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Submission + - Craigslisting of Neighbors' Stuff OK in Texas (dallasnews.com)

Quothz writes: Last spring, an Arlington police officer listed his neighbor's athletic gear on Craigslist. After a review, the Tarrant District Attorney's office has decided no crime was committed. "The law just wasn't there", says county prosecutor Dixie Bersano. So, Texans, clean up those yards and lock those doors: Your stuff is free for the giving.

Comment Looking forward... (Score 5, Interesting) 213

Before everyone starts posting stories about how they grew up on their Apple II using a 300 baud modem, let's have a forward looking discussion.

The Internet as we define it today was born 40 years ago when two big computers were hooked up with a cable and exchanged data. Let me ask: what are the milestones that will matter 10, 30 years from now? Some guesses (pick your favorites):

- wires, what wires?: The Internet goes wireless, with the invention of Wifi (circa 1991 - yes, really that old)

- device, what device?: The Internet goes ubiquitous, we don't even have to carry those bulky iPhones around (circa ???)

- telepresence: I see you, you see me, in HD, anytime, wherever you and I are. Maybe we can even shake hands. Definitely coming in the next decade.

- oracle: all knowledge, all questions, answered all the time (that might change the way we think of our education system!)

Who said innovation is slowing down? We are still in the stone age of the Internet.

Comment Dock/Taskbar design (Score 5, Informative) 688

The most thoughtful article I read that truly explains what the technical tradeoffs are with dock/taskbar design: here.

On a similar topic, if you want to work on the home page GUI for Android, there is an on-going project as well.

The good news for consumers is that both Windows 7 and Snow Leopard are great-looking OS. Computerworld is just wrong to give a point to Apple on price :-)

Linux Business

Submission + - Is forking good for open-source software? (pcpro.co.uk)

Barence writes: "Plenty of open-source projects have 'forked' off into sidelines over the past couple of years, when a group of developers chose to take a project in a different direction from the original one. But does it damage the software involved? PC Pro has an article discussing the pros and cons of open-source forking. On the one hand, some of the best open-source software has been created when developers split off into different projects, such as the MySQL spin-off MariaDB. On the other hand, forking can also be a bad thing as it can lead to a dilution of the effort that's going into a particular project. Suddenly a project that was created for the benefit of "all" no longer does that."

Comment Was it worth breaking privacy? (Score 5, Interesting) 271

For once, it's worth reading TFA until the end, when you find out: that the blog had "minuscule" traffic, it was taken down as soon as the lawsuit was filed, and it only had 5 posts all written in one day. Basically the blog was dead.

Sure, as a public figure, it's never fun to be insulted on the Internet (ask Mike Arrington if you don't believe me). But this didn't seem to warrant a full-fledged lawsuit.

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Calling all indie iPhone developers: fair and open app crowdsourcing

Comment the fine print (Score 5, Insightful) 314

Let's see if you can find the trick in Palm's privacy policy:

Personal information is information directly identifiable to you, such as your name, address, email address, and phone number, as well as other non-public information associated with such information. Some examples of how we collect and use personal information include ... [ a list that sounds pretty safe and reasonable]

The operating word is Some examples: legally, they don't say that the list is exhaustive and that they don't collect information any other way. So the long list of nice looking collection is just a decoy!

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FairSoftware.net -- iPhone dev jobs for geeks by geeks

Comment Let's share the prize! (Score 2, Interesting) 26

From the article:

a Participant that is part of a team understands and agrees that if his/her team is selected to receive a Prize, the team is responsible for ensuring the funds are appropriately distributed to each member of the team

Cool! This is the first time that I see Google proactively support a revenue share solution for developers!

Developers can officially unite, work together, collaborate, and maybe split $100,000. Nice. These are very flexible and open terms on the part of Google.

Businesses

Submission + - Making money for copyright holders (blogspot.com)

An anonymous reader writes: Normally the use of copyrighted music in YouTube videos is a no-no, but it seems with the recent "JK Wedding Entrance Dance" craze, a new business and very promising model for the music business has emerged. 'The video, set to R&B star Chris Brown's hypnotic dance jam "Forever," became an overnight sensation, accumulating more than 10 million views on YouTube in less than one week.... The rights holders for "Forever" used these tools to claim and monetize the song, as well as to start running Click-to-Buy links over the video, giving viewers the opportunity to purchase the music track on Amazon and iTunes. As a result, the rights holders were able to capitalize on the massive wave of popularity generated by "JK Wedding Entrance Dance" — in the last week, searches for "Chris Brown Forever" on YouTube have skyrocketed.'

Comment Test before you ship (Score 4, Interesting) 137

Maybe they should have used HW/SW co-verification (like Seagate in that study - an example of how a storage company tests their firmware).

For you software developers out there who enjoy free debuggers, you should know that we, hardware designers, also have our own debuggers. Except they are a little bit more expensive (think $500,000+) and can be quite bulky. But they are the only way to really test firmware before taping-out a chip.

Comment Re:Why was it improper? (Score 4, Insightful) 492

IANAL, but I'm guessing that "liability" is a legal term, so if you ask a non-lawyer a legal question (do you admit liability), then the answer is meaningless. Think of it as hearsay for experts: if you don't know about a topic, you shouldn't be allowed to comment on the record on that topic. Does the guy understand the legal ramifications of what liability means? I don't.

Now, I must say that I'm not impressed with his defense. Anyone can comment on who the defense lawyer was and whether they did a good job? It just doesn't sound great to admit on the stand to being fully, completely guilty. Criminals tend to get away with a lot of stuff, but not this guy.

Comment bankrupt then what? (Score 4, Interesting) 492

A good example of the justice system at work for your average citizen... So really, what happens next? The guy files for bankruptcy. The RIAA doesn't get any money (not that they really intend to get significant income from those cases). What are the consequences for Mr. Tenenbaum? Can't get a credit card for a few years? Needs to get a job? I'm really curious as to what the true consequences will be.

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fantasy camp for iPhone developers

Comment Take back the seconds (Score 5, Interesting) 383

Does the extra 15 seconds added by the operator really cost me anything since my phone bill uses 1-minute increments?

What would save us consumers a lot more money is having cellphone operators bill usage by the second. The European Commission already
forced the European operators to adopt 1-second billing increments.

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crowdsource your iPhone app ideas

Comment Re:flexible ad-hoc projects is the wave of the fut (Score 1) 273

True. 95% of the workforce is way too risk-averse. On the other hand, there is no arguing that people's attitudes are changing. The 9-5 job today is so ingrained in our culture that very few are questioning it.

20 years from now, the current generation, raised on multitasking iPhone/IM/FaceBook may continue to multitask in the workplace by working on several projects at the same time. Will we still have 9-5 day jobs with cubicles, assuming telepresence will be good enough that you could work anywhere with anyone and not be impacted by the distance?

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