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Recording Industry Puts Stake In Ground With Jammie Thomas Case - Copyrights And Wrongs
Why Do Apple Customers Care So Much?
Where Are They Now? Apple's Third Founder
Speculations On The MacBook Tablet
Apple, Give the MacBooks some love!
eWEEK: SWsoft Changing Name to Parallels
How The Next Billion Users Will Shape The Net
AMD Braces For Financial Mayhem From ATI Acquisition
ExtremeTech: AMD to Write Down ATI Acquisition
PC Mag: 2007: The Year in Tech
ExtremeTech: Why is CompUSA Closing?
ExtremeTech: GeForce 8800 GTS 512 Hands-On Preview
PC Mag: As Commodore 64 Turns 25, Founders Reminisce
The Mac Night Owl: Another Spotty Leopard Hatchet Job
Recording Industry Puts Stake In Ground With Jammie Thomas Case - Copyrights And Wrongs
The Register's Mark Rasch reports:
Jammie Thomas - a single mother living in Brainerd, Minnesota - was sued in civil court for copyright infringement by the Recording Industry Association of America. Three days later, the jury returned the verdict; Ms Thomas was liable for willfully infringing the copyrights on 24 songs. The fine: $222,000....
It could have been worse, much worse. Had she been prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law, Ms Thomas could have been fined $3.6m plus been forced to pay Capitol records' attorney's fees and costs. And that is just the civil fine. She could also be forced to pay a criminal fine of $6m and make restitution to the record companies, as well as serve 120 years in jail. In fact, had she previously been convicted of infringement - a matter of timing of the prosecution - she could have been sentenced to 240 years in jail. And that is just for 24 songs.
Just highlighting the possible sentencing demonstrates that there are several problems with the Thomas case. First and foremost, it really does not recognize - as current copyright law fails to recognize - the way normal, and presumedly law abiding, people use the internet. Indeed, the odds are very good that you committed a copyright infringement this morning, and, if not, you will by the end of the day.
[Editor's note: Does all this seems as absurd, even surreal, to you as it does to me? Click over to Mark Rasch's commentary for more bizarre examples of the abject insanity of U.S. copyright legislation (with many other countries nearly as bad or rapidly becoming so) in the age of the Internet, which has made virtually every Internet user technically a serial and habitual criminal under the letter of the law. CM]
For the full report visit here:
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2007/12/12/copyrights_and_wrongs/
Why Do Apple Customers Care So Much?
News.com's Tom Krazit says:
The question inevitably comes up when I meet people and they learn I write about Apple for a living: "So, what's that like?"
I usually answer, "It's crazy." There perhaps has never been a more interesting time to write about Apple and its growing impact on the computer, telecommunications, and music worlds. Unfortunately, it also means that I have to witness (and sometimes join) a daily descent into a pit of mudslinging.
Their size and degree of organization can be debated, and it's usually overstated. But there is no question that Macintosh users are by far the most passionate advocates for their products in the technology industry. And while such passion is remarkable and even moving, it can also be terribly disturbing.
To read more, click here.
Where Are They Now? Apple's Third Founder
PCWorld's Dan Tynan reports:
Ron Wayne 1976: Co-founder of Apple Computer....
Ron Wayne started out by designing slot machines in Vegas, but his unwillingness to gamble may have ended up costing him billions. Wayne is the oft-forgotten third founder of Apple Computer, who hooked up with Steve Wozniak and Steve Jobs when he and Jobs worked for Atari in the mid-1970s. Older by more than a decade, Wayne was brought in to act as a tie-breaker when the two Steves disagreed.....
For the full report visit here:
http://www.pcworld.ca/news/column/c99c3f240a01040800397d4ef923ef25/pg0.htm
Speculations On The MacBook Tablet
Blackfriars' Marketing says:
After I browsed through Time Magazine's top 10 gadgets of 2007 today and noted its selection of Apple's iPhone as the #1 gadget, I came across this Toshiba subnotebook with solid-state storage as Time's #7 pick. The more I looked at it, the more I thought, "Gee, that could easily be a next-generation MacBook." Why? Well because it:
Weighs half of what existing MacBooks do. With an optical disk drive, this notebook weighs in at a mere 2.4 pounds. Now that's a product any road warrior can carry, without sacrificing the ability to watch DVDs on a plane or make backups of an important presentation.
For the full commentary visit here:
http://www.blackfriarsinc.com/blog/2007/12/speculations-on-macbook-tablet
Apple, Give the MacBooks some love!
AppleTell's Adam Fisher-Cox says:
....Apple needs to pay attention to the MacBook and change it's design.
In my experience with the MacBook, it has felt the cheapest of all the Macs. It was nice and small, but the case scratched easily and every time I opened the lid and it stopped abruptly at a 90 degree angle, I winced. Apple needs to update the MacBook not only for practical purposes but for aesthetic purposes as well. Now that Apple has made the iMac aluminum, Apple's entire computer lineup is mainly aluminum. Except the MacBook. And next to a MacBook Pro, an iMac and a Mac Pro, it looks cheap. Especially the white ones.
For the full commentary visit here:
http://www.appletell.com/apple/comment/apple-give-the-macbooks-some-love/
eWEEK: SWsoft Changing Name to Parallels
After years of working in the shadow of other virtualization vendors, SWsoft is renaming itself.
For the full report visit here: http://www.eweek.com/article2/0,1759,2230900,00.asp?sp=0&kc=DTEWK121207TECH
How The Next Billion Users Will Shape The Net
In a BBC report, Canadian Internet law professor Michael Geist looks at what doubling the number of users will mean to the net.
China will add another 250 million users over the next decade....
With more than a billion internet users worldwide, doubling that number, which should happen within the next decade, will obviously have a profound effect on the network, technology, the computer software industry, access to knowledge, and our environment.
For the full report visit here:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/technology/7138350.stm
ExtremeTech: How to Hack Your Graphics Card
"In the bad old days, you'd buy a video card that ran at some standard clock frequency. The core clock was the core clock, the memory clock was the memory clock, and that was that.
Then a couple of companies decided to try their hands at selling and supporting video cards clocked higher than the reference clocks. In a commodity market, selling an overclocked card was one way to eke out a little more profit margin and distinguish yourself from the competition. At first, the GPU makers frowned on this, but not for long. In fact, Nvidia and ATI have begun embracing the idea. They allow companies that resell cards, that are often indistinguishable from each other, to compete on something other than software bundles and prices.
When Nvidia launched the 8800 GT, they told the press they left lots of headroom in the card, so card makers could, if they so desired, pump up clock rates and give buyers a little more value. Of course, that added value comes at an extra cost. As we noted in our recent 8800 GT roundup, the factory overclocked cards cost quite a bit more than the standard cards. These higher clock rates can make a big difference in some games, and less so in others.
Of course, you can simply take control of the situation by overclocking the card yourself. This article shows you just how to do that."
To read more, go to:
http://www.extremetech.com/article2/0,1558,2231569,00.asp
AMD Braces For Financial Mayhem From ATI Acquisition
The Register's Dan Goodin reports:
AMD, Intel's on-again, off-again rival, has given another example how it's mostly been off again over the past year, disclosing plans to take a "material" goodwill impairment charge for its $5.6bn acquisition of ATI Technologies.
AMD says it is unable, at least in good faith, to estimate the dollar range of this charge, but based on the language in Wednesday's press release, we're sure it will be, well, material. The conclusion was based on results from its annual "strategic planning" review and goodwill impairment testing.
For the full report visit here:
http://www.channelregister.co.uk/2007/12/12/amd_ati_goodwill_impairment/
ExtremeTech: AMD to Write Down ATI Acquisition
"Microchip maker Advanced Micro Devices Inc said on Wednesday it plans to write down the value of its 2006 acquisition of ATI Technologies.
The company said in a regulatory filing that the goodwill impairment charge would be material, but it could not estimate the amount. It said it would make a further filing once it determines the amount of the charge."
To read more, go to:
http://www.extremetech.com/article2/0,1558,2232275,00.asp
PC Mag: 2007: The Year in Tech
Let's look at the big trends in 2007 and guess what will happen in 2008.
To read more, go to:
http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,1759,2231632,00.asp
ExtremeTech: Why is CompUSA Closing?
"I don't pretend to know a whole lot about the intricacies of large mass market retail outlets. I don't "know" why CompUSA is closing up shop. The liquidation group that bought them, Gordon Brothers Group, has the company tagline "Finding Value Where Others See None." Man, that's a slap in the face to whoever they acquire.
I live and work in San Francisco, in the city, so I don't have a car. I find I rarely need one. But there are times when I need or want to buy something that isn't easily reachable by a short bus ride, and computer parts are one of those things. If it's not something Central Computers has down on Howard St., I pretty much have to go to the CompUSA store on Market. If EB Games was sold out of some title I wanted, I'd "give CompUSA a shot." And I always hated it."
To read more, go to:
http://www.extremetech.com/article2/0,1558,2231704,00.asp
ExtremeTech: GeForce 8800 GTS 512 Hands-On Preview
"This is not a review. Our full review of the GeForce 8800 GTS 512 is underway right now and coming later this week. Since the NDA has lifted, I thought I would share a few hands-on impressions I've gathered while working through my testing.
First, shame on Nvidia for this product name. It's bad enough that we have various different GT, GTX, Ultra, GTO, and GS products out there. (And why all the "G" monikers?) It's confusing for buyers. Take a page out of ATI's book, where their new naming scheme ditches all the XT, Pro, GT, and other nonsense and goes with a clear, logical naming convention. Here's the latest consumer confusion-someone recommends to you a GeForce 8800 GTS card, or you remember reading online somewhere that they were really good.
Do you get the one with 320MB? Or 640MB? Or the one with 512MB? More megabytes is better, right?"
To read more, go to:
http://www.extremetech.com/article2/0,1558,2230985,00.asp
PC Mag: As Commodore 64 Turns 25, Founders Reminisce
"The founding fathers of the personal computer met on Monday night to celebrate the twenty-fifth anniversary of the Commodore 64. The event was markedly different than most Silicon Valley parties these days. Business cards weren't passed, no one (except this reporter) text- or instant-messaged during the presentation, and no one said "Hey, Facebook me later."
Instead, the event was for the old boys who pioneered the personal computer, a testament to the old days when geeks were really geeks and eggheads. Speakers on the panel included Jack Tramiel, founder and chief executive officer of Commodore, Steve Wozniak, co-founder of Apple, William Lowe, father of the IBM PC, and Adam Chowaniec, developer of the Amiga PC and chairman of the board for Liquid Computing.
The culture and attitude in the early days of the PC was not as touchy-feely as it is today. Tramiel would most likely not have taken kindly to the idea of hiring his employees a chef or letting them bring their dogs to work. He discussed the "business is war" philosophy that he is known for, which is the antithesis of the Valley culture today. He said that his cutthroat attitude is why he was able to succeed in selling over 22 million units of the Commodore 64."
To read more, go to:
http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2704,2231499,00.asp
The Mac Night Owl: Another Spotty Leopard Hatchet Job
You have probably heard and read all sorts of Apple-bashing over the years. Some of it is subtle, some of it outrageous. While there are plenty of real things you can say to criticize Apple for the things it doesn't do properly, some of these "professional critics" prefer to concentrate on myths and half-truths to ramp up their hit counts.
For the full commentary visit here:
http://macnightowl.com/2007/12/12/another-spotty-leopard-hatchet-job/
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