Archive for December, 2008

Time Warner Recommends Internet For Some Shows

Wednesday, December 31st, 2008

EdIII writes "The dispute between Time Warner and Viacom over fees seems to be without any resolution this year. Time Warner faces the possibility of being without content for almost 20 channels. Alexander Dudley, a spokesperson for Time Warner, is fighting back: 'We will be telling our customers exactly where ...

Home Generators (or How DTE Energy Ruined My Holidays)

Wednesday, December 31st, 2008

We are among the thousands without power in the northeast. Day four actually, and we've decided to look into generators so that next year's New Year's doesn't involve fears of frozen pipes bursting and hypothermic babies and cats. At the very least we just need enough juice to run the ...

The Best Computer Mice In Every Category

Wednesday, December 31st, 2008

ThinSkin writes "Now that the folks at ExtremeTech have finished writing about the best keyboards for every occasion, they conclude their roundup of input devices with the best computer mice in every category, which includes ergonomic mice, gaming mice, notebook mice, and so on. While this year's crop of gaming ...

Banned Words List Carries Its First Emoticon

Wednesday, December 31st, 2008

DynaSoar writes "Lake Superior State University in Michigan's Upper Peninsula ('The land of four seasons: June, July, August and Winter') has just published its 34th annual List of Words to Be Banished from the Queen's English for Mis-use, Over-use and General Uselessness. Besides such unsurprising inclusions such as 'green' corporations ...

Microsoft Zunes Committing Mass Suicide

Wednesday, December 31st, 2008

jddeluxe writes "There are multiple reports springing up all over the internet of a mass suicide of Microsoft 30GB Zune players globally. Check Zune forums, Gizmodo, or other such sites; the reports are spreading rapidly, except apparently to the Microsoft official Zune site."

Wikipedia Almost Reaches $6 Million Target

Wednesday, December 31st, 2008

An anonymous reader noted a story discussing the aftermath of the Wikipedia fundraiser and says "The writer suggests that Wikipedia can earn $50-100 million a month by a simple text ad. He also suggests that contributors should be financially rewarded and that the lack of financial reward is the reason ...

The 2008 Malware Challenge

Wednesday, December 31st, 2008

John Hering writes "With over 25 papers submitted, the results of the 2008 Malware Challenge are in. Malware has become an ever-present danger in today's connected world: The 2008 Malware Challenge was created to help increase awareness and understanding of the threat associated with malware by challenging contestants to reverse ...

A Look At the Growth of MMOs In 2008

Wednesday, December 31st, 2008

Zonk writes with news of a collaboration between Massively and GamerDNA to analyze the state of MMO player bases for 2008. Sifting through the data brought out several interesting trends. For example, Age of Conan took a substantial hit when Warhammer arrived on the scene, but none of the other ...

Terry Pratchett Knighted

Wednesday, December 31st, 2008

ackthpt writes "Headlines have been popping up on Google News: 'Terry Pratchett declared himself "flabbergasted" to receive a knighthood as he led a group of writers, actors and performers honoured today.' The Discworld author and stalwart adversary of Alzheimers Disease has been a member of the Order of the British ...

Content Filtering Pulled From Free Broadband Proposal

Wednesday, December 31st, 2008

huzur79 writes "Electronista is reporting that Kevin Martin, Chairman of the FCC, has dropped the content filtering provisions from the proposal for free wireless broadband service, according to an interview with Ars Technica. Previous drafts of the plan required protection methods to prevent users from accessing objectionable content, such as ...