Ok, this is really open for comments here.. but after I noticed a UK article was now showing up on Reuters, it has caused a little concern in people and technology.

Obedient motorist crashes on satnav command

Are we this incapable of deciding whether little Johnny should jump (or in this case drive his car onto a railroad) off a bridge?

Or have the Germans become this reliant (and I only refer to Germans since this is what the article is referencing) that they can no longer even drive their car using their own brains?

Here is another article from Dec that seem to be providing proof of this navigation brain drain!

Crash, bang with satellite navigation

Does this concern anyone else? Has anyone else actually did what their nav system told them to do and it was really wrong?

I have followed the storage industry now for over 10 years. It has really evolved (in the enterprise realm) and even in the home market with NAS products. However, the limiting factor has always come back to the actual base product the actual drives.

Well Seagate has done it today. World fastest drive that is actually smaller and 30% more energy efficient. Now that is a change. Check out their press release:

Seagate Introduces First Small Form Factor 15K Enterprise Hard Drive - Savvio 15K - The World’s Fastest Drive

“The Savvio 15K drive’s unique combination of features including its 70 percent smaller size, lower power consumption (30 percent lower than any other 15K drive), industry’s fastest seek time and the industry’s highest reliability, make it the ideal storage solution for all server platforms.”

In large install bases this can really add up to a savings in the enterprise arena. Something HP has been chomping at since 2005. It only took a couple more years.

I would expect to see greater SAN products with greater densities with smaller physical and energy footprints to come out this year as a result. This could be a huge win for Seagate if the wish is really true!

So for all those Mac lovers out there, it sounds like Apple wants another fiver to get functionality that is in the Intel based Macs already. The 802.11n wireless networking functionality is currently disabled, but with a simple firmware update (all PC users are a little too familiar with) on their machine.

Source News article: Apple’s $5 Wi-Fi Fee Stirs Global Strife

If we all can ignore the Sarbanes-Oxley Act (SOX) mis-information ramblings, does anyone see anything wrong with charging for things that already exists in a product, but was not enabled because their were originally issuses?

If you bought a car, but noticed that the stereo wouldn’t play your CD’s and had to go back to the dealership and pay a couple extra bucks, would you be happy? “Oh you wanted the stereo to actually play CD’s? That feature costs extra for us to turn it on.”

Not cool. $5 firmware upgrade, what a shame. Sounds like Jobs has been hanging out with Sony management on their Playstation Store (which is free with your overpriced PS3) and will charge you for everything else. Can anyone say micropayments for your games to just have the cars and features you thought you got by actually BUYING the game? Does micropayments make it easier for us to all consume? I feel a bad trend starting here!

UPDATE:

Well it is not quite $5.00! You get to keep 3 singles and a penny in your pocket! Apple says it will be charging only $1.99, and it’ll be available for purchase on Apple’s website. How nice of Jobs. Apple said it is required under generally accepted accounting principles to charge customers for the software upgrade. You mean generally fattening of your bottom line.

“The nominal distribution fee for the 802.11n software is required in order for Apple to comply with generally accepted accounting principles for revenue recognition, which generally require that we charge for significant feature enhancements, such as 802.11n, when added to previously purchased products,” said Teresa Brewer, Apple’s Mac hardware public relations manager.

If it was a nominal distribution fee, why not charge 10 cents? Or better yet, Steve why don’t you put the dime in for all your Mac follower and just give them the “patch” for free!