Dvorak News Blog

Eleven Browsers on Desktop

By John C Dvorak Wednesday December 16, 2009

4 Comments

FTC and Intel in the news. Intel getting nailed again. nVidia CEO likes it.
MSFT doing deals with EU. Company will drop 11 browsers on the desktop. Huh?
BMW has an electric car.
Yahoo numbers not the best.
Psystar case rambling.
Sexting is a bad idea say oldsters at ZDNet.
Text messaging getting more popular than calling.
Mobile Internet to dominate in five years.
Dell paying $120 million to integrate with Perot Systems.

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Santa is a Fat Bastard who Promotes Drunk Driving sez Aussie Academic

By honeyman Wednesday December 16, 2009

11 Comments

Santa Claus has been accused of acting in ways that could “damage millions of lives”.

As the mythical man in red zooms around the planet delivering gifts, he is an unwitting promoter of obesity, unhealthy products, disease and even drink driving, according to an Australian academic.

“Other dangerous activities that Santa could be accused of promoting include speeding, disregard for road rules and extreme sports such as roof surfing and chimney jumping,” said Dr Nathan Grills, public health fellow at Monash University’s Department of Epidemiology and Preventative Medicine.
“Despite the risks of high speed air travel, Santa is never depicted wearing a seatbelt or helmet.”
[…]
“We need to be aware that Santa has an ability to influence people, and especially children, towards unhealthy behaviour,” he said.

“Given Santa’s universal appeal, and reasoning from a public health perspective, Santa needs to affect health by only 0.1 per cent to damage millions of lives.”

Instead using a sleigh, Santa should be “encouraged to adopt a more active method to deliver toys – swapping his reindeer for a bike or simply walking or jogging”, Dr Grills said.

Santa jogging. Give me a break.

The truth is out… Hitler is behind Global Warming!

By McCullough Wednesday December 16, 2009

35 Comments

FTC Sues Intel over ‘Anticompetitive Tactics’

By hhopper Wednesday December 16, 2009

10 Comments

CnetNews.com

The Federal Trade Commission announced Wednesday that it is suing Intel, claiming that the chip giant has illegally used its dominance to stymie competition and to strengthen its own monopoly.

In so doing, says the FTC, the company has robbed consumers of both choice and innovation in microprocessors, including those that outshone Intel’s own: “Intel’s anticompetitive tactics were designed to put the brakes on superior competitive products that threatened its monopoly in the CPU microchip market.”

Wine tastes better in blue or red lit rooms

By John C Dvorak Wednesday December 16, 2009

9 Comments

Wine tastes better in blue or red lit rooms – Telegraph — Who knew?

Drinkers brains are tricked into thinking a glass of white wine is better and more expensive tasting when exposed to the red or blue background lighting than those in rooms with green or white background lighting…German researchers gave drinkers the same bottle of Riesling in the differently lit environments and asked for their feedback.They found the same wine was perceived as being nearly one-and-a-half times sweeter in red light than in white or green light…He concluded ambient lighting influences how wine tastes, even when it has no direct effect on the colour of the wine in the glass.

EU Resolves Microsoft IE Antitrust Case

By hhopper Wednesday December 16, 2009

11 Comments

(Click photo to enlarge.)

CnetNews.com

Microsoft and the European Commission have settled their differences over the choice of Web browsers in Windows.

European Commissioner for Competition Policy Neelie Kroes on Wednesday formally announced a resolution to the Internet Explorer antitrust case against Microsoft. As part of the settlement, Windows PCs sold in the European Economic Area will now present users with a Choice Screen, allowing them to install alternative browsers beyond Internet Explorer.

The Choice Screen will offer users the ability to install up to 12 of the most widely used Web browsers that run under Windows. The choices will include the more widely known browsers, such as IE, Apple’s Safari, Google’s Chrome, Mozilla’s Firefox, Opera, and AOL’s browser, and lesser-known products including Maxthon, K-Meleon, Flock, Avant Browser, Sleipnir, and Slim Browser.

The Thinking Computer Circa 1993

By John C Dvorak Wednesday December 16, 2009

21 Comments

The following column appeared in the DEC Professional in 1993 and holds up. It’s about a classic computerized response system that one could bust in a very few questions. These sorts of bots are still floating around trying to convince people that they are not inane computer programs. Nothing has really improved since 1993.

The Thinking Computer
by John C. Dvorak

We know computers can’t think, but when will it be possible for a computer to make someone believe that it can think. This is the goal of something called the Turing test. A person is put in front of a computer to exchange tales, quips and comments with the machine. The person has to decide whether the computer is really chatting or whether a person, someone else, is communicating via the computer console. If you can’t say for sure that it’s a person or a computer, then the program/computer passes the Turing test.

This is kind of the goal of a yearly competition held at the Boston Computer Museum. Dubbed the Loebner Prize it pits computer against person. The competition works something like this. A bunch of computers are in a room. Some are running AI programs designed to fool a group of judges who go from machine to machine. The other machines are “fronts” for real people who type responses from another room. The judge decides whether it’s a person or a computer. The program that consistently gets picked as a person wins the prize. Last year the award went to “The PC Professor” written by Joseph Weintraub (Thinking Software, Woodside, NY). While this program is a good attempt at faking out a naive computer user, it cannot fool a sophisticated user familiar with the shortcomings of a computer. In fact it just proves that we have a long way to go before computers can come close to mimicking humans adequately. To prove my point I had a chat with the PC Professor.

You be the judge. Here’s the conversation:

People Freezing Outside Global Warming Conference

By John C Dvorak Wednesday December 16, 2009

33 Comments

The Climate Pool: Boos & Queues: A seven-hour saga getting into the conference | Facebook — Come on. This is hilarious, no?

Seth’s toes are finally warm. In his security photo he is grinning like a child — and with reason. He’s finally in.

“You have no idea how important water and a bathroom is until you don’t have it,” he said after waiting 7 hours and 20 minutes to enter the Copenhagen climate talks.

With U.N. security letting in only those cleared last week, hundreds of accredited delegates, journalists and NGO representatives were left to stand for hours in near-freezing temperatures before being let through. “It was crazy,” AP’s Seth Borenstein said. “You couldn’t leave the line. You couldn’t go to the bathroom, you couldn’t eat. Then snowflakes started falling. One woman even said, ‘if lightning strikes me, would they take me out of line?'”

People started handing out food — one gave out tangerines, another croissants. A man screamed “I don’t need food. I need socks! I’m freezing my ass off out here.” At one point, a U.N. official announced the wait would be longer, prompting the crowd to boo and chant “Let Us In!”

Time’s person of the year? Ben Bernanke

By Jacob Galt Wednesday December 16, 2009

40 Comments

Ben Bernanke, Chairman of the Federal Reserve, the guy that most contributed to the recession and millions and millions of people getting unemployed.

Time’s person of the year.

Sending More Troops To Afghanistan Unpopular? Send Highly Paid Contractors Instead!

By Uncle Dave Wednesday December 16, 2009

20 Comments

Private contractors will make up at least half of the total military workforce in Afghanistan going forward, according to Defense Department officials cited in a new congressional study.

As President Obama’s escalation of the war in Afghanistan unfolds, the number of contractors will likely jump by between 16,000 and 56,000, adding up to a total of 120,000-160,000, according to an updated study from the Congressional Research Service.
[…]
The most recent Quadrennial Defense Review, a key strategic overview of American defense and military policy, runs over 100 pages. Just five sentences of the QDR document addresses the use of private contractors, the CRS study notes.

Besides crunching the numbers, the study also looks at whether contractors can undermine U.S. efforts in Iraq and Afghanistan, including the issue of abuses of civilians by contractors.

DH-Unplugged. Google Phone vs. iPhone! And MORE!

By John C Dvorak Wednesday December 16, 2009

3 Comments

Here is the latest conversation I had with money manager Andrew Horowitz…. new insights for anyone who invests in anything. This week we highlight a discussion about specific stocks to examine. Plus: A look at the g-Phone.

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Biden hosts copyright discussion with FBI, Secret Service and Big Content

By honeyman Tuesday December 15, 2009

20 Comments

Biden’s “IP roundtable” brings together Big Content, FBI – Ars Technica — Rekon this will be for the benefit of the consumer?

Vice President Joe Biden has been one of the Obama’s administration’s point people on intellectual property. Biden attended an MPAA get-together in DC back in April 2009, where he told the assembled luminaries that they were going to love Obama’s choice for the new “copyright czar” position (officially known as IPEC). That choice was later revealed as Victoria Espinel, who actually attracted positive commentary from groups on all sides of the IP issue.

This week, Biden was at it again, hosting a roundtable on enforcing copyright infringement cases. Who was invited? Top names from the government, including Attorney General Eric Holder, Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano, Biden, and Espinel, along with the heads of NBC, Sony Pictures, Warner Music Group, and HarperCollins.

Oh, did I mention that the guest list also included the heads of the MPAA and RIAA, top execs from News Corp., Universal Music, Walt Disney, and Viacom?

Or that top Obama advisor and confidante Valeria Jarrett was in attendance? Or that the head of the FBI and Secret Service were there? Or that the event billed itself “the first of its kind, and will bring together all of the stakeholders to discuss ways to combat piracy in this rapidly changing technological age,” but didn’t manage to invite any public interest groups or academics?

Another inconvenient question to Al Gore

By Jacob Galt Tuesday December 15, 2009

49 Comments

Noisy Sex Woman

By Uncle Dave Tuesday December 15, 2009

18 Comments

What can you say to the husband except, “Way to go, stud!” Of course, I assume he’s gone deaf so he can’t hear the compliment.

A woman who was given an anti-social behaviour order banning her from making loud noises during sex has admitted breaching the order.

Caroline and Steve Cartwright’s love-making was described as “murder” and “unnatural” at Newcastle Crown Court. Neighbours, the local postman and a woman taking her child to school complained about the noise.
[…]
“It was clearly of a very disturbing nature and it was also compounded by the duration – this was not a one-off, it went on for hours at a time. It is further compounded by the frequency of the episode, virtually every night.”

Sunderland City Council told the court they had recorded noise levels of up to 47 decibels using equipment installed at Cartwright’s neighbour’s house. World Health Organisation guidelines state that 30 decibels is enough to cause sleep disturbance.