Two interesting stories today…

Again both stories are from the BBC. The first one relates how Intel apparently made things difficult for the OLPC (One Laptop Per Child) Project.

While the tone of the news report makes it difficult to ascertain exactly who is the party in the wrong, one thing seems certain, OLPC project leader Professor Nicholas Negroponte has had enough.

“Why would I throw away the six million dollars they were supposed to give us yesterday? Why would I do all of these things unless I was stark raving mad?”

According to him Intel would go in and push their competing product to governments after the OLPC Project has already signed a contract.

A Cited example is Peru where apparently Intel tried to convince Vice Minister of Education Oscar Becerra Tresierra to buy the Intel Classmate PC.

Mr Paul Otellini, the head of Intel, called the allegations “Hogwash”

An interesting note is that the OLPC product uses AMD hardware, runs Open Source software whereas the Intel product uses Intel Architecture (obviously duh) and runs Windows.

Windows *shudder*.

I am sniffing a spanner in the works, one that is shaped like Bill Gates glasses. But that again is just speculation on my part.

Read more on that here.

On the next story I do not have too much to say, but IT’S ABOUT TIME SANITY RETURNED!

The UK Minister of  Intellectual Property Lord Triesman suggested that the laws governing copyright should catch up with the times.

A new law would make it legal for users to copy music from their PC’s onto a CD.

Score one for Customers Rights!

Thats all for today, read more on this here.

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