Firefox hits 500,000,000 downloads
The Mozilla community is celebrating 500 million Firefox downloads by earning 500 million grains of donated rice, enough to feed 25,000 people.
Archive for February 22, 2008
$0.99 Rentals on iTunes; iTunes 7.6.1
One pre-selected movie per week rentable for $0.99. Update also improves apple tv compatibility.
Five unexpected effects of a Blu-ray victory
Toshiba has officially thrown in the towel and HD DVD is, for all practical purposes, no more. For consumers, it looks great that the war is over, but here’s five consequences of a Blu-ray victory that you might not have considered.
Microsoft’s interoperability illusion
Microsoft’s newfound enthusiasm for interoperability adds up to largely hot air and a poorly-concealed upgrade pitch, and as such doesn’t represent any sort of victory for the open source community.
recharge your ipod with your shirt
U.S. scientists have developed a microfiber fabric that generates its own electricity, making enough current to recharge a cell phone or ensure that a small MP3 music player never runs out of power.
Ebay Sellers’ Boycott gains traction; competing sites grow
On February 20th, 2008 eBay will roll out unprecedented changes to their auction format. eBay will be ending seller’s abilities to leave negative feedback for buyers, opening the possibility for blackmail. Other changes to fees have also ruffled feathers, with sellers saying they will end up paying more. Sellers are boycotting Feb. 18th - Feb. 25th
‘DVD Jon’ frees your media with DoubleTwist
Beginning Tuesday, the first product from his company, DoubleTwist Ventures, will enter open beta. Called DoubleTwist, it’s a free desktop client that essentially allows any kind of music, photo, or video file to be shared between a long list of portable media players, and through Web-based social networks.
A Gamer’s Dream: Brain Controlled Headset
Gamers will soon be able to interact with the virtual world using their thoughts and emotions alone.
Microsoft posts new Windows XP SP3 build, RC2 to the public
Two weeks after it last handed a new build of Windows XP Service Pack 3 (SP3) to several thousand invitation-only testers, Microsoft Corp. today posted that version for public downloading. Want to try it out? Here’s how: Uninstall RC1 if you have that first, download the reg patch from http://tinyurl.com/2mflo7 , then run windows update to get it.
Undersea saboteurs may have been responsible for cable cuts
New information from the UN agency tasked with repairing the undersea cable cuts of early February has reported that they can’t rule out sabotage at this point of time. Of the five cuts, only one has been ruled an accidental failure—the cause of the other four is still unknown.
Information will be free: Wikileaks still up, despite order
After unflattering and apparently internal documents from the Swiss banker Julius Baer appeared on Wikileaks, the bank filed a federal lawsuit in the US. A judge has now ordered Wikileaks.org scrubbed from the DNS system, but it’s hard to eradicate a website.
Use Your Wii as a Media Center
The best thing the Nintendo Wii got going for it is the excellent Opera web browser, but web browsing with the Wii remote is still a bit klunky. Luckily, using that very same browser, you can turn your Wii into a full-fledged media center with the freeware Windows application Orb. Here’s how
