Feed ICANN wants immunity from U.S. law like the International Red Cross (com.com)
Blog: The closest thing the Internet has to a governing body seems to want the same kind of immunity from national laws that the International...
Submission + - Dell Linux Support. Not.
biggahed writes: "You knew it wouldn't happen, but you tried hard to believe anyway.
"Although Dell is dancing around the idea of reintroducing Linux desktops and notebooks, the computer maker said it won't make a move until one of the competing flavors of Linux emerges as a business favorite. Dell now maintains that it doesn't want to pick one Linux distribution and alienate users with a preference for another." says Bolen.
So no, it doesn't run Linux. And won't, for the time being."
"Although Dell is dancing around the idea of reintroducing Linux desktops and notebooks, the computer maker said it won't make a move until one of the competing flavors of Linux emerges as a business favorite. Dell now maintains that it doesn't want to pick one Linux distribution and alienate users with a preference for another." says Bolen.
So no, it doesn't run Linux. And won't, for the time being."
Comment Norton Joke (Score 0) 221
Why is Peter Norton always standing there with his arms folded?
He's waiting for Norton Desktop to load.
He's waiting for Norton Desktop to load.
Submission + - Youtube Claims DMCA Covers Public Events
simon writes: "Does the DMCA prevent you from recording public events? Apparently so, as one West Australian Citizen Journalist find out last week when YouTube removed his public recordings of the Red Bull Air Race at the request of IMG Media. From the article:
"...it raises a much larger issue with respect to copyright. Are IMG Media, the people that organize the Red Bull Air Race, suggesting that they own the copyright to all free public displays of the Red Bull Air Race? What type of precedent would that set?
Submission + - When Good Intentions Meet Poor Research
dbthaw writes: "Professor Tim Wu of Columbia University Law School was recently cited in this InformationWeek article for his arguments about, amongst other things, interoperability among wireless carriers. (SeeTim Wu, "Wireless Net Neutrality: Cellular Carterfone and Consumer Choice in Mobile Broadband." (February 15, 2007).) The Wu's arguments describe a series of failures in the wireless telephony industry to promote innovation and maintain proprietary controls over their networks. (For Wu's full article, see here.)
In particular, Wu makes a lengthy comparies between rules promulgated by U.S. Federal caselaw and Federal Communications Commission decisions which prevented wireline telephone carriers from blocking "attachment" of devices they didn't manufacture or approve.
While there certainly are some notable parallels between these examples, Professor Wu's research overlooks a critical technical component. Interoperability between the devices of wireless carriers is not merely blocked by "proactive" choices made by wireless carriers. Rather, it is primarily a function of differing technologies. Verizon and AT&T Wireless, for example, use fundamentally different technologies for their wireless connectivity. In other words, for a device to operate on both networks — that device would have to be manufactured with two transceivers (I use this term broadly to encompass all the necessary codecs and processing hardware/software necessary each of CDMA and GSM technologies).
Conversely, for a manufacturer wishing to offer a new product, such as the example of Apple's iPhone discussed in the InformationWeek article, that manufacturer would have to make a technical investment in designing two different wireless transceivers for their device.
My comments should neither be taken as an attack on the recommendations of Professor Wu nor the many other points he discusses in his full report. Rather, I am attempting to point out a concern I have with how policy arguments about modern Information Technologies are constructed.
My concern is that potentially important arguments are defeated not on their policy merits, but rather because of a failure to properly understand the technologies. It would not require much time or research money to employ a talented undergraduate engineering student (something Columbia University certainly has in ample supply) to explain the fundamental technical differences between the operation of the Public Swtiched Telephone Network and the various wireless communications carriers. From this, Professor Wu's argument could be reworked to draw similar overall conclusions, without exposing them to easy targets for failure to properly understand technological implementation.
It is my hope that researchers like Professor Wu will consider these thoughts in their future writings, for the work they undertake is (in my opinion, at least) important, and should risk being dismissed as a whole for slight misunderstandings of technical concepts."
In particular, Wu makes a lengthy comparies between rules promulgated by U.S. Federal caselaw and Federal Communications Commission decisions which prevented wireline telephone carriers from blocking "attachment" of devices they didn't manufacture or approve.
While there certainly are some notable parallels between these examples, Professor Wu's research overlooks a critical technical component. Interoperability between the devices of wireless carriers is not merely blocked by "proactive" choices made by wireless carriers. Rather, it is primarily a function of differing technologies. Verizon and AT&T Wireless, for example, use fundamentally different technologies for their wireless connectivity. In other words, for a device to operate on both networks — that device would have to be manufactured with two transceivers (I use this term broadly to encompass all the necessary codecs and processing hardware/software necessary each of CDMA and GSM technologies).
Conversely, for a manufacturer wishing to offer a new product, such as the example of Apple's iPhone discussed in the InformationWeek article, that manufacturer would have to make a technical investment in designing two different wireless transceivers for their device.
My comments should neither be taken as an attack on the recommendations of Professor Wu nor the many other points he discusses in his full report. Rather, I am attempting to point out a concern I have with how policy arguments about modern Information Technologies are constructed.
My concern is that potentially important arguments are defeated not on their policy merits, but rather because of a failure to properly understand the technologies. It would not require much time or research money to employ a talented undergraduate engineering student (something Columbia University certainly has in ample supply) to explain the fundamental technical differences between the operation of the Public Swtiched Telephone Network and the various wireless communications carriers. From this, Professor Wu's argument could be reworked to draw similar overall conclusions, without exposing them to easy targets for failure to properly understand technological implementation.
It is my hope that researchers like Professor Wu will consider these thoughts in their future writings, for the work they undertake is (in my opinion, at least) important, and should risk being dismissed as a whole for slight misunderstandings of technical concepts."
Submission + - Over 27% of Firefox patches come from volunteers
dolphinling writes: "Everyone knows the Mozilla Corporation makes a lot of money and employs a lot of people now. Google has full-time employees working on Firefox too, as do a number of other places. Yet despite that, in the six months up to Firefox 2 "27% of the patches to Firefox and Gecko and other key projects were submitted by key volunteers, [and] those patches represent 24% of changes made to the source code". What's more, those numbers only counted contributers with 50 patches or more, so the actual numbers are probably quite a bit higher. It's good to see that even as Mozilla does so well in the business world, it can still keep its ties to the community so strong."
Submission + - Congress looking at "Truth In Ratings Act"
Captain Sarcastic writes: Ars Technica published an article(see here) of how a presidential hopeful is re-introducing a law to provide legal remedies to ensure truth in video game ratings.
Submission + - commercial quantum computer demoed
Lord Sidious writes: "A Vancouver startup, D-Wave Systems, claims to have demonstrated the world's first commercially viable quantum computer.
http://www.spectrum.ieee.org/feb07/comments/1710"
http://www.spectrum.ieee.org/feb07/comments/1710"
