Hardware
Google Phone Coming November 10?
The FCC just approved the HTC Dream, the first handset to carry Google’s upcoming Android mobile OS. A confidentiality request attached to the application asked the FCC to keep the details quiet until November 10.
That suggests the Google phone will launch November 10. Are you getting one?
OMB Fines CD-R King Over Blank Discs
I’ve been saying it for years: the Optical Media Act is a bad idea. Part of that bad idea: import permits for fucking pieces of plastic.
The Optical Media Board (OMB) has ordered CD-R King, one of the country’s biggest suppliers of optical media and related technology products, to pay P1.5 million in administrative penalties.
This was after the OMB, through the Bureau of Customs, found that the company was allegedly importing optical media discs without proper import permits from the agency, according to Cyrus Valenzuela, officer-in-charge of legal service division of OMB, in an interview.
The OMB sent its order Tuesday to CD-R King, informing them of their administrative violation of provisions of Republic Act 9239, or the Optical Media Act of 2003.
This is the same kind of thinking that gets Warner a per-Zune fee: just because a device with perfectly legitimate uses can conceivably be used for “piracy” means it should cost more. If you’re buying such a device, you’re automatically a thief and you should pay for your thievery. That’s just ludicrous! Not only does it raise the cost of legitimate information exchange — the basis of any vibrant civilization — it also serves no other purpose than to protect someone’s obsolete business model. That such an idea should be enshrined in law is even more ludicrous!
CD-R King gives a lower-income Filipinos a chance to use technology. It would be a shame to see it shut down just because the recording industry can so easily write our laws.
(Via Jepoy Bengero.)
