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Comment Re:But the open ones are good (Score 1) 351

by Maarek_1 (#18428575) Attached to: The Future of Creative and the Sound Card Market
No, it wasn't. Creative has continued to license the Sensaura technology to 3rd parties since they purchased them. Nvidia chose to halt development based only on the cost of development, as the drivers for the Soundstorm and Nforce APU were developed by Nvidia using Sensaura IP. They did not rely on Sensaura for future developments and even if they did, Creative has taken no steps to prevent anyone from licensing the technology.

The #1 feature of the SoundStorm branding/Nvidia APU was that it did direct Dolby Digital Live encoding which produces a low quality Dolby Digital compatible bitstream. Due to the heavy processing overhead and the fact that much of the processing was handled in software the quality of the sound was sacrificed in order to improve processor overhead.

It's odd that I have never had a popping problem with any of my Creative cards.... perhaps it is because I purchase high quality motherboards and know how to configure them to help diminish the possibility of overloading the PCI bus. My Audigy, Audigy 2, EMU 1212M, EMU1616M, and X-Fi all sound wonderful and are noticably better than the sound output from soundstorm (even when using the optical jack).
Linux Business

Layoffs and CEO Resignation At OSDL 158

Posted by kdawson from the linus-is-ok-though dept.
lisah writes "Big changes are afoot at Open Source Development Labs (OSDL) with today's surprise announcement of the departure of CEO Stuart Cohen and the layoff of nine other employees. Details are still emerging about what exactly this means for OSDL but according to a preliminary announcement, Cohen is 'leaving to pursue other open source opportunities' and OSDL is 'refocusing the scope of [their] work to better align resources with [their] revenues...'" The article also mentions the last year's layoff at OSDL.

Windows XP SP3 Postponed Until 2008 259

Posted by CmdrTaco from the wait-or-upgrade dept.
Rockgod quotes an article saying "With Microsoft now saying that its next major service pack for Windows XP will not ship until 2008, some Windows users are wondering whether the software upgrade will ever be released." and then later "Michael Cherry, an analyst with Directions on Microsoft, agrees that Microsoft may very well decide to drop XP Service Pack 3. "It absolutely could happen. Microsoft is under no obligation to produce any service packs, ever," he explains. "They feel that because these fixes are available through the auto-update that there's less need to create a service pack."

OSX To Feature Portable User Accounts? 245

Posted by ScuttleMonkey from the home-you-can-take-with-you dept.
eldavojohn writes "A new patent filed by Apple is causing speculation that OSX is soon to receive a new feature. From the article: '[the patent states] that the user account may be stored alongside general data storage or "other functionality". All of which seems to suggest that at some time soon we may be able to load our user accounts onto an iPod, hard drive or USB keydrive and take them wherever we go.'"

New Copy Protection to Make Playing DVDs on a PC Difficult 557

Posted by ScuttleMonkey from the thankfully-there-are-alternatives-to-windows dept.
The Cowardly Pirate writes "ZDNet's Hardware 2.0 blog is reporting that new copy-protection software for DVD publishers from a company called ProtectDisc not only makes it difficult to rip movies that you've purchased but also prevents discs from playing in a Windows PC at all. From the article: 'Protect DVD-Video is the brainchild of a company called ProtectDisc. Part of the copy-protection mechanism is a non-standard UDF (Universal Disc Format) file system which results in the IFO file on the DVD (this is the file responsible for storing information on chapters, subtitles and audio tracks) appearing to the PC as being zero bytes long.'"

Zero-Day IE Exploit In the Wild 239

Posted by kdawson from the now-delivering-spyware-to-a-pc-near-you dept.
Eric Sites writes to tell us that a new zero-day IE exploit has been found in the wild. It looks to be a bug in VML in IE. The Sunbelt blog notes, "This exploit can be mitigated by turning off Javascripting."

Code Posted For New IE Exploit 123

Posted by kdawson from the not-quite-zero-day dept.
PC World is reporting that two days ago hackers posted code for a new vulnerability in Internet Explorer that could allow drive-by takeover of a vulnerable PC. Security companies say that no exploits using the "daxctle" vulnerability have yet been found in the wild, but they are taking the new threat seriously. Symantec calls the bug "critical" and Secunia rates it highly critical, the most severe rating. The hackers who posted the sample code, xsec.org, refer to it as a "0day" exploit. The article quotes another security expert who calls this label "a stretch." Update: 09/17 18:00 GMT by C :Fixed link to XSec. Thanks for pointing that one out, folks.

Apple Announces More Options Troubles 159

Posted by CowboyNeal from the setting-the-record-straight dept.
fremen writes "Apple today announced that they will be withdrawing their financial reports back to September 29, 2002 and delaying the filing of future reports after finding more backdated options problems. Companies backdate their stock options by looking back over a period of time and choosing a historical low as the option strike price. While not illegal, this must be fully disclosed to investors and properly accounted. Expect more uncertainty in the coming weeks as regulators must now uncover how much of Apple's record profits were incorrect as well as whether or not Steve Jobs will be able to continue leading the company."

The 10 Tech People Who Don't Matter 520

Posted by Hemos from the ouch-that-hurts dept.
TopShelf writes "Business 2.0 recently ran a feature on the Top 50 People Who Matter in the business world, but perhaps more interesting is their list of the 10 People Who Don't Matter. Leading off the list is a Slashdot favorite, Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer..." Given, Rob's in there as well, but I'd say his company in the list is pretty decent.

Judging The Apple 'Sweatshop' Charge 828

Posted by Zonk from the that's-laterally-not-differently dept.
jurgen writes "MacWorld summarizes an article published in the U.K., stating that Apple's iPods are made in China by women who work 15 hours/day, make $50/month, and have to pay half of that right back to the company for housing and food. The article also claims the workers live in dormitories where they are housed 100 per room, and are not allowed visitors." A Wired article looks at the same story, exploring the reliability of the Mail on Sunday's claims. From that article: "The situation is too murky for a rush to judgment on Apple's ethics here, and it may well meet minimum global standards. But for a company that has staked its image on progressive politics, Apple has set itself up as a potential lightning rod on global labor standards. Sweatshops came back to bite Nike after its customers rose up in arms; and Apple can expect a similar grilling from its upscale Volvo-driving fans in the months ahead."

Microsoft Stops Supporting Win98 Early 477

Posted by Zonk from the cue-taps dept.
Christopher_G_Lewis writes "Today Microsoft announced that it is 'not feasible to make the extensive changes necessary to Windows Explorer on Microsoft Windows 98, Microsoft Windows 98 Second Edition (SE), and Microsoft Windows Millennium Edition (ME) to eliminate the vulnerability' to fix Security Bulletin MS06-15. Granted, the vulnerability is easily prevented by basic firewalling, but this basically is the first time Microsoft has admitted that Windows 98 is so broken that it's crazy to be running it on today's Internet."

Rumormongering - Apple Could Buy Nintendo? 377

Posted by Zonk from the idle-friday-arguments dept.
An anonymous reader writes "CNET wonders if 'Apple is about to frag the gaming community with a revelation that could shake Microsoft to its core: Apple will buy Nintendo. What could be more quintessentially left-field Apple behaviour than buying out the U.S.'s number three games console manufacturer?' The article goes on to compare the companies, saying 'both have followings whose brand dedication verges on the religiously devout' and design styles that are so similar that 'the Nintendo DS Lite practically looks like Jonathan Ive built it.' The writer says an Apple and Nintendo merger will 'penetrate the mainstream consumer market with Macintosh computers'. The possible outcome of a merger would be a console based around the Mac Mini. As for whether Apple have the cash to pull it off: 'Cisco was rumoured to be looking at a purchase of Nintendo earlier in the year, so the idea of Nintendo being bought is not outlandish in itself. Apple's market cap is $51.7bn (Nintendo's is $23.1bn)'"

AppleBerry Predicted? 181

Posted by Hemos from the the-fruits-get-together dept.
dr_fatty writes "The Globe and Mail is reporting that analyst Peter Misek, who predicted a partnership between Research in Motion and IBM, is now predicting a partnership between Apple and Rim. The predicted result? The AppleBerry. 'Such a deal would have huge merit because each company lacks what the other provides. RIM wants a firm foothold in the consumer market and Apple doesn't have a presence in the booming wireless data sector, he said.'"

Windows Vista - Not So Bad? 378

Posted by Zonk from the needs-some-salt dept.
Shantyman writes "ZDNet has a counterpoint to the negative impressions of Vista's Beta 2 going around. Entitled Vista Beta 2, up close and personal, Ed Bott writes: 'I've spent the last three months running beta versions of Windows Vista on the PCs I use for everyday work. February and March were exasperating. April's release was noticeably better, and the Beta 2 preview - Build 5381, released to testers in early May - has been running flawlessly on my notebook for nearly three weeks.'"

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