iPhones-Macintosh computers become apples of hackers’ eyes — AFP

It’s been a long time since I have taken sides in the Microsoft-Apple war. I haven’t been one of those to throw rocks at the other side while praising my own in some time (if I even have an “own” anymore — I’m a Linux geek), because I really believe that the differences between the two are not nearly as vast as they used to be. It may be a bit more than just cosmetic differences, but the two major players have grown more alike than different over the years. Of the three major consumer operating systems, I believe that they each have their place.

One thing that I never could allow Apple fanboys to get away with saying, though, is how much more secure their favorite operating system is because it has so few viruses. It’s an oft-made error of logic to confuse causation with correlation, and it certainly doesn’t follow that one can derive the premise (the operating system is secure) from the conclusion (there are few viruses). The biggest arrow in the quiver for Apple, in this regard, has been its total lack of market share — if there aren’t a lot of Apple machines to propagate a virus, then why go to all the trouble of writing one that won’t go anywhere?

Now, the AFP is reporting that hackers are starting to take a second look at Apple now that the market share has increased. The article goes into a bit more detail, but it’s not much more than what I said above: it’s simply a cost-benefit analysis to virus writers, and now that Apple’s market share is increasing, the “benefit” to the virus writers is going up.

R.I.P. HD DVD: Toshiba reportedly ends the war

Of course, the good guy to whom I’m referring is the technology itself and not its primary backers, e.g., Toshiba and Microsoft. HD DVD was considered the “good guy” in the format war between it and Blu-ray mostly because it was slightly less (shall we say) “intrusive.” That is to say that HD DVD was the lesser of two evils in the format war; a wonderful technology could have emerged, but we must roll with the punches.

This news certainly doesn’t come as surprise to anyone remotely following HD DVD’s format war with rival Blu-ray. HD DVD had suffered a string of defections, with Warner, Netflix, Best Buy, and Wal-Mart all recently pledging their alliance to Blu-ray.

The NHK report says existing HD DVD products will remain in the market for a while, but Toshiba will stop further development of HD DVD. The report also estimates that Toshiba will take a hit to the tune of “hundreds of millions of U.S. dollars” and will close factories in northern Japan.

It’s all rumor at this point, but it seems to be well-founded rumor. Official announcements are set for next week.

The End of an Era: Polaroid Drops Self-Developing Film — Real Tech News

As the title of the article says, it is certainly the end of an era.

Polaroid is dropping the product that made it famous. According to CNN, Polaroid is closing its remaining factories that produce self-developing film for its cameras (which have already gone out of production).

I remember an article from a good while back that stated that Polaroid was losing tons of money on the product, so it makes sense that it would end soon. Also, it is no shock that few people are using it anymore. Time and technology marches on, and there are much better, much cheaper methods of photography. Still, all said, when I was a kid it always seemed a technological wonder to watch one of those pictures develop.

Why are Republicans in Congress targeting Google? Two reasons — CNet

There is an article at CNet with a decidedly negative tone toward the Republican opposition to the Google-Doubleclick merger.

What’s odd is that these are the same Republicans who have spent their political careers extolling the virtues of mergers when telecommunications giants are vying to acquire one another. To say these Republicans like telecommunications mergers is an understatement akin to saying the U.S. occupation of Iraq may have encountered some setbacks over the past few years.

[…]

Like many of these Republicans, Barton is paid most handsomely in campaign contributions from the oil and gas industry (he supports taxpayers subsidizing the creation of new refineries for petrochemical companies). But telecommunications companies and their employees are up there as well, writing him checks for more than $1 million over the years.

Ok so we are to understand that Republicans are flip-flopping when it comes to mergers, unlike the virtuous and wonderful Democrats.

That’s the first reason some Republicans in Congress dislike Google, or at least are willing to publicly savage it: The search company has been fighting against AT&T, Verizon Communications, and Comcast over Net neutrality regulations for the last few years. Now that the Federal Trade Commission is reviewing the Google-DoubleClick deal, it’s time for some payback.

The second reason is more speculative but worth noting. And it’s that Republicans know that Google is run by Democrats.

In other words, Republicans are fighting this major merger because of a political issue and the fact that Google is run by Democrats. And you can certainly trust the author when it is said Google is run by Democrats.

It’s true. Chief Executive Eric Schmidt has written checks for $163,000 to Democratic campaign committees. Google board member John Doerr has given more than $507,000 to Democratic committees (and that’s not even counting individual politicians). Google board member Ram Shriram gave to only one presidential candidate this year: Barack Obama. Google board member Shirley Tilghman gave money only to Democratic causes, including Emily’s List. And so on.

[…]

Google’s policy staff reflects this partisan split. Andrew McLaughlin, Google’s director of global public policy and government affairs, was once a House Democratic aide. So was Johanna Shelton, a Google policy counsel. Google’s Washington spokesman was Sen. Joe Lieberman’s press secretary. Alan Davidson, Google’s senior policy counsel, worked in the White House Office of Policy Development in the Clinton administration. John Burchett, Google’s state policy counsel, was chief of staff to Jennifer Granholm, the Democratic governor of Michigan. (The lone exception is Pablo Chavez, a Google policy counsel, who worked for Sen. John McCain. And Google’s outside lobbyists are more evenly split between the major political parties.)

Here is the kicker, though:

This shouldn’t matter. But politicians are petty and parochial. So it probably does.

Oh it matters; so apparently when Republicans, who receive money from the oil and gas and telecom companies, which are probably run by Republicans, vote to allow mergers, it’s evil. (And, I should point out, by negative implication, when Democrats vote against these same mergers because they don’t receive money, it’s virtuous apparently.) On the other hand, when the money is switched, and the Republicans vote against the merger and the Democrats vote for it, it’s only the Republicans that are flip-flopping?

Seems like politics as usual to me; if one doesn’t want to become a political target, one shouldn’t get involved in politics.

Seagate Settles Suit Over ‘Gigabyte’ Definition — BetaNews

Seagate is planning to settle its lawsuit over the definition of a “gigabyte.”

Apparently, Seagate chose to use the decimal definition of a gigabyte, which would mean 1 billion bytes. However, this would lead to some confusion since typically computers will report storage by the binary definition, which is 1,073,741,824 bytes.

As long as I can remember, hard drive manufacturers have utilized the decimal notation to advertise hard drives. And, as long as I can remember, almost-computer-geeks have complained about it. Usually, the average user doesn’t understand how to even check if they have received the right amount of storage space on the purchased drive. At the other end of the spectrum, computer geeks understand that binary is used to calculate.

Because the binary system is used, the number “1000″ is not the nice number it is in decimal. In binary “1024″ is as magical and perfect a number as “1000″ is in decimal (for those of you that are visual, the number “1000″ in decimal is written “10000000000″ in binary — look at all those pretty zeroes!). The end result is that there is a little misconception because of a consumer’s bias toward the decimal system.

Hard drive manufacturers should tell consumers exactly how much space they are getting, in decimal; or, manufacturers should plainly state that the advertised amount is in binary. Either way, I don’t care, but then again, I’m a computer geek that always knew I wasn’t getting as big of a hard drive as other people thought they were getting.