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Businesses

Submission + - Mickos: Open source needs unfair advantage (computerworlduk.com)

Submitted by superapecommando
superapecommando writes: A guest post from Mårten Mickos in response to Simon Phipps's statement of opposition to so-called "open core" models. Mickos argues that "for an open source company to become commercially successful, it needs to have an unfair advantage against its competition". He is the CEO of cloud start-up Eucalyptus and former CEO of MySQL.

A characteristic and great feature of the world of free and open source software (FOSS) is that many of its participants love debating business models. Do closed source software vendors do that? I doubt.

Simon has some great points in his posting yesterday, reminding us all that the non-open features or services a company provides to its customers may lead to lock-in and reduction of freedoms for the customer. He also comments that open core businesses "stand to benefit massively" from this. It seems that he is arguing that this is a bad thing. My main point is the opposite: by having vendors in the open source space that benefit massively, we will have a stronger world of free and open source software (FOSS).

Submission + - Please Remove Your Shoes (pleaseremoveyourshoesmovie.com)

Submitted by gambino21
gambino21 writes: A new documentary called "Please Remove Your Shoes" discusses the policies of the TSA (Transportation Security Administration). From the film website:

Please Remove Your Shoes is a revealing documentary about broken government process. It is also an empathetic story about a half dozen public servants who try to fix it. And it is a familiar topic to all of us who have flown in the last fifteen years:the security routine at the airport, first the FAA and now the TSA.

Reviews of the film are available at the Washington Post and Salon.com.
Earth

German Airports Use Bees To Monitor Air Quality 44

Posted by samzenpus from the smog-honey dept.
The Düsseldorf International Airport and seven other airports in Germany have come up with a unique way of monitoring air quality; they use bees. The airports test the bees' honey twice a year for toxins, and batches that turn up clean are bottled and given away. From the article: "Assessing environmental health using bees as 'terrestrial bioindicators' is a fairly new undertaking, said Jamie Ellis, assistant professor of entomology at the Honey Bee Research and Extension Laboratory, University of Florida in Gainesville. 'We all believe it can be done, but translating the results into real-world solutions or answers may be a little premature.' Still, similar work with insects to gauge water quality has long been successful."
Google

Google To End Google.cn Redirect 183

Posted by CmdrTaco from the good-luck-with-that dept.
shmG writes "Google Inc. has announced a 'new approach' in China after the government said the company could no longer automatically redirect users to the unfiltered Hong Kong site. This gives Baidu Inc., which already has a greater than 60% share in Internet search in China, a chance to expand. It has announced new plans to hire US engineers to enhance its technical skills and propel its growth globally." Update: 06/29 18:27 GMT by S : Changed the headline to more accurately reflect what Google is doing. They're ending the redirect and applying for a license renewal, so it's still in question whether they'll actually go dark in China. However, they say they're also looking for ways to continue allowing uncensored search, such as putting a high-profile link to their Hong Kong site on the google.cn landing page.
Image

The "King of All Computer Mice" Finally Ships 207

Posted by samzenpus from the there's-a-button-for-that dept.
An anonymous reader writes "The much-anticipated, much-mocked 18-button joystick mouse from WarMouse is now shipping. The press release features an impressive set of user quotes from game designer Chris Taylor, new SFWA president John Scalzi, and a doctor who runs a medical software company. Crazy or not, it's obviously more than just a gaming mouse."
The Internet

Statewide Franchise Illegal? Detroit Sues Comcast 183

Posted by CmdrTaco from the that-sounds-desperate dept.
jqpublic13 writes "The City of Detroit, Michigan, is suing Comcast's local subsidiary citing a 2006 agreement which the City says violates the constitutions of both the United States and the state of Michigan. They claim that a federal act from 1984 supersedes the local agreement. Comcast has 20 days to respond."
Privacy

Facebook, Friend of Divorce Lawyers 494

Posted by kdawson from the data-honey-pot dept.
crimeandpunishment writes "A lot of Facebook users going through divorces have learned a very costly lesson about their privacy settings. In fact, for many of them their Facebook pages helped lead to the divorce in the first place. More than 80% of the members of the American Academy of Matrimonial Lawyers say they've used or run into evidence gathered from Facebook and other social networking sites over the last five years — and some of them have some very entertaining stories to tell. 'Facebook is the unrivaled leader for turning virtual reality into real-life divorce drama,' said AAML's president."
Cellphones

iOS Update May Tackle iPhone 4's Antenna Problems 282

Posted by Soulskill from the this-is-your-apple-a-day dept.
DJRumpy was one of several readers to point out rumors that Apple will soon be deploying an update to iOS 4 to combat the iPhone 4 antenna problems we discussed last week. This could be good news for users of the 1.7 million iPhone 4s purchased during the first three days of its release. (And no, Daily Mail, Steve didn't announce a recall, though there's speculation that this problem could be a boon for Android.) An anonymous reader notes an analysis of a teardown of the phone, which found that its parts collectively cost about $188, with the most expensive part — the LCD screen — costing $28.50 by itself. In other Apple news, Germany has demanded that the company "immediately make clear" what data it collects from customers, and what use it makes of that data (perhaps spurred by Google's Wi-Fi sniffing debacle).
The Internet

Facebook Usage Hits 16 Billion Minutes a Day 107

Posted by CmdrTaco from the thats-a-lotta-waste dept.
1sockchuck writes "Facebook's 400 million users spend more than 16 billion minutes on the site every day, and view 1 million photos every second. That's prompted massive growth in the social network's infrastructure, which now encompasses more than 60,000 servers. Facebook's Tom Cook discussed how the company's operations team manages that growth in a presentation last week at the O"Reilly Velocity conference (video). The next day at Structure 2010, Facebook Vice President of Operations Jonathan Heiliger said server and chip makers have 'come a long way' in supporting cloud platforms since he bashed them last year."
United States

Submission + - ASCAP Declares War on Free Culture, EFF (zeropaid.com)

Submitted by Andorin
Andorin writes: According to Drew Wilson at ZeroPaid and Cory Doctorow, the ASCAP (American Society of Composers, Authors and Publishers), a US organization that aims to collect royalties for its members for the use of their copyrighted works, has began soliciting donations to fight key organizations of the free culture movement, such as Creative Commons, the Electronic Frontier Foundation, and Public Knowledge. According to a letter received by ASCAP member Mike Rugnetta, "Many forces including Creative Commons, Public Knowledge, Electronic Frontier Foundation and technology companies with deep pockets are mobilizing to promote “Copyleft” in order to undermine our “Copyright.” They say they are advocates of consumer rights, but the truth in these groups simply do not want to pay for the use of our music. Their mission is to spread the word that our music should be free." (Part 1 and part 2 of the letter.) The collecting agency is asking that its professional members donate to its Legislative Fund for the Arts, which appears to be a lobbying campaign meant to convince Congress that artists should not have the choice of licensing their works under a copyleft license.

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