I had a conversation during lunch the other day with a couple coders and they were saying they couldn’t wait for a cell-phone-PDA-pager-camera combo that was Bluetooth-WiFi-GPRS-3G-Infrared enabled, you know, a no compromise, everything goes in thing. Oh, and it needs to be small too and have a long long battery life….
This ZDNet article says that they can dream on. Will not happen. Market not going there. I’m not sure I agree.
Continuer la lecture
Bridging the digital divide. A leitmotiv. Well apparently, even inside the US, people are not interested anymore.
Protests Against University Network Monitoring
GrepLaw story about a letter (well documented in american law) sent by EPIC to education institutions regarding the pressures by the RIAA to see them adopt some form of monitoring of P2P activities
[via GrepLaw]
Salon has a lengthy book review of The Eagle’s Shadow by Mark Hertsgaard.
I experienced first-hand what he is talking about in his book, albeit on a limited scale. The article seems balanced and quite in line with what I experienced myself. I must confess that my limited mandarin vocabulary includes « I’m not American, I’m Canadian », that would always buy me a smile… Anyways, gotta read it.
Now it’s the New Scientist that, despite BMG’s announcement and Macrovision’s plans, Audio CD protection is not best of ideas:
Copy Protection On CDs Is ‘Worthless’
[via Slashdot]
John Udell has an interesting post today. I can’t really summarize this, except to say that it’s really interesting and it’s the kind of neat trick what pulls the Internet forward.
Oh, and it makes me want to talk about books available on Amazon! I don’t know if anyone at Amazon or at weblog.com ever envisioned something like that when they put their API together. I doubt it. I think it just shows that creativity can’t be planned and that giving toys away to people will lead to wonderfully unexpected results.
Read on…
Continuer la lecture
Macrovision has announced that it will acquire Israeli company Midbar Tech, with the intention of joining the rival
anti-copying technologies from the two companies.
Macrovision and Midbar promise that by next year, CDs using
their joint copy-protection technology will include two
versions of songs – one for ordinary CD players, and one
that can be loaded onto computer hard drives.
So many good news today…
The Washington Post reports :America Online has begun offering a new version of AOL Instant Messenger to companies that will enable employers to read instant messages sent by their employees. The new
version will also enable employees to send encrypted instant
messages that can only be read by designated, registered
recipients.
[Via BNA Internet Law News]
it’s the consumers, stupid
I don’t always like reports from Gartner, but this look fairly acurate to me.
« The vast majority of consumers don’t know what their phones are capable of today, let alone what 3G is and why they should have it. It does not matter how good 3G is if nobody knows or understands what they can do with it
[via The Register]
Do you want your 15MB of fame?
-Pseudo
It’s a relief to know the truth after all those conflicting medical studies:
The Japanese eat relatively little fat and suffer fewer heart attacks than the British or Americans.
The French eat a lot of fat and also suffer fewer heart attacks than the British or Americans.
The Japanese drink relatively little red wine and suffer fewer heart attacks than the British or Americans.
The Italians drink generous amounts of red wine and also suffer fewer heart attacks than the British or Americans.
The Germans drink a lot of beer and eat lots of sausages and other fatty foods and suffer fewer heart attacks than the British or Americans.
CONCLUSION: Eat and drink what you like. Speaking English is apparently what kills you.
(thanks Max)
The official version.
[via Aaron Swartz]
Etan on privacy.
Il y a eu cette étude qui a fait remuer pas mal d’électrons a propos de la crédibilité des informations sur le Web.
Je fréquente personnellement pas mal les sites de « comparison-shopping » mais peu ceux offrant des informations médicales ou financières. J’ai le réflexe de toujours chercher un second quand ce n’est pas un troisième avis. En somme, l’Internet n’est pas vraiment différent de la presse écrite dans le fond…
Mais moi, suis-je crédible? Aie-je besoin de l’être dans la mesure où je ne fais le plus souvent que renvoyer vers d’autres ressources (et hormis le fait que je n’aie rien à vendre)? Dois-je faire une déclaration de mes intérêts personnels qui teintent mon objectivité? Dois-je tendre à l’objectivité? (viam objectivitis elegi?).
Je crois que non. Ce serait nettement moins drôle pour tout le monde. Mes intérêts sont assez inoffensifs et transparaissent de manière assez claire pour que je me sente à l’aise avec ça.
Bon.. je pense que j’ai besoin d’une tasse de thé. Lapsang Souchong ou thé vert?