June 29th

Vivendi Strikes Back!

You may recall that when Half Life 2 was about to be released, a story broke on the game's distributor, Vivendi, threatening to sue Valve for releasing the game through the online download service called Steam. Most folks were not real happy with downloading gigabytes of data in dribs and drabs, or with the activation process, but Vivendi was absolutely livid that Valve was bypassing the distribution process by direct marketing over the internet. Vivendi threatened to sue Valve, and after negotiations, the two companies apparently reached some mutually agreeable compromise.

Well, now Vivendi has apparently decided what's good for Valve is good for them too, and they have opened an online download store for their games. I was interested in some of the benefits of online downloading they mention in their recent emailing. Many of the benefits seemed aimed directly at addressing some of the irritations and frustrations that folks experienced when using Steam to download and play Half Life 2. These include "no internet connection needed to play", "unlimited play: you own the game" and "instant activation". Sounds better than Steam to me, although I think Valve has improved the way Steam works over the last 6 months.

I suppose this is the beginning of a whole new trend in PC game distribution, which is sure to add to the bandwidth clog factor on the internet. Valve may have opened the proverbial Pandora's box when they introduced Steam, without even realizing it.

                                            Dr. John

June 28th

Time to Cringe; Supreme Court Rules Again

The Supreme Court seems to have everyone on edge lately. They keep ruling 5-4 on very critical cases that affect all of us. That means half the court thinks one thing, and the other half thinks exactly the opposite. Sound familiar? Yes, it is a microcosm of the United States public right now, split down the middle on everything.

I was thinking in particular this time of the Grokster case, although you could just as easily cringe when hearing about any other ruling that the court just handed down. Take, for example, the Court's absurd "compromise" on the public display of the 10 commandments being OK in public places, but not in courts (even though They are displayed at the Supreme Court, suggesting hypocrisy). Considering that the first commandment states "Thou shall put no other gods before me", it seems clear that They are explicitly an endorsement of Christianity, which leaves all other religions out of luck. Let's also not forget that wonderful ruling protecting free speech, wherein two reporters will now go to jail for not revealing their sources. Let Freedom Ring.

In the MGM vs. Grokster case, as you would expect, the court favored the large corporation over average citizens. This is basically the rearing of the ugly head of Orin Hatch's "Induce Act", which makes it illegal to make anything that might "induce" others to violate a copyright law. So if you make DVD copying software; you're busted. If you make file-sharing software, you're busted. But think about it, Dell should be held accountable for making computers that are used to steal copywrited materials, and cable companies should be sued for letting copyright infringement to be carried out over their networks. And by the same logic, gun companies should be sued for each wrongful death caused by the use of their products. The availability of the gun "induced" the murder.

This is an ignorant decision made by technologically ignorant people. The unintended consequences of this ruling will not be known for years, but it is clear that they will come back to bite just about everybody in the end.

What is going to happen as the US gets even more polarized due to the aggressive political tactics of the Religious Right? I suggest that perhaps we should just get this fight over with; have a bloodless civil war, and divide the country into the Southern RSA (Republican States of America) and the Northern DSA (Democratic States of America). The RSA would get much of the Midwest and South, whereas the DSA would get the Northeast, Northern tier and West Coast States. When all was said and done, about 2/3 to 3/4 of the citizens would be in the freedom-loving DSA, and the remainder would reside in the religious fundamentalist RSA. Good riddance.

                                            Dr. John

AMD Sues Intel for Anti-Trust Violations

If the SEC won't file suit against huge corporations that don't abide by antitrust laws, then the victims are forced to sue the offending entities themselves. And so AMD files legal action (finally) against Intel for it's super-sleazy business practices, that would appear at face value to violate free-trade laws.

According to the court papers filed by AMD, Intel is accused of paying or bribing companies to not buy AMD processors. If that fails, they then resort to threatening "parts shortages" to any company that dares sell AMD parts. Companies on the list that have been paid or bullied by Intel include Dell, Sony, NEC, Compaq and Toshiba.

In one case, AMD accuses Intel of paying Dell, NEC and Toshiba millions of dollars to not use AMD CPUs. In another, AMD claims that Intel paid Sony millions of dollars, and that as a result, the percentage of business Sony did with AMD fell from 23% to 0%.

In 2000, Compaq said that when they were using AMD chips, that Intel withheld critical chips for making Compaq servers, so that eventually Compaq had to stop using AMD chips.

Intel has always been sleazy, but their behavior relative to AMD has been egregious. I have a feeling that the entire industry is getting tired of Intel dictating terms to computer makers, and that many company officials will be happy to testify against Intel when the time comes. This case should be very interesting to watch, because I for one would love to know if it is legal in our country for a large company to pay corporate customers to not use competitor's parts. It sounds like an anti-Trust violation to me, but then again, I'm not a lawyer.

                                            Dr. John

June 15th

ZombieMeter Keeps Track of Infected PCs

CypherTrust has instituted a new tracking system that counts the number of "zombie" computers around the world that have been taken over by virus and Trojan writers. Most of these zombied computers are used to send all that illegal spam you get for drugs and pornography every day. According to ZombieMeter statistics, the US and China are the biggest offenders when it comes to clueless users plugging their computers into the Internet without any form of protection.

I actually can't wait until ISPs start shutting off the accounts of people who can't protect their computers properly. Shut them off... Please!!!

                                            Dr. John

June 14th

Computer Screen Made of Fog?

A company in Finland called "Fogscreen Inc." has made a projection display device that uses fog as the projection screen. The device creates a laminar flow of fog using water sprayers and ultrasound, and any projection device can be used to project an image on the sheet of fog. The projection surface can be made very large, and because it is made of fog, you can walk right through it.

Of course this thing isn't going to work outside on a windy day, but nonetheless, I'm sure it will become a big hit at future tech shows.

                                           Dr. John

June 11th

NVidia SLI Shootout

If you have been thinking  about a new dual video card SLI setup with NVidia's PCI-express GeForce cards, take a look at my mini-review that pits the 6600GT cards against the 6800GT cards in SLI mode. You might be surprised by the difference in price and performance between the two setups.

June 7th

Rambus Sues Last Un-sued Memory Company

Rambus has been lying low recently, and hasn't attacked any of the memory companies that make Rambus memory chips for the IP-only company... until now. Samsung makes most of the Rambus DRAM chips on the planet, and has acquired a license to make SDRAM and DDR DRAM from Rambus, even though Rambus didn't invent those types of memory. You'd think that would be good enough for greed-crazed Rambus, but no, they are now suing their best memory-production partner for making DDR2 and DDR3 chips without paying Rambus any royalties.

Let's hope that Samsung dumps Rambus altogether, and tells them to go make their own damn chips.

                                    Dr. John

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