Comment This isn't new (Score 1) 122
Ah yes, Larry Roberts. He seems to poke his head up every once in a while. From Caspian Networks, and now Anagran. He certainly likes to push flow routing, although it's been shown not to scale in practice.
Comment US Law needs a "Source Code Management" System (Score 2, Interesting) 42
This is a bit off topic, but I'm surprised how fast and loose congress is with the laws of this country in general. I hope that, within my lifetime, no change to the law is committed to the books without some kind of documentation, a diff if you will, complete with names of everyone who worked on a change, be it a lawmaker or lobbyist. If someone amended a bill, it should be tracked and tied with the name of the person who added the amendment. How come companies can be so strict with the source code of their revenue-generating products, yet we can't provide the same controls on the laws that govern the United States?
Feed GSM Association gets everyone together for phone e-wallets (engadget.com)
Filed under: Cellphones
With services like NTT DoCoMo's FeliCa-based Osaifu-Keitai in Japan and Mifare deployed through much of Europe, perhaps one of the last great hurdles to widespread acceptance of phone-based e-wallets is a lack of standardization. Either that, or most people don't feel the need to pay for things by tapping their phone on various devices, but we digress; the point is that the GSM Association has now taken up the cause of getting everyone on the same page with its global "Pay-Buy Mobile" initiative. We really mean global, too -- among a slew of carriers, AT&T, NTT DoCoMo, Vodafone, and KTF are on board, representing the US, Japan, Europe, and South Korea, respectively, and the manufacturer camp counts Nokia, Samsung, and LG as its members. The first Pay-Buy Mobile trials are schedule to kick off this October, a schedule that is probably helped along by the availability of existing software and chips from Sony and NXP and the GSMA's pledge to build off financial institutions' existing NFC initiatives. We can't promise we'll use it -- but yeah, if it's secure, go ahead and build it into our phones, folks.[Via Phone Scoop]
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Feed Repeating The Claim That DRM Enables Things Won't Make It True (techdirt.com)
One of manufacturers and supporters of DRM's favorite lines is about how DRM "enables" all sorts of wonderful new things, when it simply isn't true. DRM makes nothing possible in and of itself, it merely exists to frustrate users and lock down content. It's all hot air, no matter how many times it gets repeated by entertainment industry execs trying to make their content-restriction technologies sound like a good thing. The RIAA's Mitch Bainwol, as you might expect, has talked plenty of nonsense about the value of DRM and why it's necessary. He's now gone a step further, telling an industry event that "DRM serves all sorts of pro-consumer purposes." Really? Name one, Mitch. He then put the blame for consumer frustration with copy-protection on interoperability issues. While interoperability certainly is a major pain point, it's one that exists only because of DRM. Ditch the DRM and the interoperability problems disappear, and along with it, so many consumer headaches. That would be the "pro-consumer" move.
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