Which Works Enter the Public Domain in 2011 (OKFN) — slowly we’re getting recognizable artists in some jurisdictions (e.g., F. Scott Fitzgerald and Paul Klee) but it’s slow going. This is a great reminder about how slow the law works: most people appropriate small bits of modern works when they need something, rather than seeking out or caring about out-of-copyright status. Either most people are lawbreakers and law enforcement will catch up with them, or most people have a new conception of fair use and the law will catch up with them.
Android IM App Brought T-Mobile’s Network To Its Knees — rumour is that this kind of thing isn’t isolated, that carrier networks are fragile rather than robust. Not even apps, sometimes just devices can make smoke come out of the cell tower (metaphorically): In April of this year, T-Mobile disclosed in an FCC filing that “when subscribers began connecting unlocked iPhones to T-Mobile’s network, the devices repeatedly issued PDP Context Activation requests to establish a session and obtain an IP address. These repeated requests began to cause signal overload akin to a denial of service attack, requiring immediate action and network management to mitigate the massive signaling load on T-Mobile’s Packet Core network.”
John Sculley on Steve Jobs — the full interview text is fascinating reading. Sculley gives Jobs full respect, and his insights make for very interesting reading. It’s okay to be driven a little crazy by someone who is so consistently right. What I’ve learned in high tech is that there’s a very, very thin line between success and failure. It’s an industry where you are constantly taking risks, particularly if you’re a company like Apple, which is constantly living out on the edge. Your chance of being on one side of that line or the other side of the line is about equal.
Android (Fred Wilson) — absolutely nails why Android will be a big market, whether or not it’s “better” than Apple. My father in law told me he wants a tablet but $500 for an iPad seems high to him. I asked him if he’d pay $199 for an Android tablet. He said “where can I get one”?
