Comment They really thought they could do this? (Score 1) 600
So, what this is saying is that I can't slap a ford logo on my toyota and expect ford to warranty it for me? And when they refuse, I shouldn't complain to the DOT?
USB-IF Slaps Palm In iTunes Spat 600
An anonymous reader writes "The USB Implementers Forum has finally responded to Palm's complaints that Apple is violating its USB-IF Membership Agreement by preventing the Pre from syncing with iTunes. It's found in favor of Apple. Worse, it's accused Palm itself of violating the Membership Agreement by using Apple's Vendor ID number to disguise the Pre as an Apple device."
Submission + - Google Voice rejected for its dialer functionality
whoop writes: "From TechCrunch, "In a letter to the FCC today, Google disclosed previously unpublished information about Appleâ(TM)s rejection of their Google Voice application... 'Apple representatives informed Google that the Google Voice application was rejected because Apple believed the application duplicated the core dialer functionality of the iPhone'""
Submission + - Apple allows the blind to use iPhones and iPod Tou (apple.com)
An anonymous reader writes: Apple has posted a video demonstrating how someone who is completely blind can use all the functionality of the iPhone or iPod Touch. It's not often that you see mainstream products include an accessible way to use their product, but Apple has no done it with the iPhone, iPod nano and iPod shuffle. Apple, you may not do everything right, but I doff my hat you on this one, sirs.
Python Converted To JavaScript, Executed In-Browser 176
lkcl writes "Two independent projects, Skulpt and Pyjamas, are working to bring Python to the web browser (and the JavaScript command-line) the hard way: as JavaScript. Skulpt already has a cool Python prompt demo on its homepage; Pyjamas has a gwtcanvas demo port and a GChart 2.6 demo port. Using the 64-bit version of Google v8 and PyV8, Pyjamas has just recently and successfully run its Python regression tests, converted to JavaScript, at the command-line. (Note: don't try any of the above SVG demos with FF2 or IE6; they will suck.)"
Submission + - Google, Apple spat resumes over Google Voice's fat (computerworld.com)
CWmike writes: "Contradicting Apple, which maintains it has not rejected Google's Voice application in its App Store for iPhones, Google has asked the FCC to make public a section of a letter that had been previously redacted, explaining that several organizations had filed Freedom of Information Act requests asking to see the text that was previously omitted from the public version. According to Google, it outlines that Apple rejected Google Voice on July 7, when Google's senior vice president of engineering and research, Alan Eustace, spoke with Philip Schiller, Apple's head of marketing, in a telephone call. "It was during this call that Mr. Schiller informed Mr. Eustace that Apple was rejecting the Google Voice application," said Google's letter to the FCC, which launched a probe into the matter last month. Google also noted that discussions between the companies lasted most of July, starting July 5 and ending July 28. "In a series of in-person meetings, phone calls, and e-mails ... Apple and Google representatives discussed the approval status of the Google Voice application that was submitted on June 2, 2009," Google told the FCC on Friday."
Submission + - Google's Leaked Memo on Apple's Rejection of Googl (sfgate.com) 2
ZipK writes: "Yobie Benjamin gives a short explanation of why he's abandoned the iPhone in favor of Android as his mobile development platform. More interestingly, he links to a memo in which Google details for the FCC their view of Apple's rejection of Google Voice."
Burglar Logs Into Facebook On Victim's Computer 337
yet-another-lobbyist writes to mention that Facebook addiction has finally caused real world consequences, at least for one would-be burglar. It seems that 19-year-old Jonathan Parker couldn't stay away from the popular social networking site, even long enough to rob a house. Parker not only stopped mid-robbery to check his Facebook status on the victim's computer, but left it logged in to his account when he left.
Submission + - Health care exemption on data breeches (theregister.co.uk)
Combat Wombat writes: "New data breach rules for US healthcare providers have come under criticism from a security firm that specialises in encryption.
As part of the Health Information Technology for Economic and Clinical Health (HITECH) Act, which comes into effect from 23 September, health organisations in the US that use encryption will no longer be obliged to notify clients of breaches."
Submission + - Time & Attendance for the Mid-Size Business
NuclearRampage writes: I work for a mid-size manufacturing company with ~2000 employee and 7 satellite sites all using leased ethernet barcode clocks with collection software from 1999. Not only is it expensive to lease the clocks, but is very hard to extract data from collection software to get the management customized reports. We started down the road of looking for new systems that we can host in-house and it seams ridiculous that simple clock with bar code scanner ranges from $500 to $1700 just because it communicates with the vendors specific software. Has anyone rolled their own time & attendance system or found a decent vendor that won't charge $100,000 to do time & attendance for 2000 people?
Submission + - Amazon bans public domain from Kindle (sacred-texts.com) 6
John B. Hare writes: "John B. Hare writes "Many publishers of public domain content on the Kindle are being turned away for reasons which Amazon declines to clarify. In the past two weeks any publisher posting a public domain book (or a book which appears to be a public domain book) have received the message "Your book is currently under review by the Kindle Operations team as we are trying to improve the Kindle customer experience. Please check back in 5 business days to see if your book was published to the store."
Amazon claims that this is a quality control issue, that readers can't figure out on their own that a five page Kindle book for $9.99 is a rip-off or yet another Kindle edition of 'Pride and Prejudice' is pointless. This was supposed to be the point of user feedback and the Kindle return policy: the user can quickly decide what the best choice is, and if they don't like it, back out without any harm done.
I own and run one of the primary contributors of new public domain etexts on the web: sacred-texts.com. When the ban went into effect, I was just back from an intense round of chemo. I was disappointed to get this message. I am (was?) in the process of converting all of the 2000+ ebooks at sacred-texts into Kindle editions. I use a homebrew preflight Kindle filter to construct the Kindle binary from my master files, which we have invested nearly a million dollars into creating. We spend thousands a month in-house doing legal clearance, scanning, OCRing, and proofing, often by domain experts. So we are hardly a fly-by-night operation. In fact, many of the PD texts floating around on the Internet and on the Kindle were originally done at sacred-texts at great investment of labor and time. Our Kindle return rate is close to zero.
This morning I received an email stating:
Amazon claims that this is a quality control issue, that readers can't figure out on their own that a five page Kindle book for $9.99 is a rip-off or yet another Kindle edition of 'Pride and Prejudice' is pointless. This was supposed to be the point of user feedback and the Kindle return policy: the user can quickly decide what the best choice is, and if they don't like it, back out without any harm done.
I own and run one of the primary contributors of new public domain etexts on the web: sacred-texts.com. When the ban went into effect, I was just back from an intense round of chemo. I was disappointed to get this message. I am (was?) in the process of converting all of the 2000+ ebooks at sacred-texts into Kindle editions. I use a homebrew preflight Kindle filter to construct the Kindle binary from my master files, which we have invested nearly a million dollars into creating. We spend thousands a month in-house doing legal clearance, scanning, OCRing, and proofing, often by domain experts. So we are hardly a fly-by-night operation. In fact, many of the PD texts floating around on the Internet and on the Kindle were originally done at sacred-texts at great investment of labor and time. Our Kindle return rate is close to zero.
This morning I received an email stating:
"Dear Publisher,
We're working on a policy and procedure change to fix a customer experience problem caused by multiple copies of public domain titles being uploaded by a multitude of publishers. For an example of this problem, do a search on "Pride and Prejudice" in the Kindle Store. The current situation is very confusing for customers as it makes it difficult to decide which 'Pride and Prejudice' to choose. As a result, at this time we are not accepting additional public domain titles through DTP, including the following: The Unknown Life of Jesus Christ
The Aquarian Gospel of Jesus the Christ
Traces of a Hidden Tradition in Masonry and Medieval Mysticism
The History of the Knights Templar by Nicolas Notovitch...
If you believe that we have wrongly identified this title as a public domain title, and you are the copyright holder or are authorized to sell it by the copyright holder, then please reply to title-submission@amazon.com with appropriate documentation of your e-book rights.
Thank you, Amazon.com
As can be seen, this brings an entirely new issue into play: apparently, if I owned the rights to a public domain book and can prove it, they will reconsider. However, nobody can own a public domain book. Amazon is telling us that in order to post our books we need to prove a contradiction!
One key point is that Amazon has applied this ban completely non-selectively. Established publishers such as myself and others who have never had any quality control issues whatsoever, and give good value for the price, have all been tarred with the broad brush of 'Public Domain Publisher--do not post'.
By banning new public domain books from the Kindle, they are making an implicit decision as to which books people should read. You can argue that 'you can get these texts anywhere' but by excluding high quality Kindle books of them from the nascent Kindle marketplace, Amazon is implicitly trying to decide what is a valid part of our culture and what isn't. This trend does not bode well for the future of ebooks.
Submission + - Google bans the public domain from Kindle (sacred-texts.com) 1
John B. Hare writes: "Many publishers of public domain content on the Kindle are being turned away for reasons which Amazon declines to clarify. In the past two weeks any publisher posting a public domain book (or a book which appears to be a public domain book) have received the message "Your book is currently under review by the Kindle Operations team as we are trying to improve the Kindle customer experience. Please check back in 5 business days to see if your book was published to the store."
Amazon claims that this is a quality control issue, that readers can't figure out on their own that a five page Kindle book for $9.99 is a rip-off or yet another Kindle edition of 'Pride and Prejudice' is pointless. This was supposed to be the point of user feedback and the Kindle return policy: the user can quickly decide what the best choice is, and if they don't like it, back out without any harm done.
I own and run one of the primary contributors of new public domain etexts on the web: sacred-texts.com. When the ban went into effect, I was just back from an intense round of chemo. I was disappointed to get this message. I am (was?) in the process of converting all of the 2000+ ebooks at sacred-texts into Kindle editions. I use a homebrew preflight Kindle filter to construct the Kindle binary from my master files, which we have invested nearly a million dollars into creating. We spend thousands a month in-house doing legal clearance, scanning, OCRing, and proofing, often by domain experts. So we are hardly a fly-by-night operation. In fact, many of the PD texts floating around on the Internet and on the Kindle were originally done at sacred-texts at great investment of labor and time. Our Kindle return rate is close to zero.
This morning I received an email stating:
Amazon claims that this is a quality control issue, that readers can't figure out on their own that a five page Kindle book for $9.99 is a rip-off or yet another Kindle edition of 'Pride and Prejudice' is pointless. This was supposed to be the point of user feedback and the Kindle return policy: the user can quickly decide what the best choice is, and if they don't like it, back out without any harm done.
I own and run one of the primary contributors of new public domain etexts on the web: sacred-texts.com. When the ban went into effect, I was just back from an intense round of chemo. I was disappointed to get this message. I am (was?) in the process of converting all of the 2000+ ebooks at sacred-texts into Kindle editions. I use a homebrew preflight Kindle filter to construct the Kindle binary from my master files, which we have invested nearly a million dollars into creating. We spend thousands a month in-house doing legal clearance, scanning, OCRing, and proofing, often by domain experts. So we are hardly a fly-by-night operation. In fact, many of the PD texts floating around on the Internet and on the Kindle were originally done at sacred-texts at great investment of labor and time. Our Kindle return rate is close to zero.
This morning I received an email stating:
Dear Publisher,
We're working on a policy and procedure change to fix a customer experience problem caused by multiple copies of public domain titles being uploaded by a multitude of publishers. For an example of this problem, do a search on "Pride and Prejudice" in the Kindle Store. The current situation is very confusing for customers as it makes it difficult to decide which 'Pride and Prejudice' to choose. As a result, at this time we are not accepting additional public domain titles through DTP, including the following: The Unknown Life of Jesus Christ
The Aquarian Gospel of Jesus the Christ
Traces of a Hidden Tradition in Masonry and Medieval Mysticism
The History of the Knights Templar by Nicolas Notovitch...
If you believe that we have wrongly identified this title as a public domain title, and you are the copyright holder or are authorized to sell it by the copyright holder, then please reply to title-submission@amazon.com with appropriate documentation of your e-book rights.
Thank you, Amazon.com
As can be seen, this brings an entirely new issue into play: apparently, if I owned the rights to a public domain book and can prove it, they will reconsider. However, nobody can own a public domain book. This is the point. Amazon is telling us that in order to post our books we need to prove a contradiction!
One key point is that Amazon has applied this ban completely non-selectively. Established publishers such as myself and others who have never had any quality control issues whatsoever, and give good value for the price, have all been tarred with the broad brush of 'Public Domain Publisher--do not post'.
By banning new public domain books from the Kindle, they are making an implicit decision as to which books people should read. You can argue that 'you can get these texts anywhere' but by excluding high quality Kindle books of them from the nascent Kindle marketplace, Amazon is implicitly trying to decide what is a valid part of our culture and what isn't. This trend does not bode well for the future of ebooks."
Submission + - Microsoft offers Windows 7 to students for $30
An anonymous reader writes: Microsoft today announced students would be able to purchase upgrade versions of Windows 7 for a significantly reduced price until January 3, 2010 at 12:00am CST. A valid e-mail address given by a college or university must be used. An e-mail will be sent telling the student if he or she qualifies for the discount. Eligible students are allowed to purchase one copy of either Windows 7 Home Premium or Windows 7 Professional from the online store. The discount price applies to the following countries: the UK (£30) and the US ($30). More information is available at 741.com, a site just launched today that is dedicated to advertising Windows 7 to students.
"In the US, students can pre-order their copy of Windows 7 beginning September 17th and can download the OS beginning on October 22nd (general availability)," a Microsoft spokesperson confirmed with Ars. "Students in the UK can pre-order their copy beginning on September 30th for download on October 22nd. Students in all other participating markets can take advantage of the offer beginning on October 22nd. In most markets, the offer ends on January 3rd (in Australia the offer is available until March 31st).
"In the US, students can pre-order their copy of Windows 7 beginning September 17th and can download the OS beginning on October 22nd (general availability)," a Microsoft spokesperson confirmed with Ars. "Students in the UK can pre-order their copy beginning on September 30th for download on October 22nd. Students in all other participating markets can take advantage of the offer beginning on October 22nd. In most markets, the offer ends on January 3rd (in Australia the offer is available until March 31st).
Submission + - Microsoft offers Windows 7 to students for $30
An anonymous reader writes: Microsoft today announced students would be able to purchase upgrade versions of Windows 7 for a significantly reduced price until January 3, 2010 at 12:00am CST. A valid e-mail address given by a college or university must be used. An e-mail will be sent telling the student if he or she qualifies for the discount. Eligible students are allowed to purchase one copy of either Windows 7 Home Premium or Windows 7 Professional from the online store. The discount price applies to the following countries: the UK (£30) and the US ($30). More information is available at 741.com, a site just launched today that is dedicated to advertising Windows 7 to students.
"In the US, students can pre-order their copy of Windows 7 beginning September 17th and can download the OS beginning on October 22nd (general availability)," a Microsoft spokesperson confirmed with Ars. "Students in the UK can pre-order their copy beginning on September 30th for download on October 22nd. Students in all other participating markets can take advantage of the offer beginning on October 22nd. In most markets, the offer ends on January 3rd (in Australia the offer is available until March 31st).
"In the US, students can pre-order their copy of Windows 7 beginning September 17th and can download the OS beginning on October 22nd (general availability)," a Microsoft spokesperson confirmed with Ars. "Students in the UK can pre-order their copy beginning on September 30th for download on October 22nd. Students in all other participating markets can take advantage of the offer beginning on October 22nd. In most markets, the offer ends on January 3rd (in Australia the offer is available until March 31st).
Submission + - Security/Privacy Advice
James-NSC writes: My employer is changing its policy towards employee use of social networks. I've been asked to give a 40 minute presentation to the entire company (attendance is mandatory) on the security and privacy concerns pertaining to social networking. While I was putting it together, I ended up with some miscellaneous information that pertains to security/privacy in general. Ex: the emerging ATM skimming (mainly for our European employees), a reminder that email is not private, malware/drive-by in popular search results, things of that nature. Since these don't really fall into the slated topic, I've ended up with a section titled "While I have you...". I'm going to have the attention of every employee and with attendance being mandatory, I thought it would be a great opportunity to give advice on security/privacy issues as a whole and not just those pertaining to social networks. As it's an opportunity that one seldom gets, I'd hate to not utilize it to its full potential. If you had the attention of an entire company with employees in the US, UK, Asia and Australia, what advice would you give?
