Post: Good idea, bad idea
In my latest burst of catching up on the news (NewsFire, I want to bear your children), certain developments have caught my eye: either for being particularly good or for being (in my opinion) particularly bad.
- Flickr implements geotagging: good idea (even if no-one can seem to agree on how, if at all, the word “geotagging” is capitalised). My only concern about a feature like this would be that no-one would use it, but since one million photos got geotagged in the first day, that wouldn’t seem to be a problem. Such a cool feature.
- Apple settles with Creative over Creative’s “Zen patent” (US Patent 6,928,433, for the interested), paying them $100 million and letting them produce officially sanctioned iPod accessories. While I’m sure this is probably the easiest route for Apple (given the phenomenal cost of legal services in the States and the devastating effect of a potential injunction against selling iPods), it smacks of a bad patent system and giving in to underhanded business practices, so I’m going to file this one as a bad idea on general principles.
- Microsoft brings out a “Wireless Gaming Receiver”, allowing PC gamers to use wireless Xbox 360 controllers: even though I don’t currently have a wireless Xbox 360 controller, don’t currently play any games which would really benefit from one, don’t have the disposable cash to buy any, and am probably going to buy an Xbox 360 once I do, I really wanted one of these a few months back, so it counts as a good idea (if a rather late one).
- Microsoft partners with the CEOP Centre to implement an abuse prevention measure into MSN Messenger and Windows Live Messenger: I have my opinions, both on whether this is a good idea in principle and whether it’s going to be of any use, but this is a highly risky subject to delve into without being exceptionally well-informed, so I’ll just draw it to your attention and leave you to draw your own conclusions.