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Handhelds

Apple Removes Wi-Fi Finders From App Store 461

jasonbrown writes "Apple on Thursday began removing another category of apps from its iPhone App Store. This time, it's not porn, it's Wi-Fi. Apple removed several Wi-Fi apps commonly referred to as stumblers, or apps that seek out available Wi-Fi networks near your location. According to a story on Cult of Mac, apps removed by Apple include WiFi-Where, WiFiFoFum, and yFy Network Finder."

Comment Re:Well there's your problem! (Score 1) 186

I don't have an iPhone, so I'm not sure if you can do this, but my Blackberry can send SMS's with embedded pictures/videos/sounds. Commonally called MMS. According to wikipedia, its an exension of the SMS standard. I would assume this is where the vulnerabilities lie.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Multimedia_Messaging_Service
Linux Business

Dell to Sell Machines with Ubuntu Pre-Loaded 562

kotj.mf writes "Cnet is reporting that Dell will shortly announce a partnership with Canonical to offer Ubuntu pre-loaded on certain consumer-oriented desktops and notebooks. The announcement comes after a groundswell of support for pre-installed Linux on Dell's IdeaStorm site. 'The company is starting its business by trying to appeal to users of desktop computers. From there, Canonical Chief Executive Mark Shuttleworth has said, the company plans to head to the server market, where the real Linux bread and butter can be found. [Dell spokesman Kent] Cook wouldn't comment on whether Dell plans to offer Ubuntu on its servers as well.'."
Networking

Why Are T1 Lines Still Expensive? 556

badfrog asks: "Over the last 10 years, DSL and cable modem has upped its speed (although in some instances only slightly) and dropped its price. However, the price of a T1 has stayed almost exactly the same. If you had asked me 10 years ago, I would have predicted any geek that wanted to would have fiber or their own T1 line to the house by now. What is with this sad state of affairs that a 'business class' 1.544Mbit connection is hundreds of dollars more than a 6Mbit cable connection? Is it a legitimate case that a high upload rate should increase cost so significantly?"
The Internet

Wikipedia Releases Offline CD 221

An anonymous reader writes "WikipediaOnDVD, with cooperation with the Wikipedia community, has released its first offline test version. The articles were selected by Wikipedians and reviewed for accuracy, vandalism, and importance. Nearly 2,000 core Wikipedia articles will be sold on compact disc to give people without a net connection access to highlights of the popular web resource. The CD can be purchased or downloaded online via their site or the torrent."

Feed More Evidence That Obscurity Is A Bigger Threat To Content Creators Than Piracy (techdirt.com)

There's an interesting, if not altogether surprising, article written by a professor who recently did a study on "cumulative advantage" which suggests, effectively, that popularity begets more popularity. On its own, this shouldn't surprise anyone. We all know that once something starts to get popular, word of mouth discussions and just the fact that people tend to hear or see that thing more often tends to expand the market even further. The study done by the researchers suggests that there's quite a bit of randomness involved. They found that hit songs tend to become hits almost by accident (which probably won't make the folks at Hit Song Science very happy). Basically, once a song catches on, it tends to snowball into popularity -- whether or not it's actually any good. As the author notes, this has many different implications.

One implication that isn't discussed in the article is that this actually supports the idea that giving away content for promotional purposes is a very important strategy in developing a brand. The results of the study suggest that obscurity is a major force in killing the prospects of just about any creative work -- and the real trick is to promote the hell out of content until it starts to catch on. So, if you're trying to grab attention, why not give away the content to build up the name and make it easier for the content to gain the necessary popularity to hit that tipping point where popularity snowballs? At that point, plenty of new business models are apparent, because now, as the creator of a "hit" you're in demand, and there's only so much of you to go around (basically, access to the hitmaker is a scarce resource, while the content the hitmaker makes is not).

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