60060
submission
frdmfghtr writes:
The iPhone has arrived, but not by Apple. Linksys has launched the iPhone line (the Linksys press release is on their website at http://www.linksys.com/servlet/Satellite?c=L_News_ C2&childpagename=US%2FLayout&cid=1165633352046&pag ename=Linksys%2FCommon%2FVisitorWrapper) of VOIP handsets that work with such services as Yahoo! Messenger and Skype. It should be noted that these units are limited to VOIP, and do not have any sort of cellular capability. I wonder how long it will take Apple to launch a phalanx of lawyers to protect the iTrademark. I would think that this would be considered trademark infringement, since the iName format is associated with Apple, and this is essentially a computer network product.
55214
submission
frdmfghtr writes:
In the Dec. 11th edition of Newsweek (http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/15994151/site/newswee k/) there is a column on the effect of "cheap, portable video recording and broadband Internet" on public behavior. Steven Levy writes that this "little brother" effect can be good in that it would stop some public transgressions. FTA: "Maybe more people will pick up after their puppies. Certainly there's a benefit to documenting instances of police brutality and schoolbus bullying. If everyone knew that such transgressions might be broadcast to the world, surely we would see fewer of them." He goes on to say that this could be a bad thing: "If you were an edgy comedian trying out material in small clubs, maybe you'd keep a safe distance from the edge — and be less funny. And it would be a shame if politicians took the lesson from George Allen that spontaneity could be deadly — every appearance before a small group would be as guarded and bland as a performance in a presidential debate."
There is lots of talk about the evils of a "surveillance society," yet the public at large can (and frequently does) participate in this, with ultraportable digital videocameras (video-capturing cellphones in particular) and sites such as YouTube.
It's called "evil" when done by the government, even if the spaces watched are public. What do you call it when the surveillance is conducted on the public, by the public?
23626
submission
frdmfghtr writes:
The October 30 issue of Forbes Magazine has an article speculating that Richard Stallman's efforts to rewrite the GPL could threaten to "tear it apart." (http://www.forbes.com/forbes/2006/1030/104_print. html) The article describes how the GPLv3 is expected to be incompatible with the GPLv2, causing trouble for Linux vendors such as Novell and Red Hat. The article wraps it up: "And a big loser, eventually, could be Stallman himself. If he relents now, he likely would be branded a sellout by his hard-core followers, who might abandon him. If he stands his ground, customers and tech firms may suffer for a few years but ultimately could find a way to work around him. Either way, Stallman risks becoming irrelevant, a strange footnote in the history of computing: a radical hacker who went on a kamikaze mission against his own program and went down in flames, albeit after causing great turmoil for the people around him."
14249
submission
frdmfghtr writes:
According to a piece in the USA Today (http://www.usatoday.com/tech/products/cnet/2006-1 0-04-vista-piracy_x.htm), non-activated Vista installations will lock users out of their PCs functionality until activated (or in some cases reactivated). FTA: "If Vista is not activated with a legitimate product registration key in time, the system will run in "reduced functionality mode" until it is activated, said Thomas Lindeman, a senior product manager at Microsoft. In this mode, people will be able to use a Web browser for up to an hour, after which time the system will log them out, he said."
3149
submission
frdmfghtr writes:
From The Register: (http://www.reghardware.co.uk/2006/08/30/aqua_open office_goes_public/) "A version of OpenOffice that will run natively under Mac OS X's Aqua user interface will be demo'd in public at Apple Expo Paris next month, the team behind the software have revealed.
To date, the open-source productivity software suite has only run under the X11 Unix windowing system. Apple bundles an X11 implementation with Mac OS X, but many Mac users prefer the operating system's own look and feel."
