Write a tough story about Apple and the Macolytes will attack. We learned as much from our November issue, in which we dinged the ROKR handset from Apple, Motorola, and Cingular. "Apple doesn't call this the phone of the future," ranted one loyalist. "Blaming Apple for this crappy phone is just pedestrian Apple bashing at its worst." Hey, when Steve Jobs trots out something on a giant videoscreen, it's fair game. Other grumps took issue with a quote we attributed to Mark Twain: "Everybody talks about the weather, but nobody does anything about it." Wrote one aspiring fact-checker, "This remark was actually made by his neighbor and good friend Charles Dudley Warner." Actually, Warner did say it, but it's believed he was merely quoting his pal Twain. Now, about that cold winter he spent one summer in San Francisco …
Celling Their Souls
Kudos on Frank Rose's article about the ROKR ("Battle for the Soul of the MP3 Phone," issue 13.11).�It ought to be required reading for cellular carriers, handset makers, music executives, and especially Steve Jobs.
I carry around a Creative Zen Xtra player (I refuse to buy into Apple's digital rights management and pricing) and a Samsung phone. I'd love to have a single device that doesn't compromise on either feature set, but it's clear that the industry isn't ready to make the kind of concessions that would allow this. Maybe the powers that be will get a clue one of these days.
Michael Salsbury
Hilliard, Ohio
Rose criticizes the music labels for "blindly grasp[ing] for short-term gain" by seeking a premium price for music available for impulse download to mobile phones. But it's the music labels' job to seek new revenue opportunities; we can hardly fault them for doing so. In an open and free marketplace, consumers will ultimately settle the matter of a fair price for music. Relying entirely on "focus groups" as an indicator of future consumer price acceptance, as two of Rose's sources apparently do, is a foolish mistake. After all, prior to the arrival of Starbucks, who would have said they would one day happily pay $2.50 for a cup of coffee?
Catherine Lundquist
Venice, California
You're wrong that "you'll have to run up data charges on Verizon's network" to get songs on a Verizon phone. I put 110 songs and an hour-long podcast on a TransFlash card and inserted it into my Samsung phone for free. It also answers calls during MP3 playback. Sorry, Mr. Jobs, you can keep your ROKR.
Dennis Kreitzburg
Northfield, Ohio
Wow, so cellular providers and Apple don't put consumers first? Tell us something we don't already know! You would better serve your readers by investigating alternatives. What are the best Palm, Java, and Symbian mobile apps for playing multimedia on phones and transferring playlists to them? What phones are best at running those apps, pausing playback for incoming calls, accessing media files, and using MP3s as ring tones? Few consumers know enough to demand these features, so phone software and hardware makers don't have to compete on them.
S. Page
San Francisco, California
Music to Our Ears
Thank you for Michael Chorost's thoughtful, brilliant account of how he regained his hearing ("My Bionic Quest for Bol�ro," issue 13.11). I lost 80 percent of my hearing for five years of my childhood, and I can relate to Chorost's love of Bol�ro. In 1972, my obsession was the soundtrack to A Clockwork Orange.
I regained 100 percent of my hearing, spent five years in speech therapy, and still treasure my musical experiences. I congratulate Chorost on this breakthrough and hope he'll continue assisting the researchers.
John Thorton
Austin, Texas
Michael Chorost's story was simply amazing. Someone should compose a piece that warps Bol�ro to illustrate the auditory progression Chorost endured.
Thron Crowe
Sanford, Florida
Bottoms Up!
Brian Ashcraft's article "The Mystery of the Green Menace" (issue 13.11) was fascinating. Here's hoping the US legalizes absinthe soon.
Eric Doise
Gainesville, Florida
The XXX Threat
Pornography is a pox on humanity ("Skin City," issue 13.11). Sadly, Wired's willingness to cover the adult video service WantedList as "news" (anything for more subscribers) only serves to feed this debasing disease. The quicker WantedList goes under, the better.
Steve Morsa
Thousand Oaks, California
Open Source of Frustration
Mozilla's Mitchell Baker could work at Microsoft with answers like those quoted in "Is Firefox Insecure?" (Start, Hot Seat, issue 13.11). There's no way to measure Firefox's security vulnerabilities yet, but she's sure a count of security holes is wrong? If the open source approach can't identify existing apps' security shortfalls, why should I trust that software?
When smoke starts pouring from my PC, I don't care how much time the open source community has spent discussing the cause of the meltdown. Fix the damn problem, people, or you're no different from a regular company, just less accountable.
Jim Herries
Redlands, California
Literary Criticism
In "Google's Tough Call" (Posts, Lessig, issue 13.11), Lawrence Lessig trots out the favorite analogy of the anti-copyright crowd: "Imagine if a library needed consent to create a card catalog." But a standard library card catalog contains information only about the book (author, title, place and date of publication, format, size, subject headings). It does not contain the book's text. Computerized library indexes do sometimes contain text from the books, and most of those excerpts are provided by services that get permission from publishers and authors.
Google Print would be wonderful if its database was produced with the cooperation of authors and publishers. Lessig doesn't appear to understand the reality of the situation.
Sean P. Fodera
Brooklyn, New York
I've been an avid fan of Wired since near its inception and probably always will be. But Lawrence Lessig's article brought up an issue that's been bothering me. In general, your contributors and editors openly advocate digital stealing of other people's creative materials. You have advocated stealing music and movies, and this column appears to advocate stealing books. I'm not talking about indexing or about the display of snippets of information as a way to point to the source. I'm talking about copying a whole book, a whole piece of music, a whole movie. How would you feel if someone started publishing The Complete Wired without your consent?
Ted Strauss
Nevada City, California
Serenity Now
When I looked at the picture for "Take Tech to Your Grave" (Start, issue 13.11), the first thing I thought of was the funeral scene near the end of Joss Whedon's movie Serenity. Then I read the copy … and the device is named the Serenity Panel. Joss, call your lawyer.
Kari Summers
Cary, North Carolina
