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Let's hope that the big companies calling for patent reform manage to effect some positive change. Microsoft and Oracle in that article, I'm pretty sure IBM has sounded the call, too.

Read CNET News.com's article. I guess that image was incorrect. :(

"The FAA mentions the possibility of incorporating the 'no-fly' list of the TSA into security requirements for space travel."

That includes this individual.

You know what I'm talking about.

I appreciate the feedback. I am not a program or sys admin, so sometimes I may use the terminology incorrectly. I think everyone understands my point with Java. MS took something others were using quite nicely....fiddled with it....and messed up the universality of Java.

I will continue to hold my position wrt Kerberos. Guys like Bruce Schneier hold a lot of sway with me when it comes to security. If he is concerned about Windows Kerberos-Like implementation, so am I.

In an effort to post quickly yesterday and get back to work, I made an error of ommission. I should have gone on to say that they eventually relented and published the information.....but I think you make it sound as if they have always done so. It took a lot of pressure from outside sources. And then when they did put it out there, they created a NDA in the document. In fact, this very website was involved in that process. I continue to maintain that they hijacked a standard--an open source one at that--and because it had a BSD like license rather than a GPL, they tried to hide what they had done.

Re: Google wouldn't put the same pics of US installations would it?

Exactly! This is the argument that has to be made. Frome this recent report (originally from IHT):

But a number of security restrictions apply to those companies. For instance, United States law requires that images of Israel shot by American-licensed commercial satellites be made available only at a relatively low resolution. Also, the companies' operating licenses allow the United States government to put any area off limits in the interests of national security. A 24-hour delay is mandated for images of especially high resolution.

Also, the original report (that started this discussion) quotes the minister as saying, "GoogleEarth has expressed its readiness to have discussions with the Government regarding the issue."

I agree, however, that this can only be a short term measure. I mean, how much of extra time and money does it require for someone to get the exact location of these installations? Couldn't someone just walk by them with a GPS enabled gadget and get this information easily?

Oh, there's a great deal more he could do even within the law to vilify his political opponents.

You don't get credit, or blame, for the things you don't do, for the inverse of the infinite set of unexplored potential. You get them for the things you do, er, do.

I apologize for that remark. I get worked up on this topic at times.

As do we all sometimes. Don't worry about it.

Ooookaaay. Maybe you could get a little more specific here. I really don't see it, especially given the situation.

Really? You don't see anything about his administration's callous approach to citizen eavesdropping? The ludicrous "Do Not Fly" list? Guantanamo? The recent reports about the Department of Transportation looking into putting GPS bugs in new cars? How the EPA's Draft Report on the Environment was edited to fit administration viewpoints on global warming? (That link's on a Democrat website, but it's well substantiated.) Hiding shill voices in the media to support him (Armstrong Williams, Jeff Gannon)?

I could go on -- the potential length of this list seems limited only by the amount of energy I put into making it, and to be honest thinking about things like that too much is soul-deadening. Suffice to say, there's enough that it seems less like a bunch of isolated instances, and more like there's a culture of this kind of thinking in Washington at the moment, and the closer you get to the White House, the thicker the air gets.

The real reason we invaded Iraq was a combination of 1) sanctions were crumbling as a result of bribes in Europe and economic pressure in Asia, 2) His behavior in the past, and 3) He would have had nuclear weapons within a couple of years, removing the option. I'm glad we don't have a third of the set to go with North Korea and Iran. I supported the war for that reason.

That was not the story Bush gave at the time. Unless I've missed a major recent press conference, even now, when questioned about Iraq, he talks about terrorists! We probably read different websites, but what I've seen is that Saddam was rather unlikely to have aided Al-Qaeda, due to their differing goals.

War is a serious thing, it requires a tremendous positive action to do something like that, even if wars these days aren't declared unless they're "on terror." Mentally rewind back to the days before the war, and it sounds funny to invade a nation because "sanctions were crumbling." The details of Iraq's nuclear weapons program are unproven to this day. Afganistan did happen, it is true, it didn't catch anyone but it did happen. It's something of a shame, perhaps, that after that, Bush diluted our military resources in attacking Iraq instead of choosing some other action.

Concerning Lincoln: well I will admit that I am not particularly well-read in that area. However, a lot of people seem to really like Lincoln, that proves nothing but is perhaps indicative concerning a relatively uncontroversial figure, and war is a funny thing in that you don't always get your way even if you do things perfectly (which is a good reason to avoid it if possible). I will say that Wikipedia's entry on the American Civil War states that the Confederacy left the union even before Lincoln's inaugration, so avoiding the war would have left the country split.

Now that's just gratuitous.

Yeah, but ya know, when the urge of the joke overcomes you.... My responsibility is to laughs, first and foremost. Nyuk nyuk nyuk.

I agree he's hardly in Tony Blair's league when it comes to public speaking, but I think at least some of that is a deliberate attempt to separate himself p

Link

"P2P is not legal in Canada"

Wrong.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File_sharing#Canada.2 7s_approach_to_P2P_and_copyright

Judge: File Sharing is Legal in Canada.

http://news.com.com/2100-1027_3-5182641.html

"As you stated, uploading copyrighted music is illegal in Canada"

Wrong

CANADA stand for Courageous Americans Noble Americans Defenders of America , C A N A D A.

The law are made to protect the right and privilege of the people in America , we pay taxes for the privilege to legally share files , we earn what we have , we dont steal it because where thief or dont like to pay taxes.

Merry Christmas and happy Holydays.

Oeer-to-peer is only partially legal in Canada. The government has deemed that downloading music in Canada is perfectly legal, as it is for personal use. However the issue lies in uploading music, which is illegal. More information in this article

Sorry pasted the wrong bit into the link.

http://news.com.com/2100-1027_3-5182641.html

I don't seriously see MS looking the fool and admitting they can't write a decent browser by buying Opera. Google OTOH may have a use for their own browser expecially if thay are pushing for the whole "two tier internet" deal. I recall a story a while back where they were buying up the "dark fiber". Together maybe being able to have a browser that is standards compliant and able to handle custom protocols makes sense.

I use a Tivo with my Dish Network satellite receiver and it hasn't dropped a recording in months, so the IR transmission is working flawlessly. The most obvious advantage of the IR transmitter compared to a remote is that the IR transmitter is right next to the receiver - so, it should actually work a lot better than your remote. The only two reasons it should miss (apart from hardware failure) would be dirt on the transmitter/receiver or intense glare. The former can be solved with a moist cloth and the latter can be solved simply be draping something over the receiver (with Tivo, for example, direct control of the satellite receiver is not only pointless but could screw up recordings). So, unless a company really borks its software, IR transmitters work just fine.

Of course, I agree with you that taking the step out is better, if only because integration usually provides a better overall experience. As for CableCard, it's supposedly coming to AT LEAST Windows Media Center PCs sometime next year. I hope against hope that one of the satellite companies gets off the stick and comes out with a satellite-compatible "CableCard" because I hate cable.

Haven't you been paying attention? The clone army is already being grown as we speak - they're faking the science and concentrating on making the clones obey orders. :-)

Did anybody else have a vision of Bush ordering the first NSA-wiretap and then Cheney laughing maniacally and screaming, "UNLIMITED POWER!!!!!"

From the submission: Back in March 2004 Microsoft was ordered to open up its Windows operating system by way of making documentation available that would assist work on interoperability with other systems ...

According to Another CNET article from late March of 2004,

Microsoft now has 120 days to provide the information that rival server makers need to compete fairly, and it must continue to update this information in the future ...

Unless the deadline was extended, their time actually ran out around July.

John McCormick makes some interesting observations at the following Tech Republic link:

http://techrepublic.com.com/5100-1009_11-5991769.h tml?tag=nl.e101

Quoting from his article:

---- Begin Quote ---
"The latest Sony debacle shows once again that you can't be too paranoid. A month ago, I personally would have never given a second thought to playing a new brand-name music CD in an office computer--now I wouldn't even duplicate one for personal backup.

And isn't that interesting? Could it be that Sony planned this whole thing just to stop people from making backups of their favorite CDs by scaring them out of even putting CDs in their PCs?

Even those users who only made backups and ignored DRM threats will now be extremely cautious about putting any Sony CD in their PC. Could there be something even more sinister to this story than mere incompetence?"
--- End of Quote ---

Hmmmm....... sort of makes one think, eh?

This whole situation with DRM, RIAA, big record companies is really starting to bug me. I just happen to believe that if I pay good money for a CD, a vinyl record, or any piece of music, that I should be allowed to convert it and play it on whatever technology is available to me, as long as I don't give it away to everyone else in the world!

This is the original blog that revealed the SunnComm DRM installed despite the user declining the EULA. Whereas the XCP DRM could hide behind the EULA excuse, I don't see how SunnComm has any legal fig leaf here (though IANAL).

Supposedly there is about ten times more SunnComm DRM in the wild than XCP DRM, so maybe Sony felt they couldn't sacrifice holiday sales despite the legal exposure.

hey, the government is just worried that scary e-terrorists that don't know how to download the software for free will break into the dept. of homeland security and compromise the sensitive windows 95 network they've got running.... i, for one, feel safer already.

Joe Firmage? As in "we got all our technologies from space aliens" Joe Firmage?

Think I'm joking?

link

MacOS lost its independence when Apple decided to use a Unix system as core of MacOS with version X.

Mac OS X: Look who else is switching

Im with you, and so are some Senators. It's S.2113, write to your Senators for support.

There's already opposition. It's bill number is S.2113, write to your Senators for support.

http://news.com.com/2100-1024_3-6002395.html (uses New York Times as source)

Reading

http://news.com.com/Google%2C+Time+Warner+strike+1 +billion+deal+for+AOL/2100-1025_3-6003187.html?tag =nefd.lede

AOL gets --
* $1B investment. Not gift, but investment.
* $300M credit for purchase of keyword ads.
* Ability to sell ads across Google's network including third-party sites (!).
* Assistance in opening up the 'walled garden' content to Google's crawler.
* Collaboration on video search.

Google --
* Minority shareholder rights.
* Possibly, more ads sold by AOL's marketing machine.
* Possibly, higher CTR if AOL can do better ad sales -- through knowing more about its users, say (inferred).
* Greater availability of the old 'walled garden' content.
* Collaboration in online video search, which probably includes working with AOL's 'SingingFish' service, and perhaps access to content?
* Interoperability to an IM network with a huge base -- slightly larger than MSN + Yahoo!, last I checked.

There's also a defensive factor; a deal with MSN might have required shifting from Google to MSN, and that would mean some 25-30M search queries per day and ~10% of Google's advertising revenue.

As to how Google might lose, well, if AOL were to collapse, the $1B investment might look like a bad idea; or if the changes drove away too many paying users (through ad clicks, not subscribers). Likewise, AOL might be considered to have lost if Microsoft would have been a better partner, or if people flee AIM to Google Talk, or so forth. But it's an interesting deal from both perspectives, I'd say.

TFA is remarkably uninformative. Do not bother with it, if it becomes slashdotted.

This article (PC or people--who's the boss?) has an interview with him today.

Bill Addresses his Microsoft transition on his home page: http://www.billbuxton.com/

He is cited in the Wikipedia article about Human-computer interaction.

Courtesy of Google News.

IE on the Mac: Bubbye
CNET News.com- Dec 19, 2005
News on Monday that Microsoft plans to discontinue support and development of its Internet Explorer Web browser on the Macintosh hardly came as a surprise.
MS pulls plug on Mac IE Register
Microsoft Drops Support for Mac IE TechNewsWorld
VNUNet.com- InformationWeek- Techtree.com- ZDNet UK- all 112 related

The argument against that being that a real life robin hood would steal from Bill Gates since he is the richest man on the planet. If Bill is a modern Robin hood, he skims off the top so much that he is the number one target of any other modern day Robin Hood. The super rich stealing from the middle class to help feed the poor does not exaclty fit the robin hood stereotype. Just about anyone stealing from Bill Gates and giving to the poor would fit the stereotype.

Apple's customers are like no others--a rich blend of the most sociologically elite with those seeking elegant, simple computing... Unlike users of Intel/Windows computers, a significant portion of Apple's users are active , exploratory , avant-garde and early adopters . The activities they enjoy are unique in the way that they more often incorporate rich media such as video and music as well as more active prosumer behavior than many more passive Windows [and Linux] users.

-- MetaFacts, Inc.

With above-average household income and education levels, the Mac population [is] very attractive [ intellectually as well as physically .]

-- Nielsen/NetRatings (as quoted by C|NET)

It's more "whining" than anything else, you just have to go back a little bit to find it:

Although Microsoft may continue to provide security and performance updates, no major new releases are planned, Microsoft Product Manager Jessica Sommer told CNET News.com. Sommer said that, with the emergence of Apple's Safari browser, Microsoft felt that customers were better served by using Apple's browser, noting that Microsoft does not have the access to the Macintosh operating system that it would need to compete.

http://news.com.com/2100-1045_3-1017126.html

I call complete and utter whiny bullshit on this. It's not that they CAN'T compete, it's that they don't WANT to compete. OmniWeb dropped their proprietary rendering engine for WebCore/Kit and began focusing even harder on their wonderful UI. Why couldn't Microsoft have done this? Lots of applications have integrated Kit/Core, from third-party Web browser to instant messaging clients. I guess Microsoft doesn't have the resources that some 18-year-old kid with an ADC account does, right?

Irony: "We can't compete because someone else makes the OS and we don't have full access to it." - Microsoft

Call me a fucking waaaaaaaaaaaaaahmbulance, Redmond. You lost on this platform because you couldn't make a good Web browser if you tried, and all you did was blame someone else.

Research in Motion was the leader in a lot of this patent litigation.

http://news.com.com/2100-1040-958550.html

I remember them suing over everything, Good technology, handspring with the treo, etc etc.

In this case, NTP is clearly just a patent litigation machine which is worse, but everyone's been using these patents to muscle around in the marketplace...

Yes, it does. We've all heard about how much Google is trying to help out Firefox - yet if you weren't a geek (or already using Firefox) you'd never know. Go to www.google.com and find the link to Firefox's website and you'll see what I'm talking about - even with how much Google supports Firefox, there is absolutely no mention of Firefox on Google's site.

"You may be able to run Firefox on anything that runs linux, but that doesn't mean it will run well. Unlike Firefox, Opera's mobile browser is designed for the small screen, and it does an excellent job of rendering pages on them."

But Firefox can be modified for use on mobile devices to do just as good a job at displaying pages as Opera.

"Since their mobile browser is Java based, the phones don't NEED linux or CE to run it."

No, but they need some other OS that understands Java (often times it's Palm OS). Linux understands Java, too, which is another reason why device makers like it - they can either make their own OS, buy one from someone else, or just use Linux. And if the device is running Linux, then it can run Firefox.

"To be perfectly honest I doubt they really care what "hackers" want on their PSP. They care what the millions of consumers see when they turn on their out-of-the-box device. By buying Opera they would have a solid browser and instant buy-in into the mobile market."

Then perhaps you aren't aware of just how many household devices are hacked to run Linux. It hasn't even been a month since the 360 has been released and there's already a project to hack it to run Linux. And I personally have installed Linux on my iPod. Yeah, most people don't do this sort of thing, but still, some do.

Even though it might be relatively few people who do this, it adds up when you consider that just about every device has been hacked to run Linux - when you add all those PSPs, DS's, Xboxes, GameCubes, PS2s, iPods, etc, etc all together you can see where it could add up. Not to mention the fact that Firefox could be put on devices that already run Linux such as TiVos (in fact, many people build their own TiVo-like boxes and there are even plugins to make Firefox run within a TiVo-like GUI) and Palm Pilots.

Plus, Google doesn't make any money off of Firefox - but they're still pouring money into it. Why? Because they know it's worthwhile. Not because they're going to make money from it or to get an "instant buy-in into the mobile market" - that's not where Google makes its money. Google doesn't know how to make browsers or other computer apps. They know about the Internet and they know about search, and they'd rather stick with these two things (with maybe a couple side projects) than learn how to make web browsers. And that's why Google probably isn't interested in Opera - they're not good at making web browsers, so they'd rather make friends with someone who is. They don't need the money from making the browser - they'll make their dough off of the search engine people use with that browser.

And it appears as though maybe Mozilla is planning to make a mobile version of Firefox.

Bullet Points with a Passion:

* NTP licensed their patents to an existing player named Visto. They also gained a stake in them as a result.
* This is the same Visto that sued Microsoft today for patent infringement with their Windows Mobile 5.0 software and it's ability to send/receive e-mail.
* This "new" competitor has been in business since 1996. I've been personally aware of their e-mail solution for the last couple years.

This seems like a pretty predictable move to me. Microsoft's entire Office business model is based on vendor lock in; word processors in general are starting to plateau, since they have reached a point where new features are giving diminishing returns. Other than opening legacy documents, there is no reason for companies to use MS Office over one of the alternatives, so Microsoft is counting on vendor lock-in to keep selling licenses. Office currently represents one quarter of Microsoft's total revenue, and they will do anything to protect that.

Once open standards are prevelant, MS Office will simply become one of many alternatives, and seen in that light it doesn't really stand out. To protect their status, Microsoft has to convince the PHBs that "open" means "clear text storage format"... and then they embrace, extend, extinguish.

The ray of hope in all this is moves like the Massachussetts state government made, where they specified that "open" means what we (at Slashdot) all know it really means: fully documented, standardized, cross-platform, and format-frozen. Then they required that document formats used by the state conform to true openness. Microsoft can rant, rave, market, convince, and press-release until they are blue in the face, but if their format is not truly open, MA won't use it. Period. We need more initiatives like that, especially from some of the larger companies. Then maybe Microsoft will be forced to compete in the word processor market on the basis of product quality, and not vendor lock in. I think Microsoft could write an office suite that really kicks some serious ass and does it all with truly open formats, but they would have to change their focus quite a bit, and their inertia is currently preventing them from doing that.

> You seriously need to read news from another source besides slashdot, which is right now the
> only site reporting frequently on the supposed "disaster" of the 360 release.

You need to learn how to use a search engine:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/technology/4525318.stm
http://www.1up.com/do/newsStory?cId=3146387
http://www.forbes.com/2005/12/14/gates-jackson-xbo x-cx_cn_1214autofacescan02.html
http://news.com.com/2061-10797_3-5995807.html
http://xbox360.ign.com/articles/675/675720p1.html

5 DSL providers (for consumers)

Not for long.

What if both the local phone company and the local cable company implement TNC to keep out spyware, viruses, spam zombies, unpatched Microsoft Windows installations, bandwidth hogs, and copyright liability magnets, then what? And what happens when the

1 fibre optic provider.

In Fort Wayne, Indiana, the ILEC (Verizon) provides both DSL and fiber.

And who knows how many different wireless providers

The cellphone providers? Don't they tend to be joined at the hip with the RBOCs, which are the ILEC in many cities? Or do you mean upstarts? If so, how will they find any spectrum to use?

Here in the US we have the "Patriot Act" from 2001, which grants the government a rather extrordinary collection of survalence powers. 16 sections of the bill expire on Dec. 31 of this year, including many of the electronic survalence portions that would be of interest to the /. crowd. The Republican party is trying to push a 4-year renewal through congress by the end of the year, but the 9/11 carte blanche that got it passed initally has run out and there is serious resistance this time around, including threats of a filibuster. Its worth noting that there are some minor improvements in the 4 year extension, and a more substantal overhaul, called the safe act, currently stalled in comitte. For those interested, some stories on cnet and msnbc (look, balance for the news bias whiners!)

See sibling post, and Apple went Intel for its processors months ago.

Dell, Dell, Dell. The customer at one site decided to buy into Dell's 'home-grown' mid-tier SAN offering in that brief period of time around 2001 after Dell and EMC had parted ways and before Dell came back to its senses and re-partnered with EMC. The re-badged EMC Clariion controllers + arrays on a Brocade fabric had not given us a single issue in the year they'd been in use, but this new demonic half-breed SAN shows up as part of the "new Win2K SAN" (yes, this customer ended up with 4, I kid you not, 4 different and non-connected SANs in the same physical server room).

Dell techs came, and Dell techs went. We had a former field-circus clown who was "certified" on this new storage system sitting in our server room, leafing through the product manual and scratching his head while customers were ranting and raving about not being able to get to their files. The cluster software didn't work. Various bits of the hardware routinely committed seppuku rather than operate with that demon of a storage system. The Dell-trained installers ran the cables backwards between the disk trays and the controller (gee, I wonder where all these fiber-channel errors are coming from). Files mysteriously disappeared. Various VPs within Dell called and made weekly pledges of earnestness in an effort to not get their product thrown out of the server room.

A few months after all this, Dell quietly discontinued their 'home-grown' SAN products and went back to EMC.

I'm happy to use their laptops and desktops as long as someone else pays for it :), and their entry-level to midrange server offerings aren't significantly worse than anyone else's, but may I be damned to the foulest depths of Hell if I ever recommend their storage systems and professional enterprise services to anyone. Ever.

Dell, Dell, Dell. The customer at one site decided to buy into Dell's 'home-grown' mid-tier SAN offering in that brief period of time around 2001 after Dell and EMC had parted ways and before Dell came back to its senses and re-partnered with EMC. The re-badged EMC Clariion controllers + arrays on a Brocade fabric had not given us a single issue in the year they'd been in use, but this new demonic half-breed SAN shows up as part of the "new Win2K SAN" (yes, this customer ended up with 4, I kid you not, 4 different and non-connected SANs in the same physical server room).

Dell techs came, and Dell techs went. We had a former field-circus clown who was "certified" on this new storage system sitting in our server room, leafing through the product manual and scratching his head while customers were ranting and raving about not being able to get to their files. The cluster software didn't work. Various bits of the hardware routinely committed seppuku rather than operate with that demon of a storage system. The Dell-trained installers ran the cables backwards between the disk trays and the controller (gee, I wonder where all these fiber-channel errors are coming from). Files mysteriously disappeared. Various VPs within Dell called and made weekly pledges of earnestness in an effort to not get their product thrown out of the server room.

A few months after all this, Dell quietly discontinued their 'home-grown' SAN products and went back to EMC.

I'm happy to use their laptops and desktops as long as someone else pays for it :), and their entry-level to midrange server offerings aren't significantly worse than anyone else's, but may I be damned to the foulest depths of Hell if I ever recommend their storage systems and professional enterprise services to anyone. Ever.

Because it's not Rhapsody's fault that Apple won't license their DRM technology.

If Real wanted you to be able to play Rhapsody music on iPods they would license Helix DRM to Apple, not the other way around (oh and does Rhapsody still use Listen.com's WMA format?). RealPlayer already uses the QuickTime libraries and is thus capable of playing FairPlay encrypted M4As/AACs. This is why "Harmony" was so ill-conceived and ill-recieved (legalities aside, Harmony benefits Real with nearly no benefit to Apple; letting iTunes users access Rhapsody on the other hand opens up Real's market to iPods, opens up Real's market to Mac users, both of which are "closed" to Rhapsody right now, and provides Apple with one more selling point for the iPod/iTunes combo -- subscription music). Real doesn't have to license/break/decieve FairPlay to get Rhapsody on the iPod, they just have to strike a deal with Apple (and get Helix DRM in iPod firmware or in iTunes). As far as I know, all the news has been Glaser begging/threatening Jobs in open and private email to 'open the iPod' ("or we'll go to our enemy Microsoft") not to support Helix and not to license FairPlay to them.

For more info:
http://www.realnetworks.com/products/drm/
http://news.com.com/Reals%20Glaser%20exhorts%20App le%20to%20open%20iPod/2100-1025_3-5177914.html?tag =nl
http://www.boingboing.net/2005/11/21/drm_company_v ows_to_.html
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/FairPlay

Do you have an example of a very large website that uses PHP? I don't recall ever seeing one.

Umm, Yahoo:
http://news.com.com/2100-1023-963937.html

Ranked the #1 trafficked site by Alexa:
http://www.alexa.com/data/details/?url=yahoo.com

"He's implying that without Apple, the music industry would have some great online business going and be selling tons more music."

Wrong. He's implying that Apple has created a device that Apple can sell music for. (I'm truely amazed at how people around here have a short memory when it comes to Apple's shenanigans). Apple owns the market, and they're the ones that make all the money on it. Competitors can't even ween in on it. Boo hoo? Well, sure. We love Apple, the iPod, and iTunes. Who cares if other businesses aren't permitted to offer alternative services? No no, we don't want choice around here. It's Apple! They're allowed to make it for us!!

First a drop of 0.44% is not something to stop the presses about. It might be the beginging of a trend but I would be suprised if it is outside of any statistical error.

Second, they do not give any information of mp3 purchases and usage. I just bought a nano because of its size. I am not getting rid of my 40GB ipod because of its storage capacity and I still have the first ipod player I bought years ago (TDK mojo) that I keep around just in case (for what I dont know). Most of my friends have upgraded players as well and intend to keep their original. They are not going to repurchase music.

Third, in all the music sales itunes only makes up 4% of music sales. They do not mention if CD proces are driving people to pirate music. Personally, I would rather own a CD but I cannot justify $15. Especially if I am only buying it for a few songs. I stopped file shareing music a while ago but I do understand why some people continue.

Why didnt the author point out that CD prices rarely come down. Sometime a title will show up in a bargin bin but a customer cannot consistently wait for the price to come down. More that often the case is the price is reduced when it comes out and then you can only pay regular after a few months (which can be $18 or more).

Also, why didnt the author point out the pricing of music is almost a mystery for all media. Try to find out how music execs plan to price a cd for its lifetime, how much are production costs and who gets the proceeds at various stages over time (please, try--I would love to know). It is not public knowledge for a reason.

My impression it this guy is either grossly uninformed or a shill.

This stunt just reflects poorly on security researchers. Yes it sucks that MS is slow to respond, but threatening to sell the exploit to the highest bidder doesn't help. It just comes off as extortion or aiding virus writers.

A group of people tried to make an open-source-friendly, Linux-based game console called the Indrema. They failed.

Here's the explaination for any moderators that are a little slow

Unless they've had a recent policy change, that's completely untrue. At least one guy has been fired (the article itself is a bit iffy on if he was fired for that reason but this blog clears up any ambiguity).

Or perhaps Google simply censors those who don't say good things about google (and if you don't think firing people for speaking has a censoring effect on free speech I've got a bridge to sell to you).

• TFA says WiMedia hope the IEEE will back off UWB standard setting
• ECMA has rubberstamped one company's technology, to the possible exclusion of other worthy efforts
• ECMA's fast track to ISO means international standards may mandate technology protected by US patent law

Apple's customers are like no others--a rich blend of the most sociologically elite with those seeking elegant, simple computing... Unlike users of Intel/Windows computers, a significant portion of Apple's users are active , exploratory , avant-garde and early adopters . The activities they enjoy are unique in the way that they more often incorporate rich media such as video and music as well as more active prosumer behavior than many more passive Windows [and Linux] users.

-- MetaFacts, Inc.

With above-average household income and education levels, the Mac population [is] very attractive [ intellectually as well as physically .]

-- Nielsen/NetRatings (as quoted by C|NET)

Sir, as I formulate my reply I sit here typing at my iMac. You are right. Using this operating system has been one of the most secure experiences I have ever been privileged with. I am more satisfied with my Apple experiences than I have ever been with a Microsoft experience. I will not lie to you on that.

However, as an I.T. professional, I cannot overlook the security flaws that are out there. Think they don't exist? Look around, you'll find them.

You're right. Owning a Mac is probably the safest thing you can do as a computer user worried about their system's security. But it's not because a Mac is more secure by design. You and I have both read articles about Microsoft bashing Linux's security, and the Linux Community striking back. Let me tell you something; OS X is of close kin to any given Linux Distro. In fact, it shares a lot of similarities with Free BSD, and I assure you the Darwin Kernel is not flawless.

The reality is... Your Mac is more secure because you have a kindred community of macintosh users who would rather use their computers for computing. I suspect that the average Mac Programmer capable of writing a virus just doesn't care to. Which is why no one does. /shrug. What do I know, though?