Category: News

Pennsylvania’s hospitals got a small piece of good news when an overdue budget came with smaller than expected cuts. But there and in other states, programs continue to find programs and budgets on the chopping block.

Modern Healthcare: “Pennsylvania’s overdue budget included smaller cuts to hospital revenue than proposed, but redirected existing taxes and fees into the state’s $27.8 billion general fund from healthcare funds and added a Medicaid managed-care tax” (Evans, 10/12).

The (Norfolk) Virginian-Pilot: “Most Virginians don’t like key aspects of the Democrats’ health care reform proposals and believe they will lead to higher taxes and rationing of health care, according to a new poll.” The poll was conducted by Mason-Dixon Polling & Research (Bartel, 10/13).

The Arizona Republic: “With its five conservative Republicans, two liberal Democrats and three centrists, Arizona’s delegation represents the major groups Obama must contend with in Congress” to pass health reform (Kelly, 10/13).

The Salt Lake Tribune on the threat to a Medicaid-funded help program for seniors: “Through the state-funded Alternatives Program [one senior] got help with household chores and grocery shopping. Mary, his aide, is “an excellent worker. She does my laundry and fixes things up around the apartment,” he told the Tribune. The man was nearly evicted after failing to maintain his apartment in the aftermath of a stroke. But, budget woes could end the Medicaid-funded program (Rosetta, 10/12).

The Associated Press/The Boston Globe: A Colorado insurer, “Rocky Mountain Health Plans said Monday it will no longer consider obesity a ‘pre-existing condition’ barring coverage for hefty infants.” The change followed a decision to refuse coverage to a 17 pound 4-month-old whose father works at a Grand Junction NBC affiliate (10/12).

A few weeks ago, reader cofiem sent over a blog post from musician Darren Hayes complaining about recording studios shutting down and blaming “piracy” for it. This morning, our submissions engine is getting overwhelmed with submissions about Wil Wheaton’s rant against someone who posted a copy of Wheaton’s audiobook, saying the guy is “stealing” from him.

Of course, we see content creators complaining about “piracy” or falsely claiming that it’s “stealing” all the time — but these two cases are slightly different. They’re both cases where the content creators seem to be folks who otherwise actually do seem to “get it.” They both do an amazing job connecting with fans, and setting up smart “reasons to buy.” Hayes, for example, created a DVD “collectors’ item” to go with his latest album. And he has a fan club setup, that encourages fans to pay a small fee to get all sorts of valuable (scarce) extras, beyond just the music. Wil Wheaton, of course, has been online for ages, and really interacts with lots of fans, and when he released his audiobook he made it cheap and didn’t put DRM on it at all.

In other words, these are both the sort of content creators who are doing all the kinds of “right moves” that we talk about all the time, and seem to be getting rewarded for it. So, of course, it’s disappointing to see them overreact and go a bit on the ballistic side when they see people sharing their works in some format — but it’s not that surprising. It’s a perfectly natural reaction if you’re not immersed that deeply in thinking through the long term implications of these things to simply not like it when people treat your works in a way other than you intended. There’s nothing really wrong with that.

However, the question then comes up about what should be done about it. How do you respond to such people? It seems the smartest thing to do is to openly explain the other side of the coin: how these efforts can be embraced to further all of the really smart things that these content creators have already done. It’s about getting them to realize that as scary as “the new world” is, one of the things they have to come to accept is that they can’t necessarily control what others end up doing with their works. They can’t dictate the terms by which fans will be fans. But, what they can do is try to put in place systems and models that benefit them when such things happen. Use that free sharing to encourage people to become stronger, more committed fans, and open up new places and opportunities to potentially offer them a reason to buy — on their terms — down the road.

It’s never a huge surprise when someone who hasn’t thought through this stuff carefully starts ranting about pirates and “stealing.” But when it’s someone who otherwise seems to get it, the situation is more one of disappointment. However, in most cases, those folks are at least open to listening to reason, and listening to their community, who can explain back to them ways in which they can benefit, rather than complain or blame. And, in fact, with Hayes, it looks like he took some of his community’s words to heart and noted that there can be future models where “piracy” isn’t necessarily a huge problem (though he’s still unsure of how it works). Hopefully Wil Wheaton will listen to his community as well — and let them point out how many other authors who have put their works online for free have seen that it tends to increase their fan community and increase sales over time.

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If we told you how many emails we get asking about BlackBerry 8520 availability and pricing for Canada, there’s a good chance you wouldn’t believe us. It so happens that one of our Canadian connects (ninja is so yesterday) just blessed us with more information on the Rogers BlackBerry 8520 than we know what to do with. As far as colors go, as we’ve seen, it will be available in black and violet color options. The built-in UMA support will enable the device to take advantage of Rogers’ TalkSpot service just like the T-Mobile variant in the United States does. Here’s a brief recap of device specs before we get into the really good stuff:

• 512MHz CPU
• 2 megapixel camera, fixed focus, no flash
• 320×240 display
• 256MB of RAM
• 3.5mm headset jack
• QWERTY keyboard
• Trackpad
• Wi-Fi with UMA
• Quad-band GSM/GPRS/EDGE

In terms of pricing and availability, the BlackBerry 8520 is available starting tomorrow, October 8th, for $99 on a three-year agreement with minimum combined service fees of $45/mo or more.

If a hard drive is going everywhere with you, it’s a smart move to get one of these ruggedized ones. I recently reviewed LaCie’s 1TB Rugged XL, and while I found it to be less than a rock, it was more sturdy than your average drive and more prepared for the everyday issues one runs into. These A-DATA SH93 models, however, are fully rugged, conforming to MIL-STD-810 ruggedness parameters, meaning it can be dropped while running and can survive under a few feet of water for up to 30 minutes.

That’s right, now you can take your drive into the shower with you. It’s really more that you don’t have to worry about losing all your backups if you spill coffee on it, but the limitations are good to know anyway. Personally, my advice is to have your regular in-PC hard drive, a large backup or two that stay on your desk, and then a 2.5″ drive to carry around with you. And if you’re going to be carrying it around, may as well make it a rugged one, right?

They’re available in 250, 320, 500, and 640GB versions, but there’s no pricing info yet. I’d guess you’re looking at at least a $50 premium on similarly-sized drives. I’ll see what I can do about reviewing one of these suckers.

[via GearLive]

A few weeks back, we got a press release from EA’s PR company. It was tucked within an attachment titled “Rock Band Verizon iPhone Fact Sheet_V3.docx”. As if seeing “iPhone” behind “Verizon” wasn’t strange enough, the rest of the press release made absolutely no reference to an iPhone release. The folks we talked to denied that an iPhone port existed, and we chalked it up as a really, really strange typo.

Looks like it was more of a Freudian slip.