Tom’s Hardware’s extensive Windows Vista preview

Tom’s Hardware has done an extensive 40 page review of Vista, walking through the new Aero visual theme and many new features.

Tom’s conclusions:

Microsoft’s new Vista is surprisingly entertaining. The new look of the operating system is good, and lets it outshine its Linux and Mac OS competitors. One notices repeatedly while working with this software that Microsoft scoped out its competition very carefully.

Uh, right. Like these blatant OS X rip-offs? I’ll believe it when I see it.

Technorati Tags: Vista

ThePirateBay closed on order from the White House

Digg is reporting:

US Government ordered the close down of PirateBay according to Swedish television. The request came originally from US Government and ultimatley MPAA. The Swedish police then acted on direct order from the Swedish government, even though the police knew that they didn’t have the law on their side.

Link to Swedish article
Translation from a digg commenter:

Okay, my try (I’m Norwegian, which should be close enough). This is from the Swedish government sponsored news, by the way.

USA’s government behind site bust

A delegation with representatives from the justice department and the police in April met American government officials who raised the issue on behalf of the special interest organization MPAA.

The justice department then asked police and prosecutors to act. When they responded that the law was unclear, the state secretary of the justice minister contacted the [head? national? prosecuter] and the state police chief who gave orders to act, “Rapport” reports.

The Pirate Bay has openly challenged those who own the right within the movie- and music business. But many within the internet community are provoked over the swedish government’s actions.

According to information given to “Rapport” this is how it happened. The American special interest organization MPAA contacted the White House. The American justice department then contacted the Swedish Ministry of Foreign Affair and demanded that the problem The Pirate Bay had to be solved.

According to Rapport’s sources prosecution and police has been ordered to act, and describes the secretary of state’s actions as “minister policing” (Bad wording, but saying some branches of the governmont act on their own without oversight)

Link to Digg discussion

Technorati Tags: thepiratebay

Abundance and the digital world

Interesting post by Fred over at ‘A VC’:

In the physical world scarcity is what leads to value.

In the digital world abundance is what leads to value.

There is no such thing as scarcity in digital goods. They can be replicated instantly and as many times as you want without losing quality.

This has led many who grew up in the world where scarcity was the measure of value to conclude that digitatization equals value deflation.

But I believe the exact opposite happens. You must embrace what digital offers. The ability to rapidly replicate is the way to create value in the digital world.

This is in line with what my friend Phil has been talking about lately, except that he’s gone a step further and concluded that in a digital world where all content gets replicated everywhere, payment for goods can only be by donation, i.e.: tipping. Content owners will not be able to base their business model on restricting access to content, because everything will already be available for free.

Technorati Tags: Economics, Technology

MacSaber Turns Your Macbook into a Lightsaber

From Slashdot:

SomethingAwful.com forum goon isnoop has developed a useless but fun app that takes advantage of the new sudden motion sensor available in Macbooks. The MacSaber 1.0 causes your Macbook or Macbook Pro to whoosh and crash like a lightsaber depending on how you swing it around. The reviews from those who have installed it say it is quite fun–although there is some concern about whether or not ‘lightsaber battles’ fall under warranty.

Technorati Tags: Lightsaber, MacBook, OS X, Software, Technology