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T-Mobile already has plans to do it.

MS paid it: http://www.news.com/2100-1014_3-5255715.html ; I read about the bank account in the newspaper (as in: the paper version), as a side note to an interview with EC commissioner Kroes. Sorry, no link.

One day, maybe in the not too distant future, there will be an article on /.

It will read like this:


Your Rights Online: MPAA admit that everything they have said for the last 5 years has been a practical joke
Posted by kdawson on Tuesday Cantrembember 75th @ 27:00
from the i-knew-it department
Anonymous Coward writes: The MPAA has finally admitted what a lot of people on Slashdot have suspected for a while. Everything they've done for the last 5 years was all part of a practical joke.

"The lawsuits, the absurd DRM, the crazy "the entire industry is going to collapse" rhetoric - we never believed any of this crap", said a spokesman. "What actually happened was someone suggested that perhaps we could somehow start announcing these ridiculous ideas, record the reaction then release it as a movie. Kind of like The Truman Show, only much much bigger." Has the MPAA finally gone too far? Will this lead to their ultimate collapse? Quiver with excitement. Tremble with fear. Eat peanuts with raisins.

There is some precident in this if the copyright holder objects - http://www.news.com/2100-1030_3-6145744.html from news.com, plus the issue of deep linking has always been contentious. However, agreed that TV links linked only to media, but they also wrapped the media in their own picture window. rather than taking you to the media directly, they did open it up in a popup window that was affiliated with TV Links. Not saying this is right or wrong, but it opens up the whole embedding of content issue. They really should go after the source, not the linking systems. But then some linking systems might be easier to take down. Another will take its place, that is the humor part of this, the whole hydra issue.

Not that it really matters anyway. Seriously, I was looking at vgchartz.com and according to their numbers, the Xbox360 outsold the Wii for only two weeks. During that two weeks, it sold about 25,000 more units than the Wii. However, the first week after the Wii regained it's weekly sales lead, it outsold the 360 by 16,000 units, and the week before it lost its weekly sales lead it outsold the 360 by over 45,000 units. Seriously, those two weeks that the 360 outsold the Wii are irrelevant. MS has had it's day (or two weeks I suppose), but when the fastest selling game can't get your console above a "number two console", then you have to start eating some humble pie. I guess that's why he left.

Wow.... just wow. The Wii's success is a blessing? I would say that's more of a curse, as Nintendo is not only making money on software sales, but on hardware sales as well. How much money is the 360 bringing in? Not as much, seeing as how the 360 is not going to be profitable until 2008. (And this is despite shipping and selling almost a year ahead of time)

And with 8.19 Million units sold vs. the 360's 6.72 million units sold I think it's a little easier to tell who the winner is.

Console mods for the 360 may be successful, but they're also being blocked from the main reason for having a 360.


I hate responding to trolls like you, but come-freaking-on. Does it hurt to lie through your teeth like that?

These guys seem to have a shockingly stupid understanding of the Internet and copyright, even if you ignore the fact that they're claiming to be expert lawyers on Internet-related issues.

They appear to be experts in bullying bloggers into removing adverse comments from their sites and representing spyware authors. I don't think copyright's actually one of their core strengths...

I can't recall a single example in history where a software innovator was rewarded by their patent

Look at Eolas vs. Microsoft. Microsoft paid 0.5 billion to settle the lawsuit (it was that or removing Internet Explorer).

See: http://www.news.com/2100-1032_3-5173287.html

You could argue that Eolas didn't invent anything, but certainly they could have invented something and protected it, or just protect something somebody else invented.

The point is that software patents work.

If it's the government you are worried about, I wouldn't be concerned with how long it would take them to brute force.

They'll just sneak into your house when aren't there and install a keylogger on your computer to get your passphrase. It's not like they haven't done it before

With that kind of power, why even worry about brute force attacks?

Hey, remember the antitrust case? A federal Judge concluded that Microsoft committed "violence" against the marketplace. :-P

D

Here's a brief note from 2002...

actually TMR read heads offer a much larger change in resistance than GMR readheads, generally all read heads are TMR based, if you check the pictures put up on http://www.news.com/2300-1041_3-6213399-2.html?tag=ne.gall.pg then you can see that it is infact TMR based read head. i guess someone got it wrong with GMR somewhere along the line. that sad however it is more difficult to scale the TMR head when compared the the GMR head. im still sure its TMR based though.

the real problem with storage density though is the disk itself and not really the read head, since the information is stored on the disk as magnetic information, there is a limit to how small the a space the data can physically occupy on the disk (imagine it like two magnets being squeezed closer and closer together, eventually they will interfere with each other) since the advent of Perpendicular Magnetic Recording (PMR) the density has increased.

also the write head is still quite large, and some companies try to use lasers to heat up the area below the write head, this has the effect of making the magnetisation on the disk easier to switch. research on this is particularly active in the university of nijmegen in the netherlands.

maybe solid state will get better than hardrives, but until the price is comparable the magnetic recording industry wont really stop, so we can look forward to increasing HDD density. which leaves lots of storage for us end users :) maybe we dont need 4TB per disk, but it doesnt hurt to have it eh?

Hitachi's CPP-GMR head

So nobody's been payint attention to Innovalight in the news lately?

They have the cheaper and more efficient technology:

http://www.news.com/Pour-yourself-a-silicon-solar-panel/2100-11392_3-6213132.html?tag=nefd.top

www1.eere.energy.gov/solar/solar_america/pdfs/41741.pdf

Multiple Exciton Generation is where it's at. Only nanoparticle quantum dots can achieve that, and it's the means to get the highest solar efficiency, because it 's about generating multiple electrons of current for each photon absorbed by your photovoltaic material.

I want small drone airplanes continuously flying above the major highways and streets and broadcasting the observed view over a TV-band. Anybody with a compatible set within range will then be able to observe traffic incidents, police traps, and road repairs in real time.

Supposedly, our military's use of such things is rapidly growing. Police use is growing too. Hopefully, the technology will allow peaceful civilian use soon.

It can be advertising-sponsored — the images may display an advertising logo in a corner of the screen, or something...

I don't have insider information. I am not a spokesperson at this time. This is just my opinion.

Basically, BEA wants to stay indepdenent, because it lets us do interesting things if we keep shareholders happy. And, by and large, we had been doing just that for the past 3 years, until licenses started to fall earlier this year. Wall Street forces a quarter by quarter mentality that's very hard to meet in a midsized company, in my opinion, given that the nature of "infrastructure software" involves longer sales cycles than when the dot-com bubble kept the "J2EE app server" purchase orders flowing in.

For those that suggest BEA's WebLogic is somehow commoditized and is the source of all of our woes, please understand a few things:

- BEA sells a *lot* more than an app server. Both Tuxedo and WebLogic Server have not been a sales focus for years at BEA, at least in North America -- Tux is still growing in Asia. The core products are still a cash cow, so we invest most of our R&D into it, but it doesn't account for the growth we've had since 2002. Most of that has been from Portal, Integration, and the new AquaLogic stuff.

- BEA contributes a lot to Java open source -- it's on the Eclipse board, it runs two Apache projects, is a major contributer and partner with Interface21 (the Spring guys), etc.

- Open source has never been BEA's biggest competitor. IBM and Oracle are. Really. The reason is that a major portion of BEA's sales focus is on enterprise license deals in the $million$ range. In the smaller deals, that's more likely where you see .NET rearing its head a lot. Sure, there is some JBoss (and a lot more Tomcat!). But, JBoss generates around $22 million annually. BEA makes that in under a week. And lest you say "But, this doesn't measure the free deployments!", we (and Oracle) don't care about those -- most companies aren't going to adopt an open source software solution for a production use without at least a support contract! Support , subscription, consulting, etc. is how RedHat is viable, it's also how BEA makes most of its revenue.

- BEA's *new* license growth had fallen recently, but maintenance and overall revenue continues to rise. That means that, the *rate* in which our middleware is being acquired is slowing for us as of late, not that people have somehow stopped buying our stuff. So, yep, we could be doing a better job improving & selling what we have with AquaLogic and WebLogic, but it's not doom and gloom times here. Maybe it will be better under another company, I donno. Part of the problem is that pure "middleware" in general is a hard sell, as companies like TIBCO are also feeling right now -- SOA was the latest trend, with some reasonable enthusiasm and growth associated with it, but the real fortune was made in the peak of the dot-com boom, and it's hard to replicate that sort of hype. Oracle sells middleware along side applications, databases, security suites, etc., so it's not quite as hard to sell the business on the benefits.

- I have no idea what the article is talking about with regards to SAP. I think NetWeaver is a crap pile, but that doesn't mean they're dead if they don't buy us. They could go open source, or improve it.... People stick with SAP because they're locked in, not because NetWeaver is supposed to be better.

- Even if this deal doesn't go through, BEA is viable enough to stay independent. It has over $1B in the bank, it generates high free cash flow, and if we could get this stock options review over & done with, we could actually have some good information for the Street to price us properly. The question really is about the stock price -- whether the shareholders think we can raise it on our own, or someone else can do a better job of it.

Anyway, I've been pretty happy with the company for the past 3 years. Regardless of what happens, it's exciting times.

There probably isn't much running through Australia either. They have an extreamly poor connection to the outside world when compared to places like the US or the UK.

There was actually a map of undersea cables a few years ago that I managed to dig up.
http://www.news.com/2300-1033_3-6035611-1.html

The small companies are the ones that are keeping the major carriers from gouging the end user. They are able to resell the product at a lower price which keeps the major carriers honest. It is true that they don't offer anything different than the major carriers. I don't see that as being a bad thing. By offering the same thing and doing it at a lower price, they keep the market competitive.

Wiki, as with any other source of information, must be used in combination with critical thought. I use Wiki all the time but I also click all relevant links, do other searches from other trusted sources to gain corroboration, just as you should with all information. Wiki is a great starting point IMO, but using it as a sole source of information flies in the face of critical thought. Even the Encyclopedia Britannica has errors in it, for which Wiki is considered nearly as accurate.

At some point, just as with all other encyclopedia's, information will change, evolve, and even grow, but it will slow down after the initial "job" is done. Be sure, it's still growing, just at a slower pace. This seems logically normal.

> I hope she brings Fox the same integrity and good business sense that she brought to HP.

I'm sure we will.

Now we'll finally get the answer to the question "Which is harder? Running a first rate company into the ground, or being a Bush economic policy apologist?"

For those of you keeping score at home, in this corner, we have the person who helped bring down HP's stock by more than 50% and missed earnings targets. In the other corner, we have the economic policy that turned $250 billion budget surpluses under Clinton into $300 billion budget deficit in just two years!

Sounds like a perfect match.

The FBI has already used a court order to do this in at least one criminal case but Onstar responded with a suit that recently was ruled on in appeal:

"The 9th Circuit Court of Appeals said Tuesday that the FBI is not legally entitled to remotely activate the system and secretly use it to snoop on passengers, because doing so would render it inoperable during an emergency."

http://www.news.com/2100-1029_3-5109435.html

This only applies in California, Oregon, Nevada, Washington, Hawaii, and other states that fall within the 9th Circuit's jurisdiction so I presume the FBI can still do this in other areas. If the FBI can avoid interfering with the service itself when using it for interception then the order blocking this activity may not matter.

They cited the Atlantic v. Howell case to instruct the jury in the Minnesota case.

I tried posting the paragraph from the document and encountered a filter here on slashdot.

you'll have to read for yourself

You asked how to make your product a disaster by selling a million units. I told you how. Units sold is about as effective as MHz as a measure of performance. It doesn't tell the whole story, and the story in Apple's case will be told in another week or so. Q4 conference call is due soon. AAPL is going to get murdered if their core business doesn't make up for the slack iPhone sales.

Do you think they even managed a million units this quarter? If they only moved 730,000 units in 72 days I'd be really surprised. It is looking like 900,000 in 90 days to me. Maybe they had some explosive demand for iPhones in the last half of the September, but I wouldn't bank on Apple having sold one million phones this quarter. Even if they do, it's still bad news. They did it at $399 per unit. Any way you look at it, it's a major revenue shortfall.

Bad news for a company hoping to sell 10 million in the first year. I'm sure Steve will dress it up though and say 1.2 Million since the debut, because 5-10% under one million is going to sound really bad for a company with a 51 PE ratio. The only way they can maintain numbers like that is to maintain the "growth stock" image. You do remember how Wall Street received the news about the cube don't you?

Over the last 10 years AAPL has been an unreal performer. They're a f'ing stock market superstar. Nobody can touch that record. But I believe they will be taking their lumps with the iPhone. No need to argue about it, we'll know in a few more days.

Facebook Marketplace launched on May 13, while Facebook Platform launched on May 24th. The developer would've have completed two rounds of time travel to show it (for reasons unknown) to Facebook.

First, thanks for a great site. I read something about "20 hour days" keeping the site afloat, and I believe it was required. For those of us who enjoy it daily (along with Dwight Silverman's column) it can be a real lifeline, especially when work is ultra-boring.

Just a few questions:

1. You oversaw the "internet revolution." Beyond Al Gore inventing it, beyond the dot-com hype, beyond the spam and the sockpuppets, what do you think is the future of networked communication? Is it the cloud OS and social networking, or are we rounding another bend?

2. You've mentioned liking Postgres DBs. What other underrated hardware and software do you enjoy and employ on a regular basis?

3. What emergent technologies do you watch?

4. In the Wired interview, you mention a balance between wise crowd tendencies and dumb crowd tendencies:

"When you're building a system like this you're balancing the wisdom of the crowds versus the tyranny of the mob. Sometimes a crowd is really smart, but some things don't work so well by committee. Crowds work when you have a tightly knit group of people with similar interests, but when you have a loosely knit community you get 'Man Gets Hit in Crotch With Football.'"

What have you learned is the balance of this duality? For all of its attempts to be crowd-wisdom propelled, Slashdot does lean on the theory of exceptional individuals, because it has picked editors to filter what makes it to the front page, which cuts down on the "site-rhymes-with-bigg" tendency to put rosy garbage on the front page. Are you satisfied with the balance of your responses to whatever psychological fulcrum keeps a crowd wise and not mobbish?

5. What if any fiction authors do you enjoy?

6. I'm a technical writer, and am curious what you think about the current state of software and hardware documentation. Is it getting better? What are its common failings? Does anyone read it? Will single-sourcing (documentation that appears in print, online help, web sites, flash cards and text messages but uses the same text) change documentation's effectiveness radically?

7. In the CNET article, you talk about Slashdot as a community.

"But to some of our readers, it's a community that's here to discuss issues that are relevant to this community. There is a lot of value. The bulk of our content comes from other people. There are 6,000 or 7,000 comments on a busy day that other people write and just a dozen stories of just a paragraph or two that we actually generate, that are ours."

As you started out in BBSs, you probably had a prexisting idea of this being important to a resource on technology. Why do you think this is?

8. In the same interview, you talk about the ability of low-tech websites to take on big roles:

"I think that it really comes down to the content. If you have content people want, they will tolerate a system that is inferior. Now our system is solid, but back in the day, it wasn't. Look at eBay: That system is the most hodgepodge and clumsy user interface that you will ever find. People use it because it was first and it worked."

In the world of advertising, people call this branding. What do you think Slashdot's brand represents, and is it something IT workers will always have in common?

9. In the Network Administrator interview, you compare Slashdot to bulletin board systems favorably.

"Strangely not that far. It's all just a matter of scale. At some level it's all identical."

You mean in twenty years, not much has changed except the technology? I'd like to hear more on this if you find it compelling.

10.

As I commented on http://blogs.zdnet.com/microsoft/?p=794

---
Gates explained it in 1998

I voted for "To try to grow IE 7's marketshare by adding software pirates to the count"; to partially quote what Bill Gates said in 1998:

"we want them to steal ours. They'll get sort of addicted, and then we'll somehow figure out how to collect"

http://www.news.com/2100-1023-212942.html

The 'addiction' can only happen if IE7 gets a vast-majority market share like IE6 had.

Now look at http://members.shaw.ca/Limulus/files/w3sbw2-0706.png

The numbers from w3schools.com aren't necessarily indicative of the overall web, but I've found the trends they show are.

Compared to the IE5 -> IE6 transition which was rapid and fairly X shaped on the graph, the IE6 -> IE7 tansition has stalled, with IE7 having plateaued at a level *less* than IE6.

This is very bad for Microsoft, as it represents a prolonged vulnerable state. Since IE6 and 7 are different enough that they need to be treated separately by developers, the difference in market share between IE7 and Firefox is small enough that website developers must take the latter into account too and thus support it (even if you take the Net Applications numbers http://marketshare.hitslink.com/report.aspx?qprid=6 to be fully accurate, and I don't, you'll note that the ratio of FF:IE7:IE6 is about 2:5:6. If it was all IE6, that would be 2:11) And if Firefox is supported, there will be less sites that are IE-specific, meaning less 'addiction' to IE.
---

There's the old story about DES, and how the NSA improved the cipher, but refused to say exactly why the new version was better...

Yes, the NSA weakened Lucifer by reducing the key size. No argument there. But they changed two other aspects of the algorithm -- the complete redoing of the values of the S boxes, of course, and they also added the staggering of the permutation step. Both changes were made without public explanation, and were the fuel for the paranoia surrounding DES.

But as you say, that's a pretty old story, and it long ago was given an ending. After the civilian cryptography community discovered two "new" attacks, in 1994 an IBMer by the name of Don Coppersmith revealed the actual reasons for keeping the changes secret.

It wasn't until Biham and Shamir discovered differential cryptanalysis in the late '80s that the value of the S box and permutation schedule became apparent -- the values provided maximum uncertainty increasing the amount of chosen plaintext required to successfully attack a key. Later, Mitsuru Matsui discovered an more powerful variant of differential analysis called linear analysis, but careful selection of the S box values minimized the amount of information revealed by this attack, too.

After the public announcement of the discovery of differential and linear analysis, Coppersmith released a paper detailing the strength of DES against these exact attacks. In it, he says "After discussions with NSA, it was decided that disclosure of the design considerations would reveal the technique of differential cryptanalysis, a powerful technique that could be used against many ciphers. This in turn would weaken the competitive advantage the United States enjoyed over other countries in the field of cryptography." So the secrecy was not that DES was weakened, but to hide the reasons why it was strengthened!

As Schneier once pointed out, the NSA's biggest mistake was allowing DES to be made public. It taught civilians (and therefore potential enemies) a great deal about strong cryptography. Coppersmith's paper confirmed his assumption. Without DES, who knows what cryptography would look like today? We might all still be thinking Enigma machines are secure.

http://www.news.com/2100-1041_3-5931232.html maybe I'm wrong, things do change quickly. But, they, Stanford, have a lot of content that is in a proprietary format.

Earn credibility... read the post you're replying to. There is such a thing as Microsoft SQL Server 2003, which was what I posted. Also, at least one company has been on the wrong end of an audit despite being little more than "a few licenses" out of compliance - eg. http://www.news.com/2008-1082_3-5065859.html - I don't know how big the company is but if it's any significant size, "a few dozen licenses" is nothing.

So you're going to trust someone who has already pirated at least 1 copy in the past, that they'll stop doing it?

It happens. Sometimes it happens without agreeing to an audit.
http://www.news.com/2008-1082_3-5065859.html

but it would, invariably, result in revenue for Microsoft, so it would be worth-while for them.

Not always. Sometimes the move isn't as dramatic or as public as the story in the link below.

http://www.news.com/2008-1082_3-5065859.html

Often it is much more quiet as the gears start rolling. For me personally, this stuff is a major factor in why I avoid Microsoft EULA licenses and discovered the wonderful world of open standards and open source.

It started with WGA and product activation. I have way too many computers to keep up to date at retail prices. Due to the MS way of doing things, my family has 3 versions of MS Office. My old PIII has a copy of Office 97. It still has the OEM Windows 98 on it. (Don't fret, it's dual boot and only boots Windows for the GPS software which is Windows only) The Wife's XP machine has my copy of Office 2000 which was free from work. Her new laptop for her masters degree came with Vista. Through my employer's homeware agreement with Microsoft we picked up a copy of Office 2007 for a nominal fee of about $20. It is valid only while I am employed with the company. The compatibility issues between versions is a pain in the backside, but providing the same version on all machines is way too expensive.

On the other side, all my machines have Open Office. The license is such that I am permitted to install it on every machine in my home (and give away copies to friends). Do you see a trend here? Incompatibile versions and single install licenses or a a site wide license so all machines can have the same version for the home.

As the Open Document Format becomes standardized it should be obvious to anyone why Open Office and other ODF compatible office software is going to erode Microsoft's market. Tightening the screws is only going to accelerate the adoption of alternatives.

If you have more then 2 computers (laptop and desktop) because you have a family, keeping them all in sync with per seat software is expensive. You either have to decide to spend a lot, or figure out which machine gets the office software. With the competition, everyone can have a legal copy on their desktop and laptop.

After introduction to Sum Microsystems Star Office (home site license for all machines) and then Linux and Open Office, The Microsoft License doesn't look very good for a family SOHO. I can deal with slightly less mature software instead of the big dent in the bottom line.

When I truly need the Microsoft product due to some requirement, I can borrow the wife's laptop. For everything else, Open Office is what I am using. It is on both my laptops, my kids machine, my daughters laptop, my main machine, and my old PIII Dual boot machine. This is the migration that MS can't stop.

This attack vector isn't new however its spreading more and more as time progresses. What I find to be a worst attack vector are the ad servers such as Doubleclick, Akamai, etc.:

Yahoo's Right Media had Trojans in banner ads
Posted by Elinor Mills

For several weeks starting in early August, visitors to MySpace, Photobucket, Bebo and other high-traffic Web sites were exposed to banner ads that contained Trojan horse software that could wreak havoc on a computer.

Web security company ScanSafe tracked the malicious ads back to Yahoo's Right Media network and estimates that they ran several million times, according to The Washington Post's Security Fix news site. (source

• never used "pirated" software,
• never smoked a joint,
• never drank while under age,
• never downloaded a "pirated" song (or for that matter made a mix tape)

Laptop heat a threat to fertility

http://www.news.com/Study-Laptop-heat-a-threat-to-fertility/2100-1044_3-5485763.html

I wouldn't hazard a guess as to whether this problem actually applies to very many people who read Slashdot, though.

This is not only old news, but it came direct from a quoted, named, Intel representative! C|Net story from July 20th

No, google maps is the first SPONSORED LINK

The first result is the one for the YAHOO MAPS service, which wasn't even part of the options the poster asked about. In addition, Yahoo is notorious for setting up temporary alliances for using other vendors services, such as yahoo used to use google for it's searches. Reference this link for more details. http://www.news.com/2100-1024_3-5160710.html

Then, not only was google not the second result on the list, you had to scroll down to find theirs, and MSN's link is even lower.

So apparently, according to the pagerank algorithm, more people tend to not think so highly of msn or google maps.

They _do_ have to pretend to care that you want to go with a carrier other than who they have a contract with (AT&T).

Wow, you drank the Kool-Aid. It seems AT&T pays Apple for each subscriber on a monthly basis, how much and what for are in dispute. In your twisted representation, Apple would love nothing more to allow you to go elsewhere but for some other reason, AT&T would cry. Based on my reading, I see that Apple wants the single vendor relationship for its own benefit. The reality is Apple would lose the monthly fee for every subscriber not using AT&T. With at least 1 million phones and a few bucks a month ads up to a decent monthly income for Apple. If you do not think that is the reason, you need to take off the Apple glasses and look again.

Here are some links
http://www.unstrung.com/document.asp?doc_id=133945
http://www.macnn.com/articles/07/07/19/piper.iphone.income.share/
http://www.news.com/8301-10784_3-9747031-7.html
http://macdailynews.com/index.php/weblog/comments/14997/

You can search for Apple revenue sharing AT&T and read more. To think that Apple would not pursue similar kick back deals in other countries would be naive as well.

That was my initial reaction, but then I poked around on the project wiki and noticed that they were specifically trying to get GPLv2 licensed drivers. Then I remembered that Greg K-H was one of the developers who tried to fuck up the release of GPLv3 and the bits all clicked into place. This is Novell trying to ensure that they have a supply of GPLv2 drivers available so that they can continue their filthy pact with Microsoft which will be finished if most people release their work as GPLv3.

The level of obviousness they need to show on appeal to reject the patent application is well below the level an applicant need to show to get it granted. The gap between the two is even greater now:

http://www.news.com/Supreme-Court-loosens-patent-obviousness-test/2100-1014_3-6180220.html

The court just wants to show it's done it's job. In this case the patent office has an extra problem in that it previously granted the patent, so undermined it's own right to reject on the grounds of obviousness. But that just means they have to explain why they're rejecting it now (as opposed to accepting it before), it doesn't mean they don't win by default.

http://www.cbc.ca/news/background/internet/downloading_music.html
http://www.news.com/2100-1027_3-5182641.html

It's the courts that have decided this, based on current copyright law. The Liberal government tried to pass bill C-60, which would have made it illegal, but it failed, fortunately.

Actually you're incorrect. It has been ruled legal with all sorts of other justifications booted on as well.

A quick Google search reveals this news article. That's as much effort as I'm willing to go to for an Anonymous Coward.

"I haven't seen him on FOX News (which I watch several hours a day)"

Then you're lying or you don't watch as much as you claim.

http://www.news.com/8300-10784_3-7-0.html?keyword=jack+thompson

"Thompson, a Miami-based attorney, has been a high-profile crusader against video games and their alleged negative influence on children for some time now, but gained new notoriety in the wake of the Virginia Tech shootings earlier this month for being quick to point fingers at gaming as a root cause of the massacre. He alleged in the court complaint that the commentary from Kotaku readers began to emerge "within mere minutes" of an appearance he made on the Fox News Channel"

That took two seconds to search for.

Anyhting else you want me to show you you're wrong about?

The main problem on any handheld device is usability.

I strongly disagree. While I think phone UIs tend to be far from perfect and agree there's a lot of room for improvement, they're usable. I can start a phone call in a few seconds, sometimes a lot quicker than that.

I think the main problems with today's phones are:

• Trustworthiness. How do I know the mic isn't on and transmitting to someone? (That's not hypothetical anymore; we know it actually happens; theoretical risks are becoming reality.) Why are my conversations still unencrypted in 2007? that's ridiculous. Most of my time spent on my phone is talking with people I regularly meet in the real world. There's just no reason we shouldn't have a nice, big OTP, and PKs for fallback whenever the OTP runs out.
• Lock-in and closedness. Why do I have to pay to get a ringtone onto this thing? (Not that I want my phone to make annoying noises, but there's a principle at stake here.) Why will my phone stop working if I put another network's SIM chip into it? Why do some people have to pay to get photographs that they took, out of their own device?
• Lack of connectivity options. If I'm near a 802.11 network, I should be able to (optionally) use that (perhaps at the cost of more power) for my side of the network connection, instead of the more expensive cell networks. If I'm near the person I'm calling (e.g. "hey, where the hell in this huge building are you?") I should be able to directly link w/out going through anyone's network at all. As long as phone manufacturers and network providers have such a close relationship, we're not going to get these features, no matter how obvious and desirable they are.

Embedding credit card data of the legitimate user into files makes a lot of sense if

1. The files are for personal use only,
2. Everybody knows about it,
3. The data can be read out by everyone, and
4. The data cannot be removed without severely damaging the file's content.

Note that I have not the slightest idea whether there is a technology that could achieve the actual embedding meeting conditions (3) and (4). If there was, however, it would make sense to use it: what else could motivate the legitimate owner of such a file any better to make sure the file will not end up being traded in a file sharing network? I'm serious about it, such a technology could change the economics of file sharing. Well, unless somebody invents disposable credit card numbers. Oh, wait ...

Actually the Article is not that clear who the 6% of developers that are adopting the GPL3. If they are Redhat and IBM and they rather like the GPL3 http://www.news.com/8301-10784_3-6171921-7.html then you have nearly 40% of Linux development. Throw in HP and possibly Novell then you can add another 5% to 10% more. I can't see SUN going down the GPL3 path but then you never know. Can anyone shed any light on this because the article does not really say that much although I did find the source of the data at the Evans Data Corporation site http://www.evansdata.com/ but again that was not that helpful since you have to have to register.

Not bloody likely.

-a.d.-