Posted by Kevin Huffman
Tech
Saturday, March 20th, 2010
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Woof. Analysts have placed a sell rating on Palm and are now valuing their stock, at least in hyperbolic terms, at $0. Quoth CNN: Shares of Palm (PALM) plunged 19% to $4.59 a share early Friday, a new 52-week low. Investors are becoming increasingly pessimistic about the company’s future and several analysts downgraded their positions on the stock to “sell.” Two analysts even lowered their price targets to $0.
Posted by Kevin Huffman
Tech
Thursday, March 18th, 2010
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Let’s make one thing clear: I wouldn’t play Command and Conquer 4 if it was the game on Earth. It’s just not “me.” So pardon my blase attitude while I drop this bombshell : the game uses the same stupid DRM that Ubisoft now uses, which I complained about on CNN . Add this to your list of games not to buy, then. Yeah, so the game, which came out two days ago, requires a constant Internet connection in order to be played. EA claims this isn’t DRM, but if that’s the case I’d like to know what they call it. A rose by another name and such. Says EA: First thing to be clear about, Command & Conquer 4 has NO DRM. Zip, zero, zilch, none. We already made this clear. *** To play Command & Conquer 4, the computer needs to be connected to the internet. We’ve always made that clear as well. EA does try to get on your good side by saying you don’t need to have the disc in the drive at all times in order to play, you can install and re-install the game as many times as you like, etc. So there is progress being made in The War on DRM. So, we’ve just taken Toulon—let’s hope it doesn’t end at Waterloo. Yes, I’m still on a Napoleon kick . I don’t know, I’m pretty much a beaten man vis-à-vis fighting DRM. At this point I’m fully prepared to let the likes of Ubisoft send a man over every time I’d want to play one of their games. Not that I ever will again, but you know what I mean.
Posted by Kevin Huffman
Tech
Monday, March 15th, 2010
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Exciting news, people who watch TV! CNN will finally go fully HD sometime this spring! This is a great day for news junkies and people who constantly need to be reading a ticker. The network first launched its HD channel two years ago, but only programming emanating from its New York studios were done in HD; Atlanta- and D.C.-based programming was still in boring ol’ SD. But no more! Starting this spring, it’s HD 24 hours a day~! Among the shows that will gain several lines of resolution: Rick’s List with Rick “from the barrio” Sanchez. Sanchez, you’ll recall, challenged East Side Dave (again, whom I interviewed ), from Ron and Fez , to a fight in light of the Shorty Awards Twitter controversy . Dave accepted his challenge, but Mr. Sanchez has been awfully quiet since then. What’s the matter, dogsie, afraid the Davepound knows how to scrap?! Do I have to mention that I wrote two articles for CNN.com, one about the iPad and one about Ubisoft’s DRM ? Well I just did, so there.
Posted by Kevin Huffman
Tech
Friday, March 5th, 2010
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At what point do you stop trying to track and prosecute cyber-criminals ? Obviously, you can’t let criminals run around willy-nilly, but when you look at the resources involved in bringing those guys to justice—and are you really nabbing the right guys in the first place?—it’s worth at least talking about. Is fighting cyber-crime about as futile as fighting the war on drugs? The deal is that authorities last week arrested the ringleaders of a Spain-based botnet. Botnets, of course, are hordes of computers that have been “taken over” by evildoers to do their bidding. The issue is that, sure, you can catch three guys who run a botnet, but that doesn’t necessarily mean you’re catching the people most responsible. As someone from Symantec told CNN, it “takes no more skill than it takes to run Microsoft Office” to start a botnet. Script kiddies, in other words. You can arrest all the script kiddies you want, but they’re not the ones actually creating the destructive software in the first place. And then you figure that many of the programmers responsible for all this madness are outside the reach of American authorities, who are the ones who are most gung-ho, let’s go get ‘em, well, what are you gonna do? It’s sorta fascinating, if something can be “sorta” fascinating. You have criminals running amok, they’re essentially untraceable, and they’re distributing tools that any kid with a free hour can figure out how to use. So that’s the debate: how best to go after the bad guys when they’re impossible to catch, and they’re spreading around the tools of their trade all over the place, tools that any ol’ person can put to use? Man, all this talk about cyber-crime has me hankering to see a good sci-fi movie à la Blade Runner . Any other recommendations in that vein? Something cyberpunk-y, if you will.
Posted by Kevin Huffman
Tech
Thursday, March 4th, 2010
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The Shorty Awards were handed out last night in New York amid incredible controversy. The awards, if you’ve never heard of them before, are handed out to Twitter users who exemplify Twitter’s potential “to create the best real-time short form content.” It’s sorta cute I guess, just recognizing people who tweet interesting things. There’s one problem, and it has to do with the award handed out in the “Weird” category. The winner of the weird award was The Llama ( @DoWhatITellYou ) someone who tweets what you’re supposed to do. Like , “Pretend you have a dog or cat in your lap, whichever you like. Pet the animal and say ‘Good little llama.’ Good.” The person who should have won, clearly, was East Side Dave ( @rfeastsidedave ) from Sirius XM ’s Ron and Fez show, whom we interviewed last summer . Now, what’s more “Weird,” more deserving of the recognition of the likes of CNN’s Rick Sanchez, Paul McCartney, MC Hammer, Jimmy Wales, and David Pogue from the New York Times, a fake llama telling you what to do, or a confused-looking, red haired man flopping about with puppets? So at the awards ceremony last night, as The Llama accepted her award, Dave rushed the stage , yelling profanities and gesticulating wildly. It was all over Digg and the like as well as MediaBistro , arbiters of all that is media-related in this county. I, for one, think Dave was well within his right to be upset at this miscarriage of justice. Everyone knows that, in a few years time, the only communication we’ll engage in will be over Twitter, so it’s absolutely crucial to be recognized for your Twitter achievements. Dave was robbed.