Licensing isn't really new. It might be "new to consumers," like people who have never encountered the idea that businesses pay more for things like ASCAP and per seat licensing than they do.

Software is a modern product concept. Ownership of somebody's created work (software, music, whatever) requires some concept of licensing beyond simple possession, just as ownership of land requires more than occupancy.

And yes, everyone seeks to frame things in their interests. Obviously companies will do what they can get away with. But the idea that individuals have some unassailable god-given right to modify software because they possess it is a rather foolish and naive idea. I'm not against modding your Wii/iPod/PC or whatever, but I don't pretend that it is protected by law.

Laws are designed to protect the assets of people who control wealth. They are not there to protect people, except those laws that are put in place within 25 years of the last revolution.

No, you are not "you are purchasing a copy of the software with the hardware." You rarely ever buy (obtain full rights) to software for obvious reasons.

Modifying software is nothing like annotating a book. Also, books don't have EULAs. You can scribble on your copy of Word, but you don't have any rights to modify the software, and EULAs are notorious for insisting that this is the case, again, for reasons that should be obvious to anyone with an IQ over 80.

Again, you can refuse to recognize intellectual property, but that's no difference from communists refusing to acknowledge property rights. Might be a fun way to live your early 20s, but it's not legal in any sense, and you're only a simpleton for thinking that whatever you want to be the case is "legal," just because you think its a good idea (and because it doesn't financially impact you).

It doesn't matter if you click or read an EULA. It's there.

Also, news flash: content is protected automatically, You can't buy a CD and play it in your restaurant for your patrons without violating its license, even if you opened the package with your eyes shut while chanting "I don't believe in intellectual property rights."

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Ha, marked me "flamebait." Grow the fuck up Slashdot. Start with a basic education in subjects other than "I want to believe this to be the case because the idea pleases me."

Is this site getting increasingly retarded, or am I just growing old enough to find teenage gamers tiresome?

Ever heard of a neighborhood housing covenant? You buy a house, but recognize that you can't paint it Day-Glo orange or park a car on your yard. Why? Because it does impact your neighbors, even if it is your yard.

"Changing bits" on some software you licensed the use of is not usually legal. I can't "change bits" of Linux and resell it as my own work, just as you can't change bits of Windows or iPhone OS or Wii firmware and use it against its licensing agreement.

As I said, to people who don't share the same financial interests, laws might not make any sense. If you're a vagrant, you might think the world is your toilet because you don't respect property.

If you are a freetard, you think the world's code is your playground because you don't respect intellectual property. No difference. It comes down to respecting licensing.

If you want to take a Wii and write unique software for it, Nintendo will try very hard to stop you because they want you to be a consumer of their games. If you want to edit the firmware to allow you to pirate games, Nintendo will try to stop you because they want gaming revenue. If you want to call yourself a homebrew hacker, fine, but 90% of "homebrew" is really just piracy. Nintendo doesn't care about the 10% making their own games, it cares about the majority who hide behind homebrew in order to undermine sales of commercial software: one solution wipes out both.

I'm not personally offended by your desire to want to do those things. I've slept in places I wasn't supposed to, I've used software I've failed to pay for, and I've violated various licenses and trespassed and have occasionally resorted to schwarzfahren when I lacked train tickets... and plenty of other more egregious things.

But there is a gulf between realizing that you're doing something sketchy, and in hypocritically laying out a pretentious defense of illegal behavior on the basis of either "not recognizing the law" or citing some legal foundation for doing something that is simply not legal.

When you buy a computer, you're not buying just a device; you're also licensing software that makes that device work. So no, your first sale doctrine doesn't really apply because you're not just using a purchased item, you're buying hardware attached to a software license.

You may have trouble with that concept, the same as a vagrant has trouble with the concept of loitering or peeing in public, but the laws are there to protect business models, not to make you feel liberated from needing to pay for things other people have created.

It's one thing to take a device (iPod, PC,Wii, whatever), completely wipe the software and install Linux or your own code. It's very different to take those same devices, and use the existing software against its license to do something you want to do with it in order to violate the deal you got when you bought it.

There are plenty of people who don't think humans should be able to own private land (because they can't or don't), so you are not alone in having a purely selfish view of copyright that suits your personal needs. That does not mean you have any legal standing.

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Why Apple is betting on Light Peak with Intel: a love story

Microsoft also set aside that special $1,150,000,000 fund for repairing those loss leader Xbox 360s. Across the less than 12 million units it had shipped up to that point, that means the company dropped nearly another $100 per unit. Return rates were over 50% at one point, and are still fairly high.

Compared to that scale of money loss (and Sony's expensive effort to promote BluRay via the PS3), Nintendo's tiny Wii hardware profits look phenomenal. But they're still very thin margins and depend upon software licensing deals to make it worth doing.

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Why Apple is betting on Light Peak with Intel: a love story

Because everyone knows that crossing "Interstate lines" essentially makes mail fraud unpunishable!

Oh yes, and PayPal, they're always on your side too.

Thanks for a good laugh.

Why Apple is betting on Light Peak with Intel: a love story

To help kill off the douchbag antivirus vendors who are trying to use irrational fear sell Mac users antivirus tools they don't need.

There are all of two malicious trojans you can actually encounter (I tried to find one live on the web and could not), so Apple just added them both to the blacklist the looks at files you might download. Much like the antiphishing features of browsers, which only point out obvious risks to users as they wade through them.

If you look at the big problematic viruses that ransacked Windows XP and created the security/virus panic at Microsoft that resulted in Vista's new security focus, outbreaks such as Melissa virus or the more recent Storm trojan, you realize that all this bullshit being spewed by security experts about exploit vulnerabilities and root access is a distraction.

Melissa was a fucking Office macro virus. Storm is a trojan. All the "malware" on the Mac is stupid shit you have to authorize the installation for. None of Windows' malware/virus/adware crisis is really solved by ASLR. There are no advanced OS security features that can prevent people from authorizing the installation of a trojan masquerading as a video codec or a pirate copy of iWork. If you have admin rights on a machine, you can install all the trojans you need, and you can wipe out all of your own data without any need for "root access."

Charlie Miller is a smart guy, but complaining that ASLR on the Mac isn't bulletproof is like the Maytag repairman publishing how Maytag can eliminate a potential part failure. Doesn't he need to preserve something to be able to show up at award shows and demonstrate flaws on the Mac? It's not like anyone else cares about Mac vulnerabilities, apart from the antivirus companies trying to sell Mac users software they don't need - or so that the user can be "alerted" when they try to install a fake/pirate version of iWork that is really a bit of malware.

The only way to kill malware dead is to prevent users from installing software that isn't approved and vetted. That's what the iPhone App Store does, and all you freetards out there don't like that either, do you?

And on that subject, guess what company is copying Apple's App Store but introducing far more draconian restrictions: Microsoft sells restrictive new WiMo Marketplace via iPhone ads

Three pages of detailed explanation, and the best you can come with for an attack is to say that "here is no such thing as a transflective color LCD"?

Maybe you should have thought to plug the following words into Google before making your statement:

transflective
color
LCD
iPod touch

What's next, complaints about global warming, evolution, and the Round Earth Theory?

While you "assure us" about your anecdotal experiences, Apple continues to sell millions of games and other apps for its developer base, and everyone is making money. Big names are making games and continue to release new titles that are pretty cool. Sure, the $0.99 to $4.99 aren't on the level of $30-$50 PSP and DS games, but they are cleaning up and growing in popularity and sophistication.

Apple is lining up developer support essentially for free on the back of its iPod/iPhone business. Microsoft is trying to pay for this kind of attention.

Also, even if 1% of the 75,000 App Store titles don't "suck," that leaves 750 that don't, which is more than you can even install at once.

From OLED to Tegra: Five Myths of the Zune HD

Microsoft has had a model to follow since Jan 2007. They've had an SDK to copy since Jun 2008.

Microsoft has been in the Zune game for longer than Apple has had the iPhone. At some point, you have to stop bending over for the grand monopolist of the tech world, as it doesn't deserve your pity sex.

Come on, this sort of irrational fandom should be reserved for the Amiga and Cowon and Ogg Vobis.

From OLED to Tegra: Five Myths of the Zune HD

Have you seen Microsoft's mobile web browser?

That's the answer to your question. That, and the fact that the original HDD-based Zune would not have run any browser worth a shit. Notice that the iPod classic isn't running Safari either.

From OLED to Tegra: Five Myths of the Zune HD

Microsoft knows WiMo is a mess, and didn't want to associate its nerdy IT office image with the 16-year old E orgy imagery it used to launch the Zune.

Now, Microsoft is trying to copy the iPhone App Store with WiMo and Zune has an entirely different set of Xbox-realted dev tools in XNA. So it is a mess. The problem is that XNA isn't going to do anything for the Zune without any installed base (it struggles on the Xbox, which has a large audience), and Microsoft's efforts to copy the App Store are not just late, but more draconian than Apple's.

Microsoft expects developers to pay $99 for every app they submit to the WiMo Marketplace (free or paid), in addition to the annual fee. That's not exactly going to kick WiMo into developer overdrive.

Things go south from there. I'm writing up a report on what's involved in Microsoft's restrictive new store. It's fairly shocking to see what Microsoft thinks it can pull. Clearly lots of delusional management going on.

From OLED to Tegra: Five Myths of the Zune HD

The HD in "HD Radio" doesn't stand for high definition. It's a bs market confusing effort to push proprietary digital radio broadcasting, and it's US only. That's also why the Zune HD isn't being sold overseas, because it doesn't work with open digital radio in Europe.

From OLED to Tegra: Five Myths of the Zune HD