Cory Doctorow writes at BoingBoing:
“The books will stop working”: That’s the substance of the reminder that Microsoft sent to customers for their ebook store, reminding them that, as announced in April, the company is getting out of the ebook business because it wasn’t profitable enough for them, and when they do, they’re going to shut off their DRM servers, which will make the books stop working.

Almost exactly fifteen years ago, I gave an influential, widely cited talk at Microsoft Research where I predicted this exact outcome. I don’t feel good about the fact that I got it right. This is a fucking travesty.

We’re just days away from the “early July” shutdown. And Doctorow elaborated on his feelings in a blog post in April:
This puts the difference between DRM-locked media and unencumbered media into sharp contrast… The idea that the books I buy can be relegated to some kind of fucking software license is the most grotesque and awful thing I can imagine: if the publishing industry deliberately set out to destroy any sense of intrinsic, civilization-supporting value in literary works, they could not have done a better job.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Source: Slashdot – Microsoft Store’s eBooks Will Soon ‘Stop Working’ When It Closes Their DRM Server

Pursuing a renewable energy strategy, Arizona’s largest electric company “installed massive batteries near neighborhoods with a large number of solar panels, hoping to capture some of the energy from the afternoon sun to use after dark,” reports the Associated Press.

Slashdot reader pgmrdlm shares their report on what happened next:
But an April fire and explosion at a massive battery west of Phoenix that sent eight firefighters and a police officer to the hospital highlighted the challenges and risks that can arise as utilities prepare for the exponential growth of the technology. With an investigation ongoing and no public word on the fire’s cause, the incident is being closely watched by energy storage researchers and advocates… “Absent battery storage, the whole value proposition of intermittent renewable energy makes no sense at all,” said Donald Sadoway, a battery researcher at Massachusetts Institute of Technology and co-founder of battery storage company Ambri…

Nearly all of the utility-scale batteries now on the grid or in development are massive versions of the same lithium ion technology that powers cellphones and laptops… Arizona Public Service (APS) has assembled a team of engineers, safety experts and first responders to work with the utility, battery-maker Fluence and others to carefully remove and inspect the 378 modules that comprise the McMicken battery system and figure out what happened….

The APS fire was the third involving a utility-scale battery. One was at an APS-owned battery in Flagstaff in 2012, and the other was in Hawaii. APS has shut down its two similar batteries while awaiting the investigation’s results, but the utility is not slowing down its plans to deploy new massive batteries, said Alan Bunnell, a company spokesman. “We believe energy storage is vital to a clean energy future here in Arizona,” Bunnell said.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Source: Slashdot – Massive Lithium Ion Battery Fire/Explosion Shows Challenges of Renewable Energy Storage

Thursday the Wall Street Journal wrote a piece about AMD’s joint venture with Chinese holding coming THATIC — titled “How a Big U.S. Chip Maker Gave China the ‘Keys to the Kingdom’.” The article argues that AMD “essentially granted China access to advanced processor IP that could be used to threaten U.S. national security,” reports Forbes.

But they add that the same day, AMD executive Harry Wolin wrote an angry blog post in response, complaining that the story “contains several factual errors and omissions and does not portray an accurate picture.” Forbes reports:
From Wolin’s post, “Starting in 2015, AMD diligently and proactively briefed the Department of Defense, the Department of Commerce and multiple other agencies within the U.S. Government before entering into the joint ventures. AMD received no objections whatsoever from any agency to the formation of the joint ventures or to the transfer of technology — technology which was of lower performance than other commercially available processors. In fact, prior to the formation of the joint ventures and the transfer of technology, the Department of Commerce notified AMD that the technology proposed was not restricted or otherwise prohibited from being transferred. Given this clear feedback, AMD moved ahead with the joint ventures.”

Not only does AMD claim it had the green light from multiple government entities to enter into the deal, the post claims that the WSJ article is simply wrong. “The Wall Street Journal story omits important factual details, including the fact that AMD put significant protections in place to protect its intellectual property (IP) and prevent valuable IP from being misused or reverse engineered to develop future generations of processors.”

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Source: Slashdot – AMD Cites ‘Factual Errors’, ‘Omissions’ in Critical Report on Its China Venture

harrymcc writes: Jay Adelson, the cofounder of Digg, has a new, deeply personal startup: Scorbit. It aims to connect existing pinball machines to the internet, giving them networked leaderboards, compatibility with smartphone apps, and other newfangled features. But Scorbit faces a major competitor in Stern, the pinball giant whose new Spike platform is attempting to introduce similar functionality. Over at Fast Company, Jared Newman reports on the dueling systems and the general pinball resurgence now underway.
The COO of a pinball parts supplier tells Fast Company that “People are just saturated with the internet. They don’t want to look at screens anymore for entertainment, but they want to be entertained, so they want something physical. Pinball ticks all the boxes there.”

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Source: Slashdot – Inside the Race To (finally) Bring Pinball Into the Internet Age

Long-time Slashdot reader cshamis tipped us off to this story in HotHardware:

It is official, folks — Retro Games is releasing a full-size retro reboot of the original Commodore 64, called TheC64, on December 5…

Of course, modern amenities abound for this reboot. TheC64 can connect to any modern TV via HDMI, to deliver “crisp 720p HD visuals” at 60Hz (USA) or 50Hz (Europe). It also comes with an updated joystick featuring 8 buttons, micro switches, and USB connectivity. It bears a passing resemblance to the original, but with additional bells and whistles. TheC64 will arrive with 64 games preinstalled, including titles such as California Games, Destroyer, Impossible Mission (1 and 2), Monty on the Run, Speedball 2, and many others… [P]layers will be able to add more games from a USB memory stick (not included).
The original Commodore 64 is widely considered the best-selling single-model PC of all time. Estimates have sales pegged at somewhere between 10-17 million units.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Source: Slashdot – ‘Retro Games’ Announces A New Commodore 64