Microsoft to begin dictating your hardware?

[VWguy]

Ran into this little bit of news at http://www.napink.com/

Microsoft is specifically designing its new operating systems to make certain cards not work or sound awful. Any card that isn't compliant with Microsoft's SAP (Secure Audio Platform) technology has horrendous noise added to it. The SAP adds this noise to your sound at the kernel level. SAP-compliant sound cards know to remove the distortion before playing the audio, while other cards play the distorted version. The reason for this frustrating state of affairs is that Microsoft wishes to prevent us all from using our computers the way we want to. That way, the company can become the music industry's choice for securing their content online. Your hardware's capabilities are (or will be) dictated by Microsoft, in order to extend the Big 5 record companies' monopoly to the Web.

hmmmmmm....