Apple - QuickTime - Download - Standalone QuickTime Player
It's been really annoying me that you couldn't install or upgrade Quicktime without also installing iTunes. So it was good to finally discover the page for the standalone player. [from: del.icio.us]

RADIO.BLOG.CLUB
Driving a coach and horses through fair use by letting visitors to your blog listen to MP3s you upload via PHP, Flash and a bunch of pre-assembled code. [from: del.icio.us]

music_search.swf (application/x-shockwave-flash Object)
And then search all the music uploaded by radio.blog users and play it. The celestial blog jukebox... [from: del.icio.us]

via Google Talk Blog

Yay! GoogleTalk just became a full Jabber Peer Server. All Jabber users can now chat with Googletalk members and vice versa.

Keep it coming, Google.

Researcher: Sony BMG rootkit still widespread | The Register : "The data shows that this is most likely a hundreds-of-thousands to millions of victims issue," Kaminsky said.

The data might also show how widespread piracy has become. The 52 music titles released with the XCP software were only released in North America, he said. However, the network apparently affected by the Sony BMG issue covered 135 countries. About 4.7 million discs were manufactured and about 2.1 million had sold, according to Sony statements.

"The global scope is the big mystery here," he said. "It is fairly likely that a lot of the discs were pirated."

Oh, the irony! Malware DRM designed to restrict copying spreads widely due to copying causing a global problem for the owners.

"I don't see the federal government suing a big company like Sony," she said. "The fact that military networks have likely been affected by this won't change that."

Right. So being a big company puts you above the law. No change there then.

OSx86 Project - Apple Gives Developers New iMacs; Implements EFI (Updated) : The Extensible Firmware Interface (EFI) is an updated BIOS specification developed by Intel. Designed for use with trusted computing, it allows vendors to create drivers which cannot be reverse engineered. It also allows operating systems to run in a sandbox, delegating networking and memory management to the firmware. Hardware access is converted to calls to the EFI drivers. The EFI BIOS is used to select the operating system, replacing boot loaders.

The EFI is important as it may be a component that Apple uses to lock OS X to their hardware.

My highlight. And so it begins. XP allegedly won't run on EFI hardware but Vista will. So here's the start of the push to get us to upgrade all our hardware so that "unbreakable" DRM can be applied to new content, software and operating systems.

So are you going to opt out? Will your next PC run Linux?

Scripting News: 1/11/2006 : It seems Azureus can handle much of the hosting problem

Azureus is dead. Long live uTorrent.

Boing Boing: Steve Jobs (?): Apple discards information transmitted by iTunes

Shock Horror! Of course the problem here is that Apple did all this without telling anyone and without giving value back to the customer and without directly engaging them. What they should have done is to buy Last.FM and integrate it into iTMS. Not least because Last.FM are a lovely bunch of guys working out of a loft in the East End of London.

Yet another classic Cluetrain moment. Apple have an opportunity to build community and dialog around what people actually listen to in iTunes. And all they can think of to do is display advertising.

I'm repeating myself, but I just left this on Burningbird's blog about debating DRM.

A couple of quick thoughts.

1) Several jurisdictions around the world simply do not have the concept of “Fair Use”. For instance in the UK, the copyright notice on CDs forbidding copying means exactly that. By copying for your own personal use you are breaking the terms of the copyright. So unfortunately we have to consider DRM in a global context. Which is particularly troublesome when >500k DNS servers were found world wide with an XCP rootkit infected PC behind them.

2) “we only have to turn our little eyeballs over to iTunes to generate an “Oh, yeah?” Does iTMS make any money directly? Isn’t it rather a loss leader that bolsters the sale of iPods? What is unknown is whether the iPod would have been just as much of a success without Fairplay and iTMS. I rather think it would have been.

3) The most cogent argument I’ve seen against DRM is that it leads to spyware. Give someone the encrypted text, the algorithm and the keys and you can’t control what they do with the plain text. In order to try to control them, you have to install spyware. And since no informed computer user will knowingly install spyware you have to trick them into it. So if it can always be circumvented, DRM will never work to stop counterfeiters. So by adding it, you do nothing to stop genuine piracy, while upsetting and hurting your genuine customers. Does that make any sort of business sense?

4) Why do the tech companies want to be in the content distribution business? The existing content distribution companies are hurting, their business models no longer work, and they are surrounded by a whole range of disruptive technologies that are changing the marketplace irrevocably. So why would any tech company want to get a piece of that failing action? The content owners appear to have this blind faith that DRM will save their existing business model and the tech companies, far from pointing this out, are actively encouraging them. Why? From an anti-DRM stance, every one of them including Apple, and now including Google, are part of the problem.

5) Perhaps what we really need is for DRM to fragment completely into a large number of incompatible “standards” with ever more ridiculous terms and activity. Maybe then the market will decide and back the one player that turns it’s back on DRM. On that basis, Sony is a god send. Go ahead. Screw up. Please.

6) I will not buy any DRMed content unless there is a ridiculously easy work around. So I’ll happily buy a multi-region DVD (available from any store in the UK) and buy region encoded DVDs. But I won’t buy a “not a CD” ever again and I will never buy a crippled, low quality download tune when there’s a dodgy Russian alternative that serves up uncrippled high quality at a 5th of the price.

Freedom to Tinker » Blog Archive » CD Copy Protection: The Road to Spyware
I need to keep a reference to this. It's an extremely cogent argument as to why DRM always leads to Spyware. Remember the Cryptographic argument. You can't give someone the encrypted text and the keys and then control what they do with the plain text. [from: del.icio.us]

Preoccupations: What DRM argument? has some good reflections on DRM and links some sensible commentary.

I have another one. There are some smart guys at Google (major understatement there!). So why don't they understand Cryptography 101?

DRM can never work. You can't give the encrypted text and the keys to someone and have any control what they do with the plain text.

Sub-titled. "Google: Only a little bit evil"

Tom Coates on Google become the latest to distribute TV... : The most interesting part of the whole enterprise is the debate about Google DRM.

The fly in this ointment is indeed DRM. A lot of us had this vague feeling that the tech industry would stick two fingers up at the content industry and keep everything open. But now the tech industry seems to want to become the content industry. Amazon, AOL, Apple, Microsoft, Yahoo!, Real and now Google have all jumped the fence and landed on the other side as content intermediaries no different from the old media businesses. So now they're part of the problem not a potential solution. And sitting in the middle of all this is Intel who's close ties with all these players mean that they're more than happy to build in the hardware controls to support it.

Bye, bye, open computing.

What's really puzzling about all this is that the old media businesses are struggling with falling or flat sales. Why on earth would these tech companies *want* to get into a business with falling profits, a dead business model and little future, attacked on all sides by disruptive tech? Even though iTMS is a great lock in that supports hardware profits, it's a loss leader that barely breaks even in it's own right. So that's Apple's excuse. What's the excuse for all the others?

Scripting News: 1/6/2006 : After reading all the comments on Google's announcements today, Michael Gartenberg asked the question that was most on my mind. Where's the value for us? Why should we care about this, as Google goes after Apple and Microsoft.

The value is not in the pack. It's not in the individual packages. It's in Google Updater. A single package and version management system for Windows is actually a big thing and a big value add that Google can sell on to other companies.

Now about that pack. RealAudio? Norton Anti-Virus? Are they kidding? Perhaps what they should have done is sort out Macromedia and Java which are the two most used and most irritating collections of software to try and keep up to date.

» Switching to Mac - you should too :

I currently dual-boot Windows XP and Ubuntu, I'll only be using Windows XP as long as their's support for it. My Windows days will end upon the release of Vista. Hopefully Apple will not make the same mistakes as Microsoft when it comes down to locking down almost every piece of hardware with DRM bullshite. I have a feeling Apple will be forced into this and open-source operating systems will be the only viable alternative for anyone that wants to be able to use their computer in any remotely useful way.

I wrote something very similar a while back. Seems I'm not alone.

Commons Music Blog » Blog Archive » Tell Coldplay what you think of DRM

The latest Coldplay (not a) CD has DRM copy protection and a daft set of usage restrictions that you can only read once you've bought the (not a) CD. Well now you can answer back. Skype has a promotion where you can leave a 20 second voice mail message for the band. Here's what I said.

Hi Coldplay, this is Julian from the UK. I just wanted to ask you what you think about the DRM and copy protection on your new CD? You have a great opportunity to change the system here. Why not do something about what your fans hate most? Tell your label to drop the DRM and copy protection.

These documents should not be allowed to disappear.

Letter #1

Confidential

FM Tashkent (Ambassador Craig Murray)

TO FCO, Cabinet Office, DFID, MODUK, OSCE Posts, Security Council Posts

16 September 02

SUBJECT: US/Uzbekistan: Promoting Terrorism

SUMMARY

US plays down human rights situation in Uzbekistan. A dangerous policy: increasing repression combined with poverty will promote Islamic terrorism. Support to Karimov regime a bankrupt and cynical policy.

DETAIL

The Economist of 7 September states: "Uzbekistan, in particular, has jailed many thousands of moderate Islamists, an excellent way of converting their families and friends to extremism." The Economist also spoke of "the growing despotism of Mr Karimov" and judged that "the past year has seen a further deterioration of an already grim human rights record". I agree.

Between 7,000 and 10,000 political and religious prisoners are currently detained, many after trials before kangaroo courts with no representation. Terrible torture is commonplace: the EU is currently considering a demarche over the terrible case of two Muslims tortured to death in jail apparently with boiling water. Two leading dissidents, Elena Urlaeva and Larissa Vdovna, were two weeks ago committed to a lunatic asylum, where they are being drugged, for demonstrating on human rights. Opposition political parties remain banned. There is no doubt that September 11 gave the pretext to crack down still harder on dissent under the guise of counter-terrorism.

Yet on 8 September the US State Department certified that Uzbekistan was improving in both human rights and democracy, thus fulfilling a constitutional requirement and allowing the continuing disbursement of $140 million of US aid to Uzbekistan this year. Human Rights Watch immediately published a commendably sober and balanced rebuttal of the State Department claim.

Again we are back in the area of the US accepting sham reform [a reference to my previous telegram on the economy]. In August media censorship was abolished, and theoretically there are independent media outlets, but in practice there is absolutely no criticism of President Karimov or the central government in any Uzbek media. State Department call this self-censorship: I am not sure that is a fair way to describe an unwillingness to experience the brutal methods of the security services.

Similarly, following US pressure when Karimov visited Washington, a human rights NGO has been permitted to register. This is an advance, but they have little impact given that no media are prepared to cover any of their activities or carry any of their statements.

The final improvement State quote is that in one case of murder of a prisoner the police involved have been prosecuted. That is an improvement, but again related to the Karimov visit and does not appear to presage a general change of policy. On the latest cases of torture deaths the Uzbeks have given the OSCE an incredible explanation, given the nature of the injuries, that the victims died in a fight between prisoners.

But allowing a single NGO, a token prosecution of police officers and a fake press freedom cannot possibly outweigh the huge scale of detentions, the torture and the secret executions. President Karimov has admitted to 100 executions a year but human rights groups believe there are more. Added to this, all opposition parties remain banned (the President got a 98% vote) and the Internet is strictly controlled. All Internet providers must go through a single government server and access is barred to many sites including all dissident and opposition sites and much international media (including, ironically, waronterrorism.com). This is in essence still a totalitarian state: there is far less freedom than still prevails, for example, in Mugabe's Zimbabwe. A Movement for Democratic Change or any judicial independence would be impossible here.

Karimov is a dictator who is committed to neither political nor economic reform. The purpose of his regime is not the development of his country but the diversion of economic rent to his oligarchic supporters through government controls. As a senior Uzbek academic told me privately, there is more repression here now than in Brezhnev's time. The US are trying to prop up Karimov economically and to justify this support they need to claim that a process of economic and political reform is underway. That they do so claim is either cynicism or self-delusion.

This policy is doomed to failure. Karimov is driving this resource-rich country towards economic ruin like an Abacha. And the policy of increasing repression aimed indiscriminately at pious Muslims, combined with a deepening poverty, is the most certain way to ensure continuing support for the Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan. They have certainly been decimated and disorganised in Afghanistan, and Karimov's repression may keep the lid on for years - but pressure is building and could ultimately explode.

I quite understand the interest of the US in strategic airbases and why they back Karimov, but I believe US policy is misconceived. In the short term it may help fight terrorism but in the medium term it will promote it, as the Economist points out. And it can never be right to lower our standards on human rights. There is a complex situation in Central Asia and it is wrong to look at it only through a prism picked up on September 12. Worst of all is what appears to be the philosophy underlying the current US view of Uzbekistan: that September 11 divided the World into two camps in the "War against Terrorism" and that Karimov is on "our" side.

If Karimov is on "our" side, then this war cannot be simply between the forces of good and evil. It must be about more complex things, like securing the long-term US military presence in Uzbekistan. I silently wept at the 11 September commemoration here. The right words on New York have all been said. But last week was also another anniversary - the US-led overthrow of Salvador Allende in Chile. The subsequent dictatorship killed, dare I say it, rather more people than died on September 11. Should we not remember then also, and learn from that too? I fear that we are heading down the same path of US-sponsored dictatorship here. It is ironic that the beneficiary is perhaps the most unreformed of the World's old communist leaders.

We need to think much more deeply about Central Asia. It is easy to place Uzbekistan in the "too difficult" tray and let the US run with it, but I think they are running in the wrong direction. We should tell them of the dangers we see. Our policy is theoretically one of engagement, but in practice this has not meant much. Engagement makes sense, but it must mean grappling with the problems, not mute collaboration. We need to start actively to state a distinctive position on democracy and human rights, and press for a realistic view to be taken in the IMF. We should continue to resist pressures to start a bilateral DFID programme, unless channelled non-governmentally, and not restore ECGD cover despite the constant lobbying. We should not invite Karimov to the UK. We should step up our public diplomacy effort, stressing democratic values, including more resources from the British Council. We should increase support to human rights activists, and strive for contact with non-official Islamic groups.

Above all we need to care about the 22 million Uzbek people, suffering from poverty and lack of freedom. They are not just pawns in the new Great Game.

MURRAY

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Letter #2

Confidential

Fm Tashkent (Ambassador Craig Murray)

To FCO

18 March 2003

SUBJECT: US FOREIGN POLICY

SUMMARY

1. As seen from Tashkent, US policy is not much focussed on democracy or freedom. It is about oil, gas and hegemony. In Uzbekistan the US pursues those ends through supporting a ruthless dictatorship. We must not close our eyes to uncomfortable truth.

DETAIL

2. Last year the US gave half a billion dollars in aid to Uzbekistan, about a quarter of it military aid. Bush and Powell repeatedly hail Karimov as a friend and ally. Yet this regime has at least seven thousand prisoners of conscience; it is a one party state without freedom of speech, without freedom of media, without freedom of movement, without freedom of assembly, without freedom of religion. It practices, systematically, the most hideous tortures on thousands. Most of the population live in conditions precisely analogous with medieval serfdom.

3. Uzbekistan's geo-strategic position is crucial. It has half the population of the whole of Central Asia. It alone borders all the other states in a region which is important to future Western oil and gas supplies. It is the regional military power. That is why the US is here, and here to stay. Contractors at the US military bases are extending the design life of the buildings from ten to twenty five years.

4. Democracy and human rights are, despite their protestations to the contrary, in practice a long way down the US agenda here. Aid this year will be slightly less, but there is no intention to introduce any meaningful conditionality. Nobody can believe this level of aid - more than US aid to all of West Africa - is related to comparative developmental need as opposed to political support for Karimov. While the US makes token and low-level references to human rights to appease domestic opinion, they view Karimov's vicious regime as a bastion against fundamentalism. He - and they - are in fact creating fundamentalism. When the US gives this much support to a regime that tortures people to death for having a beard or praying five times a day, is it any surprise that Muslims come to hate the West?

5. I was stunned to hear that the US had pressured the EU to withdraw a motion on Human Rights in Uzbekistan which the EU was tabling at the UN Commission for Human Rights in Geneva. I was most unhappy to find that we are helping the US in what I can only call this cover-up. I am saddened when the US constantly quote fake improvements in human rights in Uzbekistan, such as the abolition of censorship and Internet freedom, which quite simply have not happened (I see these are quoted in the draft EBRD strategy for Uzbekistan, again I understand at American urging).

6. From Tashkent it is difficult to agree that we and the US are activated by shared values. Here we have a brutal US sponsored dictatorship reminiscent of Central and South American policy under previous US Republican administrations. I watched George Bush talk today of Iraq and "dismantling the apparatus of terror… removing the torture chambers and the rape rooms". Yet when it comes to the Karimov regime, systematic torture and rape appear to be treated as peccadilloes, not to affect the relationship and to be downplayed in international fora. Double standards? Yes.

7. I hope that once the present crisis is over we will make plain to the US, at senior level, our serious concern over their policy in Uzbekistan.

MURRAY

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

[Transcript of facsimile sent 25 March 2003 from the Foreign Office]

From: Michael Wood, Legal Advisor

Date: 13 March 2003

CC: PS/PUS; Matthew Kidd, WLD

Linda Duffield

UZBEKISTAN: INTELLIGENCE POSSIBLY OBTAINED UNDER TORTURE

1. Your record of our meeting with HMA Tashkent recorded that Craig had said that his understanding was that it was also an offence under the UN Convention on Torture to receive or possess information under torture. I said that I did not believe that this was the case, but undertook to re-read the Convention.

2. I have done so. There is nothing in the Convention to this effect. The nearest thing is article 15 which provides:

"Each State Party shall ensure that any statement which is established to have been made as a result of torture shall not be invoked as evidence in any proceedings, except against a person accused of torture as evidence that the statement was made."

3. This does not create any offence. I would expect that under UK law any statement established to have been made as a result of torture would not be admissible as evidence.

[signed]

M C Wood
Legal Adviser

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Letter #3

CONFIDENTIAL

FM TASHKENT (Ambassador Craig Murray)

TO IMMEDIATE FCO

TELNO 63
OF 220939 JULY 04

INFO IMMEDIATE DFID, ISLAMIC POSTS, MOD, OSCE POSTS UKDEL EBRD LONDON, UKMIS GENEVA, UKMIS MEW YORK

SUBJECT: RECEIPT OF INTELLIGENCE OBTAINED UNDER TORTURE

SUMMARY

1. We receive intelligence obtained under torture from the Uzbek intelligence services, via the US. We should stop. It is bad information anyway. Tortured dupes are forced to sign up to confessions showing what the Uzbek government wants the US and UK to believe, that they and we are fighting the same war against terror.

2. I gather a recent London interdepartmental meeting considered the question and decided to continue to receive the material. This is morally, legally and practically wrong. It exposes as hypocritical our post Abu Ghraib pronouncements and fatally undermines our moral standing. It obviates my efforts to get the Uzbek government to stop torture they are fully aware our intelligence community laps up the results.

3. We should cease all co-operation with the Uzbek Security Services they are beyond the pale. We indeed need to establish an SIS presence here, but not as in a friendly state.

DETAIL

4. In the period December 2002 to March 2003 I raised several times the issue of intelligence material from the Uzbek security services which was obtained under torture and passed to us via the CIA. I queried the legality, efficacy and morality of the practice.

5. I was summoned to the UK for a meeting on 8 March 2003. Michael Wood gave his legal opinion that it was not illegal to obtain and to use intelligence acquired by torture. He said the only legal limitation on its use was that it could not be used in legal proceedings, under Article 15 of the UN Convention on Torture.

6. On behalf of the intelligence services, Matthew Kydd said that they found some of the material very useful indeed with a direct bearing on the war on terror. Linda Duffield said that she had been asked to assure me that my qualms of conscience were respected and understood.

7. Sir Michael Jay's circular of 26 May stated that there was a reporting obligation on us to report torture by allies (and I have been instructed to refer to Uzbekistan as such in the context of the war on terror). You, Sir, have made a number of striking, and I believe heartfelt, condemnations of torture in the last few weeks. I had in the light of this decided to return to this question and to highlight an apparent contradiction in our policy. I had intimated as much to the Head of Eastern Department.

8. I was therefore somewhat surprised to hear that without informing me of the meeting, or since informing me of the result of the meeting, a meeting was convened in the FCO at the level of Heads of Department and above, precisely to consider the question of the receipt of Uzbek intelligence material obtained under torture. As the office knew, I was in London at the time and perfectly able to attend the meeting. I still have only gleaned that it happened.

9. I understand that the meeting decided to continue to obtain the Uzbek torture material. I understand that the principal argument deployed was that the intelligence material disguises the precise source, ie it does not ordinarily reveal the name of the individual who is tortured. Indeed this is true - the material is marked with a euphemism such as "From detainee debriefing." The argument runs that if the individual is not named, we cannot prove that he was tortured.

10. I will not attempt to hide my utter contempt for such casuistry, nor my shame that I work in and organisation where colleagues would resort to it to justify torture. I have dealt with hundreds of individual cases of political or religious prisoners in Uzbekistan, and I have met with very few where torture, as defined in the UN convention, was not employed. When my then DHM raised the question with the CIA head of station 15 months ago, he readily acknowledged torture was deployed in obtaining intelligence. I do not think there is any doubt as to the fact

11. The torture record of the Uzbek security services could hardly be more widely known. Plainly there are, at the very least, reasonable grounds for believing the material is obtained under torture. There is helpful guidance at Article 3 of the UN Convention;

"The competent authorities shall take into account all relevant considerations including, where applicable, the existence in the state concerned of a consistent pattern of gross, flagrant or mass violations of human rights."

While this article forbids extradition or deportation to Uzbekistan, it is the right test for the present question also.

12. On the usefulness of the material obtained, this is irrelevant. Article 2 of the Convention, to which we are a party, could not be plainer:

"No exceptional circumstances whatsoever, whether a state of war or a threat of war, internal political instability or any other public emergency, may be invoked as a justification of torture."

13. Nonetheless, I repeat that this material is useless - we are selling our souls for dross. It is in fact positively harmful. It is designed to give the message the Uzbeks want the West to hear. It exaggerates the role, size, organisation and activity of the IMU and its links with Al Qaida. The aim is to convince the West that the Uzbeks are a vital cog against a common foe, that they should keep the assistance, especially military assistance, coming, and that they should mute the international criticism on human rights and economic reform.

14. I was taken aback when Matthew Kydd said this stuff was valuable. Sixteen months ago it was difficult to argue with SIS in the area of intelligence assessment. But post Butler we know, not only that they can get it wrong on even the most vital and high profile issues, but that they have a particular yen for highly coloured material which exaggerates the threat. That is precisely what the Uzbeks give them. Furthermore MI6 have no operative within a thousand miles of me and certainly no expertise that can come close to my own in making this assessment.

15. At the Khuderbegainov trial I met an old man from Andizhan. Two of his children had been tortured in front of him until he signed a confession on the family's links with Bin Laden. Tears were streaming down his face. I have no doubt they had as much connection with Bin Laden as I do. This is the standard of the Uzbek intelligence services.

16. I have been considering Michael Wood's legal view, which he kindly gave in writing. I cannot understand why Michael concentrated only on Article 15 of the Convention. This certainly bans the use of material obtained under torture as evidence in proceedings, but it does not state that this is the sole exclusion of the use of such material.

17. The relevant article seems to me Article 4, which talks of complicity in torture. Knowingly to receive its results appears to be at least arguable as complicity. It does not appear that being in a different country to the actual torture would preclude complicity. I talked this over in a hypothetical sense with my old friend Prof Francois Hampson, I believe an acknowledged World authority on the Convention, who said that the complicity argument and the spirit of the Convention would be likely to be winning points. I should be grateful to hear Michael's views on this.

18. It seems to me that there are degrees of complicity and guilt, but being at one or two removes does not make us blameless. There are other factors. Plainly it was a breach of Article 3 of the Convention for the coalition to deport detainees back here from Baghram, but it has been done. That seems plainly complicit.

19. This is a difficult and dangerous part of the World. Dire and increasing poverty and harsh repression are undoubtedly turning young people here towards radical Islam. The Uzbek government are thus creating this threat, and perceived US support for Karimov strengthens anti-Western feeling. SIS ought to establish a presence here, but not as partners of the Uzbek Security Services, whose sheer brutality puts them beyond the pale.

MURRAY

The Boycott Sony Blog
Maybe soon it will be running again, but right now it's down. [from: del.icio.us]

In a comment to a blog about VC and Consumer Electronics.

"Open Source Firmware"

Why do consumer electronics companies want to be in the software business? Why do they outsource their firmware, driver and application development and then make such a pig's ear of supporting it and providing updates? Why does each one have to re-invent the wheel: Do we really need every Mp3 player manufacturer to produce a competitor to iTunes and Winamp? Why are people like Broadcom forced into a situation where in order to get FCC approval they have to lock down the hardware API? Why do Sony with the PSP and MS with the XBox have to build in hardware DRM supported by closed source and deliberately crippled firmware? Why does Apple have to deliberately cripple the iPod in order to reach a deal with the media companies to be able to create iTMS?

Open Source Firmware is an idea who's time has come.

Salon.com - Daou Report : Here's why: the dynamic of a typical Bush scandal follows familiar contours...

1. POTUS circumvents the law - an impeachable offense.

2. The story breaks (in this case after having been concealed by a news organization until well after Election 2004).

3. The Bush crew floats a number of pushback strategies, settling on one that becomes the mantra of virtually every Republican surrogate. These Republicans face down poorly prepped Dem surrogates and shred them on cable news shows.

And so on.

I wonder what the equivalent is for a Blair scandal.

Google Press Center: Press Release : Enabling Google Talk and AIM instant messaging users to communicate with each other, provided certain conditions are met;

Here we go. Sit back and watch Googletalk take over and dominate the IM, PC VoIP and Video chat market. Google talk is based on Jabber so lots of clients can talk to the Googletalk servers for chat. Then we get LibJingle and the Jabber XMPP audio extensions. So lots of clients can talk to the Googletalk servers for audio. Now we have Google+AOL bringing AIM to the party so that AIM and Googletalk users can chat and talk to each other.

Now we move into unannounced territory. Apple bolt libjingle into iChat so that Chat users can also use voice with all the other chat clients circling around Google. LibJingle then gets extended to video (which should be easy. It's just another codec). And this whole group are now doing presence, chat, audio and video. Finally Yahoo throws in the towel and joins in leaving Microsoft and Skype out in the cold. eBay cans Skype and takes the hit on their share price leaving just Microsoft and the Google conglomerate. But by that time nobody is using the Google client, they've all switched to Gaim, Trillian, Adium and half a dozen others. And they all talk MSN as well. Google starts using all that dark fibre they've been buying and using their existing relationships with the big carriers to offer *really cheap* IM-voice to POTS interconnect. And as well as your 2Gb of gmail you can have 2Gb of voice ad video mail.

The confusion in this starts with the Google, Jabber server interconnect. If they give this up, they can't maintain the lock on the customer. But if they don't do it, there'll be a lot of complaints. Then there's the question of whether they can ship early and ship often. Even if they expect lots of people to use 3rd party clients, they really need a reference implementation. Having a lead GAIM programmer on board ought to help here. But I don't see any evidence of Google being able to build and ship client side software. And right now Googletalk is still just a proof of concept. August 23, 2005 when Googletalk launched seems a long time ago now. Where's v0.2?