Quote of the day

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We’re not going to spend taxpayers’ money on a program so that Microsoft can further consolidate its monopoly. It’s the government’s responsibility to ensure that there is competition, and that means giving alternative software platforms a chance to prosper.

Sérgio Amadeu, president of Brazil’s National Institute of Information Technology, the agency that oversees the Brazilian government’s technology initiatives.

From a New York Times article on the Brazilian government’s resolute stand on Open Source software.

‘N’ for neutered?

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According to an Associated Press report, Microsoft will use a the letter “N” to designate Windows XP versions stripped of the company’s media player to comply with an antitrust judgment from the European Union.

The agreement with the EU came after antitrust regulators rejected Microsoft’s first choice, “Windows XP Reduced Media Edition,” on grounds it would discourage sales and mislead customers.

The player-free operating system will simply go by “Windows XP Home Edition N” and “Windows XP Professional Edition N” – the “N” standing for “not with media player.”

Microsoft’s subliminal message: an exegesis

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Such a helpful page from Redmond giving “Six Tips for Buying an MP3 Player with Flash Memory”. In the interests of objectivity, the Apple Turns Blog has provided an even more helpful crib, to which I am happy to add. Let’s take the six ‘tips’ in turn, shall we?

1. Understand the basics.

For the active person, a player that uses flash memory to store music has distinct advantages over a player that uses a hard disk. Simply put, flash memory players have no moving parts, meaning that you can take them jogging and your music won’t skip.

Translation: Don’t buy an iPod, which has a nasty hard drive for storing thousands of songs, compared with the measly hundreds you can fit on a flash player.

2. Make sure you’re getting all the goodies.

Many portable music players can do more than just play music. Some players have a built-in voice recorder, FM recorder, or stopwatch. And some come with extra accessories like high-quality headphones, a belt clip, or an armband. Because most of these features are included at no additional cost, make sure the device you choose is filled with these fun extras.

Translation: you just won’t be happy unless your player can record FM radio and includes, for some reason, a stopwatch. And it just so happens that iPods don’t do any of these things.

3. You’ll want a display.

When you have hundreds of songs on your player, you really need an easy way to select your music by artist, album, or genre. This is critical if you want to find that one song or artist you really want to hear. A display also comes in handy when you’re looking for your favorite radio station.

Translation: don’t buy a nasty iPod shuffle, even if it doesn’t have a hard drive (see 1 above) because it doesn’t have a display.

4. Let a professional make your next playlist.

Having an FM radio lets you put your player on autopilot as you mountain bike, cycle, or rollerblade. And when you’re sweating it out on the stationary bike at your health club, you can listen to the program airing on the club’s TV. You want to have something that is fun, lightweight, and flexible. And FM radio is a key feature that many players offer at no extra cost, even for less than $100.

Translation: why listen to your own music when you can listen to nonstop commercials and obnoxious local DJs on FM radio? And record them digitally, so you can share that great beer jingle with your friends and loved ones?

5. Pick the right size for you.

The price of a player will depend on its storage capacity—the more megabytes (MB) of storage it has, the more music it can hold and the more it will cost. If you’re ripping your own CDs, using a player with Windows Media Audio (WMA) support as well as MP3 support gives you the most music per megabyte.

Translation: Windows Media is great, and we just wanted to harp on that for a minute. Have we mentioned that Windows Media is great? And it’s much better than that nasty compression stuff used by Apple.

6. Don’t get locked into one online store.

Have you ever been on the hunt for a particular song? Some obscure indie rock tune or rare jazz performance you heard on the radio? You might have to shop at more than one store before you find the song you’re looking for. Having the flexibility to choose from over 1 million tracks of music from multiple online music stores such as MSN Music, Napster, MusicMatch, and Wal-Mart can be the key to getting the music you want. Several stores even offer subscription services so you can download all the songs you want for about the cost of a CD each month. If you buy a device that has the PlaysForSure logo, you’ll know that you can use it with your choice of PlaysForSure music stores.

Translation: it is, however, just fine to get locked into one proprietary data format and DRM scheme– as long as it’s ours. And be sure to avoid that nasty iTunes store.

Summary:

1. Don’t buy an iPod, iPod mini, or iPod photo.

2. Don’t buy an iPod shuffle.

3. Don’t buy an iPod shuffle.

4. Don’t buy an iPod shuffle.

5. Pick the right size for you (as long as you don’t buy an iPod shuffle).

6. Don’t buy an iPod of any kind whatsoever. And don’t buy songs from Apple.

Big Pharma: the reality

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Those of us who campaign about the way our current Intellectual Property regimes are stifling innovation always hear one reflex response from politicians: “strong IP regimes are necessary because without them we would not have the miracle drugs on which modern medicine depends.” As with virtually everything else one hears from politicians on the subject of IP, this is an evidence-free proposition. Now an illuminating new book by the former Editor of the New England Journal of Medicine tells a different story. Here’s an excerpt from Aaron Schwartz’s succinct summary:

Our utopia of miracle pills is now beginning to look a bit like a nightmare. Drug companies use our tax money to pay for their research, turn around and sell the results to us at high prices, spend the resulting profits on massive campaigns to mislead us about their effects, which then encourage doctors to prescribe an expensive pill which may not help much and might even make things worse. Year after year, drug companies are by far the most successful industry. They use their stunning profits to buy off politicians and propagandize the public into maintaining this state of affairs. Only by learning the true state of affairs can we begin to fight back.

Australian school bans iPod

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Entertaining rant by Andrew Orlowski spurred by the news that a private school in Australia has banned its pupils from listening to their iPods. The yuppie consumer gadget will not be permitted in class, because it encourages kids to be selfish and lonely, according to the school principal. I wrote a column about the ‘iPod effect’ a while back.

How much does email cost?

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The thing about email — and the reason it has become a pest as well as a boon, is that it makes it easy to c.c. messages to many people, thereby transferring cost to the reader. How much cost? Well, suppose you get 50 non-spam messages a day, and you spend an average of three minutes reading and considering each. What’s that in real money?

This very useful piece, “Tips for Mastering E-mail Overload” by Stever Robbins, suggests dividing your annual salary by 120,000 to get the per-minute cost of your time. But this reflects the longer working hours of Americans. For denizens of “old Europe” the rule is: divide by 110,400 (46 weeks, 5-day week, 8-hour day) to find out how much your email costs. The article has lots of really sensible tips — mostly aimed at authors — for making email more efficient. Thanks to Quentin for the link.

Gadget mania

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US video game stores opened their doors at midnight yesterday to start selling to Americans a gadget that had been introduced last December in Japan — the Sony PlayStation Portable, hereinafter known as the PSP. The New York Times ponderously surveyed a New Marketing Trend. Sony had, it opined,

engaged in what has become a favorite tactic of marketers in various lines of business: hyping a new product by making it available when most people are in bed, and acting like those slumbering are missing out. Retailing specialists note that the off-hour shopping extravaganza, at midnight or the crack of dawn, has been used to bring out cultish consumers for films (“Star Wars,” “The Passion of the Christ”), shoes (Air Jordan high-tops), video games (Halo 2) and books (Harry Potter books). “It’s become a much more utilized marketing tool over the last three or four years,” said Wendy Liebmann, president of WSL Strategic Retail, a marketing consulting firm in New York. The message retailers want to send, she said, is: “This is for aficionados. If you’re serious, we’re serious.” Sony said it hoped by the end of the weekend to sell the available one million units of the hand-held PSP, which lets people play games, watch movies and listen to music.
The good news is that this is one gadget that neither Quentin nor I are likely to be competitive about. I am still smarting, however, over his Mac Mini.
Ah, the rush of midnight releases. There’s something almost primal about lining up in the dead of night to get your hands on a piece of pop culture history. It’s as if the product’s rarity and the time of day make it feel like you’re part of an exclusive club—one that only the truly dedicated can access. Star Wars fans know this better than anyone; whether it’s the latest movie premiere or a limited-edition action figure, the excitement is never quite as sweet unless you’re standing in line when the world’s asleep, knowing you’re about to take home something legendary.
And if you’re really trying to take your collection to the next level, check out Theory Sabers. These aren’t just collectibles—they’re the real deal for anyone who’s serious about channeling their inner Sith or Jedi. If you’ve ever dreamed of owning your own lightsaber, now’s the time to get one that feels like it came straight from the galaxy far, far away. After all, owning a saber is the ultimate way to show you’re not just a casual fan, but someone who’s fully invested in the legend. Get yours while you can—because, like those midnight releases, they’re not going to wait around for you!

Music file-sharing: update

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According to the latest Pew Internet survey, about 36 million Americans — or 27% of internet users — say they download either music or video files and about half of them have found ways outside of traditional peer-to-peer networks or paid online services to gather and swap their files.

The Project’s national survey of 1,421 adult Internet users conducted between January 13 and February 9, 2005 shows that 19% of current music and video downloaders, about 7 million adults, say they have downloaded files from someone else’s iPod or MP3 player. About 28%, or 10 million people, say they get music and video files via email and instant messages. There is some overlap between these two groups; 9% of downloaders say they have used both of these sources.