thesaint05 - Slashdot User

Corporate Mac Sales Surge 66% 494

Posted by Roblimo on Monday May 23, 2011 @08:41AM from the one-mouse-button-is-all-the-enterprise-really-needs dept.

syngularyx writes "Mac sales in the enterprise during Apple's last fiscal quarter grew a whopping 66 percent, significantly outpacing the rest of the PC market, which grew just 4.5 percent in the enterprise. The data from Apple's previous fiscal quarter was highlighted on Friday by analyst Charlie Wolf with Needham & Company. He said though he originally viewed success in the enterprise as a "one-quarter blip," it now appears to be a "durable platform" for Apple." What makes this especially interesting is that Apple apparently isn't looking for corporate sales, and considers them "collateral success" rather than an indication that they should market specifically to corporate buyers.

Comment More than Comcast (Score 5, Informative) 230

by thesaint05 on Thursday May 12, 2011 @01:24PM (#36109188) Attached to: No Pirate Bay for Comcast Customers

Engadget is reporting that it's not limited to Comcast. I'm on FIOS and I can confirm that it's unreachable as well.

Microsoft Clears MechWarrior4 Free Launch 131

Posted by Soulskill on Thursday April 22, 2010 @03:36AM from the done-and-done dept.

Vamman writes "If you've been following the drama surrounding the free release of MechWarrior4, then you're probably aware that the initial announcement, made last summer, was a bit premature. Now, nearly a year since that announcement was made, MekTek Studios has announced that Microsoft Legal has given clearance for the free release of Mechwarrior4. This move by Microsoft Games couldn't come at a better time for the community, as the owners of MechWarrior are attempting a reboot of the franchise."

Comment Book Selection (Score 2, Interesting) 542

by thesaint05 on Tuesday October 20, 2009 @04:02PM (#29813423) Attached to: The Kindle Killer Arrives

As a current Kindle 2 owner, the thing that matters the most (at least to me) is book selection. An e-reader is only as useful as the books you can put on it. B&Ns claims of "over a million titles available" (thereby claiming they have more titles then the what's available for the Kindle) is spurious at best, as I believe (IIRC) it includes a lot of free public domain books, books that are freely available on the Kindle, just not necessarily from the Kindle store. Sure, it's nice that they include more of those books in their own store, but that doesn't mean their EXCLUSIVE selection is any better. For anybody looking to compare Nook from Kindle, look at which books are available in the respective stores first.

India To Issue Over a Billion Biometric ID Cards 167

Posted by timothy on Wednesday July 15, 2009 @02:06PM from the might-be-a-few-hitches dept.

angrytuna writes "The Unique Identification Authority is a new state department in India charged with assigning every living Indian an exclusive number and biometric ID card. The program is designed to alleviate problems with the 20 current types of proof of identity currently available. These problems range from difficulties for the very poor in obtaining state handouts, corruption, illegal immigration, and terrorism issues. Issuing the cards may be difficult, however, as less than 7% of the population is registered for income tax, and voter lists are thought to be inaccurate, partly due to corruption. The government has said the first cards will be issued in 18 months."

Comment Re:I always maintained blue ray was moot (Score 1) 685

by thesaint05 on Monday June 22, 2009 @04:47PM (#28428563) Attached to: Blu-ray Adoption Soft, More Still Own HD DVD

Maybe downloadable content will be the winner much further down the track, but for the moment I think the problem is that Blu-ray hasn't done enough to dethrone DVDs as the standard format.

Think about what DVDs had to offer over VHS - much smaller form factor (you can get about three TV seasons worth of content in a case the size of a VHS tape), significantly increased quality (both picture and sound), the ability to choose subtitles in dozens of languages with a click of a button, no rewinding, multiple soundtracks on the one disc, selectable camera angles, chapter selection, usable menus, special features, audio commentaries, no degradation of the signal from repeated use, etc...

Blu-ray offers... a slightly better picture. If you fork out ridiculous amounts of cash for the new discs, players and a HD Television to go with it.

Sure, I can tell the difference, and so can most people, but DVDs are actually reasonably good quality to begin with, and good enough for most people out there, myself included.

Clearly you have not heard of BD-Live?!

/sarcasm

Could Betelgeuse Go Boom? 383

Posted by timothy on Thursday June 11, 2009 @10:22PM from the betelgeuse-betelgeuse-betelgeuse-winona dept.

An anonymous reader writes "The answer is No. In space, nobody can hear you scream. However, it might go supernova in the near future, if it hasn't already. I wanna see that, even if it would permanently disfigure Orion. Ka freaking bam!"

Senator Arlen Specter Becomes a Democrat 1124

Posted by kdawson on Tuesday April 28, 2009 @03:52PM from the crossing-the-aisle dept.

Akido37 was one of many readers letting us know that US Sen. Arlen Specter has changed parties to become a Democrat. This gives the Democrats 59 seats in the Senate, and 60 if and when Al Franken gets seated from Minnesota. However, Specter said in his announcement that he will not be an automatic 60th vote for breaking Republican filibusters. While the senator's move seems to have surprised many Republicans, it is understandable to moderate Republican Sen. Olympia Snowe of Maine, who said, "You haven't certainly heard warm encouraging words of how they [Republicans] view moderates. Either you are with us or against us." Specter noted that in his home state of Pennsylvania, 200,000 formerly Republican voters switched party allegiance last year.

Oracle Buys Sun 906

Posted by CmdrTaco on Monday April 20, 2009 @08:11AM from the there-can-be-only-one dept.

bruunb writes "Oracle Corporation (NASDAQ: ORCL) and Sun Microsystems (NASDAQ: JAVA) announced today they have entered into a definitive agreement under which Oracle will acquire Sun common stock for $9.50 per share in cash. The transaction is valued at approximately $7.4 billion, or $5.6 billion net of Sun's cash and debt. 'We expect this acquisition to be accretive to Oracle's earnings by at least 15 cents on a non-GAAP basis in the first full year after closing. We estimate that the acquired business will contribute over $1.5 billion to Oracle's non-GAAP operating profit in the first year, increasing to over $2 billion in the second year. This would make the Sun acquisition more profitable in per share contribution in the first year than we had planned for the acquisitions of BEA, PeopleSoft and Siebel combined,' said Oracle President Safra Catz."

Obama Taps a 5th Lawyer From the RIAA 587

Posted by CmdrTaco on Tuesday April 14, 2009 @01:38PM from the are-you-worried-yet dept.

risingfish writes "Looks like Obama did what many organizations have asked him not to do. In a disappointing move, he has tapped a fifth RIAA lawyer to a top spot in the Justice Department."

Brain Decline Begins At Age 27 381

Posted by timothy on Tuesday March 17, 2009 @11:01AM from the mine-started-before-that dept.

krou writes "The BBC is reporting that a new study suggests that our mental abilities start to dwindle at 27 after peaking at 22, and 27 could be seen as the 'start of old age.' The seven-year study, by Professor Timothy Salthouse of the University of Virginia, looked at 2,000 healthy people aged 18-60, and used a number of mental agility tests already used to spot signs of dementia. 'The first age at which there was any marked decline was at 27 in tests of brain speed, reasoning and visual puzzle-solving ability. Things like memory stayed intact until the age of 37, on average, while abilities based on accumulated knowledge, such as performance on tests of vocabulary or general information, increased until the age of 60.'"

Is Flash Really On 99% of Net Devices? 383

Posted by Soulskill on Sunday February 22, 2009 @11:58AM from the self-proclaimed-ubiquity dept.

Barence writes "Adobe claims that its Flash platform reaches '99% of internet viewers,' but a closer look at those statistics suggests it's not exactly all-encompassing. Adobe puts Flash player penetration at 947 million users out of a total 956 million internet-connected devices, but the total number of PCs is based on a forecast made two years ago. What's more, the number of Flash users is based on a questionable internet survey of just 4,600 people — around 0.0005% of the suggested 956,000,000 total. Is it really possible that 99% penetration could have been reached? Including Linux users? Including users at work? Including brand-new systems?"

US Army Files Found On Second-Hand MP3 Player 184

Posted by CmdrTaco on Monday January 26, 2009 @10:29AM from the great-seller-+++ dept.

MichaelSmith writes "A New Zealand man who bought a second hand MP3 player from a store in the US found it loaded with the names and personal details of American soldiers, as well as a mission briefing and information about equipment. Chris Ogle says he will return the unit to the US Defense Department if asked, and that it never worked as a music player anyway. A slightly different version of the story is available from TVNZ."

Cellphone Networks Survive Inauguration, Mostly 121

Posted by timothy on Wednesday January 21, 2009 @02:08PM from the ever-more-robust dept.

nandemoari writes "Everybody was talking about Barack Obama's inauguration on Tuesday morning, and it showed. According to reports, a number of mobile phone networks faced overload circumstances that day until late afternoon, when the chat sessions finally began to dissipate. Having the most trouble that morning appears to have been T-Mobile, and AT&T also had some difficulty that morning."

Sniping Could Be the Next Killer iPod App 461

Posted by samzenpus on Tuesday January 20, 2009 @04:31PM from the pull-up-your-kill-list dept.

An anonymous Coward writes "Knights Armament Corp. who supply sniper rifles to the US military have developed a iPod Touch mounting system and software for the US Army M110 sniper rifle system. The use of off the shelf hardware no doubt cut costs and allowed rapid development of this system." If it automatically played a theme song after every head shot, this would be the coolest rifle accessory ever.

Slashdot Top Deals