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This article is about how Apple has won its copyright-infringement claim against the Mac cloning company Psystar.  Psystar, a company based in Miami, Florida, has been selling the Mac OS X hardware in Mac clone computers at a cheaper price than Apple’s Mac OS X computers.  The U.S. District Court has ruled against Psystar because it sold PCs with Mac OS X installed in them, and stated that this act was in violation of Apple’s end-user licensing agreement.  The way that Psystar did this was by purchasing an Apple computer and removing the Mac operating system.  After doing this, the company placed Apple’s operating system into a different computer frame and sold the computers under the Psystar name at a fraction of the cost.  As a result, consumers were able to purchase a Mac operating system at a much lower cost, cutting out Mac as the seller. In addition, Psystar violated the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA) when they circumvented “lock-and-key technological measures to prevent Mac OS X from operating on non-Apple computers”.  After reading the article and researching the case more in depth, I agree with the judgment against Psystar.  The reason that I say this is because Psystar was relying on interpretations of copyright laws that were stretched to begin with, thus making their argument much less solid and credible.  From a moral standpoint, I do not agree with the resale of Apple’s technology without their permission or without them seeing any of the revenue earned by doing so.

As a result of this recent ruling, I do not see Psystar staying in business for very long.  The reason I say this is because it is currently in the process of selling its headquarters.  All in all, Psystar had a good business concept, but failed at meeting the legal requirements of executing it.

This article is about how Google’s search engine, Bing, came out with a program called Bing Maps.  The new program is Microsoft’s latest attempt to steal market share away from Google.  Bing Maps is very similar to Google Maps in that it allows users to view street-level or bird’s-eye view photos as they move around a city.  The article stated that Bing Maps is useful, but it is much slower than Google Maps, thus making it very limited.  The one area that outperformed Google Maps is the geotagged picture galleries that can be opened in bird’s-eye view.  This allows the user to click on a green icon in a given location, and photo galleries shot of the location will pop up in a separate window.  The new Bing Maps allows Bing users to search maps and expand their searching capabilities.  I agree with the article’s review of Bing Maps.  After taking time to explore it, I think that the picture quality is great, however, it is much slower than Google Maps.  When I left the search up on my computer, I realized that it was taking up a lot of computer power due to the fact that my other browses were going much slower than usual.  One other thing I did not like about Bing Maps is that it requires users to download numerous other programs to use it at full capacity.  It can be used without the other programs, but the biggest downgrade that results is a lower picture quality.

Overall, I do not see myself using Bing Maps over Google Maps.  However, this could change if Microsoft steps up its efforts to improve the program and make my searching experience more efficient and fast.  As a user, speed of finding data is crucial, and Bing Maps has room to improve in this category.

Mark Pincus, founder and CEO of Zynga.

This article is about how the gamemaker Zynga, the designer behind ‘FarmVille’ and ‘Mafia Wars’, is bringing in solid revenue from the games.  Bringing in profits from social networking games is a tough feat and Zynga’s annual revenue at the two-year-old firm is likely to surpass $100 million this year.  I think that it is incredible how Zynga is managing to turn such a niche market into a profitab

le venture.  As a Facebook user, I constantly receive updates from other friends who play these games.  Although it is annoying, Zynga has done an excellent job of stoking interest in these games and gathering loyal followers.  In the article, there is the following story:

“‘For me it’s just relaxing and fun. I don’t have to think hard about it, and I can do it while watching TV,’ explains Lauren Kohn, 37, a mother of three in San Jose who has spent more than $100 on virtual goods since she started playing FarmVille four months ago.”

This story is one of the many examples of how users enjoy the simplistic, yet addictive, nature of the game.  I am curious to see what games Zynga will come out with next, and also if the company is able to maintain the profit margins it has been achieving in previous years.

This article is about how worms, spam, viruses, and hackers are becoming serious threats to smartphone users.  According to the British technology analysis firm Gartner, “last year, more than 139 million smartphones were sold worldwide, which is a 13.9 percent increase from 2007″.  With more and more people purchasing smartphones, hackers are beginning to see more opportunity and benefits from hacking these phones.  It is guaranteed that everything we see on a computer will show up on a smartphone, thus hackers are find new ways to cause havoc.  This article definitely scares me because I am an avid user of my smartphone.  It is nerve-wracking to know that someone can steal information from my phone without me even knowing about it.  I agree with this article because I now see the limitless opportunities that hackers see in smartphones.  President Obama’s blackberry security upgrades were so crucial due to this exact reason.  Overall, I think that hacking is going to become more prevalent, and I hope that smartphone makers realize this fact (and react to it in time).

Elliott Madison pictured in his home.

This article is about how FBI agents and police seized boxes of evidence from the Queens, New York, home of Elliott Madison on October 1.  The Joint Terrorism Task Force, armed with a search warrant and backed by a federal grand jury investigation, raided Madison’s house.  The squad seized his computers, camera memory cards, books, air-filtration masks, bumper stickers and political posters — all evidence that the 41-year old social worker had broken a federal anti-rioting law that carries up to five years in prison  Elliott Madison is an anarchist social worker that was earlier arrested on September 24 at a motel room for allegedly listening to a police scanner and relaying information on Twitter to help protesters avoid heavily-armed cops.  I think that this article shows how Twitter is being increasingly used to relay more than just social information to followers.  This incident is very similar to the reporters who used Twitter to inform others about the rising conflict in the Middle East.  I believe that Elliott Madison should be scolded for stirring pro-riot actions, however, I am not sure whether he should be punished with jail time.  Although Madison should not have been doing this, I do not know whether the punishment fits the crime in this case.  This goes to show that people on Twitter should be careful about what they Tweet, for it could certainly come back to hurt them in the future.

This article is about how Entourage Systems, a startup located in Virginia, is releasing the eDGe e-reader plus notebook.  Essentially, the eDGe is a combination of a Kindle and an electronic notepad.  The device has Wi-Fi capabilities and is powered by Google’s Android operating system.  The article does an excellent job describing it:

“The left half of the eDGe will have a 9.7-inch E Ink e-paper display. Users will be able to read e-books in PDF and EPUB format and take notes or draw diagrams using a stylus. The right side of the device is a 10.1-inch LCD touchscreen that can be used to check e-mail and surf the Web.”

I believe that this device could be extremely useful.  The reason I say this is because you can use one screen to research information and the other to write the obtained information down.  The best attribute of the eDGe is that it uses the EPUB format, which means that consumers can access the 1 million free, public-domain books digitized by Google.  This could really be useful.  One thing that the article did not mention is students using this device.  In my opinion, the reader would be a huge hit if it were able to download and display college course books on one side and allow students to take notes on the other side.  Overall, I think that the eDGe is very interesting and I look forward to seeing it in production in 2010.

This article is about how the Pentagon is becoming increasingly aware of the impacts social networking sites have on security.  The Pentagon is currently reviewing its policies of letting military personnel access social networking sites such as Twitter, Facebook, and MySpace.  As of now, a banning order has been placed on Marine Corps concerning the use of such sites.  This ban has then led to a policy review for the entire Department of Defense (set to be complete by the end of this coming month).  Although there has been increased scrutiny of these social networking sites, the Department of Defense does realize the value in allowing personnel to use them.  I believe that social networking sites do pose a serious security concern for the military/homeland security.  I say this because almost anyone can view/hack information being posted on these sites, and all it takes is for one person in the military to leak valuable information to put lives at risk.  That being said, I do realize that censorship has its downsides.  In this case, however, I think that the additional security greatly outweighs the cost of banning social sites.  In my opinion, the Department of Defense should either ban the use of social networking sites or at least implement strict guidelines for use.  It will be very interesting to see what they end up doing.

This article is about a group of leading nanotechnology researchers who are developing cleaner and more efficient ways of delivering electrical power.  The researchers are working towards a way to harness the energy that is created from the body’s natural movements, and transferring this energy to a small device (such as a cell phone).  One thing that really surprised me is that they may be able to use the energy used from texting (the movement of your fingers) and transfer it into electricity for your cell phone.  Knowing how much people text these days, this could be extremely beneficial.  I believe that there would be an incredibly high demand for this technology.  To explain why I say this, one example comes to mind: the annoyance of your cell phone dying.  Not only does this ruin someone’s day, but it could also be dangerous (a person could have a crisis but not be able to reach anyone).  I think that if these nanotechnology researchers are successful in creating an easy to use, mainstream set-up for a cell phone that uses this technology, then they will make a lot of money.

If you were wondering, this is the science behind it:

“Wang’s team makes use of the piezoelectric effect, which refers to the ability of certain materials to generate an electric potential when a stress is applied to them. For instance, if you compress a crystal, it temporarily changes shape, causing the ions inside the crystal to polarize and produce a voltage drop.  That potential can drive a transient flow of external electrons to function as an energy output.”

Below, researcher Zhong Lin Wang conducts a test where a hamster generates energy with nanowires.

This article is about how Facebook users will be able to hold voice conversations over Facebook chat.  The new technology is not being offered by Facebook itself, but instead from Vivox (a Boston-based company that provides the integrated voice service for virtual worlds like Second Life and EVE Online).  To hold voice conversations over Facebook chat, a user has to download Vivox’s plug-in, and after that they are able to start using the voice capabilities that supposedly run seamlessly with Facebook.  This drastically changes Facebook’s usability, and I believe a lot of people will use this voice-chat option.  Ultimately, if this capability gets used enough, I see this hurting Skype’s market share.  I definitely agree with everyone quoted in the article, especially the quote “Is it revolutionary? No. Is it evolutionary? Absolutely.” stated by Chris Pirillo.  The reason I say this is because Vivox did not invent the idea of online voice conversations, but it is greatly expanding Facebook’s ability to help make communication easier between parties.  I am really looking forward to seeing this in action.