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Acer Plans a Million Chrome OS Netbooks, New E-Reader

Read More http://www.wired.com/gadgetlab/2010/01/acer-plans-a-million-chrome-os-netbooks-new-e-reader/#ixzz0nvf3Zfpt

from January 25, 2010

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"Pirates sue Rockstar for using and distributing unlicensed cracks."

I hope the crackers seriously stick it to them. Copyright length, game DRM and licensing really don't make any sense to me. Honestly I really am upset that I paid for ~$40 for Contra on the NES back in 1990 only to have to pay $8 for it on the Wii today with no ability to transfer it from that device to another. How many more times must I pay for the Contra license to what is the exact same game?

Just keep your old systems and you won't have to buy a new version idiot. You're the exact type of person that companies don't want purchasing their hardware/software because you expect things like unlimited support, free upgrades and the ability to transfer that product to any device you want. All for something that is $8. It's no longer business when it's costing you money to supply people with stuff it's called charity.

I hope the crackers seriously stick it to them. Copyright length, game DRM and licensing really don't make any sense to me. Honestly I really am upset that I paid for ~$40 for Contra on the NES back in 1990 only to have to pay $8 for it on the Wii today with no ability to transfer it from that device to another. How many more times must I pay for the Contra license to what is the exact same game?

I think you're confused. Most hacker groups actually enjoys games and encourage to buy the originals if you like them after testing the warez version. I don't think they're going to be interested in suing a game vendor.

[The US Military] already demonstrated to the rest of the world that their toys can knock your toys out of the sky. And that is the unquestioned belief right now which is why China had to run a similar test

For the incident mentioned in the blurb, it was the other way around... China killed a satellite, THEN we shot one down for the first time in years; exactly why, I don't know. The capability wasn't new for the US so I guess it was just a friendly reminder.

Oh you've got to be kidding. They had the lockout chips on the NES to prevent *third party manufacturers* from producing games.

Nope. The lockout chip had a minor impact with forcing development companies to use Nintendo's fabrication plant at highway-robbery prices, but it was conceived with the idea that "pirate companies" (based in locations like Russia, Hong Kong, and Brazil or even showing up in places like Akihabara right in Japan) would be unable to copy the cartridges easily. Today, these same companies Nintendo was worried about can slap quite literally the whole NES/SNES library into a small memory card, jack it into one of a dozen NES/SNES-on-a-chip implementations inside a cheap knockoff playstation-ish controller with a battery bay and a set of RCA leadouts, and you get shit like this.

They stuck with the cartridge format on the N64 because, despite people's tolerance for awful load times on the PlayStation, the CD just was not ready for the kind of experience that Nintendo provides.

By which you mean what, precisely - games that have crappy polygon outputs with no textures? A dozen pokemon turdbombs?

They bled developers on the Gamecube because Microsoft and Sony waved wads of cash at dev studios to get themselves exclusives

BZZZZT! Try again. They bled developers on both the N64 and Gamecube because developers were tired of getting jerked around Nintendo, tired of Nintendo trying to charge them out the yin-yang for proprietary fabrication plant usage. Here's a hint: Final Fantasy VII went to the Playstation not because of the media, but because Squaresoft was fed up with Nintendo's wanting them to censor the fuck out of their games, and it's no coincidence that the only bones they've thrown Nintendo since have been the kiddyfied crap-tastic "Crystal Chronicles" series.

The bleeding continues on the Wii because of some inexplicable desire by the major studios to compete with each other at the ultra-high end HD segment in some sort of pissing war, rather than going with the platform with a 50% market share.

Nope. The bleeding continues on the Wii because it's a gimmicky console. They can make games for a pair of consoles that, collectively, carry higher penetration than the Wii does singularly. They can make games for a pair of consoles between which porting is actually rather simple these days. They cannot, *easily*, backport the same games to the Wii's "two gamecubes duct-taped together" architecture, and nobody really knows what to do with the Wii's motion controller, as evidenced by the fact that the various games with motion controls either do it (a) really badly or (b) attach a stupid fucking gimmick to it, like having you shake the controller instead of just hitting Button B in order to launch a special move.

Sure you could claim it has "50% market share." The problem there though is that it has the wrong kind of market share. Want to know the average number of games bought a year by a Wii owner? TWO. Average games bought by a 360 or PS3 owner? SIX. Most of the "market penetration" of the Wii is units bought by grandparents who just keep it around either to use Wii Fit or Wii Tennis, and that's all they play when their 6-year-old grandkids come over.

Hey speaking of which - tell your grandparents hello and give your grandma a big kiss on the cheek when you visit them to use their Wii, wouldja?

http://www.wired.com/thisdayintech/2010/05/0513parking-meter-patent/ since http://www.wired.com/thisdayintech/ is just an index and will change soon.

http://www.wired.com/thisdayintech/2010/05/0513parking-meter-patent/ since http://www.wired.com/thisdayintech/ is just an index and will change soon.

"Pirates sue Rockstar for using and distributing unlicensed cracks."

There's another way you can sue them. Abondonware rights were added to the DMCA that made it legal to crack games that are "no longer being sold or supported" for your own personal purposes of archival. Now, it's still illegal to distribute those cracked games. So the people who cracked it might have a claim that they cracked these games for their own archival purpose after Max Payne left stores and did not distribute them. But the great part is that you don't need to sue them, you can write that up in a letter notifying the ESA who will take them to court and, effectively, may sue the copyright holders for distributing a cracked game even though they own the copyright on it. After all, it just might fit the description of abandonware and set precedent one way or the other.

I hope the crackers seriously stick it to them. Copyright length, game DRM and licensing really don't make any sense to me. Honestly I really am upset that I paid for ~$40 for Contra on the NES back in 1990 only to have to pay $8 for it on the Wii today with no ability to transfer it from that device to another. How many more times must I pay for the Contra license to what is the exact same game?

The "finder" made no attempt to locate the actual owner,

.. except that the finder DID contact the actual owner - Apple. Next time, please RTFA, mkay?

OK, there's like three (3) problems with that claim.

• "A friend of Hogan’s then offered to call Apple Care on Hogan’s behalf, according to Hogan’s lawyer. That apparently was the extent of Hogan’s efforts to return the phone." For all we know, said friend didn't even call Apple's tech support line.
• If you know the name of the guy the phone belongs to (and they did), why on Earth would you call some tech support guy in India? You expect the Apple Care guys speak for Apple on the issue of iPhone prototypes?
• You're supposed to turn it over to the police if you can't reach the original owner (either Apple R&D or the engineer who lost it).

And that ignores the fact that you're taking as prima facie truth the word of people under criminal investigation.

Well, according to http://www.wired.com/threatlevel/2010/04/iphone-finder/

"The person who found and sold an Apple iPhone prototype says he regrets not doing more to return the device to its owner, according to a statement provided by his attorney Thursday in response to queries from Wired.com."

"A friend of Hogan’s then offered to call Apple Care on Hogan’s behalf, according to Hogan’s lawyer. That apparently was the extent of Hogan’s efforts to return the phone."

And from http://daringfireball.net/2010/04/gizmodo_prototype_iphone

"California’s penal code, section 485: One who finds lost property under circumstances which give him knowledge of or means of inquiry as to the true owner, and who appropriates such property to his own use, or to the use of another person not entitled thereto, without first making reasonable and just efforts to find the owner and to restore the property to him, is guilty of theft."

So the phone was stolen and sold...I'm not clear how the theft of the phone was "Apple's fault"?

Who are getting pissed over privacy. I'm just unhappy (as a 45 year old) that I have to check my privacy settings weekly, and sometimes daily.

http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/10.04/mustread.html?pg=5

About 8 years old, maybe older.

Yes, but since the Congress controls DARPA's budget directly, they effectively control them: http://www.wired.com/dangerroom/2008/09/darpa-budget-sl/

Maybe I'm getting old (in fact, I AM getting old :-) ) but, seriously, I think all that touch interfaces are great... for very specific uses.

Yeah, like a tablet. What did you think Google was developing Chrome OS for? Netbooks? Bwahahahha. The margins in that market are razor-thin. Google is putting together all the pieces for their tablet computer. Someone must have explained to them that chrome was not a suitable interface for an entire computer.

Netbook sales were already leveling off. Looking at the sales figures, they have continued their downward growth trend that started months before the iPad was released. I have no idea how this is stretched into an iPad effect.

• The recession is easing, and people have more to spend on electronics, and are purchasing what they really wanted.
• It appears two of the biggest computer manufacturers Dell and HP are mostly exiting the netbook market.

"Years of heavy use of the broad spectrum herbicide Roundup has led to the rapid growth of superweeds".

Quick..someone mix this "Superweed" with normal weed! They wont be able to make that illegal! We can't be stopped!

It's already happening. Albeit with coca plants.
And the kicker? The new plants have 4x the potency of non-resistant strains.

http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/12.11/columbia_pr.html
http://news.scotsman.com/latestnews/New-super-strain-of-coca.2559109.jp

The quality argument is weak. What do political cartoons have to do with "quality?" What do sex themed apps have to do with "quality?" What about banning an app that fetches books from Project Gutenberg http://www.boingboing.net/2009/05/22/apple-says-no-projec.html ? Quality control in all these cases? What about this one: http://www.wired.com/gadgetlab/2010/04/apple-scratch-app/ ? Was this about quality too: http://www.newser.com/off-the-grid/post/451/creepy-steve-jobs-may-not-want-you-to-read-this-or-will-break-down-your-door.html ?

Apple is not interested in quality, and the argument that they are is nothing more than an excuse from apologists.

They also are kind of bound to keep themselves kid-friendly, which means more adult-oriented accessories are out of their picture -- no Wii-AK-47s or Wii-M16A4s with sniper scopes.

Ah, you must have missed the Wiimote Shotgun Rifle accessory. (I have the Wii Zapper/Link's Crossbow Training bundle too, by the way, which was somewhat disappointing.)

The money isn't there, people just think it is. I've yet to meet an Iphone developer who has even managed to break even with the US$99 a year fee, let alone the cost of buying a Mac. The Iphone market is overcrowded and Apple's restrictions prevent you from creating anything that could be considered new and innovative.

Developing an app for the iPhone is not much different from being a musician or an actor. Most won't make a lot of money but a few will. How many indy artist playing at local pubs can quit their day jobs?

http://www.wired.com/gadgetlab/2008/09/indie-developer/

http://www.mobile-ent.biz/news/33212/iPhone-key-for-EA-this-year

(Just to be honest)
http://www.edibleapple.com/ifart-developer-makes-40000-in-2-days/

Do you really believe that the top 100 in each category aren't making money? Do you think major developers would be developing for the iPhone if there were no profit in it?

They ultimately do not get to decide, but yes, when the EFF filed for an explicit DMCA exemption for jailbreaking, Apple opposed it.

http://www.wired.com/threatlevel/2009/05/apple-v-eff-the-iphone-jailbreaking-showdown/

So what I said is absolutely correct.

Not to mention that fMRI can show that a dead salmon can have feelings.
http://www.wired.com/wiredscience/2009/09/fmrisalmon/
After seeing this it will take a LOT to convince me there is anything at all valid about the method.

http://www.wired.com/wiredscience/2009/09/fmrisalmon/

fMRI is a fairly arcane art- it's nowhere near the "thought detector" most laypeople think it is. The actual practice is rife with the chance to show confirmation bias, given the kind of data filtering that goes on during the process. Check out the link above- scientists were able to show the reaction that a fish had to watching pictures of pleasant situations (babies, puppies, flowers, etc). The fish was dead at the time of the test, however. So, if fMRI can be used to show that a dead salmon has feelings, I'm not likely to trust it for a "lie detector".

I thought kite-power dealt with using the rotation of the kites themselves, not from moving the kite up and down, or whatever it is you're talking about with your 10 meters per day...
"Informative" is not nearly as ideal a moderation as "completely wrong" would be.

Some information sources to explain how this concept actually works:
http://www.wired.com/science/discoveries/news/2006/10/71908
http://www.cnn.com/2010/TECH/05/06/energy.tidal.power.kite/
In case anyone is interested, the second link is in the summary.

Yeah, just ask the salmon

Or is it a conspiracy... http://www.wired.com/epicenter/2010/01/ipad-mini-sim/ Ah, the forbidden fruit of Crapple...looks so pretty but tastes like rotten apples...with worms...

Newsflash: Apple iPad Reaches ‘1 Million Sold’ Twice as Fast as iPhone.

http://www.wired.com/wiredscience/2009/09/colortherapy/

I have a feeling this will be up for a Nobel Prize. It was seriously groundbreaking work and the entire vision science community is excited about it.

At least google doesnt send private 'representatives' to ask permission to 'search' people's homes http://www.wired.com/threatlevel/2010/04/dude-apple/

Google also doesn't make phone hardware. If someone had left one of Google's servers at a bar and a story about it appeared on Gizmodo, I wouldn't doubt that Google would show up asking a few questions.

You're wrong. See Russia's cyberwars on Estonia (2nd story) and Georgia.

iTunes is not in and of itself profitable.

You're a fool. They're celebrating billions of iTunes song sales and you're telling me that they're taking a hit on each of them? Is that why The New York Times calls it a "profit machine"? Is that why Billboard estimates they made a half billion in profit from song sales one year? The most conservative estimate I can find puts them closer to a 10% profit margin on song sales which means that their billions in revenues equates to hundreds of millions of dollars.

I tell you what, though. I'm such a nice guy, I'll take the iTunes Media Service off Steve Job's hands and keep supporting only his iPods. I'll start accepting the "loss" and "risk" you seem to associate it with.

There's no way that Lala could have been profitable.

Really? The pricing structure I laid out for you didn't look like it could possibly net some profit?

Here, let me help you out with what actually happened. Jobs saw Lala make some innovations like 10 cents to stream a song as much as you like. He got a bunch of consultants to analyze what would happen if iTMS started doing that. And they said that he would still make money but it wouldn't be the drastically high amount he makes because those streamers would opt for that instead of buying the full price song. So he had a choice. Take some undetermined loss by meeting Lala's functionality and compete with them ... or drop $80 million and burn Lala to the ground. I think he made the right choice for his company and the wrong choice for consumers and actual competitive capitalism. Can't blame him but you're a fool if you think he's losing cash on iTMS. I'm not even a businessman and this is painfully obvious to me.

True. You can use AdMob to receive ads and display them. However, you cannot send any information about the user, which makes it worthless to any advertising company trying to do targeted ads.

Of course, this isn't true with iAds. How convenient...

CmdrTaco writes:

I've always envied their ability to maintain control over their brand and ...

That reminds me of the time they signed away their book publishing rights and nearly lost the rights to their intellectual property and the name Penny Arcade. Except for that, I agree.
I'm a big PA fan, but they totally needed a business manager. And since I'm writing about him, I love this anecdote about Robert Khoo.

Cameron made piles of money from Titanic, and the actors/crew were paid as they agreed to up-front costs (fee or hourly). Enough that he made it possible for the kind of 3D video behind most modern 3D live-action films from Spy Kidz 3D to Avatar. Cameron gave up his fees voluntarily in order to keep Titanic going.

http://www.wired.com/magazine/2009/11/ff_avatar_cameron/

Fox executives knew it was in their best interest to keep the self-anointed king of the world happy. They decided to overlook the fact that he had given up his financial stake in Titanic and, in the wake of its historic Oscar run, wrote him a check for tens of millions of dollars. (Reportedly, Cameron eventually earned more than $75 million from the film.) He wouldn't have to work another day in his life.

"I had my fuck-you money," Cameron says. "It was time to go play."

Hollywood accounting is notorious, but at least try to come up with something real. Profit-sharing is kinda rare because of Hollywood accounting, so you usually have to go back a little to find an example of where it screwed someone over.

1. Host TOR exit node
2. Eavesdrop on traffic
3. Post results
...
4. Profit!

I'm sure the traffic coming out of TOR is far more interesting than BitTorrent traffic (unless you're a media company).

I'm not going to take the time to make these clickable, because if you're not willing to copy and paste, you only prove my point that you are avoiding news reports about reality:

http://www.dallasnews.com/sharedcontent/dws/news/localnews/stories/DN-arrest_24met.ART.State.Edition1.4c46a6a.html Gee, funny how they didn't get recorded.

http://hardware.slashdot.org/story/10/04/22/2031222/Seattle-Hacker-Catches-Cops-Who-Hid-Arrest-Tapes?from=rss&utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+Slashdot%2Fslashdot+(Slashdot)&utm_content=Google+Reader - yeah, camera didn't help him, did it?

Not directly related, but, uh, cops can lie, and this law is going to target pedestrians as much as drivers: http://www.tulsaworld.com/news/article.aspx?subjectid=11&articleid=20100409_11_A17_Aforme19933

Did a camera save this lady, even though the court admits she broke no law? http://www.wired.com/threatlevel/2010/03/pregnant_woman_tasered/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed:+wired/index+(Wired:+Index+3+(Top+Stories+2))&utm_content=Google+Feedfetcher

Wake up, man. I got all these stories from the first 3 pages of my own link collection at http://delicious.com/clintjcl/abuseofauthority ... If I went through all 76 pages of my link collection, I'd have a litany of examples showing that your attitude is not at all realistic. If I expanded my search beyond those stories I've personally read, I'd have even more.

Go ahead and make an ad hominem attack about my comments on the links. It's kind of what I expect at this point.

I wonder if they found him using the Gizmodo journalist's computer, which according to the EFF, was an illegal warrant.

It sounds like no, they managed to identify him without searching Jason Chen's computer. According to reports, Apple already knew who found the phone before Chen got raided. From that story, it just sounds like the guy showed the phone to a number of people, and some of them must have notified Apple and/or the cops.

you read the article half assedly maybe.

http://www.wired.com/threatlevel/2010/04/dude-apple/

SOME PEOPLE saying that they were REPRESENTING APPLE came to the guy's apartment asked to search the apartment. not prosecutor's office or investigating detective.

It is my understanding his employment was specific in that he would only disclose the password to the mayor alone. This never happened, thus he never disclosed the password.

He did.

source

WTF is he still doing in jail, let alone being found guilty.

Damage is already done. He was found to have broken the law, and whether or not you give the stolen cookies back, you still shoplifted them once and have to be tried for shoplifting.

In his case, with his refusals, he probably pissed away enough taxpayer money on this case, that the DA had no desire to drop the charges. For eventually cooperating, they may sentence him to only a hand-slap like community service or time served and probation, however.

It is my understanding his employment was specific in that he would only disclose the password to the mayor alone. This never happened, thus he never disclosed the password.

He did.

source

WTF is he still doing in jail, let alone being found guilty.

While the US and Soviet-Russia agreed not to develop ASBMs (remember MAD?), the Chinese "communist" regime has been at for over a decade and recently they've been confident enough in their long-range supersonic "carrier-killer" that it's been showcased in the regime's jingoistic TV programming as destroying an Aegis-equipped enemy.

Wired has a feature on this game-changing Chinese ASBM titled China Testing Ballistic Missile 'Carrier-Killer'. There's a link to a delightful youtube cartoon featuring these new Chinese ASBMs wiping out unsuspecting big-noses' aircraft carrier...

To those claiming that the CCP regime doesn't harbour imperialistic ambitions, just ask Tibetans, Uighurs, Mongols, the Zhuang, the countless already-assimilated peoples and pretty much all neighbours of this current "greater China" who've made acquintance with advancing PLA troops...

Didn't Obama give sweet appointments to a bunch of RIAA lawyers?

http://www.wired.com/threatlevel/2009/04/obama-taps-fift/

That being said, we're veering way off-topic. I maintain my position that both parties usually have dirty hands.

... that he was changing for the making of the tapes, as opposed to the software himself. I recall reading this on his site maybe ten years ago. This seemed weird to me, to charge for the menial task rather than the inspired one, and of course the costs of software distribution have now all but evaporated. Besides, what if the coder just can't be bothered with that stuff? It's not what they are valued for perhaps even as a genius (who doesn't eat much).

See: http://beust.com/stallman.html ("RMS was beginning to be successful with Emacs by that time, shipping more and more tapes. These tapes were sold $150 but, he insisted on that point, it was only the price of s&h. The software on it was both free from a pecuniary point of view, but more importantly, free of any intellectual rights. Fearing that these terms might change, RMS felt that he had to quit the MIT if he wanted to be sure that his subsequent works would belong to him completely. The Free Software Foundation was created and took over the distribution of tapes. RMS could now focus on his quest.")

So ... transient idealism?

It is interesting to now read the 1993 Wired view of Stallman's work: http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/1.01/stallman.html

I respect the guy as much as anyone; amanzing contributions (I hadn't heard the EMACS angle, my ignorance). But his business model ... well, I'd still like to know more. The voluntary payment model seemed predominant now, and frankly that's a tax on the nice, people who feel a moral obligation and not necessarily the people profiting most ... and likely ignoring GNU obligations as well.

The EFF disagrees with you:

Jennifer Granick, civil liberties director for the Electronic Frontier Foundation, said Chen is protected from a warrant by both state and federal laws.

The federal Privacy Protection Act prohibits the government from seizing materials from journalists and others who possess material for the purpose of communicating to the public. The government cannot seize material from the journalist even if it’s investigating whether the person who possesses the material committed a crime.

Instead, investigators need to obtain a subpoena, which would allow the reporter or media outlet to challenge the request and segregate information that is not relevant to the investigation.

“Congress was contemplating a situation where someone might claim that the journalist was committing a crime [in order to seize materials from them],” Granick says.

California state law also provides protections to prevent journalists from being forced to disclose sources or unpublished information related to their work.

“California law is crystal clear that bloggers are journalists, too,” she says.

Apple is on the steering committee for the REACT task force that raided Chen’s house. Formed in 1997, REACT is a partnership of 17 local, state and federal agencies tasked with investigating computer- and internet-related crimes.

http://www.wired.com/threatlevel/2010/04/iphone-raid/

Which moral responsibility outweighs the other: that of saving the lives of police officers, or that of those who would be intimidated or injured through an unjustified tasing?

Or killed, that happens too. The idea of the taser is that it's to be used only when a pistol would have previously been used. That rule is out the window, they're pain devices now. Don't bet against human nature.

But as to moral principles, which of the two, the cop or the citizen is voluntarily putting himself at risk of bodily harm? Take this case for example, of a pregnant woman who was repeatedly tased for being flustered.

The "ends justifies the means" arguments are utilitarian, not respective of the natural rights of human beings as individuals.

Similarly, wouldn't creating weapons which cause less collateral damage, or less likely to cause unintended death, be a moral imperative as it would reduce the number of deaths?

Again, it's a utilitarian argument and ignores human nature - politicians with weapons that cause less PR backlash will make more war. If you're invading are the defenders combatants or collateral damage? I guess it depends who writes the history books - those are usually the people who had the best weapons and thus conquered.

Which delusion?

Mossad as weapon?

Mossad has big budget?

Israel encourages settlers by giving them confiscated land?

I don't think you'll find anything delusional about my post. Maybe you need to consider your own biases.

...and the developer agreement specifically prohibits sending device data to the server. That includes the data necessary to measure whether the user actually interacted with the ad.

i.e. any non-iAd advertising is effectively crippled.

Yeah, I thought that was the reason they banned porn apps from the App Store, as explained here.

"You know Steve, he's all about user interface. We considered changing the App Store so that when you enter 'boobs' it says, 'The web is that way, stupid!'"

Actually, they just rejected a reportedly extremely nice iPad application that taught kids how to program, called "Scratch", based on Alan Kay's ideas from ages ago. It looks like a fantastic idea, but aparently violates their terms and condition, as the kids can 'create programs'. They're not really thinking of the children.

On a side note, GMail, by default, does not require an SSL connection. I wonder if anyone who was hacked had their settings set to require that.

This used to be the case, but they've changed now. http://www.wired.com/threatlevel/2010/01/google-turns-on-gmail-encryption-to-protect-wi-fi-users/

This isn't about privacy, it's about Google's proprietary source code (i.e., their real money-maker and most protected trade secrets). That's the REAL story behind Google's spat with China. Google wanted to portray themselves as standing up to an oppressive regime, as striking a blow for human rights, etc. But the truth is that it's really about China threatening their bottom line by stealing a hunk of their valuable source code. Google was more than happy to cooperate with China on censorship and handing over information until Chinese hackers crossed the line and actually stole Google source code. It was only then that Google suddenly decided they were going to be crusaders for human rights. Of course early reports out of Google only mentioned the attempted break-in to gmail accounts, it was only later that we learned that the *real* target of the attacks was source code, not information about dissedents.