Selective Updating

Update: Buggy game DRM puts Windows users at risk

Nobody seems to be talking about this angle, since everyone wants to harp on DRM (which is great, by the way, keep on finding vulnerabilities in DRM software and take this machine down the right way! By showing that they don't care about you that much more...), but this sounds to me like Microsoft and Macrovision discovered this vulnerability while developing Vista and knowingly didn't report it or update existing users. Failure to update a known glitch is the kind of thing someone does when they don't want people to be able to use their old stuff so that they have to switch to the new stuff.

Come on consumers! It's your job to police the product! These things aren't right, you shouldn't have to hand over all your hard earned cash for things that offer little-to-no additional functionality. It's amazing all of the things out there this system applies to; start checking your products out.

I know somebody who experienced a "necessary update" scenario recently that was just ridiculous. A friend with an Apple iBook was about to break down and buy a new battery (which is, of course, overpriced by Apple; check out replacement batteries for the iPod and then see what superior yet cheaper technology 3rd party manufacturers make for iPod replacement batteries...) when she found out that her laptop wouldn't function unless it was plugged in, not because her battery was dead, but because there was a software update necessary to fix it. I'm sorry... did someone say a laptop shipped with a bug in the software that prevents you from using it without being plugged in?!?!?! That's not a laptop! It's a ball and chain.

Here's another one: My Phone, the ever-awesome HTC Apache (dubbed the PPC 6700 or XV 6700 in the US). Awesome phone, pretty good setup; downside: Sprint (and other manufacturers) stopped releasing updates beyond AKU 2.2. AKU 3.5 has been out for quite some time now! That's basically the equivalent of someone giving you a computer with Windows XP Service Pack 1 on it and telling you that you're not allowed to install Service Pack 2. WTF?! You sold me this device and now you're not willing to support it?! And it's great that the independent developer community has managed to make some excellent ROM Kitchens for using both Windows Mobile 5 AKU 3.5 as well as Windows Mobile 6 on the Apache (now I have no need to spend $600 on the HTC Mogul/PPC 6800, since it doesn't really offer anything but WM6 and a pretty antennaless case). It gets worse than that too. The radio chipset inside this phone is perfectly capable of retrieving and reporting GPS data with or without assistance (a-GPS, GPSOne; these are methods used for 911 calls and Sprint Roadside assistance and such. They need data from the cell phone company.) It's just a crying shame you can't actually access the already present GPS device. Sprint/Verizon/etc. have it locked down so that the only way to get GPS data from this phone is through special phone calls (such as 911). So I'm expected to wait until Sprint gets their act together with their own proprietary navigation service or go out and buy a really expensive GPS device when I've already purchased an expensive GPS unit: MY PHONE.

Anyway, that's the end of my rant, but seriously people: take more pride in yourselves and more responsibility for ensuring people do the right thing. No matter how many times we try to get the government to change things for us it's not gonna matter unless we work with each-other! (Another rant on this topic some other time :p).

Anyway, I'd like to talk about some cool nerdy stuff but I seem to have exhausted all of my time on this. See, now if you all could change the world for the better I might not have to waste my time on things like this and we might be able to work on *progress* ;p

-TheXenocide