This is the real question. If not explicitly defined in a company's privacy policy, such as Amazon.com did (saying their customer records were a business asset to be sold), do companies have the right to treat it as such? Apatently they can, although it hasn't been tested in court - but then, why did Amazon.com eplicitly state it if it were the default treatment.
As a corolary, are companies who aquire assets of another company, bound by the agreements made by that other company? I believe as a general matter of law, this is dependant on the contract in question, but with respect to customer information, is there not a defacto contract in place, governed by the terms of the company's (the company being aquired) privacy policy? Are privacy policies transferable such that they continue to be in force with respect to the data over which they originally had effect?
Since I am not a lawyer, I don't have the answers to these questions but I believe my understanding is sufficient to have properly posed them with respect to the legal status in question.
The added efficiency of this design, over that of a typical wind power farm is derived primarily from the curvature of the buildings between which the fans are placed. How cost effective is ti to construct curved buildings? There are certain efficiencies gained with regard to interior area of such a structure, but those benefits are lost due to the rectangular block layout of the cities in which the building sould be constructed. Even with the greater efficiency of the turbines, would the Return of Investment of such a structure have an even remotely reasonable horison, given the added cost of the constructuin (not only of the turbines but if the curved structure)? It doesn't seem so.
I completely agree. If people feel they will derive greater enjoyment from a game if they can enter it in a position of power, and someone offers them a means to do that, more power to them...
Personally, I would think part of the njoyment of online games is the chalenge of ganing a position of power withing the game universe. A vary high quality game will operate as a free market economy, where players can take on any profession withing the game, that they see fit. Likewise, the transition between the game universe and the real world is made possible by the quality and attention-to-detail found within the game. It's a testiment to the brilliance of the game designers, that people will allow this monetary and social transition between the game universe and the real world. They deserve our respect for their great accomplishment.
Executives at haptics research companies are especially hopeful about the science's contribution to e-commerce. They predict that within 10 years, shoppers will be able to "feel" a piece of silk or other fabric simply by rubbing their finger over a computer screen--removing a significant boundary for many would-be Internet shoppers.
I can see it now. "This silk doesn't feel the same way it did on the computer screen". Damn. I want my money back.
Actually, yes. You're correct. I remember Robot Wars. It was somewhat less elegant than Omega, but definately cool. As I recall though, the graphics fell someware between NetTrek and Pong.
These 3D printers have been around for at least 10 years. It's amazing that it took this long to finally implement one in a production enviroment... Good to see progress though...
Let me know when they have one that can produce a ham sandwitch (made of han and chease and bread rather than polymer resin).
Histarical chect pounding aside, AT&Ts broadband unit has been it a hurt for a long time. It's not suprising that AOL Time-Warner is considering this purchase.
As for weather it's good for consumers: well, market forces have acted to consolidate ISPs throughout the world. This isn't just a U.S. phenomenon. Perhaps the minimum efficient scale of this kind of service is similar to that of telephone service (vary large). We've learned from the past 100 years that regulation of monopolies isn't *always* a good thing. There are certain natural monopolies in free markets. We have seen this in telephone service, where we tried to regulate a natural monopoly out of existance, then after those regulations were eliminated - at a time when there were several large competitors in the market - a consolidation took place, not because of anti-competitive practices of one player, but because it was more efficient to do business on a larger scale than any on the indevidual players were able to do in their form at that time.
The same might be said of the internet access market. Given the bariers to entry, (exhorbinnet infastructure cost, support costs, etc.) it might be more cost effective to operate on a vary large scale, rather than have many small competitors in the merket. Just look to the DSL service provider market for evidence of this. Independant DSL service providers have been going under right left and center. This is not because of anti-competitive practices, or pricing; it's because they weren't able to cost effectively manage infastructure and support. Perhaps this market is simply a natural monopoly and the free markets are moving to increase efficiency.
Or onthe other hand, it could be a massive conspiracy... which I grant you would make for a better story, but just isn't true.
There was a whole range of products out there along these lines back in the mid 80s. I recall one from Origin Systems (back when they were independant) that enphesised the game aspects rather than the programming aspects but nonetheless tought basic programming concepts using a BASIC-like language. As a teaching aid it was somewhat lacking but as a game, it rocked. Battles ere fought in a dufimentry 3D universe set around Origin Systems headquarters in Austin Texas. They even offered the ability to upload your robots for competition against other players where the stats were available on a BBS where members could review their rankings. Granted the online competitions weren't realtime and Blizard's battle.net is a far cooler forum for online gaming, but all that proves is that technology marches on and that Origin Systems was way ahead of their time. I think the game was called OMEGA although I'm not sure.
One of the provisions of the proposed restrictions from judge jackson's original ruling, which the DOJ is going to model their restrictive remedy after was:
barring Microsoft from interfering with the way PC makers set up startup screens, the Windows desktop, preferences, and Internet connection wizards.
The question is, does this go to allowing PC vendors to bundle additional operating systems like Linux with new PCs without the penalties that are now part of the Microsoft Bootloader License?
There was another provision -to require a standard and consistant licensing price schedule- which obliquely touches on this issue, but none that address it directly; just as in the trial it's being ignored. Particularly troubling is the suggestion that the DOJ will model their proposed remedy on the restrictions proposed by Judge jackson in so far as those restrictions to business practices were relevant when they were originally proposed but the landscape has changed drastically sice then. Microsoft has moved on from the battle for the desktop, to the battle for the net, and if the restrictions do not relate to practices associated with the new battleground, then they will be on no value at all.
This question was raised in the posting, but it begs a deeper question. Are OSS Projects dependant on their founder?. The imediate reaction is no, expecially in this case where she was not the founder. The closes to a single indevidual founder we could get for Mozilla would be Jamie Zawinski and the project continued on without him, but how many OSS projects are organized as a cult on personality? Is this a failing of social order of OSS, or is it just a failing of leadership and administration?
Large scale projects like Mozilla, and Apache could probably withstand a complete changing of the guard, but how many smaller prjects could handle such a change and still continue to produce quality software?
Does anyone have a mechanism to quantify the critical mass of an OSS project?
For Open Source at this point, any press is good press. Regardless of the substancial and blatent inacuracies in the article, it's important to realize that the Washington Post is a valuable forum in which to promote OSS efforts. I would encourage some of the (moderate) leaders of the OSS movement write a few Op/Ed pieces for the Washington Post to clear up the inacuracies in this article, however the fact that it's there at all is a great achievement for the -until now nonexistant- Open Source Software PR machine.
Monitoring might reduce or eliminate the 7% of non work related internet usage by judicial employees - which amounts to less than a lunch break per day.
It's important that we prevent Judge Schumann (chairman of the Committee on Information Technology & Automation) from viewing the Nascar website for 10 minutes per day
Cons:
Monitoring is morally questionable
Monitoring is legally questionable
The program was already canceled once due to it's questionable legal standing
Monitoring costs tax payer money which could be used to try cases
Monitoring causes staff to look over their shoulder and may influence case decisions
Employee notification of acceptable use of computing systems seems to be a sufficient measure
The savings in bandwidth which was the original justification for this activity is outweighed by the cost to the judicial process, the civil rights of judicial employees, and the monetary cost of managing the monitoring system
If the civil rights of federal judges can be infringed upon with such ease, our civil rights don't stand a chance
To be perfectly fair, maybe I missed something. Tell me again why monitoting is a positive thing...
There's missing the point, then there's REALLY missing the point. You, drsoran, are REALLY missing the point. I don't care weather they're looking at porn or reading articles on the current public perception of information privacy rights. I as a citizen can't afford to have judges second guessing themselves in their activities online because they are being monitored and could face diciplinary action.
Further more, you've demonstrated my point about the difficulty of using 'slppery slope' arguments in defense of a position. While defending a judges right to view at porn may be questionable, I hardly think think you could find fault with defending the right to research public policy without fear of monitoring.
The reason monitoring members of the judiciary is so outrageous is because we as citizens can't afford to have the decisions of that judiciary system influenced by parties about which we have little or no knowlege.
Furthermore, if federal judges decline to enforce their own privacy rights, how can we epect them to enforce our privacy rights? after all, enlightened self-interest is still the single greatest motivator for any person in any society, no matter how enlightened that society might be.
There are many charities that would benefit from old computers, of the level mentioned, since whatthey have is probably far inferior, however the charities in createst need probably don't have the expertise to deal with parts. Most charities would be willing to accept donations of computers (for office work, etc) but only the technically inclined would brobably be interested in parts. Consider, buying a couple cheap drives and assembling the parts into working systems and donating those. You'd probably get a lot more charities interested in such a donation.
I can't support monitoring of the on-line activities of members of the judiciary, not because I have problems with monitoring in general (which I do, but that's another issue) but because it represents our first tentitive steps onto a slippery slope which has the potential of being the root cause of many great miscarages of justice.
Monitoring opens the door for filtering, which by definition operates with the sole purpose of preventing access to certain information. It is an exceedingly dangerour proposition, to suggest that Judges should be prevented from recieving certain information, as a matter of law, however this bears a little explaining. I'm not prtoposing that preventing judges from viewing pornography while they contemplate a legal decision is nessecerily a bad thing, but merely having the capability to filter what a judge sees opens the door to the potential risk of the abuse of the technology. Granted, monitoring is not filtering, but again, it's a slippery slope. Slippery slope arguments are difficult to make because you come off as though you're tilting at windmills, however, I think any technically knowlegable person can see the risks here.
This decision has been a long time in coming. Earlier this year Judge wrote an article in the Green Bag Law Journal called In Defense of the Hard Drive in response to proposals then to monitor the office PCs of members of the judiciary. It seems that proposal has been expanded to an unbelievable degree at this point.
On the bright side, there is a new grounds for appeal for every case brought before any court where this proposed system is implemented. Essentially, the argument could be made that undue influence was excerted over the court by those who monitor the proposed monitoring system; that judges will be hesitant to seek out information theough communications systems made available to him for that specific purpose in his/her chambers.
Unfortunately, the findings of this research will take a back seat to this information, on most national news outlets:
Thomson is a pioneer in the development of embryonic stem cells and his university holds five cell lines that are available for research under federal rules. Kaufman said this particular work was not done using federal funds.
How namy institutions are able to carry out research of this type given the fact that only a few cell lines exist that are eligable for federal funds. While lack of federal funds clearly don't prevent research (as demonstrated here) the federal government is one of the largest contributors to academic research in the United states. The policy of the currant administration has made this type of research into a closed market, that only the select few may now work in.
The earlier discussion of the demise of lego mentioned the downward spiral of corpate estimates of customer intelligence. For example, I'm not saying that Lego LOGO was a powerful programming language, but it was certainly more powerful than point 'n click / Drag 'n drop programming mechanism associated with Mindstorms. To companies really beclieve their customers to be so inept that they can't candle even the simplest of [cough] complex tasks?
And in the spirit of Karma Whoring (in that I can't integrate it into my previous train of thought) check out Russ Nelson's excellant Lego MindStorms Website
This is aparently an IETF initiative rather than a U.S. government initiative, however, given government backing, will contact through this mechanism be considered a means of official notification? By this I mean will the government then be able to deliver IRS documents and notifications via Email, and have them be considered legal notifications? This seems to present the potential problem of adoption by older generations of Americans, who either might not own a computer or other device (maybe fax machine) on which to print delivered documents. This would give Kinkos a whole new revenue streams. 'What? you want to recieve your absentee ballot? The printing fee is $5'. While I can't say this is definately wrong or inappropriate, but it certainly leaves an uneasy feeling...
--CTH
Re:Good or bad... - in all seriousness
on
HP Buys Compaq
·
· Score: 3, Informative
Consider the size of these companies. Buying a competitor is just the first step. Truly merging on an operations level will probably take serveral years. Durring that time, I wouldn't be suprised if the new (merged) company reposts losses over at lease several quarters, although in the long run, I'd say this merger is probably a good thing for investors in both companies.
From the cover sheet of the DMCA legislation:Basically, the DMCA is simply the mechanism withing the United States, of implementing the WIPO treaty. Any country that is a signatory to this treaty will be implementing DMCA-like legislation. Just give it some time...
For those, who are unfamiliar with the history of Intellectual property law, the EFF has a good primer.
Microsoft's favorite security model - security through obscurity - has vary little to do with Hailstorm and everything to do with the DMCA. Not only does the producer of the security mechanism simply not publish the details of that mechanism, but through the wonders of the DMCA, Microsoft is empowered to enforce their security model by preventing the publication of holes discovered in the security system, thereby maintaining the obscurity.
Sarcasm aside, does it really matter how secure hailstorm really is, ig Microsoft can sue into oblivion anyone who publicizes or even researches security exploits related to the system...?
--CTH
First they allow NSI to screw around and now...
on
ICANN At-Large Study
·
· Score: 2
First they allow Network Solutions to screw around with policy and now they're trying to make it more difficult for indeviduals to have a voice. This is truly outragous. Unfortunately, there aren't that many alternatives as far as influencing the process. At this point, what level of governmental oversight is there for ICANN? (I should know this but I'm getting old - memory isn't what it used to be...:)
How useful is a keyboard on handhelds of this size? I had a blackbury for a while before I got sick of it. I found it was usefu for reading email but replying was too painful to bother with... Besides, Grafiti is intuitive enough for most people. I can see using it with an extension like 'screenwrite' to reply to email... or anything else for that matter...
[Next issue] Generally, I think the PalmOS enabled phones have a lot more promise as wireless devices go. The PDAs without connectivity were useful in their own right, but adding connectivity of this sort - counter-intuitively - doesn't add that much value when compared with a cell phone having the same feature set, for aproximately the same price. And besides, Cell service providers are still subsidizing the hardware, so you get more for your money. Palm needs to concentrate on improving this aspect of the PalmOS platform's capabilities with reard to use within cellular phone hardware.
Whatever happened to Palm's plan to exit the hardware business and become the 'Microsoft of Handheld Devices' anyway? This was an announced strategy back when a bunch of their hardware designers quit and founded handspring...
Slashdot Mirror
This is the real question. If not explicitly defined in a company's privacy policy, such as Amazon.com did (saying their customer records were a business asset to be sold), do companies have the right to treat it as such? Apatently they can, although it hasn't been tested in court - but then, why did Amazon.com eplicitly state it if it were the default treatment.
As a corolary, are companies who aquire assets of another company, bound by the agreements made by that other company? I believe as a general matter of law, this is dependant on the contract in question, but with respect to customer information, is there not a defacto contract in place, governed by the terms of the company's (the company being aquired) privacy policy? Are privacy policies transferable such that they continue to be in force with respect to the data over which they originally had effect?
Since I am not a lawyer, I don't have the answers to these questions but I believe my understanding is sufficient to have properly posed them with respect to the legal status in question.
--CTH
The added efficiency of this design, over that of a typical wind power farm is derived primarily from the curvature of the buildings between which the fans are placed. How cost effective is ti to construct curved buildings? There are certain efficiencies gained with regard to interior area of such a structure, but those benefits are lost due to the rectangular block layout of the cities in which the building sould be constructed. Even with the greater efficiency of the turbines, would the Return of Investment of such a structure have an even remotely reasonable horison, given the added cost of the constructuin (not only of the turbines but if the curved structure)? It doesn't seem so.
--CTH
I completely agree. If people feel they will derive greater enjoyment from a game if they can enter it in a position of power, and someone offers them a means to do that, more power to them...
Personally, I would think part of the njoyment of online games is the chalenge of ganing a position of power withing the game universe. A vary high quality game will operate as a free market economy, where players can take on any profession withing the game, that they see fit. Likewise, the transition between the game universe and the real world is made possible by the quality and attention-to-detail found within the game. It's a testiment to the brilliance of the game designers, that people will allow this monetary and social transition between the game universe and the real world. They deserve our respect for their great accomplishment.
--CTH
Oh. Great. 3D printers that excrete, mold and add flavoring to Tofu. Like Tofu wasn't disgusting enough already...
Actually, yes. You're correct. I remember Robot Wars. It was somewhat less elegant than Omega, but definately cool. As I recall though, the graphics fell someware between NetTrek and Pong.
These 3D printers have been around for at least 10 years. It's amazing that it took this long to finally implement one in a production enviroment... Good to see progress though...
Let me know when they have one that can produce a ham sandwitch (made of han and chease and bread rather than polymer resin).
--CTH
Histarical chect pounding aside, AT&Ts broadband unit has been it a hurt for a long time. It's not suprising that AOL Time-Warner is considering this purchase.
As for weather it's good for consumers: well, market forces have acted to consolidate ISPs throughout the world. This isn't just a U.S. phenomenon. Perhaps the minimum efficient scale of this kind of service is similar to that of telephone service (vary large). We've learned from the past 100 years that regulation of monopolies isn't *always* a good thing. There are certain natural monopolies in free markets. We have seen this in telephone service, where we tried to regulate a natural monopoly out of existance, then after those regulations were eliminated - at a time when there were several large competitors in the market - a consolidation took place, not because of anti-competitive practices of one player, but because it was more efficient to do business on a larger scale than any on the indevidual players were able to do in their form at that time.
The same might be said of the internet access market. Given the bariers to entry, (exhorbinnet infastructure cost, support costs, etc.) it might be more cost effective to operate on a vary large scale, rather than have many small competitors in the merket. Just look to the DSL service provider market for evidence of this. Independant DSL service providers have been going under right left and center. This is not because of anti-competitive practices, or pricing; it's because they weren't able to cost effectively manage infastructure and support. Perhaps this market is simply a natural monopoly and the free markets are moving to increase efficiency.
Or onthe other hand, it could be a massive conspiracy... which I grant you would make for a better story, but just isn't true.
--CTH
There was a whole range of products out there along these lines back in the mid 80s. I recall one from Origin Systems (back when they were independant) that enphesised the game aspects rather than the programming aspects but nonetheless tought basic programming concepts using a BASIC-like language. As a teaching aid it was somewhat lacking but as a game, it rocked. Battles ere fought in a dufimentry 3D universe set around Origin Systems headquarters in Austin Texas. They even offered the ability to upload your robots for competition against other players where the stats were available on a BBS where members could review their rankings. Granted the online competitions weren't realtime and Blizard's battle.net is a far cooler forum for online gaming, but all that proves is that technology marches on and that Origin Systems was way ahead of their time. I think the game was called OMEGA although I'm not sure.
--CTH
There was another provision -to require a standard and consistant licensing price schedule- which obliquely touches on this issue, but none that address it directly; just as in the trial it's being ignored. Particularly troubling is the suggestion that the DOJ will model their proposed remedy on the restrictions proposed by Judge jackson in so far as those restrictions to business practices were relevant when they were originally proposed but the landscape has changed drastically sice then. Microsoft has moved on from the battle for the desktop, to the battle for the net, and if the restrictions do not relate to practices associated with the new battleground, then they will be on no value at all.
--CTH
This question was raised in the posting, but it begs a deeper question. Are OSS Projects dependant on their founder?. The imediate reaction is no, expecially in this case where she was not the founder. The closes to a single indevidual founder we could get for Mozilla would be Jamie Zawinski and the project continued on without him, but how many OSS projects are organized as a cult on personality? Is this a failing of social order of OSS, or is it just a failing of leadership and administration?
Large scale projects like Mozilla, and Apache could probably withstand a complete changing of the guard, but how many smaller prjects could handle such a change and still continue to produce quality software?
Does anyone have a mechanism to quantify the critical mass of an OSS project?
--CTH
For Open Source at this point, any press is good press. Regardless of the substancial and blatent inacuracies in the article, it's important to realize that the Washington Post is a valuable forum in which to promote OSS efforts. I would encourage some of the (moderate) leaders of the OSS movement write a few Op/Ed pieces for the Washington Post to clear up the inacuracies in this article, however the fact that it's there at all is a great achievement for the -until now nonexistant- Open Source Software PR machine.
--CTH
Pros:
- Monitoring might reduce or eliminate the 7% of non work related internet usage by judicial employees - which amounts to less than a lunch break per day.
- It's important that we prevent Judge Schumann (chairman of the Committee on Information Technology & Automation) from viewing the Nascar website for 10 minutes per day
Cons:Monitoring is legally questionable
The program was already canceled once due to it's questionable legal standing
To be perfectly fair, maybe I missed something. Tell me again why monitoting is a positive thing...
There's missing the point, then there's REALLY missing the point. You, drsoran, are REALLY missing the point. I don't care weather they're looking at porn or reading articles on the current public perception of information privacy rights. I as a citizen can't afford to have judges second guessing themselves in their activities online because they are being monitored and could face diciplinary action.
Further more, you've demonstrated my point about the difficulty of using 'slppery slope' arguments in defense of a position. While defending a judges right to view at porn may be questionable, I hardly think think you could find fault with defending the right to research public policy without fear of monitoring.
The reason monitoring members of the judiciary is so outrageous is because we as citizens can't afford to have the decisions of that judiciary system influenced by parties about which we have little or no knowlege.
Furthermore, if federal judges decline to enforce their own privacy rights, how can we epect them to enforce our privacy rights? after all, enlightened self-interest is still the single greatest motivator for any person in any society, no matter how enlightened that society might be.
--CTH
There are many charities that would benefit from old computers, of the level mentioned, since whatthey have is probably far inferior, however the charities in createst need probably don't have the expertise to deal with parts. Most charities would be willing to accept donations of computers (for office work, etc) but only the technically inclined would brobably be interested in parts. Consider, buying a couple cheap drives and assembling the parts into working systems and donating those. You'd probably get a lot more charities interested in such a donation.
--CTH
I noticed that I left out Judge James Rosenbaum 's name when referencing his article In Defense of the Hard Drive in my posting above.
my bad.
I can't support monitoring of the on-line activities of members of the judiciary, not because I have problems with monitoring in general (which I do, but that's another issue) but because it represents our first tentitive steps onto a slippery slope which has the potential of being the root cause of many great miscarages of justice.
Monitoring opens the door for filtering, which by definition operates with the sole purpose of preventing access to certain information. It is an exceedingly dangerour proposition, to suggest that Judges should be prevented from recieving certain information, as a matter of law, however this bears a little explaining. I'm not prtoposing that preventing judges from viewing pornography while they contemplate a legal decision is nessecerily a bad thing, but merely having the capability to filter what a judge sees opens the door to the potential risk of the abuse of the technology. Granted, monitoring is not filtering, but again, it's a slippery slope. Slippery slope arguments are difficult to make because you come off as though you're tilting at windmills, however, I think any technically knowlegable person can see the risks here.
This decision has been a long time in coming. Earlier this year Judge wrote an article in the Green Bag Law Journal called In Defense of the Hard Drive in response to proposals then to monitor the office PCs of members of the judiciary. It seems that proposal has been expanded to an unbelievable degree at this point.
On the bright side, there is a new grounds for appeal for every case brought before any court where this proposed system is implemented. Essentially, the argument could be made that undue influence was excerted over the court by those who monitor the proposed monitoring system; that judges will be hesitant to seek out information theough communications systems made available to him for that specific purpose in his/her chambers.
--CTH
--CTH
The earlier discussion of the demise of lego mentioned the downward spiral of corpate estimates of customer intelligence. For example, I'm not saying that Lego LOGO was a powerful programming language, but it was certainly more powerful than point 'n click / Drag 'n drop programming mechanism associated with Mindstorms. To companies really beclieve their customers to be so inept that they can't candle even the simplest of [cough] complex tasks?
And in the spirit of Karma Whoring (in that I can't integrate it into my previous train of thought) check out Russ Nelson's excellant Lego MindStorms Website
--CTH
This is aparently an IETF initiative rather than a U.S. government initiative, however, given government backing, will contact through this mechanism be considered a means of official notification? By this I mean will the government then be able to deliver IRS documents and notifications via Email, and have them be considered legal notifications? This seems to present the potential problem of adoption by older generations of Americans, who either might not own a computer or other device (maybe fax machine) on which to print delivered documents. This would give Kinkos a whole new revenue streams. 'What? you want to recieve your absentee ballot? The printing fee is $5'. While I can't say this is definately wrong or inappropriate, but it certainly leaves an uneasy feeling...
--CTH
Consider the size of these companies. Buying a competitor is just the first step. Truly merging on an operations level will probably take serveral years. Durring that time, I wouldn't be suprised if the new (merged) company reposts losses over at lease several quarters, although in the long run, I'd say this merger is probably a good thing for investors in both companies.
--CTH
From the cover sheet of the DMCA legislation:Basically, the DMCA is simply the mechanism withing the United States, of implementing the WIPO treaty. Any country that is a signatory to this treaty will be implementing DMCA-like legislation. Just give it some time...
For those, who are unfamiliar with the history of Intellectual property law, the EFF has a good primer.
--CTH
Microsoft's favorite security model - security through obscurity - has vary little to do with Hailstorm and everything to do with the DMCA. Not only does the producer of the security mechanism simply not publish the details of that mechanism, but through the wonders of the DMCA, Microsoft is empowered to enforce their security model by preventing the publication of holes discovered in the security system, thereby maintaining the obscurity.
Sarcasm aside, does it really matter how secure hailstorm really is, ig Microsoft can sue into oblivion anyone who publicizes or even researches security exploits related to the system...?
--CTH
First they allow Network Solutions to screw around with policy and now they're trying to make it more difficult for indeviduals to have a voice. This is truly outragous. Unfortunately, there aren't that many alternatives as far as influencing the process. At this point, what level of governmental oversight is there for ICANN? (I should know this but I'm getting old - memory isn't what it used to be... :)
--CTH
How useful is a keyboard on handhelds of this size? I had a blackbury for a while before I got sick of it. I found it was usefu for reading email but replying was too painful to bother with... Besides, Grafiti is intuitive enough for most people. I can see using it with an extension like 'screenwrite' to reply to email... or anything else for that matter...
[Next issue] Generally, I think the PalmOS enabled phones have a lot more promise as wireless devices go. The PDAs without connectivity were useful in their own right, but adding connectivity of this sort - counter-intuitively - doesn't add that much value when compared with a cell phone having the same feature set, for aproximately the same price. And besides, Cell service providers are still subsidizing the hardware, so you get more for your money. Palm needs to concentrate on improving this aspect of the PalmOS platform's capabilities with reard to use within cellular phone hardware.
Whatever happened to Palm's plan to exit the hardware business and become the 'Microsoft of Handheld Devices' anyway? This was an announced strategy back when a bunch of their hardware designers quit and founded handspring...
--CTH