Apple managed to get 1.7m iPhone 4's out the door on launch, that's pretty impressive for any phone let alone one that costs £499 or £599 for the 16GB or 32GB versions respectively (admittedly unlocked versions). It's even more impressive considering it took them 3 days to sell 1m 3GS phones in 2009, while the original iPhone took 72 days to sell 1m units.
Though Google recently made a big song and dance about operators selling 160,000 Android based phones per day and though they did grow in terms of market share to 10.6%, Apple grew to 15.4%.
Whatever pills Apple are taking, they seem to be on the right medication and can still push out a world leading product even if the signal reception drops when holding the phone.
30 Haziran 2010 Çarşamba
Product Placement about to hit a TV near you?
Ofcom the regulator which deals with broadcasters amongst its many remits has today (28/06/2010) published a consultation on product placement in television. Currently no product placement is allowed at all, but it's likely this will change.
There are still various type of programming where product placement will be not allowed (such as news programs) and some factual programming, but pretty much any other type will be allowed. The separation between editorial and advertising will become more blurred in line with EU legislation. When a program contains product placement, there will be an audio and visual cue (a neutral logo) to indicate it. Ofcom have not yet decided how they should handle story lines that are written specifically to promote products.
Ofcom recently published a statement on VoD players and this implies that they will subject to the same product placement conditions.
The consultation closes on 17/09/2010 and stakeholders may respond on-line (which doesn't seem to be working) or via Email.
There are still various type of programming where product placement will be not allowed (such as news programs) and some factual programming, but pretty much any other type will be allowed. The separation between editorial and advertising will become more blurred in line with EU legislation. When a program contains product placement, there will be an audio and visual cue (a neutral logo) to indicate it. Ofcom have not yet decided how they should handle story lines that are written specifically to promote products.
Ofcom recently published a statement on VoD players and this implies that they will subject to the same product placement conditions.
The consultation closes on 17/09/2010 and stakeholders may respond on-line (which doesn't seem to be working) or via Email.
19 Haziran 2010 Cumartesi
Freedom4 gets sold to UK BroadbandFreedom4 was one of the two operators in the UK with licensed spectrum that were trying to operate a WiMAX network who were sold to the second operator UK Broadband (a subsidiary of PCCW which is owned by Hong Kong Telecom) for £12.5m. The sale came about as Freedom4 was involved in a reverse takeover of Vialtus which later became part of Daisy Telecom, but WiMAX was not part of Daisy's core business.
Freedom4 was one of the two operators in the UK with licensed spectrum that were trying to operate a WiMAX network who were sold to the second operator UK Broadband (a subsidiary of PCCW which is owned by Hong Kong Telecom) for £12.5m. The sale came about as Freedom4 was involved in a reverse takeover of Vialtus which later became part of Daisy Telecom, but WiMAX was not part of Daisy's core business.
Freedom4 used to be what was known as Pipex Wireless, which was separated from the Pipex group when Pipex was sold to Tiscali and became Freedom4 (with some cash from Intel Capital). Freedom4 has two blocks of 84MHz of spectrum in the 3.6GHz t0 4.2GHz bands while UK Broadband has spectrum in the 3.4GHz band.
WiMAX has not faired particularly well in the UK. It was meant to be the saviour in terms of rural broadband but backhaul costs have limited the size of the WiMAX wireless roll-outs (combined with BT installing wired broadband to most parts of the country) so the costs of wireless have tended to be greater than those of wired broadband and the wireless speeds have not been that great.
UK Broadband may be able to leverage the assets of both companies and now use WiMAX for both end-user connections and for wireless backhaul reducing their need for expensive wired connectivity between sites.
The great hope for WiMAX was the auctioning of the 2.6GHz band which was initially meant to take place in 2007 but has been hampered with regulatory issues and is now unlikely to be available before 2011. There was speculation that BT would bid for this spectrum to offer 3G services in urban areas and WiMAX wireless broadband to the rural areas. This is now less likely to be attractive in terms of WiMAX anyway as LTE (a 4G technology) is likely to be prevalent before the spectrum is actually made available.
Freedom4 used to be what was known as Pipex Wireless, which was separated from the Pipex group when Pipex was sold to Tiscali and became Freedom4 (with some cash from Intel Capital). Freedom4 has two blocks of 84MHz of spectrum in the 3.6GHz t0 4.2GHz bands while UK Broadband has spectrum in the 3.4GHz band.
WiMAX has not faired particularly well in the UK. It was meant to be the saviour in terms of rural broadband but backhaul costs have limited the size of the WiMAX wireless roll-outs (combined with BT installing wired broadband to most parts of the country) so the costs of wireless have tended to be greater than those of wired broadband and the wireless speeds have not been that great.
UK Broadband may be able to leverage the assets of both companies and now use WiMAX for both end-user connections and for wireless backhaul reducing their need for expensive wired connectivity between sites.
The great hope for WiMAX was the auctioning of the 2.6GHz band which was initially meant to take place in 2007 but has been hampered with regulatory issues and is now unlikely to be available before 2011. There was speculation that BT would bid for this spectrum to offer 3G services in urban areas and WiMAX wireless broadband to the rural areas. This is now less likely to be attractive in terms of WiMAX anyway as LTE (a 4G technology) is likely to be prevalent before the spectrum is actually made available.
16 Haziran 2010 Çarşamba
NY Times: In Oval Office Speech, Obama Calls for New Focus on Energy Policy
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/06/16/us/politics/16obama.html?th=&emc=th&pagewanted=print
By HELENE COOPER and JACKIE CALMES
WASHINGTON — President Obama summoned Americans on Tuesday to a “national mission” to move away from reliance on oil and develop alternative sources of energy, casting the massive oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico as an imperative for Congress to act quickly to overcome “a lack of political courage and candor.”
Speaking to a national television audience for the first time from the Oval Office, Mr. Obama also promised a long-term plan to make sure that the gulf states suffering from the oil spill are made whole again. He said he was appointing Ray Mabus, the secretary of the Navy and the former governor of Mississippi, to develop a Gulf Coast restoration plan in cooperation with states, local communities, tribes, fishermen, conservationists and gulf residents.
Even as Mr. Obama was preparing his speech, the government on Tuesday released a new estimate of the amount of oil flowing from the well. It said as much as 60,000 barrels could be spewing into the Gulf of Mexico each day, a sharp increase over the estimate last week of 25,000 to 30,000 barrels a day.
The new estimate, reflecting the increased oil flow that began after a pipe was deliberately cut to help capture some of the oil coming from the well, continues a pattern in which every new estimate has been sharply higher than the one before. With the broken well’s owner, BP, capturing roughly 15,000 barrels a day, the new estimate suggests that as much as 45,000 barrels a day is escaping into the gulf, punctuating the scale of the substantive and political problems facing Mr. Obama.
“Today, as we look to the gulf, we see an entire way of life being threatened by a menacing cloud of black crude,” Mr. Obama said. “We cannot consign our children to this future. The tragedy unfolding on our coast is the most painful and powerful reminder yet that the time to embrace a clean energy future is now.”
Mr. Obama’s 18-minute address, delivered at his desk, took place in an atmosphere far different from the crowded campaign rallies and international university halls where he has produced some of his most soaring speeches. This time, Mr. Obama, wearing a dark blue suit and light blue tie, struck a solemn but hopeful tone, invoked military terminology to create a sense of urgency around his response to the crisis, and spoke of the American ingenuity he said was needed to help the country rein in its reliance on oil.
He said he had authorized the use of 17,000 National Guard members to help with the cleanup effort, but only a small number have actually been dispatched by the governors in the region even though Mr. Obama has said that BP will pick up the cost. He also continued to strike an adversarial tone toward BP.
“We will fight this spill with everything we’ve got for as long as it takes,” he said. “We will make BP pay for the damage their company has caused. And we will do whatever is necessary to help the Gulf Coast and its people recover from this tragedy.”
Seizing on the widening calamity in the Gulf of Mexico to push for legislation he has advocated since his campaign, Mr. Obama said he was willing to look at approaches from Republicans as well as Democrats, including raising efficiency standards for buildings as well as cars and trucks.
He said progress had been blocked time and time again by “oil industry lobbyists,” and he suggested that achieving energy independence was an issue of national security, saying the time has come for the United States to “seize control of our own destiny.”
But, he warned: “The one approach I will not accept is inaction. The one answer I will not settle for is the idea that this challenge is too big and too difficult to meet.”
Mr. Obama delivered the speech the evening before he was to meet at the White House with the top executives of BP to demand that they agree to establish an independently administered escrow account of billions of dollars to pay claims stemming from the disaster.
He said he would inform the chairman of BP’s board, Carl-Henric Svanberg, “that he is to set aside whatever resources are required to compensate the workers and business owners who have been harmed as a result of his company’s recklessness.”
Lawyers at the White House and for BP have been negotiating for days about an escrow account. While Mr. Obama has not put a figure on the account, Senate Democrats have called for $20 billion.
BP released a statement after Mr. Obama’s address. “We share the president’s goal of shutting off the well as quickly as possible, cleaning up the oil and mitigating the impact on the people and environment of the Gulf Coast,” the company said from London. “We look forward to meeting with President Obama tomorrow for a constructive discussion about how best to achieve these mutual goals.”
Mr. Obama also moved to address one of the weaknesses exposed by the spill, lax oversight from the agency with the most direct authority to regulate offshore drilling, the Interior Department’s Minerals Management Service. He said he had named Michael R. Bromwich, a former Justice Department prosecutor and inspector general, to restructure the agency to make it a tougher regulator.
Administration officials said the speech marked “an inflection point” in the nearly two-month-old crisis: the end of a phase in which BP tried and failed to stop the leak using the quickest available options, and the beginning of the “new reality” that plugging the leak could take months and the cleanup months or even years past that.
The new estimate for the amount of oil spewing from the well is far above the figure of 5,000 barrels a day that the government and BP clung to for weeks after the spill began. It reflects a possible increase in the flow rate that occurred after BP cut an underwater pipe called a riser on June 3 to install a new device to capture part of the oil.
It is based on new information, including high-resolution video made after the riser cut, and on pressure readings taken by a device that was inserted this week into the equipment at the sea floor. Energy Secretary Steven Chu, a Nobel Prize-winning scientist, was personally involved in using those pressure readings to help make the latest calculation.
“This estimate brings together several scientific methodologies and the latest information from the sea floor, and represents a significant step forward in our effort to put a number on the oil that is escaping from BP’s well,” Secretary Chu said in a statement. “As we continue to collect additional data and refine these estimates, it is important to realize that the numbers can change.”
The company has proven in recent days that it can capture roughly 15,000 barrels of oil a day, though the operation was interrupted briefly on Tuesday by a small fire after the Discoverer Enterprise drilling ship was apparently struck by lightning.
BP has outlined plans to deploy new equipment so that it can capture a minimum of 40,000 barrels a day by the end of June, and a minimum of 60,000 barrels a day by mid-July.
If the new range of flow estimates proves correct, and if BP is ultimately found guilty of gross negligence in actions it took that led to the Deepwater Horizon disaster, that would mean the company could be assessed fines of up to $258 million a day. Those fines could come on top of payments for cleanup costs and economic damage to Gulf Coast businesses.
Fearful that the spill could ultimately cost BP tens of billions of dollars, investors have driven the company’s market valuation down by 48 percent since the spill began, erasing $91 billion of shareholder value. BP shares rose more than 2 percent during regular trading on Tuesday, but then gave up all that gain and more in after-hours trading.
Mr. Obama has said all along that BP will pay for everything. People close to BP said that as asset-rich as the global oil giant is, its holdings are not so liquid that it can instantly set aside as many billions of dollars as the White House and leaders in Congress are seeking. Also being worked out are the terms by which BP would have to replenish the fund as it is drawn down.
BP officials are adamant that the company should not be liable for the lost wages of oil workers laid off because of the six-month moratorium that the Obama administration imposed on deepwater offshore drilling after the Deepwater Horizon explosion and fire. But Interior Secretary Ken Salazar and other administration officials repeatedly have cited idled oil workers as among those who could press claims.
7 Haziran 2010 Pazartesi
Sunscreen and Skin Cancer?
By Guest Writer: Lorraine LoBianco
Think slathering on a little sunscreen keeps you safe from skin cancer? Think again! Recently, the Environmental Working Group, self-described as “a nonprofit research organization based in Washington, DC that uses the power of information to protect human health and the environment,” released its 4th annual report on sunscreen safety. Of the 500 products tested by the EWG, only 39 – a mere 8 percent – were deemed safe enough to be recommended.
According to the EWG, certain ingredients in sunscreens are actually hazardous and could increase the chance of skin cancer. Retinyl palmitate – a form of vitamin A - is found in 41 percent of sunscreens. Currently, it is being investigated by the FDA, whose data suggests that it is photocarcinogenic. When exposed to the sun’s ultraviolet rays, “the compound and skin undergo complex biochemical changes resulting in cancer. The evidence against vitamin A is not conclusive, but as long as it is suspect, EWG recommends that consumers choose vitamin A-free sunscreens.” Oxybenzone is also found in both sunscreens and lip balms. It is “a hormone-disrupting compound that penetrates the skin and enters the bloodstream. Biomonitoring surveys conducted by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention have detected oxybenzone in the bodies of 97 percent of Americans tested.”
Just as dangerous are inflated claims of SPF ratings, which “sell a false sense of security because most people using them stay out in the sun longer, still get burned (which increases risk of skin cancer) and subject their skin to large amounts of UVA radiation, the type of sunlight that does not burn but is believed responsible for considerable skin damage and cancer. High SPF products, which protect against sunburn, often provide very little protection against UVA radiation. Also, most people don't get the high SPF they pay for: people apply about a quarter of the recommended amount. In everyday practice, a product labeled SPF 100 really performs like SPF 3.2, an SPF 30 rating equates to a 2.3 and an SPF 15 translates to 2.
"Many sunscreens available in the U.S. may be the equivalent of modern-day snake oil, plying customers with claims of broad-spectrum protection but not providing it, while exposing people to potentially hazardous chemicals that can penetrate the skin into the body," said Jane Houlihan, EWG Senior Vice President for Research. "When only 8 percent of sunscreens rate high for safety and efficacy, it's clear that consumers concerned about protecting themselves and their families are left with few good options."
The FDA promised final regulation on sunscreens back in 1978, but has yet to implement. October 2010 is the proposed date, but manufacturers will have at least a year or more to comply with new rules, so safer sunscreens will not be available in the United States until 2012. As Houlihan states, "Both world wars, the creation of Medicare and the planning and execution of the moon landing combined took less time to achieve than FDA's promised sunscreen regulations," said Houlihan. "Meanwhile, more than one million cases of skin cancer are diagnosed in the U.S. every year. This could be the poster child for government inaction."
So, what can you do to protect yourself against sun exposure until then? Hats, clothing and shade are still your best options, but not always practical. Gratitude Gourmet took a look at the list of products recommended by the EWG and found one company in particular, the W.S. Badger Company, who not only scored in the top 10 but who are also eco-friendly, organic, and do not test on animals.
A “family run, family friendly business located on the banks of the Ashuelot River in rural Gilsum, New Hampshire, USA,” Badger was founded by the Whyte family: Bill, Katie and daughters Mia, Emily and Rebecca, in their kitchen in 1995 when Bill, a carpenter and herbalist “could never find a product to heal his rough, dry, cracked hands—the result of daily hard work in the tough New Hampshire winters. Bill whipped up a batch of the original Healing Balm in his kitchen using Extra Virgin Olive Oil, Beeswax, Castor Oil, Aloe Vera and Essential Oil of Sweet Birch—a traditional New England herbal remedy. The result was astounding: a simple, all-natural, soothing and healing balm that really worked! And a company was born. A team of about 40 friendly badgers formulates, manufactures, and ships almost all of the products from our facility, known as The Badger Mines. Badger works hard to create a healthy business with ethical and charitable principles. Call and ask any employee. You’ll hear about our free organic lunches, green initiatives in every department and our charitable giving practices—not to mention our lunchtime full-contact badminton games!”
Their mission is “to create fabulously pure and effective products of the highest natural quality, based on simplicity and thoughtful preparation, with the intention to soothe and heal.
To run a business that is fun, fair and profitable; where money is fuel, not a goal; and where our vision for a healthier world finds expression through the way we work and through the way we treat each other and the people we serve.”
Badger products are “super-safe, super-comforting blends of fresh, whole, organic, extra-virgin oils, waxes, exotic butters, herbal extracts & pure essential oils. And nothing else! No chemicals, synthetics, parabens, GMOs or any of the other dubious stuff you’ve read so much about. Just good, wholesome, blends of concentrated goodness. We have also gone Certified Organic!”
The company’s principles are likewise impressive: “individual responsibility in a team concept, supporting organic, sustainable agriculture through our purchasing practices, a business environment that is respectful and supportive of all employees, and of the people we serve, personal and social healing through our charitable giving, environmental responsibility, honesty and integrity in our business practices, and fun is good.”
Badger is obviously a company that takes its environmental efforts seriously. An entire page, entitled “How Green is Badger” is devoted to their business practices, including recycling, composting, organic buying, no animal testing, regular review of each of their supplier’s practices with regard to sustainability, hiring local artists and businesses, seeking to use only ethically sourced ingredients, the use of compact fluorescent CF light bulbs, reducing paper in the offices, using 100% recycled paper that is Forest Stewardship Council certified, encouraging electronic faxing to computers, and the use of only biodegradable cleaning supplies and post consumer waste paper products. All employees use non-disposable utensils, glasses and plates, all materials that cannot be reused are recycled. Their product tins are from 89% post consumer recycled “tin plated steel,” which are 100% recyclable (but customers are encouraged to reuse them). Store display boxes are made from 100% recyclable newspaper and are clay coated, products are shipped in previously-used boxes when possible, and are packed in recyclable and biodegradable material.
Looking ahead, Badger is planning their new facility to include generating some of their own electricity, purchasing remaining electricity from renewable sources and “super insulating and building sensibly” to eliminate the need for climate control.
Badger employees are given a chef-cooked, 100% organic free lunch each day, using local produce through their share with an organic certified Community Supported Agriculture (CSA) program, and are paid to volunteer with community and environmental projects. 10% of Badger’s before tax profits or $10,000 (whichever is greater) is donated to non-profit organizations supporting children, education, their local community and peace.
“The W.S. Badger Co. takes our role in climate change very seriously. We recognize that as an industry leader we are responsible for taking action and setting a positive example for others. We are currently working towards drafting a comprehensive position and plan of action to address this issue.”
The Badger products singled out by the EWG as recommended are: Sunscreen for Face and Body, Unscented, SPF 30, Sunscreen for Face and Body, SPF 30 Lightly Scented, and Sunscreen for Face and Body, SPF 15 Lightly Scented. Other products available from Badger include aromatherapy, body butter, soaps, lip balm, and baby and kids’ products. All of these can be purchased either at Badger’s website (in the USA only) or at the following retailers:
Cracker Barrel
H-E-B Stores
Henry’s
New Season’s Market
Pharmaca
REI
Sprout’s
Sunflower Markets
Ulta
Vitamin Cottage
Wegman’s
Whole Foods
Want to read the EWG report for yourself? http://www.ewg.org/
For more information or to purchase Badger products http://www.badgerbalm.com/
2 Haziran 2010 Çarşamba
Open WIFi is already problematic without any DEAct implications
There's been varied article and Twitter coverage of Ofcom warning that people offering free WiFi are going to be classified as 'subscribers" under the Digital Economy Act (DEA) so they will have copyright infringement notices sent to them rather than their users.
Ofcom's code of practice for the DEA says that they will only regard an ISP as someone with more than 400,000 customers i.e. only covering the big players which cover over 90% of the UK's broadband users. ISPs have to deal with sending notices to users and if necessary cutting them off.
Ofcom have chosen the figure of 400,000 as it makes life easier for everyone, however they can reduce that figure to 1 if smaller players are also consistently having users that share copyrighted data.
Therefore people have seen offering WiFi services as a get-out so that they're classified as an ISP rather than a subscriber as by offering a service to a 3rd party, the DEA defines you as an ISP.
Ofcom have obviously seen the whole in the definition, so they are saying WiFi must be offered as part of a service to be classified as an ISP. So say a coffee establishment can offer WiFi as part of their service as they are charging for the coffee (as could a pub or anyone charging for services including those charging for WiFi services).
Charging for WiFi makes life a lot easier as then you generally know who your users are (or at least have a billing relationship with them, which means Ofcom or the Police have somewhere to start if the user does something wrong).
Offering free WiFi was thought to be another way to get out of the DEA, unfortunately Ofcom have chosen to take the opinion that then the WiFi isn't part of a service which means the ISP excuse cant be used and any copyright infringement notices will be sent to the WiFi operator themselves.
The last section is what's causing people to get upset. However it has ALWAYS been an issue. Altruistic WiFi may sound good on paper, but not knowing who your users are has implecations under the law.
Imagine an open WiFi access point and someone uploads child porn to a known site which the Police monitor. Child porn is illegal (rightly so) and the Police take a dim view of it. So they track where the porn was uploaded from and lo and behold it's appeared from the user running the open WiFi access. The user in question denies all knowledge of the offence as they have an open access point. The Police on the other hand don't quite see their point of view, all the know is that child porn was uploaded from the user's network so the confiscate all their computer hardware - EVERYTHING.
Eventually, after it's gone into the queue of a Police forensics lab (many months), the Police may drop the charges as they find no traces of the child porn on the computers and have discovered the access point is configured as open. Of course they may decide there's other content of a suspicious nature and the user must be good at erasing their data as they are technical, so it may go the other way.
As a technical household there may be many computers, media units, servers, hard drives etc. They will ALL be confiscated and the more there are, the longer the case will take.
(The above has actually happened to an acquaintance)
Now that's just part of it, it's not just the process of uploading child porn (though that's a worst case scenario) the Communications Act covers WiFi etc. It's just that using WiFi as an excuse to get around DEA issues isn't going to work and copyright infringement is probably going to happen more than child porn offences and Ofcom are rightly showing that it's an issue.
Going back to the Communications Act, ANYONE offering communications services is classified an Electronic Communications Network or ECN under the Act. An ECN has obligation under the Act (everybody offering communications services has read the Act and knows their obligations of course - ignorance is not an excuse in the eyes of the law).
If the communications services are offered to the public, they are then considered an Public Electronic Communications Network or PECN which has even more obligations than an ECN.
Mostly it doesn't matter, as Ofcom are never going to go around to everyone who is an ECN and ensure that they're compliant. However they could. Currently only big telcos or ISPs pay fees to Ofcom (they have a turn-over greater than some point set by Ofcom), but if WiFi operators become an issue, they can just say that they'll impose a fee on all ECNs or PECNs or those that meet whatever criteria.
So the issues of open WiFi have been understood for a long time, it's just now Ofcom saying "that under this new law we're not exempting open WiFi users and they have to take responsibility for their networks as the law says they should anyway"
Ofcom's code of practice for the DEA says that they will only regard an ISP as someone with more than 400,000 customers i.e. only covering the big players which cover over 90% of the UK's broadband users. ISPs have to deal with sending notices to users and if necessary cutting them off.
Ofcom have chosen the figure of 400,000 as it makes life easier for everyone, however they can reduce that figure to 1 if smaller players are also consistently having users that share copyrighted data.
Therefore people have seen offering WiFi services as a get-out so that they're classified as an ISP rather than a subscriber as by offering a service to a 3rd party, the DEA defines you as an ISP.
Ofcom have obviously seen the whole in the definition, so they are saying WiFi must be offered as part of a service to be classified as an ISP. So say a coffee establishment can offer WiFi as part of their service as they are charging for the coffee (as could a pub or anyone charging for services including those charging for WiFi services).
Charging for WiFi makes life a lot easier as then you generally know who your users are (or at least have a billing relationship with them, which means Ofcom or the Police have somewhere to start if the user does something wrong).
Offering free WiFi was thought to be another way to get out of the DEA, unfortunately Ofcom have chosen to take the opinion that then the WiFi isn't part of a service which means the ISP excuse cant be used and any copyright infringement notices will be sent to the WiFi operator themselves.
The last section is what's causing people to get upset. However it has ALWAYS been an issue. Altruistic WiFi may sound good on paper, but not knowing who your users are has implecations under the law.
Imagine an open WiFi access point and someone uploads child porn to a known site which the Police monitor. Child porn is illegal (rightly so) and the Police take a dim view of it. So they track where the porn was uploaded from and lo and behold it's appeared from the user running the open WiFi access. The user in question denies all knowledge of the offence as they have an open access point. The Police on the other hand don't quite see their point of view, all the know is that child porn was uploaded from the user's network so the confiscate all their computer hardware - EVERYTHING.
Eventually, after it's gone into the queue of a Police forensics lab (many months), the Police may drop the charges as they find no traces of the child porn on the computers and have discovered the access point is configured as open. Of course they may decide there's other content of a suspicious nature and the user must be good at erasing their data as they are technical, so it may go the other way.
As a technical household there may be many computers, media units, servers, hard drives etc. They will ALL be confiscated and the more there are, the longer the case will take.
(The above has actually happened to an acquaintance)
Now that's just part of it, it's not just the process of uploading child porn (though that's a worst case scenario) the Communications Act covers WiFi etc. It's just that using WiFi as an excuse to get around DEA issues isn't going to work and copyright infringement is probably going to happen more than child porn offences and Ofcom are rightly showing that it's an issue.
Going back to the Communications Act, ANYONE offering communications services is classified an Electronic Communications Network or ECN under the Act. An ECN has obligation under the Act (everybody offering communications services has read the Act and knows their obligations of course - ignorance is not an excuse in the eyes of the law).
If the communications services are offered to the public, they are then considered an Public Electronic Communications Network or PECN which has even more obligations than an ECN.
Mostly it doesn't matter, as Ofcom are never going to go around to everyone who is an ECN and ensure that they're compliant. However they could. Currently only big telcos or ISPs pay fees to Ofcom (they have a turn-over greater than some point set by Ofcom), but if WiFi operators become an issue, they can just say that they'll impose a fee on all ECNs or PECNs or those that meet whatever criteria.
So the issues of open WiFi have been understood for a long time, it's just now Ofcom saying "that under this new law we're not exempting open WiFi users and they have to take responsibility for their networks as the law says they should anyway"
1 Haziran 2010 Salı
It's all go with MeeGo (for netbooks anyway)
Nokia have announced the availability of MeeGo v1.0 for netbook type devices. MeeGo is the Linux based OS that is the combined efforts of Nokia's Maemo and Intel's MobLin.
The main features are: -
* Visually rich Netbook user experience, building on the latest open source technologies.
* Instant access to your synchronized calendar, tasks, appointments, recently used files and real-time social networking updates through the home screen.
* Aggregation of your social networking content. This allows you to see your social networking activities on one screen, easily interact with your friends, and update your status and site information.
* Easy to use applications for email, calendar and media player.
* Highly optimized for power and performance.
* Languages: Japanese, Korean, Chinese Simplified, Chinese Traditional, Swedish, Polish, Finnish, Italian, Brazilian Portuguese, French, German, Spanish, Russian, Dutch, English, British English
The release comes in two version, one fully open source using Google's Chromium browser and one where the end-user has to agree to Google's EULA for Google Chrome.
The core platform (which is common to all releases) contains: -
* Kernel based on 2.6.33
* DeviceKit and udev for interacting with hardware devices
* Modern 2D / 3D graphics stack including Kernel Mode Setting, non-root X
* Voice and data connectivity with Connman connection manager, Ofono telephony stack and BlueZ Bluetooth
* Qt 4.6
* Universal Plug and Play (gUPnP)
* Media frameworks
* Next generation file system BTRFS, as the default file system
Nokia have also quietly released a version for the N900 smartphone, though Nokia will continue to support Maemo as the "officially" supported N900 OS. It also seems there are ports of MeeGo to the N8x0 units too.
The main features are: -
* Visually rich Netbook user experience, building on the latest open source technologies.
* Instant access to your synchronized calendar, tasks, appointments, recently used files and real-time social networking updates through the home screen.
* Aggregation of your social networking content. This allows you to see your social networking activities on one screen, easily interact with your friends, and update your status and site information.
* Easy to use applications for email, calendar and media player.
* Highly optimized for power and performance.
* Languages: Japanese, Korean, Chinese Simplified, Chinese Traditional, Swedish, Polish, Finnish, Italian, Brazilian Portuguese, French, German, Spanish, Russian, Dutch, English, British English
The release comes in two version, one fully open source using Google's Chromium browser and one where the end-user has to agree to Google's EULA for Google Chrome.
The core platform (which is common to all releases) contains: -
* Kernel based on 2.6.33
* DeviceKit and udev for interacting with hardware devices
* Modern 2D / 3D graphics stack including Kernel Mode Setting, non-root X
* Voice and data connectivity with Connman connection manager, Ofono telephony stack and BlueZ Bluetooth
* Qt 4.6
* Universal Plug and Play (gUPnP)
* Media frameworks
* Next generation file system BTRFS, as the default file system
Nokia have also quietly released a version for the N900 smartphone, though Nokia will continue to support Maemo as the "officially" supported N900 OS. It also seems there are ports of MeeGo to the N8x0 units too.