[JackSpratts]

A Battle For The Soul Of The Internet
Elliot Noss

With little fanfare, there is a battle going on for the soul of the Internet. The United Nations and the ITU (International Communications Union) are trying to wrest control of domain names, the DNS and IP addresses from ICANN (Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers). This battle manifests itself through the U.N.-created World Summit on Information Society (WSIS) and the ITU-lead Working Group on Internet Governance (WGIG).

While the Internet is essentially a series of protocols adhered to by common consent, it relies on a single authoritative root at its core. This is what assures Internet users who type "zdnet.com" into their browsers that they end up where they thought they should. Anything but uniqueness with this vital resource would result in collision and confusion. The same is true for e-mail. Unless senders are certain that there is only one unique identifier for a recipient, they cannot use e-mail with confidence.

Both the U.N. and the ITU have their reasons for trying to wrest control of these vital resources from ICANN. For the U.N., ICANN represents a body that transcends the nation-state structure, and could become a model for similar efforts covering subject matter most appropriately dealt with at a global level. For the ITU, gaining control of core Internet resources represents an opportunity to put the Internet-genie back in the bottle and gain a greater measure of relevance in the IP networking world. The ITU doesn't see itself as merely an overseer of the old circuit-switched networks, which it presides over today, but as the overseer of all networks, including the Internet.

While ICANN has its flaws, it also possesses important, unique characteristics. Two are worthy of special note. First, ICANN's form of governance explicitly includes policy, technical, business and user interests under one roof. Each interest group has a formal role and voice in both policy-making and governance. Each has a stake in the proceedings, and each is an important part of the system. (Yes, users' voices need be heard more, and as an active participant in the ICANN process and member of the 2005 ICANN Nominating Committee I will continue to work toward that goal). Having these combined interests explicitly inside the process avoids some of the perversions that we have seen in other forms of governance, campaign finance being perhaps the starkest example.

Second, ICANN is a truly global organization. It is global in the sense that individuals involved represent one of the above-mentioned interests, but not national governments. This is an important concept in that the Internet is truly a global resource, but it is this unique element that creates the greatest challenge. We have no model for managing a global resource of this nature. There are numerous models for managing international resources, resources being managed between nations, but that is not what the Internet is. In this regard, ICANN mirrors the Internet in that it works by "rough consensus." The checks and balances are systemic. This is what has allowed the price of domain names to drop by 50- to 75 percent over the last five years while service levels have increased dramatically. This is what has allowed the Uniform Dispute Resolution Process (UDRP) to eliminate cybersquatting of trademarks.

The U.N.'s WSIS contains 40 delegates, including members from Cuba, China, Iran, Saudi Arabia, Zimbabwe, Tunisia, Pakistan, Syria, Russia and Egypt. If the U.N. controlled domain names and IP addresses, the ability of countries to censor the Internet would be greatly enhanced, as well as the ability to tax or impose other regulatory burdens on these resources in order to fund unrelated projects of any kind.

In fact, if the U.N. and the ITU were successful, it is not difficult to envision a Balkanization of the Internet as whole portions of the Internet decide they did not want to rely on the U.N. and the ITU for their single authoritative root. If that Balkanization were to take place, the damage to the global economy would be incalculable.

In addition, these Internet governance positions would not be plum U.N. postings. We could expect to see the likes of Internet pioneer Vint Cerf replaced by some dictator's wife's third cousin.

The U.N./ITU put forward two main arguments for replacing ICANN. They claim that it's necessary to wrest control of the Internet from the United States and that ICANN is a private organization that is beholden to no one and that represents no one.

To be clear, ICANN is a not-for-profit California corporation that nominally reports to the US Department of Commerce and operates under a memorandum of understanding with the agency that is reviewed and renewed in six-month intervals.

Despite this, ICANN is not American--it is global. There are three Americans on a 15- person board of directors. There are six Americans on the 22-person generic names- supporting organization (GNSO) council, the main policy-making body. Two Americans are on the 10-person at-large advisory council (ALAC). There has not been a meeting in the US since November 2001, and the earliest possibility of a US meeting is in June 2007, a 17-meeting gap (the last North American meeting was in Montreal in June 2003, and the next is in Vancouver in December).

As for it being representative, ICANN has always had one prerequisite for involvement-- a willingness to take the time and effort to participate. There is active representation from Internet communities from around the world. The level of participation, the quality of participation and the output of the process have steadily improved over ICANN's history. Neither the U.N. nor the ITU can make any of these claims. Participation in their processes require a position in or through a national government or a Telco monopoly, neither of which are known for their deep appreciation and understanding of the Internet.

There is no doubt that both the U.N. and the ITU are much more adept at politics than either ICANN staff or the vast majority of participants in the ICANN process. That makes the threat here all the more real.

It is important to remember that we all rely on the rich ecosystem that is the free Internet. We are all beneficiaries of the innovation it spawns, the information it provides and the interaction it supports. We cannot take this for granted.

Companies that rely on a free Internet--and there are few technology companies that don't--need to become active in the ICANN process through the Business or ISP Constituencies; other institutions and not-for-profits through the non-commercial constituency. Companies, institutions and individuals from around the world who have access to their governments' decision makers need to let them know that the Internet needs to stay free and that supporting ICANN supports that principle. Individuals who care about the future of the Internet and believe they can contribute to creating a better ICANN and preserving a freer Internet should think about the ICANN nominating committee's call for Statements of Interest, which seeks qualified candidates to help the organization move forward.

The Internet has contributed more to freedom, education and innovation than any other advance of the last number of decades. It deserves to be protected from the people and the institutions that do not share an appreciation for preserving the values upon which the Internet was founded.
http://news.zdnet.com/2100-9588_22-5730589.html


~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Richest Are Leaving Even the Rich Far Behind
David Cay Johnston

When F. Scott Fitzgerald pronounced that the very rich "are different from you and me," Ernest Hemingway's famously dismissive response was: "Yes, they have more money." Today he might well add: much, much, much more money.

The people at the top of America's money pyramid have so prospered in recent years that they have pulled far ahead of the rest of the population, an analysis of tax records and other government data by The New York Times shows. They have even left behind people making hundreds of thousands of dollars a year.

Call them the hyper-rich.

They are not just a few Croesus-like rarities. Draw a line under the top 0.1 percent of income earners - the top one-thousandth. Above that line are about 145,000 taxpayers, each with at least $1.6 million in income and often much more.

The average income for the top 0.1 percent was $3 million in 2002, the latest year for which averages are available. That number is two and a half times the $1.2 million, adjusted for inflation, that group reported in 1980. No other income group rose nearly as fast.

The share of the nation's income earned by those in this uppermost category has more than doubled since 1980, to 7.4 percent in 2002. The share of income earned by the rest of the top 10 percent rose far less, and the share earned by the bottom 90 percent fell.

Next, examine the net worth of American households. The group with homes, investments and other assets worth more than $10 million comprised 338,400 households in 2001, the last year for which data are available. The number has grown more than 400 percent since 1980, after adjusting for inflation, while the total number of households has grown only 27 percent.

The Bush administration tax cuts stand to widen the gap between the hyper-rich and the rest of America. The merely rich, making hundreds of thousands of dollars a year, will shoulder a disproportionate share of the tax burden.

President Bush said during the third election debate last October that most of the tax cuts went to low- and middle-income Americans. In fact, most - 53 percent - will go to people with incomes in the top 10 percent over the first 15 years of the cuts, which began in 2001 and would have to be reauthorized in 2010. And more than 15 percent will go just to the top 0.1 percent, those 145,000 taxpayers.

The Times set out to create a financial portrait of the very richest Americans, how their incomes have changed over the decades and how the tax cuts will affect them. It is no secret that the gap between the rich and the poor has grown, but the extent to which the richest are leaving everyone else behind is not widely known.

The Treasury Department uses a computer model to examine the effects of tax cuts on various income groups but does not look in detail fine enough to differentiate among those within the top 1 percent. To determine those differences, The Times relied on a computer model based on the Treasury's. Experts at organizations representing a range of views, including the Heritage Foundation, the Cato Institute and Citizens for Tax Justice, reviewed the projections and said they were reasonable, and the Treasury Department said through a spokesman that the model was reliable.

The analysis also found the following:

Under the Bush tax cuts, the 400 taxpayers with the highest incomes - a minimum of $87 million in 2000, the last year for which the government will release such data - now pay income, Medicare and Social Security taxes amounting to virtually the same percentage of their incomes as people making $50,000 to $75,000.

Those earning more than $10 million a year now pay a lesser share of their income in these taxes than those making $100,000 to $200,000.

The alternative minimum tax, created 36 years ago to make sure the very richest paid taxes, takes back a growing share of the tax cuts over time from the majority of families earning $75,000 to $1 million - thousands and even tens of thousands of dollars annually. Far fewer of the very wealthiest will be affected by this tax.

The analysis examined only income reported on tax returns. The Treasury Department says that the very wealthiest find ways, legal and illegal, to shelter a lot of income from taxes. So the gap between the very richest and everyone else is almost certainly much larger.

The hyper-rich have emerged in the last three decades as the biggest winners in a remarkable transformation of the American economy characterized by, among other things, the creation of a more global marketplace, new technology and investment spurred partly by tax cuts. The stock market soared; so did pay in the highest ranks of business.

One way to understand the growing gap is to compare earnings increases over time by the vast majority of taxpayers - say, everyone in the lower 90 percent - with those at the top, say, in the uppermost 0.01 percent (now about 14,000 households, each with $5.5 million or more in income last year).

From 1950 to 1970, for example, for every additional dollar earned by the bottom 90 percent, those in the top 0.01 percent earned an additional $162, according to the Times analysis. From 1990 to 2002, for every extra dollar earned by those in the bottom 90 percent, each taxpayer at the top brought in an extra $18,000.

President Ronald Reagan signed tax bills that benefited the wealthiest Americans and also gave tax breaks to the working poor. President Bill Clinton raised income taxes for the wealthiest, cut taxes on investment gains, and expanded breaks for the working poor. Mr. Bush eliminated income taxes for families making under $40,000, but his tax cuts have also benefited the wealthiest Americans far more than his predecessors' did.

The Bush administration says that the tax cuts have actually made the income tax system more progressive, shifting the burden slightly more to those with higher incomes. Still, an Internal Revenue Service study found that the only taxpayers whose share of taxes declined in 2001 and 2002 were those in the top 0.1 percent.

But a Treasury spokesman, Taylor Griffin, said the income tax system is more progressive if the measurement is the share borne by the top 40 percent of Americans rather than the top 0.1 percent.

The Times analysis also shows that over the next decade, the tax cuts Mr. Bush wants to extend indefinitely would shift the burden further from the richest Americans. With incomes of more than $1 million or so, they would get the biggest share of the breaks, in total amounts and in the drop in their share of federal taxes paid.

One reason the merely rich will fare much less well than the very richest is the alternative minimum tax. This tax, the successor to one enacted in 1969 to make sure the wealthiest Americans could not use legal loopholes to live tax-free, has never been adjusted for inflation. As a result, it stings Americans whose incomes have crept above $75,000.

The Times analysis shows that by 2010 the tax will affect more than four-fifths of the people making $100,000 to $500,000 and will take away from them nearly one-half to more than two-thirds of the recent tax cuts. For example, the group making $200,000 to $500,000 a year will lose 70 percent of their tax cut to the alternative minimum tax in 2010, an average of $9,177 for those affected.

But because of the way it is devised, the tax affects far fewer of the very richest: about a third of the taxpayers reporting more than $1 million in income. One big reason is that dividends and investment gains, which go mostly to the richest, are not subject to the tax.

Another reason that the wealthiest will fare much better is that the tax cuts over the past decade have sharply lowered rates on income from investments.

While most economists recognize that the richest are pulling away, they disagree on what this means. Those who contend that the extraordinary accumulation of wealth is a good thing say that while the rich are indeed getting richer, so are most people who work hard and save. They say that the tax cuts encourage the investment and the innovation that will make everyone better off.

"In this income data I see a snapshot of a very innovative society," said Tim Kane, an economist at the Heritage Foundation. "Lower taxes and lower marginal tax rates are leading to more growth. There's an explosion of wealth. We are so wealthy in a world that is profoundly poor."

But some of the wealthiest Americans, including Warren E. Buffett, George Soros and Ted Turner, have warned that such a concentration of wealth can turn a meritocracy into an aristocracy and ultimately stifle economic growth by putting too much of the nation's capital in the hands of inheritors rather than strivers and innovators. Speaking of the increasing concentration of incomes, Alan Greenspan, the Federal Reserve chairman, warned in Congressional testimony a year ago: "For the democratic society, that is not a very desirable thing to allow it to happen."

Others say most Americans have no problem with this trend. The central question is mobility, said Bruce R. Bartlett, an advocate of lower taxes who served in the Reagan and George H. W. Bush administrations. "As long as people think they have a chance of getting to the top, they just don't care how rich the rich are."

But in fact, economic mobility - moving from one income group to another over a lifetime - has actually stopped rising in the United States, researchers say. Some recent studies suggest it has even declined over the last generation.
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/06/05/na...PER-FINAL.html


~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

The Politics Of .XXX
Declan McCullagh

Now that pornographers have a domain name suffix reserved exclusively for them, look for politicians to become more eager than ever before to target sexually explicit Web sites.

Last week, the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers approved the creation of .xxx, a kind of virtual red-light district that's scheduled to go live by the end of the year.

Permitting sexually explicit material online is, of course, only objectionable among advocacy groups that would love to outlaw anything as daring as "Heather Has Two Mommies." (Nobody is forced to click on links pointing to raunch and ribaldry, after all.)

But the politics of .xxx are more complex--and worrisome.

If .xxx remains truly voluntary, that's one thing. But what happens if politicians make it mandatory? What if controversial material like information on homosexuality, abortion and sex education comes under pressure to move to a virtual area that can be easily blocked?

Permitting sexually explicit material online is only objectionable among advocacy groups that would love to outlaw anything as daring as "Heather Has Two Mommies."
This is no mere theoretical concern. ICANN's decision represents an abrupt turnabout from the group's earlier stance: In November 2000, the ICANN staff rejected the first proposal for an .xxx registry.

Then politicians began to ratchet up the pressure. At a hearing a few months later, Rep. Fred Upton, R-Mich., demanded to know why ICANN didn't approve .xxx "as a means of protecting our kids from the awful, awful filth which is sometimes widespread on the Internet." Sen. Joseph Lieberman, D-Conn., complained to a federal commission that .xxx was necessary to force adult Webmasters to "abide by the same standard as the proprietor of an X-rated movie theater."

Like any other bureaucracy, ICANN instinctively shies away from controversy--especially from political bigwigs. No wonder they changed their mind this time around.

Months from now, after .xxx domains become available and popular, expect these same politicians to suggest that adult Webmasters should be forced to permanently relocate from .com.

"You're definitely going to find some pressure on sex sites to move there," predicts David Greene, director of the First Amendment Project in Oakland, Calif.

What's more, the existence of an .xxx suffix will make it more difficult to challenge such a law in court. U.S. Supreme Court Justice Sandra Day O'Connor has suggested that the presence of "adult zones" on the Internet would make a future Communications Decency Act more likely to be regarded as constitutional.

In a split decision, O'Connor voted for and against different portions of the CDA in 1997, but only because "we must evaluate the constitutionality of the CDA as it applies to the Internet as it exists today." In the future, however, O'Connor warned, "the prospects for the eventual zoning of the Internet appear promising."

Even if the U.S. government maintains a hands-off approach, what about other governments that lack the constraints of a First Amendment?

Next steps
Backers of the .xxx domain claim they've thought this through.

Stuart Lawley, a British entrepreneur living in Jupiter, Fla., has created a company called ICM Registry to handle the technical aspects of running the master database of .xxx sex sites. For its troubles, it would charge $60 a domain name and let resellers add their own markup of perhaps $10 to $15 per domain.

A second, nonprofit organization, the International Foundation For Online Responsibility, will be in charge of setting the rules for .xxx. It will have a seven-person board of directors, including a child advocate, a free-expression aficionado and, naturally, at least one person from the adult entertainment industry. As president and chairman of ICM Registry, Lawley gives himself just one vote on the board.

To his credit, Lawley is pledging a legal defense fund of $250,000 to "maintain the voluntary nature of the domain name system."

Robert Corn-Revere, a lawyer who's representing ICM Registry, said that they've laid the groundwork for a possible legal challenge. "You know how regulators are in this area," he said. "They look for something to do. We've anticipated the possibility that some people may think this is such a good idea it ought to be mandatory. That was one of the purposes of my being involved in this area. We've put a great deal of thought into it."

After .xxx domains become available and popular, expect these same politicians to suggest that adult Webmasters should be forced to permanently relocate from .com.
"Our conclusion was that assuming that such an effort were attempted one day, it wouldn't succeed," Corn-Revere said. "You can't compare content regulation to zoning. They're apples and oranges."

The next step is for Lawley and ICANN to work out any last remaining details, and then .xxx can be added to the root servers.

There's one last potential hitch: The Bush administration, hardly a fan of sexual expression, has to agree with the addition. (A government report notes that the Commerce Department "has reserved final policy control over the authoritative root server.")

"For .xxx to go into the root is going to require positive action on the part of the United States government," said Karl Auerbach, a former ICANN board member and frequent critic of the organization. "That would constitute an endorsement of a red-light district on the Internet."

Will the antiporn forces in the Bush administration like the idea of .xxx, as some politicians did five years ago, or will they move to block it? The conservative advocacy group Family Research Council already is trying the second approach. "The '.xxx' domain also cloaks the porn industry with legitimacy," FRC legal counsel Patrick Trueman said in a press release on Friday. "The industry will have a place at the table in developing and maintaining their new property."
http://news.com.com/The+politics+of+...3-5731275.html


~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

The Trick of Making a Hot Ticket Pay
Robert Levine

Norah Jones fans who wanted to see the singer perform live last summer had little trouble finding tickets. Although she was touring to promote the platinum-selling album "Feels Like Home," Ms. Jones sold an average of only two-thirds of the tickets available for each show, according to Pollstar, which tracks the pop concert business.

She was not the only artist staring out at empty seats. For Incubus, a rock band that had done well in 2003, "sales were brutal," according to Randy Phillips, chief executive of AEG Live, the promoter that booked most of the dates. Even Simon and Garfunkel, whose reunion was the sixth-highest-selling tour in 2003, took in about half as much money a show last year. "Last summer," Mr. Phillips said, "was a disaster."

Nobody felt the trouble more keenly than Clear Channel Communications, the radio conglomerate that became the country's largest live music company in 2000, when it bought the concert promoter SFX Entertainment for $4.5 billion. Clear Channel, which controls many of the nation's big live-music venues, including the amphitheater at Jones Beach on Long Island and the Shoreline Theater near San Francisco, had hoped to exploit synergies between radio and concerts through advertising and tour sponsorships.

Those extra advantages never materialized. But in an effort to control a larger part of the concert business, Clear Channel aggressively raised advance payments to artists, which sometimes pushed acts into inappropriately large houses and drove up ticket prices for an already fickle audience.

"Clear Channel acted like it had to dominate the marketplace and in order to buy everything, it had to pay," said Alex Hodges, executive vice president of House of Blues Concerts, the promotion division of House of Blues Entertainment, a competitor to Clear Channel in the live-music business.

Since then, the company has changed course. A few weeks ago, it announced that it would spin off the Clear Channel Music Group as a separate company, apparently giving up its vision of synergy but also removing some of the pressure to increase its market share at any cost.

Michael Rapino, who last August was promoted from head of the company's European division to run the entire live-music business, is trying to impose discipline on artist guarantees and to make amphitheater concerts, a significant part of the company's business, more appealing. "I think the industry in general used last year as a wake-up call," said Mr. Rapino. "We have to be more aggressive when it comes to motivating the casual consumer."

Last week, Clear Channel Music announced some steps aimed at getting more people into the cheap seats. For certain shows at 33 of the amphitheaters it controls, lawn tickets will cost $20, about half to two-thirds of the prices in the past. For other shows it is introducing a $39 "grass pass" that includes parking and a $10 food and beverage voucher. It has also struck some vending deals with upscale food suppliers including Au Bon Pain, Ben & Jerry's and even Legal Sea Foods. "Our economic driver has always been our event revenue," Mr. Rapino said, referring to concessions and other so-called ancillaries.

It is not clear whether price reductions will increase demand for tickets. Marquee acts like the Rolling Stones and Paul McCartney, both touring this summer, have no problem commanding several hundred dollars for some seats. Even smaller bands sell the best and most expensive seats first, sometimes leaving part of a house empty.

Mr. Phillips of AEG Live, a Clear Channel competitor, is skeptical. "The bet," he said, "is that lower lawn prices and Cherry Garcia cones will make a difference to get people to see an act they might not have seen anyway."

Mr. Rapino is also trying to control the spiraling costs of booking talent. From the perspective of gross revenue, 2004 was actually a good year for the concert industry - up 12 percent, to $2.8 billion. But booking costs also rose, fueled by overly optimistic projections and competitive bidding.

That led to higher ticket prices, often beyond what some fans were willing to pay. Last year, the average price of a ticket to one of the top 100 tours was $52.39 before Ticketmaster charges and other fees were added, up about 25 percent since 2000, according to Pollstar.

Concert-ticket revenue is split between the performer and the promoter, with the performer receiving most of the money, customarily around 85 percent. To book talent, the promoter pays an artist or his agent an advance against that share - a guarantee, in industry parlance - in the belief that enough tickets can be sold to make the performer's price worthwhile.

This amounts to a high-stakes bet. "The promoter gets 15 percent of the upside and 100 percent of the downside," said Marc Geiger, head of contemporary music at the William Morris Agency. "The same way an airline may have too many flights to one city, there was too much incorrect guessing on what amount of tickets would get sold."

Promoters, led by Clear Channel, bet too big too often.

"The agents loved this - all they had to say is, 'Someone else might do the show,' and the bidding escalated," Mr. Hodges of the House of Blues said. "With the increase in the cost of talent, we increased ticket prices. And when fewer people show up, we can lose money on what otherwise would be a great show."

As he is adjusting the price of some seats, executives in the industry said Mr. Rapino is trying to impose more discipline on the performers' guarantees. "I couldn't charge these prices if our costs hadn't changed a bit as well," Mr. Rapino said. In certain cases, he said, an artist may get all the net proceeds from ticket sales. That kind of deal would presumably be made in exchange for a reduced guarantee.

Managers' reactions to these changes have been cautiously optimistic, in part because for artists the stigma of playing to empty seats can offset the benefit of a high guarantee.

"I believe that acts are being paid far more realistically, based on how they actually perform," said Jim Guerinot, who manages Gwen Stefani and Nine Inch Nails, who will both play at arenas in the fall.

Concert promoters also face some problems beyond their control. Rappers and pop stars dominate radio, but generally do not have the draw of rock bands on the road. Even Eminem, who sells millions of albums, will mostly play at amphitheaters on a package tour. On the rock side, "there's less demand for things people have seen before," said Dave Roberge, manager of the band O.A.R. "Seeing John Mellencamp today might not be that different from seeing him two years ago."

At the same time, there are simply more concerts to choose from. "The pressure on the consumer entertainment dollar becomes very dramatic between Memorial Day and Labor Day," Mr. Guerinot said.

So far, business this summer already looks as if it will improve from last year. "This time last year, we felt we were being run over by a truck every day," Mr. Hodges said. "We feel pretty good now." Several superstar tours, including those by the Stones, U2, Coldplay and the Dave Matthews Band, should give the business a lift.

"In the world of the music business," Mr. Guerinot said, "the live business is one of the best because you can't download it. It boils down to creating an environment for it to be successful."

And Mr. Hodges added: "There's an oft-used expression: 'There are no bad shows, there are just bad deals.' We live and die by that."
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/06/06/bu...ert.html?8hpib


~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Voiceover Actors Seek Part of Video Game Profits
Laura M. Holson

To Howard Fabrick, who is handling stalled talks with the Screen Actors Guild on behalf of video game makers, refusing to share profits is a matter of principle.

Video games, he said, are not entertainment on par with movies, though, on average, Americans spend more leisure time playing video games these days than going to the movies. Actors, he said, do little to attract the most avid gamers and do not deserve more than a flat fee.

But most important, caving in to actors' demands would spell trouble for the industry: it could set off a chain reaction of scores of cubicle-bound programmers who would also demand a cut of the action, he said.

Whether it is "two weeks, two months or two years, I see no change in the position," Mr. Fabrick said. "Why establish a precedent in an industry where there is no precedent?"

On Tuesday, members of the Screen Actors Guild will announce whether they will go on strike against video game companies, after months of on-and-off discussions. (The talks also included the American Federal of Television and Radio Artists.) The problem is that game makers will not give voiceover actors extra fees if a game sells more than 400,000 units, a deal-breaker for the Guild. But whether the actors decide to walk out or not, they have already opened a Pandora's box by raising the question: Who deserves to be compensated most for the success of a video game?

In Hollywood, successful producers, directors, writers and sought-after actors routinely share in the profits if they create or star in a hit. And in nearly every other part of the entertainment industry, most actors receive a residual each time a TV show, movie or commercial is shown after its initial broadcast.

But video game companies are taking a hard line with the Guild, looking to stem an erosion in profits as the cost of making a video game rises to as much as $25 million and competitors, like movie studios, invade their turf. "I think they don't want the concept of collective bargaining anywhere in their industry," said Keith Boesky, a game industry consultant. "Publishers want the freedom on a case-by-case base to determine who they give profits to."

That is troublesome for the nearly 2,000 actors who make a living, in part, by doing voiceovers for games. "To use this against us and say game developers are the real stars and not willing to share the wealth with everyone creating the games is kind of sad," said James Arnold Taylor, an actor who is the voice of Obi-Wan Kenobi on Cartoon Network's "Clone Wars" series and of Fred Flintstone for cereal commercials, and also works on about 20 games a year.

He said his performances for video games - including characters in Final Fantasy 10, and the Ratchet & Clank series - make up about 26 percent of the time he spends working, but account for about 9 percent of his income. And unlike a movie actor who often plays one role, he sometimes voices four characters or more for one game. The most, Mr. Taylor said, was 36 different voices.

"It's strenuous," said Mr. Taylor. "You think you are doing 2 pages of dialogue but instead you are doing 20 pages of screaming, 'Die! Die! Die! I'm going to kill you!' Then the directors say, 'We want bigger, bigger, more!' I train like a singer, but even with that it can't help but have an effect on your voice. We understand there are a lot of games not based on dialogue, but then again there are a lot of games that are."

Mr. Fabrick contends a voice is less important in a game than the story and effects created by the artists, writers and programmers. He warned that actors were trying to impose movie business sensibilities in an industry that does not work that way. But he conceded that game makers are becoming more dependent on Hollywood for new game titles, and using a marquis actor is important, if only for marketing.

At the Electronic Entertainment Expo, the video game industry trade show known as E3, in Los Angeles two weeks ago, for instance, video game makers introduced several new games based on movies, including The Godfather, which uses the voice of Marlon Brando, who recorded it before his death.

To be sure, the movie industry has caught on to how valuable video games are, making the actors complaints' all the more timely. More high-profile directors, like Peter Jackson, who is directing "King Kong" for Universal Pictures, are actively involved in game production. And voiceover actors and their supporters protested outside E3 to remind users how important actors are to making quality games.

"All of the people going into the game show have no idea the predicament these actors are in," said James Cromwell, an actor and secretary-treasurer of the Guild who was at the rally. "But if you lower the expectations of the audience so they don't care anymore, then we all are in the toilet."
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/06/06/te...y/06voice.html


~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Hollywood Unions Reach Deal With Video Game Makers

Hollywood actors unions have reached a contract deal with video game publishers, accepting higher pay instead of the profit-sharing they had demanded, the unions said Wednesday, removing the threat of a strike.

The three-and-a-half-year agreements with game companies came as the Screen Actors Guild (SAG) and American Federation of Television and Radio Artists (AFTRA) were preparing to announce the results of a strike vote.

Unions had sought to win profit-sharing, known as residual payments, from game publishers.

Under the new agreements, union performers will get a 36 percent increase in minimum pay over the term, increases in benefit contributions and greater protection. The agreements are subject to final approval by the unions.

The unions, which said they struck the deal with reluctance, vowed to continue their bid to win payments for actors for each game sold. Actors who appear in movies and television shows receive residual payments when those works are shown again.

"While we did not get all that we want ... and deserve ... this contract is another important step in building artists' power in this growing sector of the media industry," said John Connolly, AFTRA's national president.

"We will spend the next three-and-a-half years devoting resources to further organize this industry, and return to the bargaining table with renewed strength and vigor to establish a fair participation in the enormous profits generated by video games," SAG President Melissa Gilbert said.

Union members' previous three-year interactive game contracts expired in December. Negotiations started on Feb. 15 but broke down on May 13.

Hollywood plays an increasingly important role in the video game industry -- which, like U.S. movie ticket sales, brings in around $10 billion in annual revenue -- as game developers tap movie stars to bring life to characters.

The best-selling game of 2004, "Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas," featured the voices of actors like Samuel L. Jackson and Peter Fonda.

Just behind it on the sales charts was "Halo 2" with the voices of Miguel Ferrer and Keith David.

And it is now common for movie actors to be required to contribute to related video games.

More than 70 game publishers previously had arrangements with SAG and AFTRA, which together represent about 3,000 performers working in the video game industry.

A spokesman for the coalition of game developers was not immediately available for comment.
http://today.reuters.com/news/newsAr...-STRIKE-DC.XML


~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Push For California Violent Game Bill Stalls

A bill before the California Assembly to ban the sale of violent video games has been shelved because of a lack of support, an aide to its author said on Friday.

Assemblyman Leland Yee has deactivated his bill after failing to muster enough votes for it to pass the full Assembly, said aide Adam Keigwin.

"We've put it in the inactive file," Keigwin said, noting there is a possibility Yee may ask lawmakers to revive the bill in the state Senate for a last- minute push this legislative session.

If not, Yee, a child psychologist, will bring his bill up for reconsideration in the state's next legislative session, Keigwin said.

"Dr. Yee is committed to this issue, but he wants to build more support for this bill," Keigwin said.

The Assembly's arts committee passed the bill early last month on a 6-4 vote after reconsidering it. The bill had previously failed to pass the committee when it fell a vote short of the necessary six votes.

Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, whose Hollywood film career includes violent movies, has not taken a position on the bill, which allows for $1,000 fines for violators and requires violent video games to be labeled.

The video game industry bitterly contested the bill, and it expects it will have to do so again. "I don't think the fight is over in California," said Doug Lowenstein, president of the Entertainment Software Association.

"We'll continue to wage this effort wherever we have to," Lowenstein added, referring to similar bills in other state legislatures.

Video game developers and console makers say laws restricting game sales are unnecessary because their $10 billion industry does a good job stopping minors from buying "Mature"-rated games.
http://news.com.com/Push+for+Califor...3-5731879.html


~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Redefining the Power of the Gamer
Seth Schiesel

Standing outside the apartment on Thursday, Walter could hear the barbs and retorts of a failed marriage's final throes.

Walter's friends, Grace and Trip, had invited him over. Now, though only every third word seeped through the door, Walter could hardly mistake the bickering.

At Walter's knock the voices stopped. The couple adopted brittle masks of happiness. But as their banter moved from Trip's new bartender set to recent Italian vacations to Grace's latest apartment makeover, the couple gradually returned to the needling exchanges of domestic strife.

As Grace and Trip retreated to opposite sides of the living room, sniping about old grievances, Walter appealed to the couple's loyalties, trying valiantly to reconcile his friends.

This is the future of video games. In their modern riff on "Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?" Walter was the only human. Grace and Trip were virtual characters powered by advanced artificial intelligence techniques, which allowed them to change their emotional state in fairly complicated ways in response to the conversational English being typed in by the human player.

It was one version of the future here this past week at the first Artificial Intelligence and Interactive Digital Entertainment conference. It is a future where games are driven as strongly by characters as combat, where games are as much soap opera as shooting gallery and as much free-form construction set as destruction arena. The apartment drama, a 15-minute interactive story called "Facade" that is scheduled to be released free next month (interactivestory.net), was one of the demonstrations offered to the roughly 120 game makers and academic computer experts who attended.

"As we try to create more immersive experiences, these artificial intelligence techniques are helping drive games forward and this is one of the areas that could really explode," Bing Gordon, chief creative officer at Electronic Arts, the No. 1 video game company, said after his talk Wednesday night. "We hope that the folks here start thinking about artificial intelligence as a feature, like graphics is a feature or sound is a feature."

While the adaptability and behavioral subtlety in recent classics like "Black & White," "Sid Meier's Alpha Centauri" and "The Sims" have impressed gamers with their seeming-intelligence, those titles have been but an early step.

"For a long time, games have been judged largely on their graphics," said Ian Lane Davis, a conference organizer and chief executive of Mad Doc Software, which recently created the well-received Empire Earth II, a real-time strategy game. "The graphics hardware is now getting powerful enough that basically everything looks good now. So what is starting to differentiate games is what is happening inside the characters, how the opponents behave and make plans, how comprehensively and realistically the worlds respond to what the players want to do."

"At the same time," he added, "players are demanding a lot more freedom. Often they don't want to be put on a roller coaster track that just takes them along one path, no matter how entertaining that one path may be. They want a range of choices and they want those choices to matter in creating the overall experience. You put together all of these demands, and that's why you're seeing all of this attention now on artificial intelligence in games."

Outside the game world, the term artificial intelligence is used to label technologies as disparate as air traffic control systems and automated vacuum cleaners. At the conference, much of the discussion was about specific game activities that, to a human, would seem more intuitive than rational, like using conversational language.

But one of the broadest and most powerful approaches to artificial intelligence may be one that does not focus on determining specific behaviors. ("Does the computer general know that it should use tanks and artillery together?")

Rather, it is a move to structure programs so that they absorb available information and then generate their own strategies to achieve sometimes-contradictory goals ("protect the hostages" versus "kill the enemy," for instance).

Traditionally, game programmers have created activity through explicit if-then statements: if the player attacks the castle, then send pikemen to defend it; if the player corners the market on wheat, then invest in corn. That process is known as scripting. But what should the computer do if the player takes an action that is not in a script?

"The problem now is that the worlds are so complex and the variety of potential actions so vast that trying to direct the environments and the behaviors of computer- controlled agents through traditional scripting can become unmanageable," Jeff Orkin, an artificial intelligence programmer at Monolith Productions, said between sessions.

Three years ago, Mr. Orkin worked on Monolith's campy "No One Lives Forever 2," set in the 1960's. Now he is working on "F.E.A.R.," a game scheduled for later this year.

"We used to manually lay out all of the steps that an agent would take: do this, then do that, and if this other thing happens then try this," Mr. Orkin said. "Now we tell the agent: here are your goals, here are your basic tools, you figure out how to accomplish it."

"For example, let's say you the player are running down a hall and an enemy is pursuing you," Mr. Orkin said. "You get to a door and slam it behind you. The enemy replans and tries to kick it in, but if you hold it closed with your weight he will replan again and maybe come around and dive through a window. In the past, the programmer would have had to explicitly code each of these steps. Now, you put the character in the building and it figures out a plan on its own."

As put by Chris Crawford, a legendary game designer of the 1980's who now focuses on interactive storytelling technology: "As a game designer you are an absolute god. One kind of god says, 'O.K., now this leaf will fall a little bit here, and then this wind will blow a bit over there.' The other kind of god says, 'Here are the laws of physics. Go for it.' "

That conceptual leap from designer-as-determinist to designer-as-prime mover is what has made both the "Grand Theft Auto" and "The Sims" series so popular. The challenge is that even as gamers have come to expect more freedom in their virtual environments, they have also come to expect more explicitly directed cinematic moments, like the D-Day invasion scenario in "Medal of Honor," where players can feel as if they are living a movie.

"There is a real tension between wanting to handcraft the experience to generate a specific emotional response and wanting to allow a more open-ended environment so the player feels they are in control," said Doug Church, one of the designers behind the highly regarded "Thief" and "System Shock" series. "Artificial intelligence will help us bridge the two."

But perhaps that bridge will run in unexpected directions. Until now, artificial intelligence has often involved making computers accessible to humans. With his new project, "Spore," Will Wright of "The Sims" fame means to invert that concept.

"Until now, artificial intelligence has usually meant that the human creates or perceives a model of how the computer makes decisions," Mr. Wright said. "But what if the computer is instead analyzing the player, and the program is customizing the experience based on the internal model it has created of the human?"

"Spore" is meant to tailor a species' entire evolutionary experience - from amoebalike gene pattern to intergalactic emperor - to each user's individual play style. In that sense, future generations of games may process humans just as intensively as humans are playing the software. But not to worry, Mr. Church said: "We have a long way to go before we get there."
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/06/07/arts/07arti.html


~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Little-Known Bands Get Lift Through Word-of-Blog
Brian Montopoli

This is how the Internet was supposed to help music: last year, J. P. Connolly, a science teacher in Brooklyn, heard a song by one of his students, a rail-thin 15-year- old named Oliver Ignatius, who is the lead singer for a band called the Hysterics. Mr. Connolly, who had bonded with his student over independent music, loved Mr. Ignatius's song and posted it on Music for Robots, an influential blog he helps run.

That's where Joseph Patel, an MTV News producer and regular reader of the blog, heard the song. He also loved it, and decided to put the Hysterics on the air, despite the fact that they had done little more than practice in drummer Geoff Turbeville's parents' bedroom.

After the segment was broadcast on MTV, Music for Robots (www.music.for-robots.com) found itself with a new audience: teenage girls, who had come to declare their love for the Hysterics. The band is now in talks with a major label.

And now Mr. Connolly and his Music for Robots peers are attempting a coup of their own. The blog recently released a compilation CD, Music for Robots Vol. 1, which features 19 unsigned and independent-label bands, including the Hysterics. The release represents a break from the way most music blogs operate; typically, blogs of this genre feature enthusiastic testimonials about bands and free downloads of the bands' songs, but no songs for sale.

"The fan base we've managed to build up - a lot of them know that what we're trying to get them to buy is something good," says Blair Carswell, one of the Music for Robots contributors.

The blog started out simply as a way for eight friends, most of whom met at Bates College in Lewiston, Me., to tell each other about music they liked. As readership increased, more bands started sending the group music to post on the site.

"It's this great way for bands who aren't going to get on the radio to get exposure," says Mr. Carswell.

Only a handful of music blogs, with names like Fluxblog, Stereogum and Largehearted Boy, have any influence, but even those still have a long way to go to fundamentally alter the landscape of the music industry. Many labels view blogs as little more than potential providers of free publicity; even a blog like Music for Robots, which gets about 8,000 unique visitors a day, is little more than a blip on the radar of major labels.

But blogs are acting as incubators for new talent like the Hysterics. It's doubtful that MTV would have discovered the band as quickly otherwise.

"It sounded like really moody, old-school pop music - the kind of thing that a lot of bands aim for but never get quite right," said Mr. Patel about the Hysterics. "You don't see that from many adult bands, let alone teenagers in Brooklyn."

Many bloggers who post songs can find themselves in ambiguous legal territory, even when they have the permission of bands or labels. And some more-established bands have not embraced blogs, in the fear that they will hurt sales. The Decemberists, a popular independent band from Portland, Ore., recently complained that much of its new album had been posted on blogs before the album was released, and implored bloggers to take the songs down.

One difference between peer-to-peer networks and blogs is that while the former depends on anonymity, the latter fosters a sense of community. Most bloggers exhort readers to buy the CD's of bands they like, and their enthusiastic posts can bring prominence to bands that otherwise might not get much attention.

"Music for Robots has the credibility of a very hip record store," says Glenn Peoples, who runs a popular music blog called Coolfer. Good music blogs, he said, let consumers get the word out about bands that are legitimately good.

As a business venture, the compilation CD is not a threat to the music business yet. Music for Robots created 1,000 CD's, but only around 150 have sold in the two weeks they have been available. Because music fans have come to expect to hear bloggers' favorite bands free, the people behind Music for Robots know they're taking a risk by charging $10 for an actual CD.

For labels, blogs can be fertile testing grounds. Adam Shore, label manager at Vice Records, said he fell in love with the Norwegian pop star Annie, who was at the time unknown in the United States, but was skittish about putting out her album until he saw the positive word of mouth it was receiving on blogs, as well as on the online music magazine Pitchfork.

"Then I knew it wasn't just me - that there was this whole community of people who feel the way I do," says Mr. Shore. "It made me feel more comfortable moving forward. Blogs are this amazing resource for us."

But the most significant force to emerge for unknown bands, in fact, has nothing to do with the Internet. Starbucks, the coffee retailer, has begun selling CD's in its stores, and the experiment has proved a success. The company recently plucked a band called Antigone Rising from relative obscurity, cutting a deal to sell its latest CD exclusively in Starbucks stores. The CD has sold more than 35,000 copies since it was released on May 11, according to a Starbucks spokeswoman.

For many blog readers, however, CD's are old news. "One usually checks music blogs in order to avoid contact with physical objects like CD's and the corporate machinery they imply," says Hua Hsu, a Harvard graduate student who writes about music for the online magazine Slate. Still, he says he thinks there is reason to embrace Music for Robots' efforts.

"If everyone else is putting out horrible CD's," he said, "why not buy something from people with taste you more or less trust?"
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/06/06/te...gy/06blog.html


~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

United Airlines Approved for In-Flight Internet Service
Jeremy W. Peters

United Airlines plans to announce today that it is the first domestic airline to receive approval from regulators to install wireless Internet networks on its planes.

United passengers will not be able to take advantage of the service just yet. The airline is still at least a year away from having its in-flight Wi-Fi service up and running. When it does, sometime in mid- to late 2006, passengers will be able to check e-mail, send instant messages and surf the Web at 30,000 feet.

Similar services are already available on international flights operated by Lufthansa and Japan Airlines, among other carriers Wi-Fi is also available in terminals across the country. Many airports, like LaGuardia in New York, charge a flat daily rate to use a wireless Internet connection, while JetBlue Airways offers free Wi-Fi at some of its gates.

Dennis Cary, United's senior vice president for marketing, said the airline would charge for the in-flight service but had not yet determined what the cost would be. "We're certainly aware of what the mental price points are for our customers," he said.

Lufthansa, which offers Wi-Fi on many of its international flights, charges a flat fee of $29.95 for an entire flight or $9.95 for a half-hour.

Major domestic airlines like United are trying to find new sources of revenue and rein in costs. Many are cutting back on perks or charging for things that used to be free, including food. American Airlines eliminated pillows from coach on its domestic flights last year, prompting Northwest and Delta to follow suit.

More high-tech amenities have traditionally been a marketing tool of low-fare carriers like JetBlue, which offers in-flight DirecTV service at every seat and is now installing XM Satellite Radio in its planes. Song, the low-fare subsidiary of Delta, offers a touch-screen audiovisual system with on-demand movies, video games and music.

United, a unit of the UAL Corporation, said it was not reacting to competitors but responding to what its customers have said they want. "Regardless of the competitive landscape, it's something we have heard loud and clear from our customers," Mr. Cary said.

Whether in-flight wireless Internet will entice more customers to fly United, which is operating under bankruptcy protection, is up for debate. "It's more bells and whistles that people like," said Betsy Snyder, an airline analyst at Standard & Poor's. "But does it actually lure people? I don't know. I think it's all ticket price."

United's Wi-Fi system will piggyback on its existing onboard phone network, which is operated in a partnership with Verizon. Data will be transmitted to and received from the planes through towers on the ground.

Mr. Cary said the Wi-Fi system would not interfere with communication between the cockpit and ground control. "Between our safety experts and those at the F.A.A., they are completely comfortable that this technology does not conflict with any of the other on-board technology," he said.

With Wi-Fi making its way to the nation's airplanes and the Federal Communications Commission seeking public comment on easing rules banning cellphones in flight, will cellphones be next for United?

Mr. Cary said United had no current plans to begin accommodating cellphones, but "where it goes next, we'll have to wait and see."
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/06/06/te.../06united.html


~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Seattle Tops List for Wireless Web Access
Rachel Konrad

Seattle and San Francisco are the most "unwired cities" in America - top spots for computer junkies who send e-mail and surf the Web at restaurants, libraries or public plazas.

Metropolitan Seattle percolated past the San Francisco Bay area this year thanks to an abundance of Starbucks Corp. outlets, which have wireless "hot spots" where patrons linger over latte and laptops, according to Intel Corp.'s annual ranking. Seattle also benefited from wireless access at its Pike Place Market and the Space Needle.

San Francisco finished second, thanks to wireless hubs at bars, convention centers, office parks and strip malls from Oakland to San Jose. Hundreds of residents build wireless access towers on their roofs, providing free connections for neighbors.

Also in the top 10: Austin, Texas; Portland, Ore.; Toledo, Ohio; Atlanta; Denver; the Research Triangle area of North Carolina; Minneapolis; and Orange County, Calif.

Santa Clara-based Intel ranked cities based on the number of commercial or free "Wi-Fi" points from January to April 15 in the 100 largest urban regions in the United States.

Short for "wireless fidelity," Wi-Fi delivers high- speed Internet connections through a small radio tower. About the size of a can of beer, the radio can provide access to any mobile device within 300 feet.

Intel, which makes chips for wireless devices, is bullish about Wi-Fi. But the newest survey shows the nation as a patchwork - not blanket - of access.

College campuses, technology hubs and even golf courses boosted rankings, while poorer urban centers trailed. Low-ranking regions included Jersey City, N.J.; Fort Wayne, Ind.; Allentown, Pa.; Youngstown, Ohio; Bakersfield, Calif.; and McAllen, Texas.
http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories...CTION=BUSINESS


~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Covad, Earthlink Trial Phone and Internet Service

Covad Communications Group Inc. and Earthlink Inc. said on Monday they would test a service offering telephone lines and high-speed Internet access to residential customers, aimed at competing with dominant phone and cable companies.

Earthlink, one of the larger U.S. Internet service providers, has seen its base of dial-up subscribers steadily erode from competition from high-speed service. Earthlink's shares fell sharply last week after SBC Communications Inc. said it would offer broadband Internet access for $14.95 per month.

Covad and Earthlink said the trial would begin in October in Dallas, San Francisco, Seattle and San Jose, California. Pricing was not announced.

The service will use a technology known as a line-powered system. Covad will lease the copper wires running between customers' homes and the local telephone network, hooking those loops into Covad's own network.
http://www.reuters.com/newsArticle.j...toryID=8708467


~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

In Japan, Prices Go Down as Web Service Speeds Up
Ken Belson

Hiroki Wakabayashi may be the face of the new cellphone user. The 27-year-old computer engineer happily spends $100 or more a month for high-speed mobile service from NTT DoCoMo that lets him place calls as well as search Web sites, download songs and movie clips, and send e-mail as quickly as he can with a broadband Internet connection at home.

"With my old phone, talking was the focus," said Mr. Wakabayashi, who uses the latest handset from NEC to browse the Web on his train commute to work. "Now, using the phone to talk seems like a waste because e-mailing and Web browsing are so much easier."

Mr. Wakabayashi's enthusiasm should be welcome news to DoCoMo and Japan's other mobile carriers. The companies have spent billions of dollars since 2001 to introduce so-called third generation, or 3G, services capable of transmitting data at speeds up to 40 times as fast as the previous generation of digital mobile voice networks. (In the industry's lingo, the analog cellular networks of the 1980's are the first generation, while the second generation are the digital voice networks of the 1990's.)

These new networks were built to expand capacity for voice calls and allow for high-speed data services that were supposed to generate new revenues to offset declines from standard voice calls. But that has not happened.

That is because Japanese carriers are now locked in a bruising price war for 3G subscribers that has largely undone that promise. DoCoMo, for instance, posted its first- ever decline in revenue and in operating profits in the fiscal year that ended in March.

American cellphone carriers, which are beginning to unveil third-generation data services of their own, should take heed. Like the Japanese carriers, Verizon Wireless, Cingular and others hope faster networks can persuade customers to pay more to use their cellphones for linking to the Internet. But Japan's experience suggests that data services may not turn into a pot of gold.

In the last 18 months, the Japanese carriers have introduced all-you-can-use data plans for about $35 a month, significantly cheaper than earlier data service plans. (Subscribers still pay for bundles of minutes for voice calls, too.)

The faster data services have persuaded millions of customers to upgrade their phones - and made Japan the world's most advanced cellphone market.

But the deals have lowered total customer spending. Because talking is more expensive than sending data, Mr. Wakabayashi now spends about $30 less a month than he did with his older, slower service because 3G makes it easier to send e-mail messages to friends instead of calling.

"This has had a significant impact on our business," said Masao Nakamura, the chief executive of DoCoMo, referring to flat-rate high-speed data plans, which are unlikely to disappear. "Our hope is to get back to a growth trend within three years, or at least halt the down trend" by introducing new video services and the like to recoup lost revenue.

Coming up with the right pricing plan is just one challenge for American carriers introducing similar 3G services. DoCoMo and its rivals, Au from KDDI and Vodafone Japan, have learned the hard way that networks have to be extensive and reliable, handsets plentiful and affordable and services practical and easy to use.

"The U.S. carriers have watched what has gone on overseas very closely," said Roger Entner, vice president at Ovum, a telecommunications consultancy. "They have to be careful because customers have been burned once or twice with the promises of 3G."

Of course, American carriers have the luxury of learning from mistakes the Japanese have made, particularly when it comes to designing attractive and reasonably priced handsets. A bigger hurdle is persuading Americans to use their phones to write e-mail messages, surf the Web and hold videoconferences.

Sprint's wireless group, for instance, gets just 9.8 percent of its total revenue from data services, the highest percentage among cellular carriers in the United States. DoCoMo, by contrast, receives almost 26 percent of its revenues from data services.

"The American and European carriers are trying to answer the 3G question and the data question at the same time," said Makio Inui, who follows Japanese phone companies for UBS Securities in Tokyo. "Japanese carriers had already solved the data question" because their customers were heavy data service users before 3G was introduced.

Even so, Japanese consumers have only flocked to 3G phones in the last year. It took DoCoMo, the market leader, about two years to attract its first million 3G subscribers - twice as long as expected - because the first advanced handsets were bulky and had weak batteries and few original features. DoCoMo's third-generation network coverage was also spotty. Vodafone has also stumbled with its service because it introduced handsets that were not tailored enough to meet the needs of Japan's finicky consumers.

Yet in the past year, after the addition of more phones, coverage and services, DoCoMo more than tripled its 3G subscribers to 12.2 million, or about one quarter of its total customers. The company expects to double its 3G users this year. The second-largest carrier, Au, which uses a different 3G technology, has persuaded a vast majority of its 19.5 million subscribers to move over, while Vodafone Japan now has more than a million customers for its 3G network.

In total, more than a third of all Japanese cellphone subscribers use next-generation services, one of the highest rates in the world. By contrast, just 200,000 or so subscribe to similar services in the United States.

Despite the influx of new customers in Japan, heavy discounts have taken their toll on revenue. DoCoMo's 3G subscribers spent 9,650 yen ($89.44) a month last fiscal year, 6.1 percent less than the previous year. The company expects monthly spending by 3G customers to tumble a further 11.4 percent this year.

To stem the decline, DoCoMo and its rivals are introducing new services to encourage consumers to transmit more data. The latest phones can download 40-second video clips and ring tones and store hundreds of photos. DoCoMo 3G subscribers can hold videoconferences with up to eight people.

Some 3G handsets even include infrared readers that convert phones into television remote controls. Mr. Wakabayashi also uses the removable memory disk in his handset to transfer two-megapixel pictures he snaps with his phone to his computer.

Many phones now have chips that turn phones into "smart cards" that allow subscribers to pay for tickets, food and other items at 20,000 stores. DoCoMo plans to expand this service so commuters can use phones with special chips as train passes.

DoCoMo's new generation of handsets can even scan two-dimensional bar codes pasted, say, at bus stops, which allows customers to get a bus schedule instantly, and an estimated time of arrival. Once on the bus, they can receive coupons sent to their cellphones from stores along the bus route.

"We think we are doing the same as Alexander Bell did by getting people used to using these services," said Shun Mishima, the director of DoCoMo's corporate marketing group. Whether the carriers will make money from these services is another question.
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/06/06/te...6wireless.html


~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Federal Anti-Municipal Wi-Fi Bill Introduced
Mobile Pipeline Staff

A Texas Congressman has introduced a bill that impose a nationwide prohibition on municipally-sponsored networks.

Dubbed by the Author, Representative Pet Sessions (R-Texas), the Preserving Innovation in Telecom Act of 2005, the bill prohibits state and local governments from providing any telecommunications or information service that is "substantially similar" to services provided by private companies.

The bill, HR 2726, is similar to a host of state bills pushed by telecommunications companies aimed at fending off municipally-run wireless networks. Some of those bills, most recently one in Texas, have been stalled in state legislatures.

The telecommunications operators say that such networks represent unfair competition while municipalities claim that the services are needed to promote business and close the gap between digital haves and have-nots.

According to Sessions' on-line biography, he is a former employee of Southwestern Bell and Bell Labs. The bill will first be considered by the House Committee on Energy and Commerce.
http://www.mobilepipeline.com/news/1...GCKHSCJUMEKJVN


~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

EU Oversight For New Media?
Eric Pfanner

In a world where television is jumping out of the tube and into mobile phones and the Internet, European officials are talking about taking their regulatory oversight along as well.

The possible shift would push European media regulators into uncharted waters. In the United States, where regulators are cracking down on "indecent" broadcasts over the free television airwaves, lawmakers are only now considering giving them similar authority over cable and satellite broadcasts.

In Europe, however, the move to open up new regulatory fronts seems to be driven more by technological change than any desire to crack down on naughty behavior. Long gone are the days when audiovisual media were limited to a handful of analog TV channels or the movies. Digital television - via cable, satellite or the terrestrial airwaves - delivers dozens or even hundreds of channels to more than 20 percent of European homes. Mobile phones offer moving pictures to users on the go. Video-on-demand services deliver movies or television via the Internet.

"Conditions of fair competition require a neutral stance with regard to and between platforms," Viviane Reding, the European information society and media commissioner, said during a speech last week in Luxembourg. "This neutrality will put all service and content providers on an equal footing, guarantee a coherent regulatory framework and reinforce legal security."

While European regulators already treat the content of cable and satellite television the same as over-the-air broadcasts - unlike the current U.S. approach - the European Commission is expected to present proposals to extend content regulation to new media by the end of the year. Any change would require amending the Television Without Frontiers directive, a European Union measure that sets out broad guidelines for television regulation across the 25-member EU.

The directive, adopted in 1989 and revised seven years later, requires member states to ensure the separation of advertising and programming, to restrict hate speech and to protect minors, among other things, but it leaves implementation up to the individual countries. Experts say any change in the directive is likely to let them regulate new media with a lighter touch than the old.

Standards of "decency" already range widely across the EU. On Italian television, for instance, scantily clad women read the "news" and cavort around variety shows in ways that might make viewers in more politically correct places like Britain cringe. German television offers a selection of cheesy late-night erotica that seems to promise more than it delivers.

"I can hardly imagine the European Union telling member states what is decent and what is not," said Susanne Nikoltchev, head of the legal information department at the European Audiovisual Observatory in Strasbourg. "This is an issue that is very near to the hearts of national legislatures and people."

Indeed, the kinds of programming judged offensive in recent years has varied widely from country to country. German regulators, for example, have taken aim at broadcasts from the Middle East deemed anti-Semitic.

The Portuguese authorities persuaded broadcasters to set up a self-regulatory body to monitor reality television after complaints that the "Big Brother" shows violated contestants' "human dignity." And the British have tried to restrict access to Extasi TV, an Italian-owned satellite channel that broadcasts violent pornography from Spain.

In general, however, the European approach seems to be why worry about a few swear words on mainstream TV when far more offensive stuff is readily accessible in many homes at the click of a mouse. That is the direction that Ofcom, the British media regulator, takes with a television code introduced last month.

Under the code, which takes effect in July, broadcasters are given greater leeway to "transmit challenging material, even that which may be considered offensive by some, provided it is editorially justified and the audience given appropriate information."

Ofcom said it was placing greater emphasis on the "context" of a show. Thus the television chef Jamie Oliver, who champions the cause of healthier meals for children, has escaped censure despite sprinkling his dialogue liberally with expletives.

For the first time under the new doctrine, pay-TV services will be able to show films rated for viewers age 15 and over at any time of day, provided that access can be restricted by parents through security technology. Previously, such shows have been available only after 9 p.m. - a cutoff that remains in place for relatively racy programming like "Desperate Housewives."

While hard-core pornography remains off limits on television of any kind at any time of day, Ofcom said it might reconsider that ban if security technology improves so that it is possible to ensure that children cannot gain access to it.

Extending regulation to new media, as Brussels wants to do, could prove to be particularly tricky. The Internet is by nature borderless, making it difficult to police - and doing so might in some cases be counterproductive, critics say.

"The slight worry is that it takes a very regulatory approach to new media, which may have a number of benefits," Robin Foster, an Ofcom official in charge of strategy, told The Guardian newspaper, "but it may not be positive and may stop new ideas developing in a broadband world."

Reding, the EU commissioner, suggested in her speech that the commission might propose a graded system in which some media are regulated more tightly than others, based on how readily available they are. Video-on-demand, for instance, which requires the user to make active decisions about when and what to watch, might get a lighter touch than television, for instance.

Some countries have already shifted to "media neutral" regulatory systems. In the Netherlands, for instance, television, movies and video games are all subject to a standardized set of ratings that uses "pictograms" to alert parents about violence, sex, discrimination and other possible red flags.

With some modification, such a system could be extended to new media, experts say. "You have to look at the content, not the transmission of the content," said Alexander Scheuer, general manager of the Institute of European Media Law in Saarbrücken, Germany.
http://www.iht.com/articles/2005/06/...s/censor06.php


~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

ILN News Letter
Michael Geist

6TH Circuit Upholds Decision On Copyright Exception

The Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals has reaffirmed their decision that there is effectively no de minimus exception to copyright infringement for sound recordings. The court concluded that even copying of two notes from a sound recording constitutes infringement. Case name is Bridgeport Music v. Dimension Films. Decision at http://caselaw.lp.findlaw.com/data2/.../026521pv2.pdf

Canadian Authors Object To U.S. Copyright Settlement

Heather Robertson, a Canadian freelance writer is who has fought a long battle over freelance copyright rights, is urging Canadian authors to reject a U.S. settlement. The U.S. settlement is far below the Canadian claim. Robertson's case will be heard by the Canadian Supreme Court in January 2006.
http://cnews.canoe.ca/CNEWS/TechNews...072774-cp.html

Photolabs Fear Copyright Infringment With Great Photos

Photofinishing labs increasingly are refusing to print professional-looking photographs taken by amateurs. Apparently photofinishers are afraid of infringing on professional photographers' copyrights, despite the availability of photo-editing software that can be used by both amateurs and professionals.
http://tinyurl.com/8a495


~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~






AOL Offers Free, Web-Based E-Mail
AP

America Online Inc. launched a free, Web-based e-mail service on Monday, departing for the first time from a fee-based subscription model as it moves to compete with free, and increasingly large, e-mail accounts offered by the likes of Google Inc. and Yahoo Inc.

The unit of media conglomerate Time Warner Inc. said the service will provide users with two gigabytes of storage, along with protection against viruses and spam. The mail program is being marketed as an extension of the company's popular chat application, AOL Instant Messenger, and users of that program will be able to use their existing screen name for their e-mail address, the company said.

Google's Gmail service currently gives users about 2.3 gigabytes of storage and is gradually raising that ceiling. Yahoo offers 1 gigabyte for free and Microsoft Corp.'s Hotmail allows 250 megabytes.

The company also upped its offerings for paying subscribers to its traditional America Online e-mail, giving its nearly 80 million accounts unlimited storage space. AOL said it is the first online service to offer unlimited e-mail storage.

The company also said it will allow multiple simultaneous log-ins for dial-up connections, an offering previously reserved for high-speed connections. The change allows members with different screen names, but on the same account, to log in at the same time from multiple locations.

Time Warner shares fell 10 cents to $17.15 in morning trading on the New York Stock Exchange. On the Nasdaq, Google shares rose $10.91, or 3.9 percent, to $291.17, and Yahoo stock edged up 38 cents to $38.30, while Microsoft shares fell 5 cents to $25.38.
http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories...CTION=BUSINESS


~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Five Words of Wisdom Each From the Web's Winning Sites
David Carr

One of the more charming idiosyncrasies of the Webby Awards, the annual awards for achievement in Web creation, is that recipients get five words, and five words only, to make their acceptance speeches.

So after a night full of award innuendos and one-line haiku at Gotham Hall in Manhattan, the 550 people in attendance were wondering how Al Gore, the former vice president, would respond to his lifetime achievement award.

He did not disappoint.

"Please don't recount this vote," he said. The place went nuts.

Mr. Gore, who was politically savaged during the 2000 presidential campaign for a remark that seemed to imply that he had created the Internet, was introduced by Vinton Cerf, a man who has a more legitimate purchase on that claim. Mr. Cerf, one of the scientists credited with having built the Internet, had his own five-word speech - "We all invented the Internet" - before pointing out that Mr. Gore had been responsible for spearheading critical legislation and providing much-needed political support, which is not exactly creating a paradigm shifting piece of technology, but is not bad for a politician.

Mr. Gore, by virtue of his résumé, was dragged back to the dais to say a few more words.

"It is time to reinvent the Internet for all of us to make it more robust and much more accessible and use it to reinvigorate our democracy," he said, again to thunderous applause.

It was an awards banquet where hype and self-congratulation were mixed with bracing messages about the cultural and civic good that can come from the Internet. Once a raucous celebration of the World Wide Web's potential to change everything, the awards slimmed down along with the digital economy after the bust, forgoing a huge party for an online event in the last two years. But the Web is no longer a bad word among business people, and it has left the hermetic, homey confines of San Francisco for New York, the first time in its nine-year history.

The decision to present the awards in New York is less a recognition of the city's growing role in digital culture than its longer-running one as the media capital of the Western hemisphere. It is also an indication that the Web does not live exclusively in Silicon Valley; its ubiquity has rendered it transparent and free-floating.

"Every year we have done something different to reflect the pulse of the Web, and tonight we are in New York because the Web has been dispersed," said Tiffany Shlain, one of the founders of the ceremony. "Great Web sites are being created and accessed everywhere."

Including Amarillo, Tex. Tyler Morgan, 19, was getting all of a dozen hits a day on the personal Web site he built in his bedroom - Rtm86.com - until Yahoo named it as a site of the day and he was listed as a nominee for the Webby. In May he had 1.2 million hits.

After he learned he had won the Webby, there was the problem of getting to New York.

"I put a personal plea on my Web site, and people sent in something like $1,700 and here I am," he said, wearing one of the red corsages that identified the winners. His five-word speech was to the point: "Desperate - need money for college."

Mr. Morgan took his place in a line that included the likes of Pfizer, the C.I.A. and Geico Insurance, but also The Paly Voice, the Web site of Palo Alto High School, and RatherGood, a compendium of weirdly wonderful things. The broad range of winners was a reminder of the Web's fungibility, an elastic nature that allows the medium to trumpet mass and granular manifestations of what people are thinking about.

Because the Webby sculpture is shaped like a large spring, it invited short-form, salacious annotations, with many speeches that drew hoots from the crowd but might draw flags from the editor of a family newspaper. One of the more demure, low-tech speeches came from a staff member at Vogue.com.uk, who stepped up to get her award in a gorgeous white frock.

"Do you like my dress?" she said. Yes, they did, and her speech as well.

The event was businesslike, as businesslike as an awards ceremony whose central icon is a cartoonishly large spring can be. The host was Rob Corddry, one of the funny guys on "The Daily Show With Jon Stewart," who brought an air of knowing befuddlement to the events at hand.

To the extent that any awards serve as a mood ring on the industry they celebrate - not all that farfetched, if you deconstruct the average year for the Tonys and the Oscars - the Web has become a sandbox where anarchy and commerce have business in common. While these may not be the heady, freaky days of 2000 and 2001, when old- media luminaries presented awards and thousands of people fought for tickets, the Web is still making noise after the boom.

The Webby for Person of the Year went to Craig Newmark of craigslist.org, whose once-tiny community bulletin board now attracts more than eight million people in 120 cities, including Sydney, Australia, and Bangalore, India. Mr. Newmark's various sites have given fits to the classified ad business of both daily and weekly papers.

Innovators in both music and images, two hot buttons of Internet culture, were cited as well. The Kleptones, a band from Britain, received an award for their music site, which uses the music of others, most recently Freddy Mercury of Queen, to mash together new versions of old motifs. The band's "Night at the Hip-Hopera" became a viral sensation after they plopped it out on the Web for mashing and downloading. And Flickr.com, a photo management site that uses elements of community and Web "tagging" and RSS feeds, made a trip to the podium to be honored for its groundbreaking approach to image sharing.

Whimsy always gets a front-row seat at the Webby's, and this year Dogster.com , a San Francisco Web site, picked up the community award for its creation of a virtual dog run for pets and their owners. BoingBoing.net, whose idiosyncratic approach to what constitutes information worth sharing - robot bands, charts on disappearing oil, or an Osama Bin Laden cigarette lighter replete with World Trade Center towers - received top blogging honors.

As was only fitting, there was a significant populist element to the awards, with 200,000 people voting for "The People's Voice Award," one of more than 60 categories in the program, which drew entries from all 50 states and 40 countries. Comedy Central's "Indecision 2004" on "The Daily show," won both a Webby and the People's Voice Award.

(A complete list of the winners is at www.webbyawards.com .)

The Webbys got off to a wobbly but impressive start in 1997. Ms. Shlain, an independent filmmaker and designer who was then designing the Web site for a print magazine called The Web put out by IDG, cobbled $30,000 and in-kind donations from 11 companies to gin up the first annual awards, which drew 700 people to Bimbo's 365 Club in San Francisco. Willie Brown, then the city's mayor, was at the event, which was sponsored by The Web. The following year, the company closed down The Web, but the Webby Awards lived on, with the second show featuring the likes of Scott Adams, the creator of the comic strip "Dilbert," and the well-known Web savant Dennis Rodman - well, he was well known, anyway. The show, feeding off the growing hype surrounding the Web, attracted significant media attention, and Rudolph Giuliani, then mayor of New York City, made an offer in 1998 to bring the Webbys to Radio City Music Hall. Mayor Brown countered and the awards stayed on the West Coast, but this year the Webby Awards decided to come east.

Also in 1998, Ms. Shlain and a partner, Maya Draisin, helped form the International Academy of Digital Arts & Sciences to oversee the awards, enrolling luminaries like the rock star David Bowie, the filmmaker Francis Ford Coppola and the digital thinker Esther Dyson, and securing PricewaterhouseCoopers to oversee the judging process. After the crash, the Webbys were strictly a virtual event, with live Webcasts in 2003 and 2004, but they have since returned to an awards show format, always featuring the now-trademark short acceptance speech. The winning winner on Monday night? It may have been the man from LonelyPlanet.com, the People's Voice winner in the travel category:

"Love your country. Leave it."
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/06/07/ar...bby-extra.html


~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Helping Manufacturers Get the Lead Out of Electronics
John Toon

Solder materials based on lead are still widely used for interconnections in such consumer products as cellular telephones and electronic toys. In 2000, as much as 10 percent of the lead used in the United States went into solder for these consumer products – which often end up tossed into landfills after a few months or years of use.

Concern about the environmental and human health implications of conventional tin-lead alloy solder have caused the European Union and Japan to ban its use altogether. Though lead-based solder alloys haven't yet been outlawed in the United States, electronics manufacturers are becoming increasingly interested in alternatives.

An article in the June 3 issue of the journal Science describes progress made in developing alternative materials, including tin-based solders and electrically-conductive adhesives. While none of these materials is yet as good as the lead-based solder they are designed to replace, the article reports significant progress in developing alternatives that would allow manufacturers to get the lead out of their products.

"Though many challenges remain to be addressed, both lead-free solders and conductive adhesives show much promise as a means of replacing conventional solder materials," said C.P. Wong, a Regents Professor in Georgia Tech's School of Materials Science and Engineering. "But before these alternatives become truly viable, we must develop conductive adhesives that can carry high currents, and lead-free solders that have low processing temperatures, high reliability and good thermal-mechanical properties."

Tin-lead alloys have long been used in interconnects that allow electrical current to flow through electronic components installed on printed wiring boards in a broad range of devices. The lead-based alloy is attractive because of its relatively low melting point, high reliability and good mechanical properties.

Lead-free solders that combine tin with other metals such as silver, copper, bismuth, zinc, indium and nickel are already in use. Among the many possible combinations, an alloy composed mostly of tin – to which silver and copper have been added – has been widely accepted as the most promising lead-free solder. This alloy provides the best combination of strength, fatigue resistance, plasticity and reliability, Wong noted.

However, the melting point of this alloy (217 degrees Celsius) is about 30 degrees hotter than that of the tin-lead alloy with the lowest melting point (183 degrees). Processing at the higher temperature creates potential manufacturing problems.

"When you attach a component to a circuit board in a cell phone or PDA using this alloy, you would subject the components to a higher temperature, which increases unwanted stress and reduces the integrity, reliability and functionality of the equipment," Wong said. "The substrate we are now using must also be reformulated because the low-cost organic materials we now use cannot withstand these temperatures."

The temperature problem, note Wong and co-authors Yi Li and Kyoung-sik Moon, could potentially be addressed by the introduction of metal nanoparticles into the tin-based solder.

Electrically conductive adhesives offer another alternative. They consist of metal powder filler – usually silver – that conducts electricity inside a polymeric resin. The resin, an epoxy, silicon or polyimide, provides mechanical properties such as adhesion, mechanical strength and impact strength.

These electrically conductive adhesives offer numerous advantages over conventional solder technology. They are environmentally friendly, require fewer processing steps and allow a lower processing temperature. These advantages bring lower processing costs, allow the use of lower-cost components and substrates, and facilitate size reduction in devices.

However, electrically conductive adhesives have their own set of disadvantages, including conductivity fatigue, limited current-carrying capability, and poor impact strength. As a result, conductive adhesives are currently used only in low-power devices such as driver chips for liquid crystal displays.

"In certain applications that require high current densities, conductive adhesives still do not measure up to metallic solders," Wong noted. "However, progress is being made at improving the properties of these materials."

With support from the National Science Foundation and the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, Wong's research group has been addressing challenges in conductive adhesives.

"Conductive adhesives have a lot of advantages, but there are a few challenges," Wong noted. "After you attach a component to a board with conductive adhesives and then cure it, you must test the connections under conditions of high humidity and heat. When you do that, electrical resistance in the joint increases and conductivity drops. That is a major problem for the industry."

At first, scientists and engineers believed the problem was caused by oxidation. But Wong and colleagues at the National Science Foundation- sponsored Microsystems Packaging Research Center showed that galvanic corrosion, caused by contact between dissimilar metals in the adhesive and contact, was the real culprit.

"By understanding this galvanic corrosion, we can develop improved materials that use an inhibitor such as acid to protect the contacts from corrosion, and we can use an oxygen scavenger to grab the oxygen required for corrosion to take place," Wong explained. "We can also include a sacrificial material with a lower potential metal that is attacked by the corrosion process first, sparing the conductive materials."

Researchers are pursuing additional techniques to boost conductivity of the adhesives, including use of self-assembled monolayers – essentially molecular wires less than 10 Angstroms long – that provide a direct connection through the adhesive.

Additional work is exploring ways to improve the impact resistance.

"Recent studies show that with incorporation of these self-assembled monolayers, the electrical conductivity and current-carrying capability of conductive adhesives could compete well with traditional solder joints," Wong added. "This could be a significant advance in improving these materials."

Visuals Available: Photographs showing electrically-conductive adhesives being tested; close-up of test procedure.
http://www.newswise.com/articles/view/512304/?sc=swtn


~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

PSP Hackers Go Retro
Chris Kohler

"Hello World!"

That's the traditional phrase that programmers display when they create their first piece of software for an unfamiliar operating system. Owners of Sony's handheld PSP game system were delighted to hear May 5 that a hacker had managed to write a small program that displayed those words on a PSP. They wondered what would be next.

As it turned out, it only took hackers five days to go from "Hello World" to Mario World.

On May 10, sites like PSP Hacker reported that a Japanese hacker known only by the name Mr. Mirakichi had developed a program called RIN that let the PSP play software written for the original black- and-white Nintendo Game Boy system.

Emulators like RIN, programs that let a computer run software intended for a different platform, have long been popular among fans of classic video games who want to play the games of yesteryear without having to deal with aging hardware. While emulators themselves are freely distributable, the files that contain game data are protected by copyright. This has barely slowed their popularity.

But the development of emulators for a new operating system is usually a slow and laborious process, so the speed and accuracy with which anonymous Japanese hackers have mastered the PSP has been surprising. New, tweaked versions of RIN appear almost daily, and other emulators that run games for different classic systems like the Sega Genesis and Nintendo Entertainment System have appeared as well.

Some of the programs, like a Super Nintendo Entertainment System emulator, are in early stages of development and run games very slowly if at all. But some, like an emulator that runs games from NEC's TurboGrafx-16 hardware, are nearly flawless, featuring full sound, full speed and the option to stretch the game's graphics to fill the PSP's wide-screen display.

There is one catch -- so far, the hackers have only found a way around the security of the original firmware that was installed on the first batch of Japanese PSP systems. Later units, including every one released in the United States, contain version 1.5 of the firmware, which tightens up security.

When it became available, Sony made the version 1.5 upgrade available to users via download, encouraging them to update their systems. Those who did not upgrade are the only PSP users who can run the emulator software, as well as all other PSP "home-brew" applications such as original, user-created games.

Even without knowing that such software was on the horizon, some PSP owners decided not to upgrade. "I'd had previous bad experiences with the PSX (Sony's PlayStation-branded digital video recorder) firmware," said David Coyles, a Tokyo-based software engineer. "A couple of friends and I were suspicious that some functionality might be lost in a firmware upgrade.

"The PSP is very open for a Sony product, and the fear we had was that perhaps its open nature was by mistake and not design. We'd decided we'd always hold off from upgrading until the full effect was documented," said Coyles.

Thus, the PSP community in Japan has been divided into users with "virgin" 1.0 PSPs and those with upgraded 1.5 PSPs. Sony is using even more creative ways to get users to upgrade. New PSP games that are being released in Japan, such as Space Invaders Pocket and Intelligent License, inform the user that they will not run unless the firmware is updated.

"I'll never use my 1.0 PSP to play a new game now that new games are forcing the upgrade whether or not you want it," said PSP owner Jeremy Parish, an editor at gaming-enthusiast site 1up.com. "If anything, I'll buy a second system," he said.

"I'm pretty much back to square one," said Jonathan Lumb, a Tokyo web developer, "waiting until good enough games come out that make me want to buy a second PSP. I'm not too excited about the PSP's lineup right now."

In response to questions about Sony's stance on home-brew PSP game development, a company representative said Sony "has provided a broad technology palette for PlayStation Portable game developers and content producers with the ability to use storage capabilities like the Memory Stick."

"Sony is determined to cripple the PSP end-user experience at every opportunity," said 1up's Parish. "It only reads a limited selection of music formats, (user-created) video can't run at the system's native resolution, and now the company is obsessed with quashing home-brew development. It's a shame, because the PSP would be so much more compelling if the company would let it live up to its true potential."

But as Sony tries to stay one step ahead of the hackers, the anonymous programmers are trying some new tricks of their own -- recent reports on PSP Hacker indicate that some coders might be close to getting programs to load on PSPs with the updated 1.5 firmware.

If they succeed, all sorts of home-brew software might be on its way to a PSP near you.
http://www.wired.com/news/games/0,2101,67742,00.html


~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

The Scramble to Protect Personal Data
Tom Zeller Jr.

Perhaps more than most corporations, Citigroup knows the perils of moving personal data.

In February last year, a magnetic tape with information on about 120,000 Japanese customers of its Citibank division disappeared while being shipped by truck from a data management center in Singapore. The tape held names, addresses, account numbers and balances. It has never turned up.

And this week the company revealed that it had happened again - this time the loss of an entire box of tapes in the care of the United Parcel Service, with personal information on nearly four million American customers.

Citigroup executives noted with a bit of chagrin that the Singapore incident had helped prompt a companywide transition to "secure electronic channels" for moving sensitive data - a process nearly completed. But not fast enough, it turned out.

Indeed, while handing over the names, addresses, and Social Security and account numbers of millions of customers to a U.P.S. driver may seem anachronistic, it is in fact common, security experts and lawmakers say.

While things are changing, the process of moving away from these vestiges of a bygone era - when the world was not coursing with electronic back alleys and computer- savvy thieves who just might know how to pull data and profits from reams of magnetic computer tape - needs to be kicked into high gear, some experts say.

The problem of data security goes well beyond couriers and data tapes. And improving things takes time and money.

When so much commerce is conducted online and when just a few bits of stolen data - a Social Security number, a name, an address, a date of birth - can be turned into cash by opening false credit accounts, thieves have proved themselves skilled at getting the information they need.

ChoicePoint, a commercial data broker, was duped by con artists posing as legitimate businesses, allowing them to download sensitive information on thousands of consumers. And a thriving trade in credit card and bank account numbers continues to unfold on underground Web sites and Internet chat rooms.

Combating the crooks requires a holistic approach to data security, said Mike Gibbons, a security consultant for the global technology services company Unisys, and the former chief of cybercrime investigations for the F.B.I. That includes creating more secure online access methods, robust customer authentication, hiring dedicated data security staff, and improving the way large amounts of consumer data are stored or moved.

"All of these things have cost impacts," Mr. Gibbons said. "Businesses have to pony up the capital to change the way they are storing and holding data."

Given that 10 million consumers are now falling victim to some form of identity theft each year, according to the Federal Trade Commission, the stakes are high.

"I think there are some people who dismiss this as a sky-is-falling problem," Mr. Gibbons said. "But the sky has already fallen and it's just a matter of when a piece hits you in the head."

Citigroup and U.P.S. said that the data loss reported this week at Citigroup's CitiFinancial division - the most recent in a long string of reported data losses and thefts at other banks, colleges and media companies - appeared to be a simple mishap rather than a result of foul play. But Mr. Gibbons said that in terms of public perception, the circumstances of the loss made little difference anymore.

"There's going to have to be a shift in corporate thinking in managing these new business risks," Mr. Gibbons said. "The public won't stand for it."

Anthony A. Caputo, the chief executive of SafeNet, a company that provides encryption technology high-speed networks as well as data-security services for the Pentagon and the Homeland Security Department, among other federal agencies, said that a reason sensitive data is still being transported using tapes and trucks is that "the amount of data being transmitted is frequently too much for an Internet connection," and creating secure, dedicated networks takes money and time.

But, Mr. Caputo added, "over the coming years, or months, with so much focus on this, the data will be moved to networks."

The impetus for change is almost certain to be legislative.

A 2003 California law is widely credited with what Bruce Schneier, a highly recognized data security expert whose books include "Secrets and Lies: Digital Security in a Networked World," calls the "public shaming" method of security enhancement. The law, which requires that the state's consumers be notified of security breaches involving data on them, has prompted a string of previously unheard-of corporate confessions - from big data brokers like ChoicePoint and LexisNexis, and from other financial and investment companies, like Wachovia and Ameritrade.

That is a start, Mr. Schneier said, but he said the fact that highly sensitive data was still being shipped by courier - on unencrypted tapes, as in the CitiFinancial case and in a loss of Time Warner employee data in transit earlier this year - is evidence that data aggregators of all stripes, acting rationally, have no particular incentive to speed the adoption of new and expensive methods of handling data.

"This is a capitalist society," Mr. Schneier said, suggesting that no company can be expected to spend money to improve things simply "for the public good."

Rather, "I believe we need actual liability or penalties associated with doing this," Mr. Schneier said. "It doesn't matter if it's made public or not. There must be a penalty. If you could say you have to pay the government $1,000 per name lost, the risk of the loss triggers the increased security."

Just such a bill, along with dozens of others, are pending at the national level.

Senator Charles E. Schumer, Democrat of New York, has proposed the creation of an Office of Identity Theft under the auspices of the F.T.C., which would establish minimum security standards for any entity handling sensitive personal data, including Social Security and driver's license numbers, medical information and credit and bank account information. Failure to meet such "reasonable standards," according to Mr. Schumer's proposal, could result in fines of up to $1,000 per consumer affected.

Hard lobbying is almost certain to pull some of the teeth out of any such proposal - if shipping by U.P.S. were considered unreasonable, Citigroup might have faced a fine of about $4 billion - but the mission is clear.

"The world has changed and this kind of information is as valuable as cash and any institution dealing with it ought to treat it that way," Mr. Schumer said. "The old systems just aren't good enough."

At least 22 bills dealing specifically with the problem of identity theft have been proposed since January - from both sides of the aisle. Taking a stand against identity theft is, after all, an easy position. Betting sorts have suggested that the legislation most likely to win approval is a national law emulating California's notification law. But as the number of consumers affected by each loss, each theft, each compromise creeps upward through the millions, the odds of getting more comprehensive legislation improve.

Representative Cliff Stearns, Republican of Florida, has proposed his own bill, which would require companies to develop written data security policies, and impose penalties for security failures.

"We've got to get to the point where consumer information is protected," Mr. Stearns said.

Partly because of the very public and embarrassing revelations of mishandling now required by many states, the financial industry and other institutions have begun to see the legislative writing on the wall. Most are, at the least, taking steps to shore up their defenses against phony log-ins and other means thieves use to make their way into consumer accounts and steal money and information.

Late last month, for instance, Bank of America - the largest online banker in the United States - began putting in place a rigorous new method for authenticating customer log-ins. The SiteKey service enrolls customers by having them provide a unique phrase and choose an image from a large library of options. (An example on the company's Web site pictures a Chihuahua).

The bank also stores the customer's computer identity in a "cookie" stored on the user's machine. When customers log in from the computer they used to enroll, they are shown the chosen image and phrase for verification. If customers try to log in from a different computer, they are asked one of three prearranged security questions. Only after all of this does a customer enter a pass code and enter the site.

In March, the investment company E*Trade announced that it would begin offering customers with $50,000 or more on deposit a free digital "token" device from the security company RSA. The device generates a new six-digit code every 60 seconds, which users will need to log in to their accounts.

And the movement of large amounts of stored consumer information - as with the CitiFinancial case - are increasingly being transferred to wide-area networks that deploy encrypted, fiber optic technology on closed systems that connect, for instance, credit reporting agencies with the banks and other companies that routinely supply them with huge amounts of consumer credit data.

Experian, one of the three major credit reporting agencies that receive vast amounts of consumer data every month from the nation's banks and lenders in order to keep consumer credit records up to date, said the company had been actively working with all large data contributors to convert to electronic data transfers.

And even where tape deliveries continue, banks and other companies are learning - if only by horror story - that the data must be encrypted.

"There are social expectations about security that can't be met," Mr. Schneier said. "But the practices are still so shoddy."
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/06/09/business/09data.html


~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

One Step Closer To Mobcasting? Open Source Peer To Peer Radio
Taran

In 'Mobcasting the Future', I wrote a bit about what Mobcasting could be used for. The general idea is, of course, to allow people to communicate through audio. With mobcasting, one extra step would be to create an archive and allow threaded discussion as well.

Maybe P2P radio is one of those things that can be leveraged for mobcasting; integrated in a larger mobcasting solution. I'm spending time this month looking at such things, because many of the tools to be used with mobcasting already exist - they just need to be integrated.

Standalone, P2P radio is a blend of two things which has a lot of potential on it's own. From the 'About page', emphasis by me:

...P2P-Radio can distribute audio streams in the MP3 and Ogg Vorbis formats and video streams in the NSV format over the Internet. This is done in a peer-to-peer way. The broadcaster doesn't need to send the stream to every single listener, because the listeners distribute it among themselves...
http://www.knowprose.com/node/2198


~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Milestones

N.Y. Station Suddenly Dumps Oldies Format
Larry McShane

It's the day the music died. WCBS-FM, the top oldies station in the nation for more than three decades, stunned its legion of listeners by abruptly switching formats this weekend. Goodbye, Buddy Holly and the Beach Boys. Hello, Duran Duran and Jet.

"I'm sure this move angered and bewildered its listeners," said Tom Taylor, editor of the trade publication Inside Radio. "A lot of people punched in WCBS-FM, heard Pink's `Get The Party Started,' and said `Something's wrong with my radio.'"

The station had switched to an oldies format in 1972, initially as a bastion for the doo-wop sounds of the '50s. Although the playlist changed over the years, WCBS-FM always remained the outpost for classic Top 40 radio in the nation's largest radio market.

It was also the home to many of New York's legendary Top 40 DJs, including "Cousin Brucie" Morrow, Harry Harrison, Dan Ingram and Norm N. Nite.

Radio formats came and went _ disco, punk, hip-hop, talk, sports talk _ but WCBS-FM remained unchanged, a warm and welcoming presence at 101.1 on the FM dial.

The station's new format is called "Jack," an eclectic mix of hit music from the '70s through the present. The station's owner, Infinity Broadcasting, made the same format shift Friday at its Chicago oldies station, WJMK-FM, where classic Top 40 had aired for the past 21 years.

"We did a lot of market research and found a hole in the market that wasn't being served by any other station," said Chad Brown, WCBS- FM vice president and general manager.

There are currently about a dozen stations nationally using the Jack format.

"Youth must be served," Taylor said about the changes. "If you look at a lot of media, older Americans aren't important unless you're selling Craftmatic beds."

At 5 p.m. Friday, just as Frank Sinatra's "Summer Wind" faded out, WCBS listeners heard a voice announce: "Why don't we play what we want? There's a whole world of songs out there."

The first song played on the new 'CBS-FM: "Fight for Your Right" by the Beastie Boys.

Until that moment, there were no indications of any imminent change at the station. Earlier in the day, morning show host Mickey Dolenz _ yes, the former Monkees drummer _ celebrated his 100th show with the station by hosting a live broadcast from B.B. King's Blues Club just off Times Square.

In the winter 2005 Arbitron ratings, WCBS-FM was ranked eighth among the city's stations _ a strong showing, but apparently not strong enough.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn...060400999.html