Daily Digest
31.txt
IPhone Users Report Network Outages; Second 3G
Lawsuit Emerges
While Apple’s iPhone sales continue to succeed, things
just aren’t looking any better for ATT’s network woes,
and their dysfunctional relationship has given birth to
a second lawsuit.
Several iPhone users on Wednesday morning reported
a complete outage of ATT’s data service. Reports have
surfaced in Boston, Chicago, Washington DC and St.
Louis; users have claimed in the Apple support forums
that a call to ATT’s support line confirms the outage.
ATT’s Brad Mays confirmed a ”routing issue” in the
Northeast region affecting wireless data and said tech-
nicians restored the service by about noon EDT.
The reports of a network outage work to the ad-
vantage of customer William Gillis, who filed a lawsuit
late last week alleging Apple and ATT are overwhelm-
ing the 3G network with the ”oversold” iPhone 3G. In
his 18-page complaint, Gillis says the popular handset
is requiring ”too much power,” and straining the net-
work.
Gillis’s hypothesis of 3G networks being strained
coincides with observations made in Wired.com’s re-
cent study conducted on iPhone 3G download speeds
around the world, in which we discovered network per-
formance varied greatly based on carriers and coun-
tries. Users reported the fastest 3G download speeds
in Europe, which possesses some of the most mature
3G networks that have been developed since 2001. By
contrast, ATT’s U.S. 3G network is relatively young,
having been introduced in 2004.
Before today’s reported outage and Gillis’s lawsuit,
femtocell developer Dave Nowicki also theorized that
in the United States, the iPhone 3G is straining ATT’s
young 3G network. He explained that ATT installed
the 3G cells on preexisting EDGE transmission towers
– meaning those towers were spaced based on the re-
quirements of earlier, 2G technology, which has a longer
effective range than 3G.
User complaints about the 3G network have been
passionate and widespread ever since the iPhone 3G’s
July 11 launch. The problems have varied from slower-
than-advertised 3G performance to getting no 3G con-
nection at all.
Alabama resident Jessica Alena Smith was the first
customer angry enough to file a lawsuit, alleging false
advertising on Apple’s part for touting the handset as
1
”twice as fast for half the price” compared to the orig-
inal iPhone. Smith claims in her complaint that the
handset’s network performance is grindingly slow and
only stays on the 3G network 25 percent of the time.
Apple’s public relations department has said recently
that the latest iPhone software update – 2.0.2 – would
improve 3G performance, but very few user reports
have backed the company’s claims.
Regardless of what’s said about 3G performance,
Apple is continuing to ride the high tide with the iPhone’s
popularity. Insiders have said the corporation plans to
produce 40 to 45 million more iPhone 3Gs by next year.
32.txt
Is Lover Boy a Louse? It May Be Genetic
We have heard about the God gene and the gay gene
– though each has been met with significant skepticism.
Now comes news of a gene that Swedish researchers are
touting as a possible biological basis for why some guys
won’t settle down.
Credit a young researcher at Sweden’s Karolinska
Institute for discovering a link between a variation in
the AVPR1A gene – which has been linked to autism
and how people interact socially – and a propensity for
men to skip out on women, or to have marital problems
if they do tie the knot.
In a photograph on the Karolinska’s website, the
researcher, Hasse Walum, looks a little like rocker Kurt
Cobain.
Walum did not report if he carries the tell-tale gene,
although in a study of 552 sets of twins, all in relation-
ships, Walum found that 40 percent of the men carried
the Ramblin’ Man variation of this gene.
The couples filled out questionnaires that asked ques-
tions such as:
I feel anxious when someone gets too close.
Have you ever regretted getting married/moving in?
Do you kiss your partner?
Researchers then ran genetic screens of the subjects,
discovering that a line of code at position 334 in the
gene had a statistical correlation with the less commit-
ted men.
Women married to men who carry one or two copies
of the suspect code were, on average, ”less satisfied with
their relationship” than were women married to men
who didn’t carry this code, Walum said.
This same gene has also been linked in a different
study to dictatorial behavior, and the hormone, called
vasopressin, made by this gene has been found to be
plentiful in voles that mate for life.
But before women rush out to test their men for
this genetic variation – or we run DNA screens of John
McCain and Barrack Obama to see if they have an au-
tocratic bent hidden in their genes – we need to realize
that these tests are very preliminary statistical links.
No one has physiologically linked this genetic variation
to behavior in a relationship, or to Stalinistic behavior.
Walum is well aware of this, and pointed out that
the effect of the genetic variation is ”modest,” and can-
not be used to predict the future behavior of someone
in a relationship.
A caveat that makes one wonder why researchers,
institutes, and the media keep trotting out these pre-
liminary associations between genes and profoundly im-
portant human behaviors like religion and relationship
management in this way.
One reason is that they can be fun, like reading
Tarot cards can be fun. These studies can also point sci-
entists in a possible direction towards where to look for
serious maladies such as autism, which is what Walum’s
work is focusing on.
”There are, of course, many reasons why a per-
son might have relationship problems,” Walum told the
BBC.
Indeed, there are.
33.txt
Should Medicare Pay for Genetic Testing?
This may be your last chance to tell the federal gov-
ernment whether Medicare should pay for a cutting-
edge personalized medicine service.
Last year, the FDA announced that a genetic test
might help doctors avoid a common catastrophe – giv-
ing their patients an excessive dose of warfarin. Half a
million people start taking the anticoagulant drug each
year, and many of them – over 10 percent – wind up
in the hospital with serious internal bleeding because
they’ve overdosed.
By checking two genes, doctors may be able to make
a better decision about how much warfarin is right for
each patient.
In theory, the genetic test could save healthcare
providers a fortune by cutting down on costly emer-
gency room visits. But many doctors are not convinced
that the tests are necessary; some say that handheld
gadgets like the Roche CoaguChek system, which al-
low them to constantly monitor their patients’ blood,
are more useful.
2
Of course, in a perfect world, physicians would use
both tools to aid their decisions. The Department of
Health and Human Services wants the public to tell
them whether the genetic test is worthwhile. To get
some feedback, the agency has posted a survey on its
website, and the deadline to respond is tomorrow.
If Medicare starts paying for the procedure, the bur-
geoning field of personalized medicine will turn a ma-
jor corner. Private insurance companies might follow
the government’s lead, and offer reimbursements for
the evaluation. But the biggest benefit of a change to
the healthcare policy will be massive amounts of data.
Once a huge cohort of senior citizens has received some
pharmacogenetic services, there will be a large body of
evidence that individualized treatments are better than
a one-size-fits-all approach to medicine.
If you want to weigh in on this tremendously impor-
tant issue, visit the Health and Human Services website
and post a comment.
34.txt
Google Chrome out for one day, already reasons to
avoid
As we reported yesterday, Google has released the
first beta of their new web browser, Google Chrome.
Within a day of its release, there are already a couple
of points that users should be cautioned of before using
this new browser.
The first, is the popular ”carpet bomb” vulnerabil-
ity that still exists within Chrome, as pointed out on
our forums by our member matessim. This vulnera-
bility allows malicious websites to drive by download
and execute programs on your machine. Our visitors
may remember the uproar that this same vulnerabil-
ity caused for Safari users, and that Apple patched the
carpet-bombing issue with Safari v3.1.2. Chrome is vul-
nerable to this exploit because it is based on the same
engine, WebKit 525.13, and Google did not patch or
update the engine before releasing the software.
The other, and less technical, problem with Chrome
exists in its EULA. More specifically, the point that
would seem to give Google rights to anything you post
on the Internet while using their browser, mostly in
conjunction with the promotion of its services.
”By submitting, posting or displaying the content
you give Google a perpetual, irrevocable, worldwide,
royalty-free, and non-exclusive license to reproduce, adapt,
modify, translate, publish, publicly perform, publicly
display and distribute any content which you submit,
post or display on or through, the services. This license
is for the sole purpose of enabling Google to display, dis-
tribute and promote the services and may be revoked
for certain services as defined in the additional terms
of those services.” Not exactly something you’re used
to seeing in a web browser’s license agreement.
There is also the point that Google reserves the right
to automatically update and install Chrome. Interest-
ing, ”the software which you use may automatically
download and install updates from time to time from
Google. These updates are designed to improve, en-
hance and further develop the services and may take
the form of bug fixes, enhanced functions, new soft-
ware modules and completely new versions. You agree
to receive such updates (and permit Google to deliver
these to you) as part of your use of the services.” ... so
says the EULA.
Now we’re all used to seeing automatic update func-
tions built into software. It seems that almost anything
you install these days has one. However, very few de-
mand that I install their updates. What if I don’t want
to because the new version includes a bug or breaks
something else on my computer? Although, one would
hope that they’d use this automatic update feature to
fix the flaw pointed out above.
35.txt
eMusic rattles ISPs over legal downloads
The boss of Apple’s iTunes nearest rival eMusic has
warned that recent deals struck between the music in-
dustry and UK internet providers could threaten the
existence of legal sites. eMusic CEO David Pakman
told the Financial Times that ISPs could lure customers
away from well-known digital music sites by offering
their own legal download services.
”Our concern is that in order to obtain the co-
operation of the ISPs, there seems to be a quid pro
quo,” said Pakman. ”This is qualitatively different
from licensing another half a dozen digital music busi-
nesses.” He claimed that the agreement inked in July
between six UK ISPs, the BPI, and the Motion Pictures
Ass. of America, to crack down on illegal downloading
would ”penalise the good guys, not the bad guys”.
36.txt
Mobile users offered first external SSD
Networking company Buffalo Technology has finally
launched its external SSD drives at prices that promise
to steal a share of the portable market from old-world
2.5-inch hard drives. The capacities of the new Micro-
Station drives are modest by the standards of a spin-
ning drive – 32GB, 64GB, and 100GB – but there are
other features to tempt buyers beyond the gigabytes.
The first is perhaps size. Weighing around 60 grams,
the aptly-named drives are not much bigger than a
3
credit card at 57 x 14 x 89mm, a form factor that looks
tiny next to the supplied wrap-around USB 2.0 connec-
tor and cable used to attach it to a PC.
37.txt
Democrats attack Lieberman, saying he lied to del-
egates
(CNN) – Democrats accused former colleague Sen.
Joe Lieberman of misleading the Republican National
Convention when he addressed them in a speech Tues-
day night.
A senior Barack Obama campaign adviser said Lieber-
man flat-out lied when he told delegates that Obama
never successfully reached across party lines.
”Joe Lieberman ought to be ashamed of himself for
some of the things he said tonight, not as a Democrat
but as an American,” adviser Robert Gibbs said on
”Larry King Live.”
Lieberman, an independent senator from Connecti-
cut who was the Democratic vice presidential candidate
alongside Al Gore in 2000, has thrown his support be-
hind John McCain, a longtime friend.
Lieberman urged Democratic and independent vot-
ers to make a change and vote for a McCain because, he
said, he would do whatever it took to help the American
public. iReport.com: Do you agree with Lieberman?
Lieberman attacked Obama’s rhetoric, saying ”elo-
quence is no substitute for a record.”
”In the Senate, [Obama] has not reached across
party lines to get anything significant done, nor has
he been willing to take on powerful interest groups in
the Democratic Party,” Lieberman said in his speech.
Gibbs stressed that it was a ”flat-out lie” that Obama
hasn’t reached across party lines during his time in pub-
lic office. Gibbs cited Obama’s work with Sen. Richard
Lugar, R-Indiana, to keep nuclear weapons out of the
hands of terrorists and with Sen. Tom Coburn, R-
Oklahoma, on the government budget.
Gibbs blamed what he called lies like those perpe-
trated in Lieberman’s speech for disillusioning voters
and making them cynical of the government.
”I think [Lieberman] owes it to the American people
to look into the camera and tell them the truth,” Gibbs
said. Watch New Mexico Gov. Bill Richardson’s take
on Lieberman’s speech Video
Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid spokesman Jim
Manley said Reid too was unhappy with the tone of
Lieberman’s speech.
”As the American people have made very clear, the
last thing this country needs is another four years of
the same old failed Bush-McCain policies of the past,”
Manley said.
Obama campaign spokesman Tommy Vietor said in
a statement that the convention speeches also showed
how out of touch the McCain campaign and Republi-
cans are with the American people, neglecting to talk
about one of the country’s biggest problems: the econ-
omy.
”At a time when millions of Americans are strug-
gling like never before to pay their mortgage, their
medical bills and their gas bills, tonight’s speakers at
John McCain’s Republican convention proved how out
of touch their candidate is by saying not one word about
his plans to put our economy back on track and provide
real relief to middle-class families,” Vietor said. ”Ap-
parently, John McCain’s belief that we’ve made ’great
progress’ economically over the last eight years means
he doesn’t have to offer any plans at all to fix our ailing
economy.”
The Obama campaign also used a short speech de-
livered by President Bush via satellite to once again tie
McCain to the unpopular president, as it has attempted
to do throughout this election season.
”Tonight, George Bush enthusiastically passed the
torch to the man who’s earned it by voting with him
90 percent of the time and who will continue this pres-
ident’s legacy for the next four years: his disastrous
economic policies, his foreign policy that hasn’t made
us safer and his misguided war in Iraq that’s costing us
10 billion a month,” Obama campaign manager David
Plouffe said.
”The man George Bush needs may be John McCain,
but the change America needs is Barack Obama.”
38.txt
Palin to call for reform in convention speech
ST. PAUL, Minnesota (CNN) GOP vice presiden-
tial candidate Sarah Palin will highlight her record as
Alaska’s governor and a former smalltown mayor when
she speaks Wednesday night to the Republican Na-
tional Convention, a top aide to Palin said.
Sen. John McCain’s running mate also will call for
reform in Washington, Palin aide Tucker Eskew said.
”She will speak as a governor, a former mayor and
someone with both hands on the steering wheel of Amer-
ica’s energy economy,” Eskew said.
”She will detail her record of shaking up the status
quo in Alaska and standing up to entrenched interests
to put the government back on the side of the people.
She will make the case for Sen. McCain as the only
candidate who has fought for America and the best
man to protect us in dangerous times.”
Palin is slated to speak during the 10 p.m. ET hour
at the Xcel Energy Center in St. Paul. Video Watch
more on Palin’s speech
Palin took a tour of the podium at the convention
site Wednesday morning, hours before she’ll return to
4
give what will be the most scrutinized speech of her
career.
She walked through the nearly empty hall and spent
about 10 minutes checking out the podium where she’ll
give her primetime acceptance speech.
Palin told reporters that she feels ”great.”
”I’m excited to speak to Americans. This will be
good. It’s about reform,” she said. Video Watch Palin
tour the podium
Top McCain staff, including campaign manager Rick
Davis and senior adviser Nicolle Wallace, accompanied
Palin on her tour.
Her address is sure to generate a lot of attention
since McCain surprised many political observers last
week with his selection of Palin over betterknown con-
tenders such as former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Rom-
ney and Minnesota Gov. Tim Pawlenty.
Revelations that Palin’s 17yearold unmarried daugh-
ter, Bristol, is pregnant also generated a flurry of media
buzz as the GOP convention got under way this week.
On Tuesday night, Republican leaders strongly de-
fended Palin, who has won praise from influential con-
servatives for her opposition to abortion and her probusi-
ness record.
Actor and former Sen. Fred Thompson led the
charge, berating ”Washington pundits and media big
shots” who have questioned her experience as a first-
term governor of Alaska and former mayor of Wasilla,
Alaska.
”She is from a small town, with smalltown values,
but that’s not good enough for those folks who are at-
tacking her and her family,” he said to cheers.
”Let’s be clear. The selection of Gov. Palin has the
other side and their friends in the media in a state of
panic. She is a courageous, successful reformer who is
not afraid to take on the establishment.” Video Watch
Thompson defend Palin
Thompson said Palin has the experience needed in
Washington, calling her ”a woman who has actually
governed rather than just talked a good game on the
Sunday talk shows and hit the Washington cocktail cir-
cuit.”
Sen. Joe Lieberman, the 2000 Democratic vice pres-
idential nominee and now a Connecticut independent,
also called Palin ”a reformer.”
”She’s taken on the special interests and the polit-
ical power brokers in Alaska and reached across party
lines to get things done,” Lieberman said. Video Watch
more of Lieberman’s speech
And President Bush, speaking to the convention by
video link from the White House, said McCain could
govern in Washington with ”an outstanding leader at
his side.”
Also on Wednesday night, McCain’s former rivals
for the GOP presidential nomination will take center
stage at the convention.
 Former New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani, Romney
and former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee will speak
in prime time, party officials said.
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Giuliani scrapped his run for the presidency in Jan-
uary. Romney, who was on the shortlist of potential
running mates for McCain, gave up his bid for the
White House in February. And Huckabee dropped out
a month later.
All three men backed McCain after ending their
campaigns.
39.txt
Will her gender sway women to Palin?
(CNN) – As Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin, Sen. John
McCain’s pick for vice president, makes her case to the
convention Wednesday night, Republicans hope she will
sway Democratic women toward their ticket.
Palin already has been working on that.
”It was rightly noted in Denver this week that Hillary
[Clinton] left 18 million cracks in the highest and hard-
est glass ceiling in America, but it turns out the women
of America aren’t finished yet and we can shatter that
glass ceiling once and for all,” she said as McCain in-
troduced her as his choice Friday.
But some of the most ardent Clinton supporters —
even those still loath to vote for Sen. Barack Obama
– found McCain’s choice of Palin patronizing. Video
Watch more of Palin’s comments
”Well, first were just laughing. I mean laughing not
in the sense of ’Oh my God, what has he done?’ but
”Does he think that’s really going to work?’” Allida
Black, a Clinton supporter for Obama, said.
”I mean does he think that women voters who are
with Hillary is some Lego block ... you can take out a
red one and put in a green one?”
She said Palin and Clinton have only gender in com-
mon. Palin is anti-abortion rights, belongs to the Na-
tional Rifle Association and is a conservative Repub-
lican. And she’s been critical of Clinton, calling the
New York senator’s charges of ”sexist” news coverage
– whining.
”When I hear a statement like that coming from
a woman candidate with any kind of perceived whine
about the excess criticism or maybe a sharper micro-
scope put on her, I think, man, that doesn’t do us any
good,” Palin told Newsweek magazine in March.
That’s not to say all Clinton supporters would be
adverse to a McCain-Palin ticket. A group called PUMA,
which stands for ”Party Unity My A**”, were Clinton
supporters – both women and men –who are threaten-
ing to vote McCain.
The McCain camp has been aggressively courting
those disaffected with Obama, especially after he an-
5
nounced Delaware Sen. Joseph Biden as his running
mate. Video Watch more on Palin’s readiness to lead
Just as the Democrats’ convention was getting started
in Denver, Colorado, last week, the McCain campaign
and the Republican National Committee unveiled four
TV ads geared toward Clinton supporters.
The most recent McCain ad involved the famous
Hillary Clinton ”3 a.m.” spot and will be aired during
the convention. The 30-second spot uses footage from
Clinton’s original ad and declares, ”Hillary’s right.”
The ad, which ran in key battleground states and
specifically in Denver last week, also goes a step fur-
ther than the New York senator’s original ad, in detail-
ing what it claims are the national security threats the
United States faces.
Clinton, speaking to a member of the New York del-
egation in Denver on August 25, said she was opposed
to Republicans using her words against Obama.
But it is still unclear as to how many will go the way
of the PUMA. Read more on the PUMA movement
A recent Rutgers University study said historically,
women don’t vote for a candidate because a woman is
on the ticket. They tend to vote Democratic.
That happened in 1984 for former New York Rep.
Geraldine Ferraro, the first female vice presidential of
a major political party. Despite the historic nature of
the race, her addition to Walter Mondale’s ticket proved
fruitless.
The Mondale-Ferraro ticket lost big time to Presi-
dent Ronald Reagan and George H.W. Bush that year:
525 electoral votes to Mondale’s 13.
Reagan carried 49 out of the 50 states, with Mon-
dale’s only electoral votes coming from Minnesota – his
home state – and the District of Columbia.
Ferraro’s ties to New York, which is a notoriously
blue state, were unsuccessful for the ticket.
In that race, 44 percent of Democratic women voters
and 56 percent of their Republican counterparts voted
in the presidential race; 51 percent of all voters were
women, according to exit polling.
Twenty-four years later, there’s another woman on
a presidential ticket – this time a Republican. It’s some-
thing that Ferraro hopes will not bring sexism back into
the campaign.
”I believe that people will look back and assess how
Hillary was treated by the media during the campaign
primaries. And it remains to be seen whether or not
the ugly head of sexism – in the media – will raise its
head again,” said Ferraro on August 29, the day after
Obama’s speech at Invesco field.
”I have always said that I wish I would have never
been the only woman, until now,” she said last Friday.
But if Democratic women were swayed this year, it
was toward a woman in their own party. iReport.com:
Are you a woman backing Palin?
That woman was Hillary Clinton , and it wasn’t
because of her gender, but what they pointed to as her
experience and fitness to lead the country. and the role of vice presidency at the same time and
Claudine Montano, initially a Clinton supporter, reservations about her going back to work right after
said last week at the Democratic convention that not giving birth to a disabled baby.
many Clinton backers will support McCain after Clin-
ton’s rousing speech endorsing Obama.
”I think when they heard Hillary ... they will go
with Obama,” said Montano, a New Mexico resident
who is not a delegate.
Pledged Clinton delegate Anne Price Mills, with
tears in her eyes, said Clinton was ”presidential” on
August 26.
Price Mills, of Washington state, was a staunch
Clinton supporter. As for her vote in November?
”Obama has two months,” she said. ”I won’t vote
for McCain, but [Obama] has to get me here, and I
haven’t connected with him.” Read more on Clinton
supporters on the fence
Palin has five children. Her 17-year-old daughter,
Bristol, is pregnant, and she recently had a Down syn-
drome baby. Anti-abortion groups and conservatives
have praised her and her daughter’s decisions to keep
their babies.
Elder statesman of the evangelical movement, Fo-
cus on the Family founder James Dobson, released a
statement lauding the Palins for acting in keeping with
the group’s policies and practices:
”We have always encouraged the parents to love and
support their children and always advised the girls to
see their pregnancies through, even though there will of
course be challenges along the way. That is what the
Palins are doing, and they should be commended once
again for not just talking about their pro-life and pro-
family values, but living them out even in the midst of
trying circumstances,” his statement said.
But an anti-abortion stance is unlikely to sway Demo-
cratic women.
A recent survey by Greenberg Quinlan Rosner Re-
search shows that the issue of choice can have a large
impact on the election.
The poll, conducted May 29-June 8, showed: Pro-
choice is an issue that swings key blocs of women voters
to Obama’s side.
Obama gains 13 points among pro-choice indepen-
dent women – who make up 9 percent of the sample
– and 9 points among pro-choice Republican women,
who account for 5 percent of the sample, according to
the poll.
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”Among pro-choice independent women, pro-choice
Republican women, and liberal to moderate Republican
women, the issue of abortion produces a larger advan-
tage for Democrats than the economy, the war in Iraq,
or health care,” according to the Greenberg Quinlan
Rosner/NARAL poll report.
Also, a recent New York Times article looked at
working mothers and found both support and criticism
that Palin might not be able to handle a big family