Original URL: https://www.theregister.com/2011/10/21/quotw_ending_oct_21/

Quote of the Week: 'Phone bills shouldn't cost more than the rent'

Plus: 'There's a nap for that'

By Brid-Aine Parnell

Posted in Bootnotes, 21st October 2011 12:29 GMT

QuotW This was the week when neither rumours of a new smaller iPad nor the huge sales of the iPhone 4S were enough to stop Apple's fourth fiscal quarter earnings from dipping below estimates.

Samsung and Google teamed up to launch the Samsung Galaxy Nexus/Nexus Prime along with the hotly anticipated Android OS 4.0, nicknamed Ice Cream Sandwich, after postponing the event last week, purportedly as a mark of respect to the death of Steve Jobs.

It was also the week that an MIT boffin said he could get disk drives to store six times more data just by salting them and the US government started asking some privacy questions of Amazon's cloud-based browser Silk.

And it was the week when the patent wars between Apple and Android were really hotting up, with fighting talk from Android partners who'd had recent legal decisions go against them. First Samsung, in a statement:

In light of these violations, Samsung believes the sale of such Apple devices should be banned.

And then HTC, in a statement from general counsel Grace Lei:

This is only one step of many in these legal proceedings. We are confident we have a strong case for the ITC appeals process and are fully prepared to protect our intellectual property.

Vodafone was running into trouble with the Advertising Standards Authority for claiming its network is built for data use, as Glaswegians complain they've had six months of dicky service, with one particularly pissed off party posting on a support forum thread:

A smartphone without 3G is an expensive paperweight and I am fed up paying £30 a month for this one.

Baby+YouTube+iPad was a winning combination, inspiring one reader to come up with a Dad joke to mark the occasion:

Tired of playing with daddy's shiny iPad? There's a nap for that.

The Web 2.0 summit in San Francisco was a wealth of tech titans slagging each other off, as 4chan founder Chris Poole said Facebook and Google+ had fundamentally misunderstood how we use identity:

Google and Facebook would have you believe that your online personality is a mirror of who you are. In fact it’s more like a diamond; you show difference facets of your personality to different people. Facebook has tried to force a fast-food industry approach to identity.

And Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer said Android was cheap and too complex and the new line of Windows Phones for Christmas could easily beat Android and Apple, so there:

The biggest advantage we have over Android is that you don’t need to be a computer scientist to use a Windows Phone. But the cheapest phones will be Android, and we are going to have to look at bringing the cost of our handsets down.

The summit also did well in providing the tech community with acres of marketing splaff, including this gem from Google co-founder Sergey Brin that explained that the company was cutting back on some of the areas it works in and focusing on more integration:

At Google there’s always been a culture of letting a thousand flowers bloom. Once they do, then you have to put them together in a bouquet.

Meanwhile, it emerged that the Obama administration had seriously considered using cyber warfare in the conflict with Libya, with one official saying:

These cybercapabilities are still like the Ferrari that you keep in the garage and only take out for the big race and not just for a run around town, unless nothing else can get you there.

Also in the US, the wireless association CTIA, which includes big operators like AT&T, Verizon, Sprint Nextel and T-Mobile USA, agreed to warn customers before they rack up huge mobile phone bills, in probable response to pressure from the Federal Communications Commission and President Obama, who said:

Far too many Americans know what it's like to open up their cell-phone bill and be shocked by hundreds or even thousands of dollars in unexpected fees and charges. Our phones shouldn't cost us more than the monthly rent or mortgage.

On the other side of the Atlantic, BT's head of Internet Policy had something to say about the Digital Economy Act's attempt to make BT and other ISPs responsible for blocking websites that infringe copyright.

Communications systems are inherently designed to deliver communication.

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