PATREONItems tagged with can
It'll be a cold day in ... well, you know where before this happens in the U.S. Or will it? Following closely on the heels of Norway, Canada's public broadcasting service is adopting DRM-free BitTorrent distribution for a major prime-time show.On March 24, CBC will use BitTorrent to distribute this year's broadcast of Canada's Next Great Prime Minister. This will make Canada the first country in North America to release high-quality, DRM-free copies of a prime-time show using the popular P2P file-sharing technology.Canada's Next Great Prime Minister, an annual competition in which young adults propose ways to improve the country in hopes of winning 50,000 Canadian dollars, attracted more...
Read more...
Microsoft and Yahoo executives quietly met on Monday to talk over Microsoft's unsolicited offer to buy Yahoo. It wasn't the sort of meeting where hands are shaken and papers are signed; reportedly Yahoo executives just listened to Microsoft explain what would happen if Microsoft's bid was accepted. Yahoo has been thrashing around trying to find some way to avoid being purchased, but time might be running out for them. In the very likely event that Yahoo's next quarterly results are announced and they are weaker than last quarter, Microsoft could lower their bid, and thereby cause an insurrection of shareholders against the current board. Your move, Yahoo.Yahoo's board rejected Microsoft's offer...
Read more...
Jimmy Wales has broken a lot of ground in his day. The founder of Wikipedia has turned the online collaborative encyclopedia into a household word. Wales was contacted by Canadian political commentator Rachel Marsden about defacement of her Wikipedia page, and apparently one thing led to another. In another first, he's announced the breakup of his very short relationship with the Fox News commentator--in an entry on Wikipedia.In the statement, Wales claims his involvement with Marsden's Wikipedia profile was "completely routine." He also claims to have met Marsden for the first time last month. Shortly before their meeting, Wales reportedly sent this note to a list of Wikipedia operators: ...
Read more...
The day has finally arrived when the few remaining analog cell phones still in use will probably stop working. February 19th is the day the FCC announced that cellular providers could cease their analog service and go to all digital. Verizon estimates that less than one percent of their cellphone customers had an analog phone last year, but they aren't the only people affected by the end of analog.Many alarm companies use the system to alert police or fire departments to emergencies at homes or businesses. About three years ago, the Alarm Industry Communications Committee (AICC) industry group took a survey which revealed that just under 1 million of the approximately 30 million monitored...
Read more...
Noooooooo! Any chance of playing Wolverine is now "dust in the wind."Cryptic Studios has shut the lid on production for a massively multiplayer online game that would have pit Marvel comic characters together in a big melee."Marvel and we have agreed to end development on the MMO," said Microsoft Games Studios head Shane Kim in an interview with MTV's Multiplayer gaming blog.Marvel Universe Online was first announced in September 2006 and it was never given a firm release date. Rumors of the game's cancellation spiked late last year but no one at Microsoft or Cryptic was ready to confirm the decision. Now it's official. Dead, as dead as Phoenix. Oh, wait!...
Read more...
"Don't Tase Me, Bro!" was the top quote of 2007, but we may never hear those words again.Point Blank Solutions, Inc -- the guys who make the military's Interceptor body armor -- "has entered a marketing agreement with G2 Consulting to market a line of electroshock weapon protection systems," notes Defense Update.According to Point Blank, until G2's patented ThorShield technology, there has been no protection for officers if their weapon is turned against them. ThorShield works by providing a highly conductive specialized layer of fabric that ensures the electric current discharged from the weapon flows through the lining rather than the body. Check out the video as well....
Read more...
It has been said that Microsoft rushed the development of Vista SP1 in order to help correct some of the stability and compatibility flaws that were keeping some large customers away from the relatively new OS. New reports from testers indicate that this rush might show itself in all new set of issues.Here's what one tester had to say:“Based on my informal tests conducted in the first hours of having Vista Service Pack 1 in hand, it's hard to draw any hard and fast conclusions. However, these mixed results do show some promise--and also show that your experience with SP1 may vary depending upon the system configuration. Our Test Center will perform further, and more in-depth, testing...
Read more...
I remember the good old days when banks would offer new customers gifts like toasters or other housewares when you opened up an account. Of course, the good old days weren't really very good, because you had to stand in line at the bank fairly often instead of using direct deposit, internet banking, credit and debit cards, and ATMs to manage your finances remotely. The final reason to visit a bank regularly might become a thing of the past, as CheckFree Corp. is equipping banks with the tech they need to allow customers to scan checks slated for deposit, then deposit them electronically.Called Remote Deposit Capture, the technology lets people scan checks through their home computers and deposit...
Read more...
It's well-known that Comcast has hidden bandwidth caps. How would you feel about a publicized hard cap?Time Warner Cable may be exploring the possibility of implementing overage charges for its RoadRunner cable broadband service. According to excerpts from a leaked internal memo posted to our forums, the company will be testing a usage-based system in the Beaumont, Texas market. The system is aimed at gaining additional revenue from "5% of subscribers who utilize over half of the total network bandwidth." The trial will determine whether it's practical to deploy such a system nationally.The memo claims new customers in the Beaumont market will be placed on metered billing plans where overage...
Read more...
Everyone keeps telling me how smart Mark Zuckerberg, the founder of Facebook is, but I'm beginning to have my doubts. Fresh on the heels of his disastrous foray into datamining with Facebook's Beacon service, he seems to be unclear on the concept of copyright infringement. Hasbro and Mattel, owners of the copyright for the Scrabble word game, is directing Facebook to remove Scrabulous, an online application that is one of the ten most popular on Facebook.The Scrabulous add-on was not created by Facebook but was built for the site by Rajat and Jayant Agarwalla - software developers based in Kolkata. [India]According to the Scrabulous website it has 594,924 daily active users - about a quarter...
Read more...
There is an unwritten law of the tech world that states as MacWorld approaches industry buzz increases exponentially. As MacWorld is almost upon us, we're forced to wonder whether or not Steve Jobs has enough up his sleeve to outdo the announcements made in MW '07.“At last year's trade show, Apple Inc.'s charismatic CEO hurtled into the cell phone industry with the iPhone, jettisoned the word "computer" from the Macintosh maker's name and launched the Apple TV set-top box.Since then, Apple's stock has doubled, its computers' market share has grown and consumers have continued their love affair with iPod media players.”If all Apple has this year is an upgraded iPhone, a new AppleTV, and...
Read more...
Download squad has an amusing -- and spot-on -- list of the 5 most annoying programs on your PC. It's delightfully vicious about its bloatware choices, and unlike many such lists, it isn't just some fanboi attacking software from one vendor. Its choice at number 1 is Acrobat Reader, which is hard to argue with. Who among us has not done the "Acrobat cringe" when you accidentally click a .pdf link?Acrobat reader does one thing poorly -- read PDFs. To do this it needs to download updates at least twice a month. Acrobat's other big feature is the ability to bring your system to a roaring halt while it boots up its massive amount of plugins and libraries. All this to display (wait for it) --...
Read more...
Still can't get a Nintendo Wii? Join the club. However, there might be a possible solution, if you don't mind putting a piece of paper under the tree, as well as a somewhat fuzzy delivery date.Nintendo of America President Reggie Fils-Aime told a telephone news conference that shoppers who pay the full price of about $249 for an out-of-stock Wii on December 20 and 21 at retailer GameStop Corp will get a certificate promising a Wii "sometime in January."The program is exclusive to GameStop. The executive declined to say how many units would be available, but noted that the video game specialty retailer had "many tens of thousands" of rain checks.Instead of a large box under the tree with a Wii...
Read more...
Hot Hardware loves handicapping the horserace between the two large chip manufacturers, Intel and AMD. By many measures, Intel has crushed AMD recently, to the point where Intel is flirting with a monopoly position. Maybe that's a bit over the top but you get the idea. However, at least according to Wired, AMD isn't going anywhere, because people will continue to buy from number two, to ensure there always is a number two. Still, there's not much chance of Intel becoming a chip monopoly anytime soon... That's mainly because the cutthroat microprocessor industry, which continues to grow at warp speed, operates in a cyclical fashion. Company fortunes tend to shift rapidly and are based in...
Read more...
When AMD introduced QuadFX last year, it was definitely a stopgap measure, but AMD said it was a long-term technology direction for the company. Looks like they changed directions pretty quickly.Naturally, in the wake of the Phenom processor's debut, we checked with AMD about what's next for Quad FX. Here's what AMD's Suzy Pruitt told us:The short answer is that while there are still engineering resources focused on future platform offerings that build off Quad FX, the current energy and effort has gone into programs and product initiatives like “Spider” and AMD has discontinued future planning and development of its eight-core enthusiast platform at this time.We will continue to support...
Read more...
If you said Western Digital's new RE2-GP series of drives, then you are correct.The entire IT industry is doing their best to look as energy efficient (or green) as possible these days, and it seems that the trend hasn't left any product category untouched. So what exactly does it take to be a 'green' hard drive?“Western Digital isn't shy about the efficiency of its new enterprise drive and claims the RE2-GP is up to 40 percent more efficient than competitors, drawing 4-5W less power while in operation. Western Digital uses three types of optimization that the company refers to as IntelliPower, IntelliPark, and IntelliSeek to deliver the RE2-GP's increased efficiency without compromising...
Read more...
Well, not exactly. It keeps your information on its central, very secure servers. But by using a new software utility for shopping at websites that don't yet accept PayPal payments, PayPal allows you to submit a number for each transaction that is recognized as a valid MasterCard number. They call it PayPal Secure Card."From a merchant's perspective this looks like any other MasterCard transaction," said Chris George, director of financial products for PayPal. "And it's just another PayPal purchase to the customer."Secure Card has been tested by 3 million PayPal customers in the past year. The plug-in will be available to U.S. customers on Tuesday, with international customers to follow.When...
Read more...
I knew it felt crowded here on teh intarnets. They're a series of tubes, you know. According to a new Harris poll, 79% of American adults are currently using the Internet. And they report that they're spending an average of 11 hours a week online. Slackers.The results reflect a steady rise since 2000, when 57 percent of adults polled said they went online. In 2006, the number was 77 percent.When Harris Interactive, a market research firm, first began tracking online use among adults in 1995, the group found that only nine percent of the population -- or 17.5 million -- said they went online.The poll also found that adults are spending more time online at home and at work, up two percent each...
Read more...
They don't actually say that. They have announced that "media stockpilers" can expect to find up to 4 Terabytes on a typical desktop, and 1 Terabyte on your average laptop by the end of this decade. They're presenting their method for cramming all those ones and zeros on a platter at the Perpendicular Magnetic Recording Conference in Tokyo today. They use the technology that won two European scientists the Nobel this year: Giant Magnetoresistance, updated with super small disk drive heads. Capacities of hard drives have grown as researchers have crammed more bits of data closer together while also making the heads sensitive enough to read the data. The industry looks to new technologies...
Read more...
Not only is Google a young, vibrant company, apparently so are its employees, and they tend to look askance at their elders.A tech industry legend who claims Google fired him because he was too old to fit into the company "culture" has just won another shot at making his case in court.A California state appeals court in San Jose on Thursday threw out a lower court's decision to dismiss a lawsuit brought by Internet pioneer Brian Reid. He's best known for helping to create the first firewall, the pioneering AltaVista Internet search engine and the alt.* hierarchy of newsgroups in Usenet.Reid, who was 54 when he filed his lawsuit in 2004, came to Google as its director of operations and director...
Read more...
While I am sure this is well-intentioned, and he does offer a maximum of three (including the initial consultation) house calls in his practice, does Dr. Jay Parkinson's practice go a little over the top? Certainly the price isn't bad.Parkinson's medical practice combines quaint house calls of yore with decidedly 21st-century technology. For a yearly fee of $500, Parkinson makes an initial visit to his patients in their apartments and offers two additional visits as needed. But he is available to them any time between 8 a.m. and 5 p.m. weekdays for unlimited consultation on IM or e-mail.Parkinson uses web-based Life Record to keep his medical records. He can access them on his iPhone if,...
Read more...
This week the Canadian Internet Policy and Public Interest Clinic (CIPPIC) released a report which investigated DRM used in 16 different products and services. The conclusion was that many DRM technologies fail to comply with basic requirements of Canadian privacy law.The study, published by the University of Ottawa’s Canadian Internet Policy and Public Interest Clinic (CIPPIC), indicated that DRM is being used to collect, use and disclose consumers’ personal information for secondary purposes, without giving the user adequate notice or the opportunity to opt-out of collection. The report investigated DRM systems used in 16 different digital products and services including Apple’s...
Read more...
