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Comment I refuse to buy cars with computers, GPS and maps (Score 1) 445

I don't trust automobile manufacturers to ever know anything about what I might need or want in mobile telephone, mobile data, GPS or maps. Don't have ways to track me that I don't want or can't turn off. Phones go out of date and get upgraded. Car manufacturers think you need to pay twice (and a lot) for streaming music, GPS is redundant in cars, and map data is not well managed by the manufactuers and they expect you to pay for map updates. All ridiculous. Let me have my own mobile phone. Let me tie into a nice speaker system. Don't ask me to pay a premium for crap that you don't know anything about.

Comment Battle is over content + ad revenue, not bandwidth (Score 1) 315

Comcast (trying to buy NBC Universal) and Time-Warner use cable as a low-cost way to distribute content. This is a battle over content, disguised as a dispute over bandwidth. ISPs (network operators) that own content attempt to guide subscribers to a "walled garden" of content that they provide, which is easy to do on the cable television side. The question is whether a Cable Modem (or DSL or WiMax) subscriber's agreement with their cable (network) operator permits that subscriber to use the bandwidth any way the subscriber desires, which would essentially turn cable companies (and other network operators) into "common carriers" that have no control over traffic (no ability to give preference to one type or source of traffic over another). Your wireline telephone is regulated by your state and is a "common carrier" service. Network operators do not want to be common carriers because their service levels, profitability, and services are controlled by Public Service Commission (or whatever your state calls them). As network operators (cable, telco, satellite, wireless) attempt to win you over with bundled services [video, voice, data (bandwidth), and even wireless], the line really blurs between whether subscribers are paying for bandwidth or content and whether operators are subsidizing the ISP portion of their business to attract you to their content. Network owners claim that they make capital investments that pay off for some other firm, like NetFlix. Non-network-owning, third-party content providers (owners), including online gaming, IPTV, Google TV, NetFlix, and many more have a vested interest in seeing an Open Web with features like Network Neutrality. Here is where I plug Open Web initiatives, such as Open ID (http://openid.net), Data Portability (http://www.dataportability.org), etc.
IBM

Coder Accuses IBM of Patenting His Work 249

ttsiod writes "Back in 2001, I coded HeapCheck, a GPL library for Windows (inspired by ElectricFence) that detected invalid read/write accesses on any heap allocations at runtime — thus greatly helping my debugging sessions. I published it on my site, and got a few users who were kind enough to thank me — a Serbian programmer even sent me $250 as a thank you (I still have his mails). After a few years, Microsoft included very similar technology in the operating system itself, calling it PageHeap. I had more or less forgotten this stuff, since for the last 7 years I've been coding for UNIX/Linux, where valgrind superseded Efence/dmalloc/etc. Imagine my surprise when yesterday, Googling for references to my site, I found out that the technology I implemented, of runtime detection of invalid heap accesses, has been patented in the States, and to add insult to injury, even mentions my site (via a non-working link to an old version of my page) in the patent references! After the necessary 'WTFs' and 'bloody hells' I thought this merits (a) a Slashdotting, and (b) a set of honest questions: what should I do about this? I am not an American citizen, but the 'inventors' of this technology (see their names in the top of the patent) have apparently succeeded in passing this ludicrous patent in the States. If my code doesn't count as prior art, Bruce Perens's Efence (which I clearly state my code was inspired from) is at least 12 years prior! Suggestions/cursing patent trolls most welcome."

Comment Normal, social behavior is to lend books, music,.. (Score 1) 280

It is simply normal, social behavior to lend your friends books, music, or whatever. In addition, this lending can drive viral acceptance, adoption and even purchase of the music, book, etc. Restrictions (e.g., DRM) that go against normal human behavior, also inhibiting viral, social awareness of books and music is just bad business. Bravo to Amazon for figuring this out.

Comment http://www.mydeathspace.com/ (Score 1) 335

http://www.mydeathspace.com/ says "MyDeathSpace.com is an archival site, containing news articles, online obituaries, and other publicly available information. We have given you the opportunity to pay your respects and tributes to the recently deceased MySpace.com members via our comment system. Please be respectful." That may work for providing public notice. Lots of good suggestions already for the main question, how to inform executors or family of the passwords that they need without compromising security right now.

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