It has to do with name recognition "theories". Mainly just copycats.
When the cellular telephone networks were being built out, one enterprising company came up with the Cellular One (or CellularOne) name. Many non-wireline carriers got permission to use that name. Before 1990, and possibly a few years after, the Cellular One brand name was the most widely recognized brand name for cellular phone service in the country. Even markets not served by a Cellular One carrier recognized that name over the names of the carriers serving the market.
The first company I personally noticed using a "One" in their name for nationwide promotions was "Carpet One". They even had a cute logo that was supposed to be a corner of a roll of carpet, but that looked amazingly similar to some of the cellular one logos with "radio waves".
Now, using "One" in a name is so common that it is no longer unique. That combined with the virtual nonexistance of cellular one as a brand in the US means the coat tails these people are trying to hold on to no longer exist. Palm is a little late to the game.
One more personal observation. Cellular One as a brand was more recognized in the wireless industry than any of the other players, including AT&T, Bellsouth, and others. And, the only reason you just about don't see Cellular One anymore is the massive consolidation of wireless carriers. In many cases the transition was slow. It started with "Cellular One - a XYZ company", then it becase "XYZ Company - Cellular One", and finally it became just "XYZ Company".
If a human reviewed the file and genuinely thought it was infringing, THEN it would be good-faith. An automated tool that is allowed to generate a list that someone uses to mail "infringement" letters WITHOUT EVER REVIEWING THE FILES IN QUESTION qualifies as IRRESPONSIBLE, and harrassing. Are there provisions in the DMCA to sue for such irresponsible accusations? At the very least, submit an invoice for the cost of dealing with a BAD-FAITH accusation.
Someone should contact the ESA and tell them actions taken like this only serve to make people LESS likely to believe or even care about accusations of infringement since no effort appears to be made for accuracy.
Fry's will sell just about anything if you can get in to the right people with little regard for quality. This just emphasizes that. If it is something they think will move, they'll try it.
You also have to be careful, because Fry's will take an item in as a return from a customer, and will shrink-wrap it and put it back on the shelf. Supposedly with a label, though I've bought shrink wrapped items that did not have a label and were obviously somebody's returns.
I returned a web-cam that did not work, and they put it with stuff to be "returned to shelf". Moral here, if you see a lot of items with "return" labels on them, outnumbering the non-returned items, avoid that product as most seem to be returning it for whatever reason and Fry's is just putting it back on the shelf.
I also purchased SuSE 8.0 Professional the weekend it was on the shelf, only to find out one enterprising person stole the CDs out of the box. I get the box home, open it up, and no CDs or DVD. I had to fight with two store managers and threaten public disclosure (hint: asking them for their first and last name and for them to spell it for you will often make the managers nervous) and who knows what just to get them to exchange the product so I could get disks. [The first box had no signs of tampering.] I opened the second box in front of the manager before leaving the store just to make sure I got the disks that time.
As a customer of Fry's I have had to return about 50% of the computer components I have purchased from them. Either they were DOA, they did not work reliably if they did work, or they would fail within about 48 to 72 hours. [Just to be fair, others I've talked to have not had the same experience, however I shopped at 2 different Frys in the Bay Area with the same results.]
The SuSE incident is also the last time I shopped at Fry's for anything other than a cable.
I'm also about to find out how well they honor their "extended warranty". I bought a five disk DVD player for the house (my wife bought it as an anniversary gift), less than a year ago, and now it failing too.
Despite how people here on/. seem to think that NetWare is this archaic dog, NetWare does have its place, and a good product for what it does.
Novell may have allowed themselves to get into a bad situation by not realizing how to combat M$ in the early days, but just as recently as a year or so ago I still knew of a couple of NetWare installations that were used in small POS/Video Rental type places.
More to the point, NetWare has a proven track record and is dead-bang reliable. Sure, it can have glitches and problems during installation, but my experience has been that once NetWare is installed, configured, and running OK, then they just work. And they keep on working. It usually takes a hardware problem to cause a real disruption.
I hated to use NetWare, mostly because I had never used it before and had one customer that required it, and so I had to learn it in order to solve that customer's requirements (now there's a concept, actually listening to and delivering what the customer actually wanted). It was a pain (about 8-1/2 years ago), but it worked, and it did the job it was supposed to do.
So before people start knocking them too badly, sneering at them, or looking down their noses at them, just remember their stability was more like Linux than M$, and once you knew "their way" of doing things you actually COULD make a stable server that didn't HAVE to be rebooted or coddled regularly as part of "preventative maintenance". Which would YOU rather admin? M$ servers? Or NetWare servers?
It's not about the cash they have. If you get a judgement against them that thay can not pay, then you may have the option of going after the board of directors or other officers in the company, depending on the type of corporation they are.
Once a major judgement is made, odds are they'll never pay it anyway. Either they'll get it reduced on appeal, file for bankruptcy, or do something else to keep from paying it.
I didn't get it for free, I think I paid $28. I bought a Caldera Linux with a 2.4 based kernel when Caldera was still a Linux company. I don't use it, I just got it to check it out, but I still bought it and they made it available for sale, and I accept the license agreement they sold it to me under -- the GPL.
I believe there are usually pretty severe damages when you make false or misleading claims about a company, or its products, and then those claims harms the business of that company.
With more examples of this (without hiding behind AC), if this can be documented, it opens SCO up to all kinds of civil liability. Especially if SCO ever loses any of their claims in court, which civil suits can in turn point to as proof of their misleading or false claims.
And, if memory serves, there have been a few cases taken to court (don't know if they were settled or if they went to judgement) where the claims made against a product were not totally false or misleading, but still harmed the business of another company, and that company went after and I thought won damages. Of course, I don't know if it went to appeal and what the result was. And worse, I can't remember the names of the people/companies involved, so I may be totally mistaken.
Still, Red Hat, and others if they pick up the case, can point to this as proof of damage they are suffering as a result of SCOs actions and intent to damage Linux credibility in an effort to improve their own.
Beginning this week, SCO will start meeting with commercial Linux customers to present the details of this right to use SCO intellectual property binary licensing program.
OK, so let's say I'm one of these "commercial" Linux customers. So, SCO contacts me to sell me this "license" to use Linux. (This is hypothetical, notice the "let's say..."). I can imagine the contact something along the lines:
SCO: We're making you this offer for a limited time, $699 for a single CPU license. It's a great value.
Me: So, tell me again why I should take you seriously since I don't have any products from you, and if I am to believe the press, you don't even sell Linux any longer yourself?
SCO: Because we own what's inside Linux.
Me: You do? Can you prove that?
SCO: Yes we can, all you have to do is sign this NDA and we'll show you.
Me: What if I refuse to sign the NDA?
SCO: Then I can't show you the proof.
Me: So, now I'm supposed to give you almost $700 per single CPU just because you CLAIM you own what's inside, but you won't prove it unless I sign an NDA? And you expect me to take you seriously?
--
I'm sorry, but I've dealt with a large number of vendors for a variety of things ranging from a few dollars to a few million dollars. And, if a vendor came to me and said I should buy something from them, they'd have to SHOW ME why I should buy it. Even if it was a product demonstration. And you can rest assured I would NOT sign an NDA for a product demonstration, unless it was something I thought I really had to have and I had contacted the vendor myself.
And, if they "forced" me to sign the NDA in order to "proove" they owned Linux, it would seem that my signature would be under duress (sp?) since I would never willingly sign such a document, and my only reason for signing it would be to determine the real/valid risk my company was facing by purchasing or not purchasing their licenses. If it is under duress, might that make such an agreement unenforceable?
So, it will be interesting to see how this plays out, and how many legitimate customers take SCO seriously.
Ok, so the MPAA is trying to convince the public that downloading movies means movies won't be able to make a profit.
Yet, thanks to very creative accounting, the people that the MPAA represents very rarely have ANY movies that make a profit.
There is a reason that the stars, or producers, or key people in the project go after percentage of GROSS and not NET. Even Stan Lee got burned on Spiderman because his contract was for a percentage of NET and according to the studio, the movie didn't make a profit.
If a movie doesn't make a profit, it is much more likely it is one of: (1) creative/slick accounting; (2) intentional overspending; (3) bad business decisions out of ignorance; (4) intentional bad decisions to drain money; (5) illegal financial transactions of one kind or another; (6) or perhaps the movie just stinks!
I find it quite funny how upset MPAA gets about people "stealing" by downloading movies, but does not care in the least when the people they represent effectively steal from people they've made deals with by artifically charging up expenses and other costs to prevent a movie from making a profit, thereby denying the artists, writers, or whoever might have been given a percentage of the NET.
Talk about a double standard. But of course, that's what we've come to expect now days isn't it?
Can't speak about information, but I looked at a few sites that used these programs, including the demos. In all the ones I saw, phportfolio has sites that look far more professional. The phpix sites I saw looked, well, amaturish, clunky, *cheap*.
You say yours is crufty? It looks like 1.0 was released july 23, less than two weeks ago. If your still working on it, keep it up, clean up the crufty parts, make installation easier. Good job on the tool, it produces really nice and clean pages.
Re:Storage of old data / hardware
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Software Archaeology
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· Score: 2, Insightful
On my last move I had to "retire" a couple of 11/725s and most of my "wall of orange". It was a sad day, but I had moved those heavy monsters far too many times and there just wasn't room this last time. One worked, the other was parts, had DECnet and a coax ethernet, not to mention dual tape drives and a removable platter (I think it was 26 meg ramovable, and 26 meg internal, it's been a while).
Your right, those things cost money to keep them going. And for what? A novelty? These things were doing any work or anything for me. I ended up buying them for their documentation. Then, when they were no longer needed, do you know how hard it is to keep the wife happy when she wants to decorate, and can find nothing that goes with an orange wall?:)
The sad thing is these were not "interesting" enough for any of the "computer museums" or "computer history" places I was able to contact. I even tried to give them away to anyone that would pick them up on craig's list in san francisco. In the end, they were trashed because absolutely no one wanted them.
What bothers me is that this person paid for and downloaded music from Apple. He doesn't say explicitly, but he infers he was not trying to buy more music, just listen to what he had already bought, and after "reauthorization" it either disabled or deleted his purchased music. This would mean that Apple considers anyone playing music purchased from them to be actively using their service, even if they are not connected to it.
What happens if I buy 100 songs, and then cancel my account with the music store? Will I lose the ability to play those songs? Does Apple consider that I am still using their service even if I have cancelled my account with their service?
I wasn't able to find the TOS easily, looks like you have to sign up to see it. But, from what appears to have been pasted, the customer is restricted from actively using the service, which implies that the user may not purchase new songs. It did not seem to include playing music previously purchased. Can someone with the TOS post a link to it or at least cut-and-paste the parts that relate to this issue?
Is Apple interpreting their TOS to include user activity while not connected to Apple? Is simply using the Apple computer and software to listen to purchased music considered part of what they offer?
Usually, in order to "use a service" there is some form of connection involved during the use, either event driven messages back and forth or constant link. Does Apple's software send information to Apple for each song you play?
I can accept, and it makes a lot of sense, not to allow songs to be delivered to users outside of the US for various legal reasons. It would also cut down on cc fraud by not allowing US accounts to download music outside of the US. I can also accept not allowing new accounts to be created if the user is outside the US. But to disable purchased music, preventing the purchaser the ability to listen to it?
IF the music was "rented" or "allowed to be played as part of the service" it would be one thing, however, since Apple's own web site says "Buy it" or "Buy song" certain ownership rights are implied. When you buy something you usually have certain ownership rights. I wonder if deleting or disabling something after it has been boughtconstitutes any form of criminal or civil fraud. Software companies wanted this ability, and UCITA (or was it UTICA?) would have given it to them, but I thought only a small number of states actually passed laws that let that happen.
Apple's web site also mentions ability to create music CDs that you listen to in your car, etc. from the songs you download. They can't disable those CDs, and they are giving you the ability to create a CD single just as if you had bought it in the store, further enforcing the concept of "ownership" for the purchased song. ["Ownership" in this case means right to listen to song on any equipment you choose and in the method you choose, not ownership in that you can give away copies.] Apples disabling of the songs (or deleting them) is inconsistent with the rest of their service. That inconsistancy would seem to be important if someone were going to pursue this (IANAL, so I may be full of it, wouldn't be the first time).
I'm really curious (and amazed and aghast) at this turn of events and Apple's response, if any.
I can certainly see Apple needing some of these restrictions. I guess now we know why the *AAs have been pretty quiet about Apple's music store. I just attributed their silence to a lack of selection of music represented by the *AA, but given this, and some of what I read on Apple's web page today, it looks like Apple negotiated something with them already. Which is fine, would make good business sense, and if true would mean those wanting to boycott *AA may have to boycott iMS too. Anyone know?
And here I've been planning to get a nice new shiny Mac, OS-X, and iPod (would have been my first Mac). I will definitely be watching this and consider the outcome here before I make any purchase. I'll probably just stick to cheaper non-Apple hardware and Windoze when necessary and Linux the rest of the time.
So. This seems to be a GOOD THING that Microsoft is doing. Are they doing this with the hope that companies will see this as an advantage for Windows? YES! Is this somehow immoral and evil? NO! Is there something inherently evil in Microsoft making Windows a more attractive product? NO!
Nothing wrong with that at all. But, you can be fairly sure that M$ took this action as a marketing tactic. I'm sure they have had contact with several customers that indicated this was a concern, either because of the Linux issue or the potential for this type of suit in general.
M$ is generally a well focused company (IMO). Whatever they are focused on they will doggedly pursue. Their monopolistic position and resulting wealth gives them the ability to continue pursuing things when others would have to give in. They will take advantage of any opportunity to portray their product and themselves over competing products. Just as any business should.
I don't see this change by M$ as "good", I see it purely as marketing, to make sales or at least prevent potential sales from going to competing products. They did not do this to 'be helpful' to customers.
Why is it "evil" and "wrong" for SCO to sue over Linux IP violations, but somehow you will be the Champion of Justice by doing exactly the same thing to Windows users???
It was an observation about how twisted things could really end up getting, especially if there appears to be monetary incentive. Ideally, IMO, it would be better to target SCO w/their own tactics rather than M$. However, I personally feel there is a bit of "puppeteering" between MS and SCO over this matter anyway (that's an opinion of mine, not fact).
As others pointed out the GPL violations are probably nonexistant. I knew about the *BSD code going in, but don't remember where I saw the GPL violation. [if memory serves, it was a library under GPL or LGPL that was linked in a minor DLL used and distributed by the system, that was NT4 or W2K era I think, and I don't remember much more.]
It would be far more beneficial to find evidence of IP "theft" by M$ and make a big public stink about it, especially after they claim to respect other people's IP.
I'm no fan of M$, though I use several of their products (all legally obtained, not copied, lots of $$$$ spent there). I applaud them on their success, enjoy some of their hardware, and dislike what they've done in a lot of areas. In the end, the answer is simple, use the right tool for the job. If that happens to be a M$ product, oh well.
This is a good way for M$ to get more (like they need it) free publicity and spread FUD at the same time.
In a normal business agreement there is often a clause that indemnifies the parties from lawsuits as a result of the other party's whatever. Only in software licenses where the user generally gets mugged on paper (you have no rights, they all belong to sw company) does this often get neglected. I've seen some licenses where the user agrees to hold the sw maker harmless and pay for ALL sw maker's legal costs in a lawsuit (example, you use product X from company M in a medical device, something goes wrong, patient dies, patient family sues you and company M due to supposed defect in device, you get pay M's legal bills in that case [M does not mean M$, just a letter for an example]).
M$ is just putting some of that standard language back. Most of all, it makes FUD arguments sound more legitimate. "Sure you save money up front on those open source programs, but what happens when SCO or the real authors of what's in that open source program comes knocking on your door demanding payment for your use of what was stolen from them? We are there for you. Our goal is to make you succeed. You don't have to worry about that problem with us, and in the unlikely event someone alleges impropriety and you end up in court with our product, you won't have to spend money on lawyers. We are here to protect you. Just sign right here."
Now here's one for you. It seems I recall that people have pointed out a few GPL code violations, running "strings" on a few M$ Windows DLL and EXEs revealed some amazing things. Now we know they used BSD code, but if they did use GPL or other code that they were not free to "incorporate" into their products, now that M$ is taking this step, maybe it is time to start seeking to proove the thefts and target M$ customers like SCO is targetting Linux customers.
Depending on how much you want to pursue ISDN and forcing Verizon to do something, one option might be the PUC. First, you'll have to find out if Verizon is supposed to have universal access to ISDN throughout the state with the PUC, you should also be able to find out the business and residential tarriffs as well. Assuming they do, next time you call Verizon, advise them what you have discovered at the PUC and that you will be calling and filing a formal complaint if you are unable to get the service at the tarriffed price.
I remember when I worked in PA (in the wireless biz, central and north-central part of the state). Dial up internet access was almost a joke, but at least it was there. This was in 1995/1996 timeframe. Though at one point I had to use AOL for internet connectivity in 1995.
PA is one of the states where I remember working with a group designing a wireless network for one of the blocks of spectrum auctioned off around 1996.. it was going to be used for the "last mile" type of connections. Sounds like things haven't improved much there, and there's still a great opportunity for that spectrum, too bad the financial people tried to cut out the engineering people near the end, and the rest of the group walked as a result.
While the majority of traffic may be copyright violations, the point is the technology is not meant solely for that purpose. In this case, the technology clearly has uses that do not involve copyright violations. That clear distinction makes a big difference than what Napster was. If Napster had taken more steps to push the P2P concept for much more than just music MP3s (kind of like Kazaa and other P2P) things might have turned out differently, but Napster was meant to trade MP3s (music). Bittorrent is meant to provide a technical solution to file distribution, and several projects and a few companies use that to distribute their work. A cassette deck with the ability to record can be used to violate a copyright. But it can also be used for much more than that. Same with Bittorrent. That little detail makes all the difference in the world.
Really an attempt to spread fear?
on
Does Google = God?
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· Score: 2, Interesting
After reading this article I was quite disappointed. As has been said earlier it appears to be a fluff piece talking mostly about Wi-Fi followed by using google to find anything anywhere.
If I was a more suspicious person (or paranoid) I would think this was really an veiled attempt to scare people into being afraid of the big-bad Internat and its ability to link like minded people of various hatreds to each other in ways not before seen. Want to get permission to crack down on free-speach on the Internet? Articles like this will "encourage" people to think that's what is going to happen. After all, heaven forbid that Osama's recruiting video may be streamed on the Internet and it (according to the author) is very motivating.
Sounds like "Internet breads terrorism, we should all be afraid". Just what is needed before "we need to control what's on the internet to protect everyong" starts being said.
I think this makes a lot of sense for the "business savvy" or "smart" artist. I noticed the artists listed in the article are also the ones that are alledged to have some (or a lot) of intelligence when it comes to business matters.
From the artistic perspective, I suppose the artist can claim a "mood" or "feeling" that the album as a whole should emit. If they don't want it split up, then they shouldn't release ANY song as a single. If they want to restrict downloads, then only allow released singles to be downloaded if not every song on the album -- point is they should not hurt their fans (or their targetted consumers) by unilaterally saying no to all downloads.
However, the business case for preventing these songs from being downloaded makes a lot of sense. First, I'm not in entertainment or the music business, but you hear a lot of talk about the contracts the musicians work under, where they have to "pay back" to the label the money the label "risked" in promoting and manufacturing (and often money advanced to the artist). Two gotchas -- with an album selling at $12 to $25, a 100,000 album sales will mean 1.2 to 2.5 million dollars, while a 100,000 song sales at $0.99 would mean $99,000 dollars. That's a big difference, and if the contracts state the artist owes the label a flat rate of money, say $400,000, for production, manufacturing, artwork, marketing, and anything else you can think of, then the sale of individual songs that cause fewer complete albums to be sold could significantly affect the artists, since in theory the artist won't start making any significant money until that initial $400,000 is made. And, likely, the labels are able to trump up all kinds of costs that drive that example $400,000 to a higher value.
If the artists would just embrace the digital mentality, they would realize there is a HUGE opportunity to promote new music with drastic cuts in the costs to produce and promote/advertise up front. Also, Music on Demand created CDs could mean producing a CD for someone that orders it at the time an order is placed, rather than the initial creation (and COST) of making thousands of CDs in the hope they will sell, often ending up in bargain bins for pennies on the dollar after they don't sale.
Of course the labels don't want these changes because then the legalized endentured servitude the labels force on artists would no longer be the only way for artists to hit the main stream and it would make it harder for labels to control the artists.
However, the RIAA -- and, to be fair, just about every other intellectual "property" advocate -- often refer to unsanctioned copying as, "stealing."
Except... Wait a minute. Isn't stealing where you take a thing from someone such that, as the RIAA guys said, "the owner no longer has it?" Indeed, isn't the primary distinction between lending and stealing the consent of the owner?
I hate to be on this side of the argument, but I think it is "stealing" because the seller collected money for one item, yet two people effectively have that item. The theft is of money from the seller since the seller now doesn't have the money from the second item yet the the second person is enjoying the benefits of having the item.
The problem is that these items are not "tangible". If someone made two padlocks, sold one to a person, that person is not likely to go through the process of creating a copy of that padlock for the next person, rather the next person will by the second padlock. With digital information (and in some forms analog too), duplication is much easier, unlike the tangible padlock, and so copying is much more common.
IMNSHO, copyright law handles this just fine right now (no, NOT DMCA, but before DMCA). The problem is that enforcement was just about nonexistant (except for real pirates that created counterfeits). This enabled the *AA to claim how much trouble they were in and made it easy for politicos to support DMCA type legislation. The DMCA provided the backdoor necessary to curb fair use to a much greater degree, and thereby forcing people to buy additional copies.
Afterall, according to fair use, I could buy CD "A", make a copy to cassette, and listen to it in my car (prior to having the CD player in the car). Same thing with MP3s, from the same CD, to listen on my computer. All of that is fair use. It isn't a copyright violation until I give someone *who doesn't already own this album or those songs* a copy of my MP3.
These "industries" have been crying "no fair" for years on this issue but fair use has always been protected.
In 1992 I lived in Peachtree City, GA, just a little south of Atlanta. One of the things that made the city interesting was that all publicly accessable buildings had to be accessable via the golf-cart road system in the city. New sites had to be linked into the golf-cart roads. This was a golfing community, and residents could drive anywhere in town on these little roads. The only city roads you drove on were residential roads to get onto the golf-cart roads.
It was the only place I know of where KMart sold golf carts and there were used golf-cart lots on the side of the road.:)
this has been on-going for several years now. a friend of mine has been involved with the author of the book and told me about. it's got some really interesting concepts.
there have been several related stories in the regular news about how current city layouts contribute to the large amount of pollution -- especially the suburbs. look at most housing subdivisions now days, if you want to go to the store you have to get in the car. want to go to the movies and you have to use the car. even parks and recreational areas are mostly not in walking distance. all of this leads to more need to use the car to take care of simple tasks.
better planning is definitely needed. and the circular city idea certainly seems interesting.
Unfortunately the site is gone now (I sold the site in 2000 and it got virtually no attention afterwards), but I wrote about technology like this back in 1999.
I hope they really come out with this technology for a reasonable price, and with a good modular design.
This type of device could be the central component of the mobile communications platform I was describing in a couple of articles.
Add a module for a wireless phone -- beauty here is that module could be CDMA, TDMA, GSM, pick the technology. Add another module for a pager if you need it. Yet another could be used for wireless data/internet.
Next, add your accessories -- color watch display, wireless headset for phone, handset for phone, wireless headphones, handheld (PDA style) display, digital camera (including video), small microphone for dictation (like some MP3 players have), keyboard, external extended battery pack (keeps internal battery charged, main power drawn from external pack until pack is drained), etc.
This "platform" could be marketed by just about everyone, from computer stores ala Fry's and CompUSA to electronic stores (Radio Shack) to wireless carriers.
Here's they key -- multitasking. This device would have to allow the use of the "phone" at the same time as the other modules such as camera (either still or video), PDA/watch, etc.
My wireless background obviously slants my opinion towards wireless phones etc, but I find it interesting how close things are getting to some of the ideas I've worked on or written about over the last 10 years. The potential for this is huge, if they deliver this right.
It is not just Microsoft's web site. It is the MSN web site from what I've seen.
MSN, a Microsoft owned online property, is like AOL (MSN offers dialup and broadband services like AOL) and Yahoo (MSN offers all kinds of services to all kinds of users, even if they don't sign up for connection services, example, Hotmail is an MSN service).
AOL owns the Netscape browser now. MSN (Microsoft) owns the IE browser. Yahoo doesn't own their own browser.
If Yahoo were to do something that caused one subgroup of browsers to look bad, that would be considered bad business since they'd effectively be locking out a potential customer base.
The rest of my comments about AOL or MSN only deal with their online properties, and nothing with their dialup or broadband offerings.
AOL and MSN have a variety of online properties that users of the web in general have access to, and a few that only their subscribers have access to.
My question - does this problem persist through all websites owned and operated by MSN, or just their opening page? If this problem persists in all MSN properties, then there is a big case here. If the problem is in the opening screen only, then they are being spiteful. At the very least this is deliberate.
This is similar to what the telephone company monopolies used to pull with telephones. They used to sell and rent phones to the public. These were required if you wanted a phone. It was not permitted to buy a phone from anyone else and use it on their network. The reason for this was the claim that allowing any other devices to plug into the network risked the safety of the network. Today, the FCC requires certification for devices plugged into the network, and any FCC approved device is available. Look at the range of products and phones now available.
If this problem persists in multiple MSN properties and/or pages, then MS is clearly and deliberately using their online properties, including the ones that provide general services to the web at large, to place hurdles in front of their competition. Not a big surprise considering their past actions that have been clearly documented in numerous court cases.
Of course, MS owns MSN and has the right to do whatever they want to do with it. If people don't like it, they can go to different sites that don't treat them like this.
Last I checked, the properties run by MSN don't have 90+% of the web traffic like MS has on the desktop.
While this action can be seen as anticompetitive and shows their continuing disregard for the public, the courts, and so on, MSN is not the only property on the web, so they don't have the "monopoly" like they do on the desktop.
In 1992/1993 I used to regularly shop at a grocery store that had an LCD screen near the handle of the shopping cart. As you'd walk around different parts of the store, the screen would flash information about what was near your location. Plus, it was interactive, you could use it to locate what isle things were on, and see some recipes and other information too.
It was all fed by what I believe were infrared "nodes" mounted on the roof of the store every few feet. In playing with the cart, as you walked into the area covered by a specific node, the screen would flash something that was usually within about 2 to 4 feet of where you were standing, and looking up you'd see the node almost directly above you.
So where do you get the idea that "todays [sic] software companies" are starting to move to temporary licenses?
Antivirus software for one. Not uncommon for multi-machine licenses to have terms. When looking for enterprise anti-virus software, I could go and purchase a shrink-wrap at the store and presumably get a version as long as I choose to run it. Or, purchase the "enterprise" version where I would be licensed for 1 year or 2 years (depending on choice). There was a separate purchase for the virus definition updates after the first year.
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It has to do with name recognition "theories". Mainly just copycats.
When the cellular telephone networks were being built out, one enterprising company came up with the Cellular One (or CellularOne) name. Many non-wireline carriers got permission to use that name. Before 1990, and possibly a few years after, the Cellular One brand name was the most widely recognized brand name for cellular phone service in the country. Even markets not served by a Cellular One carrier recognized that name over the names of the carriers serving the market.
The first company I personally noticed using a "One" in their name for nationwide promotions was "Carpet One". They even had a cute logo that was supposed to be a corner of a roll of carpet, but that looked amazingly similar to some of the cellular one logos with "radio waves".
Now, using "One" in a name is so common that it is no longer unique. That combined with the virtual nonexistance of cellular one as a brand in the US means the coat tails these people are trying to hold on to no longer exist. Palm is a little late to the game.
One more personal observation. Cellular One as a brand was more recognized in the wireless industry than any of the other players, including AT&T, Bellsouth, and others. And, the only reason you just about don't see Cellular One anymore is the massive consolidation of wireless carriers. In many cases the transition was slow. It started with "Cellular One - a XYZ company", then it becase "XYZ Company - Cellular One", and finally it became just "XYZ Company".
If a human reviewed the file and genuinely thought it was infringing, THEN it would be good-faith. An automated tool that is allowed to generate a list that someone uses to mail "infringement" letters WITHOUT EVER REVIEWING THE FILES IN QUESTION qualifies as IRRESPONSIBLE, and harrassing. Are there provisions in the DMCA to sue for such irresponsible accusations? At the very least, submit an invoice for the cost of dealing with a BAD-FAITH accusation.
Someone should contact the ESA and tell them actions taken like this only serve to make people LESS likely to believe or even care about accusations of infringement since no effort appears to be made for accuracy.
Fry's will sell just about anything if you can get in to the right people with little regard for quality. This just emphasizes that. If it is something they think will move, they'll try it.
You also have to be careful, because Fry's will take an item in as a return from a customer, and will shrink-wrap it and put it back on the shelf. Supposedly with a label, though I've bought shrink wrapped items that did not have a label and were obviously somebody's returns.
I returned a web-cam that did not work, and they put it with stuff to be "returned to shelf". Moral here, if you see a lot of items with "return" labels on them, outnumbering the non-returned items, avoid that product as most seem to be returning it for whatever reason and Fry's is just putting it back on the shelf.
I also purchased SuSE 8.0 Professional the weekend it was on the shelf, only to find out one enterprising person stole the CDs out of the box. I get the box home, open it up, and no CDs or DVD. I had to fight with two store managers and threaten public disclosure (hint: asking them for their first and last name and for them to spell it for you will often make the managers nervous) and who knows what just to get them to exchange the product so I could get disks. [The first box had no signs of tampering.] I opened the second box in front of the manager before leaving the store just to make sure I got the disks that time.
As a customer of Fry's I have had to return about 50% of the computer components I have purchased from them. Either they were DOA, they did not work reliably if they did work, or they would fail within about 48 to 72 hours. [Just to be fair, others I've talked to have not had the same experience, however I shopped at 2 different Frys in the Bay Area with the same results.]
The SuSE incident is also the last time I shopped at Fry's for anything other than a cable.
I'm also about to find out how well they honor their "extended warranty". I bought a five disk DVD player for the house (my wife bought it as an anniversary gift), less than a year ago, and now it failing too.
Despite how people here on /. seem to think that NetWare is this archaic dog, NetWare does have its place, and a good product for what it does.
Novell may have allowed themselves to get into a bad situation by not realizing how to combat M$ in the early days, but just as recently as a year or so ago I still knew of a couple of NetWare installations that were used in small POS/Video Rental type places.
More to the point, NetWare has a proven track record and is dead-bang reliable. Sure, it can have glitches and problems during installation, but my experience has been that once NetWare is installed, configured, and running OK, then they just work. And they keep on working. It usually takes a hardware problem to cause a real disruption.
I hated to use NetWare, mostly because I had never used it before and had one customer that required it, and so I had to learn it in order to solve that customer's requirements (now there's a concept, actually listening to and delivering what the customer actually wanted). It was a pain (about 8-1/2 years ago), but it worked, and it did the job it was supposed to do.
So before people start knocking them too badly, sneering at them, or looking down their noses at them, just remember their stability was more like Linux than M$, and once you knew "their way" of doing things you actually COULD make a stable server that didn't HAVE to be rebooted or coddled regularly as part of "preventative maintenance". Which would YOU rather admin? M$ servers? Or NetWare servers?
It's not about the cash they have. If you get a judgement against them that thay can not pay, then you may have the option of going after the board of directors or other officers in the company, depending on the type of corporation they are.
Once a major judgement is made, odds are they'll never pay it anyway. Either they'll get it reduced on appeal, file for bankruptcy, or do something else to keep from paying it.
I didn't get it for free, I think I paid $28. I bought a Caldera Linux with a 2.4 based kernel when Caldera was still a Linux company. I don't use it, I just got it to check it out, but I still bought it and they made it available for sale, and I accept the license agreement they sold it to me under -- the GPL.
I believe there are usually pretty severe damages when you make false or misleading claims about a company, or its products, and then those claims harms the business of that company.
With more examples of this (without hiding behind AC), if this can be documented, it opens SCO up to all kinds of civil liability. Especially if SCO ever loses any of their claims in court, which civil suits can in turn point to as proof of their misleading or false claims.
And, if memory serves, there have been a few cases taken to court (don't know if they were settled or if they went to judgement) where the claims made against a product were not totally false or misleading, but still harmed the business of another company, and that company went after and I thought won damages. Of course, I don't know if it went to appeal and what the result was. And worse, I can't remember the names of the people/companies involved, so I may be totally mistaken.
Still, Red Hat, and others if they pick up the case, can point to this as proof of damage they are suffering as a result of SCOs actions and intent to damage Linux credibility in an effort to improve their own.
From the article:
Beginning this week, SCO will start meeting with commercial Linux customers to present the details of this right to use SCO intellectual property binary licensing program.
OK, so let's say I'm one of these "commercial" Linux customers. So, SCO contacts me to sell me this "license" to use Linux. (This is hypothetical, notice the "let's say..."). I can imagine the contact something along the lines:
SCO: We're making you this offer for a limited time, $699 for a single CPU license. It's a great value.
Me: So, tell me again why I should take you seriously since I don't have any products from you, and if I am to believe the press, you don't even sell Linux any longer yourself?
SCO: Because we own what's inside Linux.
Me: You do? Can you prove that?
SCO: Yes we can, all you have to do is sign this NDA and we'll show you.
Me: What if I refuse to sign the NDA?
SCO: Then I can't show you the proof.
Me: So, now I'm supposed to give you almost $700 per single CPU just because you CLAIM you own what's inside, but you won't prove it unless I sign an NDA? And you expect me to take you seriously?
--
I'm sorry, but I've dealt with a large number of vendors for a variety of things ranging from a few dollars to a few million dollars. And, if a vendor came to me and said I should buy something from them, they'd have to SHOW ME why I should buy it. Even if it was a product demonstration. And you can rest assured I would NOT sign an NDA for a product demonstration, unless it was something I thought I really had to have and I had contacted the vendor myself.
And, if they "forced" me to sign the NDA in order to "proove" they owned Linux, it would seem that my signature would be under duress (sp?) since I would never willingly sign such a document, and my only reason for signing it would be to determine the real/valid risk my company was facing by purchasing or not purchasing their licenses. If it is under duress, might that make such an agreement unenforceable?
So, it will be interesting to see how this plays out, and how many legitimate customers take SCO seriously.
Ok, so the MPAA is trying to convince the public that downloading movies means movies won't be able to make a profit.
Yet, thanks to very creative accounting, the people that the MPAA represents very rarely have ANY movies that make a profit.
There is a reason that the stars, or producers, or key people in the project go after percentage of GROSS and not NET. Even Stan Lee got burned on Spiderman because his contract was for a percentage of NET and according to the studio, the movie didn't make a profit.
If a movie doesn't make a profit, it is much more likely it is one of: (1) creative/slick accounting; (2) intentional overspending; (3) bad business decisions out of ignorance; (4) intentional bad decisions to drain money; (5) illegal financial transactions of one kind or another; (6) or perhaps the movie just stinks!
I find it quite funny how upset MPAA gets about people "stealing" by downloading movies, but does not care in the least when the people they represent effectively steal from people they've made deals with by artifically charging up expenses and other costs to prevent a movie from making a profit, thereby denying the artists, writers, or whoever might have been given a percentage of the NET.
Talk about a double standard. But of course, that's what we've come to expect now days isn't it?
Can't speak about information, but I looked at a few sites that used these programs, including the demos. In all the ones I saw, phportfolio has sites that look far more professional. The phpix sites I saw looked, well, amaturish, clunky, *cheap*.
You say yours is crufty? It looks like 1.0 was released july 23, less than two weeks ago. If your still working on it, keep it up, clean up the crufty parts, make installation easier. Good job on the tool, it produces really nice and clean pages.
On my last move I had to "retire" a couple of 11/725s and most of my "wall of orange". It was a sad day, but I had moved those heavy monsters far too many times and there just wasn't room this last time. One worked, the other was parts, had DECnet and a coax ethernet, not to mention dual tape drives and a removable platter (I think it was 26 meg ramovable, and 26 meg internal, it's been a while).
:)
Your right, those things cost money to keep them going. And for what? A novelty? These things were doing any work or anything for me. I ended up buying them for their documentation. Then, when they were no longer needed, do you know how hard it is to keep the wife happy when she wants to decorate, and can find nothing that goes with an orange wall?
The sad thing is these were not "interesting" enough for any of the "computer museums" or "computer history" places I was able to contact. I even tried to give them away to anyone that would pick them up on craig's list in san francisco. In the end, they were trashed because absolutely no one wanted them.
What bothers me is that this person paid for and downloaded music from Apple. He doesn't say explicitly, but he infers he was not trying to buy more music, just listen to what he had already bought, and after "reauthorization" it either disabled or deleted his purchased music. This would mean that Apple considers anyone playing music purchased from them to be actively using their service, even if they are not connected to it.
What happens if I buy 100 songs, and then cancel my account with the music store? Will I lose the ability to play those songs? Does Apple consider that I am still using their service even if I have cancelled my account with their service?
I wasn't able to find the TOS easily, looks like you have to sign up to see it. But, from what appears to have been pasted, the customer is restricted from actively using the service, which implies that the user may not purchase new songs.
It did not seem to include playing music previously purchased. Can someone with the TOS post a link to it or at least cut-and-paste the parts that relate to this issue?
Is Apple interpreting their TOS to include user activity while not connected to Apple? Is simply using the Apple computer and software to listen to purchased music considered part of what they offer?
Usually, in order to "use a service" there is some form of connection involved during the use, either event driven messages back and forth or constant link. Does Apple's software send information to Apple for each song you play?
I can accept, and it makes a lot of sense, not to allow songs to be delivered to users outside of the US for various legal reasons. It would also cut down on cc fraud by not allowing US accounts to download music outside of the US. I can also accept not allowing new accounts to be created if the user is outside the US. But to disable purchased music, preventing the purchaser the ability to listen to it?
IF the music was "rented" or "allowed to be played as part of the service" it would be one thing, however, since Apple's own web site says "Buy it" or "Buy song" certain ownership rights are implied. When you buy something you usually have certain ownership rights. I wonder if deleting or disabling something after it has been boughtconstitutes any form of criminal or civil fraud. Software companies wanted this ability, and UCITA (or was it UTICA?) would have given it to them, but I thought only a small number of states actually passed laws that let that happen.
Apple's web site also mentions ability to create music CDs that you listen to in your car, etc. from the songs you download. They can't disable those CDs, and they are giving you the ability to create a CD single just as if you had bought it in the store, further enforcing the concept of "ownership" for the purchased song. ["Ownership" in this case means right to listen to song on any equipment you choose and in the method you choose, not ownership in that you can give away copies.] Apples disabling of the songs (or deleting them) is inconsistent with the rest of their service. That inconsistancy would seem to be important if someone were going to pursue this (IANAL, so I may be full of it, wouldn't be the first time).
I'm really curious (and amazed and aghast) at this turn of events and Apple's response, if any.
I can certainly see Apple needing some of these restrictions. I guess now we know why the *AAs have been pretty quiet about Apple's music store. I just attributed their silence to a lack of selection of music represented by the *AA, but given this, and some of what I read on Apple's web page today, it looks like Apple negotiated something with them already. Which is fine, would make good business sense, and if true would mean those wanting to boycott *AA may have to boycott iMS too. Anyone know?
And here I've been planning to get a nice new shiny Mac, OS-X, and iPod (would have been my first Mac). I will definitely be watching this and consider the outcome here before I make any purchase. I'll probably just stick to cheaper non-Apple hardware and Windoze when necessary and Linux the rest of the time.
So. This seems to be a GOOD THING that Microsoft is doing. Are they doing this with the hope that companies will see this as an advantage for Windows? YES! Is this somehow immoral and evil? NO! Is there something inherently evil in Microsoft making Windows a more attractive product? NO!
Nothing wrong with that at all. But, you can be fairly sure that M$ took this action as a marketing tactic. I'm sure they have had contact with several customers that indicated this was a concern, either because of the Linux issue or the potential for this type of suit in general.
M$ is generally a well focused company (IMO). Whatever they are focused on they will doggedly pursue. Their monopolistic position and resulting wealth gives them the ability to continue pursuing things when others would have to give in. They will take advantage of any opportunity to portray their product and themselves over competing products. Just as any business should.
I don't see this change by M$ as "good", I see it purely as marketing, to make sales or at least prevent potential sales from going to competing products. They did not do this to 'be helpful' to customers.
Why is it "evil" and "wrong" for SCO to sue over Linux IP violations, but somehow you will be the Champion of Justice by doing exactly the same thing to Windows users???
It was an observation about how twisted things could really end up getting, especially if there appears to be monetary incentive. Ideally, IMO, it would be better to target SCO w/their own tactics rather than M$. However, I personally feel there is a bit of "puppeteering" between MS and SCO over this matter anyway (that's an opinion of mine, not fact).
As others pointed out the GPL violations are probably nonexistant. I knew about the *BSD code going in, but don't remember where I saw the GPL violation. [if memory serves, it was a library under GPL or LGPL that was linked in a minor DLL used and distributed by the system, that was NT4 or W2K era I think, and I don't remember much more.]
It would be far more beneficial to find evidence of IP "theft" by M$ and make a big public stink about it, especially after they claim to respect other people's IP.
I'm no fan of M$, though I use several of their products (all legally obtained, not copied, lots of $$$$ spent there). I applaud them on their success, enjoy some of their hardware, and dislike what they've done in a lot of areas. In the end, the answer is simple, use the right tool for the job. If that happens to be a M$ product, oh well.
This is a good way for M$ to get more (like they need it) free publicity and spread FUD at the same time.
In a normal business agreement there is often a clause that indemnifies the parties from lawsuits as a result of the other party's whatever. Only in software licenses where the user generally gets mugged on paper (you have no rights, they all belong to sw company) does this often get neglected. I've seen some licenses where the user agrees to hold the sw maker harmless and pay for ALL sw maker's legal costs in a lawsuit (example, you use product X from company M in a medical device, something goes wrong, patient dies, patient family sues you and company M due to supposed defect in device, you get pay M's legal bills in that case [M does not mean M$, just a letter for an example]).
M$ is just putting some of that standard language back. Most of all, it makes FUD arguments sound more legitimate. "Sure you save money up front on those open source programs, but what happens when SCO or the real authors of what's in that open source program comes knocking on your door demanding payment for your use of what was stolen from them? We are there for you. Our goal is to make you succeed. You don't have to worry about that problem with us, and in the unlikely event someone alleges impropriety and you end up in court with our product, you won't have to spend money on lawyers. We are here to protect you. Just sign right here."
Now here's one for you. It seems I recall that people have pointed out a few GPL code violations, running "strings" on a few M$ Windows DLL and EXEs revealed some amazing things. Now we know they used BSD code, but if they did use GPL or other code that they were not free to "incorporate" into their products, now that M$ is taking this step, maybe it is time to start seeking to proove the thefts and target M$ customers like SCO is targetting Linux customers.
Depending on how much you want to pursue ISDN and forcing Verizon to do something, one option might be the PUC. First, you'll have to find out if Verizon is supposed to have universal access to ISDN throughout the state with the PUC, you should also be able to find out the business and residential tarriffs as well. Assuming they do, next time you call Verizon, advise them what you have discovered at the PUC and that you will be calling and filing a formal complaint if you are unable to get the service at the tarriffed price.
I remember when I worked in PA (in the wireless biz, central and north-central part of the state). Dial up internet access was almost a joke, but at least it was there. This was in 1995/1996 timeframe. Though at one point I had to use AOL for internet connectivity in 1995.
PA is one of the states where I remember working with a group designing a wireless network for one of the blocks of spectrum auctioned off around 1996.. it was going to be used for the "last mile" type of connections. Sounds like things haven't improved much there, and there's still a great opportunity for that spectrum, too bad the financial people tried to cut out the engineering people near the end, and the rest of the group walked as a result.
While the majority of traffic may be copyright violations, the point is the technology is not meant solely for that purpose. In this case, the technology clearly has uses that do not involve copyright violations. That clear distinction makes a big difference than what Napster was. If Napster had taken more steps to push the P2P concept for much more than just music MP3s (kind of like Kazaa and other P2P) things might have turned out differently, but Napster was meant to trade MP3s (music). Bittorrent is meant to provide a technical solution to file distribution, and several projects and a few companies use that to distribute their work. A cassette deck with the ability to record can be used to violate a copyright. But it can also be used for much more than that. Same with Bittorrent. That little detail makes all the difference in the world.
After reading this article I was quite disappointed. As has been said earlier it appears to be a fluff piece talking mostly about Wi-Fi followed by using google to find anything anywhere.
If I was a more suspicious person (or paranoid) I would think this was really an veiled attempt to scare people into being afraid of the big-bad Internat and its ability to link like minded people of various hatreds to each other in ways not before seen. Want to get permission to crack down on free-speach on the Internet? Articles like this will "encourage" people to think that's what is going to happen. After all, heaven forbid that Osama's recruiting video may be streamed on the Internet and it (according to the author) is very motivating.
Sounds like "Internet breads terrorism, we should all be afraid". Just what is needed before "we need to control what's on the internet to protect everyong" starts being said.
I think this makes a lot of sense for the "business savvy" or "smart" artist. I noticed the artists listed in the article are also the ones that are alledged to have some (or a lot) of intelligence when it comes to business matters.
From the artistic perspective, I suppose the artist can claim a "mood" or "feeling" that the album as a whole should emit. If they don't want it split up, then they shouldn't release ANY song as a single. If they want to restrict downloads, then only allow released singles to be downloaded if not every song on the album -- point is they should not hurt their fans (or their targetted consumers) by unilaterally saying no to all downloads.
However, the business case for preventing these songs from being downloaded makes a lot of sense. First, I'm not in entertainment or the music business, but you hear a lot of talk about the contracts the musicians work under, where they have to "pay back" to the label the money the label "risked" in promoting and manufacturing (and often money advanced to the artist). Two gotchas -- with an album selling at $12 to $25, a 100,000 album sales will mean 1.2 to 2.5 million dollars, while a 100,000 song sales at $0.99 would mean $99,000 dollars. That's a big difference, and if the contracts state the artist owes the label a flat rate of money, say $400,000, for production, manufacturing, artwork, marketing, and anything else you can think of, then the sale of individual songs that cause fewer complete albums to be sold could significantly affect the artists, since in theory the artist won't start making any significant money until that initial $400,000 is made. And, likely, the labels are able to trump up all kinds of costs that drive that example $400,000 to a higher value.
If the artists would just embrace the digital mentality, they would realize there is a HUGE opportunity to promote new music with drastic cuts in the costs to produce and promote/advertise up front. Also, Music on Demand created CDs could mean producing a CD for someone that orders it at the time an order is placed, rather than the initial creation (and COST) of making thousands of CDs in the hope they will sell, often ending up in bargain bins for pennies on the dollar after they don't sale.
Of course the labels don't want these changes because then the legalized endentured servitude the labels force on artists would no longer be the only way for artists to hit the main stream and it would make it harder for labels to control the artists.
I hate to be on this side of the argument, but I think it is "stealing" because the seller collected money for one item, yet two people effectively have that item. The theft is of money from the seller since the seller now doesn't have the money from the second item yet the the second person is enjoying the benefits of having the item.
The problem is that these items are not "tangible". If someone made two padlocks, sold one to a person, that person is not likely to go through the process of creating a copy of that padlock for the next person, rather the next person will by the second padlock. With digital information (and in some forms analog too), duplication is much easier, unlike the tangible padlock, and so copying is much more common.
IMNSHO, copyright law handles this just fine right now (no, NOT DMCA, but before DMCA). The problem is that enforcement was just about nonexistant (except for real pirates that created counterfeits). This enabled the *AA to claim how much trouble they were in and made it easy for politicos to support DMCA type legislation. The DMCA provided the backdoor necessary to curb fair use to a much greater degree, and thereby forcing people to buy additional copies.
Afterall, according to fair use, I could buy CD "A", make a copy to cassette, and listen to it in my car (prior to having the CD player in the car). Same thing with MP3s, from the same CD, to listen on my computer. All of that is fair use. It isn't a copyright violation until I give someone *who doesn't already own this album or those songs* a copy of my MP3.
These "industries" have been crying "no fair" for years on this issue but fair use has always been protected.
In 1992 I lived in Peachtree City, GA, just a little south of Atlanta. One of the things that made the city interesting was that all publicly accessable buildings had to be accessable via the golf-cart road system in the city. New sites had to be linked into the golf-cart roads. This was a golfing community, and residents could drive anywhere in town on these little roads. The only city roads you drove on were residential roads to get onto the golf-cart roads.
:)
It was the only place I know of where KMart sold golf carts and there were used golf-cart lots on the side of the road.
this has been on-going for several years now. a friend of mine has been involved with the author of the book and told me about. it's got some really interesting concepts.
there have been several related stories in the regular news about how current city layouts contribute to the large amount of pollution -- especially the suburbs. look at most housing subdivisions now days, if you want to go to the store you have to get in the car. want to go to the movies and you have to use the car. even parks and recreational areas are mostly not in walking distance. all of this leads to more need to use the car to take care of simple tasks.
better planning is definitely needed. and the circular city idea certainly seems interesting.
Unfortunately the site is gone now (I sold the site in 2000 and it got virtually no attention afterwards), but I wrote about technology like this back in 1999.
I hope they really come out with this technology for a reasonable price, and with a good modular design.
This type of device could be the central component of the mobile communications platform I was describing in a couple of articles.
Add a module for a wireless phone -- beauty here is that module could be CDMA, TDMA, GSM, pick the technology. Add another module for a pager if you need it. Yet another could be used for wireless data/internet.
Next, add your accessories -- color watch display, wireless headset for phone, handset for phone, wireless headphones, handheld (PDA style) display, digital camera (including video), small microphone for dictation (like some MP3 players have), keyboard, external extended battery pack (keeps internal battery charged, main power drawn from external pack until pack is drained), etc.
This "platform" could be marketed by just about everyone, from computer stores ala Fry's and CompUSA to electronic stores (Radio Shack) to wireless carriers.
Here's they key -- multitasking. This device would have to allow the use of the "phone" at the same time as the other modules such as camera (either still or video), PDA/watch, etc.
My wireless background obviously slants my opinion towards wireless phones etc, but I find it interesting how close things are getting to some of the ideas I've worked on or written about over the last 10 years. The potential for this is huge, if they deliver this right.
It is not just Microsoft's web site. It is the MSN web site from what I've seen.
MSN, a Microsoft owned online property, is like AOL (MSN offers dialup and broadband services like AOL) and Yahoo (MSN offers all kinds of services to all kinds of users, even if they don't sign up for connection services, example, Hotmail is an MSN service).
AOL owns the Netscape browser now. MSN (Microsoft) owns the IE browser. Yahoo doesn't own their own browser.
If Yahoo were to do something that caused one subgroup of browsers to look bad, that would be considered bad business since they'd effectively be locking out a potential customer base.
The rest of my comments about AOL or MSN only deal with their online properties, and nothing with their dialup or broadband offerings.
AOL and MSN have a variety of online properties that users of the web in general have access to, and a few that only their subscribers have access to.
My question - does this problem persist through all websites owned and operated by MSN, or just their opening page? If this problem persists in all MSN properties, then there is a big case here. If the problem is in the opening screen only, then they are being spiteful. At the very least this is deliberate.
This is similar to what the telephone company monopolies used to pull with telephones. They used to sell and rent phones to the public. These were required if you wanted a phone. It was not permitted to buy a phone from anyone else and use it on their network. The reason for this was the claim that allowing any other devices to plug into the network risked the safety of the network. Today, the FCC requires certification for devices plugged into the network, and any FCC approved device is available. Look at the range of products and phones now available.
If this problem persists in multiple MSN properties and/or pages, then MS is clearly and deliberately using their online properties, including the ones that provide general services to the web at large, to place hurdles in front of their competition. Not a big surprise considering their past actions that have been clearly documented in numerous court cases.
Of course, MS owns MSN and has the right to do whatever they want to do with it. If people don't like it, they can go to different sites that don't treat them like this.
Last I checked, the properties run by MSN don't have 90+% of the web traffic like MS has on the desktop.
While this action can be seen as anticompetitive and shows their continuing disregard for the public, the courts, and so on, MSN is not the only property on the web, so they don't have the "monopoly" like they do on the desktop.
In 1992/1993 I used to regularly shop at a grocery store that had an LCD screen near the handle of the shopping cart. As you'd walk around different parts of the store, the screen would flash information about what was near your location. Plus, it was interactive, you could use it to locate what isle things were on, and see some recipes and other information too.
It was all fed by what I believe were infrared "nodes" mounted on the roof of the store every few feet. In playing with the cart, as you walked into the area covered by a specific node, the screen would flash something that was usually within about 2 to 4 feet of where you were standing, and looking up you'd see the node almost directly above you.
So where do you get the idea that "todays [sic] software companies" are starting to move to temporary licenses?
Antivirus software for one. Not uncommon for multi-machine licenses to have terms. When looking for enterprise anti-virus software, I could go and purchase a shrink-wrap at the store and presumably get a version as long as I choose to run it. Or, purchase the "enterprise" version where I would be licensed for 1 year or 2 years (depending on choice). There was a separate purchase for the virus definition updates after the first year.