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With the iPad presale beginning in just a few days, and the clock ticking down to the much-anticipated Apple tablet finally hitting the streets, HP launched a renewed campaign for its Slate tablet PC debuted at the 2010 CES by Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer. Each platform has pros and cons, but so far the debate seems to center entirely around support for Adobe Flash.

The HP Slate--almost by default--stands out as a more business-oriented platform, if for no other reason than its ties to the Windows 7 operating system. The iPad, which comes across more like an iPod Touch with a thyroid disorder, can certainly be used in some ways within a business context, but it is clearly designed for delivering entertainment media and information to consumers. Comparing the HP Slate against the Apple iPad based on Flash support is like comparing a Jeep Cherokee to a Chevy Camaro based on which one supports Sirius satellite radio. In both cases the comparison is between objects with completely different audiences, based on a proprietary technology that doesn't fundamentally impact the function of the object itself.
As my PCWorld colleague David Coursey illustrates, "The Slate and other Windows 7 devices support Adobe Flash and AIR, Apple's iPhone, iPod Touch, and iPad, do not."


On one HP Slate video, Adobe's Alan Tam shows how the HP Slate "will access the full web, and not just a part of it." Tam demonstrates streaming video from a Web site using Flash from within the browser, Flash-based games and applications, and Web-based photo editing based on Flash. He also shows Pandora running on Adobe AIR as a standalone app.

Read More @ PCworld

Hard drives are about to undergo one of the biggest format shifts in 30 years.

By early 2011 all hard drives will use an "advanced format" that changes how they go about saving the data people store on them.
The move to the advanced format will make it easier for hard drive makers to produce bigger drives that use less power and are more reliable.

However, it might mean problems for Windows XP users who swap an old drive for one using the changed format.

Error codes

Since the days of the venerable DOS operating system, the space on a hard drive has been formatted into blocks 512 bytes in size.

The 512 byte sector became standardised thanks to IBM which used it on floppy disks. While 512 bytes was useful when hard drives were only a few megabytes in size, it makes less sense when drives can hold a terabyte (1000 gigabytes), or more of data.

"The technology has changed but that fundamental building block of formatting has not," said David Burks, a product marketing manager for storage firm Seagate.

This fine resolution on hard drives is causing a problem, he said, because of the wasted space associated with each tiny block. Each 512 byte sector has a marker showing where it begins and an area dedicated to storing error correction codes. In addition a tiny gap has to be left between each sector. In large drives this wasted space where data cannot be stored can take up a significant proportion of the drive.

Moving to an advanced format of 4K sectors means about eight times less wasted space but will allow drives to devote twice as much space per block to error correction...

Read More @ BBC News

Something must be in the water over at the RIAA. After first trying to link the Chinese hack of Google to Google's position on copyright and then ridiculously claiming that file sharers were undermining humanitarian aid in Haiti (despite neither being even close to true), now it's resorted to using simplistic fables to try to demonize file sharing. Perhaps it's part of the RIAA's propaganda campaign for school children, but in a recent blog post, RIAA VP Joshua Friedlander compared the file sharing situation to the children's fable Nobody Stole the Pie by Sonia Levitin (by the way, you would think that the RIAA, so concerned about content creators getting paid would at least provide a link to information about that book so you could buy it if you wanted to -- but we'll fix that omission for the RIAA).

You may have heard the story. It's about a bunch of villagers all taking a little nibble of a pie, insisting that just a little bit won't hurt -- and then, of course, the entire pie is gone, and everyone claims that it was "Not I" who ate the pie.

Yes, it's a wonderful fable that you should read to your children in nursery school. But, for the adults who actually understand basic economics, it's clear that the situation the RIAA is facing has absolutely nothing to do with the situation described in the book. So let's fast forward from nursery school to econ 101, and perhaps educate the RIAA a bit.

The reason the pie story functions the way it does is because the pie is a scarce and limited resource. As such, each time someone takes, it means that there is less for others. It's a zero-sum game. In contrast, with a digital file, the content is abundant and an infinite resource. Each time someone makes a copy, rather than less for everyone, there's actually more for everyone. You're actually growing the pie. Neat!

Read More @ TechDirt

RealNetworks has agreed to destroy all traces of its short-lived DVD-duplicating software, RealDVD, to appease the Hollywood heads that brought legal action against it.

As part of a settlement filed Wednesday in a California court, the company will also cough up $4.5m in legal fees to the six movie studios, Viacom, and the DVD Copy Control Association, who claimed RealDVD software violates US copyright law.

The pact effectively ends a legal battle lasting nearly 17 months. It began the same day Real released the DVD copying software in 2008.

Real had argued that consumers have the right to create backup copies of their DVDs under US copyright law's recognition of the doctrine of fair use. RealDVD software copies DVD files to a hard drive with decryption keys in place.

But movie studios and others claimed the software is illegal under the US Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA) of 1998 because RealDVD must circumvent technology designed to prevent unauthorized copying of copyrighted work.

"Almost from the moment this product was introduced, it was clear RealDVD violated the [Content Scramble System] license," said Jacob Pak, President of the DVD CCA in a statement. "Now, after months of arguments from both sides, the legal message is clear: making a DVD copier is a breach of the CSS license."

Although relatively respectful to decryption keys compared to other DVD copying software, RealNetworks clearly had a notion its product would rouse the legal dogs of Hollywood. On the day of RealDVD's release in September 2008, Real preemptively filed a lawsuit seeking a declaratory judgment that the software was legal. That was immediately followed by movie studios countering with their own lawsuit aimed at banning the product.


Read More @ The Register

The RIAA has published a blog post where they accuse music pirates of stealing from Haitians. In a brilliant piece of propaganda they say that those illegally downloading “We Are The World” are undermining fund raising. However, they leave out the fact that the music industry itself profits big from such charity singles.

The original “We Are The World” single released in 1985 to help Africa was the first single to receive multi-platinum certification. It brought in millions of dollars for humanitarian aid and still holds the record for the fastest selling single in the USA. Dozens of contributing artists waived their rights and performed free of charge to maximize the revenue for Africa. In an attempt to replicate this success, a group of artists recorded “We Are the World 25 for Haiti” following the devastating earthquake in Haiti, hoping to raise money to help those in need.

Although most people realize that donating directly to Doctors Without Borders or the Red Cross is a more efficient way to donate, the initiative was obviously started with the best intentions by most of the people involved. According to the RIAA however, there is also a group of people who deliberately try to “steal” from this fundraising campaign – music pirates.

In a recent blog post the RIAA dramatically claims that “the album is now widely available on illicit BitTorrent sites like The Pirate Bay, Torrentz and more. The posting highlights a truly ugly side of P2P piracy – the undermining of humanitarian fundraising efforts via online theft of the ‘Hope for Haiti Now’ compilation.”

The RIAA basically says that pirates are purposely stealing money from Haitians. But are they?

Read More @ TorrentFreak