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Robert X. Cringely seems to be saying the same things the providers say with regard to internet eutrality issues:

This bandwidth leveraging hasn't been a problem to date, but it is about to become a huge problem as we all embrace Internet video.. there is no way the current network infrastructure will support that level of use...Instead of using 1-3 gigabytes per month, as most broadband Internet users have in recent years, we'll go to 1-3 gigabytes per DAY -- a 30X increase that will place a huge backbone burden on ISPs. Those ISPs will be faced with the option of increasing their backbone connections by 30X, which would kill all profits, OR they could accept a peering arrangement with the local Google data center.

Google does support "neutrality" and I've never suspected it was from any idealism.

I knew they were buying up dark fiber a couple years ago:

  "Google wants 'dark fiber'"
http://news.com.com/Google+wants+dark+fiber/2100-1 034_3-5537392.html

I'm not sure all the "Oh noes this is taking away my resale rights" have a point.

As distribution becomes entirely free of physical media it was going to be hard to resell your copies anyway. What did you want to do - have people that popped over to your garage sale stick a usb drive in your computer and mv the copy over??? On the one hand we want physical media to die so that we can time shift and format shift to our hearts content, and on the other hand we want to maintain resale rights. I'd say be reasonable.

Resale rights have been dying for a while. A lot of new computer games come with cd keys that get linked to online accounts ala steam. You could try to resell them, but the guy at the other end would be buying a limited copy. Try reselling your itunes downloads recently? http://news.com.com/2100-1027_3-5072842.html. Old record stores were my favourite way of getting old music because you couldn't waltz into Tower records and buy it. Then emusic came along and I switched.

Availability of older material won't be so much of an issue if you have distribution thats free of physical media. That itself reduced the value of your resale rights in a way. Digital distribution with watermarking will very effectively kill the resale market. This will probably lead to nasty pricing issues with older material. But the point is they were bound to die ever since I could make a copy of a CD and sell the original at a garage sale. Or borrow a dvd from blockbuster and burn a couple of thousand copies with dvd decrypter and resell them in paper envelopes. In the process though I get dirt simple format, place and time shifting.

Now digital watermarking is a much more consumer friendly approach than DRM. You get a copy, do what you like with it except distribute it and if that means you effectively can't resell it then c'est la vie. Nothing by the way prevents you from reselling it - just the risk of getting hauled to court. Sort of what you'd expect in a world where you can keep a copy and make an infinite number of resales anyway.

DRM controls you much more. You cannot format shift easily (and frequently not without loss). Worse how you could use your content were more strongly controlled. I can imagine a world where if you wanted your iTunes to play on your iPod and your mac you'd need a different a different version for both. Or one where you couldn't buy a copy and only lease one on a pay for play. If any company gets a monopoly on online content distribution this will likely happen.

First, I defy anyone to nail down a definition of "astroturfing" in a neutral non-political way. One man's astroturfing (probably the politician's) is another man's grassroots. When you are on the receiving end of it (as the politicians are) you don't like it. But when you are one of the outraged citizens who were alerted to something the politicians are about to do, and you take matters up with them, it is a genuine expression of concern.

People are too busy to read every bill that comes up-- come on, get real. So they subscribe to interest groups or go to blogs that share their interests and views, and have the time to analyze the things that go on in Washington. And the only way that these groups and blogs can devote that much time to this is by receiving funding in one form or another. It's not just corporations that provide funding: many groups are funded by the citizenry directly by subscription fees, membership dues, donations and the like. And it's not just conservative groups, but also liberal groups, that would be affected.

It should not surprise anyone that the politicians want to shut this down. But it's shameful that the vote was so split by party lines.

Here are some interesting paragraphs from the CNet article on the topic:

"You have a First Amendment right to contact your congressperson and you have a First Amendment right to tell others to do so," said Marv Johnson, legislative counsel for the American Civil Liberties Union. "Now they're saying you have to report to the federal government if you're going to engage in this First Amendment-protected activity."

The controversial requirement lies in Section 220 of the massive bill, which supporters of the legislation say is intended to curb the practice of lobbyists setting up "astroturf" groups. But in a conference call on Thursday, a broad range of groups including the ACLU, the Free Speech Coalition, the Traditional Values Coalition and National Right To Life said it would hurt their own groups' abilities to influence Congress and place unreasonable restrictions on Internet politicking.

Are you kidding?

Do you even remember why the original senatance was overturned?

The appeals court ruled that Judge Jackson had an appearance of bias, because of his media statements. In the media, Judge Jackson made a series of statements, that I, personally, loved. Here's a quote for you:

"Following the trial's conclusion last June, Jackson's statements began appearing in news stories and books about the case. His views on Microsoft executives and the metaphors he used to describe the case troubled the appeals judges.

Among the examples, in the Jan. 8 issue of The New Yorker, Jackson said Microsoft founder Bill Gates "has a Napoleonic concept of himself and his company, an arrogance that derives from power and unalloyed success, with no leavening hard experience, no reverses." He added that company executives "don't act like grown-ups!"

Also in that book, Auletta writes that Jackson likened Microsoft's "proclamation of innocence to those of four members of the Newton Street Crew convicting in a racketeering, drug-dealing and murder trial he had presided over five years before."

Such sentiments drew the wrath of the appeals judges Tuesday.

"There are lots of things we think and feel about" the parties during a proceeding, said Chief Judge Harry Edwards. "The system would be a sham if all the judges were doing this."

The problem was the he got TOO angry. He basically "flipped out" legally, and Microsoft started to play nice, at least during appeals. If he had just kept his mouth shut, the judgment would have stood. http://news.com.com/2100-1001-253250.html

The appeals court overturned, "Judge Jackson's rulings against Microsoft on browser tying and attempted monopolization on grounds, that he gave off-the-record, but nevertheless disclosed, interviews to the news media during the case, and that Judge Jackson having opinions about the defendant was improper. "http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_v._Mic rosoft#Appeal

In that sense, you might say that Microsoft's defense against contempt of court was shooting the moon. And it seemed to have worked out, in the short term. Here's what Jackson had to say, "Judge Jackson's response to this was that Microsoft's conduct itself was the cause of any "perceived bias"; Microsoft executives had "proved, time and time again, to be inaccurate, misleading, evasive, and transparently false. ... Microsoft is a company with an institutional disdain for both the truth and for rules of law that lesser entities must respect. It is also a company whose senior management is not averse to offering specious testimony to support spurious defenses to claims of its wrongdoing."

Keep in mind that the appeals court did maintain Judge Jackson's findings of fact; that Microsoft did seek to misuse it's monopoly power to drastically damage the market for computer software.

Also see InfoWorld.

And see Tech Republic.

Then go read everything written by Norman Matloff.

I just figuring that the same thing has happened again, only the victims know what to do next, and will accept this with jaws tightly closed; Lets face it, when China sees Bill Gates before G.W., it is painfully obvious who is really in charge. The same result will be that once folks figure out what Microsoft is doing, the followers will adapt, and adopt. And those who follow the Open Source Solution will wonder what the fuss is all about.

"If you are not the lead dog, the scenery does not change much." - Dog Sledding Observation

The price of your Sony Ericsson example is without the discount from your cell phone company for signing a 2 year contract. According to Macworld, "Apple has no plans to release a version of the iPhone without a service contract or one that is unlocked." The prices announced for the iPhone include a 2 year contract. As for the Windows Mobile phones, you're just wrong.

If you want a phone with a comparable screen resolution (480x640 compared to iPhone's 480x320), try the Neo1973 OpenMoko phone, available in February 2007, priced at $350 unlocked. (It even has a touchscreen)

Or you could just admit that people who buy Apple want to pay more than they have to for a computer/music player/phone.

And Municipal Broadband seems unpopular with states.

There is faint hope for an opportunity in the Senate Communications Act of 2006 on page 184 of which I find:

''(c) LOCAL GOVERNMENT PROVISION OF ADVANCED COMMUNICATIONS CAPABILITY AND SERVICES.--No State statute, regulation, or other State legal requirement may prohibit or have the effect of prohibiting any public provider from providing, to any person or any public or private entity, advanced telecommunications capability or any service that utilizes the advanced telecommunications capability provided by such public provider.

There is no way the communications giants would let that pass.

> I used to be a developer ("Sr. Specialist in Debt Technology") at Merrill

How long ago? How do you know nothing has changed since you left?

I was basing my comment on stories such as this:

http://news.com.com/2100-1016_3-1014287.html

Are you saying these are just wrong?

Nvidia have paid people on the job, with the relevant experience. What makes people think that the oss community can do a better job than nvidia's own people, when they can't even keep their own codebases bugfree?

You were asking the right question up until the last bit. Nobody can keep their codebases "bug free". Humans make mistakes. I assume you're human, ergo you make mistakes too, right? There's probably no program on Earth bigger than twenty lines that's bug-free. Not even LaTeX, though it's been quite a while since anyone's found one.

But as to why "people think that the oss community can do a better job than nvidia's own people", it's because OSS development has, when comparisons have been possible, proven to be better-written than the commercial alternatives. There are objective tests that illustrate this, over and over.

(Note, I still think this Fluendo stuff or something like it is a good idea. But I still want the OSS work to go on, too.)

Your sig: My info page is filling up with rejected posts. How can I purge these?

The real problem is that you obviously don't know how submit stories the "slashdot way." Here are some basic tips for submitting stories:
1. Never submit an original or timely story.
Instead please submit week-old stories from CNet News.
2. When submitting a story, please try to misspell words or make critical grammatical errors.
While in normal circumstances this would be unacceptable, it is considered l33t on Slashdot.
3. Always pander to the liberal, anti-MS, or anti-digital rights sycophants on Slashdot with an absurd political statement in the guise of a question.
Example: "Given the fact that the format issues with high-definition optical disks have yet to be worked out, how can we foil further assaults on our Constitutional rights by George Bush?
4. Submit stories that are as polarizing as possible.
Example title: Totally Unknown and Unqualified Blogger Says Linux is Better Than Mac.
Example Text: 13-year-old student, Little Billy Ballinger, has issued his annual assessment of Operating Systems and Linux has come out on top. FTA: "As a guy who has only used my mom's spyware-laden Windows 98 machine, I find myself in a unique position to declare a winner in the OS wars--and I choose Linux."

This seems like something we should all hope will fail. If it is true that Linux violates 283 patents, or even if it is not, attempting to prevent a major industry from asserting DRM can do much more harm than good.

If granted and enforced, the best case scenario is that people working on the kernel and other major software components (like SAMBA) will finally get an opportunity to become patent experts and remove any patented code. In many ways here, ignorance is bliss.

Some may argue that Red Hat will exchange the use of this patent in a patent swap, e.g. licensing it to Microsoft/Apple/etc. in exchange for permanent indemnity against all potentially infringing technology in publically available source code (or similar terms). The likelyhood of this happening, of course, is virtually nil.

Paypal is offering it or will be soon: http://news.com.com/2100-7355_3-6149722.html

Oh, no. They *are* required to have them for offer as of a couple of years ago. There are some exemptions for smaller providers, but the big multi-state cable companies must offer them if you ask.

They also are supposed to offer it for a price that is defined with the usual non-binding terms: "at a reasonable price", etc. This means that in some cases, you'll end up paying far more for your CableCards than you would had you just rented the STB, which is pretty much directly opposing the spirit of the whole idea.

Writing for The New York Times, Matt Richtel quoted one analyst who said that iPod's exclusivity to the Mac (at least for now) severely limits its audience....

CNet News.com writer Ian Fried quoted analysts who knocked the iPod's high price and timing given the poor consumer market right now...

Writing for ABCNews.com, Paul Eng suggested that the $399 iPod may face an uphill battle. Eng quoted an analyst who said that the iPod is priced at the upper end of the MP3 market, and another who suggested that the digital music market needs better definition so that consumers can understand what makes the iPod different from other MP3 products.

I, for one, would be interested in finding Al Gore's home phone number and leaking that.

"So, ApplePhone, possibly."

I'd rather see ApplePhone, honestly. Everyone's stolen the "i" since Apple made it popular. Sure Infogear got the trademark in 96 but Apple is the one that made "i(whatever)" what is it.

Reminds me when Microsoft sued everyone for the use of "win" or "dows" on everything and won.

Here's a copy of the court filing. A link more informative than the Yahoo link methinks:

http://i.i.com.com/cnwk.1d/i/ne/pdfs/2007ciscovapp le.pdf

Enjoy the legaleeze.

http://news.com.com/Cisco+sues+Apple+over+use+of+i Phone+trademark/2100-1047_3-6149285.html

10:32--Cisco calls CNET News.com reporter with a statement about Apple's use of the term "iPhone" for its new product. "Given Apple's numerous requests for permission to use Cisco's iPhone trademark over the past several years and our extensive discussions with them recently, it is our belief that with their announcement today, Apple intends to agree to the final document and public statements that were distributed to them last night and that address a few remaining items we expect to receive a signed agreement today."

It has been ridiculously warm here in New York this winter. It is NEVER warm in new york in the winter. The last few days it has gotten mildly cold, but up until then, it has been almost spring like. It is simply amazing how different the weather has been this winter here in the north east. This is the warmest winter i've ever experienced here in NY in 30 years.

As someone who lives in the NYC area, yes it's been very warm this winter. We haven't even had snow since last Spring, and it's almost the middle of January! Do you know when the last time that happened was? The the winter of 1877-1878. I guess there was some global warming going on back then too..or wait, it's called Climate Change now right? Although the weathermen seem to think it's El Nino preventing us from getting any artic air.

As someone who works in NYC, I can tell you it was much colder just two years ago. It must be the global warmi....err...climate change! I remember just two years ago around mid January, Al Gore came to New York City to give a speech on global warming. Of course, that was one of the coldest days on record in NYC, -1 degrees without windchill.

You will have to forgive me for being skeptical about the politicization of Global Warming. Heck, they went from calling it global warming to 'climate change' just so they could point to anything and claim it was occuring. Most of the arguments used in the political arena to 'prove' global warming/climate change are circumstantial. It is to the point where any time there is a record high, a record low, or a small or large number of storms, we hear 'IT MUST BE THE CLIMATE CHANGE BOOGYMAN AGAIN!". Some of the assements in Gore's movie that are taken for granted are incorrect. Most notably the assessment that the decade of the 1990's was the hottest on record.

I'm not saying that Global Warming/Climate Change/Whatever is or isn't happening. I am saying the issue has been politicized to the point of foolishness. The name change to 'Climate Change" has driven the debate to the point where people are using anecdotal data to support it, like 'wow it's really warm/cold this winter!' or "there were 14 hurricanes last year, and none this year! IT MUST BE THE CLIMATE CHANGE"!

Of course, either side can make anecdotal points, for example, I could ask you to talk to James Kim about Global Warming and how it's working out for him.

I thought that name was familiar. I wonder if that's the last thing she did. Best wishes for the future Wendy.

I thought Linksys/Cisco trademarked the iPhone name in 1996? http://news.com.com/2061-11199_3-6144447.html

Did Apple license the name from Linkcisco or can we expect another IP infringement battle between corporate giants soon?

10:32--Cisco calls CNET News.com reporter with a statement about Apple's use of the term "iPhone" for its new product. "Given Apple's numerous requests for permission to use Cisco's iPhone trademark over the past several years and our extensive discussions with them recently, it is our belief that with their announcement today, Apple intends to agree to the final document and public statements that were distributed to them last night and that address a few remaining items we expect to receive a signed agreement today."

I didn't see anything on CNBC's web site, but CNET says that heard it directly from Cisco.

10:32--Cisco calls CNET News.com reporter with a statement about Apple's use of the term "iPhone" for its new product. "Given Apple's numerous requests for permission to use Cisco's iPhone trademark over the past several years and our extensive discussions with them recently, it is our belief that with their announcement today, Apple intends to agree to the final document and public statements that were distributed to them last night and that address a few remaining items we expect to receive a signed agreement today."

The three year average doesn't surprise me, Dell has had a multitude of problems with bad/bulging caps

And they also showed the pricetag...ouch. So my earlier estimate of 2.5x more for a UMPC is now closer to about 1.8x more. Which makes the UMPC an even more attractive choice.

While I wish them the best, I fear it may be another Zaurus debacle (I personally got burned by that one). I know when I was researching the 770 last year, I had the same reaction as when I was using the Z...info was scattered everywhere...except on the manufacturer's own site. Getting basic info about what s/w was on it, what s/w was available, and how to configure the thing was a very painful, time consuming experience. And not something I'd want to endure again.

Check this out: http://news.com.com/Hackers+claim+zero-day+flaw+in +Firefox/2100-1002_3-6121608.html I love this quote too: "The hackers claim they know of about 30 unpatched Firefox flaws. They don't plan to disclose them, instead holding onto the bugs."

Yeah, it took me a few minutes to figure out how to print in Office'07. Basically (unless you use a shortcut), you have to navigate through 2 tiers of menus from the "Office Shield" in the upper left just to get a printout. What was wrong with the print button right out in the open? Instead there's 1 sq.in. of real estate used by a clipboard and some scissors. (Does anybody NOT use keyboard shortcuts for that stuff?) Even worse, there's 3 sq.in. used by three cryptic boxes on the right, which might possibly be font selections, but there's also a straightforward font selection combo box on the left, so who knows. And then there's the "Editing" button on the far right. I thought cut/copy/paste was editing, but what do I know. Would it really be that hard to slip in the Print/Open/Close buttons somewhere in there? I mean, I can see myself using the New Paragraph, Sort, and Paint Fill buttons A LOT, but even so, I think I would prefer to have easy access to the aforementioned other "features."

.... at news.com:

http://news.com.com/The+good+and+the+bad+of+bug+ca mpaigns/2100-1002_3-6147026.html?tag=nefd.lede

But will this new electronic paper combust at 451F like the old stuff? Or will the thought police simply be able to turn off electronic paper which displays ideas they don't like? ;-)

I'm in favor of cameras watching public places, so long as they're strictly regulated. Something along the lines of, "Only law enforcement officers can see the video. If the video is recorded the video and all backups must be deleted within 14 days. The only except to the deletion is if the video is being actively used in a crime investigation, and then only the relevant sections of the video may be retained. The video can be used as evidence in criminal cases, but the sections admitted to evidence must be carefully trimmed to the minimal parts possible. Violations are subject to harsh penalties (say, several thousand dollar fine and 18+ months in prison?). "

Why? In short, because I don't want to be justifying my activities out of context five years ago.

The video is going to be recorded; if you're looking for crimes you're going to want to document those crimes. And once it's recorded, it's going end up in the hands of people with other intents. If we don't make a clear stand against it now, some cities are going to think, "well, people have no right to privacy in public anyway, and Bob's Private Investigation is offering us a bucket of money each month for copies, so let's give him a copy." Or the deal might be in the form, "Bob's Surveillence is offering us free cameras, installation, and maintenance. Zero cost, but they keep a copy of everything." If it's illegal, eventually the data will slip out anyway; Bob might bribe an officer, or perhaps the police department's IT guy to make the copies. An officer might decide to access the records himself, maybe to snoop on an ex-lover.

Sound impossible? Law enforcement has been caught doing exactly that. Here a Canadian cop tried to frame a journalist critical of the police. Or this collection of gems, including an officer who helped a man stalk his ex-girlfriend and an FBI agent who sold data to the mob.

So, the data's out. What's the harm? Today, not much. Scanning lots of video trying to track someone is expensive. Simply transfering that much data is non-trivial. But costs are dropping and the computer technology to automate scanner video is getting better and better. Eventually it will be cost effective to scan that data. It will start out seemingly harmless. A business might pay to get a list of addresses of people who stopped to look at the store's front window display, but didn't enter. Or everyone who entered. Or everyone who shopped at a competitor. Now send these people some coupons to try and win them over.

It's the next few obvious steps that start creating real problems. A small business owner might notice his company's health insurance rates are going up. Pay a video searching company to found out which employees are visiting doctor's offices or pharmacies the most often, then fire them. Or similarly, worried about hiring a female employee for a highly skilled job because she might get pregnant, leaving you without an employee for a window? Surely someone will offer to generate monthly reports on who is visiting infant clothing and supply stores, allowing you to fire such an employee prior to her showing or potentially even being pregnant, making it harder to prove why you fired her. (Of course, thanks to "right to work" laws which are actually "right of employers to fire you" laws, it's extremely difficult to challenge being fired.)

Maybe you're part of a religion that your employer is rabidly against; you might be trapped in the job by a bad job market. Your employer might get it in his head to pay to find out who attempts the local church/temple/synogogue/mosque/shrine to weed out undesirables.

Maybe you're part of a group that is harassed because of you religion, ethnicity, sexuality, or politics. You're in a location where harassment is entirely possible b

You can't run a commercial business with volunteers in the US. It's illegal. Violates minimum wage laws. AOL ran into this in 1995, and had to pay back pay to all their forum moderators. "Labor attorney Victor Van Bourg added that volunteers "are employees of the companies, and they should be paid," he said."

With Wikipedia, it wouldn't be hard to establish that many editors are doing real work. There are rules, supervision, control, standards, and lists of things to be done. That's work.

Oh they are still evil. You realize this is their plan to control the US, right?

Sure, but wouldn't it be better if everything ran in it's own virtual session (or within a virtual secure space)? This was Microsoft's original plan with it's Palladium component of Longhorn, but my understanding is that this was almost entirely scrapped to get Vista out the door.

Part of the other problem is that most home users expect secure data, but they aren't willing to do anything about it (e.g. set up non-admin users, install virus checkers/firewalls/etc).

I certainly agree with others that this "smells" like a scam. But if this is a scam, then what are other projects aiming to unify the "3D Web" with a proprietary platform centrally-owned by a single entity? Since Second Life is the subject of so much negative attention lately, let's use them as an example. Are they really so different than IAVRT?

Second Life claims to provide a platform that can grow to handle the demands of the metaverse, yet their servers can handle only a few active users at a time. Second Life has at most tens of thousands of users online at any point in time, about the same number of users handled by a single (2D) web server. Many websites use hundreds of these servers to handle their traffic demands! That means for Second Life to handle load comparable with a single 2D website (or a single island in their model), they would need to be several hundred times larger, and this doesn't even begin to address the additional demands required for exchanging 3D assets.

Second Life could never possibly scale to meet the demands of a real metaverse. Yet they continue to attract big companies using inflated numbers and over-hyped potential (and because frankly, with all its problems, Second Life is still the best thing available). But enough about Second Life. The same things can be said of pretty much any 3D web platform company trying to lock-in customers to their proprietary systems. Despite that IAVRT is a "not-for-profit" organization, and the Neuronet's lack of technical feasibility (among other things) does make it "smell" like a scam, I would be inclined to group IAVRT into this camp.

One thing I do agree with the IAVRT on is that there is a need to establish open protocols to build a shared platform for the 3D web. However, I can think of no technical reason this cannot or should not take the form of an extension to the existing Internet. There is no need for a new physical network and no need for a new registry authority. There may be an argument to be made for an organization to rally these efforts. However, I'm more inclined support an extension from an existing reputable organization like the Web3D Consortium.

Nowadays, rallying also does not necessarily require money. It can be performed using just a community portal website. I've recently assembled a portal just for this purpose at web3d.net and I'd like to invite anyone interested to come participate. And don't worry, there are no membership fees involved <g>.

"I think the big thing to happen to security in 2007 is Windows Vista"

It's a tribute to the MS marketing department that the emergence of Vista is seen as a big security event. All the security features in Vista have already been inplimented in the other Operating Systems. The signed drivers feeture has already been hacked.

User Account Control: aka as SuDO under nix.

Protected mode Internet Explorer: on nix the browser runs as standard user and can only access the users home directory.

Windows Defender, spyware and virus detection: not needed under Linux as enumerating badness is not a good idea.

Windows Service Hardening, monitor unusual activity to the file system, registry and network: An intrusion detection system running as root.

Network Access Protection, designed to protect your network from 'unhealthy' machines: Enumerating badness, not a good idea says Marcus J. Ranum.

"Other operating systems will copy the good ideas and avoid the bad ones"

What 'good ideas' has Vista that didn't exist previously in some form in other Operating Systems. Give specifics please.

"More development will be shifted from unsafe languages like C and C++ to Java, the .NET languages"

The languages aren't 'unsafe' it's the underlying memory management unit running on Intel processors that's unsafe.

"With increasing adoption of Unix-like OSes, perhaps we will see some exploits for these run wild, too"

Given the number of non-Windows servers out there why aren't we seeing the equivalent number of breeches. Where are all the Mac viruses. Where are all the cross platform viruses.

Please correct me if I got my facts wrong.

Speculation about what might happen in the future does't count as facts.

Vista (Score: 3, Time Shifted Propaganda)

This happened when W2K and XP was released.

During the same period (around the first few monnths of its released) people said the same old thing, the same old articles were being writen...

http://news.com.com/2100-1001-249972.html?legacy=c net

http://www.serverwatch.com/news/article.php/140020 1

http://www.findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m0FOX/is _10_5/ai_63507054

I know slashdot is the mecca of microsoft bashing but please shut-up, nothing to see here.

New platforms take time to get into production. I am sure most compitent IT shops have a team devoted to looking into planning Vista deployments. I am sure in most places IT desktop purchses for the past six months have been changed to taken into account the greater hardware requirements that Vista will need.

Software needs to be ported API's and driver models need to be learnt. With all new computers starting to be pre-installed I am sure soon enough more of an effort will be put into software applications to be ported.

I mean, if you have nothing to hide, you have nothing to fear, right?

Apple follows? APPLE LEADS the market in terms of DRM.

They taught Microsoft how it should be done.

Typical Apple fanboy-ism. Apple is much worse of a company then Microsoft ever was. For example: Apple sues their own fanboys about leaking products, Microsoft gives them laptops. The only reason people don't realise this is because Apple lost against Microsoft and they are not able to throw their weight around.

Here is Apple attempting to strike down the First Amendment of the U.S. constitution in regards of freedom of the press and bloggers.
http://news.com.com/Apple+lawsuit+Thinking+differe nt/2010-1047_3-5611497.html

Do you people understand that? APPLE WAS SUING TO REMOVE FIRST AMENDMENT RIGHTS of a online person for publishing secrets about their products.

"If I were running Apple, I would milk the Macintosh for all it's worth -- and get busy on the next great thing. The PC wars are over. Done. Microsoft won a long time ago."
-- Steve jobs in Fortune, Feb. 19, 1996 interview.

The SEC has been investigating "about 80" companies for this since July. Apple started their own internal investigation, which they're sharing with the SEC. Oh, and it's former employees who are being looked at. Oh, and maybe backdating isn't illegal, it just should be declared.

Take a look here or here.

The SEC has been investigating "about 80" companies for this since July. Apple started their own internal investigation, which they're sharing with the SEC. Oh, and it's former employees who are being looked at. Oh, and maybe backdating isn't illegal, it just should be declared.

Take a look here or here.

You are assuming that just because there isn't a report about it, that something hasn't happened.

Problems:

• There are too many websites, changing too rapidly, for volunteer raters to keep up. It's too labor-intensive. In a narrow area (like, say, hotels) it might work, and it's been done.
• Inducing people to work for free for a profit making company may be illegal. AOL got into trouble over this years ago.
• It didn't work last time (see "Magellan search engine"). Dead and forgotten, the Magellan search site is still up but the search box no longer works.
• There's already the Open Directory Project.
• It's highly vulnerable to spam and manipulation. The people most interested in the rating of X will be the promoters of X.
• IBM has several patents on this.

Dear Slashdot,

Don't hate us because we're more attractive than you. Hate us because we're better.

Sincerely,
Mac users

It would be such an obscene invasion of privacy, that I don't even believe Congress would do it.

The RIAA used the DMCA to violate privacy and subpoena ISP records with nothing but a signature from a court clerk. No judge, no oversight, nothing. It took a lawsuit to stop them. Congress was only shocked when gay pornographers started exploiting the law in the same way.

It would be such an obscene invasion of privacy, that I don't even believe Congress would do it.

The RIAA used the DMCA to violate privacy and subpoena ISP records with nothing but a signature from a court clerk. No judge, no oversight, nothing. It took a lawsuit to stop them. Congress was only shocked when gay pornographers started exploiting the law in the same way.

"Someone should set a trap for the RIAA by creating a shared folder of text files with the names of the songs of approximately the size of an actual .mp3 of the same name and then when they are attacked by the RIAA show that no infringement took place and that the RIAA is not doing their homework and thus burdening the courts, law-enforcement and the general public with their witch hunts."

This has already happened, sorta.

It would be fun to imagine that they haven't learned from this, and haven't stepped up their diligence... but I seriously doubt it.

Please post the "Print" link instead of the referenced url, I do not want to see/load news.com ads.

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