Well, our hard working U.S. Troops have lost one outlet of entertainment in the battle to keep the DOD's infrastructure intact. Eleven "bandwidth hogs" among them MySpace and Youtube are officially off limits to U.S. Troops now. Guess they'll have to re institute USO Tours, because god knows there's not alot of entertainment to be had in the land of sand and insurgents. DailyTech reports...
U.S. military personnel will no longer be able browse many popular websites the Defense Department has flagged as "security challenges" and bandwidth hogs
On Friday, a memo from General B.B. Bell, the commander of U.S. Forces in Korea, stated that 11 sites will be off limit to members of the military. YouTube and MySpace top the list of sites that pose a potential risk to information security. The memo also acknowledges that even though most of the traffic to these sites is benign, they place an unnecessary drag on the military's online infrastructure.
"This recreational traffic impacts our official DoD network and bandwidth ability," according to Bell's memo.
The reviews are beginning to show up, and across the board it's looking to be a mixed bag for AMD/ATI, with midrange 8800GTS's seeming at first glance a better deal, and strange driver problems legion. Here's what we have so far in the wee hours of May 14th...
ATi Radeon 2000 Series Launch: X2900XT Review @ VR-Zone
ATI Radeon HD 2900 XT – AMD's long awaited R600 DX10 GPU arrives @ TweakTown
The head of Microsoft's Linux Labs, Bill Hilf makes some pretty compelling statements about the nature of Linux and the "Free Software" movement. They might shock the "idealist" out there, but the commercialization of Linux is critical to it's success, and despite what you may take away from some of his statements, it's clear that *this* is the reason why Microsoft takes Linux seriously. Bangkokpost reports...
"The Free Software movement is dead. Linux doesn't exist in 2007. Even Linus has got a job today." Controversial statements from the head of Microsoft's Linux Labs, Bill Hilf.
Speaking on the last leg of a tour of Singapore, the Philippines, Malaysia, Indonesia and Thailand, Bill Hilf, more formally known as Microsoft's platform strategy director, was in the region to "be descriptive and intelligent in giving people an understanding of open source and debunk a lot of the mythology around open source."
He said that most customers run a distribution - RedHat, Novell, Suse or Mandriva. Most of the work on maintaining the Linux kernel is done by developers working for these distributions, he noted
"They are full-time employees, with 401K stock options. Some work for IBM or Oracle. What does that mean? It means that Linux doesn't exist any more in 2007. There is no free software movement. If someone says Linux is about Love, Peace and Harmony, I would tell them to do their research. There is no free software movement any more. There is big commercial [firms] like IBM and there is small commercial [firms] like Ubuntu," he said.
Cameron's a lucky guy. Tweaktown seems to have the first review out of the gate on AMD's flagship R600 core, so you know what you have to do. Get your butt over there and READ IT!
Our focus today is solely on the HD 2900 XT 512MB GDDR-3 graphics card – it is
the first GPU with a fast 512-bit memory interface but what does this mean for
performance? While it is AMD's top model right now, it is actually priced
aggressively at around the US$350 - US$399 mark in United States, which puts it
price wise up against Nvidia's GeForce 8800 GTS 640MB. After taking a look at
the GPU and the card from PowerColor as well as some new Ruby DX10 screenshots,
we will move onto the benchmarks and compare the red hot flaming Radeon monster
against Nvidia's GeForce 8800 GTX along with the former ATI GPU king, the Radeon
X1950 XTX.
We're on a roll here today, as it's just been one day of really bizarre news. We make it no secret here that we consider "Digital Rights Management" to be a failed and pessimistic strategy in the digital era, akin to what we call CCM "Consumer Control Mechanisms". If you've been sitting on the fence about this one, you should read the excerpts of HBO's CTO Bob Zitter's panel session at the NCTA show in Las Vegas Tuesday quoted over on BroadcastingCable.com.
Digital rights management (DRM) is the wrong term for technology that secures programmers' content as it moves to new digital platforms says HBO Chief Technology Officer Bob Zitter, since it emphasized restrictions instead of opportunities.
Speaking at a panel session at the NCTA show in Las Vegas Tuesday, Zitter suggested that "DCE," or Digital Consumer Enablement, would more accurately describe technology that allows consumers "to use content in ways they haven't before," such as enjoying TV shows and movies on portable video players like iPods.
I've yet to see a single DRM (oops I'm sorry, DCE) mechanism that allowed me to do MORE with content than "DCE Free" content. Maybe this CTO guy got his "A+ Certification" off a matchbook cover or something. Either that or he's got a PHD. You almost have to have been to a higher education institution to say something this stupid.
I bet if you went to work for the New York City Zoo, and were offered a position called "Fecal Residue Removal Technician", you would be able to impress your friends by telling them you were the Zoo's "Official FRRT Officer". But only if you were a moron. Shoveling s*** is shoveling s***, no matter what you call it.
This is the sort of Saturday News we crave. The Inquirer was gracious enough to hunt this one down for us too (thanks Charlie). A corporate AMD video celebrating the anniversary of the Opteron......Well....Just watch LOLOL!
Stuff like this just smacks of utter absurdity. Is there really a rampant national danger of people text messaging behind the wheel? If so, maybe these people deserve to have traffic accidents for being STUPID.
Still, can we really legislate "everything" that is remotely not safe? It's a mistaken assumption to think we can. If so, why hasn't touching up your makeup or drinking a can of cola while driving required the attention of state legislatures. This is a knee-jerk reaction to technology by people that think it's somehow worse than any other dumb thing people do merely because it's a technology issue. This sets a very dangerous precedent in our eyes. NetworkWorld reports...
Washington Gov. Christine Gregoire yesterday signed this country’s first law putting the kibosh on the dangerous practice of text messaging while behind the wheel of a moving automobile. … Bully for her.
Lawmakers in the other Washington should take note and follow suit, but in the meantime several other states, including New Jersey, are considering similar legislation.
Sometimes the law is an ass. Sometimes it just takes awhile to wake up.
Yet another clear reason why the DMCA is such a bad law. California based Media Rights Technologies is suing Microsoft, Apple, Adobe, and Real for NOT USING THEIR MRT X1 SeCure Recording Control software. The claim is that because the media giants aren't doing enough to protect content, they should all be held in violation of the DMCA because they're not using MRT's much better DRM. Guess it depends on your definition of "better". Isn't this the most ridiculous self-serving spin you've ever heard of? The Register reports...
A California-based DRM software company has sent cease and desist notices to Microsoft, Apple, Adobe and Real Networks for not using its product.
The likes of Microsoft and Apple usually love all the DRM they can get. In this case, however, Media Rights Technologies and its subsidiary BlueBeat.com said in a press release Thursday, the four software giants' failure to implement the MRT's X1 SeCure Recording Control software is a violation of the infamous Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA).
You begin to realize how mainstream the internet has become when successful offline entrepreneurs like the legendary "parachute pants" wearing M.C. Hammer become members of an Expert Panel in a Web 2.0 Conference held by TechCrunch. "Web 2.0 Hits Me, So Hard! Makes Me Say Oh My Lord!!"....Ok I'm definitely showing my age now. Techcrunch Reports...
I’m excited to announce the next three experts for the TechCrunch20 Conference in San Francisco this September. Caterina Fake, MC Hammer and Rajeev Motwani join the previously announced experts. The full Panel of Experts is here, and we will continue to announce new experts every week or so..
The Panel of Experts will assist us in selecting the twenty startups to launch at the conference and will participate at the conference in discussing and judging startups after their presentations. Our goal is to bring together a diverse group of hyper-intelligent and interesting individuals to make the event as exciting as possible.
Microsoft and Sandisk are teaming up to make USB Flash Drives far more useful. Though we've seen some usefulness with "U3" technology enabled flash devices, which add some intelligent features to flash storage device, this goes a significant step further. Sandisk will be abandoning U3 in favor of this far more ambitious, and potentially more useful paradigm. InformationWeek reports...
Microsoft is teaming up with peripherals manufacturer SanDisk in an effort to develop smart USB devices that will allow users to carry their complete personal computing environment on a device as small as a thumb drive, Microsoft announced Friday.
Under the plan, Microsoft will develop software that will let users store their applications and data on small, Flash memory-based devices that connect to their computers' Universal Serial Bus. SanDisk will design and manufacture compatible hardware.
The first products from the collaboration will be available in mid-2008, Microsoft said.
