Nuclear Elephant - Slashdot User

Submission + - Is Apple Abandoning the Consumer?

Submitted by PainMeds on Thursday February 26, 2009 @05:12PM

PainMeds writes: Author and longtime iPhone hacker Jon Zdziarski has written an article predicting that Apple will soon abandon the consumer. He cites the recent loss of AppStore developers for more open platforms, such as Android, and Apple's abandonment of Macworld as the beginnings of a cycle that will eventually end in a "big box" retail strategy for Apple. From the article, "I predict that Apple is headed in the direction of distancing themselves from both consumers and developers in exchange for the benefits that come from the volume sales generated by cheap equipment sold into cookie-cutter markets.". Towards the end of the article, Zdziarski suggests that Apple has lost its sense of innovation and has stagnated, re-selling the same products in different cases. His final prediction suggests that competitors will eventually overtake the company's mobile dominance and that Apple might lose the edge that make their hardware more "appealing" to the consumer.

Submission + - Response to Apple's Claim of Jailbreaking Illegal

Submitted by

Nuclear Elephant

on Friday February 13, 2009 @04:57PM

Nuclear Elephant writes: "As the author of three books on the iPhone and a participant in the pre-SDK iPhone community, I took personal offense to Apple's suggestion that the only purposes for "jailbreaking" are nefarious. Quite the opposite, an entire community of innovators (one that Apple even hired) helped grow the iPhone's initial hype and paved the way for what would eventually become Apple's App Store. I've written an in-line response to Apple's opposition to the EFF's proposed exemption to allow for jailbreaking. It is my personal belief that the DMCA's exemptions are quite enough for most legitimate purposes of jailbreaking the iPhone, at least in its early days. More importantly, I try to expose the hidden agenda that appears to be surrounding this. You might be surprised to find that "jailbreaking" and breaking the iPhone's digital right's management are actually two entirely different things. Apple seems to be suggesting that accessing your own computer is what's responsible for piracy."

Submission + - How HIPAA Has Destroyed my Father's Health (zdziarski.com)

Submitted by Nuclear Elephant on Wednesday September 24, 2008 @03:55PM

Nuclear Elephant writes: Our federal HIPAA laws have forced me to watch my father's meantal health degrade as if from behind iron bars — knowing that our federal government has rendered me helpess to do anything to help him pro-actively. He has hit bottom and become only a shell of the gifted, intelligent man I used to know him as. HIPAA has helped to destroy this man by affording him the ability to isolate himself amidst a disease whose symptoms include delusions inciting isolation and paranoia, and has castrated families across the nation who are seeking to help their own loved ones in similar situations. I've written a brief account of events that have allowed my father's psychological illnesses to fester and worsen as a result of the HIPAA privacy rules.

Comment Re:5th (Score 5, Insightful) 453

by Nuclear Elephant on Monday September 15, 2008 @09:04AM (#25008637) Attached to: Indian Woman Convicted of Murder By Brain Scan

Just to play devil's advocate, the courts could argue here in the US that brain scans are evidentiary, and not testimony (hence witness against one's self). My guess is they would argue that brain scans are of the same family of evidence as DNA; e.g. it doesn't "testify against you", but is rather physically relevant to the case. I would hope that this would cause outrage, but judging by the number of other things the government has desensitized us to, it wouldn't surprise me.

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