Gadget Links: Why Not Speed Bumps? Edition

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Speed demons will meet their match on the piste on TimesOnLine.co.uk: “Switzerland is introducing speed cameras on the slopes to try to reduce the increasing number of accidents…. The scheme is being introduced after figures revealed a drastic increase in serious ski-related accidents in Switzerland. The booming winter tourism trade has led to overcrowding at the most popular resorts and a sharp rise in accidents.” [ via The Drudge Report ]
PC Makers Take A Stylish Turn To Tackle Apple in The Wall Street Journal: “…Spurred in part by the success of Apple Inc.’s innovative products, as well as a consumer shift toward notebook computers, PC makers have begun a radical overhaul of their machines’ appearance. They’re racing to replace boring boxes with sexy silhouettes that will differentiate their products, entice new buyers and command higher prices….”

I think that this will prove to be a classic misunderstanding of the market, akin to the mobile phone companies’ efforts to find a touch screen handset to compete with the iPhone– Apple doesn’t depend on industrial design alone to sell its products.
U.S. Album Sales Fell 9.5% in 2007 from The Associated Press in The New York Times: “Album sales in the United States plunged 9.5 percent last year from 2006, as the recording industry had another weak year despite a 45 percent surge in the sale of digital tracks….” [ via Techmeme ]
Survey: Mac OS hit record 7.3% share in December; iPhone up 33% in Apple 2.0 Blog from Fortune Magazine: “The Mac hit a record 7.3% share, up from 6.8% last month. The iPhone also hit a new record, .12%, up from .09% in November. That suggests that better than 1 out of every 1,000 people on the Internet are browsing the Web using an iPhone.” [ via Techmeme ]
Washington Post Flubs Story On RIAA — RIAA Still Not Going After Personal Copies (Yet) on Techdirt: “While we know that the RIAA is constantly pushing to extend both the meaning and scope of copyright law, in this case the details were pretty clear that they were not going after Howell for just ripping his CDs, but for putting those ripped files into a shared Kazaa folder. Now you can (and we do!) disagree that simply putting files into a shared folder are infringement, but that’s different than just claiming that ripping the CDs is illegal or that he was being targeted just for ripping the CDs.”

This analysis contradicts the story we linked to early this week in our article RIAA Suing Individuals Over Ripping CDs for Personal Use. I don’t know who’s right on this issue.