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Comment Re:Why? (Score 2) 403

by dpx420 (#41770079) Attached to: Microsoft Releases Windows 8

4) Improved out-of-the-box multi-monitor support (it's been likened with Ultramon, but without requiring third-party software).

That's nice, but pretty useless for the laptop I run 90% of the time. The few times I have used multiple monitor displays (work, mainly) the standard support in friggin XP does everything I need it to.

5) Client HyperV. If you do anything with virtualization on your PC, or have even thought you might like to, this is a solid reason to look at Win8. There simply aren't any better virtualization solutions available for client Windows versions right now, certainly not at anything close to the same proce.

Client what now? For most people including myself this isn't remotely useful. Under what circumstances does the average consumer need to make use of virtualisation?

6) If you use multiple computers (most of us, probably, just like I imagne most use multiple monitors when posible), the ability to use Lindows Live for single-sign-on and profile roaming is excellent.

Woo, more cloud bullshit and opportunities to give M$ control over my personal life. Again, I can't think of many circumstances where this would actually be useful. People who need to keep accessing the same files from different computers all the time (for some reason) are probably already well equipped with established cloud services or even *gasp* memory sticks.

7) The Windows Store, which holds both "Metro-style" and desktop apps (at least on the x86 version of Win8). You may choose to avoid it for its tablet-friendly UI, or for the fact that it's basically a DRM system (like other commercial and integrated "app stores"), but you may find the ease of software discovery, installation, and updating to be useful.

Well isn't this Windows 8's Un-unique Selling Point. i.e. their answer to the App Store. Hint: most people with a fetish for walled gardens are probably already well established with Apple. Those of us who actually value a choice and freedom already know how to use Google to find free Apps (remember when we didn't have the need to abbreviate and capitalise the word 'applications').

8) Built-in antivirus. Just like a certain vocal portion of /. has been clamoring for MS to add for ages.

Because criticising M$'s grasp on anything related to security is like picking on the disabled kid in the playground, I'll just mention that Windows Defender already exists (and contradicting myself here, isn't actually too bad). The vast majority of the planet who are already using older M$ products no doubt already have one or more antivirus solutions. Since as anyone with half a brain knows, it's lunacy to rely on a single point of protection. So again, while this is a nice feature (and arguably should have been standard on an OS since at least a decade ago) what exactly new does it bring to the table?

Of course, all the above counter arguments for upgrading are pretty irrelevant since there is still enough momentum in the Windows empire that you can guarantee new PCs will be sold with it as standard before long. However, this release probably has the least compelling reasons to upgrade thus far. XP and 7 were tangible and substantial improvements over their predecessors. Vista was a turd as we all know, but at least it was a shiny turd. People won't be as impressed by the UI changes this time around. I'm thinking from the point of view of the average non-geek and I still can't see why anyone would rush out to buy this.
Earth

Huge Diamond Deposits Revealed In Russia 243

Posted by timothy from the devaluing-bond-villain-exploits dept.
An anonymous reader writes with this excerpt from the Christian Science Monitor: "'Russia has just declassified news that will shake world gem markets to their core: the discovery of a vast new diamond field containing 'trillions of carats,' enough to supply global markets for another 3,000 years. The Soviets discovered the bonanza back in the 1970s beneath a 35-million-year-old, 62-mile diameter asteroid crater in eastern Siberia known as Popigai Astroblem. They decided to keep it secret, and not to exploit it, apparently because the USSR's huge diamond operations at Mirny, in Yakutia, were already producing immense profits in what was then a tightly controlled world market."
Medicine

US Doctors Back Circumcision 1264

Posted by Soulskill from the yep-we're-going-there dept.
ananyo writes "On 27 August, a report by the American Academy of Pediatrics concludes for the first time that, overall, boys will be healthier if circumcised. The report says that although the choice is ultimately up to parents, medical insurance should pay for the procedure. The recommendation, coming from such an influential body, could boost U.S. circumcision rates, which, at 55%, are already higher than much of the developed world. The researchers estimate that each circumcision that is not performed costs the U.S. health-care system $313."
Science

Study Suggests You Can Learn New Things In Your Sleep 99

Posted by samzenpus from the I-know-kung-fu dept.
bbianca127 writes "Researchers studied classical conditioning in 55 study participants while sleeping or awake. According to the article, 'Classical conditioning teaches a person or animal to associate one stimulus with another.' The researchers paired tones with scents; when they played a tone, they would let out a particular scent while the participants were sleeping. They found that the participants would make the association between the tones and scents even while awake."
Mars

Robots To Go Spelunking In Martian Caves? 80

Posted by samzenpus from the robby-the-caving-robot dept.
astroengine writes "Scientists are beginning to sketch out plans for NASA's new Mars rover Curiosity to climb Mount Sharp, but future robots may have a more direct way to access the planet's history books. Recent discoveries of 'skylights' and lava tubes on the surface of Mars, as well as the moon, are sparking the development of robotic probes that can descend into caves and explore tunnels. 'Geology works in layers, so how many layers can you see? Well, we know there are sinkholes on Mars. Those sinkholes expose potentially hundreds of feet of layers, so if you could lower something down and examine those layers and explore a tunnel underneath, or anything of that sort, the science that can be done with that is just phenomenal,' Jason Derleth, senior technology analyst with NASA's Innovative Advanced Concepts Program, told Discovery News."
GNU is Not Unix

Frank Zappa's Influence On Linux and FOSS Development 195

Posted by timothy from the oh-yeah-try-to-disprove-it dept.
Roblimo writes "Zappa's 'Dinah-Moe Hummm' is totally about Linux, at least in spirit, while the song 'Montana,' with its talk of zirconium-encrusted tweezers and dental floss, 'is obviously about Mac users.' Not only that: In the early '70s Zappa wrote a song called 'Penguin in Bondage,' an obvious foretelling of the anti-Linux lawsuits and threats from SCO, Microsoft, and other evildoers. Zappa was also a heavy user of the Synclavier, an electronic music machine that was a precursor to today's 'studio on a computer' recording and sound editing software. According to an article on DevX, today Zappa would no doubt be using Linux and Ardour for most of his recording and composition."
Television

"Lost" and the Emergence of Hypertext Storytelling 170

Posted by Soulskill from the new-buzzwords-for-hollywood dept.
Hugh Pickens writes "The TV series 'Lost' involves a large cast of characters marooned on a tropical island after a plane crash, with episodes that thread lengthy flashbacks of characters' backstories with immediate plots of day-to-day survival and interpersonal relationships, and a larger 'mythos' involving the strange and apparently supernatural (or science-fictional) happenings on the island. Independent scholar Amelia Beamer writes that the series works as an example of a recent cultural creation: that of the hypertext narrative. 'In Lost, the connections between characters form the essential hypertext content, which is emphasized by the structure of flashbacks that give the viewer privileged information about characters,' writes Beamer. 'Paramount are the connections unfolding between characters, ranging from mundane, apparently coincidental meetings in the airport, to more unlikely and in-depth meetings, reaching back through their entire lives and the lives of their families.' Beamer writes that the series also pays tribute to video games, another relatively recent interactive means of storytelling."
Medicine

Science Attempts To Explain Heaven 692

Posted by kdawson from the what-gene-codes-for-the-harps dept.
Hugh Pickens writes "Lisa Miller writes in Newsweek about the thesis that heaven is not a real place, or even a process or a supernatural event, but rather something that happens in your brain as you die. The thesis is based, in part, on a growing body of research around near-death experience. According to a 2000 article by Bruce Greyson in The Lancet, between 9 and 18 percent of people who have been demonstrably near death report having had an NDE. Surveys of NDE accounts show great similarities in the details, describing: a tunnel, a light, a gate or a door, a sense of being out of the body, meeting people they know or have heard about, finding themselves in the presence of God, and then returning, changed. Scientists have theorized that NDEs occur as a kind of physiological self-defense mechanism when, in order to guard against damage during trauma, the brain releases protective chemicals that also happen to trigger intense hallucinations. This theory has gained traction after scientists realized that virtually all the features of an NDE can be reproduced with a stiff dose of ketamine, a short-acting, hallucinogenic, dissociative anesthetic. 'I came out into a golden Light. I rose into the Light and found myself having an unspoken interchange with the Light, which I believed to be God,' wrote one user of his experience under ketamine. 'Dante said it better,' writes Miller, 'but the vision is astonishingly the same.'"
Operating Systems

Google Android — a Universe of Incompatible Devices 636

Posted by Soulskill from the maybe-just-a-galaxy-or-two dept.
snydeq writes "Galen Gruman writes about the dark side of the recent flood of Android smartphones: versions run amok. 'That flood of options should be a good thing — but it's not. In fact, it's a self-destruction derby in action, as phones come out with different versions of the Android OS, with no clear upgrade strategy for either the operating system or the applications users have installed, and with inconsistent deployment of core features. In short, the Android platform is turning out not to be a platform at all, but merely a starting point for a universe of incompatible devices,' Gruman writes. 'This mess leaves developers and users in an unstable position, as each new Android device adds another variation and compatibility question.' In the end, Google's naive approach to open sourcing Android may in fact be precipitating this free-for-all — one that might ultimately turn off both end-users and developers alike." As reader donberryman points out, you can even put Android onto some Windows Mobile phones, now.
Power

Laser Fusion Passes Major Hurdle 354

Posted by kdawson from the twenty-years-out-and-always-will-be dept.
chill writes "The National Ignition Facility at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory has performed their first controlled fusion experiments using all 192 lasers. While still not ramped up to full power, the first experiments proved very fruitful. The lasers create a lot of plasma in the target container and researchers worried that the plasma would interfere with the ability of the target to absorb enough energy to ignite. These experiments show that not only does enough energy make it through, the plasma can be manipulated to increase the uniformity of compression. Ramping up of power is due to start in May." The project lead, Dr. Sigfried Glenzer, is "confident that with everything in place, ignition is on the horizon. He added, quite simply, 'It's going to happen this year.'"
Biotech

Monitor Your Health 24x7 With the WIN Human Recorder 66

Posted by timothy from the paranoia-count-high dept.
kkleiner writes "Japanese venture firm WIN Human Recorder Ltd is set to bring a health monitor patch to market that is capable of keeping tabs on all your vitals. The HRS-I is a small (30mm x 30mm x 5mm) lightweight (7g) device that adheres to your chest and relays the data it collects to a computer or mobile phone via wireless connection. While the HRS-I only directly monitors electrocardiograph information, body surface temperature, and movement (via accelerometers), it can connect to sensors for heart rate, brain waves, respiration and many other important health indicators. WIN is selling the HRS-I for around ¥30,000 (~$330) and providing monitoring software for around ¥10,000 (~$110)."
Communications

Dragging Telephone Numbers Into the Internet Age 239

Posted by timothy from the imagine-that dept.
azoblue writes with this teaser from Ars Technica, presenting a tempting suggestion for online consolidation: "E-mail, IM, Facebook, phones—what if all of these ways to reach you over a network could be condensed into a single, unique number? The ENUM proposal aims to do just that, by giving everyone a single phone number that maps to all of their identifiers. Here's how it works, and why it isn't already widely used."
Displays

On-Demand Video + CMS + Interactive Input For Museum? 131

Posted by timothy from the free-reign-in-spain dept.
remolacha writes "I've been given the task of tech chief for a biggish art museum (1,300 m^2, or about 13,000 sq ft) in Spain. The museum's designers want 20 'terminals' that will offer on-demand video and interactive content. The terminals' content will change with the exhibits; many will have touchscreens. More interesting forms of input are planned as well (floor sensors, big buttons). It's all on one floor, and the floors are raised, so I can run cabling and set up floor ethernet jacks. Max cable run is 60m / 190ft. The museum may expand to 4 times its projected size once open, by comandeering other floors in the building. To give an idea of where the designers heads are, they were talking about a massive DVD changer in a closet somewhere. I am thinking an intranet running a web server with a CMS and Flash media server, terminals running Firefox in kiosk mode. I'd love to do everything on Linux. Does anyone have experience with a setup like this, better ideas, or advice?"
PC Games (Games)

GaiKai Beta To Start In Europe "Later This Month" 121

Posted by Soulskill from the spurred-by-onlive dept.
Alison Beasley sends word that GaiKai, the cloud gaming service being developed by games industry vet Dave Perry, is about to begin beta testing in Europe. (Sign-up page.) GaiKai is a competitor to OnLive, which started beta tests of its own recently. IGN got a chance to try out GaiKai for themselves, and they've posted a video showing how it performed. From Perry's announcement: "Our closed beta has two goals. #1 is to bring our servers to their knees so we can choose the final configuration before we start ordering large quantities of them. (We think we have it worked out, but you can be certain our staff will be swapping cards and testing different processors as each day goes by.) Goal #2 is to test older computers. We've had lots of emails from people describing their computers and 99% of them have ample performance. Remember you don't even need a 3D card to see a 3D game run on our service. I know this is strangely counter to what people expect, but we actually want to get plenty of basic office-grade XP machines testing so we can make sure we can reach the widest audience possible. ... After we choose the hardware configuration in Europe, our next phase will be our USA Nationwide Network Test, that will be using 8 Tier-1 Data Centers, getting hammered by Closed Beta testers. During that process, [we] will be identifying the other data centers we need to include to blanket the USA in a low latency array. Phase 2 of that is Europe, in exactly the same test."

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