Archive for December, 2007
Baidu.com CFO dies in accident
Shawn Wang, chief financial officer for Baidu.com, the leading search engine in China, died Thursday in an accident while on vacation during the holidays, the company said in a statement.
(Credit: Baidu.com)The company did not elaborate on the details of the accident.
"We are all completely shocked ...
Filed under Random News : Read More : Dec 31st, 2007
-->Is a Digg rebellion in the works?
After telling you all that Digg was the best social destination of 2007, the column made it onto the front page of the site. And while some comments echoed my sentiment -- namely, that other social sites are, well, crap -- the vast majority of commenters found a number of faults in Digg.
Although the general opinion ofl Digg faithful can't be judged based on comments on one story, can it be said that there is a Digg revolt in the works that is led by a group of individuals who are fed up with Ron Paul stories, crazy videos and a broken comment system?
If the comments on that story are to be believed, a revolt could happen.
...Filed under Random News : Read More : Dec 31st, 2007
-->Does Vista’s stunted growth hint at the death of the desktop?
digg_url = 'http://digg.com/microsoft/Does_Vista_s_weak_growth_hint_at_the_death_of_the_desktop';
Is the desktop metaphor dead, replaced by web services like Google and Facebook? Or is Vista so bad that it's not worth buying?
New data points to the latter suggestion, leaving Microsoft with two options. It can either view its sagging Vista sales as a testament to the incredible work of art that is Windows XP (gag). Or it can concede that Vista is a pile of potty.
Or perhaps, just perhaps, this isn't a Windows thing at all but simply a recognition that we may have tapped out the "must have" innovations on the fat-client desktop leading people to wait out upgrades until a hardware refresh makes the choice a no-brainer.
Regardless of how Microsoft chooses to view its Vista numbers, it clearly has a problem. Though it's only one dataset, PCWorld's users aren't jumping up and down for Vista. PCWorld measured web traffic on its site, and found that adoption of Vista is tepid (14%), and is crawling compared to how fast XP came out of the gate:
How much of an accomplishment is it for a new version of Windows to get to 14 percent usage in 11 months? The logical benchmark is to compare it to the first eleven months of Windows XP, back in 2001 and 2002.
...
Filed under Random News : Read More : Dec 31st, 2007
-->Australia plans tough web rules
Australia's Labor government plans new rules to protect children from online pornography and violence.
Filed under Random News : Read More : Dec 31st, 2007
-->Privacy rights ‘fragile’ in 2007
Surveillance is "endemic" in more nations than ever, a report by campaigners for personal privacy claims.
Filed under Random News : Read More : Dec 31st, 2007
-->Team Fortress 2 Update Released
Updates to Team Fortress 2 have been released. The updates will be applied automatically when your Steam client is restarted. The specific changes include:
Team Fortress 2
- Fixed "CUtlLinkedList overflow!" crash
- Added player position data to server logging of events (player_death, player_builtobject, teamplay_flag_event, object_destroyed, teamplay_point_captured, teamplay_capture_blocked)
- Improved mapcycle handling to ensure it always loads new mapcycles when the mapcyclefile convar is changed
- Fixed sniper quick-switch exploit allowing them to avoid zoom/unzoom times
- Fixed an exploit allowing players to spawn into the enemy territory at the start of a round
- Fixed syringegun projectiles sometimes pushing players high up into the air, allowing them to reach bad map locations
- Removed an obscure rendering setting that would allow players to make cloaked spies appear fully black
Filed under Random News : Read More : Dec 31st, 2007
-->US festive online spending up 19%
Sales in the US by online retailers rise 19% between 1 November and 27 December, comScore says.
Filed under Random News : Read More : Dec 31st, 2007
-->Vision on
Bill Thompson looks at what will make the news in 2008
Filed under Random News : Read More : Dec 31st, 2007
-->Video games make history in 2007
The last 12 months have been one of the best years in video game history, both critically and commercially.
Filed under Random News : Read More : Dec 31st, 2007
-->What to do when hardware vendors stop updating their drivers
My 3-year-old HP PC stopped playing optical discs a couple of months ago. Not only were the built-in DVD and CD-ROM drives out of commission, I couldn't even get a brand-new external DVD drive to work. I searched and searched for driver updates, but came up empty. It wasn'...
Filed under Random News : Read More : Dec 31st, 2007
-->