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San Mateo County levies a serious punishment for traffic violations: Internet
Explorer
,----[ Quote ]
| Today I received word that Microsoft owns a small piece of the California
| government.
|
| [...]
|
| Even worse, however, was when I went online to try to pay the ticket. I have
| to use Internet Explorer to do business with San Mateo County, apparently.
| What a complete joke.
|
| Use Linux? Mac OS X? Or even Firefox on Windows? Sorry.
|
| This sort of rubbish web design speaks ill of San Mateo County.
`----
http://www.cnet.com/8301-13505_1-9939664-16.html?part=rss&tag=feed&subj=TheOpenRoad
XAML for Library of Congress and DRM for Boston Public Library? What a sham.
Microsoft is poisoning the government with lock-in. There are laws against
that. They are essentially breaking some laws and sometimes accepting
Microsoft soft bribes for it (example below).
Recent:
Taxation without web presentation
,----[ Quote ]
| The Library of Congress recently signed a deal to accept 3 million dollars
| worth of "technology, services and funding" from Microsoft towards building a
| new website powered by Microsoft's Silverlight plug-in. I (Casey) usually
| leave the blogging to Tim, but I've got to say something about this.
|
| [...]
|
| Most disturbingly, users are locked in, too: anybody using an iPhone, an old
| version of Windows, any version of Linux, or any other operating system or
| device not supported by Silverlight will be unable to use the Library of
| Congress' new website.
`----
http://www.librarything.com/thingology/2008/02/taxation-without-web-presentation.php
Protest DRM at the Boston Public Library
,----[ Quote ]
| the BPL [Boston Public Library] has launched a new service powered by a
| company called OverDrive. The system gives BPL patrons access to books,
| music, and movies online -- but only if they use a Microsoft DRM system.
|
| There are lots of problems with the introduction of this system: it bars
| access to users of GNU/Linux and MacOS and creates a dependence on a single
| technology vendor for access. These are important issues, certainly. The
| worst problem, however, is much more fundamental.
|
| By adopting a DRM system for library content, the BPL is giving OverDrive,
| copyright holders, and Microsoft the ability to decide what, when, and how
| its patrons can and cannot read, listen, and watch these parts of the BPL
| collection.
`----
http://mako.cc/copyrighteous/20080207-00
Related:
British Library books go digital
,----[ Quote ]
| Digitised publications will be accessible in two ways -initially through
| Microsoft's Live Search Books and then via the Library's website.
`----
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/technology/7018210.stm
Britain: E-Mail Time Capsule in Works
,----[ Quote ]
| Now the British Library is appealing to ordinary Britons for their
| e-mails, saying it wants to create a snapshot of British life in 2007.
|
| [...]
|
| The e-mails will be collated and indexed by Microsoft Corp., which
| has previously partnered with the library to digitize books from
| its archive, and they will be available to researchers before
| the year's end.
`----
http://biz.yahoo.com/ap/070503/britain_e_mail_archive.html?.v=1
Vista and British Library put da Vinci online
,----[ Quote ]
| Microsoft and the British Library have digitised two of Leonardo da
| Vincis' notebooks.
|
| [...]
|
| The British Library has created an updated version of its application
| called "Turning the Pages" which allows people to browse parts of
| its 150 million piece collection via a web browser. We heard how
| this works better using Vista.
`----
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2007/01/30/vinci_notebooks_vista/
Publish And Perish
,----[ Quote ]
| Alexander Rose, the executive director of the futurist Long Now
| Foundation, worries about the impermanence of digital information.
| "If you save that computer for 100 years, will the electrical plugs
| look the same?" he asks. "The Mac or the PC--will they be around?
| If they are, what about the software? " So far there's no business
| case for digital preservation--in fact, for software makers like
| Microsoft, planned obsolescence is the plan.
|
| "The reality is that it's in companies' interest that software should
| become obsolete and that you should have to buy every upgrade,"
| Rose says. We could be on the cusp of a turning point, though, in the
| way businesses and their customers think about digital preservation.
| "Things will start to change when people start losing all of their personal
| photos," Rose said.
`----
http://www.forbes.com/2006/11/30/books-information-preservation-tech-media_cx_ee_books06_1201acid.html?partner=yahootix
http://tinyurl.com/yyjqoh
British Library calls for digital copyright action
,----[ Quote ]
| In a manifesto released on Monday at the Labor Party Conference
| in Manchester, the United Kingdom's national library warned that the
| country's traditional copyright law needs to be extended to fully
| recognize digital content.
|
| "Unless there is a serious updating of copyright law to recognize
| the changing technological environment, the law becomes an ass,"
| Lynne Brindley, chief executive of the British Library, told ZDNet
| UK.
`----
http://news.zdnet.com/2100-9588_22-6119043.html
BBC Corrupted
,----[ Quote ]
| Today the BBC made it official -- they have been corrupted by Microsoft. With
| today's launch of the iPlayer, the BBC Trust has failed in its most basic of
| duties and handed over to Microsoft sole control of the on-line distribution
| of BBC programming. From today, you will need to own a Microsoft operating
| system to view BBC programming on the web. This is akin to saying you must
| own a Sony TV set to watch BBC TV. And you must accept the Digital
| Restrictions Management (DRM) that the iPlayer imposes. You simply cannot be
| allowed to be in control of your computer according to the BBC.
`----
http://defectivebydesign.org/blog/BBCcorrupted
Microsoft’s 4th of July Trans-Atlantic assault on document standards
,----[ Quote ]
| With OOXML and XPS, Microsoft has chosen to not work with existing standards,
| but to create new ones, as they have in their recent announcement on Web3S
| instead of working with the rest of the industry on the Atom Publishing
| Protocol. In the case of OOXML, this is a logical move on Microsoft’s part,
| since it is an evolution of Microsoft’s XML strategy started with the
| Microsoft Office 2003 version and ODF will be a technology diversion from
| that strategy. With Microsoft controlling 90% of the office productivity
| tools market and OOXML being the default file format for Microsoft Office
| 2007, OOXML is likely to be widely-used.
`----
http://blogs.zdnet.com/Newton/?p=16
Microsoft criticized for Open XML petition
,----[ Quote ]
| The petition is an attempt to make it appear that Open XML
| has "pseudo-grassroots" support, argues Mark Taylor, the
| founder of the Open Source Consortium.
`----
http://news.zdnet.com/2100-3513_22-6173625.html
Microsoft calls on UK public to raise the Office standard
,----[ Quote ]
| Microsoft is calling on the Great British public to join its campaign
| to get the XML Office format adopted as an international standard.
|
| [...]
|
| It is not clear if the UK is an opponent. However, a representative
| of fellow member the Bureau of Indian Standards recently reportedly
| complained to the IndiaTime.com over Microsoft's decision to dump
| 6,000 pages of documentation on them.
`----
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2007/04/04/microsoft_office_standards_petition/
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