▪ Google is going to buy Jaiku for some unknown reason. Google’s starting to look a lot like Yahoo.
▪ BitTorrent about to go legit.
▪ Crazy OnStar concept to stop engines on the move.
▪ New lawsuit against Apple says it’s an antitrust violation.
▪ Developers of Thunderbird quit.
▪ Nobel Prize for GMR.
▪ Gateway to buy Packard-Bell.
▪ PHP seems to be all over the news for some reason. All over the news. Something is up.
▪ Ballmer says 25-percent of MSFT income will be from advertising. Huh?
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No way could Baldmer get a clue. The rate of the pack is determined by the speed of the leader.
I was surprised to read that Gateway was still in business. And I hate their guts! Because long ago they dangled a fake Amiga Media Appliance in our faces, as a ploy to get M$ to charge them less for Windows. Right after M$ agreed, Gateway completely dropped the Amiga project. Gateway kept up this charade for two years, and had nothing substantial to show for it. A lot of Amiga fans believed in them. And it was this deception that helped to kill the platform for good. Why should we trust Gateway now, just because it bought some cheesy knockoff PC brand? I don’t.
Also, if Balmer’s claim is correct. Then that must mean that Vista is going to turn into some kind of advertising vehicle. Bannering in and popping up ads that users can’t block out. Ads will probably appear at logon, your home webpage, and at signoff. How else could they make money from advertising, if not via their OS or browser software? M$ will either pump the ads into your PC, or drag your browser into their network to get them there.
About the proposed OnStar feature. It wouldn’t shutdown the car’s engine. It would just reduce the gas and slow it to a stop. This would only be applied to the highest priced GM cars. Supposedly, only the police could request this. Not, for example, the owner chasing his stolen vehicle. But what if someday all cars did this? And then a future reincarnation of George Bush came up with a National Security excuse for shutting off car engines, whenever he pleased? IOW, more Big Brother abuses. Meanwhile the car thieves will just pick on non-OnStar’d cars. Or figure out how to disable the OnStar device.
John I am getting multiple copies of this podcast? Its happened to this episode (three copies arrived) and the episode before (five copies).
I subscribe using iTunes (in the UK, yes regions matter sometimes) and for what its worth no other podcast is showing the same behaviour. I suspect some of that podshow magic going on.
Or figure out how to disable the OnStar device
You can buy cell phone blocking devices for under $500. They apparently work. Not legal in the US, but then neither is stealing cars.
I’m more than a little nervous over the “slippery slope” of allowing law enforcement agencies access to and control over the telemetry in private vehicles, but it’s probably going to be federally mandated sooner or later anyway. And the older I get, the more I wish there was some way to slow down the assholes who tailgate me when I’m already going 30 mph over the speed limit.
#7 just push gently on the brake. Just enough to lit the stops but not enough to really brake. They just zoom out on your rearview mirror.
All I can think of is angry wives getting back by disabling the husband’s cars.
#7 – Ubiquitous Talking Head
“You can buy cell phone blocking devices for under $500. They apparently work. Not legal in the US, but then neither is stealing cars.”
Except OnStar is satellite, not cellular.
“I wish there was some way to slow down the assholes who tailgate me when I’m already going 30 mph over the speed limit.”
You are not competent to be doing 30 over if you don’t understand the inviolable Rule of Fast Driving #1: No matter how fast you’re going, you always yield the fast lane to faster traffic – ALWAYS.
And you do it damn quick, too.
It doesn’t matter if you’re in a McLaren doing 200, when you see another car appear in your mirror, you GET OVER. Not doing so is how people die horribly – and give all fast drivers a bad name in the process.