South Carolina Attorney General still fights Craigslist
Earlier this year, Craigslist came under fire from several different parties for its "erotic services" section. First it was singled out by Cook County Illinois Sheriff Thomas Dart in March, and then in May, South Carolina Attorney General Henry McMaster did the same.
McMaster sent Craigslist CEO Jim Buckmaster a letter demanding that he remove sections of the South Carolina Craigslist site "which contain categories for and functions allowing for the solicitation of prostitution and the dissemination and posting of graphic pornographic material" within ten days of receiving his letter or face criminal investigation and prosecution.
WiMAX Forum opens 2.3 GHz certification process
For most of the world, WiMAX resides in the 3.5 GHz block of spectrum, but in the U.S., it encompasses the 2.3 and 2.5 GHz frequencies. The most famous WiMAX deployments -- those by Clearwire and Sprint -- are all licensed in the 2.5 GHz block of spectrum. But there have been very few deployments in the 2.3 GHz frequency. Even though it has been allocated to Wireless Communication Services (WCS) since 1997, buildouts in that range have been very limited because of a major conflict with Sirius and XM satellite radio.
Satellite radio employs thousands of terrestrial repeaters which were FCC compliant, but due to uncertainty in technical requirements in FCC regulation, were found in 2006 to have serious potential interference problems in 2.3 GHz WiMAX transmissions. Companies such as AT&T, BellSouth, Comcast, Sprint, and NextWave had 2007 construction deadlines on their 2.3 GHz licenses, which the FCC then pushed back to July 2010 after hearings with the WCS Coalition and Sirius and XM.
Apple updates Final Cut, Logic
Today, Apple's professional video and audio production suites entered their next generation, with Final Cut Pro 7 and Logic Pro 9.
In keeping with Apple's latest price-cutting trend, the newest version of Final Cut Studio is $300 cheaper than its predecessors, and includes more than 100 new feature upgrades and support for more high quality output formats, including AVC-Intra, XDCAM 422, and ProRes 4444.
Amazon buys customer-focused Zappos for $880 million
Today, Amazon announced that it will be acquiring popular Internet clothing and footwear store Zappos.com for approximately $807 million. The closing price of Zappo's stock will actually drive the deal up to around $880 million when it closes this fall. Additionally, Zappos employees will receive $40 million in cash and restricted stock. The company was voted #23 in Fortune's Hundred best companies to work for in 2009 poll.
Zappos will retain the same management team that's helped the brand get as popular as it has. The company's CEO, Tony Hsieh issued a statement today saying, "Over the next few days, you will probably read headlines that say 'Amazon acquires Zappos' or 'Zappos sells to Amazon'. While those headlines are technically correct, they don't really properly convey the spirit of the transaction. (I personally would prefer the headline 'Zappos and Amazon sitting in a tree...') We plan to continue to run Zappos the way we have always run Zappos -- continuing to do what we believe is best for our brand, our culture, and our business. From a practical point of view, it will be as if we are switching out our current shareholders and board of directors for a new one, even though the technical legal structure may be different."
Microsoft releases Expression 3
When Silverlight 3 debuted nearly two weeks ago, Microsoft also premiered the release candidate of Expression Blend 3 with SketchFlow, a new interface prototyping tool, and one of the premier features of Expression Studio. Microsoft promised that the rest of the Expression family would be delivered in 30 days.
Just ahead of schedule, Microsoft today announced that all of its Expression 3 products are now available for download, including updates to Expression Web, Design, and Encoder.
Pakistan: Send an 'indecent' text, go to jail
Pakistan's new Cyber Crime Act has come into force and includes provisions that make "indecent, provocative and ill-motivated and concocted stories through e-mails and text messages against the civilian leadership and security forces" a criminal offense.
The Act is very similar to the Prevention of Electronic Crimes Ordinance (PDF available here) introduced by the Musharraf regime in 2007, which put the country's Federal Investigation Agency (FIA) in charge of investigation and enforcement of electronic fraud, forgery, data theft, cyberstalking, and cyber-terrorism.
Seven years later, 802.11n approaches finalization
Wireless-N draft users, get ready for a router firmware update because rumor has it that the IEEE has sent its latest 802.11n draft standard off to the Standards Board Review Committee (RevCom), which reviews draft proposals for their final vote on standardization. If this were a roller coaster, this would be the slow hill climb before the final drop. RevCom's quarterly meeting will be from September 9 - 11, and if approved, the final vote could take place in November.
The first draft of the multi-antenna wireless standard took nearly two years to complete, and it was promptly shot down in the first vote. While it is typical for the earliest versions of a standard to not make it far in the standardization process, IEEE hadn't anticipated the flood of almost 12,000 comments on the first ballot, meaning the process of revision had the potential to be long and arduous.
iPhone sales skyrocket in Q3
In Apple's earnings call today, it became a little more obvious why iPhone user disgust over AT&T's network has become so much more prevalent: because there are 700% more iPhones out there to complain about.
In addition to Apple's near record-breaking Mac sales last quarter, iPhone sales jumped an astronomical 736% over last year. In the third quarter in 2008, Apple sold 717,000 iPhones for a total of $419 million; this year it sold 5.2 million and pulled down $1.6 billion in total iPhone revenue.
Apple: 'We can't build a great $399 computer'
Apple has posted its earnings for the third quarter of the 2009 fiscal year, which amounted (once again) to the best non-holiday quarter in Apple's history. The company's revenue grew 12% over last year to a total of $8.34 billion, with a net profit of $1.23 billion.
During the quarter, Apple saw record-setting adoption of Macs and iPhones by consumers, thanks in large part to the price cuts on the lower end of both lines. Wall Street anticipated a 3% contraction in Mac sales, but the company actually grew by 4% over last year, with a surge in sales taking place after the WWDC price cut announcements. During the quarter, 2.6 million Macs were sold, nearly meeting the company's all-time quarterly sales record.
'Legit' Pirate Bay's future in doubt
The Pirate Bay's $7.8 million acquisition by Swedish software company Global Gaming Factory could fall through after all, reports are now saying.
When the acquisition was announced in late May, Global Gaming Factory said it intended to re-launch the Pirate Bay under new business models "that allow compensation to the content providers and copyright owners." Last week, a little more depth was given to the Pirate Bay's potential revenue model by former Grokster CEO Wayne Rosso, who called it the "Resource Supported Model."
The tipping point: iPhone users turn against AT&T
The iPhone crowd has turned into an anti-AT&T mob. Spend 30 seconds on Twitter or perform even the most basic search for iPhone and AT&T information and you're sure to run into some serious rancor from disgusted iPhone users across the country. While the exclusive partnership between Cupertino and the Dallas teleco has never been perfect, user hostility has lately been at a fevered pitch.
In February of this year, prominent blogger Om Malik announced he was "breaking up" with his iPhone. "I love my iPhone -- but AT&T's network has failed me. Apparently I'm not alone. If you follow me on Twitter, then you know how often I complain about it; my complaints always result in me receiving similar messages of frustration from other iPhone users. A status update on my Facebook page on the topic unleashed a flood of messages from people expressing abhorrence of AT&T's service."
Fourth major US WiMAX deployment launches today
Right on schedule, the latest Clear WiMAX network has launched, bringing 4G wireless coverage to 638 square miles of Sin City. Clearwire detailed its plans for Summer launches in Atlanta and Las Vegas in early May. Today, Clearwire recapitulated its goal to have more than 80 markets covered by the end of 2010, which will include Chicago, Charlotte, Dallas/Fort Worth, Honolulu, Philadelphia, and Seattle before 2009 is out. Networks planned in 2010 include New York, Boston, Washington DC, Houston, and the San Francisco Bay Area.
Coverage in Las Vegas is provided from more than 300 Motorola access points throughout the city and blankets an area with about 1.7 million residents, which balloons by more than 100,000 every January when CES rolls around.
Adobe open sources two more Flash technologies
Adobe Systems has made two new frameworks available on opensource.adobe.com under the Mozilla Public License: Open Source Media Framework (OSMF) and Text Layout Framework (TLF),
OSMF was originally part of the Strobe initiative announced in back in May, which aimed to establish an open standard for custom Flash-based media players. It includes a plug-ins API that allows for third-party advertising and reporting metrics to work alongside the standard video player features such as buffering, dynamic streaming, and video navigation.
Qwest begins rollout of its faster VDSL2 networks
Major US telecommunications company Qwest Communications today launched its highest speed DSL Internet service, based on the VDSL2 standard and promising maximum downstream speeds up to 40 Mbps and upstream speeds of 20 Mbps.
The service is available today in Denver, Tucson, Salt Lake City, and The Twin Cities, and the company says it will continue to roll out the VDSL2 technology in 23 more markets in such states as New Mexico, Oregon, and Washington.
The true mark of Blu-ray's success, a Toshiba player
Toshiba may finally be surrendering to the power of Blu-ray, if anonymous sources to Japanese daily Yomiuri Shimbun are to be believed.
The paper says that Toshiba will release its own Blu-ray player by the end of 2009, a move that would be the clearest call of Blu-ray's success since Toshiba ceased HD DVD production early last year, and ended the long high definition format war.
Tim's Bio
Tim Conneally was born into dumpster tech. His father was an ARPANET research pioneer and equipped his kids with discarded tech gear, second-hand musical instruments, and government issue foreign language instruction tapes. After years of building Frankenstein computers from rubbish and playing raucous music in clubs across the country (and briefly on MTV) Tim grew into an adult with deep, twisted roots and an eye on the future. He most passionately covers mobile technology, user interfaces and applications, the science and policy of the wireless world, and watching different technologies shrink and converge.
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