Well, how else are government employees going to convince purchasers to buy PS3s so they can play games? They can now "crack" passwords AND play Dragon Age: Origins! Win-win!

+1 post; allowing website owners to directly process user/pass info for PayPal is potentially a dangerous move if all sorts of security audits/nefarious site owners are processing login info. There's definitely potential for abuse because the redirect kept the user/pass separate from the app processing. We implemented SSO handling via CAS because we could train users never to type in their user/pass on any site except for sso.bigcompany.com.

Further, even banks require all sorts of audits if a website is handling credit card info directly. We have to undergo all sorts of security audits (e.g are you storing cc numbers? who has access to your code? who has access to your database?) before we were even allowed to touch a cc gateway.

Ugh, seems like Kamokazi got to post this before I did! My apologies for the duplicate comment.

Oh, the irony.

There's an article claiming that users of time capsules have a lifespan of 17 months and 17 days. Not sure if there is any truth to this, but it does seem that there is more than one bad apple here.

Does anyone consider length an indicator of good writing? In many cases, no. Technical writing is already too long. As Mark Twain once said, "I didn't have time to write a short letter, so I wrote a long one instead."

Unless they are that incompetent...

Probably... It's Microsoft, after all.

Eolas promised not to sue non-profit companies such as Firefox on the basis of this patent. My question is, if they are capable of suing Apple and Google, both of whom have spent considerable amounts of money developing Webkit and providing the source code of their work available for all for free, then what stops Eolas from suing Firefox? Will we let patent litigation take us into the dark ages of the Internet?

TomTom,

Please take advantage of using voice synthesis functions in the 3GS so we can take advantage of the excellent voice developed by Apple. In order to use these functions, several websites have discovered how to access this part of the API:

NSObject *v = [[NSClassFromString(@"VSSpeechSynthesizer") alloc] init]; [v startSpeakingString:@"All your base are belong to us"]; [v release];

Source: High Caffeine Content 5-Jul-2009

The current voice just won't do. Need a voice synthesizer to help with driving. The Apple included one is much better.

I agree with you in principle, but to play the devil's advocate, consider this: Apple doesn't want to support the Pre in iTunes because it sets a precedence that they have to support devices that Apple does not make or endorse (they do allow some non-Apple devices to sync with iTunes; I wonder what the disposition is of those devices with this update). They do a lot of dickish moves, such as charging their iPod Touch users $10 for updates, but, as in those updates, there may be a legitimate reason why they should try to thwart attempts to support it.

Again, I'm not saying that what they did is right, but there is definitely room for a legitimate claim for them removing Palm Pre syncing ability since it never claimed to support it in the beginning (as the Pre is masquerading as a traditional iPod). Furthermore, purchased iTunes music are now DRM-free and the argument is that Palm should develop its own syncing software to transport the music to the device instead of piggybacking on the iTunes facilities.

Of course, I feel that Apple would be better served by creating an iTunes SDK, but it's their software and there are lots of different software and services available, including Amazon. Palm might have been better served by forming an alliance with Amazon and developing a client jointly with them. Now it leaves them in a precarious situation with many users wondering why their syncing no longer works.

It also sets a scary precedent that non-Apple hardware will not be supported on different parts of the OS X operating system. Mind you, I'm a Mac user, but I feel truly uneasy about this precedence. There may be legitimacy to removing support, but it also sets the precedence that Apple can remove support for competing hardware products in various components of the Apple operating system.

Exactly. In fact, it's so easy to get an unlocked iPhone 3GS in Hong Kong, and even includes full warranty service and AppleCare. Visit Apple Online Store - Hong Kong and you can purchase a fully-unlocked, iPhone 3GS without a contract and SIM restrictions so long as you have a Hong Kong shipping address. I'm sure the Chinese who are able to afford an iPhone 3GS will have no trouble traveling south and picking up on these phones for HK$ 6288.

What these telephone companies in China don't know is that Hong Kong is just three hours away from Shanghai. Knowing the acumen of Chinese customers, it won't take them long to learn that they should just purchase their phones in Hong Kong instead of getting screwed over by the Mainland companies.

Many will just sit there watching the static... It's not like they're not doing that now anyway!
They'll assume it's the Rapture and consult the Bible instead of TV Guide.

+1 Funny

In all honesty, I can't see Apple pushing out an update to iTunes just to break syncing functionality with Pre. Aside from the fact that Apple alumni engineers developed the method of syncing, any update to iTunes could also break legacy support for older iPods.

Apple is pretty aware of an entire jailbreak community for months, yet hardly do they push out an update just to break what they perceive an "exploit." Perhaps the only time they have willfully tried to stop jailbreaking was the iPhone 1.1.2 update, but since the backlash of that surfaced to public media, they have relented. Although jailbreaking depends on a hardware exploit (which makes it harder to fix), Apple usually simply ignores the behavior, especially if it is one that would result in negative backlash.

My guess is that since they also support other players and want to avoid being seen as walking in Microsoft's footsteps, they will avoid making this an issue. It will probably be unlikely, but they may even list it as a supported music device in the knowledge base. Apple would be wise to avoid garnering a backlash, and even touch on anti-competitive practices.

I should also clarify by what I mean on a CD--that is, anything created or produced by an RIAA company.

With OS X, almost any one can use a CD or DVD without Autorun. All that's required to install from a CD is the ability to click on the icon in the folder. Mac software do this by setting a background on the Finder window with a large pointer indicating where to click if it requires installation, or an alias to the system Applications folder, where installation means copying the application bundle to the Applications folder. This is by far the most elegant solution.

Why can't Windows 7 do the same? Sure, it still inherits security problems, but at least code requires user interaction to get it going, while CDs can affect computers with rootkits unbeknownst to the user. You know a program that requests UAC or sudo privileges cannot be up to much good if it's on a CD.

Yes, I think it can work, but what would be a more open and accountable ways is to assign each voter a unique identifier and print out a receipt designating the entire vote transaction. At the end of the election, all results are available by precinct in Excel/CSV format with the vote choices and the UUID/vote selection. This system keeps anonymousness and also works with allowing individuals to take audit/verification into their own hand.