Product, (it’s a nice drive although a little pricey) but this whole Optical Media standards war that has been ongoing for the last ten years or so.
Which technology can use this alphabet soup idiocy to actually win [...]

Reviving Old PC800 RDRAM PCs

I recently came across an old Gateway Performance 1400 that needed fixing. Generally a PC this old is to be considered “Scrap” and usually I advise the client that it’s time for the dreaded replacement. Then comes the painful process of moving of data, apps, and all of the other nightmarish stuff that comes to [...]

The iZune!

Thanks Charles

A Nanomechanical Computer

In an article from The Institute of Psysics:

A nanomechanical computer—exploring new avenues of computing

Here is the abstract:
We propose a fully mechanical computer based on nano-electromechanical elements. Our aim is to combine this classical approach with modern nanotechnology to build a nanomechanical computer (NMC) based on nanomechanical transistors. The main motivation behind constructing such a computer [...]

iPhone Dissected: They did it, so you don’t have to

From anandtech:
We have only had the phone for a few hours but we needed to get inside its casing, what follows is our dissection of the Apple iPhone. Please note that we’re doing this so you are not tempted to on your recent $500/$600 expenditure, while it is quite possible to take apart using easy [...]

DesktopStandard Software Mismanaged by Microsoft

There is an email floating around from Microsoft asking DesktopStandard Software Customers to participate in a survey regarding Desktop Standard products, such as PolicyMaker, ProfileMaker, and GPO Vault. They want to know what the current Desktop Standard customers think of the Microsoft aquisition. Someone I know had this to say:
Yes PoliTech, I took the survey, [...]

Finnish court rules CSS protection used in DVDs “ineffective”

Via Oikeuden edessä and slashdot:

Finnish court rules CSS protection used in DVDs “ineffective”
In an unanimous decision released today, Helsinki District Court ruled that Content Scrambling System (CSS) used in DVD movies is “ineffective”. The decision is the first in Europe to interpret new copyright law amendments that ban the circumvention of “effective technological measures”. [...]

09 f9: A Legal Primer … or … What is the AACS-LA’s Legal argument?

The AACS-LA made some news yesterday. Read about some of it here, here, and here, as well as the following from the EFF Deep Links section:
What is the AACS-LA’s argument? In its takedown letters, the AACS-LA claims that hosting the key violates the DMCA’s ban on trafficking in circumvention devices. The DMCA provides that:
No person [...]

FTC official: Let’s imprison spyware distributors

FTC official (William Kovacic) says “Let’s imprison spyware distributors”
Steep fines are nice, but one of the best weapons against spyware purveyors is locking them up, a federal regulator told senators on Tuesday.
At a morning Senate Commerce Committee hearing here, Federal Trade Commissioner William Kovacic said most wrongdoers [...]

Net Neutrality

save the internet

Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 License Launched

The latest version of the Creative Commons licenses — Version 3.0 — are now available. Read more here. Via: /. & BoingBoing.

Professor Lawrence “RW” Lessig’s “The Withering of the Net”

Professor Lawrence “RW” Lessig’s “The Withering of the Net”

On June 16, 2006, Professor Lawrence Lessig gave a talk at the Center for American Progress entitled “The Withering of the Net: How DC Pathologies are Undermining the Growth and Wealth of the Net.” This talk was the second in a series of three. The first talk [...]

D-Wave delivers on quantum computer demo promise

D-Wave qubits in the era of Quantum Computing

D-Wave showed three examples of Orion in action, marking the first such demonstration of a quantum computer. The most impressive display came during a drug molecule matching exercise, while two less impressive efforts had Orion crunch through a party table seating arrangement that paired like-minded guests and then [...]

Exposed: HD DVD and Blu-ray Processiong Keys for All HD Titles

I was following this discussion on Doom9 yesterday, where arnezami claims to have found the “processing key” used to decrypt the DRM on all HD DVD and Blu-Ray Disc films.
It looks like this is the real McCoy and the news is starting to get around…
arnezami claims to have found it by simply watching his [...]

D-Wave Announces Quantum Computer Demo Success; Before the Demo Happens

D-Wave posted this press release:

February 13, 2007
World’s First Commercial Quantum Computer Demonstrated

New System Aims at Breakthroughs in Medicine, Business Applications and Expanded Use of Digital Computers

Venture-funded Canadian company shows new product applied to pattern-matching database search

VANCOUVER, B.C. or MT. VIEW, CA – February 13, 2007 – The world’s first commercially viable quantum computer was unveiled [...]

Vista Not Playing Nice With FPS Games

Via SlashDot

Vista not playing nice with gamers

Some XP favorites crashing or crawling; fix wait could be lengthy

Windows Vista’s powerful new graphics engine may be one of its hallmark features, but it’s engendering complaints from a key segment of potential early adopters: hardcore gamers.

A small but significant number of games written for Windows XP either crash [...]

Quantum Computing Demo Announced

Quantum Computing Demo Announcement

We have fixed the dates for the demo of our Orion quantum computing system. We are going to hold two events, one at the Computer History Museum in Mountain View, California on February 13th, and the second at the Telus World of Science in Vancouver, Canada on February 15th.
These events are open [...]

Cancel or Allow?

This is the first MAC vs. PC advert that is actually pretty funny.

The PC Guy is just more likeable than the MAC Guy.
Hattip: YaBlog!

Bill Gates is going to regret saying this

Bill Gates throws down the gauntlet!

Bill Gates Attacks Mac Security, Apple Ads

“We made it way harder for guys to do exploits,” said Mr. Gates. “The number [of exploits] will be way less because we’ve done some dramatic things [to improve security] in the code base. Apple hasn’t done any of those things.”

In another portion of [...]

RIAA Lawsuits: Boy Bites Dog

New York teen sues record industry

A New York teen, dubbed a pirate by the Record Industry, is counter suing them for defamation, violating anti-trust laws, conspiring to defraud the courts and making extortionate threats.

Robert Santangelo, who was 11 when he is supposed to have downloaded music, has come out fighting. He denies sharing music using [...]

Vista DRM Already Cracked?

Alex Ionescu claims to have successfully bypassed the much discussed DRM protection in Windows Vista, called ‘Protected Media Path’ (PMP), which is designed to seriously degrade the playback quality of any video and audio running on systems with hardware components not explicitly approved by Microsoft. The bypass of the DRM protection was in turn performed [...]

Microsoft Cripples Vista Upgrade

The Inquirer calls this policy “Preinstall to Reinstall”. Microsoft calls it “Closing a Loophole”. Ars Technica says that it’s indicative of Microsoft’s ‘per device’ obsession.
PoliTech calls it one more reason to consider moving to Open Source alltogether.

Vista “upgrade” drops compliance checking, requires old OS to install

Microsoft’s quest to closely control the way Windows Vista [...]

One quarter of all computers are internet zombies

What does this mean to you? That one in four of you are reading this on a computer that you think you own and control, but that is really an infected zombie (and Typhoid Mary) controlled by a black hat “Bot-Herder”.

Vint Cerf: one quarter of all computers part of a botnet

Cerf told his listeners that [...]