I'll make sure I remember NOT to signup for their services. Here's why: both of these video services are provided by AT&T and AT&T's new privacy policy says AT&T will collect "information about viewing, game, recording and other navigation choices that you and those in your household make when using Homezone or AT&T U-verse TV Services."
So AT&T is expecting me to pay them to spy on me? No thanks. Not even if it is free! After all, there are enough free video entertainment from YouTubes already.
Wednesday, June 21, 2006
Friday, June 16, 2006
Blogger == Journalist? Not so fast
This became a heated topic because Apple's legal team claimed that bloggers are not "real" journalist and thus shouldn't allow to conceal the identities of their sources. This claim is refuted by the judge at the appeal court. And you could read about bloggers celebrating this "victory" everywhere.
Well, as Coach Corso, our friend at ESPN, would say, "Not so fast my friend." It's one thing that bloggers have the same legal rights as journalists but could we bloggers claim that most of our writing have journalistic values? I'm afraid not.
Even reputable blogs like BoingBoing.net publishes garbage some times. And it is quoted by The Digital Music Weblog. The article claims that "[Audio player maker] iRiver gives customers the choice of switching off DRM" but that's not what iRiver did! And I'm not the only one who sees how incorrect that is. Check out the comment by Vinny. He summed it up the best: the issue here is not DRM. iRiver's customers has the choice of listening to non-DRM-ed music all along. All iRiver's upgrade did is to give its users an alternative to Windows Media Player for transferring songs from computer to the device. (For those who cares for the technical details, the upgrade makes the device appear as a USB Mass Storage Device under Windows. So you could drag-and-drop using Explorer)
It's pathetic that most people who commented on blogs/forums like Digg and Slashdot never read the article they commented on. However, it's ridiculous that even the bloggers themselves do not research the subject they write about. The blogosphere seems to be ruled by sensationalism instead of rationalism. Well, maybe journalism is coming down to this level.
Well, as Coach Corso, our friend at ESPN, would say, "Not so fast my friend." It's one thing that bloggers have the same legal rights as journalists but could we bloggers claim that most of our writing have journalistic values? I'm afraid not.
Even reputable blogs like BoingBoing.net publishes garbage some times. And it is quoted by The Digital Music Weblog. The article claims that "[Audio player maker] iRiver gives customers the choice of switching off DRM" but that's not what iRiver did! And I'm not the only one who sees how incorrect that is. Check out the comment by Vinny. He summed it up the best: the issue here is not DRM. iRiver's customers has the choice of listening to non-DRM-ed music all along. All iRiver's upgrade did is to give its users an alternative to Windows Media Player for transferring songs from computer to the device. (For those who cares for the technical details, the upgrade makes the device appear as a USB Mass Storage Device under Windows. So you could drag-and-drop using Explorer)
It's pathetic that most people who commented on blogs/forums like Digg and Slashdot never read the article they commented on. However, it's ridiculous that even the bloggers themselves do not research the subject they write about. The blogosphere seems to be ruled by sensationalism instead of rationalism. Well, maybe journalism is coming down to this level.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)