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Slashback: Oklahoma Spyware, FSF DRM, Lenovo Linux
Oklahoma's Spyware Bill dies a quiet death. enforcer999 writes to tell us that the Oklahoma Computer Spyware Protection Act has been pretty much dismantled by the Senate review committee. From the article: "Sen. Clark Jolley, R-Edmond, the Senate author of the legislation, said revisions he had made to the bill were well received by those who had originally opposed it, but that after making the changes, the companies backing the measure -- which had included Microsoft and Symantec Corp. -- opposed it."
Lenovo denies ditching Linux. btornado writes "According to News.com, Lenovo has denied ditching Linux on their notebook computers. Lenovo actually plans to support Linux on its ThinkPads starting in the third quarter, in partnership with Novell. From the article: 'Customers of the recently introduced Lenovo 3000 units still won't have a preloaded option, however, because the small and midsize business customers that are the targets for those units have many different requirements, he said.'"
Mars rover escapes again. An anonymous reader writes "New Scientist is reporting that NASA's Mars Opportunity rover has freed itself from the sandy soil that ensnared it for more than a week. This is the second time the rover has gotten bogged down in a Martian sand trap. Both times, the rover has managed to escape to solid bedrock by churning its wheels in reverse."
RIM CEO speaks out against unlimited wireless. frdmfghtr writes "The president and co-CEO of Research in Motion seems to think that wireless data services providing unlimited data traffic for a flat monthly rate will have a 'devastating effect on wireless innovation.' From the article: '"No matter how you slice it, bandwidth is not free," he said. "If we don't set up economic incentives now, research and innovation for new networks won't happen for the future. We want companies to be encouraged to make efficient use of the network, so we don't cross over and use up all the capacity of the networks." Counters Jeff Pulver, the founder of Pulver Media, saying that (FTA) "unlimited bandwidth use in the wireless world is needed because access to the network is what spurs innovation."'"
Microsoft LiveMail gets ads. Blahbooboo3 writes to tell us BetaNews is reporting that Microsoft will be embedding advertising in their new e-mail client software, Windows Live Mail Desktop. Similar to Google's Gmail, it will serve ads based on the text of your mail messages. Microsoft's Active Search feature, being tested within Windows Live Mail Desktop, scans users' emails and displays potential search terms related to that email as well as text-based contextual ads. The effort is an example of the Windows Live ad-supported software initiative. Contextually relevant ads served by Microsoft-partner Kanoodle will be displayed next to each email message. Also, paid search links will be served by Microsoft adCenter when users conduct searches via a search box that's built into the mail interface.
FSF anti-DRM campaign expands. nanday writes "According to an article on Newsforge (Also owned by VA), the Free Software Foundation's Defective by Design campaign against Digital Rights Management expanded on Saturday, targeting Apple Stores in eight American cities. However, unlike the event outside WinHEC 2006 two weeks ago, this time the police and security guards were waiting when campaign volunteers arrived to demonstrate."
AT&:T calls Wired to task over leaked documents. John Young writes to tell us that AT&T is standing in opposition [PDF] to Wired's recent intervention and the unsealing of documents. AT&T stated that "Wired argues that it has a 'unique perspective in this case.' If that is anything other than hot air, it is a reference to the fact that Wired has leaked eight pages of what it claims are AT&T Proprietary documents--and did so despite actual knowledge that AT&T claims its documents contain trade secrets and the Court had ordered that such documents remain under seal. A 'unique perspective' indeed--that of the scofflaw. [...] Wired maintains that the Klein and Marcus Declarations should be unsealed in their entirety because "the course of events has overtaken the sealing order." The "course of events" to which Wired refers is, of course, its own leaking of subsets of the information that the Court ordered remain under seal. Wired's argument appears to be that because it has openly chosen to disregard the Court's order (not to mention AT&T's rights) the Court should reverse that order. Talk about chutzpah."
And it will stifle innovation? Oh yeah, just like internet innovation was severely stifled as most of the pay-per-bit billing schemes fell over the last 10 years
Wholesale bandwidth (what an ISP or hosting facility buys) is still sold by the bit. It's only at the retail level (ISP customers and some hosting plans) where there's no limit.
"They redundantly repeated themselves over and over again incessantly without end ad infinitum" -- ibid.
Yeah, a bill (in it's original form) that let MS crawl your hard drive and forward data to cops, or delete anything they please is a good one that should be passed.
So, did unlimited dialup access spur innovation? I think so. Would the same be true for wireless? You bet!
It's not the same though, with dialup, you had your own personal copper, your bandwidth all to yourself. With wireless, you don't have that, you have a finite total bandwidth based on a finite number of frequencies that everyone shares.
Those who disagree, don't deny there is a limited amount of bandwidth, they argue that technology will continue to increase bandwidth at the rate, or greater, than demand. But will that be the case? Increasing bandwidth in limited frequencies is not as easy as adding new fiber lines or, to compare it to data storage increases, making bigger hard drives.
I don't know who is right, but I'm skeptical that total bandwidth availability will increase as fast as demand. However, we do have a large buffer of room to work with, for now.
(The closest I've ever seen to a pay-per-packet scheme was the old Packet Switch Stream service from British Telecom, which charged per connection to the X.25 exchange AND per minute of connection AND per K of data sent AND per unit of time you spent on the phone line to use their bloody server in the first place. Sure, there's a per-K in there, but it was so small as to be a negliagible fraction of the total cost. And that WAS to end-users, so even there the claim is incorrect.)
Peer-to-Peer backbone routing is usually at a nominal cost, as the whole idea of peering is that each network accesses the other networks equally in all directions with no bias or preference. Of course, if the preferential service system goes into effect, the entire backbone will collapse. It's impossible to have preferential service in a totally peer-based network.
It's a small world and it smells funny; I'd buy another if it wasn't for the money; Take back what I paid (SoM)
Not quite right, but close enough.
The court order sealed the documents submitted the case, but SPECIFICALLY DID NOT prevent the plaintiff from speaking about the details of the case to the media.
So the plaintiff provided documents and facts to the media, which was kosher. The media, which, incidentally HAD NO WAY OF VERIFYING if those documents and facts were similar to those under seal, then reported the information they received.
Whether the plaintiff skirted the rules by providing exact duplicates of the sealed documents to the media is unknown. Whether that was even wrong I can't say--he was explicitly given permission to talk to the media about the case after all, over AT&T's objections. The only thing that I know for sure is that since Wired didn't (and still doesn't, and can't) know if the documents they published are the same as those under seal, the only person who I can say is definitely not behaving badly in this whole affair is Wired News.
Interestingly, AT&T's actions are a strong hint to the public that the documents sealed and the documents published are at least very similar. So, from a practical point of view, AT&T has done more to leak the sealed documents than Wired News. Wired just said "here are some relevant documents". It was AT&T who said "those are the sealed documents!"
Last time I checked, if you didn't want to take advantage of promotional pricing for a new phone through your carrier, you could always buy the phone retail. In other words, much like GSM phones, "unlocked" or retail CDMA phones can be used on just about any CDMA carrier. GSM phones can be locked or incompatible with some GSM carriers too, you know.
As for not paying for received calls, that's a feature of your wireless service provider, not GSM.
Some info on the differences between GSM and CDMA:
http://www.pctoday.com/Editorial/article.asp?arti
Bottom line: it's still private property even if you really really really don't like that idea.
Not in California. See this case.
Become a FSF associate member before the low #s are used