As many on this board are aware, PC Pitstop launched a major awareness campaign about Gator and its activities. Gator in turn sued us, and we finally settled and the terms of this agreement are confidential. However, we'd like to post our opinion about Gator's recent name change.
We believe that the only solution to this problem is one of awareness. When a user sees a Gator Active X, it must be eventually engrained into their heads to click NO. Gator is indeed clever, because by changing names, it makes an awareness campaign more difficult and also expensive. By analyzing the recent moves, it seems that Claria is comprised of three organizations:
GAIN Publishing - This organization contains the software packages eWallet, Precision Time, Date Manager, and Weatherscope, and also the GAIN network. GAIN Publishing is also responsible for selling the advertising on the GAIN Network. Note: It seems that recently Gator/Claria has changed the name on their Active X certificates from Gator Inc to GAIN Publishing.
Search Scout - Search Scout is a product of their relationship with Overture. This organization is responsible for managing the Overture relationship, and also determining in which situations Search Scout will over ride the user's browsing experience. Note: We have recently discovered that Search Scout pops up not only when Google or other web searches but on specific sites. For example, I was listening to Gateway's earnings conference call, and Search Scout popped a full page window, with the title "Looking to purchase a computer?".
Feedback Research - It seems that this is a new organization. It seems that the purpose of this organization is to run targetted surveys to users of the GAIN network. We recently have found (and have screen shots) of a survey that Feedback Research is running to users of the Google Toolbar.
Claria is a smart company. Their name change is good evidence that they are trying to keep ahead of the rising anti Gator sentiment on the internet. So we just need to be smarter. Here are a few ideas to hopefully spur more awareness:
1. Companies UNITE. One thing that I have learned from slash dot is that the impact on company's productivity and expenses is more measurable than to individual consumers.
2. Know the beast - I hate to say this. But I want to encourage everyone to install Gator on your PC to know what it is doing. It is clear that Gator/Claria is constantly changing its tactics to its environment, and the more eyes watching their behaviour the better. Of course, uninstall the software before it gets to be too aggravating.
3. Tell everyone you know - No one is protected against Gator. It can show up on anyone's computer at any time. So everyone needs to know about Gator.
4. Tell your company not to advertise with Gator and/or Overture.
This box plays DVD's very well, as well as MP3's. You can download free software from the internet, and if you are a developer, then you will be able to make it do all sorts of interesting things. You can't do that on an XBox or Nintendo. All they do is play games.
I am an investor in VM Labs. I am also a 20 year veteran of the PC industry. Was in senior management at Gateway.
The reason that I invested in VM Labs and Nuon was the potential to have an open computing platform for the living room. Just like a PC. Open like a PC, and software availability like a PC. Don't compare Nuon to a Playstation or a Nintendo, compare it to a PC.
Although games are an interesting application of the Nuon, I honestly don't think it is the primary one. And it is certainly not the reason that I invested in this technology. Much more relevant and interesting are codec's such as JPEG, Quicktime, Divx;) etc. Basically, any digital file format will now be able to be displayed in your living room.
This is one of the key reasons why the source is being opened up. Because it's not just for games, but to get as broad and diverse a development community as possible. That not just develops games, but all kinds of awesome applications that are better suited for viewing and use in the living room from 10 feet away, as opposed to a PC that is 2 feet away.
Imagine subsequent generations of these products that include USB and a hard drive. The possibilities very quickly become very interesting. Now imagine the same system with an MPEG2 encoder, and a CD-RW, or a DVD-R. I think you get the idea.
Wasn't his big mistake to sell the program? Shouldn't he have just placed the code into the public domain just like the DECSS guy? Once they started selling it, then his company and also himself became fundamentally at odds with the companies that funded the DMCA.
Skylarov clearly wanted to tell the world about his discovery, which also put him at odds with his own company as well as the DMCA.
All in all, this is such a shame. Adobe came up with a horrible marketing idea, and then developed crummy technology around the idea. Shouldn't the market place determine how horrible it all is?
No one is saying that copyright is bad. The unamimous reaction here at slash do is that the DMCA in its attempt to further copyright protection has also seemed to step on people's free speech rights.
That's the question, bozo. And when you think about it, and you post here freely using those rights, maybe you should be holding these rights a little more dearly than you were earlier.
I won't honor your silly comments about the technically sophisticated, of which you are clearly not one. Glad to see that you learned how to use a computer.
The general popularity of CD-R's in PC's is one of the most important technological transitions in the history of the PC. This technology empowers users to do many things previously undoable. The vast majority of these things are perfectly legal, although a few are certainly illegal.
The problem that I have is that one of the key reasons for the popularity of this technology is the that it greatly reduced the cost of backup storage. Zip drives at $10/100MB was never a good solution. Similar to other taxes, once the mechanism is put in place, politicians can increase the tax to their heart's desire impacting the overall value of the technology. All this for a vocal minority.
More importanty is the adoption of other technologies. If this is their reaction to CD-R, what is the reaction to DVD-R? Media is still $15 per blank is still way too high for practical individual applications, but most forecasts show these costs falling. What if a tax is imposed here? Will it thwart the adoption of this emerging technology?
Here is the larger issue. In all of the RIAA's efforts, they are trying to slow the pace of adoption of technology to further their own good. However, technology in itself is the key to better lives and better solutions, as well as a better tomorrow. It is also key to the revitalization of the American economy. RIAA cannot and should not do anything to stand in the way of this. The success of a technology should be defined by market forces, not by the strength of the organizations it threatens.
Slashdot Mirror
As many on this board are aware, PC Pitstop launched a major awareness campaign about Gator and its activities. Gator in turn sued us, and we finally settled and the terms of this agreement are confidential. However, we'd like to post our opinion about Gator's recent name change.
We believe that the only solution to this problem is one of awareness. When a user sees a Gator Active X, it must be eventually engrained into their heads to click NO. Gator is indeed clever, because by changing names, it makes an awareness campaign more difficult and also expensive. By analyzing the recent moves, it seems that Claria is comprised of three organizations:
GAIN Publishing - This organization contains the software packages eWallet, Precision Time, Date Manager, and Weatherscope, and also the GAIN network. GAIN Publishing is also responsible for selling the advertising on the GAIN Network. Note: It seems that recently Gator/Claria has changed the name on their Active X certificates from Gator Inc to GAIN Publishing.
Search Scout - Search Scout is a product of their relationship with Overture. This organization is responsible for managing the Overture relationship, and also determining in which situations Search Scout will over ride the user's browsing experience. Note: We have recently discovered that Search Scout pops up not only when Google or other web searches but on specific sites. For example, I was listening to Gateway's earnings conference call, and Search Scout popped a full page window, with the title "Looking to purchase a computer?".
Feedback Research - It seems that this is a new organization. It seems that the purpose of this organization is to run targetted surveys to users of the GAIN network. We recently have found (and have screen shots) of a survey that Feedback Research is running to users of the Google Toolbar.
Claria is a smart company. Their name change is good evidence that they are trying to keep ahead of the rising anti Gator sentiment on the internet. So we just need to be smarter. Here are a few ideas to hopefully spur more awareness:
1. Companies UNITE. One thing that I have learned from slash dot is that the impact on company's productivity and expenses is more measurable than to individual consumers.
2. Know the beast - I hate to say this. But I want to encourage everyone to install Gator on your PC to know what it is doing. It is clear that Gator/Claria is constantly changing its tactics to its environment, and the more eyes watching their behaviour the better. Of course, uninstall the software before it gets to be too aggravating.
3. Tell everyone you know - No one is protected against Gator. It can show up on anyone's computer at any time. So everyone needs to know about Gator.
4. Tell your company not to advertise with Gator and/or Overture.
This box plays DVD's very well, as well as MP3's. You can download free software from the internet, and if you are a developer, then you will be able to make it do all sorts of interesting things. You can't do that on an XBox or Nintendo. All they do is play games.
I am an investor in VM Labs. I am also a 20 year veteran of the PC industry. Was in senior management at Gateway.
The reason that I invested in VM Labs and Nuon was the potential to have an open computing platform for the living room. Just like a PC. Open like a PC, and software availability like a PC. Don't compare Nuon to a Playstation or a Nintendo, compare it to a PC.
Although games are an interesting application of the Nuon, I honestly don't think it is the primary one. And it is certainly not the reason that I invested in this technology. Much more relevant and interesting are codec's such as JPEG, Quicktime, Divx;) etc. Basically, any digital file format will now be able to be displayed in your living room.
This is one of the key reasons why the source is being opened up. Because it's not just for games, but to get as broad and diverse a development community as possible. That not just develops games, but all kinds of awesome applications that are better suited for viewing and use in the living room from 10 feet away, as opposed to a PC that is 2 feet away.
Imagine subsequent generations of these products that include USB and a hard drive. The possibilities very quickly become very interesting. Now imagine the same system with an MPEG2 encoder, and a CD-RW, or a DVD-R. I think you get the idea.
Rob
Wasn't his big mistake to sell the program? Shouldn't he have just placed the code into the public domain just like the DECSS guy? Once they started selling it, then his company and also himself became fundamentally at odds with the companies that funded the DMCA.
Skylarov clearly wanted to tell the world about his discovery, which also put him at odds with his own company as well as the DMCA.
All in all, this is such a shame. Adobe came up with a horrible marketing idea, and then developed crummy technology around the idea. Shouldn't the market place determine how horrible it all is?
You really don't get it, do you?
No one is saying that copyright is bad. The unamimous reaction here at slash do is that the DMCA in its attempt to further copyright protection has also seemed to step on people's free speech rights.
That's the question, bozo. And when you think about it, and you post here freely using those rights, maybe you should be holding these rights a little more dearly than you were earlier.
I won't honor your silly comments about the technically sophisticated, of which you are clearly not one. Glad to see that you learned how to use a computer.
The general popularity of CD-R's in PC's is one of the most important technological transitions in the history of the PC. This technology empowers users to do many things previously undoable. The vast majority of these things are perfectly legal, although a few are certainly illegal.
The problem that I have is that one of the key reasons for the popularity of this technology is the that it greatly reduced the cost of backup storage. Zip drives at $10/100MB was never a good solution. Similar to other taxes, once the mechanism is put in place, politicians can increase the tax to their heart's desire impacting the overall value of the technology. All this for a vocal minority.
More importanty is the adoption of other technologies. If this is their reaction to CD-R, what is the reaction to DVD-R? Media is still $15 per blank is still way too high for practical individual applications, but most forecasts show these costs falling. What if a tax is imposed here? Will it thwart the adoption of this emerging technology?
Here is the larger issue. In all of the RIAA's efforts, they are trying to slow the pace of adoption of technology to further their own good. However, technology in itself is the key to better lives and better solutions, as well as a better tomorrow. It is also key to the revitalization of the American economy. RIAA cannot and should not do anything to stand in the way of this. The success of a technology should be defined by market forces, not by the strength of the organizations it threatens.