Microsoft may be celebrating a milestone of their own for console sales, but how did the current number one console fare in light of the GTA IV release leaving them in the cold? Quite well, it seems, with the Nintendo Wii taking the number one place for console sales in April. The most recent figures put the Wii at 714,000 sales last month, which completely dwarfs Microsoft’s and Sony’s sales at around 188,000 each. Nintendo’s handhelds units also exceeded the PS3 and Xbox 360 by an impressive amount, showing that Nintendo’s current strategies are doing well.
Those are impressive figures given that no high profile games for the Wii came out in April, with which Nintendo gives partial credit to Mario Kart Wii. The numbers are likely to more favor Microsoft and Sony in May, as more high profile games are on the horizon for both of those consoles as opposed to the Wii.
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Source: TechSpot News
Readers of this blog care deeply, madly, passionately about open source. But if this blog’s traffic data is any indication, readers of this blog care even more about Apple, Google, and Microsoft. In fact, most of the planet, as measured by Google Trends, cares more about what Apple is doing on a given day than what business model MySQL has adopted:
On this blog, MySQL and Ubuntu make an appearance in the top-25 most read stories, but Microsoft, Apple, and Google dominate the most-read stories, despite constituting a relatively small number of my total posts.
I note this data only to remind everyone, myself included, to take ourselves a little less seriously. It’s not that open source isn’t critically important, because it is: It is the heart of computing going forward. But our petty controversies are just that: Petty. The stakes are pretty small, given that open source is being woven into the fabric of software’s future, even within these giant software vendors, regardless of our squabbles.
Google, Apple, and Microsoft largely determine the shape of the technology industry today, perhaps in large part because they are the primary IT providers to the average consumer. Anything we do to influence greater adoption of open source within these giants will go farther than any small things we do on our own.
A Google that openly embraces open source would be far more important to the health of the open-source marketplace than a few startups’ choice of business model.
Real interoperability from Microsoft on open and transparent terms will do more to determine the future of the desktop and cloud/desktop computing than anything Ubuntu will do. We should be working with Microsoft to provide compelling, corporate reasons to open up. In this, Eben Moglen’s behind-the-scenes work with Redmond is more important than any petition or blog post decrying the software giant.
As for Apple, I have no idea what can be done with Apple. It uses a lot of open source, but is a little less adept at contributing back. Coming up with a way for Apple to foster an industry filled with open-source add-ons for its iconic products might well be a start.
These are the game-changing companies of the 21st Century. Even mighty Oracle and IBM (and Salesforce.com) barely show up on a Google Trends chart with Apple, Google, and Microsoft. Those who want open source to win should invest more time working with these giants, and less time in internecine, not-so-civil war.
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Source: CNET News.com - Personal Tech
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ThinkGeek Electronics
With Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull hitting theaters next week, Microsoft and LucasArts are offering gamers and fans of the series alike an exclusive playable PC demo of its forthcoming action adventure title LEGO Indiana Jones: The Original Adventures for Windows.
Developed by the same team that created the LEGO Star Wars series, the game includes more than 60 playable characters and presents a humorous take on the first three cinematic adventures of Indiana Jones. The 464MB demo which you can get from our download section offers a taste of what gamers can expect from the full game when it hits stores early June.
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Source: TechSpot News
Today, the Recording Industry Association of America was ordered to pay $107,834 as a result of a failed lawsuit against Tanya Andersen that accused her of illegal file sharing. The ruling marks what it is said to be the highest awarded compensation against the RIAA in terms of legal fees.
But the RIAAs woes did not end there. In fact, the much bigger news concerns the infamous Jammie Thomas case, in which the jury found Thomas liable for infringement merely for making available 24 songs even though there was no proof of distribution and awarded the music industry $222,000. Well, as it turns out, the act of making music available online may not be a copyright violation after all.
The judge is now saying that he may have committed a manifest error of law in his jury instructions by overlooking controlling Eighth Circuit authority, the case of National Car Rental v. Computer Associates, which held that there cant be a violation of the distribution right without an actual dissemination of copies. Apparently, the judge is now considering granting a new trial.
This is a major setback for the RIAA which has been holding up the Thomas case over and over again as proof that making available is infringement. If the judge does decide to order a retrial, more proof may be needed in future lawsuits to establish a violation of copyright law by users of peer-to-peer file sharing networks.
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Source: TechSpot News
Safari users are at risk of littering their desktops with malicious software because the browser does not ask for user permission when downloading files in the way that Firefox and Internet Explorer do, a security researcher said Thursday.
In a blog post titled “Safari Carpet Bomb,” Nitesh Dhanjani describes how a rogue Web site can easily download resources to the Windows desktop or downloads directory on the Mac.
“Apple does not feel this is an issue they want to tackle at this time,” he writes.
An Apple representative told Dhanjani that an “enhancement request” for an “Ask me before downloading anything” preference would be filed with the Safari team. “Please note that we are not treating this as a security issue, but a further measure to raise the bar against unwanted downloads,” the Apple representative wrote in an e-mail to Dhanjani.
That issue, coupled with the fact that Safari doesn’t warn users when a local resource, such as an HTML file, attempts to invoke client-side scripting, creates a risky situation for most browser users, Dhanjani said in an interview. “People are starting to expect more from browsers today,” he said.
The Apple representative told him that the company has been “investigating the potential for a ’safe’ mode for local HTML.”
Meanwhile, Apple does plan to fix a high-risk security vulnerability that Dhanjani discovered. It could be used to remotely steal local files from a user’s file system.
An Apple spokesman did not return a phone call and e-mail seeking comment.
“Since Safari does not know how to render content-type of blah/blah, it will automatically start downloading carpet_bomb.cgi every time it is served. If you are using Safari in Windows, this is what will happen to your desktop once you visit http://malicious.example.com/,” Dhanjani writes in explaining this screenshot.
(Credit: Nitesh Dhanjani)
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Source: CNET News.com - Personal Tech
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ThinkGeek Electronics
Last month we published several leaked details about AMDs next-generation graphics card lineup, but as we get closer to the launch the folks over at TG Daily have managed to get the scoop on AMDs launch plan details for its upcoming HD 4800 series of graphics cards.
Contrary to last months rumors, the series will apparently debut in mid-June after all in the form of the Radeon 4850, which will boast 512 MB of GDDR3 memory, single-slot cooling, CrossFireX support, and a price tag between $189 and $219. This will be followed by the dual-slot cooled GDDR5 bearing HD 4870 and the HD 4870 X2 in mid-July, both priced between $249 and $279. You can check out the rest of the report for more information on features, specs and performance claims regarding these cards.
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Source: TechSpot News
LG Closes in on Motorola @ BusinessWeek
MSI Wind Exclusive Review (s) @ CHW
Get Vista’s Best Features in XP @ lifehacker
600 Bucks: So Much Money, So Little Time @ PCWorld
See more articles and reviews.
Five years ago in TechSpot:
Microsoft reportedly seeking to preserve OS monopoly
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Source: TechSpot News
Research in Motion has a touchscreen BlackBerry in the works that should be out in the third quarter, according to a report Thursday.
RIM just released the BlackBerry Bold shown here, but could have a touchscreen model coming soon.
(Credit: RIM)
The Wall Street Journal has echoed a previous report from The Boy Genius Report that RIM’s BlackBerry Thunder will arrive later this year exclusively on Vodafone and Verizon’s networks. The device is seen as an answer to Apple’s iPhone, which will likely be running on AT&T’s 3G network by the time the Thunder arrives.
RIM is by far the leading smartphone company in the U.S., but Apple has come out of literally nowhere to take second place, and the competition should intensify with Apple’s plans for business-friendly software and RIM’s continued advance into the consumer market. RIM has started advertising the BlackBerry during consumer-friendly shows such as the NBA playoffs, and Apple’s getting set for The Second Annual Month of iPhone Ridiculousness in the coming weeks.
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Source: CNET News.com - Personal Tech
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ThinkGeek Electronics
Vias already very low-power processors may get the chance to be even more energy-friendly, with Via’s slow march towards a functional 45nm process. Intel and AMD may have them beat by a number of years and a massive amount of performance, but the niche market they have carved and are trying to expand will warmly welcome even more improvements in their CPU lineup. Their exact date for having 45nm CPUs available isn’t clear, but it’s likely to coincide with the release of their first dual-core CPUs.
The dual-core processors they have planned are tentatively scheduled for sometime next year, and will put them in a curious position of having extremely low power CPUs with multiple cores available. While they’ll never be able to take on the performance throne that AMD and Intel battle over, it is very feasible that they might come out with a CPU that uses a miniscule amount of power but is able to handle parallel loads very efficiently. A multi-core CPU destined for a home media server that uses a tenth of the power of a competitors CPU would be attractive to many.
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Source: TechSpot News
