A collection of stories tagged 'consumer' from Slashdot. http://www.roomformilk.com/ Copyright 2006 RoomforMilk.com. RoomforMilk is not affiliated with Slashdot.org. Fri, 21 Nov 2008 22:59:13 EST Gregg Keizer sifted through many threads of e-mails released under the 'Vista Capable' lawsuit to dig up this jewel...More than a year before Windows Vista's release — and long before Apple started poking fun at the OS — Microsoft officials were already worried about comparisons between Mac OS X and Vista. An e-mail thread from October 2005 showed that an article in the Wall Street Journal by Walt Mossberg grabbed the attention of managers at Microsoft. In a column headlined What PC to Buy If You Are Planning On a Vista Upgrade, Mossberg alarmed one Windows manager who forwarded a bit from the column.... 'You won't have to worry about Vista if you buy one of Apple Computer's Macintosh computers, which don't run Windows,' Mossberg had written. 'Every mainstream consumer doing typical tasks should consider the Mac. Its operating system, called Tiger, is better and more secure than Windows XP, and already contains most of the key features promised for Vista.' Warrier added a comment of his own: 'A premium experience as defined by Walt = Apple. This is why we need to address [the column].'"Read more of this story at Slashdot. http://www.roomformilk.com/launch/26270 http://rss.slashdot.org:80/~r/Slashdot/slashdot/~3/yP79XK7MJyc/article.pl Wed, 19 Nov 2008 18:05:40 EST Gregg Keizer sifted through many threads of e-mails released under the 'Vista Capable' lawsuit to dig up this jewel...More than a year before Windows Vista's release — and long before Apple started poking fun at the OS — Microsoft officials were already worried about comparisons between Mac OS X and Vista. An e-mail thread from October 2005 showed that an article in the Wall Street Journal by Walt Mossberg grabbed the attention of managers at Microsoft. In a column headlined What PC to Buy If You Are Planning On a Vista Upgrade, Mossberg alarmed one Windows manager who forwarded a bit from the column.... 'You won't have to worry about Vista if you buy one of Apple Computer's Macintosh computers, which don't run Windows,' Mossberg had written. 'Every mainstream consumer doing typical tasks should consider the Mac. Its operating system, called Tiger, is better and more secure than Windows XP, and already contains most of the key features promised for Vista.' Warrier added a comment of his own: 'A premium experience as defined by Walt = Apple. This is why we need to address [the column].'"Read more of this story at Slashdot. http://www.roomformilk.com/launch/26255 http://rss.slashdot.org/~r/Slashdot/slashdot/~3/yP79XK7MJyc/article.pl Wed, 19 Nov 2008 13:05:20 EST The Federal Trade Commission yesterday had a US District Court issue a temporary restraining order halting the sale of RemoteSpy keylogger spyware. According to the FTC's complaint, RemoteSpy spyware was sold to clients who would then secretly monitor unsuspecting consumers' computers. The defendants provided RemoteSpy clients with detailed instructions explaining how to disguise the spyware as an innocuous file, such as a photo, attached to an email."Read more of this story at Slashdot. http://www.roomformilk.com/launch/26245 http://rss.slashdot.org/~r/Slashdot/slashdot/~3/lQHTCo8zGAE/article.pl Wed, 19 Nov 2008 02:05:02 EST The good news is that Microsoft have announced free anti-virus software for consumers, dubbed Morro, available late next year. The bad news is... well, exactly the same. Although Microsoft's anti-malware products are pretty good, this move could drive many competitors out of business and create a dangerous security monoculture; major rivals will be lawyering up already. On the other hand, many malware infections could be prevented even by basic software. So is this going to be a good or bad thing overall?"Read more of this story at Slashdot. http://www.roomformilk.com/launch/26242 http://rss.slashdot.org/~r/Slashdot/slashdot/~3/-NBYiFEmKP0/article.pl Tue, 18 Nov 2008 23:05:00 EST More documents are coming out in court proceedings over the Vista Capable debacle. Internetnews.com has good coverage of HP's fury over Microsoft lowering the requirements for a Vista Capable sticker, at Intel's request. "Intel officials may have been pleased that Microsoft lowered standards for obtaining the company's Windows Vista Capable logo program sticker, but the same can't be said about HP's execs. 'I can't be more clear than to say you not only let us down by reneging on your commitment to stand behind the [device driver model] requirement, you have demonstrated a complete lack of commitment to HP as a strategic partner and cost us a lot of money in the process,' said one e-mail from Richard Walker, the senior vice president of HP's consumer business unit, to [Microsoft executives]." PCPro.co.uk follows the trail of accusatory emails inside Microsoft from there: "HP's email prompted then Microsoft co-President, Jim Allchin, to send a furious email of his own to company CEO Steve Ballmer. Allchin's email suggests the decision to lower the requirements was made in his absence by Ballmer, following 'a call between you and Paul [Otellini, Intel CEO].' 'I am beyond being upset here,' Allchin wrote to Ballmer. 'What a mess. Now we have an upset partner, Microsoft destroyed credibility [sic], as well as my own credibility shot.' Ballmer, in turn, blamed another Microsoft executive, Will Poole, in a rather erratically typed reply to Allchin."Read more of this story at Slashdot. http://www.roomformilk.com/launch/26233 http://rss.slashdot.org/~r/Slashdot/slashdot/~3/84i4fvotNTM/article.pl Tue, 18 Nov 2008 14:05:01 EST It appears Dell has been caught red-faced by yet another pricing mistake on their Australian website. Many customers thought they had spotted a fantastic deal when they came across a 55%-off offer. Dell later denied that this was a valid special and telephoned customers to offer them a choice of the standard price, or a cancelled order. Dell's senior manager of corporate communication came out and apologized for the mistake, promising processes would be reviewed to prevent it from happening again. In the days after the original 'incorrectly priced' offer was fixed, Dell made a different error leading to an even cheaper price being advertised. This time, on many user forums and blogs, users are debating Australian contract law as it applies to this matter — it is not as clear-cut as many originally believed."Read more of this story at Slashdot. http://www.roomformilk.com/launch/26205 http://rss.slashdot.org/~r/Slashdot/slashdot/~3/O_4c7gCWVPA/article.pl Mon, 17 Nov 2008 05:05:01 EST Just how many books a year would you need to read before the cost of Amazon's Kindle is justified? The answer is not so cut-and-dried. If you're a college student and all of your texts were available on Kindle (possible but unlikely), you could recover the cost of the reader in a semester and a half. For consumers to break even with Kindle's cost in that time, they would have to be in the habit of buying and reading four new hardback books per month — if the convenience factor wasn't part of the equation. At two books per month, breakeven would be in three years." Here is the spreadsheet if you want to play with the numbers.Read more of this story at Slashdot. http://www.roomformilk.com/launch/26201 http://rss.slashdot.org/~r/Slashdot/slashdot/~3/jrTZvMwwx0k/article.pl Sun, 16 Nov 2008 18:05:03 EST The New York Times is reporting that Google has added a voice interface to their iPhone search software. Expected to make its debut as early as Friday, users will be able to speak into their phone and ask any question they could type into Google's search engine. The audio will be digitized and results will be returned via the normal search interface. "Google is by no means the only company working toward more advanced speech recognition capabilities. So-called voice response technology is now routinely used in telephone answering systems and in other consumer services and products. These systems, however, often have trouble with the complexities of free-form language and usually offer only a limited range of responses to queries."Read more of this story at Slashdot. http://www.roomformilk.com/launch/26165 http://rss.slashdot.org/~r/Slashdot/slashdot/~3/sPzkPQUw1jc/article.pl Fri, 14 Nov 2008 17:05:02 EST TechDirt is reporting on a disappointing development out of Canada. An Ontario transportation board has fined PickupPal, a Web-based service for arranging carpools, because a local bus company complained of the competition. (TechCrunch apparently first broke the story.) "[The transportation board has] established a bunch of draconian rules that any user in Ontario must follow if it uses the service — including no crossing of municipal boundaries — meaning the service is only good within any particular city's limits. It's better than being shut down completely, and the service can still operate elsewhere around the world, but this is yet another case where we see regulations, that are supposedly put in place to improve things for consumers, do the exact opposite."Read more of this story at Slashdot. http://www.roomformilk.com/launch/26161 http://rss.slashdot.org/~r/Slashdot/slashdot/~3/hADxwMQPnik/article.pl Fri, 14 Nov 2008 13:05:02 EST Closely integrating GPU and CPU systems was one of the motivations for AMD's $5.4bn acquisition of ATI in 2006. Now AMD is looking to expand its Stream project, which uses graphics chip processing cores to perform computing tasks normally sent to the CPU, a process known as General Purpose computing on Graphics Processing Units (GPGPU). By leveraging thousands of processing cores on a graphics card for general computing calculations, tasks such as scientific simulations or geographic modelling, which are traditionally the realm of supercomputers, can be performed on smaller, more affordable systems. AMD will release a new driver for its Radeon series on 10 December which will extend Stream capabilities to consumer cards." Reader Vigile adds: "While third-party consumer applications from CyberLink and ArcSoft are due in Q1 2009, in early December AMD will release a new Catalyst driver that opens up stream computing on all 4000-series parts and a new Avivo Video Converter application that promises to drastically increase transcoding speeds. AMD also has partnered with Aprius to build 8-GPU stream computing servers to compete with NVIDIA's Tesla brand."Read more of this story at Slashdot. http://www.roomformilk.com/launch/26140 http://rss.slashdot.org/~r/Slashdot/slashdot/~3/TSjL71R9JL4/article.pl Thu, 13 Nov 2008 21:05:30 EST WillDraven is just one of many who writes to tell us that Circuit City, the United States' 2nd largest consumer electronics retailer, has filed for bankruptcy under chapter 11. This news comes as no surprise as the company has been in financial trouble, recently announcing that it will be closing over one fifth of its stores and laying off 17% of its U.S. employees in the process. 'Larger rival Best Buy, which is based in Minneapolis, has said it might take over stores that distressed rivals close. Yet a flood of discounted merchandise from liquidating Circuit City stores could hurt Best Buy during this holiday shopping season, said Jefferies & Co analyst Dan Binder.'"Read more of this story at Slashdot. http://www.roomformilk.com/launch/26082 http://rss.slashdot.org/~r/Slashdot/slashdot/~3/oQUQxdPpriA/article.pl Mon, 10 Nov 2008 15:05:16 EST superglaze writes to tell us that VMWare has announced a large effort behind their Mobile Virtualization Platform, promising the possibility of multiple operating systems on mobile devices. "The company described MVP as a "thin layer of software" that will be embedded in handsets and 'be optimized to run efficiently on low-power-consuming and memory-constrained mobile phones.' Asked whether MVP would offer something different from the abstraction already provided by mobile Java, VMware's European product director Fredrik Sjostedt told ZDNet UK that MVP would require less recoding. 'If you want to have an application run on a Java-specific appliance, you need to code it for Java," Sjostedt said. "What we're introducing with MVP is an [embedded] abstraction layer below that, between the physical hardware and the software layer.'"Read more of this story at Slashdot. http://www.roomformilk.com/launch/26078 http://rss.slashdot.org/~r/Slashdot/slashdot/~3/t5HkoW9JpiA/article.pl Mon, 10 Nov 2008 13:05:02 EST In September, we discussed a class-action suit filed against Electronic Arts over the DRM in Spore. Now, two new class-action suits have been filed that target the SecuROM software included in a free trial of the Spore Creature Creator (PDF) and in The Sims 2: Bon Voyage (PDF). If this sort of legal reprisal continues to catch on, EA could be seeing quite a few class-action suits in the future. One of the suits accuses: "The inclusion of undisclosed, secretly installed DRM protection measures with a program that was freely distributed constitutes a major violation of computer owners' absolute right to control what does and what does not get loaded onto their computers, and how their computers shall be used ... [SecuROM] cannot be completely uninstalled. Once installed it becomes a permanent part of the consumer's software portfolio ... EA's EULA for Spore Creature Creator Free Trial Edition makes utterly no mention of any Technical Protection Measures, DRM technology, or SecuROM whatsoever."Read more of this story at Slashdot. http://www.roomformilk.com/launch/26063 http://rss.slashdot.org/~r/Slashdot/slashdot/~3/W6DQV5LByN8/article.pl Sun, 09 Nov 2008 15:05:12 EST When security professionals are dealing with huge amounts of information, and who is not nowadays, correlation and filtering is not the easiest path (and sometimes enough) to discern what is going on. The in-depth analysis of security data and logs is a time consuming exercise, and security visualization (SecViz) extensively helps to focus on the relevant data and reduces the amount of work required to reach to the same conclusions. It is mandatory to add the tools and techniques associated to SecViz to your arsenal, as they are basically taking advantage of the capabilities we have as humans to visualize (and at the same time analyze) data. A clear example is the insider threat and related incidents, where tons of data sources are available. The best sentence (unfortunately it is not an image ;) that describes SecViz comes from the author: A picture is worth a thousand log entries." Read on for the rest of rsiles's review.Read more of this story at Slashdot. http://www.roomformilk.com/launch/25984 http://rss.slashdot.org/~r/Slashdot/slashdot/~3/DmipvGgdDF0/article.pl Wed, 05 Nov 2008 14:05:00 EST mallumax notes Amazon's new Frustration-Free Packaging initiative. Over several years the retailer hopes to convince many of its suppliers to offer consumer-friendlier packaging. It's starting with just 19 products from Mattel, Fisher-Price, Microsoft, and Transcend. Until this program spreads to more products, better get one of these (ThinkGeek and Slashdot share a corporate overlord). From Amazon's announcement: "The Frustration-Free Package is recyclable and comes without excess packaging materials such as hard plastic clamshell casings, plastic bindings, and wire ties. It's designed to be opened without the use of a box cutter or knife and will protect your product just as well as traditional packaging. Products with Frustration-Free Packaging can frequently be shipped in their own boxes, without an additional shipping box. Amazon works directly with manufacturers to box products in Frustration-Free Packages right off the assembly lines, which reduces the overall amount of packing materials used."Read more of this story at Slashdot. http://www.roomformilk.com/launch/25952 http://rss.slashdot.org/~r/Slashdot/slashdot/~3/hxXKmmzy_dM/article.pl Mon, 03 Nov 2008 21:05:06 EST ISPreview reports that 86% of UK broadband users don't understand the usage limits on their service, and nearly one million have reached or exceeded their ISPs limit in the last year. This is important because 56% of major providers are prepared to disconnect those who 'abuse' the service. However, it also shows how damaging bad marketing can be, with 6.2M people believing they have an 'unlimited' service with no restrictions. The UK Advertising Standards Authority is also blamed for making the problem worse by allowing providers to describe their services as unlimited even if there is a usage cap, as long as it is detailed in the small print. However, consumers are none the wiser with over 10 million broadband customers never reading their usage agreements and a further 1.8M not knowing whether they have read it or not. Unsurprisingly 7.5M do not even know their download limit, which is understandable when so few providers clarify it."Read more of this story at Slashdot. http://www.roomformilk.com/launch/25746 http://rss.slashdot.org/~r/Slashdot/slashdot/~3/UBkFijzGg-o/article.pl Fri, 24 Oct 2008 12:05:07 EDT An open-source digital rights management (DRM) scheme says it's ready to supplant Apple and Microsoft as the world's leading copy protection solution. Marlin, which is backed by companies such as Sony and Samsung, has just announced a new partner program that aims to drive the DRM system into more consumer devices. "It works in a way that doesn't hold consumers hostage," Talal Shamoon told PC Pro. "It allows you to protect and share content in the home, in a way that people own the content, not the devices." When asked about the biggest problem of DRM — that customers hate it — he argued that "the biggest problem with DRM is people have implemented it badly. Make DRM invisible and people will use it.""Read more of this story at Slashdot. http://www.roomformilk.com/launch/25723 http://rss.slashdot.org/~r/Slashdot/slashdot/~3/6danDI17qCM/article.pl Thu, 23 Oct 2008 12:05:01 EDT It came out this week that Google's Android phone OS, like the iPhone, has a kill switch that lets Android Market applications be disabled remotely. But it's a mistake to lump Google's implementation and Apple's together — the Google version is a smart, pro-consumer move that avoids all the things that make Apple's version a bad idea."Read more of this story at Slashdot. http://www.roomformilk.com/launch/25627 http://rss.slashdot.org/~r/Slashdot/slashdot/~3/5CDKh1dnaCc/article.pl Sun, 19 Oct 2008 00:05:01 EDT twitter points out coverage of a discussion between Steve Ballmer and two Gartner analysts in which the Microsoft CEO admits that Google Apps is enjoying an advantage over Office by users who want to share their documents. He points to Office Live as their response to Google, and adds, "Google has the lead, but, if we're good at advertising, we'll compete with them in the consumer business." Whether or not they're good at advertising is still in question, if their recent attempts are any indication. Ballmer also made statements indicating some sort of arrangement with Yahoo! could still be in the works, but Microsoft was quick to step on that idea. Regarding Windows Vista, he said Microsoft was prepared for people to skip it altogether, and that Microsoft would be "ready" when it was time to deploy Windows 7.Read more of this story at Slashdot. http://www.roomformilk.com/launch/25612 http://rss.slashdot.org/~r/Slashdot/slashdot/~3/FfoFtAgbqgA/article.pl Fri, 17 Oct 2008 23:05:01 EDT Last month the FCC conducted tests to determine whether mobile devices using a new US radio band (2,155 to 2,175 MHz) with free wireless service would cause significant interference with cell phones using a nearby band. Now, the results are in and in a report released Friday, the FCC concluded that 'the analysis shows that an AWS-1 and AWS-3 device operating in close proximity does not necessarily result in interference.' Still, T-Mobile accuses the FCC of basing its conclusions on new assumptions that weren't used when the tests took place. But at least one party is happy: M2Z praised the report, saying 'There is no longer any need for American consumers, the public interest and the FCC's regulatory process to be held hostage as it has been for the last five months by incumbent carriers... who have used unfounded claims of interference to disguise their intent to prevent the introduction of new broadband competition in the AWS-3 band.'"Read more of this story at Slashdot. http://www.roomformilk.com/launch/25518 http://rss.slashdot.org/~r/Slashdot/slashdot/~3/56ZlvAEsFTY/article.pl Tue, 14 Oct 2008 09:05:13 EDT A recent examination of current scientific publishing methods shows that they are problematic at best, treating the entire process like an economic system, with publishers as bidders at an auction, authors as sellers, and the community at large as consumers. "The authors then go on to discuss a variety of economic terms that they think apply to publishing, but the quality of the analogies varies quite a bit. It's easy to accept that the limited number of high-profile publishers act as an oligarchy and that they add value through branding. Some of the other links are significantly more tenuous. The authors argue that scientific research suffers from an uncertain valuation, but this would require that the consumers — the scientists — can't accurately judge what's significant. "Read more of this story at Slashdot. http://www.roomformilk.com/launch/25511 http://rss.slashdot.org:80/~r/Slashdot/slashdot/~3/l1KwsEfLZTM/article.pl Tue, 14 Oct 2008 02:06:14 EDT A recent examination of current scientific publishing methods shows that they are problematic at best, treating the entire process like an economic system, with publishers as bidders at an auction, authors as sellers, and the community at large as consumers. "The authors then go on to discuss a variety of economic terms that they think apply to publishing, but the quality of the analogies varies quite a bit. It's easy to accept that the limited number of high-profile publishers act as an oligarchy and that they add value through branding. Some of the other links are significantly more tenuous. The authors argue that scientific research suffers from an uncertain valuation, but this would require that the consumers — the scientists — can't accurately judge what's significant. "Read more of this story at Slashdot. http://www.roomformilk.com/launch/25489 http://rss.slashdot.org/~r/Slashdot/slashdot/~3/l1KwsEfLZTM/article.pl Mon, 13 Oct 2008 15:05:12 EDT Forcing sulfur atoms into silicon using femtosecond laser pulses creates a material called 'black silicon' that is 100 to 500 times more sensitive to light than conventional silicon, in both the visible and infrared spectrums, according to SiOnyx, a venture-funded Massachusetts start-up that just emerged from stealth mode. Today's New York Times has a piece about the serendipitous discovery of black silicon inside the laboratory of Harvard physicist Eric Mazur. Meanwhile, a report in Xconomy explains how black silicon works and how SiOnyx and manufacturing partners hope to use it to build far more efficient photovoltaic cells and more sensitive detectors for medical imaging devices, surveillance satellites, and consumer digital cameras."Read more of this story at Slashdot. http://www.roomformilk.com/launch/25469 http://rss.slashdot.org/~r/Slashdot/slashdot/~3/6kT7ILpmnPg/article.pl Sun, 12 Oct 2008 14:05:01 EDT The Netherlands based company Shapeways is beta testing a new service allowing people to print three-dimensional models. Customers can upload designs or use a creation tool hosted at the Shapeways website, then order a printed model of their designs for less than $3 per square centimeter. The printed items are shipped to the customer in ten days or less, bringing 3D printing to consumers and not just companies large enough to afford their own printers."Read more of this story at Slashdot. http://www.roomformilk.com/launch/25464 http://rss.slashdot.org/~r/Slashdot/slashdot/~3/NK2Mz2mS5kg/article.pl Sun, 12 Oct 2008 06:05:01 EDT It appears that Verizon is going to start double-dipping by charging both consumers AND content providers for SMS text messages. Verizon has informed content partners that it will levy a $.03 charge for messages sent to customers, effective November 1. From RCRWireless: 'Countless companies could be affected by the new fee, from players in the booming SMS-search space (4INFO, Google Inc. and ChaCha) to media companies (CNN, ESPN and local outlets) to mobile-couponing startups (Cellfire) to banks and other institutions that use mobile as an extension of customer services.'"Read more of this story at Slashdot. http://www.roomformilk.com/launch/25433 http://rss.slashdot.org:80/~r/Slashdot/slashdot/~3/m2EsxQ7LwLs/article.pl Sat, 11 Oct 2008 09:05:18 EDT