FCC Cheif Martin is all for taxing VOIP services. Nevermind that they have the potential to carry phone service to rural areas for far less than it costs to run individual data lines *and* phonelines out to each subscriber.

That assumption is made on the basis that whatever technology works best for bridging the last leg of the IP packets journey will be used. So there’s no need to have a phoneline, per-say, but you would simply use whatever wired or wireless technology is feasible.

My problem with things like the massive telephone subsidizing fund is that it encourages graft, corruption, and market fixing. There’s absolutely no incentive to make low-cost workable solutions while everyone is forced to pay for the broken system.

Looks like some Aussie’s are still ripping up the countryside due to “racial tensions”.

I don’t get why they’re terming it a problem with “youths”. The drunk looking fellow in the picture looks older than the police trying to arrest him.

It looks like Sony-BMG might be thinking of ditching it’s role as a software company after all. They’re taking the issue “very seriously”, it’s reported.

Now, half the states in the union sueing them might have prompted a bit of heart-to-heart on how important corrupting unsuspecting users PC’s really is. Do they derive financial gain from it? Not really. Does it stop people from copying music they purchase to (gasp) listen to on the go? No.

Sorry Sony, you might have to stick to selling people one copy of albums for the foreseeable future instead of doubling prices and charging for the music in every conceivable format individually.

Wait, wait! I know what you’re thinking. That maybe I’ve lost my mind. Or started taking advertising dollars directly from Microsoft Games or whatever the division is called.

I can assure you that neither happens to be the case. Rather, part of a recent Gartner report on things IT executives should do for the new year caught my attention. Just not in the way it was intended, I think.

The mentioning of purchasing an XBox (or other console) to help understand disruptive technologies and prepare for the new year might not be totally off base. Not necessarily because it’s disruptive. It’s not, really. Consoles have been around for 35 years or so now and the premise hasn’t changed. Even the game plots remain largely unchanged, merely sporting (arguably) better execution in more recent releases.

No, what we should consider about consoles in relation to IT management is their ease of use. Only the absolutely necessary features are supported. You can always upgrade or expand them at a later point.. the underlying mechanisms are somewhat flexible. But the interface presented to the end user provides what they need, and only what they need, to get their “work” done.

Corporate and business systems should strive to be similar. Not the administrators system or the PC running design suites that vary frequently, but the person using a word processor, web browser, and calendering app. All to often unnecessary features clutter desktops and give rise to usage issues (or distract the user).

Not every desktop of course. Some corporations or large outfits have a fairly streamlined experience. But I’m betting there’s quite a few of you businesses that could benefit from a clutter free desktop being presented to in-house users. It’s certainly something to think about going into the new year.

Intel appears to think the laptop being powered by it’s rival AMD’s CPUs is a really bad idea. But not on any persuasive technical argument, no.

Intel’s Craig Barrett feels it’s because the laptop doesn’t address local needs.. ya’ know.. because there’s a huge difference in what a laptop can do based on market.

It doesn’t sound like he put a lot of thought in that one.. the laptop in question is powered by a crank and was designed by the boys & girls at MIT for poor rural environments. Although it won’t be playing Quake 4 fon small rural farms. So maybe he’s right.

I don’t think you can make stuff like this up. According to the AP wire there’s at least one drunken mob roaming Australia attacking Arabic looking people. ‘Round these parts people are usually racially violent when they think they’re being trodden on, not when they want to trod on others.

That’s usually a bit more subtle these days. Or institutionalized. At any rate, this one was due to two lifeguards (possibly?) being attacked by youths of (maybe) Lebanese descent. This all seems a bit sketchy to get a mob together and terrorize random people. On second thought lets just try to avoid mobs altogether, even the Aussies.

Sony just can’t keep themselves from trojaning your computer, it seems. ZDNet’s reporting on yet another flaw with the Sony rootkit-enabled DRM software.

I’m really starting to question what business Sony BMG is in these days. Are they a software house or a music shop? After all those horrible DRM packages that have been chewing through machines out on the ‘net I’m really starting to think they might want to .. ya know .. stick to selling music.

I’ve heard it’s what they do, after all.

Our jails apparently aren’t full enough yet in the USA. Music publishers (not, ya know.. Congress or anything) wants jail time for people that make music lyrics available online.

Remember, every time you write down the lyrics of a song it deprives some poor, starving lyric publishing company that all those readers would have purchased from. Any conceivable way of making a buck should be ingrained in law with a stiff jail sentence, apparently.

Releasing products every 24 months just wasn’t making enough money, so it looks like Microsoft is going to a 18 month release cycle. Apparently something that sounds like a SpikeTV program (Extreem Programming) is going to make this possible.

Not to belay the obvious, but if they can’t cut out a decent program in 24 months, how can they expect to in 18? Insanity.

Digitizing the print world’s always a huge headache. It looks like Google’s coming to realize this as they attempt to make the print world searchable.

One of the problems I see with complaints on Google is that they tend to gloss over a very pertinent point. While they bitch and moan about the current publications being “ripped off” they fail to mention the real reason they’re so up in arms about Google’s print service.

In a word, it will make printed works which are no longer clearly copyrighted and works that no one lays claim to digital. There will never be another dime made on these work and it may well fall out of human knowledge without this.

But someone, somewhere has to own the copyright by US law. And what the publishers are arguing is that because of that, this work should never see the light of day unless the copyright holders are tracked down and payed.. not that that’s technically possible.

Merck looks to be running into a little more trouble with the vioxx lawyers. There’s a case going to a Dallas federal jury on Tuesday. A widow is suing over the death of her husband claiming it was from Vioxx as he was otherwise healthy.

The backstory is that the tests might have omitted a few heart attacks from their results. Apparently the researchers didn’t include them initially and this didn’t come out until after the deadline for including research.

So, pretty nasty all around. Class action suites appear to be in the wings if this one is successful.

Looks like Apple may want to scrap that whole “computer” idea altogether and go with the real money maker. iPods. Demand for their laptop line has apparently slowed a bit even as the ubiquitous iPod continues on it’s path to glory.

Now, I’ve never really understood the need to overpay for a DRM encumbered MP3 player. People seem to really dig them though.

It looks like South Korea decided Microsoft used it’s monopoly powers to force IM and Windows Media Player on folks.

Instead of merely make them produce two products, one that won’t be bought, they’ve been ordered to strip them out of Windows. Not a bad idea, really.. might foster competition and offer a level playing field for IM and media.

Apparently you can be an exec at Apple and have an engineering degree from MIT but still not be able to hook up a network.

Choice quote? ““We can’t even handle the plugs right,” said Norman, scoffing at the industry’s inability to agree on standards for power cords”” Last I checked power cords were all three prong in the PC industry. For the actual computers that is. Aside from that, generic power supplies for peripheral devices are available and do cost far less than an original power supply that shipped with a given product. It’s just that you don’t get the assurances of the manufacturer backing it up. Caveat emptor.

I’ll leave you with this finishing thought. I think it reflected on his lack of perception that everyone can’t do everything more than whatever his intended effect was. “I have a degree from MIT. I’m an engineer and was an executive at Apple,” Norman said while discussing his own home network. “And I hired someone to hook it up.” .. and I bet he couldn’t fly a plane in two days, either.

Patricia Santangelo will be representing herself in the Elektra v. Santangelo case. It looks like her lawyer backed out after the judge declined to dismiss the suit altogether.

She claims that a friend of her children downloaded and installed the KaZaA application and was responsibled for the six songs being shared from the system.

The price for those six songs? Apparently for non-commercial use and the possibility of others downloading a cool 7500$ to settle.

What could make a better Christmas gift than the rights to one of Acclaim’s titles? Not much. So while they’re still available you can purchase the rights to one of Acclaim’s titles.

I’ve got to admit that I wouldn’t mind owning a video game lock/stock/barrel for 5k.

If you’ve ever had the need to encrypt your laptop’s data you probably realize what a pain it can be. Techworld is running a story on Laptop encryption for Windows. It looks like PGP and Pointsec were the only contenders with Pointsec being the only proven enterprise solution.

My only fear of doing full hard drive encryption is data recovery. One MBR corruption later and all the data recovery techniques in the world aren’t going to do a thing for you.

Apparently “restricting” violent video games from minors violates free speech rights. While I’m all for not selling NC 17 equivelent games to kids over the counter, their parents seem to do most fo the buying. And to truly get an idea of what these restrictions entail, you’d have to take a look at the law itself. “Restricting” is pretty vague, when you get down to it.

I really question who these laws are aimed at protecting. Is it the 16 year old gamer buying GTA3? Somehow, I think that it’s a little late. If the purchaser is too young, their parents should have a fairly good handle on their gaming.. and restrict it if necessary.

It seems that video game “violence” is the next political football to get tossed around.

In what I’d consider an act of sensationalistic journalist Ars has blown a Sony story wee bit out of proportion. Unless they’d like to contest a shop owners right to have his wall painted with grafitti.

While I was right there with them at first.. the little snippit hidden at the bottom stating that Sony was actually paying the building owners to have the logo painted on the side made me wonder why there’s even an article.

Novell just might be getting back on track with it’s Linux initiative and reorg finally paying off. They’re reporting 61$M in Linux related revenue and doubled Linux subscriptions for the current quarter and are expecting profits of 2 or 3 cents a share next quarter.

This comes on the recent losses involved in the reorginization and re-alignment of their business. Novell’s been on a bit of a slide lately, so hopefully this signals a return to profitability and a payoff from their switch to Linux.