Late last week Facebook fired the first shot in the coming war between Big Media and Big Tech. In response to legislation that passed Australia's House of Representatives, but had not yet become law, that would require Facebook to pay Australian media companies anytime anyone linked to, or shared, an article from a news organization […]
Ars Technica reported earlier this week that a Texas family is suing Apple after a driver using the company's FaceTime app smashed into the family's Toyota Camry and killed 5-year-old Moriah Modisette. The family claims that Apple should've made its software so that it could not be used if the phone's built-in GPS detected that the user […]
For those who come here for politics, sorry, but this one is videogame related. Originally posted at majornelson.com. When I saw Microsoft's announcement of "no rentals, you can lend a game to a friend only once, no private party transfers" I thought surely the only reason they're doing this is because Sony's worked out a […]
I wasn’t going to get into the whole SOPA/PIPA debate because you were supposed to change the flag on your Web site and only talk about the possibility of hollywood studios, recording companies and their over-bored lawyers shutting down Web sites without just cause, prior review, an opportunity to plead your case etc. I’m too […]
UPDATE & BUMPED Google’s motto is famously “Don’t Be Evil”—they’re failing miserably. For the record, I chastised Google—civilly—in a response to this thread, which was promptly flushed down the memory hole. Nitecruzr—whoever he is—has all the makings of a little thug. UPDATE I've apparently paid for my intervention on Althouse's part. Patterico is reporting that […]
Back when I was in high school, a friend of mine named Matt Sobke spent about $3,000 on a car stereo system. Now, this was the late ‘80s, so figure that a similar system nowadays would be somewhere in the $10,000 range. Matt played bass clarinet in the band and liked to drive up and […]
I follow tech news pretty closely, but I had missed this news for all of you who, like me, picked the wrong horse in the HD-DVD/Blu-Ray battle. (After the Betamax fiasco, really, who could blame me when Sony came out with another proprietary format that was more expensive and provided only a nominal benefit over […]
The Chief Operating Officer of Revision3 -- some Silicon Valley company -- had his home broken into last night. While he was at home. While he was awake. So what does this guy do? He Twitters the break-in. And then sets up a video feed. He doesn't call the cops. He doesn't shoot the guy. […]
The higher-ups at the Associated Press have got to be the biggest much of morons in the world. It's bad enough that they paid and defended a terrorist-sympathizing photographer, but last weekend they were stupid enough to issue a Digital Milennium Copyright Act takedown notice to the Drudge Retort for using bits of some of […]
It's amazing what really smart people can accomplish when they put their minds to it. Appearing at the All Things D conference, inventor Dean Kaman shows off the replacement arm he is developing primarily for troops who have been wounded in the war on terrorism. There's a touching moment about half-way through where Kamen shows […]