Gizmodo, “Windows 7 Walkthrough, Boot Video and Impressions”
Like Elvis in ‘68, Microsoft is itching for a “comeback,” and Windows 7 is the perfect excuse. In fact, this week in LA at the Professional Developers Conference, Windows 7 officially shoved Vista aside. Having suffered through the often deserved criticisms of that ill-fated OS installment, Microsoft’s people are thrilled to tears to be able to talk about something (anything!) else. On Sunday, they took journalists through a lively 7-hour orientation on Win 7, then handed off a Dell XPS M1330 loaded with pre-beta Build 6801. Thankfully for the overworked, underappreciated developers at Redmond, it’s surprisingly stable, and its look and feel already puts Vista to shame.
Here’s a walkthrough of the system I’m looking at, some videos showing its basic performance, and then shots of more interface and system details demoed at PDC that will show up in the first beta build.
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Thanks Nick
Reuters, “Bush signs controversial anti-piracy law”
“By becoming law, the PRO-IP Act sends the message to IP criminals everywhere that the U.S. will go the extra mile to protect American innovation”
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - President George W. Bush signed into law on Monday a controversial bill that would stiffen penalties for movie and music piracy at the federal level.
The law creates an intellectual property czar who will report directly to the president on how to better protect copyrights both domestically and internationally. The Justice Department had argued that the creation of this position would undermine its authority.
Continue reading ‘Bush signs PRO-IP Act into law, creating a “intellectual property czar”’
io9, “Ridley Scott Confirms He’s Making Brave New World Movie”
We got the chance to ask science fiction legend Ridley Scott for an exclusive update on his adaptation of Aldous Huxley’s classic dystopian novel Brave New World. While he’s still knee-deep in the details of the adaptation, he’s already got some strong opinions — including his view that Brave New World is closer to the truth than George Orwell’s 1984. So what does Scott have in mind for his Brave New World?
Why did you decide to adapt Brave New World into a movie, why do you want to make this story?
I didn’t choose to do it, someone came to me with it. In fact it was Leo’s [Leonardo DiCaprio's] production company that came to me with that. And it’s a big challenge, in fact. Because when you look at the two players or visionaries in the field, at that moment [it] would be Huxley and it would be Orwell and that was 60 or 75 years ago. They were predictions in a way, they weren’t aware at the time, but they were predictions. One could argue that Orwell kind of got there first and Orwell was closer to the notion of “big brother,” [with the] Cold War. But I don’t think that’s it, I think that big brother may be the internet. I don’t know but I think that’s the way it’s going to go. And so the Aldous Huxley’s [novel] literally what is called Brave New World that’s a very hard adaptation. So we’re still dancing with that one, but it’s a challenge.
Continue reading ‘Ridley Scott Confirms He’s Making Brave New World Movie’
TechCrunch, “Google Stock Falls $200 As Market Closes”
Apparently more than a few traders had heart palpitations today. As the market closed, Google’s share price appeared to fall apart, falling to $200 from an opening price of $396. At least that’s what the Nasdaq ticker showed.
That was $62 billion in market cap that was zapped away in the last four minutes before the fiscal quarter ended and the markets closed, and it was automatically reported by Google Finance and other sites (the comments here on MarketWatch’s uncorrected article show how freaked out some people were).
Continue reading ‘Glitch causes Google stock to fall $200 (~50%)’
The New York Times, “Apple’s Culture of Secrecy”
Because the conversation was off the record, I cannot disclose what Mr. Jobs told me. Suffice it to say that I didn’t hear anything that contradicted the reporting that John Markoff and I did this week. While his health problems amounted to a good deal more than “a common bug,” they weren’t life-threatening and he doesn’t have a recurrence of cancer.
“No one wants to die,” said Apple’s chief executive, Steven P. Jobs. “And yet death is the destination we all share. No one has ever escaped it.”
It was a little over three years ago that Mr. Jobs spoke those existential words, in a commencement address at Stanford. His thoughts about death came during a portion of his speech in which he publicly discussed — for the one and only time, so far as I can tell — his brush with pancreatic cancer.
Continue reading ‘Reporter verifies Jobs doesn’t have a recurrence of cancer’
Engadget HD, “Pioneer’s Blu-ray disc hits 400GB across 16-layers”
16-layers — that’s how many layers it takes to the hit the center of a 400GB Blu-ray disc, pops. That’s 25GB per layer just like those dual-layer 50GB discs available for retail. Best of all, the technique used by Pioneer is expected to be backward compatible with existing Blu-ray gear since the specs and lenses required for pickup are identical. The prototype is read-only for the moment but R&D’s on it so let’s give them some time to work it out.
Continue reading ‘Pioneer’s Blu-ray disc hits 400GB across 16-layers’
osmoothie member and contributor, Nick, is in San Francisco for an event and has taken some pictures of the WWDC 2008 preparations. He even claims to have seen the man, Steve Jobs himself, from only 30 yards away (he tried to take pictures but they “came out too blurry”). Below is a photostream that includes pictures of the Moscone Center with Apple decor. Check back with us for more pictures as he adds them.
