Main Dish:

- I'm going to squeeze in a liquidity item today, Cyanea Systems was acquired by IBM, terms were not disclosed. This is a really fascinating company that is doing monitoring for web apps and web services. What's really interesting about their approach is that they are doing this without altering the applications themselves, in other words they do nor rely on bitcode insertion like Wily does. Anyways, it's a really really kewl company and I have to applaud IBM for a good catch.
http://www.cyanea.com/news_subnav_01_press_releases_17.html

- The UK government, actually the Royal Academy, came out with a paper that says most nanotech poses no risks but additional regulation is still necessary.
http://www.newscientist.com/news/news.jsp?id=ns99996220

- Apple is plenty pissed at Real Networks for, as they call it, hacking the iPod file format to enable Real's music service to download to iPod devices. Apple says they are exploring legal options (probably DMCA I would guess). I think a much bigger issue here is the long tradition in the tech industry of figuring out how something works and duplicating it, all without violating any copyrights or licenses. For example, where would the PC industry be if Phoenix hadn't figured out the BIOS... we would all be using IBM personal computers and they would be frickin expensive beasts, that's where we would be!
http://sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2004/07/30/BUGH07V5VN31.DTL

- Ross has this post titled "paths of resistance" that I had to read 3 times before I really got it, but now I do and I think you should read it as well.
http://ross.typepad.com/blog/2004/07/paths_of_resist.html

- when have you ever heard a bunch of industry executives argue in favor or something they didn't think of? The cable industry is telling the FCC that ala carte pricing would ruin the economics of their industry. I think what's ruining the industry is in fact their reliance on advertisers, if they ran fewer ads I'd be more inclined to watch tv... oh yeah, they would also have to produce something worth watching.
http://www.wired.com/news/technology/0,1282,64399,00.html

...I'll be back later, I have a series of meetings to go to. Sorry for my absence the last couple of days, I was in LA at a board meeting (I also got a new tattoo at Vintage Tattoo, it's a beautiful piece of artwork that I am really pleased with... thanks Odie).