(Image is in the Public Domain)

Finally, some federal guidelines for e-voting have been released. Of course, they're voluntary so we'll see if they actually do any good.

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In California, Sprint has been forced to unlock their phones to allow their customers to use their phones with other cell services. The main point here being that if someone has been using their cellphone for years wouldn't normally want to switch to another service even if Sprint was terrible since they might like their phone and have it customized and full of data they wanted to keep.

With cellphone unlocking, now that customer can drop Sprint like a bad habit at will. Bad news for Sprint, great news for us.

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Because Walmart isn't addressing the privacy concerns with rfid, I can't help but cheer when I hear their efforts to get RFID into all their products has failed.

Wal-Mart's change of plan demonstrates the need for retailers and suppliers alike to tread carefully with RFID. As retailers such as Best Buy have observed, widespread adoption is still years, not months, away. At the same time, some of the greatest benefits may not be in applications first thought to be ripe for the technology, such as automating distribution centers. Instead, retailers are finding early gains closer to the sales floor, where they are using RFID to track consumer buying patterns and ensure products are on shelves in time for promotions.

It used to be that Walmart's market power was so high that they could force anything they wanted, but I guess that's starting to slip a little.

Apple Corp.

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The iPhone was greatly anticipated as revolution in wireless phones (in some circles, it's been called the "Jesus phone"). As soon as it was released, hackers and tweakers got to work on unlocking it so it could work on other carriers or just be used as a PDA/MP3 player without phone service at all. Soon after that was completed, people were writing custom applications and modifications left and right.

The problem is that AT&T was losing potential customers and Apple was under pressure to make people stop enjoying their iPhones. That said, Apple issued an update to the iPhones that they warned would destroy any phone that had been unlocked or modified. Besides the wicked backlash in press and blogging against Apple for this move (which seems more deliberate than accidental), the new update breaks many legitimate applications that were designed to work with the iPhone as well.

Worst of all, Nokia has just launched their newest product and an ad campaign with the dual slogans, "Phones should be open to anything" and "The best devices have no limits". In the end, if the new Nokia phone doesn't match up to the features of the iPhone, it won't matter, but there's already an in-depth review from an editor at Popular science.

• Nokia has higher data speeds and can be used as a wireless modem for a computer without the clumsy hacks necessary for the iPhone.
• Nokia's are "unlocked" by default. This means they can be used with any GSM cellphone service in the world. No hacks or cracks necessary,.
• Battery life – Inconclusive
• Web browsing – iPhone. No surprise there; the whole phone is a screen.
• 3rd party applications – Nokia wins because Apple is either actively or incompetently blocking 3rd party apps

And many more, but I won't spoil the details, just the results. The Nokia clearly wins in most categories (price and size being detractors). Anyway, iPhone better shape up if they don't want to be left behind.

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Stolen from Schneier (but always credited), three articles by Cory Doctorow on DRM. My favorite tag line:

Digital rights management is a lie concocted to bilk the entertainment industry out of a fortune - it's time to wake up.

That is the truth. I could almost feel sorry for the industry, if they weren't using copyright lawsuits.

Cory is a guy who gets it:

Not one of them has ever stopped the widespread, unauthorised copying of media. Not one of them ever will.

Sounds like something something I might have said once. You would think these companies have at least one IT person both smart enough to realize this and gutsy enough to tell management.

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From the Washington Post:

When the U.S. Food and Drug Administration approved implanting microchips in humans, the manufacturer said it would save lives, letting doctors scan the tiny transponders to access patients' medical records almost instantly. The FDA found "reasonable assurance" the device was safe, and a sub-agency even called it one of 2005's top "innovative technologies."

But neither the company nor the regulators publicly mentioned this: A series of veterinary and toxicology studies, dating to the mid-1990s, stated that chip implants had "induced" malignant tumors in some lab mice and rats.

The FDA's not talking and anyone else involved says they hadn't read the study. Given that it's the FDA's job to find relevant studies and that the studies about the cancer link were widely available, it seems they're dropping the ball.

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In case you didn't know already, if you don't set up your filesharing software right or if there's a coding error that allows the program to be exploited, random people on the Internet might be able to browse around on your computer. What would they want? Perhaps banking information, personal data, access to your tax records.

If you're going to fileshare, learn a little about the program you plan to use first.

(Image is used under the Pixabay license)

There are a lot of good third-party applications available and installing them onto your iPhone has become so easy that you can do it with a few simple steps. So if you love your iPhone, you might as well see what nifty tools you can add to it to make it even better.