Does Apple own the rights to your user created iTunes content?

Love the iTunes Music Store but hate iPods and iTunes itself? Don’t fret as their are many options for you such as GTK Pod or Amarok just to get the juices flowing. We all know Apple loves their walled garden approach to the products and is now getting yet another lawsuit because of it. This time it cetners around BlueWiki getting a DMCA violation claim from the almighty fruit stating that their site, which reverse engineers the iPod/iTunes code in order to develop 3rd party progams to sync you iPod with, is in direct violation of copyright clauses within the DMCA. Naturally Apple wants you to only use iTunes because it is the best. No software is ever the best at anything, merely a favorite or one that holds popular majority, but never “the best”. The fighting is about to get uglier as the EFF has sued Apple over their legal threats stating that they are operating well within the law and that Apple has no right to dictate how a person syncs his or her iPod, or even if reverse engineering is illegal. Care to explore? You know what to click.

PercentMobile makes tracking mobile users on your site easy

Like all site owners, trully knowing your audience is extremely beneficial as it will help you tailor your content and styles to your readers making them even more loyal and likely to stick with you in the long run. Today I ran across, and was lucky enough to snag one of the 500 invites (via: Tech Crunch) to be able to be part of the ongoing beta of PercentMobile. As the name spells out, it tracks your websites mobile users and displays them by carrier, phone model, country, screen dimension, and even if they are browsing over WiFi among other juicy tid bits. Knowing such information will make catering and providing certain content for certain users easier and actually fun to pick apart and go through. Unfortunately since I just signed up about twenty minutes ago, I don’t have any mobile statistics yet as it takes about two hours for the service to get up and going once you install the short snippit of code into your site. Because of that, I used the image above provided by Tech Crunch that shows the mobile statistics for FourSquare, a mobile social network. As you can see, the information is pretty intriguing. Even if you aren’t lucky enough to get into the beta, I highly recommend joining in once it becomes public. Information like this is pure gold. Once I get some stats to display, I’ll give you all a look.

Source: Tech Crunch

Apparently the English language has a copyright [Stupid]

Please Susan…those little kittens are so damn cute…

The digital age has brought many new freedoms to the people of the world. Such freedoms as streaming audio/video, the ability to back up your CD’s and DVD’s for personal use, as well as the quick exchange of information from one corner of the planet to another just to name a few. However, copyright holders everywhere are running scared of this new found freedom fearing that it will somehow ruin their precious work. Music labels and music related copyrights are starting to get ridiculous in their never ending quests for more money in suing every individual they can find. The book/novel publishing scene sadly is no different. Exactly how bad are copyrights and trademarks getting? Apparently the English language that we have all been using for centuries is now, somehow under copyright law. The nonsense continues just inside…

UK Government gets lazy, decides ISP’s need to do the data retaining.

In case you don’t remember the UK’s plans for a central database of epic proportions, for a quick refresher, it was a database that would store every email, phone call, and web page visited by UK natives. Scared? You should be. Why the extreme evesdropping and invasion of privacy? It was all in the name of “national security”. Because somehow taking the needle in a haystack idea and multiplying it one thousand fold will make it soooo easy to catch the creepers. Well some sort of good news has come to light today as the UK government has announced its plans to abandon their efforts in their central database. And the bad news…yes there is bad news, they are instead proposing that the individual ISP’s take on the added burden and retain private data for 12 months. But they don’t stop there. The UK government is taking unprecedented steps in their fight for “national security”. How bad is it getting? The dirty details are right after the click.

Missing Sync 2.0 for iPhone adds “Two-way syncing” to the feature list

If you were a bit peeved by the iPhone and iPod Touches lack of syncing certain files such as notes and documents just to name a couple, Missing Sync was your saving grace. It allowed you to sync files that your Mac that you normally wouldn’t be able to borrow from your device. Though, with the first rendition you could only sync files on the mobile device to the Mac, and not the other way around. However, Missing Sync 2.0 now brings the ability for true two-way syncing as to make the most of your mobile life and allow you mobile and desktop devices to always be in sync. As far as iPhone/iPod Touch app compatibility goes, Fliq Notes 2.0 and Fliq Docs 2.0 are supported. If the 2.0 update is exactly what you’ve been waiting for, you’ll have to part with $40 for the added functionality. Previously registered pre-2.0 users will be able to get the upgrade for free. You down?

[Product Page]

Source: Macworld,

Microsoft’s Vine to compete with Twitter?

Twitter is no doubt the latest craze, though a large part of the recent traffic spike could be attributed to all of the media coverage concerning the now infamous Ashton Kutcher vs. CNN race to one million followers. Celebrity draw aside, Twitter has been growing each month at levels that any company or business would die for. Microsoft being the tech giant that they are, are constantly looking for ways to bring in more revenue. In this case by means of a new service in the form of Twitter. What could it possibly be?

Don’t just jam cellphone signals, decimate them with the Super Power GSM Cellular Jammer

Whether you are in the market for a cellphone jammer merely for fun on a boring Saturday afternoon, or you are 008, the next replacement for James Bond, cellphone jammers can prove to meet both of those individuals needs. In this case however, at £2875.00 ($4,196.64), only the more serious signal jammers can afford such a luxury: the Super Power GSM Cellular Jammer. This bad mama jamma (funny…? Eh…no…Ok) will render any GSM signal (regardless of the weather) within its large 120 meter range completely and utterly useless. As an added bonus, you can control which areas are blocked and which are not thanks to moveable and adjustable antennas. For example, block your neighbor next door for fun while leaving your cell phone service unimpeded. Not only will it block GSM signals, but if you ever need some extra heat in the winter, at 45 watts, it is sure to put out a fair bit of heat as well. However, two onboard fans will keep temperatures in check if heat is not a “feature” you are after. If you have the want, need, or wallet for such a cool device, open your wallet, and open it wide and head on over to Spy Catcher where you can pick up your very own Super Power GSM Cellular Jammer.

Source: Red Ferret