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Comcast has made a surprise $66 billion bid for Disney. That match makes no sense to me.
- jim 2-11-2004 6:58 pm [link] [5 comments]

Anandtech.com is a very old, very popular, and very well respected computer related site ("your source for hardware analysis and news" is the tag line.) Anand Lal Shimpi is the proprietor. He's always been a Windows guy, but he just bought a mac with the intention of using it as his main computer for 1 month and writing about the switch on his weblog.

This is a great test for the mac since he isn't going to pull any punches, but at the same time I trust him to have an open mind and tell the truth. Plus I figure I'll learn tons about XP since that is what he is comparing it to. Not ever having used that makes my fondness for the mac rather ungrounded, so I'm looking forward to following Anand's experiment.
- jim 2-10-2004 11:08 pm [link] [2 comments]

On August 15, 2000 Bruce Schneier wrote:

What amazes me is the dearth of information about the security of this protocol [Bluetooth]. I'm sure someone has thought about it, a team designed some security into Bluetooth, and that those designers believe it to be secure. But has anyone reputable examined the protocol? Is the implementation known to be correct? Are there any programming errors? If Bluetooth is secure, it will be the first time ever that a major protocol has been released without any security flaws. I'm not optimistic.
From ZDNet, February 9, 2004:
Nokia has admitted that some of its Bluetooth-enabled mobile phones are vulnerable to "bluesnarfing", which is where an attacker could read, modify and copy a phone's address book and calendar without leaving any trace of the intrusion.
There is a more detailed look at the vulnerabilities at bluestumbler.org. I stole the Schneier link from a comment in the discussion over at slashdot.
- jim 2-10-2004 10:07 pm [link] [add a comment]

Looks like the Foveon chip will finally hit the consumer market in the $399 Polaroid x530. Here's the Foveon website, and here's the NYTimes story on the Polaroid camera:

This week Foveon will enter the mainstream market with a new camera priced at $399 that will be manufactured in China and marketed as the Polaroid x530 with Foveon technology.

The Foveon sensor chip, called the X3, is made using an industry standard semiconductor manufacturing process and has received good reviews for color fidelity and resolution. The chip is composed of millions of photo-detectors, each capable of capturing red, blue and green light. In contrast, most of today's digital cameras use a chip with individual color filters that correspond to each photoreceptor. Although the Foveon technology is generally thought to have advantages over the three-chip approach in image quality, cost, lower power consumption and adaptability to new photo and video applications, it has not been widely adopted. The challenge has been to compete with an older, more entrenched technology that is falling in cost.
Falling in cost is to put it mildly. I'm thinking the Foveon might be too late, but it will be interesting to see the quality.
- jim 2-10-2004 5:06 pm [link] [2 comments]

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