Apple's Stock Drops on Rumors of Job's "Rapidly Declining" Health

The Gizmodo Technology site cited an anonymous source who claims Steve Jobs health is "rapidly declining."

Whether the rumors are true or not, Apple's stock tumbled through the trading day dropping from $88.00 to $84.72 minutes after the report. Apple, of course, as always is quiet on the issue.

Jobs was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer in 2003, but was said to be cured and in good health. Jobs made several appearances over the summer where he looked extremely thin, which is providing fear that the rumor may be true.

Steve Jobs has been such an innovative force and is so clearly irreplaceable that it would make since for the company to want to not let this information out.

My heart goes out to Steve and his family. I hope these rumors are not true. This world is truly a better place with Steve Jobs in it.

Stay Hungry, Stay Foolish Steve..

Facebook Balks at the Bosom

Facebook's war against those evil breast feeding mothers posting their pictures of themselves and their babies in the "act" has escalated to an extreme level.

With over 78,000 Facebook users joining a group called "Hey, Facebook, breastfeeding is not obscene," Facebook is going to have to offer some sort of concession to the hordes of lactating ladies. Maybe a limit of one questionably lewd bust pic per household? Come on Facebook, throw us a bone! Or at least a few areolae!

Yesterday, a sizeable group of woman mounted a large scale protest outside of Facebook's Palo Alto headquarters chanting, singing and yes breastfeeding! You go girls! I can't think of a better reason to take to the streets in protest.

Visit msnbc.com for Breaking News, World News, and News about the Economy

UK Wants to Rate Sites Like Movies

Andy Burnham, the United Kingdom's Culture Secretary is seeking to negotiate a deal with incoming U.S. president elect Barack Obama to put in place a rating system for all English language websites. Burnham has tossed around a few ideas for policing the internet, but the film rating idea is the one he seems to have landed on.

In an interview Burnham gave to the Daily Telegraph, Burnham states, "If you look back at the people who created the Internet they talked very deliberately about creating a space that governments couldn't reach. I think we are having to revisit that stuff seriously now."

This could spark a serious debate over freedom of speech rights in the months to come. They have proposed a mandatory "take down" policy if sites like Facebook, or Myspace's users post inappropriate content.

Burnham also commented on modifying UK libel laws to give users access to legal assistance if they are defamed online.

ISPs may be forced to offer internet services where the only sites available would be those deemed suitable for children.

From looking at the transcripts, Burnham clearly just doesn't understand how the internet works and is trying to fit TV's "after 9pm" model onto the internet, which just isn't remotely possible.

Wake up, Man! This is the internets!

Verizon Awarded $33 Million In Cybersquatter Case

Verizon has been awarded $33.15 million in a lawsuit against domain aggregator OnlineNIC who registered hundreds of domains containing Verizon trademarks. Microsoft and Yahoo currently also have filed similar charges against OnlineNIC.

OnlineNIC registered 663 domain names such as verizononline.com, myverizonwireless.com and iphoneverizonplans.com. The sites were allegedly created to confuse users. The sites ran pop-ups and links to earn revenue. No phishing or any other type of fraudulent activity was reported in the suit filing.

Verizon has one small problem. They don't know exactly who to collect the funds from, or who exactly OnlineNIC is. There was no representation in court on OnlineNIC's behalf, and Verizon has been unsuccessful in hunting down the company or anyone affiliated with OnlineNIC.

OnlineNIC has been thouroghly succesful in hiding its owners' identities by using shell entities and false personal names for ICANN registration. Verizon had to report in court that they were unable to find an address for the company to serve a proper court summons. So, basically they won a court hearing against an undefended defendant because they were to lazy or not smart enough to find the defendant. I'm not lawyer, but that really doesn't seem right.

If this is the way our court system works then why don't we just try all criminals without the right to defend themselves. That would make the prosecutions job a lot easier.

Nintendo to Launch Video Streaming on Wii in 2009

Nintendo announced they will be launching a video distribution service on the popular Wiii console.

Nintendo has partnered with Japanese powerhouse ad agency Dentsu. The two parties have not agreed on what type of content the channel will offer, but a source close to Dentsu says it will most likely be free original cartoons and other content skewed towards a younger audience. The offerings will be produced by Nintendo with paid offerings priced between $1 and $4 dollars as well. The free content will be supported 100% by advertising, which is where Dentsu comes in I'm guessing.

The initial test launch will be in Japan only in 2009, but Nintendo hopes to roll out the streaming video program to the US by early 2010.

SpaceX Wins Big NASA Contract

Internet Entrepreneur Elon Musk's start-up SpaceX beat out Boeing and Lockheed Martin to win a $3.1 billion contract to resupply the International Space Station.

The initial contract is $1.6 billion for 12 flights to resupply the space station, with a potential for $3.1 billion with follow-up missions. The first resupply mission is slated for late 2010.

Under NASA's new Commercial Resupply Services program, SpaceX will be paid for each mission. If I do my math correctly that equates to about $133 million a pop. NASA currently spends about $500 million to launch the space shuttle, so this is like switching to the dollar store for the NASA folks. Let's hope the SpaceX rockets are better quality than my $1.00 Swanson's Boneless Fried Chicken TV dinners.

Mr. Musk has already poured $100 million of his own money into the program, so this will likely be a much enjoyed Christmas for the Musk family. Or it could be a very stressful one in which Mr. Musk begins to realize that NASA is putting all their eggs in his somewhat untested SpaceX basket to save the International Space Station! SpaceX has so far attempted to launch three rockets and only one was successful. It will be very exciting to see if SpaceX can deliver.

Good luck and Godspeed, Mr. Musk!

Facebook Bans Project Playlist

After repeated complaints from the The Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA), Facebook has announced it will take down all playlists provided by Project Playlist.

Project Playlist is an online community where 40,000,000+ music fans create and share music playlists. For the past few years Project Playlist has enjoyed huge growth from their embedded playlist's with users from major social networks such as Myspace and Facebook.

Myspace took similar action against Project Playlist recently, blocking all playlist from their member profiles.

Facebook released the following statement this morning, "Our hope and expectation is that the parties can resolve their disagreements in a manner that satisfies the developer and copyright holder, that continues to offer a great experience to music fans, and that doesn't discourage other developers from using Platform to share their creativity and test new ideas."

Project Playlist CEO Jeremy Riney released this statement on his blog, "We are working hard to get our widgets back up on user profiles across these social networking sites as quickly as possible so our users can continue to share music with their friends. Until then, your playlists are not lost and you can still share them - they remain available here on Playlist.com, where you can continue to search for music, create and play new playlists."

On Monday, Sony BMG and Project Playlist agreed to a licensing agreement which will make available Sony's entire catalog of artists which include the likes of Britney Spears, Beyonce and many more.