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http://www.techcrunch.com/2008/09/03/mozilla-fights-back-with-new-firefox-benchmarks/

They'd definitely buy, this is a great buyers market after all. The trouble is that this story was pretty thoroughly debunked yesterday.

In the US, the big three are Google, Yahoo, and Microsoft (in that order). I think Yahoo is around 20% and Microsoft around 10% (very rough estimates, don't quote me). After that, it's mostly bit players (perhaps with the exception of Ask). I'm not sure what the current numbers are but here is a TechCrunch article from June that has more specific figures: http://www.techcrunch.com/2008/06/18/comscore-may-search-data-google-yahoo-up-microsoft-slides/
Market share varies a lot by country, though, so don't assume a similar breakdown worldwide.

He's done a lot. Hear it from him:

TechCrunch interview

That's pretty common. John McCain had an issue with that earlier in his campaign when his MySpace page got hit. The guy who did the original template wasn't keen on having his images hotlinked from such a high volume site and made a hilarious substitution (which was widely misreported as a "hacking" incident in the media).

The AC is dead on. If you depend on someone elses data, they are going to notice, and they are going to remove your access, or, worse, start feeding you crap.

Cue the tape! Fast-forward to minute 5...

LINK: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=92xf94JPoB8&feature=related [youtube.com]

Thanks to the newly-available YouTube deep linking, I think you meant: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=92xf94JPoB8#t=5m

Google is the main contributor to Firefox.

Moneywise, that is. Not so much for the code.

Anyway, Chrome is such a radically different design than Firefox that no amount of code contributions could turn one into another. This is how it has to play out.

Microsoft had always said that the Bill & Seinfield ads were not a campaign unto itself, but an icebreaker, or rather, "phase one". Indeed, it would not surprise me if Microsoft's announcement was all about the new ads, and didn't mention Bill & Seinfield at all.

This would actually make the whole thing make sense. The ads were clearly crappy for the purposes of selling Microsoft. However, they did do a good job of personalizing Bill. Perhaps that was the whole point. Perhaps the grand plan is to use Bill like Wendy's used to use founder Dave Thomas after he left the company.

They couldn't just jump right in doing that with Bill, because we would be going, "Hey, there's that billionaire a-hole on TV!". So they had to first run a primer campaign to soften his image and make him seem like a regular guy. That would totally explain the "move in with a regular family" commercial. Seinfeld would be handy for that, because he's got an image as a regular guy from his TV show. Plus his old fans would be excited to see him again.

If that's what's going on, I'm impressed.

I must be missing something. Cancelled?

Cancelled is what happens when a contract is revoked. As far as I know, Microsoft is continuing with Crispin Porter + Bogusky.

Cancelled is what happens if they were planning to make more of the same vein. I see no indication of that, but of the expectant bloggers.

Microsoft had always said that the Bill & Seinfield ads were not a campaign unto itself, but an icebreaker, or rather, "phase one". Indeed, it would not surprise me if Microsoft's announcement was all about the new ads, and didn't mention Bill & Seinfield at all.

Me thinks Valleywag focused on what they wanted to hear, not what was actually said overall.

Just last week, Google extended their contract with Mozilla for 3 more years. So Firefox will continue to be well-funded for some time yet.

I know this is hardly a journalism site. And let's face it the MSM does the same thing the Author of this piece does. Crap like "Big mouth tech blogger Mike Arrington" isn't proper journalism, it's insulting. The opinion of the writer should never go in the story.

Yeah, I've given up on the networks already.

He is not even correct. "there's no sign of a project site or any other openness yet." I found it in 5 minutes of looking. From http://www.techcrunch.com/2008/07/21/we-want-a-dead-simple-web-tablet-help-us-build-it/ you get "We'll be coordinating the project over at TechCrunchIT. Leave a comment there if you want to participate and weâ(TM)ll be in touch soon." That links to http://www.techcrunchit.com/2008/07/21/the-techcrunch-web-tablet-project/ which continues on at http://www.techcrunchit.com/2008/07/21/techcrunch-web-tablet-part-2/ so it has an open community working on it. Not sure if it is bias or laziness.

... nobody has mentioned Panoramio by now... They do this for a while now with photos you upload, all automagically...

hello again,

I'm not stopping you from getting on with your life or using/enjoying googles free services, far from it, I wish you great enjoyment :)

To label me a 'paranoid freak' for not being 100% gullible about what google is going to do with all that data, and noting that you do not speak for more people than yourself (even though plenty might agree with your, but then again, they might agree with me too) is not exactly friendly.

I've worked for some a big corporation that was datamining the hell out of whatever information they had in order to improve their sales, privacy be damned. I was young and ignorant then, and didn't even realize how wrong it was, but I've gotten a bit more skeptical since then.

I doubt google is much different, the bottom line is what matters to them. The product of google is not search or applications like email or maps, the product is their knowledge about you, the user and to capitalize on that knowledge.

I remember this episode:

http://www.techcrunch.com/2006/06/08/google-research-prototypes-ambient-audio-contextual-content/

And the double click acquisition as well as the amount of pressure that had to be put on google to get them to (finally!) place a privacy policy on their site.

So, how about we do a little wager, say 1,000 euros that before 2015 there will be some major (say > 1000 accounts) breach of privacy that will have googles accumulated user data at its core ?

This would include inadvertent leaks, disclosure of such records to authorities, outright data theft, identity theft and such.

Since I'm just a 'paranoid freak' and you're speaking for 'the rest of us' and you're pretty sure that google is collecting that data in a responsible manner with no chance of mishap whatsoever that should not be a hard decision.

take it ?

    greetings,

      Jacques Mattheij

That will cost you the princely sum of $6.99

As the Washington Post article mentions, Steve Jobs' stated goal for Apple is 10 million iPhones in 2008. A rather modest goal for an industry that pushes more than a billion units a year.

Sure, if you're talking about the entire cell phone market. Most of those won't be a target for an app store. Smart phones are the market, and Apple was able to grab 28% of it even before the iPhone 3G.

For the first half of the year, Apple has only sold 2.4 million iPhones.

No surprise there. Who's going to buy one of the old ones when it's an open secret that a new version will be out soon?

That's why they sold a million 3Gs on the release weekend.

You might as well save your breath. People will cite throw away phones that telcos can't even give away as part of the same market as the iPhone. You're absolutely correct that the future of Telcos in the wireless markets are Smartphones. This is where Apple will be and continue to become the market leader.

As the Washington Post article mentions, Steve Jobs' stated goal for Apple is 10 million iPhones in 2008. A rather modest goal for an industry that pushes more than a billion units a year.

Sure, if you're talking about the entire cell phone market. Most of those won't be a target for an app store. Smart phones are the market, and Apple was able to grab 28% of it even before the iPhone 3G.

For the first half of the year, Apple has only sold 2.4 million iPhones.

No surprise there. Who's going to buy one of the old ones when it's an open secret that a new version will be out soon?

That's why they sold a million 3Gs on the release weekend.

That would work, unless Google itself deletes your account or all of your email.

Backups are meant to cover more than just hard drive failures, otherwise RAID 1/5 would be sufficient.

Also, if you can't backup your data from Google, you can't switch from Google to anyone else, so you are locked in.

McCain and Obama on geek issues. This also covers candidates who have been eliminated from the race.

Isn't this kind of ignoring the Elephant in the room?

According to obama's page, he still thinks the information age will be about "selling bits" as if theyre property.

So now you have a real gamble..

elect someone who is incompetent with tech and hope he either ignores it or utterly fails in the mass initiative against freedom of the internet and consumer rights.

-OR-

elect someone who has shown remarkable savvy and grasp of technology, and has sold out to the DMCA.

Protect American Intellectual Property Abroad: The Motion Picture Association of America estimates that in 2005, more than nine of every 10 DVDs sold in China were illegal copies. The U.S. Trade Representative said 80 percent of all counterfeit products seized at U.S. borders still come from China. Barack Obama will work to ensure intellectual property is protected in foreign markets, and promote greater cooperation on international standards [HELLO ACTA] that allow our technologies to compete everywhere.
Protect Intellectual Property at Home: Intellectual property is to the digital age what physical goods were to the industrial age. [No DMCA reform in our time! hello new "drug war"]Barack Obama believes we need to update and reform our copyright and patent systems to promote civic discourse, innovation and investment while ensuring that intellectual property owners are fairly treated.

McCain and Obama on geek issues. This also covers candidates who have been eliminated from the race.

Techcrunch reckons this is bullshit meant to drive traffic. I'm inclined to agree.

Evernote is a similar application for several platforms. It too is touted as a "backup for your brain."

Its claim to fame is a nice OCR engine. Say you are at a wine tasting event and want to remember a particular wine. You pull out your cell phone, snap a shot of the label, and email it from your phone to your Evernote account. There, the photo goes through the OCR engine, and all recognizable words are added to the indexing.

Later you can do searches on those words to retrieve the image.

review: http://www.techcrunch.com/2008/02/21/extend-your-brain-with-evernote-private-beta-invites/

http://www.techcrunch.com/2008/07/31/wordscraper-hurts-my-eyes/

Unfortunately, it looks not just ugly, but HIDEOUS! :(

Is that sorta like when ski resorts and amusement parks post signs saying that by entering you wave the right to sue them for injury... yet when you get injured because they were negligent you still have the right to sue them?

The problem with people like you is that you just believe whatever ANYONE tells you without questioning anything. And without any understanding at all of your rights.

The NFL airs a warning stating that any rebroadcast or usage of the game w/o their consent yada yada is prohibited.
Do you honestly believe for one second that somehow they get to magically trump fair use? If so then I really hope that you've never discussed any game you've ever watched because according to them you just violated the terms of their license.
Think I'm kidding? Even Microsoft agrees.. http://www.techcrunch.com/2007/08/29/the-tech-industry-wants-you-to-support-the-fight-for-fair-use/

They can tell you how you can obtain it, and transfer it (in the sense that you don't get to duplicate it you have to 'cease any usage' if you wish to give it to someone else) but once its yours their really isn't anything they can do to stop you from loading on whatever hardware you might own, dissassmbing and reverse engineering for your own personal use. Not to say that you can go selling any information you may obtain from such a disassembly but they cant stop you from doing it.

Use your brain for a minute; if they could do something like that don't you think they'd do something really basic to prevent anyone working for a competitor from even using it? Much like when all the warez sites say that by entering you agree you are not a law enforcement officer.

If this were the case wouldn't Psystar or this new company just put up a usage agreement on their website that said warning redisplay of any material in a court of law, or on any computer owned by apple is prohibited?

oh right... yeah...

and I'm not even going to touch on the fact that a minor can't enter into a legally binding contract/agreement.

of course, IANAL, but I'm not a dumbass either.

so here's an idea, go over to wikipedia and read up on EULA's and fair use, and while you are at it check out a page on subject verb agreement since you can't seem to get that right either. Doesnt, were, gets, renders, etc.

half an inch thick with an XGA touchscreen?

http://flickr.com/photos/bumi/285541845/sizes/o/

http://www.techcrunch.com/2008/07/18/facebook-sues-german-social-network-studivz/

http://mashable.com/images/facebookbigshot1.png

Check out the links to the Internet Archive home pages made by other posters, while you're at it. Facebook's home page recently changed, and their additional CSS is because their style sheets link to broad sets of standard styles. You don't mean to imply with a straight face that breaking up the CSS differently is evidence that it was written originally, or that even if it was, that it's not intended to duplicate arbitrary choices made by Facebook designers, do you?

Explain to me why all the unique content coding at studiVZ is in German, while all their PHP is in English, and named exactly the same as the includes, libraries, and function pages as Facebook.

I think this is a case of Sales guy vs web dude.

Oh I don't know. How about this or this.

Oh I don't know. How about this or this.

Given the insane draw that the magic "iii-Phoooneee" (cut briefly to random gumby skit) has, I wouldn't be surprised if it killed any server farm. But I really don't care if the "early adopter" mobs had to wait six hours to activate their new phones. People who want to wait in lines... wait in lines. People who want the smoothest possible experience... wait a few days or weeks for the crowds to thin and the initial bugs to be worked out.

I'm a big fan of usability, and IMHO the iPhone is head and shoulders above other smartphones in that regard. Since I work for a living, my time is important; if an iPhone saves me one minute per day it pays for itself a few times over each year.

But the coverage these days on everything Apple makes is ridiculous. It's a great phone. It's not the second coming of Christ. There are very important things happening in the world right now; why are we getting worked up because a gadget got updated today, a zillion people rushed out to get it, and they're now slash... er, iPhone-dotting a server farm?

Forgive me for getting political, but it'll all be over tomorrow. FISA won't.

To put it in a geek context, one word: Silverlight.

From the article:

NBC has contracted with Quantcast Corp. to get a sense of who is using NBCOlympics.com.

In that case, all the Linux and Mac users being blocked by Microsoft's dodgy deal with NBC should head over to http://www.nbcolympics.com/ and make sure they know the decision to block us was a bad one. Bonus points for leaving the site, and never returning, when you hit a lame 'platform not supported' message (I hit one in the Video section).

I just tried looking at a few videos on that site, and it requires Silverlight. Why can't they use flash like everything else?

Microsoft Silverlight Gets a High Profile Win: 2008 Beijing Olympics.

NBC got incentivized. After Microsoft failed to gain control of Yahoo to use it as a channel to force Silverlight dominance, the NBC agreement was the fallback.

I don't see how this can apply to anyone doing non forensic computer repair. However, looking at section 1702.104 and the exemptions in section 1702.324 I can see a couple of interesting places this law could apply.

The obvious one, which is not a new idea, relates to companies like MediaDefender performing investigations on behalf of the RIAA and MPAA. They act like a private investigator but do not have a licence to do so (obtaining or furnishing information related to identity, habits, location, transactions, etc of a person with computer-based data not available to the public (subsections (a)(1)(B) and (b) )); MediaSentry role in RIAA lawsuit comes under scrutiny.

The non obvious one deals with anyone who works with clickstream data, e.g. NebuAd,Doubleclick, Google, etc. They all obtain information to do with a person and subsection (a)(1)(B) is a huge or statement. Since identity is one of these ors you could define a person using a unique identifier, only track habits, location, affiliations, or transactions, and still possibly be subject to this.

Is a unique identifier a person? It could be, AOL Proudly Releases Massive Amounts of Private Data

" AOL has released very private data about its users without their permission. While the AOL username has been changed to a random ID number, the abilitiy to analyze all searches by a single user will often lead people to easily determine who the user is, and what they are up to. The data includes personal names, addresses, social security numbers and everything else someone might type into a search box.

The most serious problem is the fact that many people often search on their own name, or those of their friends and family, to see what information is available about them on the net. Combine these ego searches with porn queries and you have a serious embarrassment. Combine them with "buy ecstasy" and you have evidence of a crime. Combine it with an address, social security number, etc., and you have an identity theft waiting to happen. The possibilities are endless. "

Something to think about... But then again, IANAL and not even an American so what would I know.

Sec. 1702.104. INVESTIGATIONS COMPANY.
(a) A person acts as an investigations company for the purposes of this chapter if the person:
(1) engages in the business of obtaining or furnishing, or accepts employment to obtain or furnish, information related to:
(A) crime or wrongs done or threatened against a state or the United States;
(B) the identity, habits, business, occupation,knowledge, efficiency, loyalty, movement, location, affiliations, associations, transactions, acts, reputation, or character of a person;
(C) the location, disposition, or recovery of lost or stolen property; or
(D) the cause or responsibility for a fire, libel, loss, accident, damage, or injury to a person or to property;
(2) engages in the business of securing, or accepts employment to secure, evidence for use before a court, board, officer, or investigating committee;
(3) engages in the business of securing, or accepts employment to secure, the electronic tracking of the location of an individual or motor vehicle other than for criminal justice purposes by or on behalf of a governmental entity; or
(4) engages in the business of protecting, or accepts employment to protect, an individual from bodily harm through the use of a personal protection officer.

(b) For purposes of Subsection (a)(1), obtaining or furnishing information includes information obtained or furnished through the review and analysis of, and the investigation into the content of, computer-based data not available to the public.

What i don't like about MySpace is all the crappy-assed, jacked-up coloration and crazy-ass fonts some of my friends use. Some are so horrendous that they are very hard to read, and more often than not i cannot intercept the crap by hitting the "stop" button to prevent the css shit from taking over the reasonable readability of things. So, i might only visit MySpace maybe 2-3 times a week whereas just last year I'd be on it 2-3 times a day.

Also, facebook (branded as "facebook", not "Facebook"... see Wikipedia...) has FEWER users in the US than does MySpace... about half as many (36.x M vs ~76M, respectively).

http://www.techcrunch.com/2008/06/12/facebook-no-longer-the-second-largest-social-network/

Moreover, facebook's gain is mainly from Canada, an increasing number in Asia, and lots of European locales.

Also, facebook's founder/s may be back in court based on information dug up from their hard drives about the origins of facebook code. However, the ConnectU people had previously signed off on a settlement, which is trying the patience of the judge on the case.

See:

http://www.silobreaker.com/DocumentReader.aspx?Item=5_868446983

What'll be interesting is to see if Korea's CyWorld will make massive inroads into the US market than they already have. Granted, it's a different culture, probably a vastly more impressive per capita penetration and appreciation of personal technology there than in the US among the younger demographic, so that may explain CyWorld's massive popularity in Asia. But, outside of Korea, CyWorld has opened up more, but in non-Korean, and with fewer features and such than available in the Korean-based CyWorld system. It would be interesting if CyWorld and the facebook systems blended but without diminishing either one...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cyworld

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Korean_web_culture

http://www.micronichesocialnetworks.com/cyworld.html

And, the SINA topic...

http://english.sina.com/technology/1/2008/0620/167775.html

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Internet_in_the_People's_Republic_of_China

Four ? Maybe you mean Five. How about AT&T's Pogo Browser
Techcrunch is handing out invites to the Beta program.

http://www.techcrunch.com/2008/06/02/going-medieval-time-warner-begins-metered-bandwidth-testing/#comments/

AT&T and Comcast have both indicated that they will soon start metering bandwidth as well.

Who's going to win? Cisco or Time Warner? Bandwidth won't be doubling if the ISP providers start limiting users to 40GB/month and charging $1/GB overage. All the companies like Youtube and Netflix providing streaming video will see traffic drop to Nil if Mom & Dad have to pay $1GB in overage.

Apple hires a lot of workers at the lower end of the 'food chain', which skews their average salary.

The sample comes from people giving their salary to glassdoor.com and, presumably, describing themselves as software engineers. TFA shows a comparison of salaries for "Software Engineer(s)", not for all employees.

They do, in the UK you can purchase the new iphone on the pay as you go deal, which means no contract you pay the full price for the phone and you can do as you wish with it. Here is some info from the O2 deal.

Am [sic] thoroughly disgusted by the illegal activities of these music companies and their hypocrisy.

Hypocrisy is not illegal. "Illegal activities"? Let's see:

Sony infected many computers with a dangerous trojan, which would have sent any hacker to 40 years in Prison, and they escaped conviction or even a fine.

Well, that's simply a lie. Sony BMG had plenty of legal troubles over it, with various suits getting settled or still on-going. I now ask you to present a single case of hacker going to jail for 40 years for anything — not just installing a trojan, which has not, actually done anything wrong to the user itself (only exposed them to other harm).

RIAA has been ruled against many times in court and ordered to pay lawyers fees to a poor single mom, and still they are loose: No arrest, no seizure of their equipment, etc.

Why should they be arrested? They did pay, what they were ordered to pay...

MediaSentry and other RIAA hackers violate state laws in Montana, California, Texas and a host of states and yet continue to operate even though they are illegal. None has been sued yet and their findings are valid in a court of law: Its like a thief acting as a witness to a houseowner against another thief.

MediaSentry and other RIAA hackers have done no harm. Using their results against thieves (I'm glad, we agree on the term here) is certainly good. And before you get too outrage, let me remind you of a case, when a thief sued a house-owner for damages after breaking a leg on a poorly-maintained staircase, which the thief had to used to escape capture... It happens — thief is prison for robbery, but the house-owner's insurance had to pay him for "pain and suffering"... There are also numerous cases of robbers suing their victims over being shot.

RIAA would be happy if the whole internet shut down tomorrow

So, you want the FTC (the Executive) to prosecute this thought-crime ?

but they still can produce music at zero cost and sell it for $29.99 an album.

As long as the following conditions are true:

1. Nobody forces music buyers to buy it from RIAA.
2. Nobody forces musicians to sell it to RIAA

The Baidu search engine should show its middle finger publicly at RIAA and also sue them for defamation.

The Baidu search engine should die a thousand deaths by choking on its own bile. They are propped up by China's (routinely evil) government, they are complicit in the government's censorship — and benefit from it. They are winning in mainland China over Google, not because of being better, but because they facilitate copyright infringement — and nobody over there cares, because the losers are usually not Chinese.

Am [sic] thoroughly disgusted by the illegal activities of these music companies and their hypocrisy.

Hypocrisy is not illegal. "Illegal activities"? Let's see:

Sony infected many computers with a dangerous trojan, which would have sent any hacker to 40 years in Prison, and they escaped conviction or even a fine.

Well, that's simply a lie. Sony BMG had plenty of legal troubles over it, with various suits getting settled or still on-going. I now ask you to present a single case of hacker going to jail for 40 years for anything — not just installing a trojan, which has not, actually done anything wrong to the user itself (only exposed them to other harm).

RIAA has been ruled against many times in court and ordered to pay lawyers fees to a poor single mom, and still they are loose: No arrest, no seizure of their equipment, etc.

Why should they be arrested? They did pay, what they were ordered to pay...

MediaSentry and other RIAA hackers violate state laws in Montana, California, Texas and a host of states and yet continue to operate even though they are illegal. None has been sued yet and their findings are valid in a court of law: Its like a thief acting as a witness to a houseowner against another thief.

MediaSentry and other RIAA hackers have done no harm. Using their results against thieves (I'm glad, we agree on the term here) is certainly good. And before you get too outrage, let me remind you of a case, when a thief sued a house-owner for damages after breaking a leg on a poorly-maintained staircase, which the thief had to used to escape capture... It happens — thief is prison for robbery, but the house-owner's insurance had to pay him for "pain and suffering"... There are also numerous cases of robbers suing their victims over being shot.

RIAA would be happy if the whole internet shut down tomorrow

So, you want the FTC (the Executive) to prosecute this thought-crime ?

but they still can produce music at zero cost and sell it for $29.99 an album.

As long as the following conditions are true:

1. Nobody forces music buyers to buy it from RIAA.
2. Nobody forces musicians to sell it to RIAA

The Baidu search engine should show its middle finger publicly at RIAA and also sue them for defamation.

The Baidu search engine should die a thousand deaths by choking on its own bile. They are propped up by China's (routinely evil) government, they are complicit in the government's censorship — and benefit from it. They are winning in mainland China over Google, not because of being better, but because they facilitate copyright infringement — and nobody over there cares, because the losers are usually not Chinese.

Wikia Search needs time. Like Jimbo says, when he started Wikipedia he called it an encyclopedia, even though at the time there were no articles. Wikia Search is still Alpha and people should stop thinking its a finished or even practically usable search engine. (Here is an interesting conversation with Jimbo (read the comments))

BTW: There seems to be some confusion about Wikia and Wikipedia. Short info:
* Wikipedia is a free encyclopedia that uses MediaWiki and is run by the Wikimedia Foundation
* MediaWiki is a popular Wiki-Engine
* Wikimedia Foundation is a non-profit organization that runs Wikipedia and several sister projects
* Wikia is a for-profit organization that has _nothing_ to do with Wikipedia _or_ the Wikimedia Foundation! One of their projects Wikia Search; but they also host many Wikis. The only thing Wikia has in common with Wikipedia is that it uses MediaWiki and was started by Jimbo Wales.

Everyone loves to shit on Google for things like censorship while forgetting Microsoft's cenorship in China and their usual abuses. Before we stick our dicks in Google's virtual poo hole too hard over this:

Microsoft Beats Google To Online Health Records With HealthVault October 4, 2007
http://www.techcrunch.com/2007/10/04/microsoft-beats-google-to-online-health-records-with-healthvault/

"Its not often that Microsoft gets the drop on Google. But today it launched HealthVault in beta, a free online repository where anyone can keep their personal health records. Meanwhile, Google Health has yet to launch, having recently lost its leader Adam Bosworth.

With HealthVault, you can import your health records from your doctors, hospitals, labs, prescription drug plans, and other healthcare providers. You can also type them in yourself, or upload data from personal health monitoring devices such as glucose or blood-pressure monitors. The site also incorporates a health-specific search engine like Healthlines (here is the results page for glucose), and lets you save your searches. Microsoft plans to make money through health-related search ads, but says it wont target those ads to any personal data in someones stored medical record. Access to the site will require a Windows Live ID and a password that you can share with healthcare providers. Patient privacy will obviously be a major concern here, and fears of compromising it will likely be the biggest hurdle to adoption among both consumers and their doctors.

But it is worth trying to overcome that hurdle. Getting people to embrace digital personal health records is a Holy Grail for both the healthcare and technology industries. By making health records accessible on the Web to both patients and their doctors, better tracking of medical conditions and quicker responses to changes in those conditions could yield vast improvements in healthcare outcomes. Dangerous symptoms could be spotted earlier by doctors, while at the same time patients would have the information necessary to better take care of themselves. A shift to widespread use of online personal health records is the first step needed to change the focus of the healthcare system from one of constantly treating full-blown ailments to preventing them in the first place."

Where was the outcry over Microsoft's Health Vault?

Where was your outcry over Microsoft's censorship in China? Does it still continue?

Quit rubbing your penis over Google's issues when they give you so much compared to Microsoft, or are you just cozy and warm knowing Microsoft is evil and that's okay?

CNet has been struggling recently and that valuation seems too high, but traditional media have a bad habit of paying too much for aqcuisitions of tech companies.... Comcast Acquires Plaxo, even though nobody can figure out how to make money AOL Acquires Bebo (popular, but not enough to justify almost a billion dollars) CBS (again!) Acquires last.fm (popular among bloggers but eclipsed by other sites in the real world) the only big media deal I can think of in recent years that was a good bet was Newscorp's undervalued' acquisition of myspace.

They could improve video quality and have a free section and a pay section

This typically evolves into a "pay only" section, where the focus gets drawn away from the "free" zone as it's not paying off, they'll try to milk more money from the user.

Youtube is just a bunch of crap now.

I thought the concept behind "youtube" was that the user is the content uploader. Hence it getting as polluted. However there are gems of movies and clips on youtube (in my case, I find some documentaries and lectures well worth watching). I agree the whole "community" and "viral (*me too*) public video communication" is crap. I don't like it either; so I don't spend time watching. The search in YouTube is intelligent enough to not offer me to watch this "crap" if I'm not searching for it.

If you mean the quality of the videos are "crappy", then it basically depends on the quality of the users' equipment. YouTube would be working at a HD content delivery.

Unprofitable business models continue to abound in the internet world. Visit http://www.techcrunch.com/ to see a roster of profitless companies with names like Greedr, Feebo, Dumbr, and a whole host of "this was the only domain name I could find" companies who continue to give away the farm and pray for revenue on the other end.

I understand that there is stress involved with having to keep up with a reader base that expects content 24 hours a day, but I agree with all of the people who suggest hiring more staff to meet the demand if you can afford it. But I still think bloggers should just be happy that they are getting paid for what they do at all. Most aspiring/freelance writers would happily take the "stress" written about in this article in exchange for earning MILLIONS (or even anything more than $20-30K/year) in exchange for what they do. Don't forget that if you are blogging full-time and performing no other job, you are not a doctor or a professor or a lawyer or an engineer, you are a writer. Let's look at the average salaries for journalists, shall we? I think the current system is as fair as it can be. Hm, Michael Arrington apparently reviewed the PayScale website. Maybe he should have actually used it.

Actually, it is almost identical, in a "Vivendi Universal is totally going to sue" sort of way, to the old Sierra On-Line network / Imagination Network.

Imagination network screenshot
MyTopia Screenshot

This is about ISP guidelines changing so they obide to requests of copyright holders concerning illegal sharing of their material, and, only on Winny. And this is actually already done in larger scale in the US, and hence the outcry, and the retraction of some actions. This story is more symbolic than anything. Those with a clue have already switched to the latest platform, and they are in the clear. This is more of a PR move to get people to think p2p is bad and banned and to not even try it. This works to some extent, and looking at how even some people in the US think p2p is now illegal in Japan, it shows how the gullible news agencies are willing open to manipulation for an excuse to print something outrageous.

On yahoo the title of their featured story was "Japan to ban file sharers". This made my friend think file sharing became illegal by law in Japan. The original article is titled "Japanese ISPs to ban file sharers", which changes the scope completely. But even this is overblown, because ISPs aren't really making the move, the Associations are. So complaining to your ISP is like complaining to the writer who was forced to go on strike. There is a huge difference.

In Japan, copyright enforcement is far stronger. Selling illegal copies of Gundam DVDs on an auction site will not only get you arrested, but it will get you on the 6 o'clock news. Counterfit merchandise is illegal to bring into the country, and will get confiscated at customs if you are caught. So the fact that the Associations have to create their own rules might be a sign of weakness on their part, as it implies they failed to get the necessary laws created to get the police to enforce an outright ban.

There is also the background of Winny. The author has already been arrested and charged, and that is probably the prime reason the Associations feel they can take the extra leap against that specific platform. There have also already been arrests regarding file sharers on Winny. Winny is also nutorious for viruses and spyware. What's worse is many of the public Winny servers (initial nodes) keep changing, meaning Winny is a broken platform at this point, although it does seem some updates have been made since I last checked.

Although I am not sure if those that get banned won't be arrested, if they don't, then I am sure they would prefer the disconnection over an arrest. The Associations may just be looking for an easier alternative before calling the cops.

Forget about the instances where Google loses your mail but having an archive of all of your e-mail would be useful if you're forced to be offline, and need to access your mail. God knows that's why I POP my Gmail to my laptop: so I can refer to my mail as I work on the plane.