Either has somebody has a really big heart and is trying to help out cash strapped governors some free HP laptops or some creative soul is trying a new way to source government secrets. It turns out that officials in 10 states have received free laptops which needless to say has drawn the attention of State Police and the FBI.

In West Virginia laptops were received at the governor’s office and after checking their records to find that they hadn’t order them. State officials in Vermont say that they have received the same kind of unsolicited laptops.

The laptops sent to the Wyoming governor’s office arrived in two separate shipments on Aug. 3 and Aug. 6, according to Cara Eastwood, a spokeswoman for Governor Freudenthal.

"We received one package, opened it and realized that it was an error since no one in our office had ordered them," she said. "The next day we received another package. At this point we realized that they needed to be turned over to law enforcement."

Although there is no evidence that the computers contain malicious code, HP confirmed Thursday that there have been several such orders and that they have been linked to fraud. "HP is aware that fraudulent state government orders recently have been placed for small amounts of HP equipment," spokeswoman Pamela Bonney said in an e-mail message. "HP took prompt corrective action to address the fraudulent orders and is working with law enforcement personnel on a criminal investigation."

Source: The Standard – FBI investigating laptops sent to US governors

While there is a lot of discussion going on in the music industry and their related trade groups on how best to keep screwing the consumer there are musicians that seem to have no problem making money in this new world of distribution. Trent Reznor while among the first to really publicize the different ways that musicians can utilize the web and the idea of free to earn a living he isn’t alone.

One other artist, one of my favorites, has found that even giving away a hit single for free has helped with the sale of that same single. The musician is Moby and as he pointed out in an email to Bob Lefsetz, a well known name in the music industry, the fact that he was giving the song away for free had turned into a chart topper.

How’s it going?
The album just came out and it would be #1 euro charts if not for michael jackson re-releases.
So that’s good.
But here’s something funny: the best selling itunes track is ’shot in the back of the head’.
Why is that funny?
Because its the track we’ve been giving away for free for the last 2 months and that we’re still givng away for free.
Odd.
How are you?
Moby

Way to go Moby.

hat tip to Techdirt and TorrentFreak

Over the last couple of days I’ve been seeing a couple of posts showing up suggesting that people get ready to open their wallets soon if they want to keep using Hulu. Now for the rest of the world this won’t matter one bit because well besides the US and soon (as of September) the UK no-one else can use the service because it’s geotarded.

That hasn’t stop the newly installed head honcho of News Corp, one of the players involved with Hulu, Mr. Jonathan Miller from suggesting that he envisions a time where at least some of the TV shows and movies would only be available through subscription.

Miller, whose last job was running AOL (parent of Daily Finance), prefaced his remark by noting that he won’t attend his first Hulu board meeting until Monday, so the scenario he foresees is merely his own speculation. But, he continued, "in my opinion the answer could be yes. I don’t see why over time that shouldn’t happen. I don’t think it’s on the agenda for Monday [but] it seems to me that over time that could be a logical thing."

Source: Daily Finance

Now the angst over his statement hasn’t really started rolling through the tech blogosphere because everyone is still sucking up to the the Twitter teat and since what he had to say was more than a 140 characters I’m not surprised it’s been missed. That will change the moment word hits that Hulu will be seriously going down that road – which it will.

The only thing I can say is – what do you expect. Just look at who’s involved here – News Corp (Fox), NBC, ABC and Disney. The only network not involved is CBS and they seem to be the only ones by the way who seem to have a grip on how this new medium works and doing a good job at it.

Unfortunately though when Hulu starts dipping into your wallet most of the world won’t even care but that is what happens when you lock us out. So enjoy your free Hulu while it last.

Feel like goofing off for an hour or so and play some good old fashioned blood and guts first person shooting?

Then I may have just found the perfect playground for you to fire up in your browser and relive some original Doom glory. Not only that but you can also switch over to two other classics from the iD collection – Heretic and Hexen. Doom may have gotten most of the press back in the day but both Hexen and Heretic are just as good.

This goodness is brought to you by Newgrounds and is totally playable within your browser of choice. The only caveat being you will need Flash 10 installed.

If there is one word I really want to see run out of town it is free. It is a word that has created an extremely lopsided view of what the concept of value means in our Web 2.0 world. The idea that we would be able to feast at the table of top notch web (and to a certain point desktop) software that could be supported; and show a profit (sometimes obscene profits), by straight advertising is showing itself to be the ultimate ponzi scheme.

In turn for our flocking like headless chickens to every new web service that came along what did we really get in exchanged?

We got applications that we invested time and energy in, come to rely on, only to have them disappear with all our data or just plain disappear. We get autocratic social media fiefdoms where without any warning you can find yourself thrown outside the gates of these so-called transparent and open data farms disguised as your best friend. We get contextual advertising constantly bombarding us in these free apps that is far from being contextual. We get deluded into believing we are somehow important because we have been invited into participating in using beta software; which most of the time any real developer would be embarrassed to even call alpha quality software; but is designed to get those ad dollars rolling in as soon as possible.

While some smart bloggers are writing how venture capital money is on a straight downward decline others are suggesting that this people behind all this venture capital are starting to run scared. At the root of either of these things is the fact that the advertising model of supporting software is crashing; and in some cases crashing hard. In the process the basic fallacy of the whole Web 2.0 ethos of free is being shown to world as the newest wardrobe of the emperor that it is – empty of value.

Where this idea of free falls down on its knees is expectation. When we actually pay out our hard earned cash on something we have certain expectations. With real world products and services we expect that product to work within in certain parameters – whether those parameters be set by the manufacturer of the product / service or if they are set by government regulation. In the online Web 2.0 world however we have willingly lowered our own expectations because we are getting something for free.

We have willingly said that we will accept extended periods of product or service downtime. We have willingly accepted handing over our data on a day to day basis because we are getting something for free. We have willingly agreed to use software that is just okay because we are getting something for free. We have willingly accepted the idea being foisted upon us; consumer and producer alike, that our data, our ideas, our content aren’t worth anything more than being gist for their advertising money mill all because we are getting something for free. We have also let ourselves be conned into believing that the most precious commodity we have – our time – isn’t valuable because we are getting something for nothing.

The interesting thing here is that in this movement consumers; and to a large degree the producers, have become faceless entities whose only value is the data that they can produce and the more copious the better. The web companies behind this con job don’t care about the individual – they only care about the aggregate. Just keep quiet and keep producing all those tweet, uploading all those pictures and poking people and you’ll be fine. The moment that you raise your head above the faceless crowd though you can find your account suspended, pictures deleted forever or locked out of the Web 2.0 world. The common feeling at that point is oh well it wasn’t costing me anything so why worry about it.

What about your time?

What about your data that is still a part of that aggregated pot of gold at the end of the start-up rainbow?

It doesn’t matter, because we got all that stuff for free. However once you bring money into the equation things change and those things that we have been lead to believe don’t matter because we were getting something for nothing suddenly do matter. When you hand over your money suddenly uptime isn’t just a oh well we’ll do the best we can matter. Suddenly just arbitrarily deleting a persons data takes on a whole new meaning. Suddenly terms of service are something that can be challenged. The expectation of responsibility changes once money changes hands. Reputations mean more once you include a sense of real tangible consumer cost into the mix.

Where companies could once slough off responsibilities because the word free, or beta, or alpha, or by invitation only are in the header graphic of some web service they are finding a whole new set of rules they will have to live by. This creates a problem for anyone wanting to start up some new service or make users want to use an existing one. the first question anyone asked when wanting to use something new is – is it worth spending my money on -  and in most cases I would strongly suggest this isn’t the case. As well those beta, alpha or invitation slap together services have to hit the ground running with a much more reliable and better feature set than if they were hiding under the free moniker like they do now.

Does this mean the downfall of service like Twitter, FriendFeed or Facebook?

Nope because for some folks these types of services already fill a need that is worth paying for. For other folks this won’t be the case and probably never would be the case. However for those that it does fill a need or is able to meet the expectations of they will be a lot harder to keep happy because they are going to expect a certain level of quality and respect for the money they are paying. In turn though it also means that people will finally get what they pay for because so far this getting something for free isn’t looking like it is working out to well.

Reality sucks eh.