UNINNOVATE / Engineering At Its Finest

The Zune is Microsoft’s new portable media player meant to compete with Apple’s dominant iPod. In a new review by Andy Ihnatko, the Chicago Sun-Times lambasts the Zune as a clear-cut case of uninnovation:

You’ll find that the Zune Planet orbits the music industry’s Bizarro World, where users aren’t allowed to do anything that isn’t in the industry’s direct interests.

Take the Zune’s one unique and potentially ginchy feature: Wi-Fi. You see this printed on the box and you immediately think “Cool. So I can sync files from my desktop library without having to plug in a USB cable, right? Maybe even download new content directly to the device from the Internet?”

Typical, selfish user: How does your convenience help make money for Universal? No wonder Doug despises you.

No, the Zune’s sole wireless feature is “squirting” — I know, I know, it’s Microsoft’s term, not mine — music and pictures to any other Zune device within direct Wi-Fi range. Even if the track is inherently free (like a podcast) the Zune wraps it in a DRM scheme that causes the track to self-destruct after three days or three plays, whichever comes first.

Chicago Sun-Times: Avoid the loony Zune

While we have previously reported on the Zune and uninnovation on this blog, it’s unusual to see such forthright reporting in the mainstream media. The Sun-Times review goes on to call the Zune “a complete, humiliating failure” and ends the review with “Result: The Zune will be dead and gone within six months. Good riddance.”

This is even more bad news for the Zune, which has been the target of much critism lately.  From software instability, to missing Windows Vista compaitbility, to slow sales, to record company kickbacks, there hasn’t been much good Zune-related news to go around.

Most cell phones in the United States are purchased as part of a service plan. The phone itself is cheap or free, but it must be bought as part of a one-year or two-year service contract. Phones can also be purchased separately, but are often hundreds of dollars more expensive then the phones that come with service plans. This is because phone companies take a loss on the phone up front and hope to make up that loss over the life of the contract in monthy fees.
Nearly all of the phones purchased as part of a service plan (and even some that are purchased separately) are SIM locked to only work with that phone companies’ network. The phone’s software will reject SIM cards from competing phone networks. Phones bought from T-Mobile only work with T-Mobile, phones bought from Cingular only work with Cingular, etc. This way the phone company can be certain that a customer is stuck and they will make back their investment.

The problem is that even when the contract is complete, many phone companies will not unlock the phone or will only unlock it through a complicated or poorly advertised process. This is designed to make it less it appealing for customers to switch services because they will have to purchase new phones, but it also causes headaches for frequent travellers or people who have relocated to a new country. For example, a U.S.-based traveller in China must pay absurdly high international rates to use their U.S. cell phone within China. If the phone was unlocked, they could pick up a new Chinese SIM card for a few dollars and have local phone service at a fraction of the price of international service.

Like all software locks, SIM locking can be broken and often is. However, this is a grey market or black market activity in the U.S. Breaking the SIM locks involves modifying the phone’s internal software. Phone companies leverage copyright circumvention restrictions in the DMCA that make it illegal to sell or use a device that circumvents copyright. In effect, it is not legal for a user to modify their own cellphone even if they own it because it would potentially violate the copyright of the phone’s software.

Yesterday, the Library of Congress announced six new exceptions to DMCA rules. Among those was the declaration that breaking SIM locks will not be considered a DMCA violation starting on Monday:

5. Computer programs in the form of firmware that enable wireless telephone handsets to connect to a wireless telephone communication network, when circumvention is accomplished for the sole purpose of lawfully connecting to a wireless telephone communication network.

Library of Congress Rulemaking Statement

This has the potential to legitimize the shady market of cell phone unlockers. It also has the potential to change how cell phone companies do business. If awareness of these rules spreads and legitimate cell phone unlocker services appear, the current cell phone business model might not make as much sense. It is also likely to further frustrate “pay as you go” cell phone providers who have been trying to stop resellers who purchase their phones and then sell them overseas for a profit.

The Recording Industry Association of America (or RIAA for short) recently filed a music piracy lawsuit against a Ms. Lindor, claiming that she was downloading music illegally from the internet. This came as quite a surprise to Ms. Lindor, a home health aid who has never used a computer. After learning that she doesn’t use computers, the RIAA today issued a subpoena for her son’s computer. But this isn’t the case of mom getting in trouble for son playing on the computer. Her son is a grown man who lives on his own several miles away from his mom. I guess if the RIAA can’t prove someone is stealing music, they will keep poking around until they find a family member that is.

This alone isn’t much of a news story. Everyone knows that the RIAA has sued thousands for online music piracy. Occasionally there will be a few news stories about the more outrageous cases, like the RIAA suing a 12-year-old girl or suing a dead grandma, but generally the lawsuits get settled quietly.

So why all the lawsuits? The RIAA wants you to think they, along with the rest of the industry, are just “looking out for artists” by trying to stop downloaders. If you download music, you must be hurting your favorite band, right?

Then explain this:

The mystery surrounding the cause of recent leaks of The Game’s new album, Doctor’s Advocate, has been solved, thanks to the rapper himself.

The Game, real name Jayceon Taylor, admitted to releasing a clean version of his upcoming release in an overt strategic move.

RapBasement.com

That’s right, the new album by multi-platinum rapper The Game was leaked intentionally by the rapper himself as a way to drive sales:

“You gotta do that. You gotta give people a sample,” said the rapper, who compared the process to an interesting trade. “It’s like selling crack in the ‘hood, man. Anybody that ever sold drugs in the hood knows you gotta give a ***** a taste before they buy.

RapBasement.com

This isn’t another desperate indie artist using the internet to gain exposure any way possible. The Game’s first album sold over five million copies. The Game also leaked that album online and he partially credits the album’s success to that leak. Now he is trying to recreate that success by doing the same thing that the RIAA claims is killing the industry.

While the music industry continues to pursue a robust business strategy of suing customers and hoping that the internet will just go away, a former drug dealer turned musician is making millions by seeding his own music to so-called illegal file sharers. How much more of a wake-up call can an industry get? As old-world record companies become more and more irrelevent, they will have no one to blame but themselves.

The PlayStation 3 launched in Japan last week and initial shipments completely sold out. However, the high demand for the PS3 systems is partially blamed on the low number of units shipped. Sony is reported as shipping only 80,000 PS3 systems in Japan, much lower than other system launches. The high demand has resulted in speculators buying up the systems and reselling them online. So many systems were bought up for resale instead of use that so far less than one game has been purchased per system sold.

Sources close to CompUSA have notified Uninnovate that Sony is requiring CompUSA to package PlayStation 3 pre-order units with Sony televisions. Customers who wish to preorder a PlayStation 3 must also purchase a 40-inch or larger Sony television. If the customer returns the television, they must also return the PlayStation 3 and pay a 15% restocking fee.

According to our sources, these pre-order terms are dictated by Sony to CompUSA. The television purchased in the bundle must be a Sony-branded unit that is 40 inches or larger. The lowest priced Sony 40-inch television offered on the CompUSA website is $1,799. That’s a high premium to pay to reserve a PS3 three days before the system launches.

Please note that we cannot confirm if this is true at all CompUSA locations and it only applies to preorders made this week. If you have tried to pre-order a PS3 at your local CompUSA this week, please post a comment to let us know how it went.

Update: Here’s a clipping from the newest CompUSA flyer that shows the preorder deal:

Update 2:

Things aren’t looking much better at other stores:

I work in the software department (console games) at Fry’s electronics. Today, my supervisor informed me that we would not be allowing anyone to purchase a PS3 without also purchasing 8 games. What a launch day surprise, right? Show up, wait in line for hours and hours, run into the store, and THEN find out that, sorry, we forgot to tell you, but you’ll need to buy 8 games if you want the console.

At $60 a piece for the software titles, we’re talking upwards of $1080 just to get a PS3 from Fry’s.

Kotaku.com

Imagine the following computer program:

1. Display a picture of a cat and a dog
2. Allow user to pick which animal is his or her favorite
3. Record the choice
4. Print out a paper record of the choice

Anyone with minimal computer programming experience should be able to write such a program. A team of experienced programmers should have absolutely no problem writing, testing, and deploying such a program in a matter of days. Any legitimate software company would have no problem allowing outside security corporations to review such a program because the program would be considered completely trivial. There should be no room for error in such a simple problem.

Yet, in the United States, the simple problem of recording votes with computers has been fraught with bias, secrecy, inconsistency and incompetence. This problem is not limited to a political party or select jurisdiction. Reseachers from several universities have identified glaring holes in several types of voting machines. Given the state of computer science and standard software industry practices in comparable industries such as banking, there is absolutely no excuse for these problems. These are problems that have been solved many times over.

HBO has produced a documentary entitled “Hacking Democracy” that chronicles some of the major problems with electronic voting machines over the last two years. The final segment of the documentary shows actual voting machines in government-controlled conditions altering votes without any record that the votes were altered. At that point, the machines may as well be spitting out random numbers for vote totals because the results are completely worthless.

The entire documentary has been posted on Google Video and is embedded below:

If these were ATM machines being sold to banks, the quality and security of these machines would have resulted in lawsuits, investigations, and firings many times over. Unfortunately, the public sector lags behind the private sector in technology and has shown that it does not have the resources or expertise to certify voting machines as being secure. With so much at risk, jurisdictions nationwide and worldwide need to reject any machine outright that is not fully open and available for researchers to inspect. Any company that is afraid of allowing this does not deserve the public’s trust as a partner in maintaining a democracy.