The WELL: pre.vue.102: Business and Technology News for 2005

#154: Doesn't everybody sniff it first? (plettner) Sun 1 Jan 06 01:38

Sun, 01 Jan 2006 01:38:00 PST

It costs my dad $70 to get viruses and whatnot removed from his computer when he takes it into a shop. $7.50 should about cover that. Fuckwads. (I'm sure the lawyers involved got more than $70 a piece.) [Read entire topic]

#153: Cleave the general ear (ronks) Fri 30 Dec 05 11:41

Fri, 30 Dec 2005 11:41:00 PST

Sony Settles

Sony BMG Music Entertainment a.k.a. "Rootkit Records" has reached agreement with plaintiffs in a group of lawsuits over its DRM software; the federal judge hearing the case will decide next month whether to approve the deal. Purchasers of the CDs at issue will be entitled to a new one free of the spyware and may choose between two additional benefits: either 3 free downloads from a list of about 200 albums (which may includes Apple iTunes) or one download and $7.50 cash. [Read entire topic]

#152: Cleave the general ear (ronks) Thu 29 Dec 05 19:17

Thu, 29 Dec 2005 19:17:00 PST

Beyond The Valley Of The Silicon

To paraphrase Tennyson, they looked into the future far as human eye could see; and the authors of the International Technology Roadmap saw the end of growth in silicon transistors about ten years from now. Around 2015 it predicts "chip makers will have exhausted their ability to shrink the wires and switches" that compose processors and memory, and further improvements in speed will have to come from somewhere else. Speculation focuses on circuitry that will utilize rather than fight quantum effects. One is the "spin transistor" based on electron states; experiments indicate its on/off status "can be detected and altered without applying an electrical charge". Another, called "crossbar latch technology", uses organic molecules with a potential switching speed of a trillion cycles a second. [Read entire topic]

#151: Cleave the general ear (ronks) Mon 19 Dec 05 09:35

Mon, 19 Dec 2005 09:35:00 PST

The Rules Are Changing

The Bayh-Dole Act of 1980 "allowed universities to hold patents on federally funded research and to license the intellectual property to industry"; formerly I think it had been required to be put into the public domain, which was seen as discouraging colleges from making their research available outside the educational field. But it had the side effect of introducing major rights wrangles over IP rights among the partners which (say critics) slows innovation and drives research overseas where the ground rules are simpler. To address this concern, a group of four IT companies and seven universities under the aegis of the National Science Foundation and the Ewing Marion Kauffman Foundation put together a set of "Open Collaboration Principles" in which they agreed: * That intellectual property arising from selected research collaborations will be made available free of charge for commercial and academic use; * to an established set of guidelines that address the rights of the participants and the public.

Participants are Carnegie Mellon University, Georgia Institute of Technology, Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, Stanford University, Berkeley, U of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, U of Texas, Cisco, HP, IBM and Intel. The document is available at http://www.kauffman.org/items.cfm?itemID=662

Together with the proposed revision of the open-software (GNU/Linux) General Public License, this could lead to a real shakeup in IP licensing. [Read entire topic]

#150: Cleave the general ear (ronks) Wed 30 Nov 05 10:46

Wed, 30 Nov 2005 10:46:00 PST

What, Google Evil?

Monday's NY Times Editorial Observer piece by Adam Cohen is titled "What Google Should Roll Out Next: A Privacy Upgrade". He notes the search firm places cookies on users' computers that do not expire till 2038 and "make it possible to track those searches in a personally identifiable way"; he cites a recent murder trial where the accused was found to have searched Google for "neck" and "snap" as well as GMail's scanning of e-mail content, and he says "The government can gain access to Google's data storehouse simply by presenting a valid warrant or subpoena. Under the Patriot Act Google may not be able to tell users when it hands over their searches or e-mail messages." He concludes,

"Google says it needs the data it keeps to improve its technology, but it is doubtful it needs so much personally identifiable information. Of course, this sort of data is enormously valuable for marketing. The whole idea of "Don't be evil," though, is resisting lucrative business opportunities when they are wrong. Google should develop an overarching privacy theory that is as bold as its mission to make the world's information accessible - one that can become a model for the online world. Google is not necessarily worse than other Internet companies when it comes to privacy. But it should be doing better."

I admit I changed my settings to convert Google cookies to session-only after reading this; I mean you never know.

New GNU

According to <http://gplv3.fsf.org/process-definition> and a news story about it, the Free Software Foundation is planning to revise the General Public License for the first time since 1991. The GPL is a cornerstone of the open software industry and is widely used to license Linux and related software. A first draft of the new document is due to be presented at an MIT conference in January. The story observes that in terms of hardware and software using Linux it is presently a $40 billion business, definitely a step up from 1991; the FSF's general counsel Eben Moglen says "the big boys, corporations and governments, have far more reason to be interested and concerned this time". A second draft is due next summer, with a third if required in the fall. Microsoft's Steve Ballmer has called the GPL a "cancer" and will probably not participate; though it would be fun to see him and Richard Stallman together duking it out. [Read entire topic]

#149: Cleave the general ear (ronks) Wed 23 Nov 05 10:49

Wed, 23 Nov 2005 10:49:00 PST

A Third Of The Internet?

In a story about an agreement with the movie industry to hinder the sharing of films with his software, BitTorrent CEO Bram Cohen stated "Internet tracking research indicated that more than one-third of Internet traffic was using the BitTorrent protocol, much of that for video". [Read entire topic]

#148: it's time for a colorful metaphor (jmcarlin) Fri 18 Nov 05 15:09

Fri, 18 Nov 2005 15:09:00 PST

> Sell enough today to recoup the original investment.

That's an old poker trick. Take your original stake off the table while you still can. It's good advice for stocks as well. [Read entire topic]

#147: Doesn't everybody sniff it first? (plettner) Fri 18 Nov 05 14:45

Fri, 18 Nov 2005 14:45:00 PST

Better product? Only rarely has Microsoft done THAT. [Read entire topic]

#146: Jett Rink (jettrinkjr) Fri 18 Nov 05 14:41

Fri, 18 Nov 2005 14:41:00 PST

That's easy. Sell enough today to recoup the original investment.

Hold the rest till Bill Gates releases a better product, and the stock plunges to its original $85 + 6% + commissions. [Read entire topic]

#145: Cleave the general ear (ronks) Fri 18 Nov 05 14:23

Fri, 18 Nov 2005 14:23:00 PST

Don't forget you need to be right on when to sell as well as when to buy. [Read entire topic]