David Liu 's Techdirt Comments

Latest Comments (163) comment rss

  • On the post: What If Every eBook Was Its Own Social Network?

    David Liu ( profile ), 23 May, 2011 @ 01:17am

    Re: Re: Re: Re: So the book itself is not enough, you want them to entertain you in every way.. meet your every desire.

    People would have to buy the book first before they could troll the forums. I think that alone is enough of a deterrent.

  • On the post: Philly Police Harass, Threaten To Shoot Man Legally Carrying Gun; Then Charge Him With Disorderly Conduct For Recording Them

    David Liu ( profile ), 23 May, 2011 @ 01:01am

    Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Virginia has open carry law as well

    Plus, openly carrying your gun might make everyone ELSE nervous, and make you feel a little embarrassed. Concealing your weapon means you can carry it around without showing it to the world.

  • On the post: Death Of iFlow Reader Due To Apple Changes Shows Why Betting On Closed Platforms Is Risky

    David Liu ( profile ), 18 May, 2011 @ 07:39pm

    Seems kind of obvious to me. I mean, is there anything more short-sighted than betting your entire business and have your entire model rely on your competitor's platform? They do realize that Apple is also in the eBook market as well right? They should've known better than to think that their own business could be safe.

  • On the post: Kevin Spacey Threatens Musician For Offering Album Called 'Kevinspacey'

    David Liu ( profile ), 17 May, 2011 @ 11:39am

    Re: Re:

    But that's the point. As an average music listener, I would've never thought that CWL in the glasses was the artist name. But I do know the name "Kevin Spacey", and if I see that along the side of the album, I'll immediately associate the CD with his name.

  • On the post: Why Does Hollywood Insist On Making Online Movies So Annoying?

    David Liu ( profile ), 11 May, 2011 @ 11:54am

    Re:

    But of course, Hollywood is too worried about control to see that loosening their grip a tiny bit might actually make them some more money.

  • On the post: Why Does Hollywood Insist On Making Online Movies So Annoying?

    David Liu ( profile ), 11 May, 2011 @ 11:53am

    When you think about it, the 30 day rental part is completely irrelevant. I mean, why on earth would you rent it if you weren't going to watch it right then? So in all actuality, you only have 24 hours to watch a movie. Way too short. Do they honestly think that it'll hurt their revenues in the slightest if people can watch it over a longer period of time? There are only a scant few number of movies that deserve a second viewing (and none of them were made by today's Hollywood), so I really don't think they would even lose any revenue if they extended it a couple more days to like 3 or 4 days.

  • On the post: Copyright Maximalists Come Out Against New TLDs Because It Creates 'More Space' For Infringement

    David Liu ( profile ), 09 May, 2011 @ 01:18pm

    Re: Re: Re:

    Yes, because the first thing people will type is popularsite.xxx or popularsite.jobs.

  • On the post: Apple Takes Credit For 'Uncovering' Its Patented Location 'Bug' That Isn't Really Tracking You, But Which It'll Fix

    David Liu ( profile ), 28 Apr, 2011 @ 01:36pm

    Re: Re: Re:

    http://techcrunch.com/2011/04/22/google-responds-to-smartphone-location-tracking-uproar-says-android-is-opt-in/

    Doesn't say anything about keeping a cache of my recent locations on my phone either. All I would be able to tell is that it uses some sort of magic to get a lock on my location without GPS.

    And iAds is a bust; Apple is way less about giving your personal information away. See app store subscription policies on giving your information to publishers: Apple's is opt-in, Google's is opt-out.

  • On the post: Apple Takes Credit For 'Uncovering' Its Patented Location 'Bug' That Isn't Really Tracking You, But Which It'll Fix

    David Liu ( profile ), 28 Apr, 2011 @ 01:24pm

    Re: Re: Re: Re: Re:

    They did. You're just mad they didn't say it in a less formal tone.

  • On the post: Apple Takes Credit For 'Uncovering' Its Patented Location 'Bug' That Isn't Really Tracking You, But Which It'll Fix

    David Liu ( profile ), 28 Apr, 2011 @ 01:23pm

    Re: Re: Re: Re: Re:

    At least I know what's in my wallet at any given time - so I know precisely what information I'm about to give away if someone was to go through my wallet and/or find it after I lost it.
    So clearly now that you know what's on your iPhone, it's a non-issue.

    And please, to access the info on your phone, they'd need a Mac with XCode, and the prowess to use the app that extracts the information on your phone.

    This info stays on your phone. So it's just as private as all the things you do in your daily life to keep private.

  • On the post: SWAT Team Raids Home Because Guy Had An Open Wireless Router

    David Liu ( profile ), 25 Apr, 2011 @ 04:17pm

    Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Headline a bit misleading

    Incorrect:

    The title past the link: "Guy Gets SWAT Team-ed for Not Securing His Wireless Connection"

    The original article: "NY case underscores Wi-Fi privacy dangers"

    Mike also isn't claiming that the sole reason for the raid is just because he had an open router. He knows that the reason for the raid is because of child porn and states as such in the second sentence. He knows it and assumes his readers are smart enough to not take headlines so literally and possibly read the article.

    I guess he's giving the commenters on the lower end of the curve a little too much credit here.

  • On the post: iPhone & iPad Recording Your Every Move

    David Liu ( profile ), 21 Apr, 2011 @ 01:20pm

    Re: Re:

    But which is explained by the Apple engineers just saving all the data down, and never deleting it, because they didn't see any reason why to delete it in the first place.

    I'm also pretty sure that "cell towers" aren't a temporary thing, so my phone might as well keep a log of all the cell towers that I've ever come across, since I might pass by it again. The only reason to cull stuff like this is for performance and space issues, and neither issue seems to have come up.

  • On the post: iPhone & iPad Recording Your Every Move

    David Liu ( profile ), 20 Apr, 2011 @ 03:06pm

    From a post on BoingBoing:

    I would except this level of sensationalistic reporting from the Guardian, but not boingboing.

    The file name says it all, CellLocation, under the Cache directory.

    Apple is essentially caching the location of cell tower ids, so they can do triangulation without having to request this info again from their servers. Cell triangulation is needed even with a GPS chip, because otherwise it would take a really long time to get a lock.

    This actually enhances your privacy with respect to Apple since their servers don't get a request for your location at every point (which how Google does it). This is Cell ID to location is requested only when you go somewhere else covered by different cell (or the cache expires)

    Sure maybe this file could be encrypted by Apple using some key, but that key could also easily be cracked and then what.


    So, pretty much kinda overblown FUD by the media.

  • On the post: Tolkien Estate Strikes Again: Forces Summer Camp To Change Name

    David Liu ( profile ), 20 Apr, 2011 @ 02:35pm

    Re: Kind of stupid

    It isn't wrong to name it. They're unrelated products in unrelated service areas.

    But the Tolkiens are the one with the money, while this is just some summer camp. The summer camp folks know that they're perfectly in their legal right to name it Rivendell (as noted in the article itself), but they don't want to waste money fighting some frivolous lawsuit.

  • On the post: iPhone & iPad Recording Your Every Move

    David Liu ( profile ), 20 Apr, 2011 @ 02:31pm

    Honestly though, I'm sorta less worried about this than if it were an Android version. Looking at the recent app store policies on subscriptions, Apple's the one that lets you opt-in for sending your personal demographic information to advertisers, while Google's policy make you opt-out of it.

    Shows you where the company's loyalties lie. Sure, we still don't know why Apple's collecting it, but if they're not sending it out to other advertising companies and only using it for internal analysis (which almost every company does (usage analytics)), then I'm not really all that worried about it.

  • On the post: iPhone & iPad Recording Your Every Move

    David Liu ( profile ), 20 Apr, 2011 @ 02:25pm

    Re: Re: Re:

    Except Apple hasn't done anything of the sort that I know of with regards to jailbreaking their iOS devices. That snark was unwarranted.

  • On the post: Apple Sues Samsung Because Galaxy Tab Looks Too Much Like An iPad

    David Liu ( profile ), 19 Apr, 2011 @ 12:45pm

    To be fair:
    http://mobilized.allthingsd.com/files/2011/04/apple-v.-samsung-2-380x392.png

    I'd say that the GUI looks almost exactly the same.

    And for a big company like Apple, their developers have little interest in this lawsuit; more like their legal department saw some similarities and found yet another way to justify their existance.

  • On the post: New Zealand Politican Tweets How She's Violating Copyright Law Night Before Supporting Three Strikes Copyright Law

    David Liu ( profile ), 14 Apr, 2011 @ 03:53pm

    Re: Re:

    Which doesn't even matter in most cases, since the composer is probably not the rights holder in the first place.

  • On the post: Latest Issue Of Newsweek Down To Just Six Ads

    David Liu ( profile ), 14 Apr, 2011 @ 02:08am

    Was Newsweek that bad, deserving of your scorn? It didn't seem all that bad from the times I've occasionally flipped through it.

  • On the post: More Data And Thoughts On The Pay What You Want For A Stylus Experiment

    David Liu ( profile ), 07 Apr, 2011 @ 01:24pm

    The post brings up a very good point: how much is a white board marker with a conductive felt tip on the end even worth?

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4d2u5IX_qHc

    An expo marker ($1), some wire (

Next >>