brave [little] meme

Every year Qualcomm holds an internal competition for new ideas, the QIN Venture Fest. The purpose of the competition is to gather new concepts and business plans from within all levels of the company, with the top ideas getting funding and support all the way to market.

The new Zeebo console is such an idea, a top finalist in the 2007 VentureFest. The new console, about to hit the South American market, brings affordable retro-gaming over 3G to countries where the markup on current-gen hardware is still prohibitive.

Within the last two weeks a total of four nearly identical lawsuits have accused Apple and AT&T of ”continuing to disseminate false and misleading advertising” over the iPhone 3G’s data speeds. Yet these accusations stem from willful ignorance of a  simple reality: 3G speeds are dependent on network coverage, and network coverage is always variable.

By attempting to sue, this group of customers is essentially joining the ranks of those who have brought us “warning: hot coffee” warning labels on coffee cups. It’s exactly this kind of willful naivety that is bringing the world ever closer to idiocracy.