Making Them Maccies – First Comes Maine
Posted by Michael Klurfeld | Filed under Michael
If you’re a computerless kid in Maine, an education proponent, or an Apple shareholder (or some hideous, deformed combination of the three), good news! Maine’s Department of Education has “ordered more than 64,000 MacBooks for students and faculty, with an additional 7,000 that will be ordered in the coming weeks.” This is part of a program to give every minor in the state’s public school system a Macbook. For education, the benefits are pretty obvious: students who have good resources at their fingertips do better, and laptops are a great way to help kids learn. But what’s more important is now that the Macs are going home with the kids, we can expect the state of Maine to raise a whole generation of Apple faithfuls.
People like things that they are used to, which is something Apple realized long ago. My elementary school and high school was a more or less PC-free zone. But I’m a PC user largely because that’s what I had at home. If my school had given me a portable Mac to use at home, there’s a pretty good chance that would be different. Apple is set to try and take advantage of this pretty simple aspect of human psychology, and they’re improving education while doing it.
It’s the younger students in whom Apple probably has the most interest, as these are the people who will be easiest to grab. Assuming these kids are not either already die-hard PC users or are given lemons, they presumably will be Apple users for life. Steve and the others in Palo Alto headquarters should give themselves some well deserved pats on the back.
The Elpida Bailout: A Gamble At Best
Posted by Michael Klurfeld | Filed under Michael
In a fit of American solipsism, we tend to disregard what’s going on in the rest of the world (the current situation in Iran aside). When it comes to bailouts, the American government is not the only group throwing money at problems. For its first bailout, the Japanese government has given $1.7 billion in both public and private money to Elpida Memory, the only maker of DRAM (dynamic random access memory) in Japan. This amount is only a fraction of the $21 billion the Japanese government has set aside for more aid to private companies. While I don’t want to use this space to talk about the economics behind bailouts in general, I do want to focus in on why Elpida may not be the best way to invest such a large sum of money.
While it’s undestandable that a country may want to keep the only company it has working in a certain aspect of industry, the semiconductor sector is one that’s set to see a lot of closing of companies in the near future. An analyst prediction from back in April, which seems pretty well-founded, predicts that save a handful of companies, the majority of chip makers will be largely unprofitable. The rest are predicted to become government-maintained, nationalistic ventures, and it looks like Elpida is the first of these. The Japanese government, its noble intentions of saving jobs and industry aside, may have thrown away $1.7 billion.
The Legal Pirate Bay Is A Brilliant Idea
Posted by Michael Klurfeld | Filed under Michael
The reasons behind the Pirate Bay’s owners’ decision to sell the site to Global Gaming Factory X, paving the way for a legal version of the famous torrent site, are certainly many, though a few obvious explanations come to mind. The founders were the target of a lot of flak, including the ridiculous trial which had each one of them ordered to pay over $1 million in fines. At the end of the day, it was a pretty annoying thing to maintain. It cost a lot of money and had tons of traffic to deal with. So selling it and creating a legal version is not only wise from a top-down founder perspective, but for a lot of the users out there.
The first problem users are going to have is that they can’t copyrighted materials for free anymore, but that’s missing the big picture of what a legal media repository can be. While TPB trackers themselves are closing, the torrents and files are not going away. Rather, they are switching to more decentralized model, where TBP files will be exchanged over third-party trackers, so the filesharing aspect isn’t going away. Just think about it. A site with all the content of The Pirate Bay, except legal.
The most sensible business model that GGF can use for The Pirate Bay is to create a subscription model. Users would jump over the ability to download with impunity for a monthly fee, assuming it was not too high. GGF would then be in charge of distributing funds to copyright holders based on how much users downloaded a file, a la what Contenture does with sites on its payroll.
Of course, the owners of TBP will make a lot of money from nigh-anything they can do with The Pirate Bay, unless they try to implement some horribly misguided business plan. But buffet-style filesharing? Sounds like it would bring in a lot of customers.
RIAA Violates the Constitution, Sort of Admitted It
Posted by Michael Klurfeld | Filed under Michael
No, the RIAA did not send a spokesman to say “We violate the Constitution,” but they came pretty close. So some backstory: the RIAA decided to sue one Audrey Amurao, but she managed to find a competent attorney who moved for a summary judgment against the RIAA, meaning the RIAA would be deemed the losers of the suit without any real court proceedings. The brilliant attorney, Mr. Richard A. Altman, documents many of the ways in which the RIAA sues people with methods that are outside the law, including citing the “legal nonexistence of a claim for ‘making available,’” which is the big thing they go after people for.
But perhaps the most notable part of Mr. Altman’s brief is a quote from the RIAA from back in 2008, in which the an RIAA attorney said that yes, the reason why the suits brought against individuals are for such large sums of money is to scare other people away from downloading music. According to the EFF,
Recent Supreme Court rulings suggest that a jury may not award statutory damages for the express or implicit purpose of deterring other infringers who are not parties in the case before the court. In other words, the award should be aimed at deterring this defendant, not giving the plaintiff a windfall in order to send a message to others who might be tempted to infringe.
The Supreme Court, as you probably know, are the guys who say whether or not something is in violation of the Constitution, explicitly or otherwise. So we arrive at the conclusion that not only is the RIAA suing with the intent of scaring third parties, but that the RIAA is trying to scare people.
Unfortunately, this will probably do little to stop the RIAA from continuing their very illegal practices. Maybe an intrepid attorney like Mr. Altman or some of the folks over at the EFF could use this to try and get an injunction issued against the RIAA, but as it stands now, it’s just another stinkbomb in an ever-growing pile, though a large, nasty one at that.
Oh, and I suggest everyone read at least some of the document that Mr. Altman submitted to the court.
PSP Phone In the Works?
Posted by Michael Klurfeld | Filed under Michael
So we know that this rumor first came up back in 2007, but this time it’s being promulgated by a reliable source. Japanese business paper Nikkei reported that Sony is thinking of having its video game and mobile phone division work together to make a hybrid of the PSP and a Sony Ericcson phone. On the rumor aspect, let’s be brief. Sony denies it, but they deny everything, and the fact that this is coming from Nikkei gives it the scent of a tip from an insider.
On the idea itself, the question is whether this could make Sony money, and the answer is probably yes. The success of hybrid devices is from noticing when two things should share functionality. When Apple designed the iPhone, they thought “Hey, people carry iPods and phones. What if we can get them to carry one device that we sell to them?” So that’s what they did. Gamers who use PSPs carry PSPs and phones, so why not sell them a single toy that does both?
The biggest barrier to entry on a PSP phone is almost certainly the battery. As the users of many smartphones can attest, spending too much time doing data-involved activities, such as web browsing and streaming video, kill your battery pretty quickly. So playing full-on PSP games could make for a phone that does not even come close to making it though a full day, or a fat phone at that. But if Sony can bound that obstacle, they stand to make a whole lot of cash.
Gamers out there, tell us! Would you buy a PSP phone?
Apple Wants You… To Use MobileMe
Posted by Michael Klurfeld | Filed under Michael
Well, they do if you’re an iPhone user. It seems that when one syncs an iPhone with iTunes, there’s a random chance that iTunes will pop a message offering users a 60-day free trial of MobileMe. The quick, one-screen overview a user gets of MobileMe is the one pictured, advertising the synchronization with email, contacts, and all the rest.
What’s odd about the add is that it does not emphasize what might be the most desirable feature of MobileMe, which is the ability to map the location of your misplaced iPhone. Sure, it’s sitting there in the bottom right corner, but it’s not most eye-catching part of the ad at all (I won’t blame you if you didn’t see it initially). That feature alone seems like a big selling point of MobileMe, so one has to wonder why Apple doesn’t pimp it out more.
Windows 7 Home Premium To Not Have XP Mode?
Posted by Michael Klurfeld | Filed under Michael
Windows 7 is still riding high on its wave of good press. After all the positive feedback from users on the beta and release candidate, Microsoft decided that preorders of Windows 7 would be massively cheap, at $50 in the US for Home Premium (sorry, Europe). But it seems that, unlike what happened with Vista, Microsoft is giving consumers a really harsh time when it comes to deciding between Home Premium and Professional. In reading a list of specifications of what’s offered in Windows 7 Professional, one finds the touting of XP Mode, which will allow users to run their XP programs with (at least theoretical) full compatibility. For Home Premium, however, which will no doubt be the most popular version of Windows 7, no such feature is mentioned.
This is a big deal as many people did not want to leave XP for Vista, largely due to fears of software incompatibility, which were no help driven home by a media frenzy of how bad Vista was. The most notable holdouts on Vista were the corporations, which are probably going to buy at least Windows 7 Professional, if not higher-end versions. So while the businesses get that XP compatibility, it seems that the home users will have to be without it.
Video Bay – The Pirate Bay Answer to YouTube
Posted by Michael Klurfeld | Filed under Michael
If you’re one of those people who’s sick and tired of the YouTube terms of service, good news! The folks behind The Pirate Bay are working on a video streaming site called Video Bay, which is currently in Extreme Beta (whatever that means). You might suspect that a lawless version of YouTube would make for tons of illegal content and pornography, but you would be wrong. At least initially, a lot of the content on the site seems political, such as one video on net neutrality and the Patriot Act.
That said, I have no doubt that this site is going to very quickly fill up with copyrighted material. This in turn will raise a big stink over how internet denizens feel entitled and don’t want to pay for stuff and blah blah blah. But for now, we have a beta for what could be a very real threat to YouTube’s market dominance. And it’s Extreme.
Unlocked HTC Hero For Pre-Order, Courtesy of HTC?
Posted by Michael Klurfeld | Filed under Michael
The HTC Hero, the new Android phone with the spiffy, non-standard UI, can be pre-ordered from Amazon UK right now, and unlocked at that. The price is a hefty £429.99 (unsubsidized), but the specs on this phone are pretty hot, among them a 5 megapixel camera with auto focus. The Hero also comes with a 2 GB microSD card.
The strange part about this is that it seems HTC are the people selling the handset directly. In the past, to get an unlocked handset, users had to go either do some tricks themselves, or wait a while for the unlocked phone to hit the market from some other vendor, as was the case with Google’s selling the developer version of the G1 (known as the HTC Dream in other parts of the world). But now it appears that HTC has taken both the unlocking and the vending into their own hands. A wise move, as this means they’ll be pocketing the money from consumers who just want the Hero with no strings attached.
(Original story via TalkAndroid)
Profiting From Abusive Copyright Enforcement
Posted by Michael Klurfeld | Filed under Michael
Apparently former cigarette retailer turned copyright police Nexicon is around as low and scummy as they come. Nexicon makes a pretty peny through Payartists, a site which, despite collecting settlement money from copyright suits, does not pay artists (save the estate of Frank Zappa, and even then not so much). Interestingly, Nexicon has kept its transactions under the table by not suing people for millions, but by sending little messages saying “pay $10 or we take you to court.” So a lot of people out there have paid small fees to keep out of court.
Nexicon is diabolical in how it works. Its software targets torrent traffic and then sends automated messages to ISPs, with instructions to forward the emails to the infringers. So the infringers go to Payartists and send Nexicon some nominal fee. If you don’t pay, however, it seems that more often than not, Nexicon will leave you alone. But most people out there don’t know that.
In effect, Nexicon is using the shock and awe tactics of massive RIAA lawsuits (which are probably themselves unconstitutional) for profit. This brings to mind the mafia as portrayed in movies, selling “protection” to local businesses against imaginary threats. Hopefully as the word gets out, the <expletive>s behind Nexicon will be shut down and locked up.
(Original story via TorrentFreak)
