Did you know that already 7% of households in the UK have no landline due to the huge popularity of mobile phones there? What with 54% of the population owning one, it looks like the death of the landline isn't that far off...
And last year was the first year BT didn't build any new public telephones either.
Wow, this sounds like something that those wonderful people who develop biological weapons would love to get their hands on. Especially those with racial issues. Then they could ensure that the gene pool of their culture remains "pure" from adulteration by "lesser" beings...
Seriously though, this sounds like it has all kinds of ethical implications in the wrong hands. If someone thinks that a certain group shouldn't be allowed to spread their genes throughout a population, then a variation on this which lives in human hosts could ensure that if said group is infected then they can never breed outside of that group again. I can think of several groups that would probably love to get their hands on this kind of capability.
It just goes to show that Nature is still millions of years ahead of our best weapons developers when it comes to nasty techniques...
Is very little. After all given that the business model of selling Linux distributions means that companies operate on razor-thin profit margins at best (without other value added services anyway) it's not suprising that several, or perhaps most, of these companies will experiance the financial pinch and be forced to lay off staff to cut costs.
But it doesn't really mean all that much for SuSe as a whole, just for their promotion and distribution teams in America I'd assume. You'll still be able to get it over the net I'm sure, you just might have to miss out on a fancy box:)
But currently libraries already pay royalty fees for items that they lend out to people. See this article for details. So this isn't quite a hot topic as it seems, it's more about the exact details of how it will work...
The real problem is that by changing to digital content the publishers have seen a way to inflate the amount that they get from libraries. Libraries don't traditionally have huge budgets with which to purchase new materials, and if they end up having to pay on a per-use basis then many of them will have to stop stocking as many items. And because libraries have traditionally been free to use, they can't pass their costs onto the public.
However in this case the libraries have something in their favour that Napster users don't - an unbeatable public image. You can't tarnish libraries as thieves and pirates, not without ruining your cause. It may well be that this issue is the single most important thing in deciding exactly how fair use and payment models will apply to digital content.
Agreed, but the question that raises is wether that was the result of the fact that those FTP sites were really hard to find or the fact that the amount of people on the internet was relatively limeited back then. I think I can safely state that over here the MP3/Napster hype came into existence at the same time the general internet hype came into existence.
I wouldn't say they were that hard to find, after all there have been services like mp3.lycos.com around fo years allowing you to search for MP3s on the net. It's just not as easy for the average net user to use and hear about these services, whereas the amount of publicity (ironically, much of it from the RIAA) Napster received was staggering.
Remember, most people on the internet rarely leave the specified "domains" that ISPs like AOL and Freeserve create. These companies specifically try and keep their users within their sites in order to maximise ad revenues, and many people are happy with what these companies provide. So unless there's huge publicity other services will remain a minority interest...
I think that it is way too late for that. If the music industry had taken over Napster or created their own version right at the start, they might have been able to regulate the whole concept of downloadable media. They could've drawn a lot of users to their service - users that now, with the demise of Napster, are going to spread over a number of free services, diminishing the chance of finding the content you want on 'your' service.
True, but all they really have to do is make it hard enough to find such music that the average user isn't able to find it. There are never really going to be any ways that can allow them to 100% control digital content, and they know that. But as long as the vast majority are playing by their rules they win.
Consider the fact that MP3s have been available on FTP sites for years, and yet there wasn't any real outcry over that. It's because most people couldn't find such material. But when Napster came onto the market, allowing Joe Sixpack to find MP3s with a few clicks, the RIAA suddenly moves into action, denouncing MP3s as the end of the world.
If they can control the major, well-known players, they effectively control the market. And that's really what they want.
The trouble with dot-com startups is the very thing which they aspire to - going public - is the very thing which enables them to get taken over by larger, more established players in the market. And even if this isn't possible, when you're talking about the legal minefield that digital content has become, the threat of multi-million dollar lawsuits can succeed in scaring companies into giving up control a la Napster. My prediction is that over the next few years we'll see all of the for-profit digital content services get absorbed into the mainstream, being taken over by RIAA and MPAA member companies just to survive.
So it looks like this will leave us with the not-for-profit, decentralised services like Gnutella, which despite its flaws is less vulnerable to corporate bullying than services like Napster and even its open variants, all of which require a central point. Sure, you'll still be able to get your latest Brittany Spears MP3s over Napster or Scour, but it sure as hell won't be for free, and it's even less likely to be anonymous.
Actually, there's one way these companies might like to operate. Instead of asking for cash they could instead ask for personal information. Chances are this kind of information would be worth far more to them in the long-term than some kind of micropayment - it would enable true targetted advertising, the holy grail of marketing departments across the corporate world. And most people would rather give this information than pay for a service...
So when Napster starts asking for demographic information, you know it's time to start looking for an alternative...
Wow, great. Yet again, a pointless story about Sun and Microsoft making bitchy remarks and putdowns at each other. I mean come on folks, surely by now we've got to the point where every tit-for-tat exchange to come out of the PR departments of large companies isn't anything new? If it's not Sun and Microsoft, it's Oracle and Microsoft, Intel and AMD or whichever pair of companies feels like garnering some free publicity at the time.
The smarmy and condescending tone of this article is a real put-off, and yet again Sun are doing little other than spewing hyperbole about Java with a few facts, figures and dates to give it authenticity. Sun, as a company have done little for anyone but themselves, and have fought tooth and claw to keep Java from being a truly open standard, only ever making token gestures when people shouted loudly enough.
Not that Microsoft it any better. They're not. Which makes me wonder who cares about this sort of exchange? It adds nothing of interest to the world of computing, just more of the same corporate BS we've seen a thousand times before.
Open technology and the rise of near-unbreakable encryption has allowed each individual to make their own decisions about privacy and to act upon those decisions without recourse to regulation or government interference. This is a wonderful thing in a nation where the government seems to increasingly view our Constitutional rights as something preventing them from doing their job.
But as with all things there is a flip side! Just as we can use encryption to ensure our private thoughts aren't available to every spook with a PC, terrorists like Bin Laden and rogue nations like Iraq or North Korea can use encryption to prevent our defenders in the CIA, NSA and so on from stopping their terrorist activities. And unless encryption breaking techniques make a quantum leap foward in the next few years, this situation is going to become the norm.
Now overall I would say that the privacy to be gained in this situation outweighs the relatively small number of terrorist uses of email and the net. But these agencies need to be able to do their jobs effectively! They're not just there for show, they do a valuable and worthwhile job in ensuring our citizens are protected. In order to offset the loss of information caused by encyrption, we need to ensure that several steps are taken.
Firstly, we need to to step up manned operations abroad, especially in known trouble spots. We'll need to recruit more people to do this, which means increasing budgets. And in the event that all of this fails, we're going to need the much-maligned national missile defence folks. When you don't know in advance what's coming, you have to be able to protect yourselves! It's no different from soldiers wearing a bulletproof jacket, and in these times when nuclear proliferation is a fact of life, America needs that jacket.
There are a lot of useful links at the bottom of the Electromagnetic Propulsion homepage about this sort of thing, but the main thing that interests me is the idea of massdrivers.
Although they're not so practical for using from the surface of the Earth to get into orbit, they'd be great for moving payloads from the surface of the Moon into Earth orbit without the use of expensive launch vehicles. Although the railgun uses an awful lot of power a variant called the coilgun uses far less power, although it costs more, and may eventually be practical for this purpose.
Considering that today people seem to want to throw the latest technologies at every tiny little problem they encounter the fact that the Apollo 11 worked is a testament to the fact that more is not always better, and that complexity brings its own problems.
Unfortunately, it seems as though people have gotten used to the idea that they require the latest technology, the latest "innovations" in order to be successful and cool. Hence the market for shoddy products that are rushed out quickly to customers, who can be guaranteed to solve their problems by getting the next release because it's newer and therefore superior.
Whereas this machine, so simple compared to even the simplest of embedded processors today, did what it was supposed to, and did it well. Today, we see all kinds of computer problems due to technology being thrown at projects as a miracle cure without considering what is actually required! Just look at the Navy's debacle with NT for a prime example.
Well done/. We need more stories to remind us that more technology isn't always good. Remember, 90% of everything is crap, and technology is no exception.
Sure this is a scenario that the RIAA/MPAA hegemony would like to have become reality, and one that doomsayers will put out in the hopes of garnering reaction, but it's hardly likely.
So companies like Intel are already moving towards content protection at every stage of a signal, from your hard disk drive to the cable between your PC and your monitor. But all this will encourage is technical solutions to what will be seen by many as either a technical challenge or an unwarranted invasion of their rights.
The best these companies can hope for is that their measures will deter some of the least tech-savvy from doing things they don't like. Of course, these are generally the people who are least likely to be downloading songs off of Napster or Gnutella anyway, but that's not the point is it?
And this scenario completely manages to miss the fact that the US is not the world, and that attitudes to copyright and IP vary from nation to nation, whereas the internet has the potential to allow people in one country to access material hosted elsewhere. Short of a giant firewall a la China (not that that is particularly effective) there is going to be precious little ways of ensuring 100% control, and any exploits will be spread far and wide as quickly as possible.
So I think this is just an alarmist scare story. There are just too many flaws for it to work this way.
At the moment people worried about their data being intercepted by the Government or other organisations already use encryption such as PGP on things like email, and use SSH rather than Telnet and so on. These people will simply continue to use encryption on their wireless devices. Sure traffic is easier to detect, but the problem for any such snooper is still cracking the encryption, which is by far the more difficult task.
Of course the majority won't care about privacy then, just as they don't now...
This is going to further fuel the debate over whether or not email and news posting should consist of active (JavaScript, DHTML and so on) or passive (plain text, HTML) content. I suppose really it depends on what sort of person you are.
Whilst technically you can convey whatever information you want through the use of plain text (maybe using some *emphasis*) and attachments, for many this is a solution which is less convenient for them - it requires more clicks or keypresses to access, and doesn't present the information in quite such an integrated manner. And in the business world the phrase "time equals money" has been given the status of a law, with companies paying out huge sums of cash to time management consultants and the like. These people don't want any extra time or hassle in their emails, not when they're receiving well over a hundred every day.
For business types active content and embedded files mean more productivity and an easier email experiance. They're not concerned about privacy issues, and if they are then well, it's the job of the IT guys, right? So this sort of bug is inevitable - either you cripple active content - somthing that's too late to do - or you try and provide rock solid security - a challenge people seem only too willing to take on.
It all depends on a) your willingness to expose yourself to risk, and b) your desire for presentation and convenience. Seeing as the web has moved from text-based to graphics-based in the majority, I think the future of email is going to be the same, whether we like it or not.
Slashdot Mirror
There are approx. 35.7 million subscriptions in this country, which is about 54% of the population - see here. And this number is still increasing...
Did you know that already 7% of households in the UK have no landline due to the huge popularity of mobile phones there? What with 54% of the population owning one, it looks like the death of the landline isn't that far off...
And last year was the first year BT didn't build any new public telephones either.
Wow, this sounds like something that those wonderful people who develop biological weapons would love to get their hands on. Especially those with racial issues. Then they could ensure that the gene pool of their culture remains "pure" from adulteration by "lesser" beings...
Seriously though, this sounds like it has all kinds of ethical implications in the wrong hands. If someone thinks that a certain group shouldn't be allowed to spread their genes throughout a population, then a variation on this which lives in human hosts could ensure that if said group is infected then they can never breed outside of that group again. I can think of several groups that would probably love to get their hands on this kind of capability.
It just goes to show that Nature is still millions of years ahead of our best weapons developers when it comes to nasty techniques...
Is very little. After all given that the business model of selling Linux distributions means that companies operate on razor-thin profit margins at best (without other value added services anyway) it's not suprising that several, or perhaps most, of these companies will experiance the financial pinch and be forced to lay off staff to cut costs.
But it doesn't really mean all that much for SuSe as a whole, just for their promotion and distribution teams in America I'd assume. You'll still be able to get it over the net I'm sure, you just might have to miss out on a fancy box :)
But currently libraries already pay royalty fees for items that they lend out to people. See this article for details. So this isn't quite a hot topic as it seems, it's more about the exact details of how it will work...
The real problem is that by changing to digital content the publishers have seen a way to inflate the amount that they get from libraries. Libraries don't traditionally have huge budgets with which to purchase new materials, and if they end up having to pay on a per-use basis then many of them will have to stop stocking as many items. And because libraries have traditionally been free to use, they can't pass their costs onto the public.
However in this case the libraries have something in their favour that Napster users don't - an unbeatable public image. You can't tarnish libraries as thieves and pirates, not without ruining your cause. It may well be that this issue is the single most important thing in deciding exactly how fair use and payment models will apply to digital content.
Agreed, but the question that raises is wether that was the result of the fact that those FTP sites were really hard to find or the fact that the amount of people on the internet was relatively limeited back then. I think I can safely state that over here the MP3/Napster hype came into existence at the same time the general internet hype came into existence.
I wouldn't say they were that hard to find, after all there have been services like mp3.lycos.com around fo years allowing you to search for MP3s on the net. It's just not as easy for the average net user to use and hear about these services, whereas the amount of publicity (ironically, much of it from the RIAA) Napster received was staggering.
Remember, most people on the internet rarely leave the specified "domains" that ISPs like AOL and Freeserve create. These companies specifically try and keep their users within their sites in order to maximise ad revenues, and many people are happy with what these companies provide. So unless there's huge publicity other services will remain a minority interest...
I think that it is way too late for that. If the music industry had taken over Napster or created their own version right at the start, they might have been able to regulate the whole concept of downloadable media. They could've drawn a lot of users to their service - users that now, with the demise of Napster, are going to spread over a number of free services, diminishing the chance of finding the content you want on 'your' service.
True, but all they really have to do is make it hard enough to find such music that the average user isn't able to find it. There are never really going to be any ways that can allow them to 100% control digital content, and they know that. But as long as the vast majority are playing by their rules they win.
Consider the fact that MP3s have been available on FTP sites for years, and yet there wasn't any real outcry over that. It's because most people couldn't find such material. But when Napster came onto the market, allowing Joe Sixpack to find MP3s with a few clicks, the RIAA suddenly moves into action, denouncing MP3s as the end of the world.
If they can control the major, well-known players, they effectively control the market. And that's really what they want.
The trouble with dot-com startups is the very thing which they aspire to - going public - is the very thing which enables them to get taken over by larger, more established players in the market. And even if this isn't possible, when you're talking about the legal minefield that digital content has become, the threat of multi-million dollar lawsuits can succeed in scaring companies into giving up control a la Napster. My prediction is that over the next few years we'll see all of the for-profit digital content services get absorbed into the mainstream, being taken over by RIAA and MPAA member companies just to survive.
So it looks like this will leave us with the not-for-profit, decentralised services like Gnutella, which despite its flaws is less vulnerable to corporate bullying than services like Napster and even its open variants, all of which require a central point. Sure, you'll still be able to get your latest Brittany Spears MP3s over Napster or Scour, but it sure as hell won't be for free, and it's even less likely to be anonymous.
Actually, there's one way these companies might like to operate. Instead of asking for cash they could instead ask for personal information. Chances are this kind of information would be worth far more to them in the long-term than some kind of micropayment - it would enable true targetted advertising, the holy grail of marketing departments across the corporate world. And most people would rather give this information than pay for a service...
So when Napster starts asking for demographic information, you know it's time to start looking for an alternative...
Wow, great. Yet again, a pointless story about Sun and Microsoft making bitchy remarks and putdowns at each other. I mean come on folks, surely by now we've got to the point where every tit-for-tat exchange to come out of the PR departments of large companies isn't anything new? If it's not Sun and Microsoft, it's Oracle and Microsoft, Intel and AMD or whichever pair of companies feels like garnering some free publicity at the time.
The smarmy and condescending tone of this article is a real put-off, and yet again Sun are doing little other than spewing hyperbole about Java with a few facts, figures and dates to give it authenticity. Sun, as a company have done little for anyone but themselves, and have fought tooth and claw to keep Java from being a truly open standard, only ever making token gestures when people shouted loudly enough.
Not that Microsoft it any better. They're not. Which makes me wonder who cares about this sort of exchange? It adds nothing of interest to the world of computing, just more of the same corporate BS we've seen a thousand times before.
Open technology and the rise of near-unbreakable encryption has allowed each individual to make their own decisions about privacy and to act upon those decisions without recourse to regulation or government interference. This is a wonderful thing in a nation where the government seems to increasingly view our Constitutional rights as something preventing them from doing their job.
But as with all things there is a flip side! Just as we can use encryption to ensure our private thoughts aren't available to every spook with a PC, terrorists like Bin Laden and rogue nations like Iraq or North Korea can use encryption to prevent our defenders in the CIA, NSA and so on from stopping their terrorist activities. And unless encryption breaking techniques make a quantum leap foward in the next few years, this situation is going to become the norm.
Now overall I would say that the privacy to be gained in this situation outweighs the relatively small number of terrorist uses of email and the net. But these agencies need to be able to do their jobs effectively! They're not just there for show, they do a valuable and worthwhile job in ensuring our citizens are protected. In order to offset the loss of information caused by encyrption, we need to ensure that several steps are taken.
Firstly, we need to to step up manned operations abroad, especially in known trouble spots. We'll need to recruit more people to do this, which means increasing budgets. And in the event that all of this fails, we're going to need the much-maligned national missile defence folks. When you don't know in advance what's coming, you have to be able to protect yourselves! It's no different from soldiers wearing a bulletproof jacket, and in these times when nuclear proliferation is a fact of life, America needs that jacket.
There are a lot of useful links at the bottom of the Electromagnetic Propulsion homepage about this sort of thing, but the main thing that interests me is the idea of massdrivers.
Although they're not so practical for using from the surface of the Earth to get into orbit, they'd be great for moving payloads from the surface of the Moon into Earth orbit without the use of expensive launch vehicles. Although the railgun uses an awful lot of power a variant called the coilgun uses far less power, although it costs more, and may eventually be practical for this purpose.
Considering that today people seem to want to throw the latest technologies at every tiny little problem they encounter the fact that the Apollo 11 worked is a testament to the fact that more is not always better, and that complexity brings its own problems.
Unfortunately, it seems as though people have gotten used to the idea that they require the latest technology, the latest "innovations" in order to be successful and cool. Hence the market for shoddy products that are rushed out quickly to customers, who can be guaranteed to solve their problems by getting the next release because it's newer and therefore superior.
Whereas this machine, so simple compared to even the simplest of embedded processors today, did what it was supposed to, and did it well. Today, we see all kinds of computer problems due to technology being thrown at projects as a miracle cure without considering what is actually required! Just look at the Navy's debacle with NT for a prime example.
Well done /. We need more stories to remind us that more technology isn't always good. Remember, 90% of everything is crap, and technology is no exception.
Sure this is a scenario that the RIAA/MPAA hegemony would like to have become reality, and one that doomsayers will put out in the hopes of garnering reaction, but it's hardly likely.
So companies like Intel are already moving towards content protection at every stage of a signal, from your hard disk drive to the cable between your PC and your monitor. But all this will encourage is technical solutions to what will be seen by many as either a technical challenge or an unwarranted invasion of their rights.
The best these companies can hope for is that their measures will deter some of the least tech-savvy from doing things they don't like. Of course, these are generally the people who are least likely to be downloading songs off of Napster or Gnutella anyway, but that's not the point is it?
And this scenario completely manages to miss the fact that the US is not the world, and that attitudes to copyright and IP vary from nation to nation, whereas the internet has the potential to allow people in one country to access material hosted elsewhere. Short of a giant firewall a la China (not that that is particularly effective) there is going to be precious little ways of ensuring 100% control, and any exploits will be spread far and wide as quickly as possible.
So I think this is just an alarmist scare story. There are just too many flaws for it to work this way.
At the moment people worried about their data being intercepted by the Government or other organisations already use encryption such as PGP on things like email, and use SSH rather than Telnet and so on. These people will simply continue to use encryption on their wireless devices. Sure traffic is easier to detect, but the problem for any such snooper is still cracking the encryption, which is by far the more difficult task.
Of course the majority won't care about privacy then, just as they don't now...
This is going to further fuel the debate over whether or not email and news posting should consist of active (JavaScript, DHTML and so on) or passive (plain text, HTML) content. I suppose really it depends on what sort of person you are.
Whilst technically you can convey whatever information you want through the use of plain text (maybe using some *emphasis*) and attachments, for many this is a solution which is less convenient for them - it requires more clicks or keypresses to access, and doesn't present the information in quite such an integrated manner. And in the business world the phrase "time equals money" has been given the status of a law, with companies paying out huge sums of cash to time management consultants and the like. These people don't want any extra time or hassle in their emails, not when they're receiving well over a hundred every day.
For business types active content and embedded files mean more productivity and an easier email experiance. They're not concerned about privacy issues, and if they are then well, it's the job of the IT guys, right? So this sort of bug is inevitable - either you cripple active content - somthing that's too late to do - or you try and provide rock solid security - a challenge people seem only too willing to take on.
It all depends on a) your willingness to expose yourself to risk, and b) your desire for presentation and convenience. Seeing as the web has moved from text-based to graphics-based in the majority, I think the future of email is going to be the same, whether we like it or not.