Mobile Phones - What would Steve Jobs do?

There are new speculations about an possible Apple mobile phone. While I don't know how realistic that is, I have a guess what Apple will do, if they should release an Apple phone.

If you take a look at the two core business Apple is involved - The Macintosh computer and the iPod/iTMS (iTunes Music Store) - you will see that Apple is offering an (almost) complete one-stop solution for the end-user. Need an home-office? You'll get everything except the printer from Apple (and they even sell you an Non-Apple printer in their online store). You like to listen to music? You get everything from Apple, including the music. (Ok, not those bulky speakers some people like)

And if Apple should go into the mobile phone business, they will not stop at the 'device'. Apple is going to make sure, they can offer a complete solution. The ROKR teached them one lesson: Apple needs to be in control of the entire user experience. Motorola may be technically able to create an iPhone, but when it comes to an complete user experience, they seem to be clueless.

So Apple needs to create the iPhone by itself. Apple can not rely on big shot partner, because all the players in the mobile phone business have agendas of their owns. They don't care for Apple and will stop a cooperation if they like.

And the ROKR showed them one more thing: If an mobile carrier doesn't likes your hardware, bad luck, forget about selling it. And if an mobile carrier sees your phone as an threat to their music selling plans, bad luck, better change your software, so it sucks more than theirs. And of course, you can forget about offering something like the iTMS without giving the mobile carrier a large share. The mobile carriers are blood sucking vampires. There is not free market.

So would Apple do?

If they will offer an iPhone, there will be an iCarrier. Steve Jobs will not allow its business to be under a constant threat by the mobile phone carriers.

So, what does it mean, that Apple buys a datacenter built for MCI? Well, maybe there will be an iPhone.

Think Secret - Apple iPhone soon? Not likely.

Dvorak to ditch his brain?

Noted tech idiot John C. Dvorak recently claimed, to much ridicule, he was going to ditch his brain.

Well, he has no brain.
Daring Fireball: Adios Avie

The Two Attas - And how the Czech could do what the US couldn't

Seems like the Czech were able to prevent a terrorist attact early in 2001 - without a "war on terrorism". Simply be using standard counterintelligence.

The BIS [Czech counterintelligence service] did what counterintelligence service do in such circumstances: they sought to penerate the Iraq Embassy by recruiting Arabic-speaking employees familiar with its operations.

But it goes on:

Less than a week after Ruzek shared the BIS’ secret information with American intelligence, it was leaked. ... Ruzek was furious. He consider[ed] what he had passed on to the FBI to be unevaluated raw intelligence, and the disclosure of it not only riskedt compromising the BIS’s penetration in the Iraq embassy but it greatly reduced the chances of confirming it.

So this tells me, that US "counterintelligence" is a bunch of idiots.
The Mystery of Prague

A Clockwork Red White Blue - A Victory in the War On Terror!

In the statement, Bush said that he did not consider himself bound to tell Congress how the Patriot Act powers were being used and that, despite the law's requirements, he could withhold the information if he decided that disclosure would ''impair foreign relations, national security, the deliberative process of the executive, or the performance of the executive's constitutional duties."

Bush shuns Patriot Act requirement - The Boston Globe

Russians have/had a spy inside US Central Command?

Wow. My deepest respect to the successors of the KGB!

But that they should endanger their source by feeding the information to the Iraqis? That, I find hard to believe.

This whole thing seems like some US propaganda bluff.

CNN.com - Pentagon: Russia fed U.S. war plans to Iraq - Mar 25, 2006

Dick Cheney's Suite Demands

Mrs. Cheney's H2O should be either Calistoga or, curiously, Perrier, a favored beverage of French terrorism appeasers.

Dick Cheney's Suite Demands - March 23, 2006
(via fefe)

Daring Fireball: The iPod Juggernaut

Just how clueless Creative is:
http://www.apple.com/ipod/specs.html
http://us.creative.com/products/product.asp?category=213&subcategory=214&product=14331&nav=technicalSpecifications

Start with comparing the URLs...

Daring Fireball: The iPod Juggernaut

Schneier on Security: "Terrorist with Nuke" Movie Plot

It New Scientist is going to present fiction, the least they could do is hire decent writers.

Schneier on Security: "Terrorist with Nuke" Movie Plot

A Clockwork Red White Blue - A Conversations with Daniel Ellsberg

Daily Kos: Conversations with Daniel Ellsberg, Part 1
(via fefe)

A Clockwork Red White Blue - Why everyone wants to invest in Neil Bush's software company

Boing Boing: Why everyone wants to invest in Neil Bush's software company

Danish Imam: "Why don't we kill the potential Danish Minister of Foreigners or Integration?"

Agora :: Danish Imam Ahmed Akkari: Kill Naser Khader :: March :: 2006
(via fefe)

BTW: He also faked the Mohamed cartoons and cheered 9/11.

Patents on Laws of Nature?

On the one hand, courts have repeatedly held that basic bodily processes and "products of nature" are not patentable. That's why no one owns gravity, or the speed of light. But at the same time, courts have granted so-called correlation patents for many years. Powerful forces are arrayed on both sides of the issue.

This Essay Breaks the Law - MICHAEL CRICHTON - New York Times

Intellectual Property Run Amok

Intellectual Property Run Amok
(via fefe)

A Clockwork Red White Blue - Go to Guantánamo!

Patriot Act: The Game
(via fefe)

A Clockwork Red White Blue - Former supreme court judge says US risks edging near to dictatorship

Sandra Day O'Connor, a Republican-appointed judge who retired last month after 24 years on the supreme court, has said the US is in danger of edging towards dictatorship if the party's rightwingers continue to attack the judiciary.

Guardian Unlimited | Special reports | Former top judge says US risks edging near to dictatorship

A Clockwork Red White Blue - Four years of the War on Terror and the only US 9/11 trial may go astray

Moussaoui is the only person charged in [the USA] with the 9/11 attacks. He pleaded guilty in April to conspiring with al-Qaida to hijack planes and to other crimes, but he denies any role in 9/11. He says he was training for a possible future attack.

And just to put this into perspective, Moussaoui was in a US prison on 9/11...

AP Wire | 03/13/2006 | Judge unexpectedly halts Moussaoui trial

A Clockwork Red White Blue - Controlling what the media reports

Reporters who write about government surveillance could be prosecuted under proposed legislation that would solidify the administration's eavesdropping authority, according to some legal analysts who are concerned about dramatic changes in U.S. law.

Reporters Exempt From Eavesdropping Bill

This isn't true, right?

Ex-Stasi Spy Chief Markus Wolf Hired By Homeland Security?

Just one reason why biometric control is a bad idea

BBC NEWS | Asia-Pacific | Malaysia car thieves steal finger

Galactic Civilizations II: Dread Lords

For example, we were quite disturbed to discover that the company that makes Starforce provided a working URL to a list of pirated GalCiv II torrents. I'm not sure whether what they did was illegal or not, but it's troubling nevertheless and was totally unnecessary.

Punishment for not buying their copy-protection?
Galactic Civilizations II: Dread Lords (via fefe)

Too strange too be true

Ha ha!

Nelson Muntz, The Simpsons
Boing Boing: SmartFilter, BoingBoing, and Adult Baby - Diaper Lovers.

Again: Make pretty URLs

adaptive path � user-centered url design

People use software they like

"Here is your new content management system. All content will now be published with this centralized system. Signed, The Management." I often found myself consulting with organizations with similar problems. "We spent all this time and money installing a CMS, but everyone still publishes static HTML pages. How do we force them to use it?"

You don't, of course. As SocialText has learned, people use the simplest thing that works, and they look to their peers to find those tools.

People use software they like, by Jeffrey Veen

Believe whatever you want to believe

This video leaves me with nagging feeling, the WMD weren't GWB first lies...

911 Loose Change 2nd Edition with extra footage - Google Video


Some of the things presented as facts are false (as for example a fire does weaken a building), some things can be explained differently (for example the "explosions" while the WTC collapses could be the inner structure of the building breaking apart).

You have to make up your own opinion. Don't believe everything you are told, whether by the goverment or by some conspiracy fanatic. It's not easy, sorting through the rubble, I know.

Bank Privacy Act?

Scripps Howard News Service

Yahoogle!

The evoluton of the Yahoo and Google start page.

Maeda's SIMPLICITY: Yahoogle!

(via fontblog)

Dutch Legal DRM Music No Longer Playable [ ZefHemel.com ]

It seems safer to just download music illegally somewhere.

Dutch Legal DRM Music No Longer Playable [ ZefHemel.com ]

The Fishbowl: Post Apple-event Let-Down Syndrome

“And, of course, it’s priced too high.”
via The Fishbowl: Post Apple-event Let-Down Syndrome

Music gear modding!

Music thing: When bad things happen to good gear

major labels: the problem with music

That is, once the band sign it, they are under obligation to conclude a deal with the label. If the label presents them with a contract that the band don't want to sign, all the label has to do is wait. There are a hundred other bands willing to sign the exact same contract, so the label is in a position of strength.

These letters never have any term of expiration, so the band remain bound by the deal memo until a contract is signed, no matter how long that takes. The band cannot sign to another label or even put out its own material unless they are released from their agreement, which never happens. Make no mistake about it: once a band has signed a letter of intent, they will either eventually sign a contract that suits the label or they will be destroyed.

major labels: the problem with music

Where to buy music

Independent record labels and RIAA Safe

Mercedes-Hyundai

Hyundai stellt den Fahrzeugpark zur WM, exportiert aber keine Busse nach Europa und wird auch keine zur WM nach Deutschland bringen. Die Lösung des Problems (laut FAZ.NET): »›Wir werden deutsche Fremdfabrikate mit dem Hyundai-Logo versehen‹, sagt eine Hyundai-Sprecherin.

Fontblog - WM-Trittbrettfahrer (6): Mercedes-Hyundai