No, MS has only claimed their spyware removal tool is going to remove the part that hides the crapware. It they decided to do what was right and got sue by Sony, they have hordes of their own lawyers. This is an unfortunate case where doing what is right is not what is legal, no thanks to the DMCA. If MS removed all of it and fixed the holes and got sued they should have some leverage considering Windows IS their product and they should be allowed to defend/fix it. If Sony tries using the DMCA card, they could try claiming the Sony DRM virus bypassed some Window encryption and Sony is in violation of the DMCA. Or claim Sony's abomination makes their product look like it has more bigger security holes than it really has, defimation of character if it were a person. Sony needs to be punished for this. Customers vote with their cash, if I bought Sony products, I'd stop, but I don't, so I don't plan on ever buying anything Sony.
How long until the RIAA tries to add the "Sony virus" into their iTunes tracks? By allowing this software to secretly install on your computer you hereby argee to immediately and permanantly transfer ownership of your computer and all software and data contained within to the Recording Industry Cartel of America. You also agree that all price "flexibility"(we mean price hikes) is retrocative and will contact our service center(collection agency goons) at 1-866-BEND-OVER to report all your past purchases and agree to receive a bill for an additional $1.50 for each piece of "Intellectual Property" leased at 99c under the old rates. And you can't view the EULA until after the program installs and there isn't a "NO" option.
The Simpsons reference: Homer: Uh, Milhouse saw the elephant twice and rode him once, right? Mrs. Van Houten: Yes, but we paid you $4. Homer: Well, that was under our old price structure. Under our new price structure, your bill comes to a total of $700. Now, you've already paid me $4, so that's just $696 more that you owe me. Mr. Van Houten: Get off our property. Homer: So much for that idea
I wouldn't put the idea past the greedy folks at the RIAA. I think it's time for Jobs to use the "G" word again.
It was all an RIAA scam to harvest IP addresses for future lawsuits. Everyone knows that people who buy CDs also download music and "paying customer" is just another word for "criminal" and "pirate"(ARRRG!!!) and people like to give away what they paid for with their hard earned money. Eventually the Sony virus receives an update instructing it to search paying customer's computer for *.mp3 and report back with the list of possibly shared files, current IP and timestamp. In a few weeks to months person is sued by the RIAA. And it was all done without having to pay outside "agents", First 4 Internet couldn't have been paid that much.
yes, conspiracy theory-ish and I hope none of it's true, the RIAA can't be that bad.
I nominate Senator Orin Hatch for the office of Lord Gov'nor of the Internet. Oh, wait, we're trying to 'save' the Internet. In that case the interview should consist the question: "What do you know about the following: Dan Glickman, Mitch Bainwol/Cary Sherman and Orin Hatch? the first person to say "who?" gets the job. And an special section of the Internet should be created to contain the RIAA, MPAA, Hatch and Kansas.
Wasn't this already done on South Park? I think it was the Faith+1 double platnium episode, but could have another, I havn't seen it recently. And Revenge of the Nerds, some software written or at least assisted music won them control of the council. And then there was Voyager's singing doctor, music is math you can hear. It's only "pop" music, it can't be that hard to make up something and market it successfully, and if it doesn't sell you can blame it on piracy, the RIAA does it all the time.
Kansas needs to be natural selection-ed out of the union. Intelligent design exists in ST-TNG: The Chase and Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy and the Earth is a supercomputer in need of a memory dump in the area of Kansas.
$2500!? Where's the cheap gimmick that makes it worth that much? How about TNG in the Borg Cube box? If I were to get all those individually at deepdvddicsount(dot com) I could get it for about $150 less, or $750 less if I leave out Voyager. Greedy Paramount wants to sell Star Trek at $100 a season, I guess they're going for PROFIT over total sales. SG-1 can be had for $30-40 a season, for those who don't like math, that's 60%-70% less, yes they're only 22eps/season while Star Trek is mostly 26eps, but even that doesn't make it worth the more than doubled price. If you want TNG and DS9 I suggest a cheap, or not so cheap, TV card or even a TiVo and SpikeTV, 2 eps of DS9 and 3 of TNG, you'll have the entire series in a couple weeks.
exactly, smoking stinks The filters may be fine for those doing the smoking, but what about the rest of us who get stuck having to smell the other byproducts? If the location selection is up to me I'll avoid a place if I see people smoking, but where we go is not always up to me. Cigarette smoke is that nasty stuff that doesn't go away unless the ventalation system rivals that of a clean room. It gets into/onto everything, skin, hair, clothes and can't forget about food and drink, yes, you're eating what that person is puffing out and you don't have the benefit of three or however many filters the tomacco companies claim to put in their death sticks.
It's either they really care about the security of the resident's home wireless networks or they're planning some municipal "Wi-Fi" subscription service and they want to eliminate the free competition and have a monopoly for themselves. If they really cared, instead of fines, they'd create a free guide on securing a wireless connection and distribute it at the town hall and/or in the local paper. I'll go with 'eliminate the competition' it's all politicing, there has to a reason other than "for the public good" for why they want close down all the open networks. Hatch is owned by the **AA, maybe they've been bought out by Verizon broadband wireless.
1) take down all open wireless networks (sources of free Internets) 2) install municipal subscription service at $9.99-$59.99/mo 3) PROFIT
I would never wish a virus or spyware or anything like that on someone's PC, but it would be interesting to see the backlash against Sony if the holes their DRM rootkit opens becomes widely exploited and lots of people claim they got a virus or their computer was "hacked" no thanks to the hidden "features" secretly installed by Sony. I've been disabling autoplay since a friend gave another friend a cd with an autoplay executed virus. He didn't get the autoplay right but the concept is the same.
I have a far cheaper TVR and my latest project with it is my parent's Christmas, Easter and Groundhog Day gifts for the next couple years. Digitizing and writing to DVD at least the last 10yrs of home movies. These were filmed by my father on the camera be bought. I'm currently recording "Punkin Chukin" on the Discovery Channel for my own personal use. If the RIAA/MPAA want to tell me I can't do either of those I'll gladly tell them where they can shove their bright ideas.
It's Sony's loss. iTunes is a popular proven distrobution method, it seems Sony misses that or this is their way of whining about songs being "only" $0.99. They're already getting 100% of the profits from iTunes, Apple is getting a few cents for the operating costs of hosting and transfering the files. Oh, that's right, they want their 100% profit to be higher, maybe songs for $2.49 How about why is a 3-4min song 99c while 44min of audio and video only $1.99? yes, I know the tv episode was origionally aired with commercials. If 44min of audio and video is $2 then a song 1/11 as long and no video should be at most 1/22 of that.
Is it a myth or just the toy we wish existed? Bigfoot is a myth, the 5sec rule is a myth, this is different, it's the toy we all wish we had, really, who wouldn't want a solar powered death ray?
That's why I use carrier pigeons and the bad guys use pen&paper with bicyle couriers. Back in the first Gulf War after we destroyed just about all of Iraq's communication systems they used guys on bikes/mopeds/horses/donkeys to send messages. There are dozens of places a message can be hidden on a person, paper sewn into clothing, rolled paper in a pen tube, paper in a pack of smokes. Wait, it's 2005 now, forget carrying paper, flash memory cards are a lot smaller than a couple pieces of folded paper. How about a zippo with a false a room for a mini SD card with encrypted files. There's a reason Osama stopped using his satellite phone. There are too many ways to avoid these wire taps, coded messages on foreigh hosted sites posted from public terninals left open, maybe someone forgot to logout of a library PC. What next, people can be stopped and searched on the street because they might me a courier for the mob or the terrorists or the ACLU or the Democratic party? How long until the RIAA is sueing the Feds for access to sue "file sharers"?
What about the schools that just finished their many-million dollar upgrades? They have to do it all over. We're going to have to pay for this through more entries in your term bill and taxes for the state funded schools.
All they have to do is encrypt the code then decrypting it would be a violation of the DMCA, unless a court order would exempt you from that. The challenge makes sense, the devices in question are used to generate profit, or at least some cash flow to help pay public bills, the local governments could find it helpful to be able to distribute additional fines. Casinos and their hardware suppliers used to rig slot and video poker machines to give out fewer jackpots resulting in more PROFIT for them, saw it on Breaking Vegas. The RIAA is paying their agents for every positive result indicating file sharing of their crap. And then there's Mythbusters and the poppy seed drug test which returned a positive 30min after eating a poppy seed bagel. It's possible the challenge was made as a last desperate attempt of a habitual offender trying to avoid jail time or maybe even someone from a competing company going for the gave government contract. Even if the machines arn't rigged to add maybe 0.004 to every result they are 25yrs old and the last reviewed/certified changes were 12yrs ago and they may not be as accurate as they could be and are accidentally off by 0.002, that could be the difference between the very close 0.078 and the illegal 0.08. I read some random stat somewhere saying that 60% of drivers on the road after 3am were drunk. I used to work until 2am or 4am and if I was stopped for a random DUI test and the only thing between continuing my commute home and a fine was some electronice device I'm not familiar with I'd want it to be as accurate as possible, yes being 0.00 after work and 0.08 after some time a a bar is too big a change without some tampering. If you were at a bar and then were stopped and a breath given while you were still seated in your car, no field sobriety or blood test and the result was test failure wouldn't you want to challenge it? Maybe the batteries were low and it was running on low power and the reults were faulty. There are places(NJ being one) were refusal of a breath test has the penalty of a 0.10+, suspension of license and thousands in fines and maybe even some jail time. The results of and the device that can result such severe penalties should subject to some form of peer review or uninterested/government independent agency. Testing of DNA and other evidence is done by both sides during murder1 trials, there's no reason the same shouldn't happen for trials for lesser offences. I consider it to be the same as not being allowed to examine a photo of you allegedly robbing the Kwiki Mart that could be photoshopped. Senator McCarthy says you're on his list of communists, but you're not allowed to see the list.
Since when has iTunes been a real source of profit for apple? It's not. I see it's value in the ability to import/play video files you can record yourself, that is if it can, I don't have or and havn't read anything that mentioned the formats it can play. The value of the audio iPod is not iTunes, but it's ability to import your pre existing CD collection. I don't buy the DRM-ed music from iTunes, I buy used CDs and import to my iPod. If I were to get a video iPod I'd want the ability to use my existing collection of hundreds of TV recordings. It will most likely require some re-encoding to some apple format or MPEG1, but should be possible. Or would be very nice if it were possible.
Does this improve your case if someone at the RIAA collection agency claims one of their "agents" secretly entered your computer to make a list of every mp3 file you have? (yes, even your legal CD rips)
I have a windows PC with TV tuner and recording software, but I'd like a 'works out of the box' option. My only issue with TiVo and DishDVR and similar recorders is the required monthly subscription. I don't need or want a subscription service to tell me when I shows I want to watch are on, it doesn't require that much effort to search tv.yahoo.com and see what's on. I'd like something with a simple inferface that can be understood by the rest of my family, a simple VCR-like interface where I can tell it to record the SciFi Friday shows, Fri 8p-11p ch 48 and Mythbusters Wed 9p-10p ch27. And one that is non-broadcast flag compliant and doesn't threaten to delete your recordings. I saw a new TiVo commercial last night, they advertised the "season pass" option to record every episode, they forgot to mention you may not be able to keep every episode for more than a week or two. Stand-alone devices can be better than PC-based everything. My DVD player puts out a far better picture than my PC, DVD has component vid while my PC is only S-video a decicated DVR may record better than my cheap tv card. And can't forget power use, I think a PC uses several times more power than a stand-alone DVD player or DVR. Or maybe you'd rather use your only PC for something else, games, and watch what your recording later or over the weekend.
4. Many ads are made in Macromedia Flash nowadays, which is a bitch to render on old computers.
The ones that seem to have memory leaks are a pain on computers of any age. Now why is firefox using 80MB+ of ram? That's right, it's those damn flash ads. I use firefox with flashblock and set to block popups because I don't like having any more windows open and some used to open in another window, the other window you were working on something in. Flash ads get boring after a couple loops.
Just examine the prey animals. I've seen oversized house cats, 25-30lbs, that look like they could take out a large rabbit or 'possum or ground hog. Even a large free range domesticated cat would still think of itself as a common house cat and not go after anything it wouldn't at normal size, >10lbs. If it attacks cows and sheep and humans, it's probably not a large free range house cat.
I'd go with an imported pet. Someone sees an infant of a big cat species and thinks "how cute" not thinking about how big it will get and have the ability to eat them in its adult state. Someone buys an illegal import and raises it until it's too big for them to want to safely keep around any longer and puts it in a cage and realeases it in the middle of the outback or wooded area. Then it lives off the local population of small game animals until it does of old age or gets shot by that guy. That would explain the lack of evidence of a large breeding population and the varrying decsriptions indicating many species.
DRM is even more unpopular but it's being used even more. Region codes may seem ridiculous and bothersome to the consumer, but it prevents us from ordering movies and games from less well off places where they're sold for maybe $2 instead of paying $10-$20 here. Unless the studios are willing to release material with a global price of 20 US dollars it's not going to happen. Or maybe they'll just change the name, it won't be called "region codes" by name but there will be something in place to restrict the playing of foreign movies and games. There's just too much money involved to scrap it.
...but that would be cutting into DVD sales if it's released on DVD, and you know there's going to be a DVD release even if it's a total flop and only lasts a single season, or less.
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No, MS has only claimed their spyware removal tool is going to remove the part that hides the crapware. It they decided to do what was right and got sue by Sony, they have hordes of their own lawyers. This is an unfortunate case where doing what is right is not what is legal, no thanks to the DMCA. If MS removed all of it and fixed the holes and got sued they should have some leverage considering Windows IS their product and they should be allowed to defend/fix it. If Sony tries using the DMCA card, they could try claiming the Sony DRM virus bypassed some Window encryption and Sony is in violation of the DMCA. Or claim Sony's abomination makes their product look like it has more bigger security holes than it really has, defimation of character if it were a person. Sony needs to be punished for this. Customers vote with their cash, if I bought Sony products, I'd stop, but I don't, so I don't plan on ever buying anything Sony.
How long until the RIAA tries to add the "Sony virus" into their iTunes tracks?
By allowing this software to secretly install on your computer you hereby argee to immediately and permanantly transfer ownership of your computer and all software and data contained within to the Recording Industry Cartel of America. You also agree that all price "flexibility"(we mean price hikes) is retrocative and will contact our service center(collection agency goons) at 1-866-BEND-OVER to report all your past purchases and agree to receive a bill for an additional $1.50 for each piece of "Intellectual Property" leased at 99c under the old rates. And you can't view the EULA until after the program installs and there isn't a "NO" option.
The Simpsons reference:
Homer: Uh, Milhouse saw the elephant twice and rode him once, right?
Mrs. Van Houten: Yes, but we paid you $4.
Homer: Well, that was under our old price structure. Under our new price structure, your bill comes to a total of $700. Now, you've already paid me $4, so that's just $696 more that you owe me.
Mr. Van Houten: Get off our property.
Homer: So much for that idea
I wouldn't put the idea past the greedy folks at the RIAA. I think it's time for Jobs to use the "G" word again.
It was all an RIAA scam to harvest IP addresses for future lawsuits. Everyone knows that people who buy CDs also download music and "paying customer" is just another word for "criminal" and "pirate"(ARRRG!!!) and people like to give away what they paid for with their hard earned money. Eventually the Sony virus receives an update instructing it to search paying customer's computer for *.mp3 and report back with the list of possibly shared files, current IP and timestamp. In a few weeks to months person is sued by the RIAA. And it was all done without having to pay outside "agents", First 4 Internet couldn't have been paid that much.
yes, conspiracy theory-ish and I hope none of it's true, the RIAA can't be that bad.
I nominate Senator Orin Hatch for the office of Lord Gov'nor of the Internet. Oh, wait, we're trying to 'save' the Internet. In that case the interview should consist the question: "What do you know about the following: Dan Glickman, Mitch Bainwol/Cary Sherman and Orin Hatch? the first person to say "who?" gets the job. And an special section of the Internet should be created to contain the RIAA, MPAA, Hatch and Kansas.
Wasn't this already done on South Park?
I think it was the Faith+1 double platnium episode, but could have another, I havn't seen it recently. And Revenge of the Nerds, some software written or at least assisted music won them control of the council. And then there was Voyager's singing doctor, music is math you can hear. It's only "pop" music, it can't be that hard to make up something and market it successfully, and if it doesn't sell you can blame it on piracy, the RIAA does it all the time.
Kansas needs to be natural selection-ed out of the union.
Intelligent design exists in ST-TNG: The Chase and Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy and the Earth is a supercomputer in need of a memory dump in the area of Kansas.
$2500!? Where's the cheap gimmick that makes it worth that much? How about TNG in the Borg Cube box? If I were to get all those individually at deepdvddicsount(dot com) I could get it for about $150 less, or $750 less if I leave out Voyager. Greedy Paramount wants to sell Star Trek at $100 a season, I guess they're going for PROFIT over total sales. SG-1 can be had for $30-40 a season, for those who don't like math, that's 60%-70% less, yes they're only 22eps/season while Star Trek is mostly 26eps, but even that doesn't make it worth the more than doubled price. If you want TNG and DS9 I suggest a cheap, or not so cheap, TV card or even a TiVo and SpikeTV, 2 eps of DS9 and 3 of TNG, you'll have the entire series in a couple weeks.
exactly, smoking stinks
The filters may be fine for those doing the smoking, but what about the rest of us who get stuck having to smell the other byproducts? If the location selection is up to me I'll avoid a place if I see people smoking, but where we go is not always up to me. Cigarette smoke is that nasty stuff that doesn't go away unless the ventalation system rivals that of a clean room. It gets into/onto everything, skin, hair, clothes and can't forget about food and drink, yes, you're eating what that person is puffing out and you don't have the benefit of three or however many filters the tomacco companies claim to put in their death sticks.
It's either they really care about the security of the resident's home wireless networks or they're planning some municipal "Wi-Fi" subscription service and they want to eliminate the free competition and have a monopoly for themselves. If they really cared, instead of fines, they'd create a free guide on securing a wireless connection and distribute it at the town hall and/or in the local paper. I'll go with 'eliminate the competition' it's all politicing, there has to a reason other than "for the public good" for why they want close down all the open networks. Hatch is owned by the **AA, maybe they've been bought out by Verizon broadband wireless.
1) take down all open wireless networks (sources of free Internets)
2) install municipal subscription service at $9.99-$59.99/mo
3) PROFIT
I would never wish a virus or spyware or anything like that on someone's PC, but it would be interesting to see the backlash against Sony if the holes their DRM rootkit opens becomes widely exploited and lots of people claim they got a virus or their computer was "hacked" no thanks to the hidden "features" secretly installed by Sony.
I've been disabling autoplay since a friend gave another friend a cd with an autoplay executed virus. He didn't get the autoplay right but the concept is the same.
I have a far cheaper TVR and my latest project with it is my parent's Christmas, Easter and Groundhog Day gifts for the next couple years. Digitizing and writing to DVD at least the last 10yrs of home movies. These were filmed by my father on the camera be bought. I'm currently recording "Punkin Chukin" on the Discovery Channel for my own personal use. If the RIAA/MPAA want to tell me I can't do either of those I'll gladly tell them where they can shove their bright ideas.
They'll probably try and use the DMCA to make it illegal to remove it without expressed written concent from Sony.
It's Sony's loss. iTunes is a popular proven distrobution method, it seems Sony misses that or this is their way of whining about songs being "only" $0.99. They're already getting 100% of the profits from iTunes, Apple is getting a few cents for the operating costs of hosting and transfering the files. Oh, that's right, they want their 100% profit to be higher, maybe songs for $2.49
How about why is a 3-4min song 99c while 44min of audio and video only $1.99?
yes, I know the tv episode was origionally aired with commercials. If 44min of audio and video is $2 then a song 1/11 as long and no video should be at most 1/22 of that.
Is it a myth or just the toy we wish existed? Bigfoot is a myth, the 5sec rule is a myth, this is different, it's the toy we all wish we had, really, who wouldn't want a solar powered death ray?
That's why I use carrier pigeons and the bad guys use pen&paper with bicyle couriers. Back in the first Gulf War after we destroyed just about all of Iraq's communication systems they used guys on bikes/mopeds/horses/donkeys to send messages. There are dozens of places a message can be hidden on a person, paper sewn into clothing, rolled paper in a pen tube, paper in a pack of smokes. Wait, it's 2005 now, forget carrying paper, flash memory cards are a lot smaller than a couple pieces of folded paper. How about a zippo with a false a room for a mini SD card with encrypted files. There's a reason Osama stopped using his satellite phone. There are too many ways to avoid these wire taps, coded messages on foreigh hosted sites posted from public terninals left open, maybe someone forgot to logout of a library PC. What next, people can be stopped and searched on the street because they might me a courier for the mob or the terrorists or the ACLU or the Democratic party? How long until the RIAA is sueing the Feds for access to sue "file sharers"?
What about the schools that just finished their many-million dollar upgrades? They have to do it all over. We're going to have to pay for this through more entries in your term bill and taxes for the state funded schools.
All they have to do is encrypt the code then decrypting it would be a violation of the DMCA, unless a court order would exempt you from that. The challenge makes sense, the devices in question are used to generate profit, or at least some cash flow to help pay public bills, the local governments could find it helpful to be able to distribute additional fines. Casinos and their hardware suppliers used to rig slot and video poker machines to give out fewer jackpots resulting in more PROFIT for them, saw it on Breaking Vegas. The RIAA is paying their agents for every positive result indicating file sharing of their crap. And then there's Mythbusters and the poppy seed drug test which returned a positive 30min after eating a poppy seed bagel. It's possible the challenge was made as a last desperate attempt of a habitual offender trying to avoid jail time or maybe even someone from a competing company going for the gave government contract. Even if the machines arn't rigged to add maybe 0.004 to every result they are 25yrs old and the last reviewed/certified changes were 12yrs ago and they may not be as accurate as they could be and are accidentally off by 0.002, that could be the difference between the very close 0.078 and the illegal 0.08.
I read some random stat somewhere saying that 60% of drivers on the road after 3am were drunk. I used to work until 2am or 4am and if I was stopped for a random DUI test and the only thing between continuing my commute home and a fine was some electronice device I'm not familiar with I'd want it to be as accurate as possible, yes being 0.00 after work and 0.08 after some time a a bar is too big a change without some tampering. If you were at a bar and then were stopped and a breath given while you were still seated in your car, no field sobriety or blood test and the result was test failure wouldn't you want to challenge it? Maybe the batteries were low and it was running on low power and the reults were faulty. There are places(NJ being one) were refusal of a breath test has the penalty of a 0.10+, suspension of license and thousands in fines and maybe even some jail time. The results of and the device that can result such severe penalties should subject to some form of peer review or uninterested/government independent agency. Testing of DNA and other evidence is done by both sides during murder1 trials, there's no reason the same shouldn't happen for trials for lesser offences. I consider it to be the same as not being allowed to examine a photo of you allegedly robbing the Kwiki Mart that could be photoshopped. Senator McCarthy says you're on his list of communists, but you're not allowed to see the list.
Since when has iTunes been a real source of profit for apple? It's not.
I see it's value in the ability to import/play video files you can record yourself, that is if it can, I don't have or and havn't read anything that mentioned the formats it can play. The value of the audio iPod is not iTunes, but it's ability to import your pre existing CD collection. I don't buy the DRM-ed music from iTunes, I buy used CDs and import to my iPod. If I were to get a video iPod I'd want the ability to use my existing collection of hundreds of TV recordings. It will most likely require some re-encoding to some apple format or MPEG1, but should be possible. Or would be very nice if it were possible.
Does this improve your case if someone at the RIAA collection agency claims one of their "agents" secretly entered your computer to make a list of every mp3 file you have? (yes, even your legal CD rips)
I have a windows PC with TV tuner and recording software, but I'd like a 'works out of the box' option. My only issue with TiVo and DishDVR and similar recorders is the required monthly subscription. I don't need or want a subscription service to tell me when I shows I want to watch are on, it doesn't require that much effort to search tv.yahoo.com and see what's on. I'd like something with a simple inferface that can be understood by the rest of my family, a simple VCR-like interface where I can tell it to record the SciFi Friday shows, Fri 8p-11p ch 48 and Mythbusters Wed 9p-10p ch27. And one that is non-broadcast flag compliant and doesn't threaten to delete your recordings. I saw a new TiVo commercial last night, they advertised the "season pass" option to record every episode, they forgot to mention you may not be able to keep every episode for more than a week or two. Stand-alone devices can be better than PC-based everything. My DVD player puts out a far better picture than my PC, DVD has component vid while my PC is only S-video a decicated DVR may record better than my cheap tv card. And can't forget power use, I think a PC uses several times more power than a stand-alone DVD player or DVR. Or maybe you'd rather use your only PC for something else, games, and watch what your recording later or over the weekend.
4. Many ads are made in Macromedia Flash nowadays, which is a bitch to render on old computers.
The ones that seem to have memory leaks are a pain on computers of any age. Now why is firefox using 80MB+ of ram? That's right, it's those damn flash ads. I use firefox with flashblock and set to block popups because I don't like having any more windows open and some used to open in another window, the other window you were working on something in. Flash ads get boring after a couple loops.
search for "usb watch" and have fun
Just examine the prey animals. I've seen oversized house cats, 25-30lbs, that look like they could take out a large rabbit or 'possum or ground hog. Even a large free range domesticated cat would still think of itself as a common house cat and not go after anything it wouldn't at normal size, >10lbs. If it attacks cows and sheep and humans, it's probably not a large free range house cat.
I'd go with an imported pet.
Someone sees an infant of a big cat species and thinks "how cute" not thinking about how big it will get and have the ability to eat them in its adult state. Someone buys an illegal import and raises it until it's too big for them to want to safely keep around any longer and puts it in a cage and realeases it in the middle of the outback or wooded area. Then it lives off the local population of small game animals until it does of old age or gets shot by that guy. That would explain the lack of evidence of a large breeding population and the varrying decsriptions indicating many species.
DRM is even more unpopular but it's being used even more.
Region codes may seem ridiculous and bothersome to the consumer, but it prevents us from ordering movies and games from less well off places where they're sold for maybe $2 instead of paying $10-$20 here. Unless the studios are willing to release material with a global price of 20 US dollars it's not going to happen. Or maybe they'll just change the name, it won't be called "region codes" by name but there will be something in place to restrict the playing of foreign movies and games. There's just too much money involved to scrap it.
...but that would be cutting into DVD sales if it's released on DVD, and you know there's going to be a DVD release even if it's a total flop and only lasts a single season, or less.