Apple’s Congressional hearing leads to a couple of facts and laughter

by Jay Tamboli

Recap of Apple and Google’s testimony before Senator Al Franken’s mobile privacy hearing
[Via MacDailyNews]

USA Today’s Mike Snider live-blogged Apple and Google’s testimony at the “Protecting Mobile Privacy: Your Smartphones, Tablets, Cell Phones and Your Privacy” hearing before the Senate Committee on the Judiciary, Subcommittee on Privacy, Technology and the Law, chaired by Sen. Al Franken, D-Minn.

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A whole lot of hubbub and posturing, as most Senate committee hearings are but there were a couple of nuggets that should be hit.

Apple audits the apps in the App Store to check on privacy matters. Google does not. While both rely on users to let them know about problems, only Apple takes a proactive approach to sniff out problems.

Also, Apple puts a specific icon on the screen when location services are being used. Did not hear if Android does anything.

Finally, best comment and reply:

Mikepl

Tuesday, May 10, 2011 – 2:28 pm · Reply

Why isn’t MS also included for WM phones?

 

Malthus

Tuesday, May 10, 2011 – 3:17 pm · Reply

Because the three people who had one said Microsoft already knew where they were. At their desks at Redmond…

 

I smiled.

Smart business deal or smartest business deal?

by aanjhan

Microsoft’s Ballmer reportedly tricked into overbidding for Skype by $4.5 billion
[Via MacDailyNews]

“With Microsoft having confirmed its acquisition of Skype, sources tell TechCrunch Europe that Redmond outbid its closest rival, Google, by almost two-to-one,” Steve O’Hear reports for TechCrunch. “Meanwhile, Facebook is said to have never been in the running.”

O’Hear reports, “According to a source who claims knowledge of talks held between all parties, Google came in second at a price of $4B, while Microsoft will be paying $8.5B.”

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Channeling  a little Colbert but what is going on here? Does MS really feel that $8.5 billion is a good investment or did they get overcome by auction fever?

Is VoIP something that the major carriers will accept for Windows Mobile? Or will they try and hamper it? How long will it take to implement this or will it die, just like the Kin did, due to internal politics?MS already has some people on the organizational map that will feel pretty threatened with this purchase. At MS, internal politics often determine the success of a project than its own merit.

Explosive well water

Natural gas fracking can make local well water explosive
[Via Ars Technica]

As most forms of energy in the US have been going up in price, natural gas has gone in the opposite direction. This is largely the result of a new extraction technique called “fracking,” in which fluids under high pressure are used to fracture rock formations deep underground, releasing large volumes of gas that would otherwise be trapped in small pockets. Because of relaxed regulations in some states, the process of fracking boomed before anyone had a clear perspective on its environmental consequences.

Most of the concerns about fracking have focused on the fluids involved in the process, which tend to exit the wells heavily contaminated with dissolved metals and radioactive material. But those may not be the only worries. A study, released yesterday by PNAS, now shows that fracking may be contaminating local groundwater with enough methane to pose a risk of explosion.

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This will require further testing but the data so far indicate that the methane is coming from the gas wells. And the levels in some of the water samples was high enough to be potentially dangerous.

I wonder just how prevalent this will turn out to be? One suggestion is that the wells themselves are not contained enough to prevent leakage. Another is that the fracking process itself opens natural fractures that leak gas.

Inadvertent methane release will be a source of real concern – and potential lawsuits – for the energy companies.