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Source:Valleywag

Jordan Golson and I are blogging live, but briefly, from the Macworld 2008 expo at Moscone West in San Francisco.

Read on for the full report:

Source:Valleywag

Today, Apple CEO Steve Jobs will announce a MacBook with a little somethin’ somethin’ wirelesss. We think. We guess. We have no idea. It’ll change the world or something. Meanwhile, Microsoft has already announced its own game-changer: the ad-supported grocery cart.

The cart-mounted console will help customers find products in the grocery store and pay from them without waiting in a checkout line. Also, the cart console will serve video ads, brought to you be the technology Microsoft acquired when it bought aQuantive last year. Microsoft will test the device in ShopRite supermarkets this fall.

Yeah, yeah, laugh it up, fanboys. Jobs is going to introduce Air 2.0 (slogan: “Breathe Easier”? ) today. But last we checked, you don’t spend spend 32 cents out of every dollar you earn on your broadband connection. No, that would be for groceries, pals.

Source:Valleywag

Remember the man Google and an Indian ISP helped Indian cops arrest for the crime of posting an allegedly defamatory picture on Orkut? He now says that during the 50 days he spent in jail, Indian police beat him and made him eat from the same bowl he used as a toilet.

The accused, Lakshmana Kailas K, has sued the ISP, Airtel, for more than $4 million, according to Techgoss.

But thanks to the vagaries of Indian law, if Lakshmana has a case, it’s not because he was arrested for an act the right to free speech should protect. It’s because he was wrongly accused of that crime.

The story goes like this. After a Google user posted a profane picture of the Hindu god Shiva to Google’s social network, Orkut, Indian authorities contacted Google to ask for his IP address. Google complied. Then, Indian cops took that information to the ISP, Airtel. Airtel handed over a physical address that it claimed corresponded with Google’s data. But it was the wrong physical address, leading to Lakshmana Kailas K’s subsequent arrest, harassment and beatings.

Here’s the scary part. If Airtel had been more competent in its record-keeping, Indian authorities would have likely arrested and beaten the actual poster, and you’d never have heard about any of this.

(Photo by phauly)

This entry was posted on Tuesday, January 15th, 2008 at 11:06 am and is filed under google, india, airtel, Lakshmana Kailas K. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.