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OEM key cracks, like the one that broke Windows 7 wide open just two days ago, are as old as Windows itself. But it looks like this one surfaced a little too early—and now it's dead, dead, dead. More »
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Microsoft really wants to make Windows 7 the least offensive OS ever. Case in point: They've made the little dialog box that pesters you into activating Windows less annoying. More »
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As expected, Microsoft's controversial anti-piracy programs have raised a big fuss in China, where a good amount of companies are probably using not-so-legal versions of Windows on all their work computers. One Beijing lawyer made a submission to the State Administration for Industry and Commerce, suggesting a $1 billion fine for what he called “illegal measures to deal with [piracy].” The government said it was looking into it. More »
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Microsoft has expanded its latest WGA initiative — you know, the one that turns your computer off screen black every hour — to China. An guess what! Since the majority of Chinese computer users run unauthorized copies of Windows, they're kind of upset. Of course, there are plenty of good discussions to be had about how measures like this could affect Microsoft's image and limit computer access in poorer parts of the world, but one awesome Chinese blogger/aspiring economist sees things differently: More »
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MJF at ZDNet reports that Microsoft is slowly rolling out a new version of Windows Genuine Advantage for Windows XP Professional in the next few months that's going to change the way it nags about using pirated versions. Instead of the kill switch, which was in Vista, the XP versions that WGA decides are "non-genuine" will pop up a message that looks like the one above. On the one hand, this is annoying, but on the other hand, it's just nagware and not a kill switch. If you're smart enough to pirate XP, you're smart enough to figure out how to find a crack to disable this. [ZDnet] More »
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Led by the writer of Air Bud (that bodes well), a large posse of out-of-work WGAers is looking to launch the online video company, Visual Arists, later this year with over $30 million in funding with Silicon Valley types. Supposedly a bunch of A-listers are on board, which gives small hope that they punch out fare along the lines of name-checked Juno and The Office. More »
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David Letterman's production company Worldwide Pants is—we believe—the first to reach an agreement with the Writers Guild of America for internet royalties. Since The Late Show and The Late Late Show are owned, not by CBS but Letterman's own company, the show was able to circumvent CBS negotiations altogether and settle with the WGA without setting major broadcast-wide precedents. More »
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Most people are familiar with Microsoft's Windows Genuine Advantage program—whenever you have to "validate" Windows, that's WGA in action. Since there is no copy protection on OS X, lifelong Mac users might be unfamiliar with this whole idea. Don't worry, it looks like you might get acquainted real soon! Apple has a new patent called "Run-Time Code Injection To Perform Checks" (sounds cold and medical, no?), that's pretty much exactly like WGA. And it's all because you've been breaking promises to Apple! More »
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Like late-night white knights, Jon Stewart and Colbert are returning to save us from rerun/reality TV/web purgatory on Jan. 7—the news has been the exact same for weeks, right? But they won't have an army of writers to make sure every word out of their mouth kills, so we'll see just how much funny naturally spills out of their brains. I have faith, do you? [TechCrunch] More »
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The Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers has a fun new flash widget on their site with a running tally of how much income the writers have dropped into a black hole since the strike started. Right now, it's at about $106 million. Kind of a dick move if you ask us, since producers trying to screw writers is why they're at impasse. Besides, writers stand to lose a lot more if they let producers slime their way out of fair compensation deals for new media and internet distribution. Hey writers! If you need some cash in the meantime and don't have Aflac, talk to us. [AMPTP] More »
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Hey, TV writers! Yeah, you awesome folks on strike. I'm talking to you. Are you sick of not writing? And not getting paid as a result of not writing? It's understandable. Well, we here at Gizmodo want to help you help us help you (help us). More »
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With the WGA writers strike in full swing, we're sure that some families are going hungry. And the subsequent complete staff layoffs are a miserable by-product of corporate greed. But the biggest losers? Those without health insurance anything to watch on their 50-inch flatscreen televisions...those who could hear a pin drop over the silence of their surround sound. Here's a rundown of how many of our favorite shows are left (along with several that are dead in the water): More »
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So here's a good news/bad news situation for Microsoft. The good news is that people aren't pirating Vista as much as XP. The bad news is that people are pirating XP twice as much, meaning that even when given a choice between each for free, people are sticking with trusty old XP. They can't even get people to steal Vista, right?! Well, not really. More »
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The Writers Guild strike languishes on: Heroes ends for the year next week. In a bid to end our suffering, the producers' trade group has made a "groundbreaking" offer to the Writers Guild, grandiosely titled the "New Economic Partnership." The deal's a mind-blowing less-than $250 flat fee for an hour-long show to be re-broadcast on the internet for up to a year. If you recall, internet distribution's sort of the sticking point and writers asked for 2.5 percent of the "distributors' gross revenue." Let us count the ways writers get screwed by the producers' Scrooge-y offer. More »
]]> http://gizmodo.com/index.php?op=postcommentfeed&postId=328732&view=rss&microfeed=true Yesterday, I wrote a feature on the WGA strike that quoted the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers as saying that, while the internet was great for promotional purposes, "there is not enough marketplace data to judge its true potential, ultimate impact on traditional media or viability as a business." Oh, so I guess they haven't been making any money off the internet and didn't have any plans to in the future then? Check out this video of a bunch of studio and network honchos bragging about how much coin they were planning on raking in from the internet, then get a little bit more cynical about the entertainment industry. Come on, greedy studios. Give the writers a fair deal. More »
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In case you were unawares, the contract between Hollywood producers and the Writers Guild of America was supposed to expire a few hours ago, leading to a possible strike, meaning bad things could happen. One of the major issues is digital content and distribution—after getting screwed over by the terms of how they were paid from video and DVD, set many moons ago, they're leery of losing out on tons of cash yet again. Since a multitude of content is going online in an infinitude of formats—web-exclusive content, full episode replays, ARG, etc. on network websites, iTunes and the works—the terms are inevitably just as complicated. Right now, writers only get coin if a viewer pays to see the goods, making ad-supported Hulu, for instance, a black hole for them no matter how many users tune in. More »
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Despite the fact that IE7 ships with every copy of Vista and is a free download for every Windows XP user, the browser only has a marketshare of 20-27 percent. Contrast that with Firefox's 17% share, according to one site, and things are looking dour for Microsoft. So what do they do? No, not improve the browser. They remove the WGA check on the download, which previously required users to have a legit copy of Windows XP before installing. Is this going to dramatically increase usage? We'll see. [Ars Technica] More »
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Sort of innocuous in the grand scheme of things, the new update from Apple adds a widget verification program. This program verifies whether the widgets present in the dashboard is authentic by sending an HTTP GET command to Apple's servers every eight hours. More »
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