Pandora, our favorite free online radio, going under
The Copyright Review Board hiked royalties and is going to hike them again. Even though Pandora is projected to make $25 million in the next year, 70% of that will have to pay for royalties, which doesn't leave enough money to keep the services running. The Copyright Review Board seems to want to kill Internet radio.I think this will just push it underground - Napster became more and more illegal because the copyright folks kept trying to shut it down, rather than trying to compromise. Now they've compromised and Napster and lots of other companies are legal. Why not try to compromise? People tend to be greedy and power-hungry. [source]
T-Mobile Android phone out this year
Android, Google's cell-phone Operating System (OS), is an Open-Source platform that should allow for cheaper and better cell-phones. The first one to come out in the US is going to be the HTC Dream phone (that's the hardware) with a full touch-screen and a slide-out keyboard, with T-Mobile later this year. Will I get it? I like the idea of a touch screen and a full keyboard, but this is the first phone (so subsequent phones will be better) and I'm already spoiled with a Blackberry. [source]Obama a victim again
Sorry, back to some political news: Obama and McCain answered, separately (Obama still refuses to share a stage with McCain) answered the same questions from Rick Warren, pastor and author of The Purpose Driven Life.Obama gave long 'broader perspective' responses rather than direct answers, avoiding too many specifics and answering in big-picture, lets-work-together-regardless-of-what-we-believe (but I'm not telling you what I believe). McCain answered the questions directly and bluntly, in his straight-talk-express and let-me-tell-you-about-me-in-Vietnam style.
The Obama campaign said McCain did better, so he must have cheated and listed to the questions, calling McCain, his staff, and the secret service with them liars. But really? Just because you didn't get your way it means someone must have cheated? Obama said to Warren on live TV during the event that he "cheated" on the orphans issue and looked up information about it online. Obviously they were briefed as to the scope of the questions beforehand.
Obama's most embarrassing response was to the question of when human rights are applied and how that relates to abortion, and he said "that's above my pay grade." (Contrast that with McCain's response: "At the moment of conception.")
Really? You fumbed on the life & abortion issue - you've never been asked that before? You've never thought that through? Why do you have to claim to be a victim again? If you keep crying 'wolf' we won't believe you if the other side does cheat. [source]
If you missed it, here's a video that put together Obama and McCain's responses to the question. Please excuse the end where the person who created the video does annoying edits on Obama's response. Just stop the video after McCain is done.
Finally got around to watching the video. That was pretty eye-opening. I hope people that are on the line see that.
The umms and uhhhs were pretty annoying -- not sure why the person splicing that together felt the need to repeat it. It bothers me to see stuff like that -- let the candidates speak for themselves -- we don't need someone pointing out all of their flaws for us.
I agree that the editing at the end was dumb. I understand their point - that Obama is great with text-to-speech, reading off a teleprompter but not off the cuff, but Rick Warren said a lot of ums and uhhs as well. Doesn't mean anything substantial.
Those who are voting for Obama because he's a good reader (of speeches) aren't going to change their minds because someone edits a video like this.