Linked List: May 2, 2010

Sunday, 2 May 2010

Freedom From Relevance 

John Sullivan of the Free Software Foundation, responding to Steve Jobs’s “Thoughts on Flash”:

H.264, despite Jobs’s claim, is not a free standard — patents necessary to implement it are held by a group that requires all users to agree to a license with restrictive terms.

Jobs never said H.264 was a “free” standard. He said it was an open standard. Not all open standards are free.

Sullivan is more or less arguing the FSF party line, that both Apple and Adobe are unethical because both are promoting things that aren’t free-as-in-freedom. That’s great. So what mobile phone should an FSF devotee buy? Good luck with that.

How Wired.com Tracked the iPhone Finder 

Brian X. Chen:

And so the hunt for clues began — a week after Gizmodo broke its story. By then, Hogan had deleted his Facebook profile, and presumably every other social networking profile he owned, in an effort to hide. That made the search difficult, but his attempt to disappear was already a major clue that he was in trouble.

iLounge on iPad 3G Battery Life 

They got over eight hours of battery life while reloading a large web page over 3G every 60 seconds.

Ins and Outs of the 3G iPad AT&T Service Plans 

Glenn Fleishman on the iPad’s 3G networking setup and use.