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Gear News Archive: October 2003
October 31st Fox Considers Suing Simpson's This one is too juicy to pass up. In a past Simpson's episode called "Krusty for Congress", they did a parody of Fox News. A news ticker went across the bottom of the screen that had captions like "Do Democrats cause cancer?" and ""Oil slicks found to keep seals young, supple". Fox management apparently threatened to sue the creator, Matt Groening, who balked and ran the show anyway. Oh the irony. October 30th E-Voting Insecurity Let me start by saying I want electronic voting to work. I hate the cheap, absurdly inaccurate punch card voting system they have been using in my state for decades. With that said, I also think that e-voting is not ready for prime time yet. You may have already heard about Diebold System's problems with security on their electronic voting systems. It was revealed that tampering with the database of votes was easy, and undetectable. Not that it had happened, but that it was possible. Now another security breach has occurred with another company's e-voting machines. Sequoia Voting Systems left their software on an unprotected server, and someone got a hold of it and posted it. Now hackers will be able to tamper, unless the company dumps the current software and comes up with new software. The entire concept of electronic voting is to make voting faster and more accurate, but until the security issues are addressed thoroughly, the idea of e-voting is worrisome. October 29th Here Comes the Sun Sol hasn't given up yet, and has instead decided to blast the Earth with the third largest geomagetic storm on record. So even if the last one was a relative dud, this one is sure to knock out someone's wireless LAN in someplace like Fairbanks. "The eruption was positioned perfectly. It's headed straight for us like a freight train," said John Kohl, a Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics scientist, in a statement. "A major geomagnetic storm is bound to happen." Hang On! October 28th SCO Says GPL is Unconstitutional The SCO-IBM contract dispute isn't going away, and won't reach the courts for some time now. And despite the sound and fury of the participants, very little new information has been forthcoming, nor has any progress has been made by either side. It's predominantly bluster, which is a tad strange considering the case is going before a court. Typically, the two sides in an impending litigation are mum about the legal fare... you don't want to shoot yourself in the foot, especially when it's in your mouth. So the recent claim by SCO (who's officers seem to love the taste of their own feet) that the General Public License (GPL) violates the US Constitution is one of the more absurd pre-trial proclamations. They felt forced to do this after IBM's counter-suit contended that SCO is violating the GPL by modifying and distributing Linux, and then suing IBM over the contents. If there ever was a tangled web, this is it. But again, on SCO's part this is pure hot air, meant to keep IBM's lawyer's hopping. Indeed, lawyers on both sides will be the only winners here, and I believe that both SCO and IBM will come out worse for the ware. But it's gone too far for out-of-court settlements, and the legal issues underlying software IP, transfer of rights, and the GPL need a thorough airing in the courts. Too bad the court system is so backed up, because this case will be simmering in the court of public opinion for a long time before it gets to the real courts. One thing is very clear, no one is heeding SCO's shrill warnings about Linux. Even the US Army has just decided to dump Windows for Linux in their latest "Land Warrior" computerized system for soldiers. Lt. Col. Dave Gallop, the program's manager said: "'Evidence shows that Linux is more stable. We are moving in general to where the Army is going, to Linux-based OS". Nuff said. October 26th Half Life2 Musings I've posted a new Daily Rumor with some thoughts about the Half Life2 delay, and ATI's $6 million deal to bundle the game with Radeon cards. You can listen here. October 24th Sun Spots to Blast Earth Today Wednesday's big solar storm is scheduled to bombard Earth with a massive solar wind sometime today. Sensitive electronic equipment may be effected, particularly in more Northern and Southern latitudes. So if your computer starts acting funny today, it might just be getting zapped from space. Half Life 2 Sooner Than Later? Rumors are flying that Half Life 2 may still be released this year, and we may even hear later today on a final release date. It is looking like it might make it to stores between early November and early December. I have to wonder if this about-face has to do with arm twisting from ATI, who spent $6 million to secure the game bundling deal from Valve/Vivendi. ATI must have been confident that the deal would greatly boost holiday sales of their video cards, and the recently announced game delay probably sent them into a tizzy. So keep your eyes posted on the web today, the announcement of the official release date should be forthcoming. October 23rd New NVidia Drivers Out NVidia's 52.16 drivers are out and ready for download. I've given them a quick test, and they seem to work fine with most games. However, we did find that there was a problem with the Desert Combat mod of Battlefield 1942, with lots of texture corruption and even spontaneous reboots. But the same problems were not seen with the original Battlefield 1942, so it may be a bug in Desert Combat, rather than the new drivers. Spammers Get Comeuppance I think everyone has been wondering how long legislators were going to ignore the fraud, pornography, and confidence schemes flooding email inboxes. I mean, if this stuff was pouring across your TV screen, or filling your snail-mail box, the full weight of the legal system would have come down on the perpetrators. So it's no wonder that the scammers (aka spammers) are about to get what they deserve. The US congress finally passed a no-spam bill yesterday, which should help at least slow the rate of spamming over the next few months. They even have a provision where proceeds from any court action against a spammer would get split between the people who turned them in... a spam bounty. Revenge is schweet! :) October 22nd Microsoft Office 2003 a Must Have for Millionaires Microsoft has released it's much touted "Office 2003" Office Suite, with updated versions of the usual suspects. And as expected with such software releases, which cost Microsoft billions to develop, the end result is expensive, and the EULA draconian. The professional version of the office suite is $599, and the home version is $250, but students can get it for substantially less. This time around, Bill has decided that he was going to put a 2-year self-destruct date on the copies of Office 2003 that get bundled with new computers, so if you want to keep working after that time, you'll have to pay Bill more money. But all the usual complaints aside, I think the biggest question about Office 2003 is why people with Office XP (or even 2000) would want to waste more money on Microsoft software? If good customers could do the upgrade for $59 to $99 for home and pro versions, people would jump on the deal. But that's not how Bill does business. He is still pursuing the "kitchen sink" model of software development, where he adds tons of features you don't want or need, and then asks you to pay full price for the mess. I have a feeling that lots of folk are going to take a go-slow approach to Office 2003, until they know there is something in there that they actually need. October 21st Self-Service Computer Destruction I get the impression the guys over at Hardware Analysis have had their fill of improperly assembled and configured systems. In that light, they have posted a tongue-in-cheek article detailing how to improperly install everything in your system, with the aim of destroying it so thoroughly that you actually have an excuse to upgrade to a new system. For those of you who have bungled their own installations, or had to deal with a friend or family members computer disaster, it's a fun read. October 20th Strange Politics There is a new list of the "top ten conservative idiots" over at Democratic Underground today, and while the list is quite amusing, it is also somewhat disturbing. I have to wonder why politics have gotten so ugly in America recently, considering how easy life if is America compared with other places around the globe. Maybe it's the sports mentality in our country... "our team vs. theirs", or maybe it is the fact that politicians seem more and more willing to do anything to get elected. Who knows. But I've got to hope that civility will return to the discourse in the US. Yet as long as the current administration uses the tactic of attacking the press any time the press report "bad news", things aren't going to be getting any better any time soon. October 17th Dastardly, Diabolical, Deceitful, Diebold Sorry, I left out despicable. I'm real fond of computers, and I think they have a great future. That said, I also must say that I still don't trust Diebold System's electronic voting machines. The more I hear about this sleazy company, the angrier I get. The latest round in the "electronic voting machine wars" involves Diebold systems scurrying around the web, attempting to shut down any web sites that post internal Diebold memos which cast doubts on the system's security and readiness. But the memos continue to circulate, much to Diebold's consternation. Electronic voting will happen, and it will be an improvement over chads and paper pads. But it has to be done: 1) correctly, 2) uniformly, and 3) absolutely securely. With Diebold's hardware and Microsoft software running on it, we get none of the above. Read the memos, and decide for yourself. October 16th Long on Longhorn With all the recent delays in upcoming software, including the push-back of Microsoft's Longhorn operating system, a quick word seems in order. Bill Gates recently was quoted as saying that Longhorn could cost as much to develop as sending men to the moon with the Apollo missions. Read here Bill Gates telling all of us that only he could pull off such a Herculean feat, because Uncle Sam would never pony up. Bluster aside, Bill also said that Microsoft would release a major update to Windows XP in 2004, that would address security and other issues. But Microsoft simultaneously had to release a bunch of new security patches for it's existing operating systems. So where am I going with this? I think that Bill Gates has run into a brick wall. I think he's run out of ideas of what to put in his new kitchen-sink operating system. Hell.... it's already got the kitchen sink! Bill has never been real good with innovation, accept an innovative knack for using his money to buy out or trash competitors. So Windows development is now on the slow... expensive track. In part that's because Bill is patching behind himself as quickly as he is adding features on the front-end, so he really is burning the candle at both ends. Without a fresh, bold start, Windows will always be a Rube Goldberg kitchen-sink kludge, at best. Sigh. If you ask me, it would be cheaper for Bill to start fresh with 10 teenage programmers in a room with 24/7 pizza and soda access... but that's just me. Pushing the envelope with the existing Windows architecture is going to be like going to the moon with a highly-enhanced biplane. Apollo was a whole different ballgame. October 14th Delay is the Word of the Day Some type of molasses effect (acronym: ME) has blown through the IT industry in recent weeks, and it has left a wide swath of delays in it's wake. We all love delays; they let us savor more, so let's go over the list of savory bits. We all know that Half Life2 has been really delayed, so it took the brunt of the ME storm. Microsoft's Longhorn operating system, not to be outdone, has been delayed until 2006! That's a whole bunch of savoring. Then of course there was the big delay in Intel's Tejas processor, now delayed until 2005. Did I forget to mention that Doom III and Duke Nukem Forever were delayed? It all kind of makes AMD's rollout of the Opteron and Athlon 64 seem almost, well.... spot on.... doesn't it? Innocent Infringement Infuriates SCO Turnabout if fair play, they say. So it seems eminently fair that SCO may be hoisted on their own "innocent infringement' petard*. The whole mess is too complicated for mere mortals to understand, but I'll give it a shot nonetheless. The long and short of it is that one of SCO's sister companies, known as Lineo, has quietly agreed to settle a law suit over misappropriated software code. Apparently, Lineo was sued by Monta Vista over software that Monta Vista had released under the GPL (general public license, just like Linux). The source code from Monta Vista's software turned up in Lineo's software... with the copyright notices removed! How coincidental that the same thing exactly has happened in the case of Linux, and we still don't know if it was SCO that added that Unix code to Linux or not. But considering that a sister company to SCO did exactly that, it has to make you wonder if this is a pattern of behavior here. But the best part of all is that Lineo settled the suit, and got away with a small fine because they used the "innocent infringement" argument. It states that they did not know that they were copying code directly from a competitor's product, stripping the copyright notices, and selling the final product for profit despite the GPL license. They were "ignorant", and therefore "innocent"! Of course. Now that this story is out, it is going to make things much more difficult for SCO in court. It also leaves a paper (code) trail for Linux folk to follow in order to determine if SCO is the company that put lines of Unix code into Linux. *A petard was a bell-shaped metal grenade typically filled with five or six pounds of gunpowder and set off by a fuse. Unfortunately, the devices were unreliable and often went off unexpectedly. Hence the expression, where hoist meant to be lifted up, an understated description of the result of being blown up by your own bomb. The name of the device came from the Latin petar, to break wind, perhaps a sarcastic comment about the thin noise of a muffled explosion at the far end of an excavation. Radeon 9800 Voltage Mod: Only the Brave Need Apply The folks over at MadShrimps have a voltage-mod guide for the Radeon 9800 pro that goes over how to supercharge your video card. But the faint-of-heart, and unsteady-of-hand need not inquire further. It involves soldering on variable resisters for the graphics chip and DDR memory, which is enough to scare most people off. But the mods look fairly straightforward, so if you're feeling lucky... head over to Radio Shack for some variable resisters, and git to solderin'! October 13th Half Life Too Weird The rumors floating around the release of Half Life 2 are getting stranger by the day. There is a short chronology of the events surrounding the code leak and the release delay at The Inquirer. It all is beginning to sound more and more like Valve Software just can't seem to get the game finished up, with some estimates that the game may only be 70% complete. If so, that would certainly indicate that it won't be released until mid Spring. So what is happening here? Only the folks at Valve know for sure, but it seems apparent that the project was more ambitious than they had originally thought. It may also be the case that they had a few false starts, and had to go back to the drawing board. To be honest, if they had just admitted the coding was harder than they anticipated, and that it was going to take until Spring, everyone would have understood. But now Valve has a mini-controversy brewing over the fact that they have blamed the theft of the source code for the entire delay, despite evidence to the contrary. Perhaps they've been watching too much news coverage of the Bush Administration's justifications for war, and it rubbed off? October 10th Rumors About Half Life2 Delay True It seems as though the rumors circulating on the web that HL2 would be delayed due to the theft of the source code are true. March or April are possible release dates. If you go to Amazon now, they have it on pre-order, scheduled for an April 1st release. The developer says they need to re-write certain parts of the code to prevent hacking into the game, but I've got to wonder if that is possible. They can't rewrite and debug the entire network code in several months, so I'm not sure what they are going to change in that time. Something is very odd here, considering they also know that other games will trump them if they wait too long. I say if it's ready now.... release-and-patch like everyone else. Or maybe it's not ready for other reasons..... SunnComm Regains Senses The copy-protection wars started to really heat up yesterday, when SunnComm Technologies threatened to sue the grad student author of a report describing how to disable the company's new CD copy protection system. SunnComm originally stated: "This cat-and-mouse game that hackers and others like to play with owners of digital property is over. No matter what their credentials or rationale, it is wrong to use one's knowledge and the cover of academia to facilitate piracy and theft of digital property". SunnComm alleged that by disabling the "driver" that the CD automatically installs on your computer was an intentional attempt to violate the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DCMA). They said that when buyers of the CD click mindlessly on the "accept" button to get the CD to play on their computer, they have accepted the fact that the so-called "driver" will be installed, and they are not allowed to remove it. Pretty demented attitude if you ask me... they expect everyone to say, "Yes, I accept your crippling piece-of-crap software, and I promise to never remove it". Over the course of the day after SunnComm threatened to sue the graduate student, they apparently got lots of feedback from citizens, lawyers, and advisers, because by late last night, the CEO of SunnComm retracted the threat of legal action this way: "I don't want to be the guy that creates any kind of chilling effect on research". Money can make people do strange things... SunnComm stock dropped drastically on the publishing of the grad student's report, which probably explains their knee-jerk reaction threatening legal action. But cooler heads prevailed, and the copy-protection wars slip back from the brink of a hot war, to the slow simmer of a cold war. October 9th Internet Explorer Sucks, Microsoft Doesn't Care As everyone knows, Microsoft won the so-called Internet Browser war against rival Netscape by giving IE away free with Windows. Indeed, they made it part of Windows. But now that MS has won that war, they are moving on to more fertile territory (read bigger money), such as dot Net, Passport, long-term licensing for products that never materialize, and generally trying to bleed everyone dry. But what they aren't doing is any significant upgrading of Internet Explorer. Why should they? Bill made it a free part of the OS, so there's no money waiting to be made there. And Microsoft's lack of attention to IE isn't just restricted to not adding new features, but includes not even fixing old bugs. One example is the cascading style sheet (CSS), which currently doesn't work right in Internet Explorer. Because of Microsoft's monopoly position, there is little reason to update IE. In fact, Microsoft will be dumping IE sometime after the release of it's upcoming 'Longhorn' operating system, because Longhorn will have "built-in" web browsing capabilities using '.Net'. To counter this, Adobe and Opera have teamed up to enhance the CSS support in Adobe's 'GoLive" web authoring tool, with the hopes that this move will get Microsoft's attention. It is hoped that when people see what CSS can do when using the Opera browser (one of the only tiny competitors to MS's IE), people will complain to MS in big numbers, forcing them to improve Internet Explorer. You can read about it here. Rambling On About Rambus When will it end? You would expect Rambus to get tired of litigation, but when that's the only way your company can make money, I guess it becomes a vocation. Rambus and FTC lawyers gave closing arguments yesterday in the FTC case against Rambus for antitrust violations during their tenure in the JEDEC memory standards committee. Rambus argued that the lower court ruling in Virginia, which exonerated Rambus of wrongdoing during their membership in JEDEC, applied in the antitrust case. The FTC disagreed. According to the lower court, Rambus was not required by law to disclose it's pending SDRAM and DDR patents during the JEDEC meetings designed to work out the standards for those types of PC memory. The FTC Administrative Law Judge, however, agreed with FTC lawyers that the lower court ruling "was very unclear". That's good news for memory makers, and bad news for Rambus, because it indicates that the FTC judge may not find that the lower court ruling is pertinent to the antitrust case. The bad news? It looks like we haven't heard the last of Rambus. Too bad. October 8th NVidia SoundStorm Sound Cards? As you gamers out there probably know, there are really two mainstream choices for good quality sound for PC games: The Sound Blaster Audigy2, and NVidia's built-in SoundStorm digital audio chip on NForce2 motherboards. (Some might give VIA's sound chip an honorable mention). Xbit labs has an interesting story about the fact that NForce3 (Opteron/Athlon FX51) motherboards do not have the high-quality SoundStorm chip on them. According to the article, this is because it was too difficult to integrate the audio functions into the new single-chip design of the NForce3 chipset. So NVidia is taking another approach, and will probably start producing "SoundStorm2" audio cards to compete with the Audigy. They will no doubt have to beef up the architecture to 24-bit, and maybe throw in some other goodies to make the card more attractive than the Sound Blaster. There is also talk of an audio "chip" that could be installed into a socket on NForce3 motherboards, but we'll have to see how that works out. It will be very nice to have some more competent competition in the PC sound market. Sound Blaster cards have had a very rocky history, and putting Creative's feet to the fire with a little hard-nosed competition can only make things better. October 7th Copy Protection's Evil Secrets There is a very enjoyable article over at Princeton University's Computer Science Department about a new CD copy protection system that is supposed to be fool-proof. Unfortunately for the CD vendors, while being fool-proof, it is not smart-proof, as the Princeton University professor proves. In fact, the system provides virtually no protection against copying the CD if you just poke around a little. At issue is the MediaMax CD3 copy-prevention system from SunnComm Tech. The CD3 system was used on Anthony Hamilton's new CD "Comin' from where I'm from", and it is supposed to fix the problem with older protection systems where some disks would not play on all CD players. In order to do this, when you put the CD into your CD drive, it automatically installs a "driver". This is no driver though, because a driver is supposed to make a piece of hardware work, rather than make it stop working in some specific ways. Disabling this "driver" permits you to copy the audio tracks. The plain fact of the matter is that no amount of mucking around with disks will let companies make truly secure CD audio tracks. This is obvious if you just take the example that I can play a CD on my stereo, and run a patch cable to my computer where I can record and save the songs. In their drive to copy-protect disks, the industry is chasing a phantom that will always be just beyond their grasp. And as long as they keep trying, the copy-protection systems will inevitably cause some customers problems, which in turn will make music CDs less popular with typical music listeners. PS, I wonder how much that record label paid for that bogus protection system? :) SGI Cleans It's Version of Linux After an exhaustive review of the the source code for Linux and Unix, SGI says that if found approximately 200 lines of code which SGI had inserted into Linux that were similar to Unix code. They also noted that it was unclear if those bits of code were proprietary, or in the public domain. SGI also said that in a review of the entire source code for both operating systems revealed only trivial numbers of similar lines of code that may have been inserted by other parties. SGI said that the latest version of Linux has been cleared of all code that might have been copied from Unix. All in all, it looks like the claim by SCO that many thousands of lines of code were copied directly was bogus from the beginning. Expect SCO stock prices to drop again if IBM and Red Hat release similar comparisons shortly. Supreme Court Loves Rambus The Rambus vs. Infineon case finally made it to the US Supreme Court, who of course declined to take the case. That means the lower court ruling in favor or Rambus Inc stands. That sent Rambus share prices soaring. Rambus executives bought new Summer homes and yachts, and booked the first commercial trip to the moon. I made that last part up, but the Supreme Court ruling and stock surge are real. And while Ramboids are ecstatic, there are many court cases ahead of the litigious company which may not go so well for them. Only time will tell. I think it is telling that out of $29.2 million in revenues for Rambus Inc, $25.4 million came from royalty payments. In the ensuing years since Intel and Rambus tried to force the PC market to switch to Rambus over SDRAM and DDR, Rambus has not kept the promise of improved PC performance. Rambus, instead, has just been a pain in everyone's butt, and their market position and reputation clearly demonstrate that better than anything. October 6th Software Lemon Laws? As I mentioned the other day, it looks like the class-action law suits are springing up against Microsoft after the last round of damaging worms and viruses. An article over at The New York Times discusses the product liability law suits that are being filed against Microsoft. As you might expect, software execs such as those at Microsoft have pat answers to suggestions of product liability laws for software: "Opening the industry up to product liability lawsuits", they say, "would chill innovation and undermine the competitiveness of American companies". Hmmm. Sounds just like Bill, doesn't it? So will we get software lemon laws anytime soon? Na! That's too liberal in today's political climate. I expect to see more digital rights management, peer-to-peer users being sued by the RIAA, and corporate fat cats getting away with bilking their employees out of their retirement funds before I see any software lemon laws. It's those pesky "end user license agreements" that you all foolishly accept when you install all that shoddy software. Catch-a-22! October 4th Time to Dump Lexmark Printers A federal judge (aren't you getting tired of them?) in Northern California has ruled that 3rd party companies can not refill "patented" Lexmark ink cartridges. That's right, only Lexmark is permitted by law to refill Lexmark ink doohickeys. Or are they Widgets? Never mind, the basic point, which may be the tip of the iceberg, is that companies can patent any "refillables", and then forbid other companies the right to do so. Eventually, this could extend to many more areas of commerce, including interoperable PC parts. Let's just hope that this ruling doesn't start to get expanded into other areas of hardware, or the open nature of PC hardware may soon be a thing of the past. Note: If Lexmark drops the price of refilling their own cartridges to $5, I take it all back. October 3rd Microsoft's Really Evil Plan You all remember Digital Rights Management (DRM)? That's where copy protection is built into every part of the hardware on your computer, as well as the operating system, BIOS and all applications and games. It's an extreme mess which is certain to make everyone's lives more difficult. Well now Phoenix, a large maker of BIOS CMOS chips for motherboards, has teamed up with Microsoft to integrate the motherboard BIOS with Windows, and tightly integrate DRM into the mix. Sounds like a recipe to make certain that motherboards don't work with Linux or BeOS. If this story is true, I expect a huge shift of customer base away from motherboards that use Phoenix BIOS chips. Nobody wants this kind of crap in their computers, and it's certain to stir up a hornet's nest of consumer disgruntlement. Half Life2-ATI Connection One has to wonder if the cozy deal between ATI and Valve Software is cozier than previously thought. For those who haven't heard (where were you?), ATI and NVidia bid for the privilege to bundle Half Life2 with their video cards. ATI won the bidding war with a bid rumored to be in the $6 million range. Then it turns out that the source code for the game is stolen from Valve's web site using an un-patched Outlook exploit. Ouch! Examination of the source code has revealed the name of an ATI programmer sprinkled throughout the lines of code... in a game developed by Valve? Hmmmm. Valve says it's all optimizations for DX9... not some kind of quid-pro-quo for the $6 million. October 3rd We All
Love Cal-i-For-Nia As Arnold gropes his way around Cal-i-For-Nia drumming up the women's vote, others in the state are filing a class action law suit against Microsoft for making shoddy software. The law suit alleges that Microsoft software is so unreliable and insecure that it doesn't work right... hence the "defective product" class action suit against them. Kind of an odd mix of political activism if you ask me, in one case they want something they can't have (reliable Microsoft software), and in the other they going to get something they don't even know they don't want (even worse government). Oh well, live and learn they say. In this case, I'll vote for the impossible (reliable MS software), and accept the inevitable (California meltdown). Copyright 2003, KickAss Gear |
