Category: Intellectual Property
Grey Warships of Death preparing for Blue Screen of Death – UK Navy fleet updates to Windows 2000 and XP
The UK’s warship fleet is getting itself an update, with versions of worst-windows-ever Windows 2000 and best-windows-ever XP rolling out across the fleet.
First to replace its ageing custom software with the “new” Windows operating systems is the HMS Montrose, which will soon enter a refitting phase where its old kit will be replaced by standard PCs.
The Type 23 frigates, which make up the bulk of our sea-faring death machines, are expected to gradually switch over to Windows machines as and when they’re due for a servicing, and, as ever, it’s all about reducing costs. Navy man Commodore Graham Peach said the Windows-based warships “will enable us to provide…
Merry Christmas extremely bored men – Windows 7 beta hits the torrent sites
If you haven’t already had ENOUGH of BLOODY WINDOWS after having Vista forced down your throat and onto your hard drive, you may now start worrying about driver incompatibilities anew – Windows 7 has been leaked.
The Beta 1 build of the next MS OS, which has been reviewed very favourably by a man here and is scheduled for a much wider beta test early next year – has popped up on Bittorrent for downloading. A good 20,000 or so users are currently nicking Windows 7 off Mininova, with a similar number taking it just because it’s there and is a nice thing to have from The Bay.
Those links are for information purposes only, by the way…
RIAA to drop failed lawsuits strategy
It’s official – the RIAA is giving up on its strategy of suing thousands of individuals for file-sharing. The campaign, which began in 2003, has hit 35,000 people. At no point have the record labels ever won a contested court case, instead gaining masses of default judgements against defendants who never turned up.
It’s failed to stop file-sharing, too. Album sales have gone nowhere but down, even when taking into account digital sales increases. Not to mention the PR disaster it’s caused for the labels – who’ve sued pensioners, 13-year-old girls, and penniless single mothers.
ENRAGED Jeff Buckley fans plan to scupper Alexandra Burke's 'Hallelujah' Christmas number one plans
The much-loved 1994 Jeff Buckley cover version of Leonard Cohen’s staggering Hallelujah is riding high in the charts, as FURIOUS Buckley fans mount an online campaign to stop a “cynical” cover by X Factor star Alexandra Burke earning the Christmas number one.
Thanks to the wonders of iTunes and the numerous other online record-flogging services that mean old records never die, the Buckley massive has already had some success – it looks like Buckley’s Hallelujah will end up at #3 in the chart next week, with Alexandra’s power ballad reinterpretation just pipping it to take the Chrimbo #1. Helping the bland warbler follow in such glorious festive footsteps as Bob The Builder, Mr Blobby and the Spice Girls…
Remove all traces of joy from Christmas with the Radiohead NES remake collection
Some extremely talented but sadly misguided musician has taken it upon himself to recreate a load of classic Radiohead songs using only the NES sound chip. The resulting generational soundclash is an appealing MIDI-like collection of easy-listening tunes.
Here’s one example – a stirring interpretation of ‘No Surprises’ from that album everyone liked a few years ago.
If you like that, you might also like Paranoid Android, a quite superb version of Creep and…
Apple patents idea for complex "3D Desktop" layout – development of Windows 7 thrown into chaos
Attention Microsoft! Apple has patented a new thing! There’ll be emergency meetings going on in Microsoft’s Seattle HQ today, thanks to internet scavengers tracking down some 3D desktop ideas Apple’s been toying with. Which means MS is going to have to start pretending it actually had the idea six years ago.
The patented potential “Multi-Dimensional Desktop” layout looks a little bewildering compared to Apple’s traditional locked-down simplicity, but the concept of having all your documents sitting behind each other in a little line waiting to be flipped through seems decent enough. It could work. Here’s how it looks. The finished thing will probably be in colour, if it ever comes out.
it also makes your monitor…
Which? takes on Davenport-Lyons for "excessive bullying"
Ladies and gentlemen, get your pom poms ready. The mighty Which? consumer rights organisation is taking on offensively agressive lawyers Davenport-Lyons, who we’ve covered extensively in the past.
Which? has filed a complaint with the Solicitors Regulatory Authority claiming that “excessive bullying” has taken place. It follows Atari pulling out of the lawsuit campaign due to bad press. Davenport-Lyons’ tactic is to send out angry, agressive letters, demanding quick payment or a lawsuit is threatened. With any luck, the involvement of a group like Which?’s will hopefully end the campaign.
Which? statement (via Ars Technica)
Related posts: Atari abandons filesharing lawsuits | Pensioners ‘caught’ pirating games
Nokia's "Comes with Music" DRM cracked
Rejoice, those of you with a “Comes with Music” subscription. You’ll now be able to strip the DRM off the tracks that, remember, you’ve paid for – and use them whenever and wherever you like. In all honesty, I’m surprised it took this long.
The software you’ll need is Tunebite. It costs £17.50 (or free, see below), and works by playing back the song at a very high speed, and then copying the data that comes out onto an MP3 file. It’s a bit like holding up a tape recorder next to your speakers, but retaining all the quality of the original file.
SEGA launches marginally disappointing online "casual" gaming portal PlaySEGA
The once-mighty SEGA has nailed its colours to the “Casual, internet” gaming mast, with the launch of PlaySEGA – a little portal rammed with simple games and colourful logos that might just hold the average teenager’s attention long enough for a game to finish downloading.
It’s not just about trading on former glories, PlaySEGA’s got actually NEW stuff on there to play that’s been made specifically for the service, should you, for some odd reason, be tired of slogging through Sonic 2 or Golden Axe on your emulator of choice.
As is fashionable these days, users are encouraged to sign in and create a wacky and possibly zany avatar symbolising their unique personalities, with “Escape Areas” – personal profile pages based around visual…
"Pirates of the Amazon" gets sunk by Amazon
The art project/mass piracy enabler that was the ‘Pirates of the Amazon’ extension from Firefox has been hit by a broadside from Amazon, who boarded the boat with their lawyers and sent the group of students a take-down notice.
The students, for their part, say the extension was intended as an artistic parody. They study media design at the Piet Zwart Institute of the Willem de Kooning Academy Hogeschool in Holland, and claim “It was a practical experiment on interface design, information access, and currently debated issues in media culture”.
