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Angels & Demons poised for unholy success – Canada.com

Cody Taylor — Thu, 14 May 2009 17:00:28 +0000

Angels & Demons poised for unholy success
Canada.com
By Bob ThompsonMay 14, 2009 11:33 Some religious groups consider them the unholy trinity, but to the film industry, author Dan Brown, director Ron Howard, and headliner Tom Hanks are the golden trio with the box-office Midas touch.
Angels & Demons: Commits cardinal sin of tedium Toronto Star
Angels & Demons: Unholy fun at last! CTV.ca
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Artificial Ethics

Cody Taylor — Wed, 13 May 2009 21:00:12 +0000

basiles writes “Jacques Pitrat’s new book Artificial Ethics: Moral Conscience, Awareness and Consciencousness will be of interest to anyone who likes robotics, software, artificial intelligence, cognitive science and science-fiction. The book talks about artificial consciousness in a way that can be enjoyed by experts in the field or your average science fiction geek. I believe that people who enjoyed reading Dennet’s or Hofstadter’s books (like the famous Godel Escher Bach) will like reading Artificial Ethics.” Keep reading for the rest of Basile’s review.

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Intel Receives Record Fine By the EU

Cody Taylor — Wed, 13 May 2009 17:00:06 +0000

Firefalcon writes “Intel has been fined a record 1.06 billion euros (.45 billion / £948 million) by the European Competition Commission after being found guilty of anti-competitive practices. This makes Microsoft’s 497 million euro fine in 2004 (which was a record at the time) seem like a slap on the hand. Reports had previously suggested that the fine would be similar to Microsoft’s. Intel was charged (among other things) with encouraging manufacturers and retailers to purchase fewer (or even not stock) AMD processors. More details of the ruling are on the European Commission’s Competition website. Intel said they will appeal the fine.”

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EU poised to hit Intel with mega fine

Cody Taylor — Tue, 12 May 2009 01:00:30 +0000

By Andrew Thomas Brussels, Belgium – Intel is bracing itself as the EU Commission prepares to announce its punishment on the chip giant for alleged anti-competitive behavior.

Sources Say EU Will Find Intel Anti-Competitive

Cody Taylor — Mon, 11 May 2009 13:00:11 +0000

Anarchduke sends in a Reuters story quoting unnamed sources who say that the European Union has decided to find Intel anti-competitive. The finding should be announced in the coming week. “…the Commission will say Intel paid PC makers to delay or scrap the launch of products containing AMD chips. The Commission will characterize the payments as ‘naked restrictions’ to competition, the sources said. … Intel set percentages of its own chips that it wanted PC makers to use, the sources said. For example, NEC Corp was told that 20 percent of its desktop and notebook machines could have AMD chips, the sources said. All Lenovo notebooks had to use Intel chips, as did relevant Dell products. The figure was 95 percent for Hewlett-Packard’s business desktops, they said.” Previous infractions by Intel include giving illegal rebates to computer makers back in 2007 and paying retailers not to sell AMD-based computer systems.

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Cone of Silence 2.0

Cody Taylor — Sun, 10 May 2009 21:00:08 +0000

Village Idiot sends word of a patent granted to MIT researchers for a cone of silence a la Maxwell Smart. This one doesn’t use plastic, but rather active and networked sensors and speakers embedded in a (probably indoor) space such as an open-plan office. “In “Get Smart” secret agents wanting a private conversation would deploy the ‘cone of silence,’ a clear plastic contraption lowered over the agents’ heads. It never worked — they couldn’t hear each other, while eavesdroppers could pick up every word. Now a modern cone of silence that we are assured will work is being patented by engineers Joe Paradiso and Yasuhiro Ono of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. … Instead of plastic domes, they use a sensor network to work out where potential eavesdroppers are, and speakers to generate a subtle masking sound at just the right level. … The array of speakers… aims a mix of white noise and randomized office hubbub at the eavesdroppers. The subtle, confusing sound makes the conversation unintelligible.” One comment thread on the article wonders about the propriety of tracking people around an office in order to preserve privacy.

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A Look Back At the World’s First Netbook

Cody Taylor — Sun, 10 May 2009 17:00:04 +0000

Not-A-Microsoft-Fan writes with this excerpt from The Coffee Desk: “Netbooks are making huge waves within the hardware and software industries today, but not many would believe that the whole Netbook craze actually started back around 1996 with the Toshiba Libretto 70CT. Termed technically as a subnotebook because of its small dimensions, the computer is the first that fits all of the qualifications of being what we would term a netbook today, due in part to its built-in Infrared and PCMCIA hardware, and its (albeit early) web browsing software. The hardware includes the two (potentially) wireless PCMCIA and infrared network connections, Windows 95 OSR 2 with Internet Explorer 2.0, a whole 16MB of RAM and a 120Mhz Intel Pentium processor (we’re flying now!).”

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All Solid State Drives Suffer Performance Drop-off

Cody Taylor — Sat, 09 May 2009 01:00:16 +0000

Lucas123 writes “The recent revelation that Intel’s consumer X25-M solid state drive had a firmware bug that drastically affected its performance led Computerworld to question whether all SSDs can suffer performance degradation due to fragmentation issues. It seems vendors are well aware that the specifications they list on drive packaging represent burst speeds when only sequential writes are being recorded, but after use performance drops markedly over time. The drives with better controllers tend to level out, but others appear to be able to suffer performance problems. Still not fully baked are benchmarking standards that are expected out later this year from several industry organizations that will eventually compel manufacturers to list actual performance with regard to sequential and random reads and writes as well as the drive’s expected lifespan under typical conditions.”

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MS, Intel "Goofed Up" Win 7 XP Virtualization

Cody Taylor — Fri, 08 May 2009 17:00:14 +0000

clang_jangle writes “Arstechnica has a short article up describing how Microsoft and Intel have ‘goofed up’ Windows 7’s XP Mode, by ensuring many PCs will not be able to use it. (And it won’t be easy to figure out in advance if your PC is one of them.) Meanwhile, over at Infoworld, Redmond is criticized for having the ‘right idea, wrong technology’ with their latest compatibility scheme, and PC World says ‘great idea, on paper.’ With Windows 7 due to be released in 2010, and Redmond apparently eager to move on from XP, perhaps this is not really a ‘goof’ at all?”

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Library Groups Voice Concerns About Google Books

Cody Taylor — Fri, 08 May 2009 01:00:15 +0000

Library associations are warning that a settlement in a lawsuit brought against Google by authors and publishers could threaten “fundamental library values of access, equity, privacy, and intellectual freedom.” The groups, which represent more than 139,000 U.S. libraries, argue that the agreement could leave Google too powerful in the…