5 Ways Newspapers Botched the Web (5)
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timothy (641)
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nicholas.m.carlson writes "Remember Knight-Ridder and AT&T's Viewtron from 1983? With a $900 terminal and $12 a month, you could access news from the Miami Herald and the New York Times, online shopping, banking and food delivery, via a 300-baud modem. After sinking $16 million a year into the project, Knight-Ridder shut it down in 1986. That's just the earliest of the 5 newspaper failures on the Web that Valleywag details in this post, writing: 'each ...
Perhaps Pandora Must Be Our Sacrificial Lamb (111)
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Michael Arrington (2314)
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Pandora made a bold political statement today, saying they’d likely shut down rather than continue to pay exorbitant fees to play music to listeners of its massively popular service. Radio stations pay different rates depending on how they broadcast music. Terrestrial stations (normal FM/AM stations) pay nothing, a tribute to their powerful corporate parents with limitless lobbying budgets. Satellite stations pay approximately 1.6 cents per hour per listener. By 2010, Pandora and other Internet radio ...
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DC said:
Shame that pandora may have to shut down in order to get parity between traditional media and the new internet media.
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Adam said:
Fark this shit! I'll sacrifice last.fm, Slacker and iMeem over Pandora any day. Bring on the ceremonial dagger!
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Min Liu said:
this year...# songs i purchased from listening to the radio: 0# songs i purchased from listening to pandora: 25
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Valerа said:
Pandora says they’re alread paying 70% of their $25 million in yearly revenues in royalty fees, and it is driving them out of business. Other Internet radio stations are even worse off.
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Darnell Clayton said:
You may want it to be your sacrificial lamb, but I would rather pay a monthly fee to keep this app alive than to see it go.
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Matt said:
Last.fm will own.
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Bret M said:
So apparently we won't have this app around too much longer to listen to new music. It's a shame the music industry makes it such a pain to do something like this, when it would only help their sales.
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Jeff said:
This is just one example of how miserably backwards most music rightsholders are. Happy to share stories over beers, as I've now had the displeasure of meeting many of the execs as the big 4. It's like a giant tar pit.
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Aron said:
Very, very sad. Music needs to change.
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Trevor said:
This just sucks! I've actually bought music after hearing it on Pandora. So lame that the Music Industry doesn't see how they are being harmed by the RIAA.
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Vish said:
It would be really unfortunate if Pandora calls it quits.I have been hoping that they'll start streaming outside the US :-(.
Viruses Infected By Viruses (11)
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samzenpus (300)
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SpaceAdmiral writes "Scientists have discovered a virus that can infect another virus. The fact that viruses can essentially get sick may change the debate over whether they are alive or not. Check out Nature for a slightly more technical article about the 'virophage.'"Read more of this story at Slashdot.
"Fakeproof" e-passport is cloned in minutes (21)
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Mark Frauenfelder (1376)
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The Times Online reports that those microchipped passports the UK gov't boasted would be impossible to fake "can be cloned and manipulated in minutes and accepted as genuine by the computer software recommended for use at international airports." 3,000 blank passports were stolen last week, but the Home Office said there was nothing to worry about, because they couldn't be forged. In the tests, a computer researcher cloned the chips on two British passports and ...
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nybble said:
hahahahahahaha. ha. heh. hmm... I love it when people think they have something perfectly secure. Seems there's an inverse correlation between level of overconfidence in security and actual security.
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Andreas said:
IMHO digital passports are not about security or anti-terrorism. They don't aim for the handful of fraudsters or terrorists, the data of the "normal" people is what governments are after.
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Cheech said:
Not surprising.
Clearly unprotected (2)
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dejah420 (0)
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Clear passenger data stolen. A unencrypted laptop with the personal data, including name, address, SSi number, passport number, date of birth, etc. of every one of the 33,000+ users of the the Clear system has been stolen. The Clear system allows travelers who register and pay an annual fee to bypass airport security lines by using a smart card in some airports. TSA has suspended new registrations until Verified Identity Pass, Inc., a subsidiary of ...
"Clear" Air-Travel Pass Data Stolen From SFO (12)
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timothy (641)
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Kozar_The_Malignant writes "A laptop containing the unencrypted security data for 33,000 travelers using the Clear system was stolen at San Francisco International Airport on July 26, according to CBS5 Television. The Clear system allows travelers who register and pay a $100.00 annual fee to speed through airport security by using a smart card at special kiosks in some airports. TSA has suspended new registrations in the system, which is run by a private contractor, Verified ...
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Jesse said:
Sounds like the TSA may want to hire a security expert or two.
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Josh Bancroft said:
Oops.
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jon|k said:
yeesh. good thing i never signed up. (not like i travel enough)
Why Microsoft Cozied up to Open Source at OSCON (6)
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ScuttleMonkey (302)
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This year at OSCON it seemed that you couldn't throw a stone without hitting someone from Microsoft (and in fact, I'm sure several people did). They were working very hard to make themselves known, and working desperately to change public opinion of Microsoft's involvement in the open source community. Linux.com's Nathan Willis took a look at what they were preaching, with a hefty dose of skepticism, and tries to postulate what the "angle" is. Of ...
Canadians File Class Actions Over Incoming SMS Fees (9)
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dontmakemethink writes "CTV reports that over the last couple of weeks class-action lawsuits have been filed against two major Canadian cellular service providers, Bell and Telus, for imposing fees on incoming text messages. While there has been very vocal opposition to the introduction of the fees, those who cannot change providers due to binding contracts feel the situation is actionable in court. Some of those not bound by contract, such as myself, have given their ...
Microsoft's Annual Report Reveals OSS Mistakes (10)
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kdawson (726)
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mjasay writes "Microsoft's most recent annual report suggests that the company is increasingly coming to grips with open source, yet also seems determined to perpetuate myths about open source that poorly serve it and its shareholders. Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer has suggested before that 'free software means no free soda' for Microsoft employees; but this is perhaps the first time that Microsoft has managed to enshrine its ignorance in a public document. In the annual ...
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Sean said:
Back to their old tricks of just lying and hoping everyone falls for it. Cracking.
EFF releases Net Neutrality detector software (19)
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Cory Doctorow (2188)
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The Electronic Frontier Foundation's new "Switzerland" tool can detect violations of Net Neutrality by your ISP: "The sad truth is that the FCC is ill-equipped to detect ISPs interfering with your Internet connection," said Fred von Lohmann, EFF Senior Intellectual Property Attorney. "It's up to concerned Internet users to investigate possible network neutrality violations, and EFF's Switzerland software is designed to help with that effort. Comcast isn't the first, and certainly won't be the last, ...
NOAA Requires License For Photos of the Earth (12)
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timothy (641)
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Teancum writes "In an interesting show of the level of regulations private spacecraft designers have to go through, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) has demanded that American participants of the Google Lunar X Prize obtain a license if their spacecraft are 'capable of actively or passively sensing the Earth's surface, including bodies of water, from space by making use of the properties of the electromagnetic waves emitted, reflected, or diffracted by the sensed ...
We secretly switched their operating system.... (2)
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Microsoft, browbeaten by criticism over Windows Vista, demoed a new operating system code-named Project Mojave to a group of Windows XP users. An overwhelming majority of the XP users liked what they saw. It was then that Microsoft told them they were drinking Folgers Crystals, er, using Windows Vista. More on Microsoft's new Vista marketing plan.
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Jarvitron said:
So good they have to trick you into liking it.
