btw, i won again.. i wouldn't mind being defeated by Jo, but couldn't let myself lose to mauricio.

It was my first evening out on my own since Casey was born - i was mega tired, and i had no time to prepare. basically had to make it up. sadly I missed out a bunch of stuff i wanted to say about OLPC and ACTA.

my summary of the other speakers:

Miraz: apple will take over the world
Mauricio: microsoft will take over the world
Me: robots will take over the world
Jo: non-geeky people will still not take over the world
Phillip: you're all predicting the obvious

this was organised by the ppl at http://up.org.nz, who alas haven't updated their website with anysummary 2 weeks later. there was someone filming the talks, but these never seem to make it to the web either.

so, you'll have to take my word for it

Note: i'm not an offical spokesperson for OLPC - this is my own small rant

A couple things people don't get about OLPC (and perhaps open source too):

The design process is out in the open - you can see the ideas, prototypes, and half baked suggestions all being discussed for everyone to see. For those used to getting their technology from someone like Apple, Nokia, or Microsoft this can be confusing - they see something discussed, and then they see OLPC change their mind... and the confused person equates this with failure. It's not, it's just the organic process by which things are designed being exposed for all to see.

And their target probably isn't you - you are not their market (i'm making assumptions about who is reading my blog). If you're sitting in a developed nation somewhere with a wad of cash in hand wanting to buy laptops for your 2.4 children, sorry. Just have a read of the start of the OLPC mission statement: To create educational opportunities for the world's poorest children by providing each child with a rugged, low-cost, low-power, connected laptop ..... The goal is both the poorest children (i.e. not your children) and it's mass deployment. You not being able to purchase one doesn't make it vapour ware. Every single child in Uruguay has one of these laptops. Very soon every single child in Peru wil have one also. That makes the project MASSIVELY SUCCESSFUL in my book.

Nine Inch Nails App Gets Rejected by Apple, Reznor Threatens to go Jailbreak

Apple's strict iPhone application approval policies caused several outbursts of rage from developers whose applications get rejected; this time it's Nine Inch Nails' application, and Trent Reznor is doing the raging part.

More and more gadgets and gizmos are talking back to their mainfacturer over the internet.

It's not the covert dial-home killpills like apple's device - but instead a gadget you buy that needs the manufacturer's website to be up or it won't work

for example, i have a wifi sd card for my camera - it uploads the jpegs straight to flickr over wifi --- except that is doesn't, it uploads to eye.fi's webservices, which in turn uploads it onwards to flickr. If you want to configure the card then you're supposed to log into their website - even though this is unnecesary. (acutally there's opensource drivers that talk direct to the card, *nix only). Today their website if down, so most users won't be able to configure their cards.

another example, i have a logitech universal remote - it's a great remote - but only 2 weeks ago i bought a new CD player and wanted to configure the universal remote to control it. the configuration software could not contact logitech's website so it would not continue, and i could not configure my universal remote to talk to the cd player. Logitech's site was down for several days (or at least it was down everytime i tried). Eventually it was fixed and the remote could be configured.

beyond the obvious privacy problem - it's also a case of how long can you expect to use the gadget you paid for?

Will the manufacturer discontinue the service that powers their product? They must stop one day - and if you're still using that gadget then too bad, it's end of life.

More and more gadgets and gizmos are talking back to their mainfacturer over the internet.

It's not the covert dial-home killpills like apple's device - but instead a gadget you buy that needs the manufacturer's website to be up or it won't work

for example, i have a wifi sd card for my camera - it uploads the jpegs straight to flickr over wifi --- except that is doesn't, it uploads to eye.fi's webservices, which in turn uploads it onwards to flickr. If you want to configure the card then you're supposed to log into their website - even though this is unnecesary. (acutally there's opensource drivers that talk direct to the card, *nix only). Today their website if down, so most users won't be able to configure their cards.

another example, i have a logitech universal remote - it's a great remote - but only 2 weeks ago i bought a new CD player and wanted to configure the universal remote to control it. the configuration software could not contact logitech's website so it would not continue, and i could not configure my universal remote to talk to the cd player. Logitech's site was down for several days (or at least it was down everytime i tried). Eventually it was fixed and the remote could be configured.

beyond the obvious privacy problem - it's also a case of how long can you expect to use the gadget you paid for?

Will the manufacturer discontinue the service that powers their product? They must stop one day - and if you're still using that gadget then too bad, it's end of life.

Apple Confuses Speech with a DMCA Violation | Electronic Frontier FoundationSource: www.eff.org

IPhone: Linux for iPhone May Open the Door to Android iPhoneSource: gizmodo.comHere you have it. Linux running on the iPhone. Yes, it's only the first port, but it's the iPhone running the Linux OS, controlled with a USB keyboard running off the iPhone multi-purpose port thanks to the reverser engineering of Apple's hardware drivers by iPhone Dev Team member planetbeing. ...

Copyright Police may seize iPods, Macs under G8 trade deal (Updated) | God's AppleSource: www.sdapple.comNations including Canada, the US and various European states (including

The bad news: my $4000 Mac Pro may be killing me.

okay, angry at ipod touch brokeness..

none of the 3rd party apps (from app store) run anymore.. they start, then crash out to the launcher again.

rebooting didn't help, reseting config didn't help, restoring from backup didn't help but did make me late for work.

Deleting apps and then rebooting, the apps are all still there again.. they're not going away.

So, only the built ins work now. Mail, browser, maps, itunes are all fine - but everything from the app store doesn't run anymore.

My ipod is _NOT_ jailbroken or pwned.. It's legit.

I blame the 2.0.2 upgrade..

I meet an apple fan boy.. who asked the reasonable question: "Why do so many people keep complaining that apple don't have these features - don't they know no-body wants those features"...

heh.

so many things i can do on my 4 year old palm pda that i can't do on my new ipod touch

The Palm can
1. Bluetooth remote control of the audio - on palm i can press next on headphones button and have the next track play.
2. Sync with linux
3. Install free new applications without first registering a credit card number
4. Activate it outta the box without going home to a PC
5. Sownload podcasts and rss directly, without needing a PC.
6. Play ogg, flac and divx, without conversion and proprietary syncing.

but worth noting:

Andy has been chruning out useful opensource things yet again- including CIL, Commandline Issue Logger, that integrate with pretty much any VCS system, and AwsSum, a set of perl libraries for S3, SQS, SimpleDB and EC2.

The sound on my laptop has been uber quiet everysince in compiled in a kernel module to make my apple airport express work (the one Geoff gave me, so i'll blame him).

Ubuntu forums people have been very helpful, suggesting a multitude of ways to adjust volume from aumixer to alsamixer to kmix and back again, but they all have it set to maximum already.

So -- very very quiet sound, i seem to be stuck like this.

in the original press release, still up on apple.com and vodafone.com, vodafone nz announced iphone for both contract and prepay.

still want to know if apple will let telcos shove their branding all
over it - red buttons everywhere on the vodafone versions?

Will they disable mp3 playback for telcos that ask for it?? etc.etc?

Telcos run their own music stores now - and i'm assuming the iphone
does itunes music store - there will be a showdown coming. (though the
consumer may never see it)

okay so.. from a quick glance at apple.com

things it has:

1. wireless (802.11b/g)
2. bluetooth (2.0)
3. quad GSM (so gsm anywhere)
4. EDGE
5. 2Mpix camera, so i guess MMS + video messaging

things it doesn't seem to have:

1. UMTS or other 3G -- it's a 2.5G phone.
2. Video calling?? the camera's on the wrong side so i can't see how it
   could make video calls - and it's not 3G anyways.
3. no hardware keys - so no tactile feedback while typing. Important to