Archive for November 4th, 2008

Filed under: ,

Dell Inc. (NASDAQ: DELL) has recently announced the release of some new laptop designs. The thing is, though, that these appear to be just painted/designed laptop covers on existing laptop Personal computers, and not new systems with some new art. In other words, is Dell just pushing out boring models with new paint jobs?

Ed Boyd, the newer design lab head who was hired in 2007 to try and transform the boring commodity boxes Dell has cranked out by the millions into something that’s really a competitive advantage among a sea of Computer designs. I doubt that’s what Dell execs were expecting, but within just over a week, Dell will release these new designs with abstract paint jobs and funky colors — not just different laptop lid colors — to the market. Customers will pay an extra $75 for the newer designs. That’s in addition to the current $699 starting price for Dell’s entry-level consumer laptop systems.

So far, this is just another attempt to spice up the rather boring PC by adding a literal splash of color. Next year, Boyd plans on all kinds of artsy combinations by letting customers design their own Personal computer art. That will be an effort to watch, as it will be a first from a mainstream Computer maker. It’s be hard to see customers flocking to Dell Personal computers from the competition just to be able and design their own color scheme, but consumers are fickle and unpredictable — so who knows.

Dell’s new laptop designs; lipstick on a pig? originally appeared on BloggingStocks on Tue, 04 Nov 2008 11:13:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Read

Comments No Comments »

An anonymous reader writes “Bruce Schneier and company have created a new hash function called Skein. From his blog entry: ‘NIST is holding a competition to replace the SHA family of hash functions, which have been increasingly under attack. (I wrote about an early NIST hash workshop here.) Skein is our submission (myself and seven others: Niels Ferguson, Stefan Lucks, Doug Whiting, Mihir Bellare, Tadayoshi Kohno, Jon Callas, and Jesse Walker). Here’s the paper.”

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Comments No Comments »

Filed under: , ,

One of the characteristics of the current housing crisis is that it is an avalanche. As it heads downhill it picks up speed. The longer it goes unsolved, the harder it will be to repair. Foreclosures continue to increase. Prices continue to fall. As unemployment moves toward 7% and above, those numbers are not going to improve.

Odd then, the no one in the federal government can stop fighting over how to mend the problem long enough to come to a swift solution and begin to repair the situation before a catastrophe turns into a cataclysm.

According to The Wall Street Journal, “The FDIC has been developing a proposal, which some estimate could help between two and three million homeowners.” It is less clear what the administration wants to do, but it is concerned that baling out homeowners will encourage some people to default on mortgages to get a handout.

The White Home is right when looking at the small picture and wrong when it looks at the more massive one. Some cheaters and scoundrels will use a program to help enrich themselves. But, it is likely that the number of thieves will be much smaller than the millions of people who have legitimate problems staying in their homes. While details which are relatively unimportant in the scheme of these hold up a plan, the rest of the system heads down the toilet.

Penny wise, and pound foolish.

Douglas A. McIntyre is an editor at 247wallst.com.

Housing: White House fiddles as Rome burns originally appeared on BloggingStocks on Tue, 04 Nov 2008 10:13:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Read

Comments No Comments »

An anonymous reader asks “What information sources and social networking sites will you be using to supplement the election coverage on TV next Tuesday? I am ready with a large HDTV with Comcast, a Mac mini, and and an Xbox 360. I also have two laptops (one good for websites and one for streaming video), an old-school Blackberry, a ‘regular’ cell phone, a Nokia N810, a Squeezebox, and finally Sirius Satellite Radio. Which websites should I watch for live county results? I already know about the Twitter Vote Report for tracking and reporting voting issues and I already watch ‘CNN Reporters’ on Friendfeed for the national flair. What other Twitter accounts should I follow? Which urgent ones should I send to my phones? Which YouTube accounts or keywords I should subscribe to in Miro? What are the most popular sites for posting ‘on-scene’ videos — iReport, Flickr, something else? I know most local Fox affiliates are great about streaming, but is there a page that lists all of the streams, in case I need to swiftly focus on one city or area? Basically, how would you configure all those gadgets?” This reader might find some guidance in what to focus on from a video produced by reader (and data modeler) Bruce Nash that lays out a predicted timeline for when the media will call each state, depending on when the polls close and how tight each race is expected to be.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Comments No Comments »

Lewis Hamilton: Show Me The Money - Forbes

Comments No Comments »

xyz writes “A joint project of NASA and the German Aerospace Center has developed a highly altered Boeing-747SP aircraft to carry a 2.5-meter (98.4 inch) infrared telescope. The project SOFIA (Stratospheric Observatory For Infrared Astronomy) will observe radiation in the wavelengths from 0.3 microns to 1.0 millimeters, spanning the visible, infrared, and sub-millimeter portions of the electromagnetic spectrum. The observations will be taken at an altitude of 40,000 to 45,000 feet (12 to 14 km) which is above 99.8 percent of the water vapor in Earth’s atmosphere, thus giving it a greater range of observations.” Update: 10/31 13:27 GMT by T : Mea culpa — headline changed to reflect that this telescope is intended for looking out at space rather than down at the Earth.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Comments No Comments »

Filed under:

In an effort to compete with Activision Blizzard, Inc’s (NASDAQ: ATVI) Guitar Hero, and Viacom, Inc. (NYSE: VIA) division Harmonix’s Rock Band, Nintendo Co., Ltd. (OTC: NTDOY) has released its own music game, Wii Music. Wii Music does not require the user to press buttons at certain times but to move the Wii Remote and Nunchuk like they were playing the instruments.

The game features 60 playable instruments, including the guitar and the piano, as well as more obscure instruments, such as the cowbell. The game also features a mix of songs, from the themes to Nintendo classics Super Mario Brothers and The Legend of Zelda, to the classical songs Beethoven’s Ode to Joy and Wagner’s The Bridal Chorus, to popular hits by Madonna, The Police and John Lennon. However, with only 15 licensed songs, Wii Music lacks the current chart-toppers and great selection of hits that both Guitar Hero and Rock Band feature. In comparison, the latest Guitar Hero, Guitar Hero World Tour, features over 85 tracks, while the Rock Band features 84 songs on the disc plus 20 free downloadable songs.

The reception to the game, which was released on October 20, 2008, was blended. 1UP.com rated the game an A-, with reviewer Jennifer Tsao (a classically trained musician) saying it “shows surprising depth and flexibility, and those who have actually learned the controls one-of-a-kind to their instrument will be rewarded.” However, Game Informer gave the game a 3 out of 10, saying it is a “poor solution to an imaginary problem.”

The critical consensus, as with most Wii games, is that the game’s target audience is children, and that the game is too simplistic and shallow for adults, even those only considered to be casual gamers. Hence, it is unlikely that this game would affect the sales of the other rhythm giants, Guitar Hero and Rock Band. Evidence of this can be found in the sales numbers, as the game has sold less than 100,000 copies since its Japanese release, which Nintendo’s Shigeru Miyamoto admitted was not as strong as originally hoped. In contrast, the original Guitar Hero has sold over 1.5M copies, and the latest Rock Band, Rock Band 2, sold 360,000 copies in the month of September 2008, when it was released.

Nintendo joins musical fray with Wii Music originally appeared on BloggingStocks on Mon, 03 Nov 2008 15:40:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Permalink

Comments No Comments »

A University of Texas poll has found that 23 percent of Texans are convinced that Democratic presidential nominee Barack Obama is a Muslim. Only 45 percent of the people polled correctly identified Obama as a Protestant Christian. Nationwide, the number of people who believe in the “Secret Muslim Conspiracy” is about the same as those who believe that the moon landing was faked (5-10 percent), which makes the high numbers in Texas uncommon.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Comments No Comments »