redrobot5050

Really? Really? Are you really that shortsighted?

XBox is huge. It's becoming the media center for an American Consumer household. That means paying $60/year just for the "privilege" of watching Netflix in HD through your 360.

Wait 2-3 (or 4 or 5) years where a Windows Phone can play an XBOX 1 game or an XBOX 360 game in your hand. Wait until Microsoft comes up with something like Apple's AirPlay where Windows Phone apps can utilize a full 1080p screen.

Wait until they integrate more cloud services with the 360. And unveil their own Siri. Or make it so your XBOX 360 can message your phone every time a certain trend on Twitter is mentioned (agent based voice search).

Wait until an entire household of teenagers gets used to talking to their 360 to control it, having it integrate with their phones, and having it manage their social networks and cloud services, AND play some amazing games....

I have a feeling the 360 and the whole Xbox line is going to a very valuable investment and one of MS's cash cows. All of the "convergence" waves Apple is currently riding are also there for Microsoft to ride...

Uh, yes, Microsoft DOES charge you a fee...it's called "paying out the ass for your tools".

What did Visual Studio Enterprise cost last time I looked for a small company (like a start up)? $1600 a pop. More than what's needed for a Mac Mini, an iPod Touch, and a Apple Developer License/Cert.

The same tools (XCode) cost $5.

(And you'd still have to pay for your hardware/OS on top of that $1600). And that's not counting MSDN fees, either.

Make no mistake: Microsoft milks its marketshare of developers just as much as anyone else. It's just a different way of pricing.

You must be new to the internet, then:

http://www.amazon.com/Game-Thrones-Song-Fire-Book/dp/0553386...

>bumrushing congress in much the same way that the tea party has done.

Let's hope not. The Teaparty congress started going to work on things that didn't serve the tea party, but rather, corporate benefactors.

Another example of the big problem being that money == speech.

I wouldn't be at liberty to comment either way. Talk to your friendly, neighborhood defense contractor.

And all the FOIA request simply states is that something like

A) We are investigating Carrier IQ.

B) We have physically recovered phones as evidence and extracted Carrier IQ data.

I want to believe that Big Brother is watching, really, I do, but this isn't a convincing argument.

>Again, you are making choices for them. You don't see anything wrong with this? Nobody is guaranteed a living. However, you should be given a chance. You are taking away that chance completely.

I don't even see where this is coming from. I think you jump over a few points in your logic here, or you just know nothing about an industry which you're trying to debate about.

>Over time, people with your attitude have pushed many artists to go with big labels.

NOPE. Where are you getting your talking points? The RIAA's "downloads = lost sales" page?

If people didn't broaden the market and fanbase for independent music and independent labels, it wouldn't exist, and you'd only have major label music.

They have little to no chance making any kind of living on their own (because people just share their music and don't pay for it). So, the label offers them money and some sort of living.

The labels offer an incredibly bad deal. And all the artists who, you know, actually make a living without belonging to a major label might want to have a word with you about your data.

>I hope you weren't charging any money, because you sure don't seem any better than a regular label.

Actually, we were tons better. We basically set up our store to be the reverse of the apple store: They get 70% we get 30% (agency model). So selling your album for $5 bucks nets you 3. The same album on iTunes, would you net you about $1.50.

Except, as an independent, you'd have to go through a service which functions as a 'label' that takes 50%. So an album that nets you $.75 on iTunes would make you $3 off our site.

Oh, and one of our founders actually owned an independent record label. The problem is, all of the small indies have no internet strategy, and everyone in the business knows that's the name of the game. Fortunately, sites like SoundCloud and Bandcamp are actually there for independent musicians these days.

I'd love to go on, but to me it seems like you have no clue as to what you're talking about and I've got better things to do than re-hash the research we used in our pitch. Good day!

Yes.

Any briefing involving a secure area will mention that phones can be triggered this way, and that your customer (military, intel, DoD, or DOE) forbids their access for the very reason.

Wired broke the stories about the NSA monitoring something like 25% of all domestic cell phone traffic. The fact that all investigations into it have been stopped citing "National Security", and the former President Bush defended the tactic all are pretty good signs pointing to "YES".

>Without a way to make money, we will see less music. Why? Because artists will be forced to get day jobs. As it is, there is a small chance you will make a full living as an artist.

So? This is how it has been for centuries. Call it the invisible hand meets the art world. They can get jobs being music teachers. They can record using vintage equipment, like Blake Schwarzenbach did (used 4-track and 8-track recordings while he wrote for GamePro).

>If anything, it will kill the indy scene because the only companies that will be able to even come close to a profit are the the ones with deep pockets

Something tells me you don't understand the definition of "Independent Music".

The fact is, the labels function as a market for pump and dump stocks, where the stock is a band or album. Independent music doesn't (or in my opinion, shouldn't) work that way. It can take 5 years for your album to blow up. (See: Mumford and Sons). You might have a bigger following only after you're dead and buried (See: Elliot Smith and Bright Eyes). You might have every single one of your fans wanting you to quit your main gig for a side project they've done (See: Death Cab For Cutie/The Postal Service).

Disclaimer: I am a founder of a failed start-up company that would work with artists in a way that was designed to supplant the labels and exploit long-tail effect, etc.

The sad, sad thing is that indie bands are getting picked off quicker and quicker by labels and pumped up for the first-album success. It's actually a huge issue (read up on MGMT) when the artists then try a new direction for a second album and the label is hesitant to financially support an album unless fans move the product in the first two weeks. This becomes at catch-22. How do you enjoy the success of radio play when nobody's paying to play you on the radio? This leads the labels to relegate these bands (by the second or third album) to a "we don't help you" status, forcing the band to break up or just be a small indie band forever on tour.

If anything, major labels playing in the indie scene is akin to making the indie bands "build on a flood plain".

TL;DR: NOPE. Artists make very little money from albums. It is known.

All of these reasons could apply to iTunes and Amazon's music store?

So why are they posting profits?

Wait, you're just figuring out now that anything that travels through a cell phone network could be monitored?

Unknown.

However, the FBI can send a remote message to ANY phone to turn on its microphone and essentially use it as a wiretap. That's been built into every phone in the USA for something like 10 years now. It's why you have to surrender a cell phone in secure locations and military bases.

That's old news. Said wiretaps have actually been used against organized crime in America in the past and is likely used with more success now.

Oh, and you do know that everything you SEND through a cellular network -- texts, pics, urls visited are logged, right?

The only way to have a private network is to own the network. And know your netsec.

Carrier IQ is in iOS 5. It is, however, disabled by default. It is also buried in the second or third level down in Preferences, so its very unlikely a user will enable it by accident -- and will probably only do so upon the instruction of an Apple Store Support Rep.

It acts as a keylogger on some android phones, when Carrier IQ is put into a "debug state". The researcher apparently triggered that by accident without knowing. It's not the default log level. Carrier IQ is likely benign and this whole issue seems to be bad tech journalism and sensationalism.

Carrier IQ isn't used by all carriers (Verizon opts out, I believe) and the data transmitted is anonymous. I admit there is a risk with the data profiles being assembled, and being done so with ease not seen before, but the carrier IQ findings seem to be bad tech reporting and fear mongering. It really seems to be "not a big deal".

I am all for advocating privacy and a discussion about user's rights -- but I would like it if both sides left their hysteria at the door.

Where did the article indicate that Law Enforcement didn't need a warrant to access the Carrier IQ data?

However, the only documented case of the abuse is on the "most open" hardware stack. Jailbreakers saw no keylogging on the iPhone. (In fact, it's disabled by default on the iPhone).

This is not the case with all state schools. Mine, for example, was contrary to that. Different colleges in the University had different tuition. Obviously Art, Theater, Music, and Engineering have different costs -- why should they all pay flat rates?

On top of that, majoring in something technical will also likely require more fees -- lab fees, computer fees, etc.

Oh, and your book costs will be higher. Textbook prices have tripled in the last ten years, so now an English Major is paying what I paid for Computer Engineering back in 2000.

I'm now following you so I can read it later.

Keep in mind that Siri was a wholly stand alone product for all smart phones before it was bought by Apple. Apple has improved the product to a degree, but really, nothing has been changed except it has been modified to run only on an iPhone 4S.

Now to respond to claims by the Gizmodo toddler that reviewed it and kind of work your responses in here:

1. The "find me an abortion clinic" use case is flat out, utterly without a doubt retarded. You couldn't find a more manufactured controversy in the mobile space -- unless you go back to last week's now disproven "carrier iq is an android rootkit put on by the carriers" controversy. First off, no one, and I mean no one, searches for "abortion clinic". Both sides of the debate are aware of Planned Parenthood. Planned Parenthood doesn't list themselves as an abortion agency -- despite what you might have read at TheOnion.com. Searches that are REALISTIC Use Cases like "Pregnancy Information" or "Family Planning" or "Birth Control" or "Morning After Pill" provide realistic results.

Yes, you can find edge uses cases that lead to Siri-baiting like above. Just like you could Google Bomb so that when you search for "idiot" you get George W. Bush's Wikipedia page. (I wonder..does that make the Googlebot a lefty? See how retarded that kind of anthropomorphic-thinking is?)

2. The editor's complaints that he can't find "the fastest route" to the emergency room. You know what else you can do with a phone if you really need medical care in an emergency situation? Dial 911. Odds are an Ambulance will get you seen by a medical professional a lot faster than driving. (Also, Google Maps on the iPhone automatically shows traffic where available. It wouldn't be hard.)

3. Complaining about No Turn-By-Turn baked into the iPhone: This is entirely Google's fault -- as they obviously have an API for it, but are locking Apple out in what you could argue is an anti-competitive behavior. This is why Apple recently just bought a Map Tiling company. It's obviously to anyone following the mobile wars that Apple didn't expect Google to be so responsive and competitive in the mobile space -- probably because they originally partnered to write the Maps app for the iPhone. Apple plans on cutting Google out of the mobile map search space in the future. Not in time for iOS 5, but next year it will likely be a whole different ball game.

4. Siri is supposed to be App-aware? Where did Apple market that? Complaining about use cases Apple hasn't even considered is childish. What next, complaining that there isn't a third-party API for other Apps to integrate with Siri (which will likely show up in the next year or so...)?

5. Where are these so-called Apple users that expect "Apple Magic" all the time? Because as a technologist, I'm guessing they don't exist. At all. Anyone who's used an Apple product for more than an hour understands that it's still a product, made here on planet earth, with it's on quirks and bugs. Every iPhone user has had to reboot their iPhone. Or had a download go bad. Or had dropped calls because AT&T is terrible. Or had to find a turn-by-turn GPS on their own. Same goes with Macs. Apple is know for high-quality design. For reducing the use case to such a minimal number of steps that seems so easy it might as well be "magic". In the auto space, BMW holds a very similar reputation. They are considered pricey, but worth it. A top notch driving experience. Well designed, well made, etc, etc. But the auto press is very much aware that like all other cars, it has an engine, moving parts, and can problems. They don't "magically" expect it to suck their dick to high heaven.

In comparison, Android's voice recognition isn't Siri. It can search the web, but it can't search wolfram alpha or the yellow pages, or Yelp, or any of the other databases Siri is in. With Siri, you can say "Call me a cab". With Android, you have to have a cab company programmed into your phone. To equate the two is short sighted, at best, and technically ignorant at worst.

This rant goes beyond "I have a realistic view of what people expect from Apple because I'm a tech journalist" to "I am a three year old who was promised the world, and my expectations fell short as they were completely unrealistic."

Maybe Siri is the first A.I. to take part in a general strike?

Well, this is just a guess, but you would probably get a bigger, meaner, more accurate V2 missile.

But that could be because the place for rocket scientists before NASA was the Nazi party -- back when they were out to pretty much dominate humanity.

Did that answer your question?

>Eventually the US government will sell back the banks and make some income, so its hardly comparable. Sweden in the early nineties did this and they recovered more than half their money.

Compared to what America got out of the space race, the bailout was a complete waste. America got something like 100X their ROI in going into space. Major investments in materials science, aerospace engineering, battery technology, computer technology, their probably isn't a product today on the market that isn't using some kind of "space age technology" that ultimately came about because of NASA's space race.

So the space race was clearly worth it. The bank bailout is still clearly debatable. I would argue that because the banks turned around and paid out bonuses, that we should have placed the banks into receivership and re-structured them. In our post-bailout system, the banks have grown even more concentrated and reform is pretty much a failure. We're set up to be "way too big to fail" next time around.

When that happens, we won't be talking about "getting half our money back" and saying it was a "good deal".

I did some googling, and while Facebook has sued small fare (like individual researchers) those researchers have pointed out that all the public profiles have been cached by Google's webcrawler, and they haven't sued Google (yet).

If Google can do it, why can't the little guy?

Scrape.

So if I were to try to scrub photos accessible to me with a valid username and password from Facebook, (btw Facebook makes millions annually off its users viewing photos) I would be hacking?

1) It's very likely the $1.5 million figure is heavily inflated so as to help the prosecution with their case. I would like to see people really investigate where this $1.5 million is coming from? Was that how much JSTOR was really making off those documents, or were they using RIAA-style accounting to come up with its "value"? Considering JSTOR hasn't exactly been forthcoming in their public statements, many believe they don't see anything criminal with A.S.' actions. They would prefer he simply go through 'proper channels'.

2) If Schwartz is smart, he will not comment on his intentions no matter what. Simply maintain his denial that he intended to upload them anonymously to BitTorrent. Make the case entirely about the facts on hand. "Is it hacking to violate a site's TOS"?

3. MIT and DOJ could assume that there are other ways to stop whatever illegal actions they're assuming besides criminal prosecution. Already someone has leaked 30 million scientific papers from JSTOR simply because they assumed this is what MIT and DOJ were trying to stop.

>Is it even legally okay to publicly make an example of someone like that?

Yes, it's entirely up to the prosecuting attorney to prosecute with vigor. Again, if you up-jump the charges you often lower the odds of conviction because the burden of proof is raised, but so is the penalty. This also gives the prosecuting attorney grounds for a settlement (plea to lesser, civil charges, but with stiffer terms).

So it could all be posturing that a judge will throw out... what is good to know is that Schwartz can likely attract the best defense attorneys to fight this.