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Here you go.

From the article:

"VP8's intra prediction is basically ripped off wholesale from H.264," he wrote. "This is a patent time-bomb waiting to happen. H.264's spatial intra prediction is covered in patents and I don't think that On2 will be able to just get away with changing the rounding in the prediction modes."

"A close look at the actual files and accompanying documentation, however, suggest that it's not a simple case of copy and paste. The infringing files are found in a compressed archive in a third-party component supplied by SONiVOX, a member of Google's Open Handset Alliance (OHA). SONiVOX, which was previously called Sonic, develops an Embedded Audio Synthesis (EAS) framework and accompanying Java API wrappers which it markets as audioINSIDE."

It's not clear how the zip file got included in the AOSP, but it's obvious that it wasn't intended to be there and isn't actually used by Android in any capacity. Android is using SONiVOX's EAS code, but doesn't use or need the MMAPI wrapper. This incident is very clearly not a case of Android stealing code from Sun or J2ME. It's a handful of test cases from an unrelated and publicly available Sun reference implementation that got uploaded by accident to AOSP in a zip archive supplied by a third party. It's a tacky mistake, but it's hardly serious or damaging. At worst, it warrants a takedown notice. It's certainly not a smoking gun as one might assume when viewing the code out of context.

it's not just the posts which are innacurate

http://arstechnica.com/gaming/news/2011/01/world-of-starcraft-modder-shut-down-pleads-for-blizzard-approval.ars

Ryan Winzen put together an impressive video demo of a game he called World of StarCraft, using StarCraft 2's modding tools. The video was passed around the various gaming blogs yesterday, and unfortunately it caught the eye of Activision Blizzard, who sent a cease and desist notice to YouTube, causing the video's deletion.

and it wasn't sent to the modder, it was sent to YT:
http://www.rockpapershotgun.com/2011/01/19/blizzard-vs-the-fan-made-starcraft-mmo/

Here’s what lead modder Ryan got from YouTube a few hours ago:

ATTENTION
We have received copyright complaint(s) regarding material you posted, as follows:

from Activision Games Inc about World of Starcraft Pre-Alpha Trailer – CreationArtist25
Video ID: RU1dSXU_Bk0
from Activision Games Inc about World of Starcraft Character Selection Screen – CreationArtist25
Video ID: 37dp_5E5NvQ
from Activision Games Inc about Starcraft 2 ATB Battle System MOD – ‘POWER OVERWHELMING’ – CreationArtist25
Video ID: BTl7YWYFnP8
Please note: Repeat incidents of copyright infringement will result in the deletion of your account and all videos you have uploaded. Please delete any videos for which you do not own the necessary rights, and refrain from uploading infringing videos.

blizz's statement from the modders site (which i expect will be getting a new domain name shortly)
http://worldofstarcraft.org/

Full statement:

“Earlier this week, a player-made StarCraft II mod called World of StarCraft and described as a “StarCraft MMO” was featured on a number of prominent gaming news sites, catching the attention of gamers as well as our own. With the name so closely resembling that of World of Warcraft, we wanted to discuss the title of the mod with the developer, and as part of our routine procedure, we contacted YouTube to request the video be removed while that discussion took place. We were also curious about the project and wanted to discuss with the developer what the mod entailed.

It was never our intention to stop development on the mod or discourage the community from expressing their creativity through the StarCraft II editor. As always, we actively encourage development of custom maps and mods for StarCraft II, as we’ve done with our strategy games in the past. That’s why we release an editor with our RTS games, and why we feature top player-created content in the custom game search. It’s also why we held a contest to spotlight the best community-crafted StarCraft II mods at last year’s BlizzCon, and why we’ll continue to improve Battle.net to better showcase player-created content.

Like many players in the community, we’re looking forward to seeing the continued development of this mod, and as part of our ongoing discussion, we’ve extended an offer to the developer to visit the Blizzard campus and meet with the StarCraft II development team. As always, we appreciate all of the efforts of the talented and enthusiastic mod-making community, and we look forward to seeing and playing what they create using the StarCraft II editor in the future.”

The US White House had a very successful migration to Exchange.

No doubt the Australian Parliament already recognises the outright superiority of Microsoft solutions! It's the patriotic choice.

The one I remember was a Novell server (not unix).

http://slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=01/04/10/1846258
http://arstechnica.com/civis/viewtopic.php?f=2&t=1824

Original techweb article now gone, but I'm sure you can find other references.

Even theoretical trust in Facebook is misplaced. Here's a piece of news that you may have forgotten in the multitude of fucked up things Facebook has done over the past few years:

Deleted' images are never deleted.

In my experience, they are de-linked, but remain at the exact same URL. Also, they remain there even though my account has been "closed" for almost two years. Personally tested with dozens of images.
The fact is, "Deleting the image from Facebook is not done."

According to ars, Yahoo mail might be the one to blame.

"All very peculiar. The main culprit fingered by the Windows Phone 7 community over this issue (though not named in the statement) is Yahoo! Mail."

Somebody's gotta pay for that data, and if the government wont...

If Comcast has it's way, NetFlix may be losing NBC/Universal titles. Many thought the NBC/Comcast deal was evil, looks like they may have been right.

http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/news/2011/01/sen-al-franken-no-joke-comcast-trying-to-whack-netflix.ars

It looks like the US is planning on doing something similar as well.

Do they know that Microsoft won't fully support the standard until Office 15, Office 2010 is non-compliant.

Personally I think both "sides" are bad.

...but at least the leader of their party was opposed to this!

In my opinion, if someone is against it...well saying something and doing something are two different things. I think it is apathy that is to blame. Too many (non tech-"savy") people just say they really do not care that much. Apathy, hell we know those lobbyists are very motivated people. The other problem is ignorance, I mean the internet is a series of tubes right?

...kicking apart hopes for protection against 'pipes and their water' frameworks.

Oh right, pipes. Also from the article:

...the Federal Communications Commission determined the deal was in the nation's public interest...

But having just The Washington Post opinion really is just that. Let's go to the source...
Here are the statements: 1 2 3 4
The news release isn't much better as when reading down to each individual bullet point, I see many comments for "protecting online video", but video is not the only concern!

Offers its video programming to legitimate OVDs on the same terms and
conditions that would be available to an MVPD.

Send chills down your back when you consider the implications of statements like that, doesn't it?
Quote from link 1 above:

The conditions include carefully considered steps to ensure that competition drives
innovation in the emerging online video marketplace.

A nice disclaimer at the front of link 3 above (joint approval):

However interesting and intricate the issues raised by the combination of Comcast and
NBCU may be, as a matter of law, our role at the Commission is limited to ensuring that the
transaction complies with all applicable statutory provisions, such as ensuring that the license
transfers are in the public interest. Our analysis should only include a thorough examination of
the potential benefits and harms of the transaction. Any proposed remedies should be narrow
and transaction specific, tailored to address particular anti-competitive harms. License transfer
approvals should not serve as vehicles to extract from petitioners far-reaching and non-merger
specific policy concessions that are best left to broader rulemaking or legislative processes.

That would be fine if the government actually gave the FCC power, but this is a whole other issue within itself.
From the dissenting opinion, to which I agree: (link 2)

Comcast’s acquisition of NBC Universal is a transaction like no other that has
come before this Commission—ever. It reaches into virtually every corner of our media
and digital landscapes and will affect every citizen in the land. It is new media as well as
old; it is news and information as well as sports and entertainment; it is distribution as
well as content. And it confers too much power in one company’s hands.

Looking over these public notices on the FCC site I think it must be considered though on what we expected the FCC to do in the first place. If a particular judge thinks a law is stupid, it is not his job to ignore the law. (Constitutionality being a whole oth

Ars Technica did a nice piece on this too:
http://arstechnica.com/gadgets/guides/2011/01/one-mans-journey-through-the-world-of-unsecured-ip-surveillance-cams.ars

Worth a read.

I think the wording of the article is a bit extreme, but the message is clear:

PC's are being disrupted and arm/android is taking over a lot of the result.

I don't expect gaming, development, or PC's themselves to go away (if ever), but to expect the market to focus elsewhere is exactly what I got from the article.

Whether you're impressed with cellphones or not, you're missing the explosion of performance that has come with them. ARM chips, in the past 3-4 years, have gone from 400-450mhz Pentium 3 equivalents to having the performance of a PS3. At the rate they are going the chips will perform faster than Intel processors in no more than a couple, maybe 3 years at best. ARM already runs on linux, so microsoft "eventually offering ARM" will already be behind on their offering. First to market is critical.

Who is positioned the least to deal with ARM? Intel and Microsoft. AMD is not mentioned because they still have graphics and integrated graphics for the time being. Nvidia is not mentioned for the same reasons, as well as being involved with a ton of ARM.

Actually, preliminary data from the LHC seems to invalidate the forms of string theory that predict that.

Addressing this item separately...

That still does not change the fact that VP8 is an open standard, today.

It's now very clear that you don't know what "open standard" means. Read this Ars Technica article:

http://arstechnica.com/web/news/2011/01/googles-dropping-h264-from-chrome-a-step-backward-for-openness.ars

It addresses Google's reluctance to submit VP8 and WebM to a standards body. That alone should be enough of a red flag. In case it's not, I'll point it out to you... companies that try and maintain sole control of a format, are not doing it with your best interest in mind.

...except ISPs are not Common Carriers in the USA. Please stop talking out of your ass.

Well, how about this one then?

How the Internet, Anonymous, Facebook, and Twitter helped the citizens of Tunisia to oust a tyrannical ruler after 20 years.

Ars Technica has a very good article on the difference between weather and climate from a mathematical/modeling perspective and why climate modeling can be much more accurate than weather modeling.

Better links.

According to this article his anti-piracy postings may be canceled out by the fact that he was apparently soliciting for donations on his website. So he was actually trying to profit from his work.

I don't think there is any solid evidence, though this interview at least shows that they try to keep the customer in mind when designing their DRM. I really wouldn't be surprised if they did have a mode they could leave the server in that would unlock everyone's games, and just leave it in that mode for a week if they had to close down for whatever reason. Or of course if they somehow get bought over, the buyer would probably keep Steam running anyway, as it's a very profitable service.

What about 90% piracy rates of indy games? Are those good guys too?

http://arstechnica.com/gaming/news/2008/11/acrying-shame-world-of-goo-piracy-rate-near-90.ars

The thing is, with the security architecture of the PS3, it is plainly impossible for a game (runlevel 2+) or application to test directly the characteristics of runlevel 0.

You could compare the situation to using VMware: the OS inside a virtual machine comprises runlevel 1+, but the real OS running VMware is runlevel 0. VMware isolates anything inside a virtual machine from the rest of the machine, and from any other running virtual machine. In fact, the client OS is like a brain in a jar: it is prevented from even knowing it is not running directly on hardware.

For more details, see this excellent article on Ars Technica

its not so much the 'dual core-ness' of it but the general increase in power.

ARM says their next CPU design is going to be called the A15, not the A10 as you'd expect. This because, although ARM designs have incremental performance, the next version is so good that they decided to skip A10 through A14 tags.

The A15 BTW, has speeds upto 2.5Ghz, up to 8 cores, and virtualisation instructions. Although you might need a laptop battery to power the top-end version, the fact that there is a top-end spec suggests good stuff to come, even if the smartphones have only 2 cores throttled down to 1.5Ghz.

Phones are going to be the new PCs, I'm sure of it. We're still in the days of the 386 at the moment, it won't take long to revolutionise our lives.

Not even close to accurate. According to arstechnica research, in 1989 the number one selling computer was still the Commodore 64 (with GEOS and mouse bundled) thanks to its low $100 pricepoint. Most people using mice in that year were C64 users. Amiga 500/2000 was second, Atari ST a distant third, and Mac was barely used at all (still had poor sales, since $3000 was still too high for average people).

So I still give credit for the mouse popularization to the Commodore - best selling computer ever made.

Gee, when I look at the data I see mac/amiga/st outselling the C64 by about 50%. However, PC clones were outselling everything else combined by mid 1985, so the question really becomes "when did windows become popular?". Considering that IBM introduced dedicated mouse ports in 1987, I'd say it was already quite popular by then.

Not even close to accurate. According to arstechnica research, in 1989 the number one selling computer was still the Commodore 64 (with GEOS and mouse bundled) thanks to its low $100 pricepoint. Most people using mice in that year were C64 users. Amiga 500/2000 was second, Atari ST a distant third, and Mac was barely used at all (still had poor sales, since $3000 was still too high for average people).

So I still give credit for the mouse popularization to the Commodore - best selling computer ever made.

Gee, when I look at the data I see mac/amiga/st outselling the C64 by about 50%. However, PC clones were outselling everything else combined by mid 1985, so the question really becomes "when did windows become popular?". Considering that IBM introduced dedicated mouse ports in 1987, I'd say it was already quite popular by then.

Peter Bright Microsoft Contributor Peter Bright dropped out of university after about five minutes to work as a software developer writing C++ and C#. After several years of Java development in the financial services industry, he joined the British Library, where he worked to preserve the ever-growing legacy of digital information. When not musing about the future of Microsoft, he enjoys programming for fun, burritos, and photography.

Make your own conclusion about the author... Hint: not exactly a defender of "openness", they should've added cool-aid drinker to that list.

Yeah, been reading about it at http://arstechnica.com/ . Pretty intrigued by it, even went so far as to purchase one of the guy's earlier games on PC (Indigo Prophecy). I like playing through alternate endings.

And then of course there's a the brief flash game, One Chance that they enjoyed, since it tries hard to prevent you from playing again on your computer and altering your outcome. It's a bit heavy-handed, since there's really just one "win" ending (sort of). I prefer the games that give you a variety of outcomes. Which Heavy Rain seems to be pretty promising in that regard.

ars and Engadget both say there is a wifi hotspot feature.

It's just not in the software. It's magic!

Wouldn't this falsely convict anyone carrying a Windows Phone 7 phone, which sends tons of data unbidden?

ars and Engadget both say there is a wifi hotspot feature.

Are you kidding? Here is a screenshot of the absolute latest up-to-date version of the KDE desktop environment, and here is a screenshot of Windows 7. You obviously have not used Windows for the past decade if you think KDE's disgusting and outdated design elements are superior.

Why wait when you can just purchase Power Gig, which will teach you how to play the songs, and comes with a real guitar?

Because the guitar is shit and it won't really teach you how to play it anyway. But a Squier Strat is a credible if unamazing instrument and many of us already own a game console to which it can be attached if and when it comes out. My household (meaning my lady and myself) plan to buy the game, the strat, and a MIDI connection kit so I can plug in my keyboard because in pro mode you play the actual songs including chords... and the guitar is an immense value on its own, being a MIDI controller. That is, if they will just ship the fucking thing.

Here's hoping your current ISP doesn't feeling like suing your community. While for that town it went ok in the end, it would still be expensive for the town and your town might not want to pony up the legal fee's to fight it.

How much does this have to do with things like Netflix now being in Canada? Not to mention other things like slowly more and more games being sold digitally for the XBox360, PS3, PC/Mac (Steam, Mac App Store), iTunes movies, ect.. These are all using more and more data and I think they are wanting to capitalise on the digital download bandwagon. They watched Rogers do this and hey, it didn't hurt Rogers so the others are just following suit thinking "If they can do it and make more money for nothing, why not us?" And what is the caps? Anyone can say that only a small percent of users hit these caps, but that could also be based on just a rough estimate of "users typically do basic web surfing and check email, meaning they should only need 5-10 gigs max a month". Helps make gov look the other way by making baseless claims like that.

Ars had a nice writeup of this yesterday, referencing a 2006 post of theirs. The basic gist is/was that DRM simply CANNOT be a good sell for tech companies, and given that Intel and the other consumer electronics companies are so massive when compared to production costs, why don't they just buy one? Intel could piss on its shoes and come out with the budget for a dozen major films, which they could then release DRM free, to the joy of all of their customers. Hollywood is big, but there are only six major production houses and a number of smaller ones... all of which are worth far less than the major tech companies. Want more movies on iTunes, Apple? You've got the cash, so BUY a production house.

I didn't mean to editorialize, but I think I started to convince myself by the end there.

Ars had a nice writeup of this yesterday, referencing a 2006 post of theirs. The basic gist is/was that DRM simply CANNOT be a good sell for tech companies, and given that Intel and the other consumer electronics companies are so massive when compared to production costs, why don't they just buy one? Intel could piss on its shoes and come out with the budget for a dozen major films, which they could then release DRM free, to the joy of all of their customers. Hollywood is big, but there are only six major production houses and a number of smaller ones... all of which are worth far less than the major tech companies. Want more movies on iTunes, Apple? You've got the cash, so BUY a production house.

I didn't mean to editorialize, but I think I started to convince myself by the end there.

I remember reading about this back in 2006
http://arstechnica.com/old/content/2006/05/6750.ars
The software has been out there to do this for years now.

IIRC, it took 15 minutes max

It's pretty obvious the Mac as we know it is going to be around for a long time.

http://arstechnica.com/apple/news/2010/06/developers-expect-ios-and-mac-os-to-merge-over-time.ars

"Mac is the awesome old grandma, whose kids (iPhone & iPad) have left home," Atebits' Loren Brichter said. "Not dead; not really dying. But it's our job to keep her comfortable until she's gone."

It's too late for competition when you have for-profit ISPs suing city owned ISPs.

http://arstechnica.com/old/content/2008/09/telco-to-town-were-suing-you-because-we-care.ars

Don't forget Monticello, MN.

This sounds like a great idea! A couple years ago I tried to get some people interested in building a community network based on some of the concepts from the Wellington Internet eXchange. Nobody wanted to touch it.

As soon as the people try to flex their muscle, they are immediately shouted down by the corporations. The laws in the USA have become structured such that corporations have all the power and the people have none. Just ask the citizens of Philadelphia, PA or Wilson, NC.

Both of these cities, acting as agents of their citizens, were attacked by the corporations. In the case of Philly, they got squashed. Wilson's system is still alive, but not for the lack of effort on Time Warner's part. At one point TW had someone answering the phone for one of the congressmen the night before a vote. It was only thanks to the dedication of a small group of citizens, many of whom had to take off work to attend the oddly scheduled committee meetings, that the system is still online. We know that at any point TW will try again to scuttle it.

You should check out the one-sided bashfest that was posted on Ars Technica over this.

If the maintainer of the tool is to be believed, MS has known of this flaw for almost six months and done nothing, and had several days of notice that the new version was going to be released (not that the new version appears to have mattered.)

"Dropping $300 on every processor generation Intel makes is a waste of money. If you got that much to spend, buy a more expensive CPU and keep it a generation or two longer. It not like it goes broke just because it's not the newest toy anymore, you know."

True, but why do I need to buy a new motherboard too? LGA 775 lasted from 2.6ghz Pentium 4s until 3ghz Core 2 Quads. Socket 939 came out in 2004 and was used from 1ghz Athlon 64s to 3.2ghz dual-core Athlon 64 X2. These sockets lasted through several CPU generations without change.

My real complaint is Windows Product Activation freaks out when you install a new motherboard. more more. I've lost more data changing motherboards than I have changing CPUs, hard drives, video cards or all other hardware combined. Upgrading a motherboard is an all day process, since I have to dig the old motherboard out and put the new board in and deal with Windows issues and drivers.

Swapping out a CPU is as simple as popping off the heatsink and changing cpus.

"Hurray, you belong to 1% of the market. "

great statistic, where exactly did you get that 1% from? Do you seriously think only 1% of PC users dislike upgrading motherboards?

Note that MS owns a big slice of the Apple pie.

You sure about that?

"Microsoft confirmed that it sold all of its AAPL holdings some time ago"

And if I give them a magical LOLCat infections rates will go down by 10,000% and magic pixies will appear to rub their little footies and...wait a tick, that is a what you call it, oh yeah an anecdote and doesn't prove jack which is why I put a disclaimer at the front instead of trying to pass it off as proof like you do Petey, but you KNOW this, don't you?

poor wittle APK, also know as "Petey, the idiot HOPES file guy" As in you HOPES that one of the 300,000+ constantly changing array of websites that are infected doesn't happen to be the one you visit today? Or that you HOPES that nobody notices after repeatedly being asked you have FAILED to show even the tiniest shred of mathematical proof that your magical woobie can scale? That you HOPES nobody notices your only "proof" is anecdotes, often by your own sock puppets like Kingsjester?

Remember Petey I'm not the ponce making outrageous claims so it is up to you to show the math instead of wasting everyone's time waving your little shriveled winkie around by making claims with no mathematical proof and nothing but anecdotes as "evidence". After all those that the earth is only 6000 years old have a full boat of anecdotes to back up THEIR claims as well, but we still think they are just as batshit as you, now don't we?

The simple fact is this: no matter how many times trollie says "1+1 = 3" the math simply proves you wrong and THAT is why all you can do is throw insults. You have 190,000 to 340,000 infected websites at this very moment and that list will change by the thousands per minute as sites are cleaned, new sites are infected, new vulnerabilities found, etc. Now for your HOPES file to actually be a REAL protection and not just a woobie? It will have to dynamically scale and keep up with that ever changing list of infections. Now even if you had twenty fingers and subscribed to every security list on the planet your HOPES file will ALWAYS BE OUT OF DATE and behind the curve. Always. Don't like those numbers? Use the ones from Securina, Grisoft, Symantec, any reputable security site. YOU CHOOSE. I have shown mathematically you are full of shit, now lets see you math that proves me wrong PETEY.

Now if you have a mathematical proof that shows how a static .txt file dropped into system 32 can magically scale dynamically? Lets see it. Otherwise it is NOTHING more a magical LOLCat pic backed up by anecdotes. That is the nice thing about math, it doesn't lie or believe in anecdotes. So it is all on Petey and your magical HOPES woobie now. YOU made the extravagant claims, back them up with the math. If you can't? Well then you are full of shit, case closed. Notice how ALL YOU CAN DO is throw insults and trollbomb? Why is that? I'll tell you why, because math doesn't lie and you just can't show the math you just can't do it or you would have by now, but it would be like trying to mathematically prove you are not an idiot PETEY. It just can't be done.

So please, keep posting APK, I do so enjoy pointing out the total uber fail of your magical woobie so. I also personally consider it a public service to point people to solutions that actually work instead of relying on magical woobies and anecdotes. And of course bitch slapping your around is also quite fun!

I would be happy to give you the figures, feel free to check. Comodo AV = 98% hit rate and ZERO infections, Malwarebytes? 97% and ZERO infections. Type both names + Test into Youtube and feel free to watch Petey. I have also shown repeatedly, again feel free to choose ANY figures from ANY reputable site you like, you are talking on average 180,000 PER DAY of infected websites PLUS 1.8 million current PLUS 15,000 pieces of malware PLUS anywhere from 35,000 to 50,000 websites revolving from the list. You see the difference between actual solutions and Petey's magical woobie is a little thing known as heuristics, along with a nice word known as sandboxing, neither of which his magical .txt file can do.

But if Petey wasn't completely batshit insane I wouldn't have to explain this, because this is why everyone makes fun of him. it is so obvious it is like someone arguing gravity is actually invisible pants gnomes trying to steal your underwear. It is the classic "default allow" which has NEVER EVER worked. Because if a piece of malware isn't in Petey's magical HOPES file he is royally fucked, and yet again I have shown that it is simply a roll of the dice whether he gets creamed or not, simply because he will always be behind

. So it is all on Petey and his magical HOPES woobie now. He made the extravagant claims, back them up with the math. If he can't? Well then he is full of shit, case closed. Notice how ALL PETEY CAN DO is throw insults and trollbomb? Why is that? I'll tell you why, because math doesn't lie and he just can't show the math He just can't, it would be like trying to mathematically prove PETEY is not an idiot. It just can't be done.

And this coming from poor wittle APK, also know as "Petey, the idiot HOPES file guy"? As in you HOPES that one of the 300,000+ constantly changing array of websites that are infected doesn't happen to be the one you visit today? Or that you HOPES that nobody notices after repeatedly being asked you have FAILED to show even the tiniest shred of mathematical proof that your magical woobie can scale? That you HOPES nobody notices your only "proof" is anecdotes, often by your own sock puppets like Kingsjester?

If there is ANYONE that should be LOLing it is me, for pointing out there are still morons that believe 16Mb HOPES files can do anything but block ads since ad servers are...what do you call it...oh yeah STATIC, just like your HOPES file, but really you are just kinda pathetic. You're like the idiot that just keeps hanging onto that three years out of date copy of Norton, because he is just so damned sure it still works, only the Norton guy is actually better protected than you are, since it did used to work in the past 5 years.

So please, keep posting APK, I do so enjoy pointing out the total uber fail of your magical woobie so. I also personally consider it a public service to point people to solutions that actually work instead of relying on magical woobies and anecdotes. And of course bitch slapping your around is also quite fun!

The main problem here isn't really cryptographic, but economic: mobile carriers have no vested interest in protecting the privacy of their customers, since the Average Joe doesn't care about it either way, and for those who do, there exist specialized encrypted phones (which, I might add, can all be subverted by hackers with the least bit of determination). This article states that of the two keys being used, the one used to authenticate the SIM towards the provider is very strong, because the providers have an interest in keeping that secure, while the key protecting individual sessions is weak, since it doesn't need to be strong.

Using strong crypto in the handsets would likely require a more powerful CPU or a dedicated chip, raising the cost and the complexity, making it unattractive to the manufacturers and providers. Also, it wouldn't solve a damn thing, as it would merely shift the focus from eavesdropping to more ... direct methods of obtaining the required information, since a cypher is only as strong as the weakest point, in this case the human endpoints.

Also, I doubt government agencies are startled at this announcement. I worked at the Hungarian Foreign Ministry, and I had at least one call eavesdropped, and one call actually hijacked by having a third party speak on the line for both of us to hear. The article makes it clear that in order for this to work, you need to know your target and track it for some time, making it impossible to just 'go around snooping in on others' and have this turn into another Google StreetView incident.