ATI Catalyst 8.12 beta (8.561 RC3) XP 32/64-bit
ATI Catalyst 8.12 beta (8.561 RC3) VISTA 32/64-bit

Quote: ATI Stream support:

With the release of ATI Catalyst 8.12 users can unlock the potential of accelerated applications enabling ATI Stream technology for millions of ATI Radeon™ graphics processors worldwide
ATI Stream harnesses the tremendous processing power of the graphics processing unit (GPU) for high-performance, data-intensive computations over a wide range of scientific, business and consumer applications.
ATI Stream enables the hundreds of parallel cores inside AMD graphics processors to accelerate general purpose applications. These capabilities will allow ATI Stream-enabled programs, for a variety of different tasks and from a growing number of software vendors, to operate with optimized performance or with new functionality.
The CAL (Compute Abstraction Layer) is now include in the Catalyst driver package. CAL is the enabling component for ATI Stream


ATI Stream application: ATI Avivo Video Converter

Using ATI Stream technology, owners of ATI Radeon™ HD 4800 Series and ATI Radeon™ HD 4600 Series of graphics cards can take advantage of this video conversion tool (found in Catalyst Control Center Basic View) to achieve incredible performance levels in video transcoding.
ATI Catalyst Control Center – Noise reduction for progressive video content:



This release of Catalyst™ introduces a new advanced video quality control: Noise Reduction for progressive video content, which removes ghosting artifacts while preserving details of the original video. The slider control can be found in the All Settings page of the Avivo Video tab found in the Catalyst Control Center.


Performance improvements:



Catalyst 8.12 Preliminary Performance Notes



Crysis + 2-7%



Crysis Warhead + 2-3%



Devil May Cry 4 + 1-6%



Far Cry 2

+ noAA scores are fixed for Crossfire configs; this is worth +20% on slower cards, and as much as 70% on faster ones

+ 5-10% gains when AA is enabled



FEAR + 2-6%



Left 4 Dead + 2-4%



Lost Planet Colonies + 3-10%, mostly in Area 2



Prey + 2-5%



STALKER Clear Sky + 5-10%, primarily on Crossfire configurations



NOTE – if you’re benchmarking Fallout 3, please be sure to disable VSYNC, as follows:



Edit the Fallout_default.ini file in the installation directory.

Change iPresentinterval=1 to iPresentinterval=0



For more information on ATI Catalyst™ 8.12 (for Windows Vista, Windows XP, and Linux versions), including all of the resolved issues in this release, please see the ATI Catalyst™ 8.12 release notes.
Thx to "tranngocminh" from guru3d...he created the original thread:

http://forums.guru3d.com/showthread.php?t=280709

Thomas

Wal-Mart iPhone training materials
Boy Genius Report first broke the story back in October that Apple would begin selling the iPhone at Wal-Marts. The actual date of release appears to be December 28th. Wal-Mart employees are already receiving training on iPhone activation (see photo above). Today, a new report from Boy Genius Report claims that Apple may be reintroducing the 4GB iPhone to be sold at Wal-Mart for only $99 with a two year contract. The site is not entirely confident about the report, so suggests this possibility should be taken with caution.

When Apple originally introduced the iPhone, it came in 4GB and 8GB models. Only a couple of months later, Apple discontinued the 4GB model altogether and dropped the price of the 8GB model. Apple currently sells an 8GB ($199) and 16GB ($299) iPhone with 2 year contract. Aggressive $99 pricing for an entry level iPhone would correlate with comments made by Steve Jobs in October. Jobs said that they needed to continue to be aware of a possible "price umbrella" below the iPhone that competitors may take advantage of. Analysts have suggested that Apple could feasibly sell the iPhone for $99.


Article Link: Wal-Mart to Sell $99 4GB iPhone?

Well I've been thinking of upgrading from my audigy 2zs to an x-fi and I also have a cable box i use to watch tv that has digital output that I'd like to take advantage of. However as far as I'm aware not all of the x-fi's support digital input, and since I'm limited to pci right now (my last 1x pcie slot is snugged right next to my video card, even though my video card is a single-slot it's too close for comfort)

So from my understanding I would need to go to the X-Fi XtremeGamer Fatal1ty to get the proper input (even though I'd rather not pay for something with that jock-wannabee's name on it) or is there any other option?
Would I need to buy that $15 I/o module to get the input that I need or is there some other option?

And i guess lastly, does vista media center even support doing such a thing(taking audio from digital input for tv)? :)

thanks!

img src="http://c.fsdn.com/fm/screenshots/56267_thumb.png" align="right" alt="Screenshot" hspace="10" vspace="10" kFlickr is a standalone Flickr uploader for KDE. It allows for easy upload with drag and drop. Common attributes can be edited before sending the photo. Multiple users are supported. hr / strongLicense:/strong GNU General Public License (GPL) hr / strongChanges:/strongbr / kFlickr was ported to KDE4. Almost a complete rewrite was done to take advantage of what Qt4 and KDE4 have to offer. This version maintains almost all the functionality of the last KDE3 release, with the addition of better user management and spell checking for photo descriptions. It does not yet implement batch editing or kpart functionality. This release is intended to allow the translators to get their work done as well as to flush out bugs. pa href="http://feedads.googleadservices.com/~a/6-davKvEtqXmX_3gCKYC1RjrT-0/a"img src="http://feedads.googleadservices.com/~a/6-davKvEtqXmX_3gCKYC1RjrT-0/i" border="0" ismap="true"/img/a/pimg src="http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/freshmeat/feeds/fm-releases-unix/~4/KaxTG-g_H9Y" height="1" width="1"/

img src="http://c.fsdn.com/fm/screenshots/56267_thumb.png" align="right" alt="Screenshot" hspace="10" vspace="10" kFlickr is a standalone Flickr uploader for KDE. It allows for easy upload with drag and drop. Common attributes can be edited before sending the photo. Multiple users are supported. hr / strongLicense:/strong GNU General Public License (GPL) hr / strongChanges:/strongbr / kFlickr was ported to KDE4. Almost a complete rewrite was done to take advantage of what Qt4 and KDE4 have to offer. This version maintains almost all the functionality of the last KDE3 release, with the addition of better user management and spell checking for photo descriptions. It does not yet implement batch editing or kpart functionality. This release is intended to allow the translators to get their work done as well as to flush out bugs. pa href="http://feedads.googleadservices.com/~a/Y4PcMz0G0Tf_rSRylgZ4nmac2uo/a"img src="http://feedads.googleadservices.com/~a/Y4PcMz0G0Tf_rSRylgZ4nmac2uo/i" border="0" ismap="true"/img/a/pimg src="http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/freshmeat/feeds/fm-releases-global/~4/KaxTG-g_H9Y" height="1" width="1"/

Tidy Up! 1.4.8

Tidy Up! is our next generation duplicate finder and disk tidiness utility.

Here are a few Tidy Up! features:

• Search for duplicate files and packages; by the owner application, content, type, creator, extension, date modified, date created, name, label, visibility and more.
• Search by the tag, duration and bit rate of MP3s and AACs audio files, search the content of the iPhoto, Aperture, iTunes and iPod dababases, search the messages of Mail and synchronize deletions with iTunes, iPhoto and Mail.
• Search for duplicate folders; by name, date modified, date created, label visibility, empty folders, their contents and more.
• Tidy Up! is fast, it doesn't index the scanned volumes, so you don't waste additional precious space. With its multitasking capability, you can do more searches at a time and take advantage of the latest Macintosh computers and operating systems.
• Tidy Up! has a security system that assures you will keep at least one file of the duplicate group on your disk, the ability to undo copied and moved items and the ability to restore trashed items as long as the trash is not emptied, even after a restart of the computer.
• Tidy Up! comes with a list of tasks with which you can do some common searches and for a customized strategy, it offer Strategy Wizard. Based on your choices it creates the appropriate criteria with which to search for duplicates and a new "Smart Basket" that will contain the items to be removed.
• Offers a full-size preview of the most commonly used files such as: audio, media, text, pdf, graphics, fonts and more...
• One of the most interesting features of Tidy Up! is the capability to separate, for quick and easy organization, found items using custom criteria via "Smart Baskets."
• Of course Tidy Up! allows you to trash, move, burn and export into html files all found items.
• Tidy Up! is fully customizable and allows you to create your preferred workspace.

WHAT'S NEWVersion 1.4.8:

Added support for UTI (Uniform Type Identifier), now it is possible to choose an application (like Preview on OS X 10.5) in the Type or extension search criteria that uses UTI identifiers and Tidy Up! will convert them to the appropriate file type. Fixed a bug that in certain cases crashed the application when exporting while using the html file option. Fixed other bugs.
REQUIREMENTSMac OS X 10.3.9 or later.
DEVELOPERHyperbolic Software
DOWNLOADS99546
DOWNLOAD NOW (8.4 MB)
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Creta Maris hotel in Crete, just 24 klms from the Heraklion International Airport is close to the fishing village of Hersonnisos, a long sweeping bay of sandy beach and crystal clear water. A small village with quaint twisting paths, small piazzas filled with the scents and colours of a wide variety of trees and flowers, Creta Maris is a unique combination of Aegean Architecture and luxurious facilities. At Creta Maris, the choices for fun, entertainment, sport activities, water-sports, but also relaxation, exercising and beauty are endless. For relaxation and rejuvenation of body and mind, visit “Thalasso”, experience the unique experience of total relaxation and take advantage of the rich properties of sea water.

pI'm currently in Montréal, between two of a href="http://weblogs.asp.net/fmarguerie/archive/2008/09/25/speaking-at-devteach-montreal-in-december.aspx" mce_href="http://weblogs.asp.net/fmarguerie/archive/2008/09/25/speaking-at-devteach-montreal-in-december.aspx"my sessions/a. I'd like to take advantage of this break to introduce a little friend of mine: Clippy!/ppOk, a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clippy" mce_href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clippy"Clippy/a is probably not new to most of you... Except that this time, it is a brand new Clippy. This new Clippy is a WPF Clippy!/pimg src="http://madgeek.com/dotnetweblogs/Images/Clippy.png" mce_src="http://madgeek.com/dotnetweblogs/Images/Clippy.png" width="453" height="255"brpYou can get your own Clippy too by a href="http://madgeek.com/Samples/Clippy.081103.zip" mce_href="http://madgeek.com/Samples/Clippy.081103.zip"downloading the source code and the binary files/a.brI've (re-)created Clippy because I just happened to need an assistant for one of my sessions here at a href="http://devteach.com" mce_href="http://devteach.com"DevTeach/a. It's a simple WPF application that displays the lines contained in a text file in a balloon. You can even have Clippy speak by activating the speech mode (CTRL+S or option in the context menu)./ppimg src="http://madgeek.com/dotnetweblogs/Images/Clippy3.png" mce_src="http://madgeek.com/dotnetweblogs/Images/Clippy3.png" width="278" height="242"nbsp;/ppIt's also possible to move Clippy via dragamp;drop, and resize the balloon if you wish:/ppimg src="http://madgeek.com/dotnetweblogs/Images/Clippy2.png" mce_src="http://madgeek.com/dotnetweblogs/Images/Clippy2.png" width="656" height="314"br /ppIf you have no use for Clippy (I'd be surprised! Who doesn't love Clippy?), you can still have a look at the source code and play with it to get a feel for WPF with this simple app./ppEnjoy your new friend!/ppa href="http://madgeek.com/Samples/Clippy.081103.zip" mce_href="http://madgeek.com/Samples/Clippy.081103.zip"Download/abr/pimg src="http://weblogs.asp.net/aggbug.aspx?PostID=6764516" width="1" height="1"

Monday's post about a propellor-driven wind cart designed to travel directly downwind faster than the wind (DWFTTW) has generated an emotionally-charged discussion about the feasibility of such a vehicle. There are three camps -- the people who think it's possible, the people who think it isn't, and the people who don't know. All three camps have members claiming to have degrees in physics, engineering, and aeronautics, and members from each camp are guilty of name-calling, insults, and cheerleading for their "side." One fellow, a proponent of the idea that DWFTTW is possible, even told me that I should "prepare to be disappointed" because I have my doubts about DWFTTW! I would actually be delighted to learn the truth about this, whatever it is. In MAKE Vol. 11, Charles Platt made a miniature model of the vehicle and came to the conclusion that there is no such thing as a wind-powered vehicle that can travel downwind faster than the speed of the wind. Last year, while Charles was working on the MAKE piece, he emailed me this charming sketch and description: Lack of imagination among wind-cart enthusiasts has prevented them from realizing that a simple modern invention can solve the problem of net forward air flow trying to stop the cart. That invention is--the air duct! A swivelling duct would be able to take advantage of wind coming from any direction. A vane at the rear of the duct would automatically turn it into the wind. Even on a windless day, the lucky owner of this windmobile would only have to give it a push before leaping aboard, to create some relative air flow that would power up the fan and accelerate the cart. Who could have imagined that the answer to the problem of non-renewable resources could be so simple? Of course, he is being facetious. This morning, Charles emailed me the following, along with permission to post it: I have browsed the huge discussion in response to your cart posting. Amazingly, so far as I can see, no one has addressed the fundamental problem that if the cart transitions from moving slower than the wind to faster than the wind, the reversal of air flow will try to turn the propeller backward, thus tending to stop the cart. It bothers me that so many people are conned by this idea (or con themselves). -- Three questions for cart enthusiasts: 1. When the cart begins running slower than a tail wind, does the air move through the propeller from the back toward the front? 2. If the cart can somehow accelerate faster than the tail wind (as its proponents claim), does this means that air will now move through the propeller from the front toward the back? 3. If the flow of air through the propeller reverses in this way, will it tend to reverse the rotation of the propeller? Answers to (1) and (2) are clearly "yes." Answer to (3) can be determined empirically by blowing air at a small fan, first from the front, then from the back, and watching which way it turns. Answer to (3) will also be "yes." Therefore, the reversed air flow will retard forward motion, the speed of the cart is self-limiting, and the claim is false. If you have something to contribute in the discussion boards about this, please refrain from insults and name-calling. Side note: I emailed Adam Savage about this, and he said it's "in the hopper" for a Mythbuster's experiment! Im considering running another article about this in a future issue of MAKE, as well. Previously: Video: can a vehicle move downwind faster than the wind? - Boing Boing Downwind faster than the wind, part 2 - Boing Boing...br style="clear: both;"/ a href="http://www.pheedo.com/click.phdo?s=29383e592c5465902331a3e4fb847b4cp=1"img alt="" style="border: 0;" border="0" src="http://www.pheedo.com/img.phdo?s=29383e592c5465902331a3e4fb847b4cp=1"//a img src="http://www.pheedo.com/feeds/tracker.php?i=29383e592c5465902331a3e4fb847b4c" style="display: none;" border="0" height="1" width="1" alt=""/

Yeah, we know, the Time Capsule is a router and backup device. Not that exciting, right? Well, not all gifts are meant to spur excitement - this one is practical and functional. If you know someone who owns a Mac, and doesn’t take advantage of Time Machine, then they need a Time Capsule - especially if they use a MacBook or MacBook Pro. The Time Machine sports either a 500GB or 1TB hard drive, and is a combination wired/wireless network attached storage device. Even better, it doubles as an 802.11n/g router as well. The 500GB Time Capsule sells for $299, while the 1TB version will run you $499.

Tags: 802.11g, 802.11n, apple, backup, mac, nas, network attached storage, os x, routers, time capsule, time machine,

2008 Holiday Gift Guide: Apple Time Capsule originally appeared on Gear Live Holiday Gift Guide on Wed, December 03, 2008 - 4:04:29

CosmicSky.tv Horoscope December 3-5

Auteur : CosmicSky
Tags : aries astrological astrology brunette daily free friends fun horoscopes jokes love planets signs stars sun videos
Envoyé : 03 décembre 2008
Note :0.0
Votes :0

div class="rxbodyfield"p page="1" class="ArticleBody"Dell believes that customers do not necessarily need to build new datacenters, and is now offering to show customers how to optimize their existing ones to extend their life span./pp align="right"a href="http://ad.doubleclick.net/jump/idg.us.info.rss/news;pos=imu;tile=6;sz=336x280;skey=patch_management;pkey=security;ord=123456789?" target="_blank" /img src="http://ad.doubleclick.net/ad/idg.us.info.rss/news;pos=imu;tile=6;sz=336x280;skey=patch_management;pkey=security;ord=123456789?" width="336" height="280" border="0" alt="" align="right"//a/pp page="1" class="ArticleBody"Dell says that its expertise in this area came about two years ago, when it discovered it had reached the capacity limits of its two datacenters in Austin Texas. Rather than going to the expense of simply building a new datacenter, the company instead looked at whether it was possible to squeeze more life out of its existing ones./pp page="1" class="ArticleBody"b[ Check out these#160;a href="http://www.infoworld.com/article/08/11/18/Eleven_tips_for_datacenter_efficiency_1.html?source=fssr"11 tips for datacenter efficiency/a. And keep up on green IT trends with InfoWorld#39;s a href="http://weblog.infoworld.com/sustainableit/?source=fssr"Sustainable IT blog/a and a href="http://www.infoworld.com/newsletter/subscribe.html?source=fssr"Green Tech newsletter/a. ]/b/pp page="1" class="ArticleBody"quot;Michael Dell looks at building new buildings in order to make money, and not making money in order to build buildings,quot; explained Rick Becker, VP, Software and Solutions Enterprise Product Group at Dell./pp page="1" class="ArticleBody"Becker was one of the men charged with overseeing the redevelopment of Dell#39;s datacenter resources. Dell estimates that its own datacenter optimization has internally reduced costs by more than $29 million./pp page="1" class="ArticleBody"quot;When we optimized our own datacenters, we learnt a lot of lessons,quot; Becker told Techworld. quot;And now we want to share these lessons with our customers,quot; he added. To this end, Dell is offering customers a datacenter optimization service./pp page="1" class="ArticleBody"Alongside the service, Dell is offering some simple advice, in line with the company#39;s established policy of a target="_blank" href="http://www.techworld.com/storage/news/index.cfm?newsid=105618"simplifying IT/a . This includes the decommissioning old servers, consolidate existing equipment; virtualize as much as possible, and re-equipping with new kit in order to take advantage of much better energy-efficient technology./pp page="1" class="ArticleBody"On the consolidation point, Dell points out that many companies have unnecessary servers running in their DCs, legacy of past projects, but which are not shut down because managers don#39;t know what they are used for./pp page="1" class="ArticleBody"Becker said that with a 70 percent server volume reduction, coupled with an equipment refresh with energy-efficient products, a typical datacenter would see 50 to 70 percent less energy use./pp page="1" class="ArticleBody"Becker also makes it clear that he is also a big fan of virtualisation, and believes that this is one of the most important ways for companies to reduce their server sprawl and optimise their server resources. quot;At Dell in 2006, we only had 543 virtual machines. Now the number is over 5,000,quot; he said./pp page="1" class="ArticleBody"quot;We will also ask customers to raise the temperature of their datacenters,quot; said Becker, pointing to the fact that most datacenters are currently too cool./pp page="1" class="ArticleBody"Dell equipment can run at 25 degrees Celsius (77 Fahrenheit). Indeed, Dell#39;s equipment is certified to run at 29.4 Celsius (85 Fahrenheit), but Becker says that at 25.6 Celsius (78 Fahrenheit), it found that its fans ran at a greater speed and started impacting on energy cost savings./pp page="1" class="ArticleBody"By its own estimate, Dell believes it can help companies increase their DC computing capacity by 270 percent within the same power and space footprint, using less hardware. Its message then to the market is spend now, in order to save down the road./pp page="2" class="ArticleBody"But will anyone buy in to this argument considering the current economic climate?/pp page="2" class="ArticleBody"Becker disagrees somewhat with the gloomy forecasts touted by a target="_blank" href="http://www.techworld.com/applications/news/index.cfm?newsid=107022"IDC/a and a target="_blank" href="http://www.techworld.com/midsizedbusiness/news/index.cfm?newsid=105682"Gartner/a . While everyone seems to agree that the industry won#39;t experience the extreme cuts it suffered in 2001 after the dot-com bust, Becker feels that customers will not be holding off all their spending plans, especially if Dell can demonstrate real ROI (return on investment) within a 12 to 18 month period./pp page="2" class="ArticleBody"quot;Post September, IT has suddenly become the key enabler on how companies can remain viable,quot; said Becker. quot;We can show the ROI that customers can achieve, plus we have financing options available./pp page="2" class="ArticleBody"If companies can reduce the amount of people needed (by adding in more automation), as well as trimming their real estate costs, there is much less expense. The finance guys absolutely get that. That is what we mean when we say, simplify and save,quot; he said./pp page="2" class="ArticleBody"a target="_blank" href="http://www.techworld.com/index.jsp"emTechworld/em/a emis an InfoWorld affiliate./em/p/divbr style=clear: both;/ a href=http://www.pheedo.com/click.phdo?s=21b6cc01434d35cc7989c74d8e38ab04p=1img alt= style=border: 0; border=0 src=http://www.pheedo.com/img.phdo?s=21b6cc01434d35cc7989c74d8e38ab04p=1//a img src=http://www.pheedo.com/feeds/tracker.php?i=21b6cc01434d35cc7989c74d8e38ab04 style=display: none; border=0 height=1 width=1 alt=/

YouTube and the London Symphony Orchestra, along with a consortium of other organizations, are sponsoring an innovative project to promote classical music through the Internet — a competition for the chance to play in the specially created YouTube Symphony Orchestra, which will perform on April 15 at New York’s Carnegie Hall, with musicians auditioning by submitting videos to YouTube. The celebrated Chinese American composer Tan Dun, best known for his score for Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon, has written a five-minute orchestral work that will serve as the audition piece. There are parts for all the standard orchestral instruments, and even musicians who play non-traditional, non-Western instruments are invited to participate by choosing an orchestral part playable on their instrument. Musicians download a copy of their part and practice it while watching a video of the composer conducting it. (The videos for the different instruments are individually tailored, so that the cues the conductor gives are appropriate for each instrument.) The musicians then videotape themselves playing their part, following the conductor’s lead. They also submit a video of a solo performance that shows off their particular musical strengths. A panel will pick the best performances, and the videos of the finalists will be posted on YouTube, so that viewers can vote on their favorites. Conductor Michael Tilson Thomas will pick the winners from the viewers’ top choices. The selected orchestral musicians (probably about 80), as well as additional qualified soloists, will be brought to New York, all expenses paid, for the gala performance. A composite video of Tan Dun’s piece using the submitted videos will also be posted on YouTube.

Here’s Tan Dun conducting the London Symphony in his new piece.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Tqiro1kdRlw

 
Go to YouTube’s official competition page to download your music and submit your performance.

The deadline for submissions is January 29, 2009, so start practicing and take advantage of this incredible opportunity to play in a top-notch orchestra!

Image Smith 1.0.3

Image Smith is a powerful batch image processing tool. With a variety of features you can easily scale, reorient, recolorize, convert, and flatten images. Image Smith can open numerous different picture file types, and output in the most common industry standard formats like JPEG, GIF, and PNG.

Use the numerous predefined presets in Image Smith to scale or stretch images down to formats suitable for web banners, e-mailing photos, backups, and more! This is ideal for taking large photos from your camera, which may be upwards of five megabytes each, and scaling and converting them down to a manageable size of only a few hundred kilobytes.

Many power-user features are also included: changing the color levels, applying a sepia effect, inverting, changing the contrast, auto-levelling, extracting image masks, and rotating by angle. Additionally, also easily preview the effect of the settings before processing the entire set.

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You have less than 23 hours to take advantage of this promo offer!

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My weekly technology law column (a href="http://www.thestar.com/sciencetech/article/546213"Toronto Star version/a, a href="http://www.ottawacitizen.com/Technology/Lawless+Canada+haven+spammers/1019504/story.html"Ottawa Citizen version/a, a href="http://www.thetyee.ca/Mediacheck/2008/12/02/SpamHaven/"The Tyee version/a, a href="http://www.michaelgeist.ca/content/view/3552/159/" homepage version/a) focuses on the state of anti-spam legislation in Canada.nbsp; It notes that the recent a href="http://www.michaelgeist.ca/content/view/3539/125/" Facebook case/a has placed the spotlight on Canadarsquo;s ongoing failure to address its spam problem by introducing long overdue anti-spam legislation.nbsp; The fact that organizations are forced to use U.S. courts and laws to deal with Canadian spammers points to an inconvenient truth - Canadian anti-spam laws are woefully inadequate and we are rapidly emerging as a haven for spammers eager exploit the weak legal framework. br / br /br /Canada initially recognized the need to address the spam issue with formation in 2004 of a National Task Force on Spam that included a broad cross-section of marketers, telecom companies, and public policy groups (I was a member of the task force).nbsp; The Task Force unanimously recommended that the government introduce anti-spam legislation.br / br / Years later, the issue continues to languish on the legislative agenda.nbsp; Successive governments - both Conservative and Liberal - have failed to introduce legislation (the notable exception is a Private Member#39;s bill introduced by Senator Yoine Goldstein earlier this year).nbsp; During this fall#39;s election campaign, the Conservatives promised to address the issue, yet a commitment to anti-spam legislation was missing from the recent Speech from the Throne that outlined the government#39;s forthcoming priorities. br / br / The continuing delays are particularly problematic given the increasingly criminal nature of spam.nbsp; Once regarded as a mere nuisance, the recent flood of spam spoofing the Canada Revenue Agency that encouraged recipients to forward highly sensitive personal information highlights the very real dangers of identity theft that can result from spam activities.br / br / The Facebook case is only the latest illustration that government inaction has had an impact.nbsp; Companies anxious to target Canadian-based spammers have been forced to turn to other countries to do the job, while international law enforcement investigations into criminal spam activities run the risk of stalling in Canada since authorities may lack the requisite investigatory powers. br / br / As the only G-7 country without anti-spam legislation, it was only a matter of time before spammers began to take advantage.nbsp; Cloudmark, a leading provider of anti-spam software, recently presented a data on the origins of spam emanating from web-based email providers such as Hotmail, Gmail, and Yahoo! at an international anti-spam conference in Germany.nbsp; Its research indicates that the majority of email - often up to 80 percent of traffic - from these popular services is now spam and that Canada ranked fifth worldwide as the source of web-based email spam, trailing only Iran, Nigeria, Kenya, and Israel.br / br / Another recent study from California demonstrated how spammers profit from their activities by shifting the costs traditionally borne by marketers to the recipients of spam, namely Internet users.nbsp; Although many people immediately delete spam messages, the study found that spammers remain profitable even with very low response rates. br / br / In light of its profit-making potential, no amount of anti-spam legislation will completely eliminate spam.nbsp; However, the experience to date in other countries has shown that tough new measures can reduce the amount of spam that originates from domestic sources.nbsp; Given the fact that there are still several major Canadian spamming organizations thriving under the current legal framework, the best way to reduce the amount of made-in-Canada spam is to change the law.nbsp; br /img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/MichaelGeistsBlog/~4/473452840" height="1" width="1"/

pimg class="float_right" src="/~~/f?id=48ecd44f14b9b9e400542ac2maxX=216maxY=370" border="0" alt="blackberry-storm-vzw.jpg" title="blackberry-storm-vzw.jpg" width="216" height="370" /Good news and bad news from BlackBerry maker Research In Motion: Way after hours at 9:35 p.m., the company a href="http://biz.yahoo.com/iw/081202/0457377.html"announced/a that it blew its third quarter. But RIM (RIMM) says "exceptional" response to its new gadgets led to record subscriber growth at the end of the quarter./p ul liRIM says Q3 sales will fall between $2.75-$2.78 billion, below consensus of $2.96 billion and about 9% below its forecasted range of $2.95-$3.10 billion./li liRIM says it added 2.6 million net new subscribers during the quarter, 10% below its forecast of 2.9 million./li liWhy? Later than anticipated product launches, the lousy economy, and unfavorable currency trends./li /ul pBut, on the plus side, RIM says its new Bold and Storm smartphones are seeing an "exceptional" response:/p p style="padding-left: 30px;"Daily net subscriber account additions reached a record level on the day the BlackBerry Storm launched in the United States and RIM achieved a record number of weekly net subscriber account additions during the last week of the third quarter. The strong demand for new products has continued into Q4 and RIM is working closely with its partners to deliver sufficient product to take advantage of the growth opportunity in Q4 and beyond./p pThe touchscreen BlackBerry Storm is still backordered at Verizon Wireless. It'll be crucial for RIM to meet demand there in the next few weeks or it could lose potential buyers to Apple's (AAPL) iPhone -- which would be bad news for Verizon (VZ)./p pRIM's after-hours charts haven't updated on Google or Yahoo, but we wouldn't be surprised to see its stock open lower Wednesday. Investors have been preparing for bad news from RIM, but its Q3 revenue will come in below even the Street's most pessimistic analyst./p pNext update will be Dec. 18, when the company posts final Q3 results and gives Q4 guidance./p pstrongSee Also:/strongbr /a href="../../2008/11/rim-blackberry-storm-review"RIM's BlackBerry Storm Is No iPhone, But Should Sell Well/abr /a href="../../2008/12/blackberry-storm-update"BlackBerry Storm Update On The Way? Responsible For Delay?/abr /a href="../../2008/11/blackberry-fan-longs-for-a-better-curve"BlackBerry Fan Longs For A Better Curve/abr /a href="../../2008/11/seven-reasons-pogue-hates-the-blackberry-storm"Seven Reasons Pogue Hates The BlackBerry Storm/a/p pa href="http://feedads.googleadservices.com/~at/zLlNueAQb92hWAfzG0aaVAxpnrI/a"img src="http://feedads.googleadservices.com/~at/zLlNueAQb92hWAfzG0aaVAxpnrI/i" border="0" ismap="true"/img/a/pdiv class="feedflare" a href="http://feedproxy.google.com/~f/typepad/alleyinsider/silicon_alley_insider?a=zC5QKRNA"img src="http://feedproxy.google.com/~f/typepad/alleyinsider/silicon_alley_insider?i=zC5QKRNA" border="0"/img/a a href="http://feedproxy.google.com/~f/typepad/alleyinsider/silicon_alley_insider?a=NHR1MmOx"img src="http://feedproxy.google.com/~f/typepad/alleyinsider/silicon_alley_insider?d=52" border="0"/img/a a href="http://feedproxy.google.com/~f/typepad/alleyinsider/silicon_alley_insider?a=oYVA8ml6"img src="http://feedproxy.google.com/~f/typepad/alleyinsider/silicon_alley_insider?d=80" border="0"/img/a a href="http://feedproxy.google.com/~f/typepad/alleyinsider/silicon_alley_insider?a=SnnaO8dL"img src="http://feedproxy.google.com/~f/typepad/alleyinsider/silicon_alley_insider?i=SnnaO8dL" border="0"/img/a a href="http://feedproxy.google.com/~f/typepad/alleyinsider/silicon_alley_insider?a=qIoqF8uS"img src="http://feedproxy.google.com/~f/typepad/alleyinsider/silicon_alley_insider?d=131" border="0"/img/a a href="http://feedproxy.google.com/~f/typepad/alleyinsider/silicon_alley_insider?a=VfEca9ej"img src="http://feedproxy.google.com/~f/typepad/alleyinsider/silicon_alley_insider?d=336" border="0"/img/a a href="http://feedproxy.google.com/~f/typepad/alleyinsider/silicon_alley_insider?a=gNLZZkPV"img src="http://feedproxy.google.com/~f/typepad/alleyinsider/silicon_alley_insider?d=41" border="0"/img/a a href="http://feedproxy.google.com/~f/typepad/alleyinsider/silicon_alley_insider?a=2NqFh7Xo"img src="http://feedproxy.google.com/~f/typepad/alleyinsider/silicon_alley_insider?d=50" border="0"/img/a /divimg src="http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/typepad/alleyinsider/silicon_alley_insider/~4/3Fk8SQVlBeo" height="1" width="1"/

We've written about the Mosquito device a few times in the past. Originally launched back in 2005, the device emitted a high pitched annoying noise that a href="http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20051129/1011203.shtml"could only be heard/a by those under 25 (or thereabouts). As people get older, we lose the ability to hear noises at higher pitches. So the device tried to take advantage of this, so that shopkeepers could use the device to ward off loitering kids. It was pretty obnoxious, though it hardly seemed like a a href="http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20080212/190008241.shtml"violation of human rights/a, as some claimed. If annoying a certain age group with sound is a human rights violation, I'd imagine playing certain types of music would be seen as a human rights violation. br /br / Of course, some kids realized that rather than being a violation of their rights, such a noise could be used to their advantage. Some turned the noise from the Mosquito a href="http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20060612/105232.shtml"into a ringtone/a that their parents and teachers couldn't hear. br /br / However, the makers of the device have apparently released a new version of the Mosquito that has an option where the pitch is lowered a bit so that a href="http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/7759818.stm" target="_new"it can annoy pretty much everyone/a. You've got to imagine that such a product is not targeted at shop owners and the like this time around, unless they'd prefer no business whatsoever. It seems that right now the new version is being used in places like parking garages, where actual customers are quick to leave anyway, and proprietors are trying to get homeless people to move along. Of course, as with any such thing, there's apparently a group of folks who are pushing for a href="http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/7759896.stm" target="_new"legislation to ban the devices/a. It's difficult to see why such legislation is needed. Eventually, people will realize that driving people away from a business probably isn't a very good business idea.br /br /a href="http://techdirt.com/articles/20081202/0307452993.shtml"Permalink/a | a href="http://techdirt.com/articles/20081202/0307452993.shtml#comments"Comments/a | a href="http://techdirt.com/article.php?sid=20081202/0307452993op=sharethis"Email This Story/abr / br style="clear: both;"/ a href="http://www.pheedo.com/click.phdo?s=8877f469898a404f27c4ab692cffc47fp=1"img alt="" style="border: 0;" border="0" src="http://www.pheedo.com/img.phdo?s=8877f469898a404f27c4ab692cffc47fp=1"//a img src="http://www.pheedo.com/feeds/tracker.php?i=8877f469898a404f27c4ab692cffc47f" style="display: none;" border="0" height="1" width="1" alt=""/div class="feedflare" a href="http://feeds.techdirt.com/~f/techdirt/feed?a=cIAUo"img src="http://feeds.techdirt.com/~f/techdirt/feed?i=cIAUo" border="0"/img/a /divimg src="http://feeds.techdirt.com/~r/techdirt/feed/~4/473155127" height="1" width="1"/

With so many great games to choose from, finding the perfect gift for the game fan on your shopping list can be challenging. For the second year GameFly, the leading online video game rental service, is offering shoppers everywhere a guide to the fifteen top-rated and most popular new releases.

This year’s list is based on the rankings, ratings and GameQ’s of GameFly members, one of the most active gaming communities. Go to GameFly’s Web site (www.gamefly.com) for more information on these titles and take advantage of GameFly’s special holiday offer, $6.95 for the first month. GameFly is also offering up to 20 percent off on gift certificates.

ALL PLATFORMS

Gears of War 2 (XB360)
Fallout 3 (PS3, XB360)
Fable 2 (XB360)
Call of Duty: World at War (PS3, PS2, XB360, Wii, DS)
Resistance 2 (PS3)
Grand Theft Auto IV (PS3, XB360)
Little Big Planet (PS3)
Rock Band 2 (PS3, PS2, XB360, Wii)
Guitar Hero World Tour (PS3, PS2, XB360, Wii)
Metal Gear Solid 4 (PS3)
Left 4 Dead (XB360)
Far Cry 2 (PS3, XB360)
Saint's Row 2 (PS3, XB360)
Prince of Persia (PS3, XB360)
Chrono Trigger (DS)

XBOX 360
Gears of War 2
Call of Duty: World at War
Fallout 3
Fable 2
Left 4 Dead

PS3
Resistance 2
Little Big Planet
Metal Gear Solid 4
Fallout 3
Prince of Persia
Wii
Animal Crossing: City Folk
Guitar Hero World Tour
Mario Super Sluggers
Star Wars: The Force Unleashed

LEGO Batman

NINTENDO DS
Chrono Trigger
Pokemon Ranger: Shadows of Almia
Castlevania: Order of Ecclesia
Kirby Super Star Ultra
Final Fantasy IV

PS2
Call of Duty: World at War - Final Fronts
Guitar Hero: World Tour
WWE SmackDown vs. Raw 2009
Star Wars: The Force Unleashed
Madden NFL 09

PSP
Star Ocean: First Departure
God of War: Chains of Olympus
WWE SmackDown vs. Raw 2009
Star Wars: The Force Unleashed
LEGO Batman