TurkmenPost

Turning a decades-long rivalry on its head, Apple Computer introduced software today that it says will easily allow users to install Microsoft’s Windows XP operating system on Apple’s newest computers.

The software, Boot Camp, is available as a free download on Apple’s Web site and will be part of the next version of Apple’s operating system, Leopard. It works on Apple’s three lines of computer that run on Intel chips — the Mac mini, the iMac and the MacBook Pro.

Apple’s move is a recognition of the growing interest among some users in running Windows on Macintosh computers now that they are using Intel processors, which power the majority of Windows-based personal computers. Many technology enthusiasts have already been sharing software and tricks on the Internet to allow Mac users to add Windows to their new machines, although those approaches involve a far more complicated installation than Apple’s new software does.

Apple said it did not intend to support Windows for customers who install Boot Camp and run Windows XP on their machines. Still, the company said it was providing the software because it recognized a sizeable demand — and opportunity.

"We think Boot Camp makes the Mac even more appealing to Windows users considering making the switch," Philip Schiller, Apple’s senior vice president of worldwide product marketing, said in a statement.

Users who download and install Boot Camp must buy a copy of Windows XP software, which starts at $141.98 for the home edition. The Boot Camp software serves as an intermediary that creates an installation disk (users will need to provide a blank compact disk for this step) that lets the Windows software operate the Apple hardware, including its networking, audio and graphics devices and controls. Certain other features like a remote control for Apple’s media software will not work with Windows software.

Once the installation is complete, users can select which operating system, Apple or Windows, they want to use each time they start the computer.

via NYT. images via C|NET.

World of Warcraft or otherwise known as simply, WoW is one of the most popular and successful computer games in history. It is a Massively Multiplayer Online Role Playing Game that 6 million people pay $10 -15 per month to play. This type of popularity creates a sample size that is large enough to reflect the forces that control it. In Layman’s terms, with this many people playing this online game at any given time human nature tends to get a stronger representation.

The first "reality" check was a bug that caused a plague to outbreak and affect people’s characters in certain cases instantly killing any player below a certain level.

The second "reality" check was when this group of Warcraft players otherwise known as a guild interrupted a memorial service. Apparently, some dude dies in real life who is a popular WoW player. The people in the game think it would be nice to have a memorial for the player so they log into his account, take the character to a lake, and set it up for everyone to come pay their respects.

A bunch of dudes decide this would be a great time to ambush everyone so they run over a hill, kill the dead guy’s character, and then wipe out everyone who was there to show their respects. They filmed the whole thing and put it on the net for everyone to see.

http://spikedhumor.com/articles/22282/WoW_Funeral_Ambush_Video.html
The Google Video
FARK Thread

via shoutwire.

 Maxtor Corp, the computer disk drive maker being acquired by competitor Seagate Technology, on Tuesday said it will cut about 900 jobs in Singapore, and cut its outlook due to the pending acquisition.

The Milpitas, California-based company said it expects to post a net loss of $100 million to $104 million, or 39 cents to 40 cents per share, on revenue ranging from $875 million to $885 million.

Maxtor in late January had forecast a loss of 17 cents to 21 cents per share and revenue of $950 million to $975 million for the first quarter.

Maxtor cited lower-than-expected unit volume growth, which when combined with merger-related market share losses, placed pressure on its cost structure. It also said it did not realize some component cost improvements as had been expected.

Because of the decrease in volume, Maxtor said it significantly cut its production schedule in the first quarter and plans to eliminate 900 jobs at its Singapore manufacturing facility over the next several weeks. As a result, it will take a $6 million reserve in the first quarter for severance-related expenses.

via reuters.

A picture can be worth a thousand words, but an RSS feed is worth a million pictures.

That’s the virtual promise of Pixsy, a visual search engine that scours syndication feeds (in the format of Really Simple Syndication) for up-to-date images and then makes them searchable.

"Anywhere there’s an RSS feed, we consume it, extract an image…and make it searchable," said Chase Norlin, founder of the San Francisco-based company.

As opposed to search giant Google, which retrieves relevant pages from billions of Web sites, Pixsy hones in on the freshest images from publishers, Norlin said. "So you can now explore the Web visually."

The site, which is built with AJAX technology, will collect a thumbnail image from an RSS feed automatically and then associate words, or metadata, with that image based on the news or information from where it came. Pixsy then uses that data to associate images with search terms.

via C|NET.

      
Rating: 9.3 Superb

This is a rare and remarkable achievement–a huge, open-ended, complex, detailed role-playing game that’s fun to play and a pleasure to behold. Oblivion not only delivers everything that earned the Elder Scrolls series the devoted loyalty of a huge following of fans, but also significantly improves on the weaknesses of its 2002 predecessor, Morrowind. Morrowind earned recognition for being one of the best role-playing games in years, but the immersive and long-lasting experience it provided wasn’t for everyone. Oblivion is hands-down better, so much so that even those who’d normally have no interest in a role-playing game should find it hard to resist getting swept up in this big, beautiful, meticulously crafted world.

The Elder Scrolls series is known for its sheer size and depth. These are games that you could lose yourself in, spending hours exploring a fantasy world, traveling for miles, or just looking for minutiae, such as rare plants or hidden treasure. Oblivion lives up to this pedigree, putting you into a massive, cohesive, highly immersive world. You get to create your own character–the possibilities for customization seem limitless–and then explore the world as you will. There’s a compelling main quest for you to follow, which takes about 40 hours to finish the first time through, but the majority of the game’s content is peripheral to that main quest. You can root out evil in hidden dungeons, join and climb the ranks in a number of different guilds, visit all the different towns and try to solve everybody’s problems, compete in a long series of gladiatorial battles to the death, break into someone’s home and rob them in their sleep, get caught and face the consequences, contract a disease that leads to vampirism and then try to find a cure, buy a house, steal a horse, invest in your favorite shop, and, if you can believe it, there’s much more.

So the breadth of content is as remarkable as ever, but the most important thing is this: The many types of gameplay in Oblivion are well-designed and deeply satisfying, even when taken on their own. That’s the main difference between this game and Morrowind. This may be a role-playing game, but you could play it like a pure action game, or like a stealth game, or like an adventure game, and it’d still be at least as good, if not better, than games that are specialized in these regards.

…more at gamespot.