DailyDirt: Cool Concept Designs

from the urls-we-dig-up dept

Some people collect old cars that have a "classic" look to them, and a few people even collect old computers (not just because they want a backup supply of hardware that can read floppy disks). If you're one of these folks who like to reminisce about how clunky the Palm Pilot used to be -- or debate about how much better it was compared to an Apple Newton, check out a few of these links on old Apple products.

• Designers sometimes like to make mockups of re-imagined iconic products, and Apple's original Mac has been re-designed by Curved Labs as a cute little desktop-tablet device. It's not exactly practical because no one would want to use such a tiny screen on a desktop anymore, but it's a nice homage to Apple's (now obsolete) hardware. [url]
• Apple had a concept for a product called Knowledge Navigator in 1987 that wasn't too far off from Siri and the iPhone/iPad. The promo video mentioned a date in 2011, and Siri was actually introduced in that year. [url]
• The original Apple watch was actually just a regular wristwatch given away to promote Mac OS 7.5 in 1995. You can still buy one of these timepieces -- and wear one on one wrist and put a new Apple watch on the other wrist (once Apple starts shipping them). And then, you'll be able to tell the time even after the battery on the Apple Watch dies after 2 hours of constant use. [url]

If you'd like to read more awesome and interesting stuff, check out this unrelated (but not entirely random!) Techdirt post via StumbleUpon.

Filed Under: apple watch, computers, concept, cool, design, gadgets, knowledge navigator, mockup, siri
Companies: apple, palm

DRM Destroys Value: Why Years Old, But DRM Free, Devices Sell For Twice The Price Of New Devices

from the DRM-protects-who,-exactly? dept

Nothing takes value out of a product faster than DRM. Digital rights management has expanded into places where no "digital rights" should exist. What once was something clumsily inserted to "protect content creators" has now become a catch-all term for anything a manufacturer does to ensure that the end user never truly owns the product they purchased.

A small scanner in a coffee maker ensures you'll never use a competitor's coffee, even though purchasers thought they were purchasing a device rather than being sucked into the undercurrent of a revenue stream. The application of inkjet-esque DRM to a souped-up cat litter box means a $200 purchase will be outperformed by its $5 equivalent should you happen to run out of proprietary cleaning solution.

DRM takes purchases out of purchasers' hands. It nullifies the right of first sale by allowing the company -- not the end user -- to determine how the product will be used.

Public Knowledge's John Bergmayer points out that not only does this screw the customer, but it devalues the product itself.

Back in 2010, I paid $99 for an Apple TV--technically, the Apple TV (2nd generation). Recently, it stopped receiving software updates, so I decided to put it on eBay. I was surprised that I was able to sell a piece of four-year old electronics for $161--it's not often you make a profit on old devices.

A 2nd-gen Apple TV isn't a collectors item. It's just worth more to people who want something more from their Apple TV than Apple is willing to give them.

The reason for this is simple--tinkerers have figured out how to jailbreak the 2nd generation Apple TV, but not the 3rd gen one, which is the one Apple currently sells (also for $99).

Despite its name, there's nothing criminal about jailbreaking a device, although plenty of device manufacturers would argue otherwise. Jailbreaking returns control of the purchased device to the purchaser, and certain companies expend far too much capital and effort ensuring they can regain control with the next iteration. These same companies are either unable or unwilling to understand that products a purchaser can control are worth more than those boxed in by DRM.

A device that a user can modify, add capabilities to, and freely install software on is more valuable than one where she can't. And people are willing to pay for that capability. Pre-jailbroken Apple TVs are selling for around $230 on eBay right now.

Brand new: $99. Last generation -- jail broken and untethered: more than twice that.

Certainly, most of the buying public is happy with dumbed-down devices forever enslaved to their makers. Diehard hobbyists, hackers and fans are a market to be courted, but very few companies do so, no matter how "forward-looking" they claim to be when touting their latest products.

Amazon's Fire TV, a direct competitor to Apple's offering, suffers from the same problem, but the company is even more aggressive in its thwarting of jailbreaking. Not only did a firmware update brick rooted devices, it also prevented rollback to earlier firmware versions. What value does that add to the product? What benefit does a purchaser derive from a move clearly meant to lock them into Amazon's ecosystem -- one in which the "purchased" product makes every effort it can to sell them even more stuff?

The market is there for goods you can actually OWN. Products are meant to be controlled by the people who purchased them. The insertion of DRM reverses this long-standing relationship, allowing companies to control purchasers -- and expecting them to pay (sometimes repeatedly) for the "privilege.".

Filed Under: apple tv, drm, jailbreaking, resale value, secondary market, value
Companies: apple

Get Ready For Classic Songs Of The 50s & 60s To Disappear From Internet Streaming Thanks To Copyright Lawsuits

from the bye-bye-1960s-classics dept

Say goodbye to the musical hits of the 50s and 60s, if you like that sort of thing and listen via online services. Chances are they may start to disappear, as the places where you now get your streaming music realize they need to protect themselves against a possible massive liability. As we've covered for some time, there have been a few lawsuits filed recently over the licensing status of pre-1972 sound recordings. There's a lot of history here, but a short explanation is that in 1909, when Congress redid copyright law, it didn't think that sound recordings (then a relatively new concept) were copyrightable subject matter. Of course, in the years following that, as the "music business" turned into the "recording industry" pressure mounted by that industry led to a bunch of state regulations and common law creating copyright or copyright-like rights for sound recordings.

With the 1976 Copyright Act, rather than "federalizing" all sound recording copyrights, Congress basically left all pre-1972 recordings under those state laws, while effectively wiping out those laws for everything else. Since then, all copyright is under federal copyright law, but old sound recordings are still subject to those state laws. But those state laws were somewhat limited -- and at no point did anyone seriously believe that there was any sort of public performance licensing required for those recordings. Well, not until a few years ago, when some big record labels started searching under the couch cushions for other ways to squeeze money out of online services. They'd already convinced Congress to force internet streaming sites to pay compulsory performance royalties (at insanely high rates), even though radio doesn't have to pay those.

But that wasn't enough. So, they started to focus on those pre-1972 recordings and said that while those aren't subject to the compulsory rates, perhaps they could hold them hostage and force the streaming sites to pay insane amounts for them. The streaming sites, rightfully, pointed out that none of those state laws really had a public performance right as a part of it, and thus there was no licensing required to perform those works and... eventually the lawsuits began.

Late last year, there was a series of separate but similar rulings in courts in California and New York that more or less upturned decades of copyright consensus about what rights were afforded to pre-1972 recordings.

And now additional lawsuits are starting to show up -- and you can expect a lot more of them. A holding company called Zenbu Magazines has sued Apple's Beats Music along with Google, Songza, Slacker, Rdio, Sony and Grooveshark using the same basic template as those earlier lawsuits. Zenbu claims to hold the copyrights for recordings by the Flying Burrito Brothers, Hot Tuna and New Riders of the Purple Sage. And it wants to get paid. Big time.

In fact, Zenbu is looking to make this a class action lawsuit, meaning that the holders of lots of other copyrights on pre-1972 recordings may pile on as well -- and the potential liability facing all of these streaming services could quickly grow to astronomical numbers.

Given that, it seems quite likely that at least some, if not all, of these services are going to quickly realize that their best move is to simply remove all pre-1972 recordings from their catalog. History for music may end in 1972 thanks to these self-defeating lawsuits from copyright holders desperate to squeeze extra money out of these services. It's hard to see how that benefits culture in the slightest.

Filed Under: classic rock, copyright, flying burrito brothers, hot tuna, music, new riders of the purple sage, oldies, pre-1972, pre-1972 sound recordings
Companies: apple, google, grooveshark, rdio, slacker, songza, sony, zenbu magazines

GCHQ Used Compromised Hardware To Suck Data And Communications Out Of Exploit-Resistant iPhones

from the it-was-the-WiFi-in-the-library-with-the-backdoor dept

Included in the new Snowden document dump by Der Spiegel is one detailing the GCHQ's exploitation of iPhones [pdf link]. It isn't discussed much in the Der Spiegel piece (unsurprising, considering the number of documents revealed) but has picked up press elsewhere.

The GCHQ managed to pull off a bit of coup, considering the iPhone's general resistance to malware. Instead of deploying an exploit to the target's phone, the GCHQ used an "endpoint machine" (a compromised computer or other device) to harvest data from the phone whenever it connected and synced. Similar to the NSA's exploitation of ad-tracking cookies, the GCHQ's program extracted the iPhone's UDID (Unique Device Identifier) during certain interactions -- like debit card purchases or interactions with AdMob.

The Mobile Theme has invested a large amount of research into iPhone apps and metadata analysis over the last year accumulating with a detailed report done by [redacted] in October 2009 and 29 SEM rules created by ICTR-MCT These rules have used to extract iPhone metadata for a number of apps and in particular the Unique Device Identifier (UDID) from any carrier being processed using DEBIT CARDs. Further TDI rules are being developed by GTE that will in the future extract UDID events from carriers processed through the MVR system. The resulting events have then been used to populate both research and corporate QFDs (Query Focused Datasets) such as MUTANT BROTH and AUTOASSOC and will eventually form the basis of mobile correlations in HARD ASSOC.

The end result of this proxy exploit? A ton of data and communications.

The WARRIORPRIDE exploit has resulted in extraction of the target's address book, sms, call logs, notes, WLAN logs, bookmarks, map query history, Safari browsing history and some images.

The document notes that this limited deployment resulted in the acquisition of three targets for the NSA, in addition to a number of UDIDs passed on to GCHQ's Tailored Access Operations, presumably in order to push further exploits to the phones at syncing.

Unfortunately, further information isn't forthcoming as the accompanying guidance document -- the inadvertently hilariously-titled "Good Penetration Guide" -- has not been made public.

One particular case was a [redacted] target, [redacted] with yahoo selector that was seen active on a iPhone OS 3_1_2, as shown in Figure 8. The resulting Yahoo-B cookie is [redacted] and as can be seen the target has been active off [redacted]. Running the resulting Yahoo-cookie through MUTANT BROTH resulted in 171 events primarily on case notations GWUKGOOS, and IRUKCO36. The resulting information was then forwarded to the in the [redacted] team for tasking by the standard CNE process as outlined in the Good Penetration Guide.

The document is dated November 2010. Apple began phasing out the UDID system the next year and finally banned app developers from integrating this deprecated identifier into their apps in May of 2013. Considering the dates involved, the GCHQ had at least a two-year window where the end machine exploit provided access to data and content. (Apple began its deprecation of the identifier in 2012.)

Considering this collection was killed off by the unaware company along with its UDID system, the GCHQ is obviously on board with UK Prime Minister David Cameron's call to forbid the sort of encryption Apple is making available by default. No one likes to see a source dry up, especially one utilizing devices historically resistant to outside exploitation.

Filed Under: gchq, iphones, malware, surveillance, udid
Companies: apple

Apple's Insistence On DRM And Other Restrictions Means EFF's New App Is Android-Only

from the eff-your-walled-garden dept

The EFF has produced a new mobile app that allows users to access its alert center and instantly take action on issues pertaining to digital rights and other areas the group focuses on. And, it's Android-only, because the EFF took a long look at Apple's walled garden and said, "Include us out."

Sadly, though, we had to leave out Apple devices and the folks who use them. Why? Because we could not agree to the outrageous terms in Apple’s Developer Agreement and Apple’s DRM requirements.

What specifically bothers the EFF about Apple's Developer Agreement? Well, how about the fact that you can't talk about the agreement? The agreement forbids "public statements" about a public document.

Apple also bans reverse engineering, prevents rejected apps developed with its development kit from being distributed by competing app stores and forbids jailbreaking of its devices. The EFF would prefer more open platforms, hence its decision to bypass Apple and its defensive perimeter.

Going beyond Apple's tight control of apps and its app store, there's the problem with the company's insistence on saddling software with some form of DRM. For a company that fought off the major labels' insistence that iTunes include DRM in its offerings, it seems rather hypocritical that it insist others do the very thing it refused to do for others.

As of now, the app is still in its infancy. There's not much to do with it (at least not until the next alert rolls through the system) other than install it and recommend it to others. But the EFF is seeking input both on features and design (contact rainey@eff.org) and has made the code available for forking at Github.

Apple obviously loses nothing but a bit of its reputation by EFF's shunning. But the EFF is still pushing to make the Apple App Store a better environment for all developers.

We’re inaugurating our new mobile app with a suitable campaign: a petition calling on Apple to change its Developer Agreement to respect the privacy and innovation rights of developers. Add your signature today to stand up for free speech and oppose DRM.

Apple's tight control does more damage to its reputation than any rogue app that sneaks past its controls. It has played the villain in the past, booting controversial apps and exposing itself as a guardian of nothing more than the safe and inoffensive. It has also deployed its developer agreement inconsistently, making navigating its lists of "don'ts" an aggravating exercise in minefield tiptoeing. And that's when it's not booting apps simply because they might jeopardize the home team's offerings.

Its similar control of its devices is starting to work against it, as a recently-filed class action lawsuit over its internal storage claims makes clear. When you can't add removable memory or swap out the internal storage for something bigger, you're forced to rely on the manufacturer's claims of how much room is actually available on your phone. And once you've preloaded everything Apple wants you to have on your iPhone, you're left with far less than the 8/16/32GB printed on the outside of the box. (Apple's software will "helpfully" suggest your purchase some iCloud storage when your phone nears capacity.)

Walled gardens are the antipathy of the open internet and free speech, as the EFF points out. So, as long as Apple wants to force developers to play nice with a long list of limitations, the EFF will be having no part of it.

Filed Under: android, apps, drm, ios, restrictions, walled garden
Companies: apple, eff

Stupid Costly Patent Nuclear War By Microsoft & Apple Against Android Averted

from the stupid-this-had-to-happen-in-the-first-place dept

We've written a few times about Rockstar Consortium, a giant patent troll that was created when Microsoft and Apple (and a few others) teamed up to outbid Google, Intel (and a few others) in buying thousands of Nortel patents. Nortel admitted that it had bulked up on many of these patents for defensive measures, but once Nortel went bankrupt they went to the highest bidder (and the bidding went pretty damn high). The winners of the bidding kept a few of the patents for themselves, but then dumped them all into "Rockstar Consortium" which was a new giant patent troll and which, importantly, was not subject to promises that Apple and Microsoft initially made (to avoid antitrust problems) to license the patents under reasonable terms.

Last year, Rockstar launched its massive patent attack on Android, suing basically all the major Android phone makers and Google. While some have argued that big company v. big company patent attacks aren't a form of patent trolling, some of us disagree. This, like most patent trolling, is just trying to extract money from companies and has nothing to do with actual innovation. In the tech world, some have referred to this kind of thing as "privateering" in which a big company puts the patents into a shell company to hide their trolling activity.

Either way, it appears that a settlement of sorts has been reached, with Rockstar Consortium agreeing to sell its patents to RPX (with Google and Cisco picking up much of the bill). RPX is sort of the "good version of Intellectual Ventures." It's a company that collects a bunch of patents with the goal of using those patents for member companies for defensive purposes. Even though RPX has generally been "good," the business model basically lives because of patent trolling. Its very existence is because of all the patent trolling and abuse out there. In this case, though, it's making sure that basically anyone can license these patents under FRAND (fair and reasonable, non-discriminatory) rates. The price being paid is approximately $900 million. While that article points out that this is considerably less than the $4.5 billion Microsoft and Apple paid originally, again, this is only 4,000 of the 6,000 patents, and you have to assume the 2,000 the other companies kept were the really valuable patents.

In short, this is basically Google and Cisco (with some help from a few others) licensing these patents to stop the majority of the lawsuits -- while also making sure that others can pay in as well should they feel threatened. Of course, Microsoft, Apple and the others still have control over the really good patents they kept for themselves, rather than give to Rockstar. And the whole thing does nothing for innovation other than shift around some money.

Cisco's Mark Chandler celebrated the deal as a "common sense" solution. And, it certainly beats all out patent litigation war. But it's still just about moving money around, rather than encouraging innovation. He notes that in settling this as a group, it helps keep things from getting totally out of control:

While we have no quarrel with companies using their patents to stop the copying of differentiating features without permission... the driving up of patent valuations as each side in the war sought to bulk up for battle ended up serving no one other than lawyers and middlemen.

In the end, this is a better solution than years of legal battles. Making this offering open to others (at least for a limited time) is also a better result than might otherwise have been achieved. But it still shows how patents are abused and misused to shake down companies, rather than for any legitimate purpose. And, as Chandler also notes, the real issue still has to come down to fixing the broken patent system:

What is most critical, however, is changing the law to level the playing field and restore a patent system that rewards innovation, not litigation gamesmanship. The chance will come later this spring to enact meaningful patent reform. We will be there as advocates, and hope you will be too.

Filed Under: android, licensing, patent trolling, patent war, privateering
Companies: apple, cisco, google, microsoft, nortel, rockstar consortium, rpx

Jury Says Apple DRM Not An Antitrust Violation

from the which-is-probably-right dept

We've written a few times about the long-standing class action lawsuit against Apple over whether its DRM efforts, designed to block out RealNetworks' attempt to reverse engineer a way into the iPod, violated antitrust law. As we noted recently, despite the case going on for years, the class action lawyers who brought the lawsuit ran into a bit of a stumbling block recently when it came out that none of the named plaintiffs were actually in the class, having purchased iPods outside the window which the class covered. The judge let the lawyers find a new plaintiff just a few days ago, but it certainly looks like the rotating plaintiffs issue may have helped Apple. The jury wasted little time in siding with Apple and saying that there was no antitrust violation. Apple's lawyers played up the plaintiff problem:

“There’s not one piece of evidence of a single individual who lost a single song, not even a complaint about it,” said William Isaacson, Apple’s lead lawyer in the case. “This is all made up at this point.”

There was a lot of interesting side notes to this case, but the failure of the class action lawyers to have an actual plaintiff was a pretty big deal -- and basically made it clear that these lawyers were just in this for the money, rather than to right some sort of wrong.

And, while I'm generally interested in the idea that DRM could potentially be seen as anti-competitive, the fact that this case was about iTunes and RealNetworks kind of highlights how infrequently antitrust law makes sense in the tech industry. The entire digital music ecosystem has changed dramatically since the case began. While iTunes is certainly still a big player, it's facing serious competition on a variety of different fronts including from streaming services like Spotify (one reason why Apple purchased Beats Music). Competition comes in all different ways, and even if you're dominant today, it doesn't mean you'll be dominant very long.

Filed Under: antitrust, class action lawsuits, drm, innovation, ipods, technology
Companies: apple

Class Action Lawsuit Over Apple DRM Stumbles Because Plaintiffs Aren't Actually In The Class

from the you-had-one-job... dept

We've written a few times about the long-running class action lawsuit against Apple alleging that its use of DRM on music (the "FairPlay" system) violated antitrust laws by locking users into Apple's platform. The case is interesting on a few different levels -- including the question of whether or not DRM could lead to antitrust violations (very interesting...) and showing how quickly the technology world changes (music DRM is basically long gone). However, with the trial being held this week, a new stumbling block arose late in the game. Apple lawyers have pointed out to the judge in the case, Yvonne Gonzalez Rogers, that neither of the two women named as plaintiffs actually qualify to be in the class.

As you might imagine, that makes for a difficult class action lawsuit, when you don't have any actual plaintiffs.

Specifically, after testimony this week, Apple realized that the iPod that one of the plaintiffs owned was purchased outside of the period of time covered by the class action lawsuit. Apple stopped using Fairplay in March 2009, so the class action lawsuit only applies to iPods bought between September 2006 and March 2009. That's a problem when the main plaintiff actually bought hers in... July 2009.

After plaintiff Marianna Rosen testified on Wednesday, Apple attorneys said they checked the serial number on her iPod Touch and found it was purchased in July 2009. In a letter sent to the court late Wednesday night, Apple lawyer William Isaacson said it appears the other plaintiff, Melanie Wilson, bought iPods outside the relevant time frame or, in one instance, purchased a model that didn't have the specific version of software at issue in the case.

Isaacson, who suggested the lawsuit can't proceed without a plaintiff, said he's asked for proof that either woman had purchased an iPod covered by the case. Plaintiffs' attorney Bonny Sweeney said her side is checking for other receipts. She conceded that Wilson's iPods may not be covered, but she also noted that an estimated 8 million consumers are believed to have been purchased the affected iPods.

In other words, the class action lawyers are admitting that they may not have a plaintiff, but say it doesn't matter because they can find another one without too much trouble.

And of course, this just reinforces what a total scam so many class action lawsuits are. We've written about this for years. While the basic idea may seem sound, the reality is that most class action lawsuits are just about ways for class action lawyers to get super wealthy. They seek out anything they can sue over, find a stand-in plaintiff whose only job is basically to be the name on the lawsuit, and then when the final payout comes, the lawyers take a huge chunk, the stand-in plaintiff gets a small amount, and the rest of the class splits a further tiny amount. It's not about righting wrongs. It's about enriching class action lawyers. The very fact that the lawyers in this case admit that they can toss out their plaintiffs and bring in others seems to highlight what a total joke this whole thing is.

Still, someone really, really, screwed up on the lawyers' side. How the hell do you set up a class action lawsuit without first confirming that your plaintiff is in the class? That seems like a total and complete fuck up.

Thankfully, Judge Rogers seems to recognize that this is not a good situation:

"I am concerned that I don't have a plaintiff. That's a problem," the judge said in court Thursday afternoon at the end of the trial's third day of testimony in Oakland.

As interested as I am in the idea that DRM might be anticompetitive, I'm still troubled by the abuse of class action lawsuits (and related antitrust efforts in general as well). This particular case just seems like a total mess.

Filed Under: antitrust, class, class action, class action lawsuits, class action lawyers, competition, drm, plaintiffs
Companies: apple

DailyDirt: Protecting Your Phone From Damage

from the urls-we-dig-up dept

One of the first things many people do when they get a shiny new smartphone is put a case and a screen protector on it. Some people do this because they want to customize the look of their phone, but others just want to protect the phone from the inevitable drop on concrete that'll put an annoying scratch (or worse) on the screen. A few folks prefer naked phones, and for those users, there may be some nifty ways to keep phones scratch & dent free in the future. Here are just a few examples.

• Apple has a patent on a way to get a phone to fall like a cat -- so that it tries to land screen side up to minimize damage. Patent 8,903,519 describes ways to alter the center of mass of a device by using positioning sensors to control motors that could adjust the angular momentum of a phone in freefall. [url]
• Jeff Bezos also has a patent on a way to protect a falling phone -- using a kind of airbag system. Future phones might also include tiny canisters of compressed gases to provide a bit of thrust that might allow the device to land more gently -- if manufacturers license US8330305 or wait until it expires. [url]
• Maybe someday we'll just get sapphire displays that would take a diamond to scratch such a screen. However, it might be a bit difficult to get sapphire that's both scratch resistant AND tough enough not to shatter upon a hard impact. It's not easy to make sapphire screens economically, either. [url]
• Until then, maybe Corning's new tougher Gorilla Glass 4 will be good enough. According to Corning, Gorilla Glass 4 can survive drops onto rough surfaces (such as sidewalks) up to 80% of the time. It's also one-tenth the cost of sapphire, almost two times lighter, and more transparent. [url]

If you'd like to read more awesome and interesting stuff, check out this unrelated (but not entirely random!) Techdirt post via StumbleUpon.

Filed Under: airbags, fall protection, gorilla glass, jeff bezos, patents, sapphire, screen protector, smartphone
Companies: amazon, apple, corning

FBI Seizes 20 Boxes Of Documents Related To Los Angeles School District's $1.3 Billion iPad Program

from the $1.3-billion-is-a-motive-with-a-universal-adapter dept

The FBI is suddenly very interested in the Los Angeles School District's $1.3 billion iPad purchase. Earlier this fall, the LASD board voted to lower retention periods on email to one year, bringing it conveniently back in line with the district's policy, but more to the point, hopefully ensuring that it wouldn't be embarrassed again by emails older than 365 days.

The decision comes less than three weeks after KPCC published two-year-old internal emails that raised questions about whether Superintendent John Deasy's meetings and discussions with Apple and textbook publisher Pearson influenced the school district's historic $500 million technology contract.

What's detailed in these emails appears to be the impetus for the following:

L.A. school district officials turned over 20 boxes of documents Monday in response to a federal grand jury subpoena for documents related to its troubled iPad project, officials confirmed Tuesday afternoon.

The subpoena asked for documents related to the bidding process as well as to the winning bidders in the $1.3-billion effort to provide a computer to every student, teacher and campus administrator.

The contract, approved in June 2013, was with Apple to supply iPads; Pearson provided the curriculum as a subcontractor.

LASD's attempt to put some sort of device in every one of its students' hands has failed miserably. Students cracked the school's proprietary lockdown measures within days of receiving them, loading up the tablets with unapproved software and photos, all the while browsing a now-uncensored web.

The district's tech distribution plan has now ground to a halt. The allegedly crooked superintendent behind the iPad/Pearson partnership has since resigned and only 91,000 of the 650,000 iPads destined for students and teachers have actually been purchased. The district is now giving schools the option of picking up cheaper Chromebooks, which would have been a great idea if only the district hadn't previously spent money purchasing laptops that were pricier than the $768 iPads (which also come bundled with $200 worth of Pearson software -- software found to be mostly useless by evaluators, who noted that only one classroom in the 245 surveyed was actually using it for daily work).

The new superintendent (who inherited former superintendent John Deasy's possibly illegal mess), Ramon Cortines, states that the iPad program is now off the table completely.

The morning after the FBI seized the documents, Supt. Ramon C. Cortines said he was shelving the contract.

Cortines said his decision was not based on the surprise visit by FBI agents to district headquarters.

Yes, well, maybe not "based" entirely on that, but the FBI's removal of 20 file boxes of documents related to the iPad purchases certainly must have played a small part. Now, we'll have to see what the FBI uncovers as a previous investigation by the LA County district attorney's office found no evidence of wrongdoing -- or at least, nothing wrong enough to result in criminal charges.

While the intention of the tech rollout was good (put devices in the hands of students who couldn't otherwise afford them), everything else about it was wrong, not the least of which was the former superintendent's cozy relationship with the two primary vendors. Nearly useless software tethered to locked down devices ensured that the only beneficiaries of this project were those selling hardware and software. This was $1.3 billion spent with little more to show for it than an open FBI investigation -- hardly the sort of results anyone could call "encouraging."

Filed Under: fbi, ipads, john deasy, lasd, los angeles school disstrict
Companies: apple, pearson