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Symantec is telling users of its pcAnywhere to disable or uninstall the remote-access software until it can fix an unknown number of bugs. Stolen source code for the program may have fallen into the hands of the hacking group Anonymous, making it unsafe to use.

Symantec warns users to disable pcAnywhere

It’s a strange world we internet denizens are living in today, one in which it is perfectly legal for Chris Dodd to threaten to end the bribes to politicians if they do not act as he and the MPAA wish. Dodd actually appeared on Fox News to warn Obama and senators that if they did not vote with the MPAA on SOPA and PIPA that they would lose campaign donations from Hollywood.

Here is the actual quote

“Those who count on quote ‘Hollywood’ for support need to understand that this industry is watching very carefully who’s going to stand up for them when their job is at stake," Dodd told Fox News. "Don’t ask me to write a check for you when you think your job is at risk and then don’t pay any attention to me when my job is at stake.”

Into this world steps the perfect super villain in Kim Dotcom. The founder of Megaupload even looks like Kingpin. Dotcom is facing up to 50 years for piracy. Think about that though, 50 years for piracy. We give rapists and murderers less time than that.

This is the world in which we now live, now think about this, by posting this, we are going to be monitored by homeland security as well. Yes that’s right, Homeland Security has permission to collect and retain personal information from journalists, news anchors, reporters or anyone who uses “traditional and/or social media in real time to keep their audience situationally aware and informed.” This data is then shared with both private sector businesses such as the RIAA an MPAA and international third parties according to RT.

So by posting this link into our Facebook and Twitter feeds we are now on the Homeland Security list.

That’s the legal system here in the United States circa 2012.

Following the internets temper tantrum, support for PIPA and SOPA have almost completely collapsed. Sen. Harry Reid issued a statement announcing he has postponed the vote on the Protect IP Act. Over in the House, Rep. Lamar Smith says the House Judiciary Committee will not move forward with the Stop Online Piracy Act until there is wider agreement on a solution.

This was possibly the best of what the internet has to offer on display as interests from all over the net came together to stop this madness. The fight is not won yet, but this battle definitely goes to us.

The public learned a lot more about the bills over the last few days, but you can bet that the MPAA and the RIAA are not done with legislation yet. We can all agree that piracy is a bad thing, but how you stop it is something that has to be looked at a lot closer. Here are the main problems I have with the approach these bills took.

1. It is no more the governments job to limit my access to web sites any more than they can tell me what to read. This is first and foremost a First Amendment issue.

2. It’s  a worthless law to begin with, blocking sites will not stop pirates, but drive them further underground. IP addresses will change hands and people who want to find pirated info can.

Here is an example from a simple whois lookup for Thepiratebay. That or you can just download Tor which the US State Department helps fund to aid foreign citizens under “repressive regimes” Kind of ironic don’t you think.

Thepiratebay.org Server Details
IP address: 194.71.107.15
Server Location: Germany
ISP: Resilans AB

3. We have laws already in place to combat these and they work pretty well, just ask Megaupload.

The last reason may be the most damning as you must only make laws that solve a problem that are as draconian as the problem itself.

Forget the free speech issues or prior restraint, these bills are the equivalent of trying to stop speeding by putting random brick walls in place on freeways. Would that work, Certainly it would, but the damage caused by the fix is greater than the problem.

Usually Apple is the company that can do no wrong, but in the first rollout post Steve Jobs Apple seems to have hit a major dip in its perception with iBook Author. Steve Jobs got a lot of leeway for things like this, but without Jobs at the helm, the internet world seems to have lost some of its Apple reverence and is looking at the facts and not the personality of the company.

First it was Dan Wineman pointing out how bad the EULA was in a post where he pointed out the audacity of the new license agreement.

“Apple, in this EULA, is claiming a right not just to its software, but to its software’s output. It’s akin to Microsoft trying to restrict what people can do with Word documents, or Adobe declaring that if you use Photoshop to export a JPEG, you can’t freely sell it to Getty.”

It gets even more confusing as the EULA becomes a complete nightmare for content creators when it conflicts with the OS licenses for things like 2D Collada models. If you use Collada to make a 3D model and put it into an iBook you are done. Actually you just cannot do it and if you do you are now in violation of the GPL.

Generally the way Apple is doing this just doesn’t seem very well thought out.

Now Ed Bott of ZDNet is going even further with a story headline that calls Apple out

“Apple’s mind-bogglingly greedy and evil license agreement”

That is the headline on a major review site today.  Not a good start for the post Jobs era.

Here is a sample of the tech world’s response to Apple. It should be interesting to see how they respond.

Apple Embroiled in eBook Publishing Controversy

Minyanville.com 
And a boon to the author, the e-books can be published directly from the app into Apple’s iBookstore. According to iBook Author’s end user license agreement, if an author wishes to charge a fee for a work created in the app, he is restricted to Apple’s …

iBooks2: Not a silver bullet for publishers

Forbes 
When Bott says, “I have never seen a EULA as mind-bogglingly greedy and evil as Apple’s EULA for its new ebook authoring program,” he means it. You may not sell your iBooks Author-created ebook in any other store. For their part, Apple do not guarantee …

Apple unmasks the Death Star: iBooks Author

ExtremeTech 
Well, Apple’s finally done it. It must only have been a matter of time before the evil would show through. It was like trying to hold your breath indefinitely — you have to breathe at some point. …

Now that we have had some time to digest the news out of CES we are ready to award our top 5 for this years show. Some you have heard about, and some may be a little different look into the future. One thing is for sure, these are the things we want.

5. Lenovo IdeaPad Yoga Ultrabook

This is coming late this year with Windows 8 and the Yoga is a look into the future of computing. The Yoga designation refers to its infinitely adjustable screen with its myriad of settings allowing the Yoga to be a laptop, a pad on a stand, or a tablet with the screen all the way back. The touchscreen features ten point touch and the Windows 8 loaded on it was fantastic. When it’s flipped and used as a tablet, the keyboard deactivates, so it can be placed on a flat surface or used on the go without worrying about hitting a key. The problem lies in its $1200 price tag as it is going to have to compete with two devices at that price and its unclear whether having one device is going to make it worth it.

4. Swiss Army Knife 1TB USB Drive

It’s pretty useless, but still very cool to fit a terabyte into a flash drive along with hardware and software encryption. Not only that its got a blade, scissors and a nail file. For traveling it also comes with a case without the implements. The catch… It comes with a price tag of 3 grand.

3. Parrot AR.Drone 2.0

Maybe the coolest thing we saw the entire show this 300.00 helicopter with its 720p video camcorder is the thing we want now. Thankfully it will be available in the second quarter. With its Android and iOS apps to control it we can envision some fantastic shots and video from 15 feet up.

2. Everything Vizio

Vizio got our pick for the best company at the show as they showed off beautiful new laptops, desktops, and a 10 inch tablet. Vizio worked directly with Microsoft on development and these things look like something out of Cupertino, not a budget television maker. The screens look fantastic with all but the smallest notebook boasting 1080p screens and the desktops have a HDMI pass-through so they can be used as a HDTV when the computer is off. Talk about the perfect dorm room setup. Prices are not released yet, but said to be unbelievably low

The 14 inch laptop won PCWorlds best laptop award even and for a new maker that is an amazing achievement.

1. OLED TV’s from Samsung and LG

It’s hard to explain just how good this technology looks in person. These things are razor thin, like iPhone thin in a 55 inch screen and the color saturation and unlimited contrast make an unbelievable difference from today’s technology. It is literally like looking out a window. The rumored price point is around 8-10,000.00 for the 55 inch versions which although out of price range today, expect these prices to drop precipitously over the next 2 years.

You thought we were a bunch of idiot hipsters waiting in line for the latest crack from Apple, well over in China they are basically rioting over the iPhone 4s. Apple has halted sales of the iPhone 4S in China due to these gangs apparently made up mostly of scalpers who are trying to buy up the supply.

The most curious thing about this… who exactly carries around raw eggs with them to wait in line to buy stuff? It has that rotten egg smell of PR.

Check out the video from ITN

Here is a great new use for Facebook that we are not sure they intended. Circle K stores in Arizona and Nevada are posting surveillance video stills from robberies and thefts to Facebook and offering rewards to their friends for turning them in.

So far at least four arrests have been attributed to the program.

More on this story over at Tucson Weekly

Wow Ballmer can talk a lot and say absolutely nothing. That was the biggest take from the keynote to open CES. Not everything at CES was boring today though as there were some great new products from Samsung, Intel, and Nokia today.

Samsung probably was the most talked about manufacturer across the board as they brought out the Galaxy note, app controlled appliances and some amazing TV’s. The one thing noticed most. Chrome was nowhere to be found and its awfully quiet out at Google so far.

Here are some of todays highlights and video from the floor from TWIT

Ballmer delivers Microsoft’s last CES keynote

USA TODAY
“We really have a chance to raise our game this year,” Ballmer said at the start of the keynote, the last Microsoft will deliver at CES.

Samsung bringing super-size smartphone to US

Economic Times
In an announcement on the eve of the giant Consumer Electronics Show (CES) in Las Vegas, Samsung said it will partner with AT&T to sell the Galaxy Note in the United States and it will run on the US telecom carrier’s 4G network.

IdeaTab ‘transformer’ turns tablet into a laptop

Christian Science Monitor
The IdeaTab S2 and IdeaTab K2, a pair of tablets showcased at CES 2012, are both set for 2012 release

Nokia Determined To Battle In America With Lumia 900

paidContent.org
Nokia (NYSE: NOK) CEO Stephen Elop was long on the military metaphors during his company’s press conference at CES 2012, speaking of the need to “establish a beachhead” in the US with his company’s new Windows Phone strategy

So Where Are All The New Google Chrome Devices At CES? (GOOG)

?San Francisco Chronicle
There’s no mention of Chrome or Chromebooks on the official Google blog about CES. And the Chrome blog doesn’t mention CES at all.

With talk rampant that the iPad 3 is coming in the first half of the year there is a lot of speculation about what it needs to have to stay ahead of the curve. A small update like the iPhone 4s is going to put Apple behind the proverbial eight ball as the iPad 2 is good enough for most uses and incremental upgrades will make it tough to keep the high price points that Apple has grown used to with competition heating up in the tablet space.

Here are the upgrades that we think we will see and some we are just hoping for.

What we should see.

1. A “retina” display – Until you have seen the retina display, its just a bunch of tech specs. Having seen it now on the iPhone it is a must have upgrade

2. Siri functionality – There is really no reason Siri is not on the iPad 2, but Apple is famous for holding its big software upgrades to force us into hardware upgrades.

3. More Storage – Since we expect the iPad 2 to stay around at a price drop to compete on the lower end (Do not believe the 200.00 hype, more like 399.00 for the 16GB) The iPad 3 should get double the storage start points (32, 64, and 128 GB

4. A better camera -  Since they are already sourcing the 8GB camera for the iPhone that would be the perfect upgrade to the iPad and make all those great photo apps much easier to use on the iPad.

5. More memory and a faster processor – These are the standard upgrades with every model we don’t expect a quad core yet, but faster video processing and likely 1GB ram for multitasking are in store.

What we wish for but probably wont get.

1. 4G at a reasonable price point – This would be great to make the iPad truly a computing everywhere device, but with the price of service this is probably still a generation or two away. The iPad may support 4G, but no one can afford it to download movies etc with our current setups

2. USB and/or SD Card support – This is not going to happen and it is always our biggest problem with our iPad, I want to carry a few movies around and can’t. USB or SD support would solve that problem. I would actually prefer this to a bigger hard drive even.

3. iTunes and App Store separated – This is only a matter of time. iTunes is becoming too bloated with hundreds of apps, books, etc. There needs to be a separation of the marketplaces.

Time will tell which of these upgrades make it to the iPad 3 and as you play with the current generation iPad you realize just how hard it is to make big upgrades. It’s pretty darn good now.

Today Amazon takes its war on local retail to the next level actually enticing buyers to price shop and try things in local stores with their application and then giving them an additional 5% discount to buy with the app at the time.

This is bordering on anti-competitive and really is starting to get ugly. I love Amazon and am a prime member, but will not participate in this outright attack on America;s main street.

I implore you to please not reward this kind of behavior and though I have a ton of Christmas shopping left to do I will refrain from Amazon through Sunday in my own little protest against this.

If you use Amazon’s Price Check app in a brick-and-mortar store to comparison shop, Amazon will give you a 5 percent discount (up to $5) in its online store. You can redeem the offer on select items in the categories of electronics, toys, sports, music and DVDs three times, for savings of up to $15.

The app uses barcode scanning, camera, speech or text search to find Amazon’s lowest prices. The promotion runs from 9 p.m. December 9 to 11:59 p.m. December 10 (Pacific Standard Time).

That is how long my protest will last.