Consumer protection org warns: resist Vista, “back to the future” with XP

In yet another blow to the reputation of Windows Vista, the Dutch Consumers’ Association (Consumentenbond) has recommended that customers who purchase new PCs insist on obtaining Windows XP over Vista. In addition, it called on computer shops to provide Windows XP downgrades to customers who have already obtained Vista from said shops. After unsuccessfully trying to persuade Microsoft to provide those free downgrades, the DCA said that consumers would have to take matters into their own hands since Microsoft does not agree with its assessment of the OS, which the organization said appears to have been released before it was truly ready, according to comments recorded by Expatica. Related Stories * XP on OEM hardware? Not after January, 2008 * Microsoft’s OEM catch-22: XP still in the driver’s seat * Report: Vista Business, XP Pro sales down in Europe * Forget big service packs, Vista “high quality right out of the gate,” says execThe organization’s spat with Microsoft began when it conducted a survey on Vista’s performance. According to the survey results, the OS performed quite poorly, racking up 5,000 consumer complaints in less than five weeks. Commonly reported issues center on printer and hardware compatibility, system crashes, and slow peripherals. The DCA met with Microsoft to discuss its concerns before issuing its statement warning consumers away from Vista—evidently, whatever olive branch Microsoft offered wasn’t enough to satisfy the group.

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Man I am with them on the Vista problems!!

Verizon Wireless Opt-Out Plan For Customer Records

An anonymous reader writes to let us know that Verizon Wireless is planning to share its customers’ calling records (called CPNI) with “our affiliates, agents and parent companies (including Vodafone) and their subsidiaries.” The article explains that CPNI “includes the numbers of incoming and outgoing calls and time spent on each call, among other data.” Some subscribers, it’s not known if it’s all of them, received a letter in the mail giving them 30 days to opt out of this sharing by calling 1-800-333-9956. Skydeck, a mobile and wireless services company, seems to have been the first to call attention to the Verizon initiative on their blog; they also posted a scan of the letter (sideways PDF) from Verizon.

Man that just boils my biscuits. I say we all call them and complain and tell them that we do not want it!! If you believe what I believe it isn’t right

Hitachi breakthrough: 4TB disks by 2011

When Hitachi — the first disk manufacturer to go perpendicular and subsequently break the 1TB consumer disk drive barrier — speaks about advances in hard disk technology, you’d be wise to listen. Today they’re touting the world’s smallest read-head technology for HDDs. The bold claim? 4TB desktop (3.5-inch) and 1TB laptop (2.5-inch) drives within the next 4 years. The new recording heads are more than 2x smaller than existing gear or about 2,000 times smaller than a human hair. Hmmm, Samsung may have to update their SSD vs. HDD graph after this, eh?

Hmm, Does that mean when those come out the 1 TB are going to go down in price!! 🙂 I hope so, maybe they’ll come up with a way for a 1 TB for a laptop!

Teenager claims to have easy iPod Touch jailbreak

A 13-year-old hacker claims to have developed code that would let you put third-party applications on an iPod Touch without having to take a computer science class.

AriX sent us a press release Sunday promoting iJailbreak, an automated program that allows third-party applications to run on the iPod Touch. It doesn’t work for the iPhone, and it’s only available for iPod Touch owners that are using Intel-based Macs. I don’t have an iPod Touch at my disposal right now, so I’m unable to test whether it actually works, but some users on MacRumors.com reported that it worked.

Ever since Apple released the 1.1.1 software update for both the iPhone and the iPod Touch in late September that broke older third-party application installers, hackers have been hard at work searching for a new way to bypass the restrictions. A preliminary jailbreaking application was released last week, but it required a great deal of expertise to get up and running. Erica Sadun, a writer for The Unofficial Apple Weblog, installed that iPod Touch jailbreak Friday evening but warned, “This is not ready for prime time, kids. Don’t do this at home.”

If a 13 year old can do it why can’t the dev team do it?

Canadian iPhone delayed by trademark dispute?


Mirroring the premature trademark dispute surrounding the launch of the Cisco iPhone in the US, Apple’s Canadian launch of its respective iPhone could be delayed due to a trademark dispute with a product that shares the same name as Apple’s gadget. Comwave Telecom in Toronto owns the trademark rights to the name “iPhone” in Canada for use on its VoIP products and services, and has filed a complaint with the Canadian Intellectual Property Office over Apple’s application for the trademark rights of the name for its future Canadian version of the iPhone. Sounds like a case of how much Apple is willing to pay, or how long they’re willing to delay.

Oh I wonder how long before they can ship to Canada??