Update — Instagram now says it was all a huge mistake, that users own their pictures and there’s no way Facebook is going to sell them to anyone… but the company hasn’t yet revealed alternate legal language, which they should have been able to cobble up in an hour or two. The underlying problem of mean-spirited, self-serving, over-reaching terms of service is still with us at Instagram and almost everywhere else. Their revised terms of service were stupid and couldn’t stand. Let’s hope in their next attempt to grab rights (because that’s what this whole thing was about and probably still is) Instagram and Facebook treat their users fairly. Until they do, most of what’s […]
Instagram’s Exit Plan
Dr. Al explains the so-called “so-called fiscal cliff”
Most of us have had mentors and when it came to becoming a writer three of mine were the late Bill Rivers at Stanford who taught me to think and not just report, legendary book editor Bob Loomis at Random House who felt I might be able to stack enough of those thoughts together to fill a book, and a guy most of you know as Adam Smith, who let me copy his style.
Smith, named after the English economist and writer, helped start both New York and Institutional Investor magazines while at the same time punching out books like The Money Game and Paper Money — huge best sellers that taught regular people how the financial […]
Feedburner is undead for a moment, so please resubscribe to I, Cringely
I’ve been away, did you notice?
I didn’t realize how dependent this column was on RSS until last week when my RSS feed abruptly disappeared. I’ve spent a week now trying to get it back just until I can move to a new service. So, quick like a bunny, please head over to FeedBlitz and resubscribe before this thing breaks again.
We’ve used Feedburner since back before it was owned by Google. But FeedBurner apparently didn’t fit with Google’s Apps strategy so they announced awhile back that the service would be shutting down. Feedburner wasn’t ending instantly, but we had to go, and soon.
About the same time Google Apps asked me to switch subscriptions or add a […]
Who’s your daddy? Intel swoons for Apple
Just days after I wrote a column saying Apple will dump Intel and make Macintosh computers with its own ARM-based processors, along comes a Wall Street analyst saying no, Intel will be taking over from Samsung making the Apple-designed iPhone and iPod chips and Apple will even switch to x86 silicon for future iPads. Well, who is correct?
Maybe both, maybe neither, but here’s what I think is happening.
Apple is dependent on Samsung for making most of its Cupertino-designed chips, yet Apple has grown to hate Samsung over time, seeing the Korean company as an intellectual property thief. So Apple wants out of the relationship, this much is clear to everyone.
More stupid IBM tricks put customer data at risk
I heard from dozens of readers this morning about a message IBM sent to its current employees concerning their 401K plan — changing it from a contribution in every paycheck to a single contribution at the end of the year. Of course if you are laid off that means no annual contribution, less retirement savings, but a real bonus to the company. This, in itself, isn’t worth a column. It’s just Scrooge IBM being more Scrooge-like in search of that 2015 earnings target. What is worth a column is putting this news in the context of IBM having failed its recent internal security audit, which should concern IBM customers.
What, they didn’t tell you?
How well is […]
