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Perhaps this will help:

A private company must report its finances once it has more than 500 common shareholders--or stock-option holders--and $10 million in assets, according to section XII(g) of the Securities and Exchange Act of 1934. That means a private company must file quarterly forms with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) that disclose operating expenses, profits, partnerships, shareholders and many other details--a laborious process that can cost as much as $2 million annually.

Google makes most of their money from ads (keyword searches, etc.); licensing of their technology to third-party search engines like Yahoo! (although Yahoo! is dropping Google); and, selling search appliances, which do lots of non-Internet work as well.

This article gives the numbers on MSN. Hey, I like Microsoft just fine.. but I don't think they know how to beat Google.


p

Simple strategy for MS:
1) kill all browsers on the most popular computing platform. Result, IE sole available browser (oh, wait, they already did this).
2) make IE automatically point google.* URL requests to msn-search.

I don't think this would happen. Google would have a very good case for an inappropriate use of a trademark. Microsoft, surely wouldn't fall for one of their own tricks?

How can you sit in one place for 10 hours?

On my Windows XP boxes, QuickTime has been remarkably unstable through three major and countless minor releases. Crashes, weird artifacts that linger for the duration of playback, "corrupted" files that played fine under Win2K...

On my Windows XP boxes, QuickTime has been remarkably unstable through three major and countless minor releases. Crashes, weird artifacts that linger for the duration of playback, "corrupted" files that played fine under Win2K...

Most of the Democratic candidates have spoken out vocally against extending the P.A.T.R.I.O.T. act. To contrast, George W. Bush recently advocated not only extending, but expanding the damn thing-- in his State of the Union speech, no less. (The applause you heard when he said "the PATRIOT act is due to expire soon" was not coming from the pro-Bush side of the room.)

If you believe there is no significant difference between the candidates on this issue, you're just plain nuts. I'm sorry your favorite candidate isn't in the race anymore, but if you keep equivocating and misrepresenting the situation, you're only going to be rewarded with PATRIOT Acts II, III, IV and V.

Do Mac ethusiasts have selective memory? Apple was hurting badly when Microsoft made the investment. For example this article is from April of 1996 detailing Apple's cash reserves had plummeted to $592 million and had huge quarterly losses. The iMac (undoubtably the machine that saved Apple from bankruptcy) wasn't released until August 1998. Microsoft's $150 million investment was in August 1997 according to this articles.

As a Mac user myself, I'm more than willing to thank Microsoft for giving Apple a much needed shot in the arm cash-wise. That money most likely meant the difference between Apple folding and Apple shipping it's most successful computer line in the last 10 years. Don't take my word for it either, go read the articles for yourself. They were written before we even knew the iMac or iBook or iAnything was coming down the pike and they forecast a dire end to Apple. Amelio was running the company into the ground and thankfully Jobs, whether you love him or hate him, came along just in time to save the day (with a little help from Microsoft cash-wise).

Since when has spam resulted in the direct injury or death of a person?

Well, it's not exactly the direct death, but I can think of at least one case where spam killed.

Not that I agree with the anology or anything, but you did ask, and its the best I got. :)

Now, the article only hinted at 10% who actually had an HDTV. But, another probelm are those people who have an HD-capable monitor/TV and are only watching DVDs, and/or SD digital cable/DirecTV on them and they think they're watching HDTV--NO YOU'RE NOT! Unless the signal broadcast is at an HD resolution (**cough** Fox widescreen), into a monitor/TV capable of displaying a full HD resolution (a 42" plasma most of which are only 850x480 resolution (aka EDTV) doesn't count), then, you are watching HDTV.

But, since the broadcasters/content providers seem to abhore new technology, don't look for anything to change (see. Broadcast Flag, PVRs w/o Firewire, etc.)

Has the article been pulled? It's hard to wade through the /. bullshit, but I'm sure the suggestion was a temporary workaround until they release the patch anounced here. Note to editors. Why didn't this story get psoted, but some lameass MS knowledge base link did. Your bias is completely transparent.

LinuxWorld hits the nail on the head when linking this morning's disturbing victory with an eerily appropriate statement by Sun's Java guru James Gosling this week about how Sun's own competition with Microsoft is "a life-and-death kind of struggle." Gosling's point was that "if [Microsoft] succeed, the whole ecosystem that the rest of the industry feeds off goes away." Lindows' Michael Robertson clearly views the situation identically, saying: "The ruling will deny the Netherlands the cost- savings that desktop Linux currently offers to approximately 18 million people worldwide, leaving vulnerable and expensive Microsoft software as the only option for computer consumers in the Netherlands."

>Maybe the vast majority of them don't have the time and inclination to throw away all their programs and spend months learning to use lame F/OSS stuff that offers half the functionality, and only twice the inconvenience.

????????

So what did swearing off Microsoft entail?
We looked at all the alternatives. We looked at Apple, but that's owned in part by Microsoft. (Editor's note: Microsoft invested $150 million in Apple in 1997.) We just looked around. We looked at Sun's Sun Ray systems. We looked at a lot of things. And it just came back to Linux, and Red Hat in particular, was a good solution.

I know I saved $80,000 right away by going to open source, and each time something like (Windows) XP comes along, I save even more money because I don't have to buy new equipment to run the software.

One of the analysts said it costs $1,250 per person to change over to open source. It wasn't anywhere near that for us.

The other thing is that if you look at productivity. If you put a bunch of stuff on people's desktops they don't need to do their job, chances are they're going to use it. I don't have that problem. If all you need is word processing, that's all you're going to have on your desktop, a word processor. It's not going to have Paint or PowerPoint. I tell you what, our hits to eBay went down greatly when not everybody had a Web browser. For somebody whose job is filling out forms all day, invoicing and exporting, why do they need a Web browser? The idea that if you have 2,000 terminals they all have to have a Web browser, that's crazy. It just creates distractions.

>Here's a novel idea for you: when recommending a solution, how about thinking about what the victim _needs_, rather than just thinking about your religious duty to convert everyone to Linux?

For those of us atheists using linux, how does this fit in?

>This "thinking" stuff is hard.

You're right, it is. I mean, when you do it, you realize that you're wrong, don't you?

Or are you having trouble typing that link into your address bar?

Or perhaps you don't believe successful businessmen when they give you advice?

(please pick a number smaller than Ms. Fiorina's salary--if you know what it is).

Once you have that number, please explain to me how we can divide up Carly's 3.4 million to better provide for the company's 142,000 employees. $24 a year won't buy much health insurance.

Sure, some CEOs are overpaid. They all make a crapload more money than I do. They're in charge of multi-billion dollar corporations and hundreds of thousands of employees. My guess is a few million dollars in salary isn't too much. Pick a better example. At best, you're making a case for equity in pay for women, but you're not helping your 'overpaid CEO' argument.

Try this: we need stricter ethics in business. Long term jail sentences and lifetime poverty for criminals like Kenneth Lay. Incentive clauses and stock options.

And no, companies still won't be able to afford your so-called "living wages" just by redistributing CEO salaries.

When offshoring 3000 jobs saves $168 million we really need to consider if the US is still a business-unfriendly environment.

The UAW nearly killed the auto industry in the 80s. It was a couple multi-million dollar CEOs that saved the entire US auto industry from disappearing.

It's a global market. Technology improves efficiency, in all areas, including labor. Welcome to the information age.

Innovation drives the US economy. Protectionism and entitlement remove competition, eliminating the need to innovate. Everyone (non innovators included) lived fat off the dot com era. Now it's time to get back to work and stop acting like wealth is a birthright.

Except that HP just announced a line of Opteron-based servers.

(Must.... click.... "Preview"!)

Of course, they're expensive as all hell

PC viruses spawn $55 billion loss in 2003"

You can pay a little more now for secure systems, or you can pay a lot later to clean up the mess when every Swiss cheese Windows box on your LAN gets assraped because one moron in your company can't resist clicking on every attachment in their Outlook inbox.

Of course, they're expensive as all hell



You can pay a little more now for secure systems, or you can pay a lot later to clean up the mess when every Swiss cheese Windows box on your LAN gets assraped because one moron in your company can't resist clicking on every attachment in their Outlook inbox.

(Whoops, I originally posted this info in response to another article. This is the one I meant to respond to.)

When Sterling Ball, CEO of the Ernie Ball Co., decided to sever business ties with MS, he rejected Apple as an alternative vendor specifically because of that $150 million investment! Details here.

When the Ernie Ball guitar string company got upset with MS over an overpublicized BSA audit, CEO Sterling Ball decided to switch to somebody (anybody!) else. And according to this article/interview, "We looked at all the alternatives. We looked at Apple, but that's owned in part by Microsoft." So they ended up running Linux.

While it may be true that MS doesn't actually own or control Apple or Comcast, someone like Sterling Ball who is making it a point of honor not to give MS any more money may still consider MS's investments in Apple or Comcast to be relevent information.

A ZDNet article says Java made communicating between multiple software pieces very flexible and James Gosling, inventor of Java, spent considerable time helping develop the system. Sun also describes how the same application was used for the Pathfinder mission back in 1997.

Gates also explained "To say a system is secure because no one is attacking it is very dangerous," and proposed that "hackers are good for maturation" of the platform, because they have forced the company to develop new inspection techniques for the code.

Of course, virus writers are getting lazy now. According to Microsoft software architect Chris Anderson, "Today, virus writers don't find holes," he said. "They just sit back and wait for patches to appear, and then it is a race to write the first virus. We want to get patch deployment down from days or weeks to hours."

And I've seen the UI for the iRiver ones. The iPod is far superior, even if you're just counting pixels.

That's funny, seeing as they have the exact same number of pixels.

ipod:
160x128
iriver
160x128

I highly doubt you have seen one one of the iriver ihp-xxx devices. Perhaps you should before you make claims about its UI.

Gee, I wonder who is funding this?
and for the same amount too!

I know of many US companies who make a living teaching companies in other countries like India about quality control and the way that US Businesses do business. If Indian companies had good quality, these companies would be out of business and not have business booming. I shall cite some examples of the quality of offshoring below.

Thing is, most IT workers, such as me, do not blame the people taking our jobs, but the companies making the move to other countries and cutting us loose. This is a global trend that is not going to stop unless there is some law passed against it, which I doubt will happen.

First it was a Labor Shortage which was a big lie by the Corporations to get rid of US workers and replace them with H1B Visa workers or outsource to India. Now that there is a surplus of IT Workers, they still claim there is an IT shortage and need to move more jobs overseas.

Where is the beef? Where is the quality that Indian companies are supposed to have? Apparently they did not have Quality at Dell when they moved a Help Desk over to India. Where is the quality in programs written? Security issues are a big risk and we are supposed to trust someone we cannot even watch from half a world away that they will not harm source code or be a risk to security?

Of course there is always hidden Malware to consider. Really nice of them to put in a back door or virus or trojan to access the corp system after the Indian programmers are let go when the project is over.

Oh yeah, the myth that it is cheaper. Consider the Hidden costs of Ofshoring nothing like a project going over budget and full of bugs and needing US developers to fit it. Once again, where is the beef? That quality is just not there once again.

It seems that India is America's silent partner. We may not even hear about it during the election year. When a government is more interested in rewriting copyright laws so that the RIAA can sue 13 year-old girls and fair use is out of the picture, I wonder who our politicians really work for? Certainly not the US Citizens, only Corporations. So of course they support the wholesale slaughter of US IT Workers and the export of IT jobs overseas.

Ah but there is a big risk involved in Offshoring. Sort of like taking all the company stock to Las Vegas and betting it all on number 35 on the Roulette Wheel. :) Just ask those who craft the contracts about the risks involved.

Nice to meet the people that are taking the jobs moved to India. Also nice to know they are not concerned that US Workers are losing their jobs to keep the Indian workers employed. I'd think if I was given a job at someone else's expense that I would quote my religious or culutral references instead as well when asked to respond to that. :)

Maybe we should personalize the US IT Workers too. Here is Bob, he worked for a Fortune 500 company for the past 15 years developing award winning programs and his work gained the company many patents. Bob holds a Masters in Information Systems. Management decided that he earns too much, so he was terminated and his job was sent with many others over to an IT sweatshop i

SCO is offering a bounty of a quarter million dollars to anyone providing information that leads to the arrest of the virus writer. Here's the article.

But what is SCO so worried about? It's not like their business model involes selling anything...

You can get a Neuros 20gig for $200. That's an upgradable 20gig player with built in FM transmitter.

And open source firmware / software.

So in fact you can get a 'much larger capacity' for $50 less.

Not to mention when the Li-Ion battery dies, it's $12 to replace, as opposed to the iPod, which costs about $106 to replace.

More choice quotes from the article:

Dean also suggested that computer makers such as Apple Computer, Dell, Gateway and Sony should be required to include an ID card reader in PCs--and Americans would have to insert their uniform IDs into the reader before they could log on. "One state's smart-card driver's license must be identifiable by another state's card reader," Dean said. "It must also be easily commercialized by the private sector and included in all PCs over time--making the Internet safer and more secure."

"On the Internet, this card will confirm all the information required to gain access to a state (government) network--while also barring anyone who isn't legal age from entering an adult chat room, making the Internet safer for our children, or prevent adults from entering a children's chat room and preying on our kids...Many new computer systems are being created with card reader technology. Older computers can add this feature for very little money..."

Does anyone who really understands computer security seriously believe this proposal would prevent cybercrime? Seems to me that it would only help state and federal governments track legitimate users who haven't found ways around the nannyware.

--
When guns are outlawed, only outlaws will have guns.

Howard Dean's 'smart ID' plan

Are all you hip digirati still down with Dean?!!!

The new desktops appear to be a slick interpretation of Microsoft's new licensing terms and a way to navigate customer demand for PCs without an OS installed. The Microsoft licensing terms, which were put in place on Aug. 1, specify that PC makers must ship PCs with an operating system. The new policy exists to prevent piracy and to better track OS shipments.

Howard Dean's 'smart ID' plan

By Declan McCullagh
CNET News.com
January 26, 2004, 5:18 AM PT

COMMENTARY--After Howard Dean's unexpected defeat last week in Iowa, public attention has focused on his temper, his character, and that guttural Tyrannosaurus bellow of his not-quite-a-concession speech. But Dean's views on Americans' privacy rights may be a superior test of his fitness to be president.
Dean's current stand on privacy appears to leave little wiggle room: His campaign platform pledges unwavering support for "the constitutional principles of equality, liberty and privacy."

Fifteen months before Dean said he would seek the presidency, however, the former Vermont governor spoke at a conference in Pittsburgh co-sponsored by smart-card firm Wave Systems where he called for state drivers' licenses to be transformed into a kind of standardized national ID card for Americans. Embedding smart cards into uniform IDs was necessary to thwart "cyberterrorism" and identity theft, Dean claimed. "We must move to smarter license cards that carry secure digital information that can be universally read at vital checkpoints," Dean said in March 2002, according to a copy of his prepared remarks. "Issuing such a card would have little effect on the privacy of Americans."

Dean also suggested that computer makers such as Apple Computer, Dell, Gateway and Sony should be required to include an ID card reader in PCs--and Americans would have to insert their uniform IDs into the reader before they could log on. "One state's smart-card driver's license must be identifiable by another state's card reader," Dean said. "It must also be easily commercialized by the private sector and included in all PCs over time--making the Internet safer and more secure."

The presidential hopeful offered few details about his radical proposal. "On the Internet, this card will confirm all the information required to gain access to a state (government) network--while also barring anyone who isn't legal age from entering an adult chat room, making the Internet safer for our children, or prevent adults from entering a children's chat room and preying on our kids...Many new computer systems are being created with card reader technology. Older computers can add this feature for very little money," Dean said.

There's probably a good reason why Dean spoke so vaguely: It's unclear how such a system would work in practice. Must Internet cafes include uniform ID card readers on public computers? Would existing computers have to be retrofitted? Would tourists be prohibited from bringing laptops unless they sported uniform ID readers? What about Unix shell accounts? How did a politician who is said to be Internet-savvy concoct this scheme?

Perhaps most importantly, does Dean still want to forcibly implant all of our computers with uniform ID readers?

Unfortunately, Dean's presidential campaign won't answer any of those questions. I've tried six times since Jan. 16 to get a response, and all the press office will say is they've "forwarded it on to our policy folks." And the policy shop isn't talking.

Then there are the privacy questions. To curry favor among the progressive types who form the backbone of his campaign, Dean has positioned himself as a left-of-center civil libertarian. He's guest-blogged for progressive doyen Larry Lessig, embraced the Brady Bill and affirmative action, told audiences on the campaign trail that the Bush administration has "compromised our freedoms in the name of fighting terrorism," and pledged to repeal parts of the USA Patriot Act.

It's difficult to reconcile Dean's current statements with his recent support--less than two years ago--for what amounts to a national ID card and a likely reduction in Americans' privacy. "Privacy is the new urban myth," Dean said in that March 2002 speech.

"I know of no other Democratic candidate who has this view on national ID," said Chris Hoofnagle, ass

So I looked around a bit, and through google I found a back door to Dell site that provides information. But the link cancels after fifteen minutes, so I can't post it here. It appears that this page is only for people associated with corporations, governments, education, and health care. It looks as though the general public cannot buy an n-series computer through Dell's main site.

I did a bit more searching in google and found a news.com story about the n-series. It was posted back in August. Of 2002.

From the Dell page I got access to, I was unable to tell if the company reduces the price for people who choose the n-series instead of the identical windows-equipped machines. It'll be a great thing when tier one PC companies readily make consumer boxes available without Windows, and pass along a discount. I don't think that day has yet arrived.

Check out this article, it's from August 2002.

I wonder what was holding them back.

Howard Dean wants a federally mandated identification chip (linked to your state id) and id readers in EVERY computer. You'd even need it to access the internet, with limits on your access based on your information! Talk about big brother.

Howard Dean's 'smart ID' plan

By Declan McCullagh
CNET News.com
January 26, 2004, 5:18 AM PT

COMMENTARY--After Howard Dean's unexpected defeat last week in Iowa, public attention has focused on his temper, his character, and that guttural Tyrannosaurus bellow of his not-quite-a-concession speech. But Dean's views on Americans' privacy rights may be a superior test of his fitness to be president.
Dean's current stand on privacy appears to leave little wiggle room: His campaign platform pledges unwavering support for "the constitutional principles of equality, liberty and privacy."

Fifteen months before Dean said he would seek the presidency, however, the former Vermont governor spoke at a conference in Pittsburgh co-sponsored by smart-card firm Wave Systems where he called for state drivers' licenses to be transformed into a kind of standardized national ID card for Americans. Embedding smart cards into uniform IDs was necessary to thwart "cyberterrorism" and identity theft, Dean claimed. "We must move to smarter license cards that carry secure digital information that can be universally read at vital checkpoints," Dean said in March 2002, according to a copy of his prepared remarks. "Issuing such a card would have little effect on the privacy of Americans."

Dean also suggested that computer makers such as Apple Computer, Dell, Gateway and Sony should be required to include an ID card reader in PCs--and Americans would have to insert their uniform IDs into the reader before they could log on. "One state's smart-card driver's license must be identifiable by another state's card reader," Dean said. "It must also be easily commercialized by the private sector and included in all PCs over time--making the Internet safer and more secure."

The presidential hopeful offered few details about his radical proposal. "On the Internet, this card will confirm all the information required to gain access to a state (government) network--while also barring anyone who isn't legal age from entering an adult chat room, making the Internet safer for our children, or prevent adults from entering a children's chat room and preying on our kids...Many new computer systems are being created with card reader technology. Older computers can add this feature for very little money," Dean said.

There's probably a good reason why Dean spoke so vaguely: It's unclear how such a system would work in practice. Must Internet cafes include uniform ID card readers on public computers? Would existing computers have to be retrofitted? Would tourists be prohibited from bringing laptops unless they sported uniform ID readers? What about Unix shell accounts? How did a politician who is said to be Internet-savvy concoct this scheme?

Perhaps most importantly, does Dean still want to forcibly implant all of our computers with uniform ID readers?

Unfortunately, Dean's presidential campaign won't answer any of those questions. I've tried six times since Jan. 16 to get a response, and all the press office will say is they've "forwarded it on to our policy folks." And the policy shop isn't talking.

Then there are the privacy questions. To curry favor among the progressive types who form the backbone of his campaign, Dean has positioned himself as a left-of-center civil libertarian. He's guest-blogged for progressive doyen Larry Lessig, embraced the Brady Bill and affirmative action, told audiences on the campaign trail that the Bush administration has "compromised our freedoms in the name of fighting terrorism," and pledged to repeal parts of the USA Patriot Act.

It's difficult to reconcile Dean's current statements with his recent support--less than two years ago--for what amounts to a national ID card and a likely reduction in Americans' privacy. "Privacy is the new urban myth," Dean said in that March 2002 speech.

"I know of no other Democratic candidate who has this view on national ID," said Chris Hoofnagle, ass

I have NO icons on my windows desktop as I think it looks horrible, they're always covered by various app windows anyway - and it seems that people with dozens of icons spend ages looking for the one they want. Most of the time I'm not using the mouse so it makes me quicker getting work done.

Howard Dean's 'smart ID' plan


By Declan McCullagh
CNET News.com
January 26, 2004, 5:18 AM PT

COMMENTARY--After Howard Dean's unexpected defeat last week in Iowa, public attention has focused on his temper, his character, and that guttural Tyrannosaurus bellow of his not-quite-a-concession speech. But Dean's views on Americans' privacy rights may be a superior test of his fitness to be president.
Dean's current stand on privacy appears to leave little wiggle room: His campaign platform pledges unwavering support for "the constitutional principles of equality, liberty and privacy."

Fifteen months before Dean said he would seek the presidency, however, the former Vermont governor spoke at a conference in Pittsburgh co-sponsored by smart-card firm Wave Systems where he called for state drivers' licenses to be transformed into a kind of standardized national ID card for Americans. Embedding smart cards into uniform IDs was necessary to thwart "cyberterrorism" and identity theft, Dean claimed. "We must move to smarter license cards that carry secure digital information that can be universally read at vital checkpoints," Dean said in March 2002, according to a copy of his prepared remarks. "Issuing such a card would have little effect on the privacy of Americans."

Dean also suggested that computer makers such as Apple Computer, Dell, Gateway and Sony should be required to include an ID card reader in PCs--and Americans would have to insert their uniform IDs into the reader before they could log on. "One state's smart-card driver's license must be identifiable by another state's card reader," Dean said. "It must also be easily commercialized by the private sector and included in all PCs over time--making the Internet safer and more secure."

The presidential hopeful offered few details about his radical proposal. "On the Internet, this card will confirm all the information required to gain access to a state (government) network--while also barring anyone who isn't legal age from entering an adult chat room, making the Internet safer for our children, or prevent adults from entering a children's chat room and preying on our kids...Many new computer systems are being created with card reader technology. Older computers can add this feature for very little money," Dean said.

There's probably a good reason why Dean spoke so vaguely: It's unclear how such a system would work in practice. Must Internet cafes include uniform ID card readers on public computers? Would existing computers have to be retrofitted? Would tourists be prohibited from bringing laptops unless they sported uniform ID readers? What about Unix shell accounts? How did a politician who is said to be Internet-savvy concoct this scheme?

Perhaps most importantly, does Dean still want to forcibly implant all of our computers with uniform ID readers?

Unfortunately, Dean's presidential campaign won't answer any of those questions. I've tried six times since Jan. 16 to get a response, and all the press office will say is they've "forwarded it on to our policy folks." And the policy shop isn't talking.

Then there are the privacy questions. To curry favor among the progressive types who form the backbone of his campaign, Dean has positioned himself as a left-of-center civil libertarian. He's guest-blogged for progressive doyen Larry Lessig, embraced the Brady Bill and affirmative action, told audiences on the campaign trail that the Bush administration has "compromised our freedoms in the name of fighting terrorism," and pledged to repeal parts of the USA Patriot Act.

It's difficult to reconcile Dean's current statements with his recent support--less than two years ago--for what amounts to a national ID card and a likely reduction in Americans' privacy. "Privacy is the new urban myth," Dean said in that March 2002 speech.

"I know of no other Demo

Howard Dean's 'smart ID' plan


By Declan McCullagh
CNET News.com
January 26, 2004, 5:18 AM PT

COMMENTARY--After Howard Dean's unexpected defeat last week in Iowa, public attention has focused on his temper, his character, and that guttural Tyrannosaurus bellow of his not-quite-a-concession speech. But Dean's views on Americans' privacy rights may be a superior test of his fitness to be president.
Dean's current stand on privacy appears to leave little wiggle room: His campaign platform pledges unwavering support for "the constitutional principles of equality, liberty and privacy."

Fifteen months before Dean said he would seek the presidency, however, the former Vermont governor spoke at a conference in Pittsburgh co-sponsored by smart-card firm Wave Systems where he called for state drivers' licenses to be transformed into a kind of standardized national ID card for Americans. Embedding smart cards into uniform IDs was necessary to thwart "cyberterrorism" and identity theft, Dean claimed. "We must move to smarter license cards that carry secure digital information that can be universally read at vital checkpoints," Dean said in March 2002, according to a copy of his prepared remarks. "Issuing such a card would have little effect on the privacy of Americans."

Dean also suggested that computer makers such as Apple Computer, Dell, Gateway and Sony should be required to include an ID card reader in PCs--and Americans would have to insert their uniform IDs into the reader before they could log on. "One state's smart-card driver's license must be identifiable by another state's card reader," Dean said. "It must also be easily commercialized by the private sector and included in all PCs over time--making the Internet safer and more secure."

The presidential hopeful offered few details about his radical proposal. "On the Internet, this card will confirm all the information required to gain access to a state (government) network--while also barring anyone who isn't legal age from entering an adult chat room, making the Internet safer for our children, or prevent adults from entering a children's chat room and preying on our kids...Many new computer systems are being created with card reader technology. Older computers can add this feature for very little money," Dean said.

There's probably a good reason why Dean spoke so vaguely: It's unclear how such a system would work in practice. Must Internet cafes include uniform ID card readers on public computers? Would existing computers have to be retrofitted? Would tourists be prohibited from bringing laptops unless they sported uniform ID readers? What about Unix shell accounts? How did a politician who is said to be Internet-savvy concoct this scheme?

Perhaps most importantly, does Dean still want to forcibly implant all of our computers with uniform ID readers?

Unfortunately, Dean's presidential campaign won't answer any of those questions. I've tried six times since Jan. 16 to get a response, and all the press office will say is they've "forwarded it on to our policy folks." And the policy shop isn't talking.

Then there are the privacy questions. To curry favor among the progressive types who form the backbone of his campaign, Dean has positioned himself as a left-of-center civil libertarian. He's guest-blogged for progressive doyen Larry Lessig, embraced the Brady Bill and affirmative action, told audiences on the campaign trail that the Bush administration has "compromised our freedoms in the name of fighting terrorism," and pledged to repeal parts of the USA Patriot Act.

It's difficult to reconcile Dean's current statements with his recent support--less than two years ago--for what amounts to a national ID card and a likely reduction in Americans' privacy. "Privacy is the new urban myth," Dean said in that March 2002 speech.

"I know of no other Demo

I would like to see a patent license in addition to coverage of the actual source under copyright and an existing open source license.

If the patent isn't necessary, why has Red Hat done it? Also, the Eolas browser plug-in patent was issued Nov. 17, 1998; I'm quite sure Microsoft had implemented IE before then, yet Eolas still won at least the first round of battle. (See also news.com reporting on the issue.)

Finally, you're saying that defending a patent infringement lawsuit is cheaper than filing a patent? I still find that hard to believe.

It's his own fault. He should have held out for a monster truck

The next generation wireless standard is positioning itself as an alternative to cable and DSL broadband access. Your location may be a prime candidate. Should not have the latency problems of satellite.

I won't make any claims on the validity of these numbers{---Google Cache
Since i couldn't find the Yahoo Article they mention
- $12 a chipset
- 97% less power consumption than Intel Centrino in standby mode
- 70% less transmit power consumption
- 90% less receive power consumption
- 802.11g "not that far away"
~And this was October 2003

Friendster and Orkut

A few days ago ronebofh handed me an invite to Orkut, Google's new Friendster clone. I played with this for about 48 hours, adding and inviting various friends to my network and reading the messages that percolated through the network -- probably the only feature of Orkut I'll get much use out of. I'm a married person, not looking for a date, and not living in the Bay Area.

The topic of every message: Orkut itself. According to one message, any random friendless person can conveniently post a message that reaches thousands of users via their friend "networks." In other words, insanely convenient spammage. Another poster replied that this sort of endless nitpicking is sure to turn Orkut into yet another "hippie echo chamber." I think they opened for the Flaming Lips last week at the Trocadero.

Tonight Orkut has been shut down to "implement some improvements and upgrades suggested by users." In their defense, the Google staff point out that Orkut is in beta and they did warn us this sort of thing could happen. Ticked off, I decided to check out Friendster, which I somehow skipped up until now.

When I got to Friendster's site, I was surprised to see that Friendster also describes itself as a "beta" version. And that gave me some sympathy for the Orkut administrators, who are only trying to use the word "beta" to mean what "beta" is supposed to mean:

• Beta means "outsiders are welcome to play with this, but don't trust it with your life."
• Beta means "we have run out of ways to break it ourselves and really need some outside input now."
• Beta means "if something breaks, that's good; give us specific and detailed feedback, and don't whine."

But "beta" is not the most offensive phrase on the Friendster home page. "Patent pending" is much worse. A patent on online social networking? I'd laugh if it wasn't so... no, wait, I am laughing. Give me a break, here. Surely this is nonsense no one takes seriously. Right?

Wrong, wrong, wrong, according to this news.com story. sixdegrees patented online "social networking" sites in 2001. Two Friendster-like sites have acquired the patent. Now everyone in the field is furiously writing patent applications.

I'd like to invite you all over for a beer, but I can't afford the intellectual property fees.

SCO's actions seem rather hard to distinguish from organized shake down techniques. What would it take to get a RICO investigation started? The Feds seem to have little trouble with another three-letter acronym for fraud - maybe another few months and they'll get to the latter part of the alphabet?

Or does hiring a U.S. Senator's son automatically indemnify SCO from RICO prosecution?

Chuck D was angry over the label telling him he could not post his own music and Polygram even threatened to sue if the tracks were not removed. This was before Mp3s and filesharing were in the press much. Here is a quote from Chuck D on the matter:

"If you make something for 90 cents, how can you justify to sell it for $9?" he said. "I believe that the fan is the most important, and the fan's been ripped off by the companies pimping technology."

From News.com article: http://news.com.com/2100-1023-218807.html?legacy=c net

http://zdnet.com.com/2100-1104_2-5145332.html

Israel's Finance Ministry recently threatened to move thousands of PCs to open-source software, until Microsoft agreed to its demand to purchase individual applications from the Microsoft Office package.

I think most organizations are using Free Software against Microsoft as bargaining leverage,
or at least more than truly prefer Free Software.

Dammit, how'd that link get in there. Try this one.

The defendants merely asked the judge to throw the case out on the basis of the allegations set forth in the counterclaim being "too vague".

Think of it of a text book pre-trail motion; it doesn't really have anything to do with the material case at hand. Plus, the lawsuit is going to get (at least partly) suspended until all the appeals of the Grokster case are sorted out. At least, Judge Wilson doesn't seem to a man who bows down to pressure.

The company also said it would make "100 percent" of its patent portfolio royalty-free for noncommercial use by the academic community.

Apparently the German patent office looks diligently for prior art (or used to). TechRepublic Geek Trivia