http://www.sous-slo.org Just another WordPress weblog Sat, 04 Sep 2010 06:03:00 +0000 http://backend.userland.com/rss092 en The liquid crystal display (LCD) industry probably doesn't have much to worry about yet. OLED panels are incredibly expensive to produce right now, and, yes, they're awfully pretty. (Sony's 11-inch display achieves a 1 million-to-1 contrast ratio, which is by far the best available for a TV.) But even as ... http://www.sous-slo.org/2010/09/04/samsung-says-oled-monitors-coming-next-year/ (Credit: Sonybmg.com) Comes With Music customers will have total access to the music of Alicia Keys as well as every other Sony BMG artist free for a full year. "We think this business model will encourage users to sample a wide range of material, expand their musical tastes, and listen to more ... http://www.sous-slo.org/2010/08/29/sony-bmg-joins-nokias-unlimited-music-service/ "We don't have the Microsoft patent promise that Novell provides. We can't provide that with rPath Linux," Marshall told this ZDNet blogger. "It takes a long time for people to overcome their historical biases. " I have to think that Novell or Microsoft are going to make an investment or ... http://www.sous-slo.org/2010/08/24/rpath-plays-the-sucker-for-novell-and-microsoft/ Citing three unnamed sources, TechCrunch reported that Yahoo has paid about $150 million for the start-up and will announce the deal Thursday or Friday. Yahoo will announce that it has acquired Maven Networks, a video-hosting startup, according to a report in the blog TechCrunch. Cambridge, Mass.-based Maven Neworks helps media ... http://www.sous-slo.org/2010/08/24/report-yahoo-to-acquire-maven-networks/ HD DVD players fared even worse--player unit sales dropped 13 percent from January to February, and 65 percent from February to March--which was expected. Toshiba stopped production of HD DVD units in February, and the format's promotional group disbanded in March. Looks like it wasn't the HD DVD/Blu-ray battle ... http://www.sous-slo.org/2010/08/24/blu-ray-player-sales-down-despite-format-victory/ LG Chocolate 3 (Credit: Verizon Wireless) It turns out that we were slightly off when we said the LG Chocolate 3 would be out on July 14. Verizon just announced today that the Chocolate flip phone will actually hit the retail shelves a full day early on July 13 (In Verizon retail ... http://www.sous-slo.org/2010/08/24/lg-chocolate-3-will-be-offically-released-july-13/ As announced last week, Digg relaunched its DiggBar feature late Tuesday, making it something that only appears for registered users, who are now able to turn it off completely. That new option shows up in Digg's user settings panel which means users can choose whether they feel like using it. The ... http://www.sous-slo.org/2010/08/24/the-diggbar-relaunches-minus-a-useful-feature/ The technology, based on something called Probabilistic Latent Semantic Indexing (PDF), scours an organization's e-mail traffic and constructs a graph of social network interactions illustrating employee activity. If a worker suddenly stops socializing online, abruptly shifts alliances within the organization, or starts developing an unhealthy interest in "sensitive topics," the ... http://www.sous-slo.org/2010/08/24/data-mining-detects-the-disaffected/ Realizing this, DoubleClick, which used to be a public company, but was then acquired by a private equity firm, was estimated to incur roughly $30 million to $60 million in profits each year. Why, you ask? As it stands, DoubleClick's latest revenue figures for 2007 were estimated at $365 million and ... http://www.sous-slo.org/2010/08/24/did-google-make-a-mistake-with-doubleclick/ The person behind the video describes the process: "This is a prototype of a FM modulated plasma arc speaker/tweeter. Have since built this circuit on a custom PCB & made an improved vertical discharge setup, using tungsten-tipped electrodes (see my other videos). This stops the plasma hopping about and causing ... http://www.sous-slo.org/2010/08/24/homemade-plasma-speaker-puts-on-a-light-show/