Forget Porn, Your Boss Is Now Worried About Basketball, Apparently

CBS' decision to stream NCAA tournament games for free, rather than charging for subscriptions, looks to be paying off, as it says it's delivered more than 14 million streams since the tournament began last week. But despite the excitement of March Madness, and the success of the online offering, somebody's got to rain on the parade, and this time it's somebody decrying all the "lost productivity" businesses suffer due to employees watching online. Of course, this guy happens to sell equipment to companies that want to block their employees from accessing particular kinds of online content, so he probably doesn't have a bias.

Interactive TV Lives Again, This Time On Mobile Phones

While interactive TV services have been available in other countries for several years, they're still largely stuck as the next big thing here in the US -- as they have been for a while. With a new twist on the old idea, now a company wants to offer the same types of services like games related to what's happening on screen over cell phones instead of the TV itself or the internet. It's unclear how using the phone will make these services any more attractive to users, but the company's CEO says it's because "Chances are, the cell phone is right next to them already." Okay, but isn't the remote control, too? Usability also seems like it could be a major problem, given the high latency of mobile networks. Interactive TV has failed to catch on not because of the medium over which it travels, but because people just don't seem to care. Until the underlying services are changed to incoporate something that strike's people fancy, the device they use to access them won't matter.

CD Player Dropped From Inflation Data, Phonograph Next?

In the UK, the Office of National Statistics has decided to remove the personal CD player from the basket of goods which make up the RPI, the equivalent of our CPI, a measure of inflation. Nobody buys them anymore, the thinking goes, so the more popular and expensive mp3 player has replaced it. In the US, the Bureau of Labor Statistics, often make similar decisions. But does this make sense? Measures of inflation, when placed against wage measures, are supposed to indicate whether consumers are getting ahead. If prices go up, while wages stagnate, then that's a sign of trouble. Now, the reason that consumers buy mp3 players, and not CD players, is that they're better quality and a better deal. Or, put another way, consumers could still buy a high-quality CD player, and save a lot of cash for later. Either way they benefit. But, inflation data doesn't reflect this, it only notes that mp3 players are more expensive and thus the basket of consumer goods doesn't seem to go down in price. It seems that intellectual property isn't the only area in which the government has failed to adapt to new technology. Economic measurements need to show that consumers benefit from the rapid obsolescence and constant price deflation that marks the high-tech world.

What Are The Long Term Effects For A Generation Of Multitaskers?

It seems that there have been any number of news articles recently trying to stir up lots of worries over technologies kids use today -- such as MySpace, instant messaging/SMS text messaging and other such tools. For the most part, these articles often seem overblown, in the same way that people fretted about what rock music was doing to kids a few decades ago. While there is some of that in this week's Time cover story, the article does raise a few interesting questions about the long term effects of constant multitasking. It's been repeated so many times by now, that many simply take it as a fact that today's kids are able to multitask constantly -- watching TV while they IM, surf the web, upload photos and maybe (if there's time) do a bit of their homework. While it may be true that many do this, it doesn't necessarily mean that they're really better at multitasking. They've just gotten used to it. Recent studies suggest that while they may not get overwhelmed like their elders, there are downsides. They don't do a much better job of processing information and may have a lot more trouble processing complex information. Obviously, it would be good if there were a lot more research to back these findings up (and, no doubt, plenty of it is on the way). So far, though, while being better at multi-tasking certainly is likely to have some advantages, the research suggests it comes with a very real cost.

Credit Agencies Working To Keep Your Info Available Far And Wide

It's no surprise at all that the big credit reporting agencies are pushing hard to get new laws put in place that would wipe out certain state laws that try to give consumers more control over their credit reports. At one end, the credit agencies do have a legitimate argument: having fifty different state laws, each of which with very different requirements, is a bureaucratic nightmare. Standardizing any law across all fifty states makes sense. However, the details suggest that the state-by-state issue is the least of the credit firms real worries -- and they're actually hoping to use the law to stop people from being able to "lock" their own credit reports (which some recent state laws allow). The agencies are worried, of course, that locked credit reports will greatly harm their business -- and they could be right. However, this wouldn't be such an issue if the agencies had done a better job protecting people's information in the first place. Remember, of course, this is the same industry that last year claimed it was "un-American" to let people know what info the agencies had on themselves, in order to make sure it was accurate. So far, these agencies have shown little action in really protecting people, and so it's tough to take their reasons for pushing this legislation at face value.

Judge Tells RIAA They Don't Get To Randomly Hunt Through Everyone's Computers

One thing that's become clear in all of the recording industry's lawsuits against file sharers, is they feel they pretty much have free reign in what they should be allowed to do. That's why they originally wanted ISPs to just hand over names without having to file a lawsuit, and why they tend to take a "guilty until proven innocent" point of view. However, it appears some courts are finally pointing out to the RIAA that they don't have the right to do some of these things. The latest example involves one of the lawsuits, where the accused claims she never was involved in file sharing. The RIAA demanded full access to her computer -- which she rightly felt was a violation of her privacy, as there was a lot more on her computer that obviously had nothing to do with the case. A judge has agreed and told the woman she can hire her own forensics expert, and bill the RIAA for any expenses.

Recording Industry's Own Study Shows File Sharing Not A Big Deal

There have been plenty of academic studies over the years that have suggested that file sharing (a) doesn't hurt the music industry, and may help it and (b) the reason music sales are down often has nothing to do with file sharing. However, every time this evidence is presented, the recording industry ignores it, and trots out its own, often questionable, studies instead. Well, now the Canadian equivalent of the RIAA has done one of their own studies -- but released the details very quietly. Perhaps that's because the study pretty much disproves much of what the recording industry keeps claiming. It shows that those who download music from file sharing services are the people who tend to buy the most music. It also shows that teenagers (who we're told repeatedly never buy CDs) are actually the biggest purchasers of music CDs. It shows that those who don't buy much music don't do so because it's freely available -- but because there are other things they can do with their money, they find it to be too expensive, or they just feel they have enough music already. In other words, the study supports what many, many people have been telling the recording industry for ages. So, will the recording industry wake up and admit any of this -- even when it's their own study? Of course not. It pretty much boggles the mind to realize that the industry has a study that shows their own strategy is hurting their market, and they refuse to believe it. That takes a special kind of business cluelessness.

Supreme Court To Consider Bad Patents Again

We've been discussing many of the reasons why the patent system is broken for quite some time -- and while a few people who benefit from the system always show up to defend it (usually with tautological arguments that amount to "the system works, because it's the system we have"), it appears that more and more people are recognizing that the system is fundamentally broken. The latest is author Michael Crichton who discusses how the patent system has expanded far too broadly to protect things that should never be protected -- and how it's harming innovation in many ways by making it prohibitively expensive. The focus of his article is on a specific case that is going to the Supreme Court this week, where a company was able to get the patent on the correlation between a certain amino acid and a certain vitamin. They now consider even publishing the details to be a violation of their patent -- even if it's simply factual information. Over the past few decades, patent lawyers have pushed for expansions in what patents can cover, well beyond what the system was ever intended to do. Granting a patent is giving someone a monopoly -- and that should only be done in the rarest of cases where the market has been shown to be insufficient in rewarding innovation. From the earliest days of the patent system, Thomas Jefferson made it clear that there was an inherent downside to patents, and they should only be granted under special circumstances. Why that should include things like correlations or business models (or software) has never been adequately explained.

Town Not Really Sold On eBay To Actually Be Sold On eBay?

Okay, following the bouncing publicity attempt here... Back in 2002, we noted how you could buy a small, mostly deserted, town on eBay, and how selling odd things on eBay was becoming a way of getting extra publicity. Except... it didn't work. That town that supposedly sold for $1.8 million didn't really sell on eBay, highlighting the downside to using eBay as a platform for publicity: you get a bunch of bogus bidders. Whoever bid $1.8 million never actually showed up to claim the town (and certainly never provided the money). Instead, a year later, the town had to be sold via conventional methods for about $700,000 -- much less than the original eBay bid. A couple of years have gone by, and the new owner has made some improvements and is betting that this time he can actually sell the town on eBay, and has put it up for bid. Once again, this move is attracting the attention of the press... and we'll find out soon if it also attracts the attention of the bogus bidders.

Suing Google Because Your Google Site Ranking Sucks

A few years back, you may recall the "SearchKing" case, where Google penalized a search engine optimizer for gaming its system -- a fairly common practice in the company's ongoing attempts to keep search engine spammers out, while making searches more relevant. Well, in this case, the guy wasn't too happy (and it certainly didn't reflect well on his optimization technique), and he eventually sued Google. It didn't take long at all for a judge to dismiss the case, noting that Google's ranking was their opinion and, thus, protected free speech. However, with so many sites relying so much on Google, and the constant shifts in rankings, you knew it was only a matter of time before such a case popped up again. Google has now been sued by a firm that is upset at its ranking. While the article isn't entirely clear, it sounds like this was a site that was entirely blacklisted, probably for its own aggressive search engine optimization techniques -- and so they're trying to set up a class action suit on behalf of all sites blacklisted by Google. This seems just as silly (and as likely to succeed) as the original case, but the lawyers this time are trying a slightly different argument. They're suggesting that Google is an "essential facility" and by penalizing sites with no explanation and no recourse, they're unfairly hurting businesses. Of course, proving Google as an "essential facility" may take a bit of work -- and could open up the floodgates. The real issue is that, even though many companies do, relying on a single source as a way of driving business is always a risky position to be in. It's a business decision to rely on Google, and not look for other methods of driving traffic. Google is an outside party and can do what they want. While many people do rely on Google, that doesn't mean they have to do anything for other sites, other than try to keep their index as relevant as possible to keep their users happy.

When Mobile Phones (Could, Maybe If It Benefits Us) Maim

A stunning new piece of research from the UK says that 78% of mobile phone users aged 16-24 "reported backache, neckache and headaches". What's stunning aren't the results, after all, everybody gets headaches once in a while, but rather the way the survey's being used. Apparently some unnamed experts say all that can be caused by "holding your mobile phone between your ear and neck while trying to do other tasks simultaneously". Did we mention the research was sponsored by a company that makes hands-free headsets? Notice they don't say the people who answered the survey didn't say that holding their phone in such a way caused them problems, they just tacked that expert bit on in the next sentence of their press release to try and indicate some causality that they probably never even tested. Biased surveys are nothing new, but this one really is scraping the bottom of the barrel. It's even got the requisite quote from a company manager saying how everything would be okay, if just every young person in Britain would buy one of their headsets. Bet they'd still get the occasional headache, though.

Starforce enforces DRM by instant reboot (without warning)

Despite all the problems DRM has been causing lately, it seems like companies involved in copy protection just keep trying to create more dangerous copy protections. Originally, they were more of a nuisance causing compatibility issues, installing wanted software, etc. Next came Sony Rootkits which used cloaking to hide its DRM processes and files, but with the side affect of being able to cloak spyware & viruses, thus causing a serious security risk. More recently, the Settec Alpha-DVD protection has been reported to cause DVD writers to malfunction. Now, Futuremark has uncovered a very dangerous anti-piracy system Starforce is now using. This copy protection system installs a driver that runs at the highest level of access on the system, which gives it low level access to the PCs hardware and any drivers and processes. This driver runs regardless of whether the game runs; keeping an eye out for any suspicious activity such as attempting to copy a protected disc. If something suspicious is detected, it forces the PC to make an immediate reboot, regardless of any other applications running and whether or not the user has any unsaved work. To make matters worse, this copy protection interferes with DPM readings from software that is designed to allow the playback of copied game discs, which means that any game backups that rely on this Data Protection Manager will no longer play with the Starforce protection driver in place. Finally, as the Starforce protection has been found to interfere with certain device drivers, some drivers will run in legacy PIO mode instead of DMA, which not only slows down the PC by hogging CPU resources, but also slows down the data transfer to the affected hardware.

With the reported side effects of this copy protection system, this is one thing I would not trust on any system. For example, if one wanted to make a copy of a disc and didn’t realise they had a Starforce protected game in their DVD-ROM drive, their PC is rebooted without even being given a chance to save any work! Worse still, this is likely to give some people a major headache trying to figure out why one or more of their device drivers are acting up, certain hardware cause the PC to run sluggish when used and so on. However, for those who get affected or lose several hours of unsaved work due to an unexpected reboot, chances are that they are not going to get any compensation or sympathy from Starforce or the game publishers using the copy protection.

Judge Orders Google To Turn Over Gmail Account To Feds

For all of those worried about the Department of Justice forcing Google to turn over search data, it seems there's another case that may be even more interesting. A judge has ordered Google to comply with a subpoena to turn over someone's complete Gmail account records, including any deleted messages they still have on a server. This isn't surprising. The guy was charged with a crime by the FTC and eventually settled, but the FTC is trying to track down where he hid his assets. It's pretty standard for them to subpoena anyone who might have such info -- in this case Google, since the guy used Gmail. The guy tossed up some reasons why Google shouldn't turn over his Gmail account (revealing confidential info and attorney-client privileged communications, along with the idea that this was unfair since he'd have to pay his attorneys to sift through all the data as well, and that would cost too much). However, in the end, the judge didn't find any of his reasons very convincing. Not a huge surprise, but a reminder for those of you using your Gmail for criminal activity.

Digging A Little Deep On This One

We recently noted the false rumor that Sun CEO Scott McNealy was retiring and the company would get bought out by Google, which then got spread around like a game of telephone, and amplified when it hit the front page of Digg. Now, SiliconValleySleuth is alleging that something much more sinister than a children's game is going on, that the author of the rumor is using Digg to manipulate the share price of Sun Microsystems. Four times, the original author has penned a speculative piece on Sun and Google merging, and each time the story was pushed to the top of Digg, always by the same users. While it's surprising that the rumor keeps getting pushed around, this doesn't seem to rise to the level of stock manipulation. There's no evidence that the stock's recent rise is due to Digg, whle trading volume has remained steady, the stock has been volatile for some time. It's latest run actually started before the original rumor was published. As for the same users pushing the story, it could just be that they read the author's blog. Still, this does raise some interesting issues. Digg seems vulnerable to being gamed, which when combined with the enormous traffic from getting to the front page, makes an inviting site for tricksters. It seems like only a matter of time before the Digg mob does cause real harm.

Senators Pushing For .xxx, The Sequel

For years there's been an ongoing argument over whether or not there should be an additional designated "red light" district for the internet, usually suggested to be under the .xxx domain. After years of debate, it was a bit surprising that ICANN actually allowed the domain. Very quickly, two different groups started fighting it. One was the group who fights every random extension of the top level domain system as being unnecessary and only designed to force companies to pay more for domains they absolutely don't need or want (which makes sense). However the other group fighting it, surprisingly, were a group of "family values" types who felt that somehow setting up a red light district online legitimized online porn. This seems like some strange thinking, as early on, many similarly minded people supported such a domain in an effort to block out online smut. However, whatever lobbying campaign they cooked up worked, and discussions over the .xxx domain were put on hold... until now. Apparently two senators are trying to get Congress to force through an online redlight district, even though we always thought it was ICANN's job (no matter how badly they might handle things). What's odd here, though, is that the Senators are saying such a top level domain would "confine adult sites to one location," and "prevent hapless Internet users from inadvertently stumbling onto sexually-explicit websites." That, of course, only makes sense if they were planning to force all adult content sites into this new domain -- something that just about everyone who's looked at the issue has decided is a bad idea. However, looking through some other articles, it appears that's exactly what the new bill is proposing. All adult sites would be required to move into this new domain. This opens up a ton of difficult questions. How would they fairly compensate sites with good .com domain names that they were forced to abandon? Much more importantly, how would they possibly define what qualifies as having to go behind the fence? Given the recent controversy over BoingBoing being blocked in many countries due to a widely used filtering program calling it out for "nudity," you have to wonder who gets to decide what has to go over to the .xxx side.

Judge Won't Blame Google For Usenet Postings

While some courts are still a bit confused concerning the liability of service providers online, it appears that one court had no problem at all dismissing a lawsuit against Google, concerning whether the company was liable for defamatory Usenet postings. As the judge quickly noted in dismissing the case, the Communications Decency Act pretty clearly carves out protection for service providers -- as it should. Google is simply providing a platform. If this guy is upset about the comments made about him, he should be going after those who made the comments -- not Google. You don't get to just sue the biggest or easiest company. You have a much better chance of winning if you actually sue those who did you wrong. Of course, the guy is vowing to appeal, so we probably haven't seen the last of this case.

DRM Hurts In More Ways Than One

While some music-industry execs are slowly realizing the downside of DRM, a new report says there's a downside for consumers: tests found that Microsoft's PlaysForSure DRM hurts MP3 players' battery life by up to 25%, while iPod users get 8% more play time listening to unprotected files than ones protected with Apple's FairPlay DRM. So in addition to being a general nuisance, copy-protection also helps users get less out of their MP3 players -- and don't forget how it doesn't help artists either -- yet record labels continue to somehow believe it's a necessity.

This Makes Me Feel Secure

For the third year in a row, the Department of Homeland Security has been awarded an F for its cybersecurity. Remember that this is the government agency charged with protecting, you know, computers and stuff. Perhaps it's really not that surprising, given how DHS doesn't use backups, but has an exec from an adware company on a data-privacy board and employs begging as a security technique. The results were to be revealed at a hearing today called "Is the Government Ready for a Digital Pearl Harbor?" With the DHS' F, and the federal government overall getting a D+, the answer appears to be a resounding no.

Don't Play Our Record, You Canadian Bastards

I'm almost thinking that this "controversy" is half-drummed up to get attention for a famous musician's side-project... but, Cliff writes in to let us know about a radio station in Victoria, British Columbia (that's Canada for those who failed geography) that was playing a song that had been released in the UK and was available for sale on the internet. They apparently got the song and have been playing it on the radio. Part of the confusion is that it's not at all clear how they got the song. In the submission, Cliff claims the radio station bought the song. In the video on the site, the radio station claims they downloaded it from the band's site -- but as of right now, the band only offers a streaming version, not a download one. Either way, the record label putting out the album has demanded the radio station stop playing the song, and according to the submission, today sued the station -- even though they had decided to stop playing the song (along with other songs by the musician). It would be nice if there were a few more details to back up this story. However, it does highlight another issue that record labels seem to be having trouble understanding: the internet makes your business global pretty quickly. Trying to set up different release schedules for different geographies doesn't work. Plenty of radio stations have been known to play songs released in other countries -- so this could just be a record label overreacting, a quirk of Canadian copyright law... or a weird publicity stunt. Either way, we'd like to see some more info on what's really happening here.

Honest: It's A Software SlingBox

Honest Technology has developed what it calls a software version of the SlingBox, a tool to pipe television content over the Internet remotely to users.

Sony 80GB Digital Photo Album

PMA 2006: Sony has announced a new photo storage hard drive unit that can store up to a whopping 80GB of images. The HDPS-L1 is about half the size of a regular DVD player and supports seven types of flash media cards.

The definition of a review

As a result of numerous enquiries from dpreview visitors we have become aware that there is increasing confusion about what constitutes a 'review' and the differences between reviews and previews on this site and the Internet as a whole. This confusion doesn't help visitors looking for qualified information when choosing a camera, and the misuse of the word 'review' is beginning to tarnish the hard work put into reviews here and on other sites. After discussion with Dave at Imaging-Resource and Jeff at Digital Camera Resource Page we have jointly developed some standard 'editorial definitions' which clearly lay out what readers should expect from articles titled 'preview' or 'review'. This standard will be adhered to across all three sites (although in actual fact we three have been following these standards since the beginning).

If The Trade Press Can't Get This Right... Copyright And Patents Are Different

It's understandable that not everyone gets the difference between various types of intellectual property. It's pretty common to see people confuse copyrights, patents and trademarks. However, you don't expect to see it in a technology trade publication where both the writer and the editor should obviously know better. However, PCWorld has a story up about Sony's ongoing patent lawsuit with haptics firm Immersion. However, throughout the article (and even in the headline), it's referred to as a "copyright" dispute. The article even specifically says: "Immersion sued Microsoft and Sony for violating its copyright on handheld game controls." There are plenty of important issues to be discussed concerning intellectual property and how it impacts innovation and the technology world. Having respected news sources confusing matters by making such simple mistakes doesn't help.

Security Through Begging

Last summer, the surprising news came out that Japanese nuclear secrets leaked out, after a contractor was allowed to connect his personal virus-infested computer to the network at a nuclear power plant. The contractor had a file sharing app on his laptop as well, and suddenly nuclear secrets were available to plenty of kids just trying to download the latest hit single. It's only taken about nine months for the government to come up with its suggestion on how to prevent future leaks of this nature: begging all Japanese citizens not to use file sharing systems -- so that the next time this happens, there won't be anyone on the network to download such documents. Beyond the fact that this is unlikely to have any effect (at all) on file sharing in Japan, it has nothing to do with the actual security breach. It wasn't the use of a file sharing system that was to blame here, but the security setup that allows an outside contractor to hook up his personal computer to the power plant's network without doing any kind of security check whatsoever to see if (a) his computer has malware or (b) his computer has file sharing software -- while leaving top secret documents available for his computer to access. If this is how government officials react to such leaks (taking forever and completely missing the root cause of the problem, while suggesting a solution that is impossible to implement), it's almost amazing that such leaks didn't happen sooner.

Quick, I Need Some WiFi To Take My Medicine

The latest attempt at improving modern medicine is apparently an implanted microchip that can be controlled wirelessly from outside the body to release medicine into someone's bloodstream. The system is supposedly more advanced that other internal drug delivery systems, in that it can be controlled from outside the body using some form of wireless connection. The idea is that the system could better monitor what's actually going on inside the body, and releases doses accordingly, rather than the slightly less scientific method of "take two of these, and call me in the morning." Of course, the opening of the article discusses the wireless connection on the device, but it's not entirely clear from the rest of the article what it does or how it works. Still, if there were fears a few years ago that hackers could hack your pacemaker, just imagine what they could do if they could control what medicines were released in your body.

Video Game Company That Does Everything "Wrong" Gets It Right

tk writes in to point out that video game company Stardock did everything "wrong" according to many who try to sell video games: "they use word of mouth marketing, has no copy protection (the serial is needed for updates) with a (relatively) cheap price and they listen to what users want." Despite all of these "mistakes," however, the results suggest that such an approach worked. As tk notes, "they have managed to gain the top spot in Walmart. Best Buy, EB, and Gamestop are ordering stocks above their sell-in orders." The source of this info is the company itself on their own forums, so some may question the accuracy of it. It would be nice to get confirmation (or proof that this is incorrect). There is also an interesting follow up to this story. Since the company decided not to use copy protection, some are claiming that they want the game to be "pirated." It also apparently upset employees of a Starforce, a company who doesn't exactly have the best reputation when it comes to providing copy protection for video games. Stardock is now accusing Starforce of pointing people to cracked copies, in an effort to hurt the software provider for not using copy protection. As the company itself points out: "Our software gets pirated. We don't like it but piracy is a fact of life. The question isn't about eliminating it, it's about reducing it and trying to make sure that people who would buy your product buy it instead of steal it. Our primary weapon to fight piracy is through rewarding customers through convenient, frequent, free updates. If you make it easy for users to buy and make full use of your product or service legitimately then we believe that you'll gain more users from that convenience than you'll lose from piracy."

CIA Agents Not Feeling So Lucky: Internet Reveals Cover Stories

In the information age, it appears, coming up with a decent cover story while being a CIA agent is increasingly difficult. In fact, some enterprising reporters used some free and fee-based internet services to uncover all sorts of information about CIA agents and CIA-owned locations. The article is a bit vague in how they worked all this out -- but you have to imagine that's on purpose. However, the basic conclusion is that the CIA needs to recognize that doing a bit of sleuthing online gives a lot of people a lot more to work with than they had in the past -- and cover stories can be much more easily checked out. The fact that they're just now realizing this is a bit worrisome.

What? There's A Downside To DRM?

Copy protection and DRM aren't wonder toys. What protection -- if any -- they provide content suppliers comes at a pretty significant cost. A Yahoo exec ruffled some feathers when he said the company would be better off selling music without copy protection, and several people in the industry are wondering if copy protection is really worthwhile, noting that it's probably not stopped any piracy, but has also hindered sales. While it's easy to reject copy protection out of hand on ideological grounds, it's also hard to make a good business case for it. You're making your content less valuable, and limiting the audience to which it can be sold. The industry needs to figure these things out, and quickly, or a solution will probably be foisted on them. Consumer groups in Norway and the UK have lodged complaints about iTunes, the iPod and its DRM, and the French copyright law that's being discussed could force proprietary DRM systems to open up so consumers could listen to their music on any device they want.

Amazon Offers Up The Platform That Google And Yahoo Should Have Built

For years and years we've been talking about the idea that the trick to "owning" the internet is to become the platform of the internet. It seemed like Google was moving in this direction when word of Google Base first leaked out, but the actual offering turned out to be a whole lot less. It was trying to be a product, not a platform. Yahoo has been slowly, slowly, slowly opening up APIs, but seems so worried to take the real plunge that it's almost too little to mention. It got to the point that we thought some of the more innovative stuff in terms of really being open was coming out of a tiny startup we had present at our Techdirt Greenhouse event over the weekend -- even knowing that such a small company faced a huge challenge trying to stand up against Google and Yahoo. In fact, Openomy's discussion question this weekend was focused around how could they compete against those two. Perhaps those guys from Chicago were looking in the wrong direction. Word is leaking out tonight that it's Amazon that's leading the way with the open platform. This isn't about storage, even though that's what most people will talk about. This is about being the file system and database on which web apps are built. That's much more powerful than just storage. Forget the head fake of Amazon getting into contextual advertising. Combine this announcement with the announcement a few months ago from Amazon subsidiary Alexa opening up their search platform, and start to imagine what developers could do if they can simply plug into an open online file system/database and an open search engine -- and then just build an app on top of that. It's like Amazon just provided much of the database and middleware someone might need to develop a web-based app. Of course, there's a lot of marketing that needs to be done between here and there, and convincing everyone to jump on that platform may not be easy (and who knows, the terms of service may be problematic). That's, in part, because people just don't think of Amazon in this way. However, if Amazon really can convince people that it's providing the basics they need to build the next generation of web apps, Amazon just became a much more interesting company -- not by copying Google and Yahoo, but by going beyond them and doing what both companies have yet to do.

Chinese Censorship Story Of The Week A Hoax

Recently, two Chinese bloggers found a clever way to capitalize on the recent firestorm about internet censorship there. They set up a hoax -- shutting down their sites and posting a message about being forced down by government censors. Only after the story spread (it was picked up by the BBC and even the cover of Newsweek Asia), did they reveal that the joke was on the international press for demonstrating what kinds of stories from China they want to report on. Any reporter or news agency can fall for a hoax, but censorship stories, and censorship stories relating to bloggers in particular (like the recent BoingBoing dustup), are hot right now. While it can be debated whether it's navel-gazing or not that the press (and in particular the online press) places such emphasis on online censorship, it shouldn't be ignored that there are regular violent crackdowns on other rights that warrant attention as well.

People Think Talking From The Toilet Is A Bunch Of Crap

Americans still have some way to go to catch the Germans, but apparently nearly 4 out of 10 people think it's okay to talk on a cell phone in the bathroom. While that may seem like a lot, it's actually down from 62% in 2003, the last time the company did this survey. Surprising as well is that 11% of people thought it was okay to talk on the phone in a movie theater in 2000, but just 2% find the behavior acceptable today. You'd almost expect people to become more forgiving about when and where people use their phones as they become more pervasive, but of the five places covered in the survey, only phone use in the supermarket has become more acceptable since 2000. Of course, one final question doesn't seem to have been included on the survey, asking people which places they don't think it's okay to talk on the phone, but do it anyway.

What's Your Problem? Apparently, It's Misusing Trademark Law

Nick Burns writes in to point out the latest misuse of trademark law -- not just for profit, but as a publicity stunt. As has been discussed way too often, trademark law is supposed to just protect consumers from confusion (that is you can't sell some other soda and call it Coca-Cola, as that will confuse people). It is not to give the trademark holder complete control over the use of the trademark -- which is why we can mention Coca Cola and not get sued. Unfortunately, in this age where so many people are trying to expand intellectual property rules simply for profit, rather than to support what they were originally intended to support, we hear all sorts of silly stories. Usually, these stories are about companies or lawyers thinking they can extract some extra cash from someone, but this latest one is an extra creative misuse of trademark law: it's completely being used as a publicity stunt. It starts with a woman who has some little known, little watched public access TV program, where she's trademarked the phrase "What's Your Problem?" Apparently, a recent episode of the TV show Boston Legal used that phrase in commercials showing on ABC (owned by Disney). The woman is now suing ABC/Disney for misusing her trademark, as if anyone in the world would somehow be confused into thinking Boston Legal was associated with her show. About the only reason to do such a thing is to try to get extra publicity (which apparently worked), but with stories like these clogging up the court system it's a problem for everyone.

Judge Says He'll Make Google Cough Up Some Info For Feds

Well that didn't take long at all. While he still hasn't released his official decision, it sounds like the judge hearing the dispute between the Department of Justice and Google over whether or not Google needs to turn over a random sample of searches and URLs has made up his mind. He's going to split the difference and require Google to turn over some data, though it's not entirely clear how much. Apparently, Google's original effort in basically suggesting the government was clueless wasn't particularly convincing. In court, the company took a somewhat different strategy -- apparently focusing on the fact that Amazon's Alexa now offers open access, so the government researcher can get all the data he needs from there. Even the judge admitted that he was worried the result of this case would force Google to hand over data to researchers involved in all sorts of lawsuits -- and thus, it's expected that he'll have the government compensate Google for the work needed to supply the data. Already, though, the ACLU (which is on the other side from the government in this case) has said that it, too, will need to get data from Google in order to respond to the government's case. While it seems unlikely that any of the data revealed gives up any seriously private info, this does seem to open some worrisome precedent-setting doors that could lead to problems in future cases. Update: A different take on today's events claims that Google and the DoJ had already reached a settlement on handing over the data before today's hearings -- and the hearings were just a facade to make everyone look better.

Touching Your Earpiece Violates Driving-While-Yakking Law?

There are plenty of places that have so-called "hands free" laws, requiring drivers to use a hands free kit with their mobile phone while driving. Leaving aside the debate (and there is a big one) over whether or not using an earpiece instead of holding the phone is any safer, it appears that in some areas, they take the "hands free" part extremely seriously. A man who was using an earpiece while driving, but who was touching the earpiece was fined for violating the law. After all, he was holding the phone piece up to his ear. At least that's what the judge decided in the latest appeal to the fine. The judge noted that the guy "was using a mobile telephone which was hand held," thus violating the wording of the law. The guy in question isn't particularly happy, and is thinking of appealing again.

Exploiting Tragedy By Blaming Technology

Earlier this week, an 18-year-old deaf girl in Austin, Texas, got hit by a train as she walked along some tracks, and was killed. Likely because of her role as Miss Deaf Texas, the case has gotten some national media attention, and has been featured on the front page of the CNN web site. Today, there's another story there, with the headline "Deaf beauty queen was text-messaging when hit by train", followed with a lead that further infers the text messaging had something to do with her death. Forgive me for explaining the obvious, but it's pretty much completely irrelevant that the girl was sending or reading text messages when she was struck -- from behind -- by the train. Remember that she was deaf? Her death resulted from a tragic set of circumstances, but CNN has to blame something, apparently, to keep people's interest, so why not the text messages?

Extra, Extra, Read All About These 240,000 Credit Card Numbers

We wondered yesterday just how clueless newspaper owners really were, and two Massachusetts papers are doing their best to say "quite clueless indeed". It's got nothing to do with Google News, but the Boston Globe and the Worcester Telegram & Gazette -- both owned by The New York Times -- exposed the credit card data of up to 240,000 subscribers. What's so stunning here isn't the mere leak of the data, since that's becoming so common, but rather how it was leaked. The Worcester paper prints its delivery routing slips on internally recycled paper -- the paper it used last weekend happened to be some sort of internal reports with all the credit card numbers on them. The paper now says it's taken "immediate steps" to increase security, and it's set up a hotline for subscribers to call and see if their credit card data was compromised. Why is the burden on their subscribers? Shouldn't the papers be proactively letting people know their card numbers could be circulating? It's continually amazing how so many of these data leaks aren't the results of anything active, like hackers, but rather just products of sheer stupidity.

The Fine Line Between Spam And Doing What The System Allows

The MySpace community has had issues with "spam" within the system before. A year ago there was the highly publicized case (where the details were murky for a while) involving a guy who was hired (maybe) by MySpace to write a system for sending messages to everyone, but who then tried to extort the company or he would reveal to the world how to spam everyone in MySpace. That guy is now in jail -- which seems reasonable based on the extortion part. However, what about the spamming part? From what happened in that case, it's pretty clear that it wouldn't be that hard to create a system to spam everyone in MySpace... and that's exactly what a few people have done. However, MySpace is now threatening one with a lawsuit, which is where the story gets somewhat interesting. The guy isn't thrilled that he's being considered a spammer and points out that he isn't hacking anything, but just automating the basic process MySpace allows to let people to contact each other. Of course, a spammer is just doing that too to the regular email system. So, while there's an argument that MySpace should just make their system more secure to block out automated tools like this, it's more difficult to reconcile that with the spammer analogy. Either way, though, it would seem that MySpace shouldn't be going after the guy who wrote this software, but those who use it inappropriately. After all, they're the ones who are causing the real problem.

Microsoft Clarifies: Amateurs And Hobbyists Not Wanted

A few weeks ago, we noted that the details of the proposed "analog hole" legislation made it clear that the bill was less about "protecting" content from being copied, and all about killing off amateur content production. It was so focused on setting up a different set of rules for "professionals" and "amateurs" that it was really just about trying to handicap the disruption that amateur content represented. Now, it appears that Microsoft has bought into that same vision. Two separate stories point to two separate quotes from Microsoft execs that both make this abundantly clear (they're not even tap dancing around the issue, like you'd expect). The first comes from Tim Lee, who points to a Jim Allchin interview where he was quoted as saying that the only way anyone will be able to watch digital TV is if it's been certified by CableLabs -- meaning that hobbyists and tinkerers are out. Meanwhile, someone in the comments to that article point to a talk by another Microsoft exec, talking about how the company views copy protection as only being for professionals: "We don't want this technology to be available to every hobbyist. We need to keep the number of licensees down to a manageable number. We charge a license fee to keep the number of people we have to deal with down to a level we can handle." They may want to do that to keep it "manageable," but it has the side effect again of trying to block out hobbyists -- who are doing some of the most innovative work right now. Of course, while some people are pointing out the anti-competitive nature of these statements, the truth is that the only ones it's really damaging for are for Microsoft and for the professional content producers. They're pretty much guaranteeing that everyone else will look elsewhere to work with technology that isn't trying to hold them back.

Mobile Content Portal Lets You Move Content To New Devices

A mobile content player that has struggled in the past is trying again with a new name and a new strategy to differentiate it from others. It's deceptively simple: when you buy something, they keep a record of what you bought so that if you later switch mobile phones, you can just login and re-download all the content you already purchased. It's the basic online locker strategy, recognizing the power of connectivity when it comes to digital goods. Others have tried it with regular downloadable content, but they often run into legal issues as the entertainment industry isn't necessarily comfortable with such an arrangement. They, obviously, have no qualms about asking you to buy stuff again if you switch devices. What's not entirely clear, however, is how they're doing this. Google's video offering has a similar feature, but in order to do so you have to give up quite a bit of privacy, by agreeing to "check in" every time you play a video. From the description in the article, it doesn't sound like this system does that, but then it's not clear how they prevent you from downloading the same content to many, many devices which would obviously upset the entertainment industry.

Could Newspaper Owners Really Be This Clueless?

Just as stories are hitting the press about slow-to-innovate newspapers finally embracing the internet comes the news that a bunch of newspapers are quite upset that Google drives more traffic to their websites. This isn't a first. Last year, AFP sued Google over the same issue -- and Google yanked AFP stories out of their news index. This meant that newspapers that carried AFP stories lost out on a lot of valuable traffic. So, why are more newspapers trying to go down the same path? It would appear that like book publishers and telcos, they're all jealous of Google's ability to make money. The quotes from all three are almost identical. This latest one, from the newspapers is: "They're building a new medium on the backs of our industry, without paying for any of the content." But, that's wrong. What Google is doing is making that content more valuable by making it easier to find. If the newspapers want to opt-out, that's fine -- but it ends up hurting them. This is all about jealousy that Google has figured out a way to make a lot of money by making their content more useful. That doesn't take away from their content, but actually helps them -- which is why the anger towards Google is so ridiculous. Maybe Google should just call their bluff, and take them out of the index. The main problem here is that it appears most newspapers don't know what business they're in -- and that's leading to very confused (and sometimes backwards) strategies. Chris Tolles, over at Topix.net, drives home the point forcefully by pointing out that newspapers don't recognize what business they're in: "The newspaper of the future needs to fight for audience –- fight for its life, before someone comes and takes it from them." Dropping out of any aggregator service is a giant leap backwards. Any news provider moving in that direction isn't trying to be a newspaper of the future... but one of the past. Update: A good point was made in the comments that I had totally forgotten about. This is even more ridiculous, because Google still hasn't monetized Google News. In other words, they're not making any money directly off of this, and yet the newspapers are still upset. That doesn't apply to other news aggregators who do use ads, but since Google News seems to be the main target, it just emphasizes how ridiculous the newspaper publishers' position really is.

Average Laptop Contents Worth A Million Bucks?

An anti-virus and security firm's new study says the contents of the average business laptop is worth nearly a million dollars. Disregarding the firm's obvious bias for a moment, the figure is pretty unbelievable. A childhood spent trading baseball cards taught me that something's worth what somebody will pay you for it, not what a magazine says it's worth -- or in this case, a security company that wants to sell you something. If the stuff inside people's laptops is really that valuable, why aren't they "lost" more often?

Why Are Copy Protection Firms So Insecure?

It's amazing how insecure most copy protection firms seem to be. And, by insecure, I'm not talking about how they open up security holes, but how they react to criticism. Remember SunnComm, makers of the MediaMax copy protection scheme that began the process of suing Alex Halderman for pointing out that its copy protection could be defeated by pressing the shift key as you loaded the disc? Well, now we can add StarForce to the list. We first wrote about problems with their copy protection a few years ago, noting reports that it "installs itself without letting you know (not even in the EULA), hides itself on your PC, slows down the PC, causes all sorts of other problems and errors, and is nearly impossible to remove -- even after the protected application has been removed." Basically, it's no different than malware. Yesterday BoingBoing posted a similar story spurred on by a plan to boycott StarForce-enabled games... and the company responded by telling Cory Doctorow they were suing him (not clear for what), while also reporting him to the FBI for violating "approximately 11 international laws." It's unlikely (a) that they're really doing anything or (b) that, even if they did, any lawsuit or FBI interest would get anywhere. However, it does say something about these firms and their inability to take even the slightest criticism. Why not actually respond to the critics instead of trying to threaten them into submission? The threatening, of course, tends to backfire as the Streisand Effect kicks in and more people learn about the problems the company faces (and its inability to deal with them constructively). And, by constructively, we don't mean silly contests with conditions that are almost impossible to meet -- which is exactly what StarForce has done.

Google's Ishtar Moment

It's really quite impressive how much life there is in the story about Google censoring results in China. Considering that plenty of other companies have done it for years, it seemed like the reaction was a bit out of the ordinary. However, Andy Kessler has put his finger on the problem. It's Google's big sellout moment. It goes against everything they represented -- something they're now trying to explain away with doubletalk and a quick rewrite of history. As Kessler explains (with plenty of amusing examples), it's not the censorship that's the problem -- but that Google set themselves up to be such an idyllic company that would never do such a thing. He also shows how it's possible to sellout in a way that keeps you cool -- which Google didn't do. In the meantime, it turns out that people are discovering the way to get around Google's filters is pretty much the same way that spammers get around spam filters and the way file sharers got around Napster's original filters: by misspelling words. This is curious, because one of Google's features is that it tries to infer what you really meant when you put in a misspelled word. You would think that they would be able to more easily block creatively spelled variations... So, now we can start the conspiracy theories (all bogus, of course) that Google purposely left this as a loophole.

Open source changes journalism's rules

Open source changes journalism's rules by ZDNet's Dana Blankenhorn -- Once you tell anybody in the open source world about anything, you’ve told everybody everything.

Linux Hearts GPL Version 2

Linux Hearts GPL Version 2 by ZDNet's Dana Blankenhorn -- Torvalds has always been fairly agnostic on license questions, which is why so many different licenses use his kernel at the heart of their operating systems, which in turn is why Linux is such a popular operating system which has now pretty-much unified the Unix development world.

Liferay makes your Web look like a Mac by ZDNet's Dana Blankenhorn -- The winning theme (or skin) mimics the look-and-feel of the Apple Macintosh OS

Do mammals other than humans have menstrual cycles?

ANSWER 1: Menstrual cycles vary in length from an average of 29-32 days in orangutans to an average of 25-37 days in chimpanzees.

Females of other mammalian species go through certain episodes called `estrus' or `heat' in each breeding season.

During these times, ovulation occurs and females become receptive to mating, a fact advertised to males in some way.

If no fertilisation takes place, the uterus reabsorbs the endometrium: no menstrual bleeding occurs. Significant differences exist between the estrus and the menstrual cycle.

Some animals, such as domestic cats and dogs, do produce a very short and mild menstural flow, however due to its small amount (and personal cleanliness in cats) it passes pet owners largely unnoticed.

Manasa Nagarajan
Chennai

ANSWER 2: Mammals other than primates do not menstruate and their sexual cycle is called an estrous cycle.

In mammals the sexual activity of the male is more or less continuous but in most species the sexual activity of the female is cyclic. Most of the time the female avoids the male and repulses his sexual advances.

Periodically, however, there is an abrupt change in behaviour and the female seeks out the male, attempting to mate.

These short episodes of heat or estrus are so characteristic that sexual cycle in mammalian species that do not menstruate, is named the estrous cycle.

The change in female sexual behaviour is brought on by a rise in the circulating estrogen level. Rabbit and ferret come into heat and remain estrous until pregnancy or pseudo pregnancy results. In these species ovulation is due to a neuroendocrine reflex.

Stimulation of the genitals and other external stimulation at the time of copulation provokes release from the pituitary of gonadotropin that makes the ovarian follicle to rupture.

In captivity, monkeys and apes mate at any time. But in the wild, females accept the male more frequently at the time of ovulation.

In rats the underlying endocrine events are essentially the same as those in the menstrual cycle, but the first day of the cycle is the first day of bleeding, while day one of an estrous cycle is the first day of heat.

M. Vaitheeswaran
Thoothukudi, Tamil Nadu

Clemenceau and cobras

THE DISCARDED warship of France, named Clemenceau after the one-time French Prime Minister and War Minister of the First World War time, is set to sail towards Alang in Saurashtra, where it will be broken down and the salvaged metal is expected to yield India some profit.

But there is a huge concern about the affair because the ship contains anywhere from 40 to over 200 million tonnes of asbestos. The trouble is that this asbestos is not in a form to be recovered and used for other purposes safely. It will simply have to be removed and discarded as well.

The Supreme Court of India has asked its Hazards Monitoring Committee for advice. Dr. G. Thyagarajan of the committee is not convinced about letting Clemenceau enter.

But the Union Environment Minister, A. Raja, has been reported to claim that the workers in Alang can safely remove the asbestos. Dr. Thyagarajan counters: "If a ship comes with 1 lakh cobras, will we accept it just because some Indians can catch cobras?" (Come to think of it, death from a cobra, being faster, is kindlier.)

The journal Environmental Health states that of the over 100,000 Indians working with asbestos, 23 per cent are affected by asbestosis but a mere 30 have been compensated.

And what will Clemenceau fetch us? About Rs. 50 crores as scrap. What should our priority be? To paraphrase what Mr. Clemenceau said about 100 years ago about war and the military, Clemenceau is too serious a matter to be left to the government alone. For the sake of our health, let us not allow the ship to enter India.

Sun considers GPL 3 license for Solaris

Sun Microsystems is considering a dual-licensing move that could raise tantalizing possibilities of open-source cooperation between Linux and Sun's Solaris operating system, but legal issues complicate the possibility.

The server and software company is considering releasing Solaris under the forthcoming version 3 of the General Public License in addition to the Community Development and Distribution License that currently governs the Unix variant, Sun President Jonathan Schwartz said in his blog Friday.

"We want to do what we can to drive more efficiency and cross-pollination between Linux and OpenSolaris," Schwartz said. "Why recreate the wheel with technologies like DTrace and ZFS--or GRUB and Xen?" (DTrace and ZFS are Solaris technologies for sophisticated performance analysis and file storage, respectively; GRUB and Xen, technologies for booting computers and running multiple operating systems, were first developed for use alongside Linux, but Sun is building them into Solaris.)

But there are legal barriers that could curtail sharing between different open-source software realms. Linux kernel project leader Linus Torvalds has said Linux will stay under the current version 2 of the GPL. That means that if Solaris is released under version 3, it's not necessarily the case that software from one project could be incorporated into the other.

Torvalds: No GPL 3 for Linux

Linus Torvalds said Wednesday that he won't convert Linux to version 3 of the General Public License, as he objects to digital rights management provisions in the proposed update.

The position is a significant--though not entirely unexpected--rejection of the update, the first to the seminal license in 15 years. Linux, the kernel at the heart of an operating system that clones much of generally proprietary Unix, is considered the best-known and most successful example of open-source software.

"Conversion isn't going to happen," Torvalds said in a posting to the Linux kernel mailing list. "I don't think the GPL v3 conversion is going to happen for the kernel, since I personally don't want to convert any of my code."

Torvalds specifically objected to one new provision in the GPL 3 draft that opposes digital rights management, which is technology that uses encryption to control the use of content and running of software. "I think it's insane to require people to make their private signing keys available, for example. I wouldn't do it," he said.

On the other side of the divide is Richard Stallman, founder and president of the Free Software Foundation. His goals are explicitly ethical and social, and his principles are unbending. "The foundation believes that free software--that is, software that can be freely studied, copied, modified, reused, redistributed and shared by its users--is the only ethically satisfactory form of software development, as free and open scientific research is the only ethically satisfactory context for the conduct of mathematics, physics or biology," Stallman and FSF attorney Eben Moglen wrote in a GPL 3 background article.

The GPL 3 draft contains new words opposing digital rights management, which Stallman and Moglen regard as technology that restricts freedoms users must have.

"As a free software license, this license intrinsically disfavors technical attempts to restrict users' freedom to copy, modify and share copyrighted works," the draft license states. "No permission is given...for modes of distribution that deny users that run covered works the full exercise of the legal rights granted by this license."

In other words, some form of locking of GPL code to prevent changes from an authorized version is forbidden.

Torvalds' position is not a surprise. In a 2003 posting to the kernel mailing list, the Linux founder explicitly opened the door to DRM.

"I also don't necessarily like DRM myself," Torvalds wrote. "But...I'm an 'Oppenheimer,' and I refuse to play politics with Linux, and I think you can use Linux for whatever you want to--which very much includes things I don't necessarily personally approve of."

Torvalds founded the Linux project in 1991, the same year the current GPL version 2 was released, and is still its leader. His kernel project dovetailed with work Stallman had already began to create a free clone of Unix, called Gnu's Not Unix (GNU). Because of that combination, the Free Software Foundation prefers the entire operating system be called GNU/Linux--though it has other important components, such as the Xorg graphics system, that come from other groups.

Online game warns gay-lesbian guild

Longtime virtual gamer Sara Andrews didn't know she would cause much of a ruckus when she began recruiting new members of her "World of Warcraft" virtual gaming guild, which mostly caters to gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender players.

Sun Java Desktop System

The Sun Java Desktop System is a secure and comprehensive enterprise desktop software solution that combines the best of open source innovation with significant contributions from Sun. Java Desktop System is a major component of the Solaris 10 Operating System, x86 and SPARC architecure editions, and an earlier release is also available with a Linux OS. As a result, Sun customers have the option of deploying the same desktop environment on Sun workstations, Sun Ray ultra-thin clients, as well as a broad range of non-Sun notebook and desktop systems with standard x86-based architectures.

Release 3 of Sun Java Desktop System is shipping now as part of the Solaris 10 Operating System. Release 2 for Linux OS, which includes an integrated Linux operating system, is also available.

American Express: Leaving Home With Someone Else's Credit Card

Dave Farber's Interesting People list has an anonymous story about an American Express screwup. The writer noticed that his or her AmEx card was about to expire and a new one had not been delivered. American Express explained that the card had been sent, but it had been returned for some unknown reason, and promised to overnight the card -- which they did. Unfortunately, in the package American Express also included 34 other ready-to-go American Express cards for other people that had also been returned when sent. Mistakes happen -- and even though that's a pretty big one for a credit card company -- what's worse is how the company responded when told about it. Basically, they didn't respond. They promised to call the person back, but never did and no one seems particularly concerned that 34 American Express cards that don't require authorization were delivered to someone they don't belong to.

Efficiency In The Drive Through

It's somewhat amazing just how much effort goes into innovating the fast food industry. In the past, we've seen stories of outsourced order takers (call center so they can handle multiple restaurants at once), a system called "Hyperactive Bob" to better predict demand, and even an automated burger flipper. That last link also discussed order kiosks where fast food customers punched in the order themselves, rather than have the cashier do it. It seems that they're now taking that same concept out to the drive through also. In an effort to speed up the drive through line and making it more accurate, many fast food restaurants are trying to simplify the drive through order menu and show visual confirmations to make sure there are no mistakes. Of course, the article also mentions that realistically, the best way to speed up the whole process is to simply cut items off the menu. Perhaps the folks at In-N-Out might want to reconsider any plans to expand their menu beyond the four "official" items currently listed.

Antivirus Firm Pays Up To Avoid Being Barred From Selling In The US

Last summer we noted that a seller of anti-virus appliances was on the verge of being completely barred from selling in the US for infringing on a patent held by Trend Micro for server-based anti-virus software. It seemed a bit odd that server-based anti-virus software could be patented -- but that's what happened. Of course, with the risk of having its US sales blocked out, Fortinet has decided to settle the lawsuit. The terms aren't stated, but you can assume that Fortinet had to pay some sum to Trend Micro just to keep selling its product in the US. Considering just how obvious the "invention" is, it hardly seems likely that Fortinet needed Trend Micro's info to create its appliances -- but now it has to pay up just to keep selling. That doesn't seem like promoting innovation at all.

When Free Makes You More Money

Way back when WiFi was first becoming popular and all these businesses came out with plans to charge people monthly subscription rates or huge hourly rates and somehow expected to make money, a few people pointed out that the added expense of managing all of the billing and customer support probably outweighed all of the revenue from users. It would appear that one local WiFi operator now agrees. WiFi Networking News is reporting that MetroFi has done the math and is opening up all of their hotspots for free. They note that cutting out the customer acquisition costs and billing-related costs were adding up. However, by replacing the little bit of revenue they were making from subscribers with advertising revenue from a lot more subscribers (and the lower costs), they actually end up making a lot more money. It's not that surprising when you understand how all the factors play together, but it still seems like a good case study for those who got so angry claiming it was impossible to make money from "free."

Market Corrections: Offshoring To India Getting Expensive

A few years ago, when tech jobs were still difficult to come by there was a series of silly articles pushing for protectionist policies that would not let companies offshore jobs. It doesn't take a very thorough understanding of economics to see why this is a bad idea. It makes the US companies a lot less competitive, and simply makes them more likely to go completely out of business -- meaning those jobs would disappear anyway. However, that said, we've been pretty vocal from the beginning that those who were rushing to offshore jobs were ignoring the hidden costs of offshoring -- and that many would regret their decision to go offshore (something that proved to be true). It was usually done as a way to cover up a problem at home, with the hope that sending it overseas would magically fix the problem. The reality is that it often made it worse. Managing an overseas team can be quite difficult, and slow down the process considerably. However, more importantly, market inefficiencies only last for so long -- and some companies are noticing that offshore Indian developers are getting a lot more expensive and don't represent such a good buy any more.

Do They Make A Card That Says, "Look, We're Making Money Now"?

One of the most visible signs of the dot-com bubble was the $780 million buyout of e-card site Blue Mountain Arts by Excite@home in 1999. Just why anybody would pay nearly $1 billion for an e-cards site with no real business plan wasn't clear, and as part of its spectacular implosion, Excite dumped the property less than two years later for $35 million. But The New York Times reports that the online card industry is going through a resurgence, generating profits either through advertising or from subscription models. AmericanGreetings.com -- formed from the purchase of Blue Mountain Arts -- says it has 2.4 million subscribers at $14 per year, while a five-person company from the UK says it's got 527,000 paying about $8 yearly. Those are decent revenues, generating healthly profits, the companies say -- but certainly won't ever justify the dot-com-era prices.

Unbreakable Software Broken By Helpful Security Researcher?

Oracle is now facing a similar situation to the one that Microsoft faced a few weeks ago. After a vulnerability was exposed with Microsoft was slow to fix, an independent security researcher created his own patch to fix it -- which Microsoft reacted negatively to (though, they did speed up the release of their own patch). Oracle is in a similar situation. While they released a security patch recently, it didn't fix a security vulnerability that one researcher felt was particularly critical -- and not that difficult to fix. So he fixed it himself and released the patch. Now, Oracle is quite upset about the independent patch, claiming that just by releasing it, the researcher has alerted those with malicious intent to the flaw, while also claiming that fixing the security hole isn't as easy as the researcher made it out to be. However, here's where Oracle's spokesperson made a poor choice of words. For a while, Oracle had been marketing some of their products as "unbreakable" -- and even though they meant it in a very specific way, it still leaves them open to some amount of ridicule when they're quoted as saying: "We know it will break a number of Oracle products..." in discussing the security patch. If an independent security researcher trying to fix a vulnerability "breaks" your software, it's tough to see how it's "unbreakable."

Studio Embracing P2P While Missing The Point

Time Warner is apparently embracing P2P in parts of Europe, saying that the company is finally "changing" its business model. The actual details of the story show how little things have actually changed. In this case, it's mostly that Warner Brothers is using a tiny aspect of P2P as a publicity stunt. The rest of this is business as usual. They will allow downloads of movies and television shows. It sounds like it will be using a BitTorrent-like system that will share the bandwidth burden among people who already have the content. While the content won't have an expiration date, it will have copy protection that will require the content to "call home" to a central server. Warner Brothers will be releasing content for sale on this system at the same time as DVDs go on sale... but will charge the same amount as a DVD. So, basically, they're using P2P to lower their own costs. By going online, it saves them packaging costs. By going P2P it saves them in bandwidth costs. But, do they pass the savings on to customers? Hell no. Instead, they expect you to offer up your bandwidth to help them out. The only one getting any benefit here is the studio, which makes it seem unlikely that users will come rushing in.

Microsoft To Answer The $100 Laptop With Mobile Phones

The decision by Nicholas Negroponte to use open-source software in his $100 laptop for the world's poor instead of a special version of Windows CE ruffled some feathers at Microsoft, with Bill Gates described as being "privately bitter" about it. It upset them enough that the company is now working on its own similar project to get poor people online with mobile phones that have keyboards and adapters so they could be connected to TVs, with Microsoft saying that it's a better and more sustainable idea than laptops. It's not really clear that one solution is better than the other: on the face of it, giving people a computer might appear more useful, but there are plenty of examples of people using mobile phones for economic empowerment. The danger, though, is that the benefits of both ideas take a back seat to some sort of ego-driven battle over whose approach is best. The bottom line here should be to help people, not to create a giant PR platform for your company's products.

If nothing else could prove im a nerd ... atleast this post should

Someone had made a nerd test and now ppl are complaining its for geeks

Nerd:

Thanks for you pointing this out to me. You are not alone in this fight between the defining meaning of Nerd and Geek. I have had at least 20 emails in the past week. The "strange" thing is that half are applauding this quiz as the "Finally a quiz for me! Thank you! Thank you! Thank you!" The other half are, "HEY this is a GEEK quiz, arRgH!"

The funny thing about the whole thing is that I feel that they are all one-in-the-same. If I am called a geek, I gloat. If called a nerd, I gloat. I think the words should be combined into gerd or neek.

But being that I was bored, and was surfing eBay for collector slide rules, when I received your email. I figured I should research this further. Being that I am a neek (or gerd) I went to Google. I mostly found top-ten lists, and no really defining information could be found. Here is the link to the Google search I did:


Being unsatisfied, I went to an online dictionary, and found this out

From Merriam-Webster Online: (www.m-w.com)

Nerd:
Etymology: perhaps from nerd, a creature in the children's book If I Ran the Zoo (1950) by Dr. Seuss (Theodor Geisel)
: an unstylish, unattractive, or socially inept person; especially : one slavishly devoted to intellectual or academic pursuits

Geek:
Etymology: probably from English dialect geek, geck fool, from Low German geck, from Middle Low German
1 : a carnival performer often billed as a wild man whose act usually includes biting the head off a live chicken or snake
2 : a person often of an intellectual bent who is disapproved of

I frankly like the 1st definition of geek best :p...

Well, thanks for your input, and I hope you find this information useful. I think I will include the above information with the quiz so that others can benefit in this knowledge.

Darrell Sydlo
ChE2B

Note: If you have stepped upon this page via a search engine, and would like to take the quiz the above message is referring to, click here.



Btw if u still didn't get what im talking abt this pic will surely help u

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