Nokia does not plan to launch its first & final MeeGo device in US (via Slashgear):

“After the very positive reception to the launch of the Nokia N9, the product is now being rolled out in countries around the world. At this time we will not be making it available in the US. Nokia takes a market by market approach to product rollout, and each country makes its own decisions about which products to introduce from those available. Decisions are based on an assessment of existing and upcoming products that make up Nokia’s extensive product portfolio and the best way in which to address local market opportunities” – Nokia.

Translation: We are not going to jeopardize the Microsoft powered N9 US sales by letting the customers compare a better MeeGo to a worse WP, given the exact same hardware premises.

Microsoft is desperate to first be a challenger in the US market, and only then to be preset in non-US markets. That’s the “market by market approach” Nokia is talking about.

Apart from this, that’s also a confirmation of a hunch: MeeGo powered N9 is by far a better competitor to Android and iOS than WP will ever be. Sometimes, the roots of failure are visible far before the seed is even sowed.

EDITED: Microsoft Nokia plans to launch the N9 with WP, as well, after MeeGo launch.

Apple’s iOS will continue its attack on the mobile computing market, skimming (or carving as the case may be) profits from the phone business to sustain its ultimate target of reclaiming the computing universe..

Read on.

EU regulator decided that cookies should be user explicitely acknowledged and accepted and not implicitly, as they are today.

BBC has run a test asking from its users to accept the tracking cookies: only 10% of them accepted the damn scripts.

Rory Cellan-Jones about this story: “More ammunition, then, for those who argue that the cookies directive could be fatal for the health of Europe’s web firms“.

Not Europe’s. US’ (Happy 7/4! btw)

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Remember the e-G8 summit in France? No?

How about this one: Whose business is heavily dependent on cookies? E-commerce? No. Users buying stuff don’t really mind being asked each time their username and password; on the contrary, AppStore proves the opposite.

It’s Google and Facebook, guys, how could you miss by that far?!

So, there’s no risk, after all?

There’s an interesting story on HN: a ten year old kid got access to Google+, but Google then discovered the kid was underaged so the entire account was set for deletion in 30 days. That would mean all the email and messages the kid was heavily into.

A very interesting comment by “tybris” escaped though: “I think [the kid] learned a valuable lesson about how to use the Internet: lie about everything”.

That’s one more reason Google ads and search will miss their real target when looking for relevance.

Philip Elmer-DeWitt at CNN Money:

“In eight years of operation, there has yet to be a credible claim of data hacking into iTunes or the Apple Store. What happened over the weekend was certainly not that [...]. It contains what appears to be a list 27 user names and encrypted passwords from an SQL database for an online survey  — since taken offline — at the Apple Business Intelligence website. “

He  also publishes the list of the “hacked accounts”:

[27 entries] +—————+ | User          | +—————+ | admin         | | backup        | | bnewcomb      | | bulkmail      | | leung         | | masuo         | | myapp         | | process_super | | rlinton       | | sharp         | | survey        | | web_csat      | | spbidb05      | | status_check  | | survey_slave  | | NULL          | | root          | | NULL          | | admin         | | backup        | | backup_user   | | bnewcomb      | | bulkmail      | | masuo         | | myapp         | | root          | | survey        | +—————+

+——————————————-+ | Password                                  | +——————————————-+ | *7AB8AAB1CB14C7997CE400CEA87B443A15FE72E6 | | NULL                                      | | NULL                                      | | NULL                                      | | *5DDF97914AE903CD933CFA428E6582A214E66339 | | *5DDF97914AE903CD933CFA428E6582A214E66339 | | *2447D497B9A6A15F2776055CB2D1E9F86758182F | | *2447D497B9A6A15F2776055CB2D1E9F86758182F | | *2447D497B9A6A15F2776055CB2D1E9F86758182F | | *2447D497B9A6A15F2776055CB2D1E9F86758182F | | *758A94318E1CCA45D996610F8A97E6BAA48C02FE | | *758A94318E1CCA45D996610F8A97E6BAA48C02FE | | 2bbe9f0c59e89c66                          | | *97757F6F08362A7CBA6F30E72EB90A73C79168EE | | *5B3643923A375B56250D11532289B2675C69AE62 | | *45930B494440B7335C3F98DB0FD14441166B57BB | | *FF642075DCA52A257F8DB745546F1E643D0B07DA | | *FF642075DCA52A257F8DB745546F1E643D0B07DA | | *35D14C41D95FA9DC79DF22641B7F9F98ECFDA55B | | *BAFD507E802E9B17D99E22A1360CECD386149822 | | *7AB8AAB1CB14C7997CE400CEA87B443A15FE72E6 | | *7AB8AAB1CB14C7997CE400CEA87B443A15FE72E6 | | *5B202DF112417035DF7A62DDC250A9ADB0F22BDD | | *8C69224DCDC9A8FB2122952DF5B57A4AB7FE456A | | *AEEE48760B9DCE2800776CE1FF6915FE91D8C894 | | *406E480B04BF741F3FB65E0C8976FC856BDBF418 | | *3D845C052A1D31F3D8D3E864735E84DF3E07C9D0 | +——————————————-+

This is a totally different story than Sony’s.

You may be already (very) familiar with this picture:

But the next one is new; it shows a MacBook next to the new HP ProBook 5330m (via TechCrunch):

Samsung said the other day they don’t copy Apple, but they are offering what the users want. I guess the users want Apple design, therefore Samsung is building products that resemble Apple’s…

HP may have found the exact trend in their studies, that people want an Apple MacBook; therefore they are building MacBook-like laptops.

This not that dumb yet; it becomes dumb when they cut the R&D budget… Wait! Copying means they’ve already cut the R&D budget!

On Dropbox’ blog there comes a post, at blog.dropbox.com, willing to clarify the mess they’ve made. But it doesn’t.

You see, now it’s even worse, as one comment goes (its author is “ITS”):

“You must choose, either our property is ONLY our property – because you can’t do ‘any derivative works’ – on any circumstances, or you choose to make our property public without our explicit written consent on any item. For example I don’t wish my source code become public, it may be unique and, if I choose to back it up, that doesn’t mean I choose to make it public. Don’t play dirty or, you’ll screw your own business and reputation for good and forever. “

Their blog’s Disqus plugin returns a fatal error now.

Dan Sawyer on Dropbox new TOS: “I’d rather steer clear and not be in the position where I have to decide I want to be a test case“. (in comments)

Mike Puchol on the same TOS: “[...] this smells of a lawsuit gone bad resulting in bulletproofing a service, maybe someone noticed his files were being served from servers in another country and sued the storage provider on non-permission to copy/distribute grounds. Then, every other lawyer copied the TOS to match. Remember that case with a woman spilling hot coffee on her lap, resulting in all take-away coffee cups showing large “this stuff is hot” labels? Yeah“

Reading this, it stroke me; the online storage is becoming something it should never be: some kind of a Facebook Directory, instead of a Swiss Bank.

The second you pay a dime for your online storage, it should transform into a Swiss bank account: it shouldn’t matter what’s in your box, it only matters that your stuff is secured and accessible only for you.

Any other definition of the online storage is either obsolete or wrong and you should not spend one bit of your life thinking about it; for sharing and publishing there are plenty of other services that don’t pretend to be secured storages in the clouds.

The new Dropbox TOS reads, starting with 1st of July 2011:

1) “We sometimes need your permission to do what you ask us to do with your stuff (for example, hosting, making public, or sharing your files).“

False. There should not be any “we” implied. “We” is the service itself, not some humans asking for your permission and then passing it to the “Service”. Imagine Microsoft asking for your permission to translate the movements of your mouse into GUI actions.

2) “By submitting your stuff to the Services, you grant us (and those we work with to provide the Services) worldwide, non-exclusive, royalty-free, sublicenseable rights to use, copy, distribute, prepare derivative works (such as translations or format conversions) of, perform, or publicly display that stuff to the extent we think it necessary for the Service.“

A short note here: where was this point when I started using Dropbox, last year? What you see here is plainly illegal: there is no automatic sub-licensing shit these guys dream of.

This paragraph says that whatever I’ve put in Dropbox servers, now it already belongs to the public.

On a second thought, why would you consider there’s something you think it’s “necessary for the Service” without me thinking the same?

3) “You must ensure you have the rights you need to grant us that permission.“

What? I don’t! Say I have already stored enterprise secrets in my Dropbox account, and that was in perfect conformity with the TOS I acknowledged one year ago. Now I have to let you make my secrets public because some stupid lawyer told you that you have to change the TOS? Or should I just delete my account because it’s no longer conforming with the TOS? Isn’t it too late, given the fact that I’ve read the new TOS only after you’ve published it?

.

The only way to deal with people’s stuff should be this: Your stuff hosted on our servers is your responsibility and yours alone; we may grant access to a third party should that third party present us with a court of law written order. End of TOS.

Wake up, Dropbox, what you’ve published as a TOS update is worse than lame; you’re being advised by a person that’s putting you on a shortest course to lose your customers.

Update: What you witness is not Dropbox shooting themselves in the leg, but Dropbox firing three times at their own head… Do you still think it’s a suicide…?