[JackSpratts]

"It made me feel so good. I’m definitely going to do it again." – Blanca Leticia Pineda de Juarez


"40 percent of college students admitted to copying from the Internet in 2001. We talk to them about plagiarism in absolute terms, as if we were all agreed on what it was, and yet the literature suggests that once you’re out of school, it proves to be a crime like any other, with the punishment partly depending on whom you know and on how well you pull it off." – Charles McGrath


"We have found many of the security changes planned for Vista alarming." – Alex St. John


"I believe I have a right to travel in my own country without presenting what amounts to an internal passport." – John Gilmore


"Buccanerds." – The Sunday Times














QnA

FLAC files are huge - almost the size of a WAV. Is FLAC the new OGG?

Huge is right.

Like OGG, FLAC is open source but unlike OGG it’s exploding in popularity in ways OGG never could or will. So perhaps a better question might be Is FLAC the new MP3? Time will tell but it's looking more like it. I see 2007 as the breakout year for FLACs, especially on private trackers.

When I up an MP3 - even the good ones like 320s or V0s - I get requests for FLACs and that’s something new. There are now FLAC-only trackers whose members are so serious about quality the cover scans alone can be 15 or 20 megs but don’t think you have to be an audiophile to appreciate them. If you have the space and bandwidth they’re a cinch.

Since they’re lossless they are flexible and future-proof. They transcode to any format with no additional loss of quality so for instance MP3 rips for your portable players come out exactly like your original CD rip did, and with cheaper storage arriving daily space is becoming less of an issue too. Though only some 35% smaller than a WAV, the brand-new terabyte drives now coming to market will still hold 3-4000 full albums of FLACs, or some 35-50,000 songs. Expect to see 2 TB drives within 18 mos., and 6-8000 albums (or 100,000 pristine songs) on a single 3½ inch drive is phenomenal, even in today's environment of tightly packed MP3s. Meanwhile the hard drive storage costs for FLACs are now 10 cents an album and falling.

Having said that, unless you absolutely must have the exact transients and transparency of the source CD, you won't go wrong with the new LAME MP3-V0. I never really warmed to MP3s, preferring instead the more natural OGGs, but these I like. They’re finally getting them right - and of course they’re much, much smaller.

If you’d like to try them yourself you can find an excellent guide for making FLACs, OGGs and those great new MP3-V0s here. It’s what I use.
















Enjoy,

Jack

















January 13th, '07





Yo Ho Ho – Buccanerds Give Studios a Broadside

A website that tells you where to get the latest films for nothing has enraged movie moguls. Simon Kurs meets the swashbucklers fighting claims of piracy

First came the pirate radio ships of the 1960s offering new musical thrills to the pop-starved young. The law closed them down yet they changed the sound of music for ever.

In the 1990s came Napster, offering computer file-sharers an illicit new means to download free tunes. The law forced it to go legitimate and charge, but not before it introduced surfers to peer-to-peer networks, which have come to define one of the internet’s most important roles in the digital era.

Now, a couple of rebellious Swedes have perfected a way to find online music, television, video, audio books, games — in fact, all the entertainment or computer software you want — in the manner of a Google for digital booty.

The moguls of Hollywood and Silicon Valley want the law to close down these pirates, too, but Fredrik Neij, 28, and Gottfrid Svartholm, 22, have managed to evade all attempts to shut down their site. This geeky Ben and Jerry pair are self-proclaimed digital freedom fighters at the helm of the Pirate Bay site. Appropriately, their emblem is a galleon emblazoned with an audio-tape skull above crossbones.

“The bottom line is that file sharing should be legal, and that is proved by the support we receive,” says Neij. “People love what we are doing.”

Not the 50 cops who raided three addresses in Stockholm last May and confiscated several truckloads of computer equipment they believed belonged to Neij and Svartholm. The website was back up and running within three days and, although the pair were also taken in for questioning, they have yet to be booked for any illicit activity.

Meanwhile, the content of their confiscated computers continues to be investigated, so they do not know for certain whether or not the handcuffs will click.

The allegation is that their website is involved in copyright infringement. The Swedish press has claimed the raids were prompted by pressure from the Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA), a trade group representing the world’s biggest film studios including Warner Brothers, Sony and Universal.

What has really annoyed the studio bosses, it is said, is that the Pirate Bay is aiding and abetting those who want to view copyrighted work without paying for it. Through the Pirate Bay, surfers can find the latest movie blockbusters, including Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man’s Chest, or new episodes of television shows such as Lost, even if they have been screened only in the United States. In addition, surfers can find the latest news footage such as the execution of Saddam Hussein.

For a period last year, the BBC’s Top Gear programme was the most downloaded item on the web, thanks to the Pirate Bay and YouTube.

“The operators of the Pirate Bay are criminals who profit handsomely by facilitating the distribution of millions of copyrighted creative works protected under the law,” claims John Malcolm, MPAA executive vice-president and director of worldwide anti-piracy operations.

Malcolm says that in 2005 internet piracy cost the movie studios alone $2.3 billion, and although the MPAA may overstate the damage, it levels much of the blame at the two Swedes.

The studios have a point. The purpose of copyright is to protect not only cigar-chomping bosses: it secures the rights of artists from Bruce Springsteen to the humblest scriptwriter and session musician. Without it, arguably there would be little creative material on the web.

“By downloading illegally not only are you committing a criminal act, but you are also depriving artists of the right to earn a living for something they’ve created,” said a spokesman for the Federation Against Copyright Theft (Fact).

So who exactly are the men who have become America’s most wanted rogue programmers? The pair are only part-time buccanerds; by day Neij works as an IT consultant, while Svartholm runs a small internet service provider.

The two teamed up in 2001 at the hackers’ equivalent of Glastonbury, a three-day festival regularly held in Holland known as Hackers at Large or Hal — no prizes for spotting the geek sci-fi reference there. Soon afterwards they hatched plans to create their search site.

Originally intended for Swedish file-sharers, who today make up a third of its audience, the Pirate Bay quickly went global — its servers now span three countries, and visitors can select from 30 languages.

File sharing accounts for nearly two-thirds of all internet traffic and every day about 1.5m surfers visit the Pirate Bay in search of a digital fix, making it currently the 384th most popular site on the web, according to the monitoring service Alexa — as big as sites such as USA Today and Last.fm, the web’s largest online radio station.

Svartholm claims the site’s popularity is justification in itself. “I see the Pirate Bay as a form of organised civil disobedience against the current copyright legislation, on a huge scale,” he says.

“Some publishers are afraid — out of ignorance — but even though they are wrong I can respect that. Some, however, like the MPAA can most accurately be described as rabid, obsessed lunatics.”

One reason why the site has not yet been closed is that it doesn’t store illicit material. The issue is whether it can legally act as a search engine for sites that do. Tap what you want into the Pirate Bay and it will tell you where to find, say, the latest episode of Desperate Housewives, and how to download it using a file-sharing technology called BitTorrent (see panel).

Envisional, a British company that tracks illegal downloading for Hollywood studios, estimates that 4m surfers in North America and Europe use BitTorrent on a daily basis.

“The world’s appetite for up-to-the-minute entertainment is virtually insatiable,” says David Price, the head of Envisional’s anti-piracy team. The numbers sharing media files continue to grow as broadband becomes increasingly widespread.

You might think this is a simple matter of right and wrong, but the issues are more complex. The war being fought between corporate victims and file-hungry thieves could well decide how we enjoy our favourite media in a future beyond CDs or DVDs.

Many media content owners believe web surfers should pay to watch their material, just like other audiences, and protect their files with digital rights management (DRM) constraints that prevent people making copies. A recent Treasury report on intellectual property concluded that this kind of protection actually encourages innovation and creates the next big thing that consumers seek.

File-sharing evangelists such as the Pirate Bay buccanerds believe all media should be free at the click of a button. For them, all notions of ownership rights are a rotten throwback to the pre-digital age.

They argue that the selection of movies you can download legitimately from authorised sites such as Wippet.com is patchy at best, and even after you have paid for the film, you are allowed to play it on only two devices — a PC and a portable player, perhaps — and can’t burn it to your own DVD. No studio is currently willing to compete on the same terms as the Pirate Bay, they claim.

The experts agree, even though they don’t condone the illegal downloading and copying of files. “Right or wrong, there is no legitimate file-sharing service that offers anything like the convenience and choice available through pirate downloads,” Price says.

As ever, the consumer is caught in the middle. You might disagree with the tactics of the buccanerds, but — just as with the 1960s pop pirates — the digital pirates may finally force big business to respond radically to the market demand that leads to lasting change.

Until that day, the Pirate Bay pair will continue to sail the high seas — close to the wind.

Sailing into the Pirate Bay – how the system works

What is BitTorrent?

BitTorrent is an innovative means of distributing large digital files. Most file-sharing services work on a one-to-one basis. File sharers find the file they want — usually on someone else’s computer — decide to download it, and the file is slowly transferred.

Not so with BitTorrent, which takes data from many computers simultaneously. As a result, pieces of a chosen media file are brought to the home computer from many sources, then reassembled. This technology is so fast and efficient that the BBC has adopted it for distributing its programme archive.

How downloading works

1. First, the movie/video fan downloads BitTorrent software such as Azureus (http://azureus.sourceforge.net), and this sits on the PC desktop to manage downloads.

2. Then the fan heads to the Pirate Bay (www.piratebay.org) and searches for the item wanted.

3. The search results are listed as a “torrent” — a digital signpost telling the PC where to go online to access a chosen film or song.

4. This torrent file is saved to the computer. The BitTorrent software then takes over, at which point downloading begins.

Are you breaking the law?

UK law has yet to test the legitimacy of a search service such as the Pirate Bay. It claims merely to play a neutral role even though in Sweden it may yet be charged with “contributory copyright infringement”. An analogy is Google, which sidesteps copyright law by claiming it doesn’t publish anything.

In the US and UK the offence of “making available” copyright material exists. But in the digital age, when material can be copied and transmitted at the click of a mouse, the law is in danger of becoming an ass.

The use of BitTorrent lies on neutral ground. It is the person who uploads (and to a lesser degree, downloads) copyright material who risks offending against existing British law, which the British Phonographic Industry has been keen to enforce in the music sector. Services such as the Pirate Bay are keen to emphasise that among their search results you will find plenty of licensed material or free user-generated content.
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article...532534,00.html





Senators Introduce Bill to Restrict Internet, Cable, and Satellite Radio Recording
Eric Bangeman

A new bill introduced in the US Senate this week would force satellite, digital, and Internet radio providers (but not over-the-air radio) to implement measures designed to restrict the ability of listeners to record audio from the services. Called the "Platform Equality and Remedies for Rights Holders in Music Act" (PERFORM), the bill is sponsored by Sen. Lamar Alexander (R-TN), Joseph Biden (D-DE), Dianne Feinstein (D-CA), and Lindsey Graham (R-SC).

If the name of the bill sounds familiar, it should. The bill was originally introduced in April 2006 with the support of the RIAA. It died in committee, but the senators are hopeful that the bill will pass this time around.

Like its predecessor, the new legislation would require content protection on all satellite radio broadcasts along with cable and Internet broadcasts. Broadcasters would be required to "use reasonably available and economically reasonable technology to prevent music theft." But that's not bad for consumers, says Sen. Feinstein, who tells us that "consumers' current recording habits" will not be inhibited as they will still be allowed to record by time period or station. However, they would be prevented from automatically cherry-picking all the Shakira songs from the services.

The bill would also get the government into the business of price controls, with content providers required to pay a predetermined "fair market value" for the use of the music libraries. If another company decides to enter the unprofitable satellite radio market in the future, it too, would be forced to pay the same rates as XM Radio and Sirius.

The music industry's overexaggerated fears of piracy are driving the legislation, just as they did last year. "New radio services are allowing users to do more than simply listen to music. What was once a passive listening experience has turned into a forum where users can record, manipulate, collect and create personalized music libraries," said Sen. Feinstein. "As the modes of distribution change and the technologies change, so must our laws change."

Yesterday, Sen. John Sununu (R-NH) announced legislation that would prevent the FCC from creating exactly the same kind of technology mandates that the PERFORM Act would require. At the time, Sen. Sununu said that "misguided requirements distort the marketplace by forcing industry to adopt agency-blessed solutions rather than allow innovative and competitive approaches to develop."

The Consumer Electronics Association was quick to voice opposition to the PERFORM Act. "We are disappointed that this legislation, which faced vocal bipartisan opposition last year, has been reintroduced just as consumers are about to enjoy incredible innovation from new content devices launched at the 2007 International CES this week," Michael Pettricone, the CEA's senior vice president of government affairs, told Ars in a statement. "This bill has absolutely nothing to do with piracy, the Internet, or peer to peer redistribution. Instead, it would assault the freedom of consumers to use content they have lawfully acquired for private and noncommercial purposes in the privacy of their homes and vehicles. We will continue our effort to inform lawmakers of the dangers of this legislation to our digital economy and to long established principles of fair use."

Under the Audio Home Recording Act of 1992, consumers have the right to make noncommercial analog and digital copies of broadcasts. That would change if the PERFORM Act passes this time around, as the ability to record music for one's own personal use would be restricted, marking another erosion of consumers' fair use rights. Be sure to let your senators know how you feel about this legislation.
http://arstechnica.com/news.ars/post/20070112-8609.html





Senator to FCC: Don't Even Think About a Broadcast Flag
Nate Anderson

Senator John Sununu (R-NH) has just announced that his office is working on legislation that would prevent the FCC from creating specific technology mandates that have to be followed by consumer electronics manufacturers. What's his target? The broadcast flag.

Television and movie studios have wanted a broadcast flag for years. The flag is a short analog or digital signal embedded into broadcasts that specifies what users can do with the content. It would most often be used to prevent any copying of broadcast material, but there's an obvious problem with the plan: it requires recording devices to pay attention to the flag. Because no consumers wander the aisles at Best Buy thinking, "You know, I would definitely buy this DVD recorder, but only if it supported broadcast flag technology," the industry has asked the federal government to step in and simply require manufacturers to respect the flag.

At first they approached the FCC, and the FCC complied by dutifully trotting out some new broadcast flag regulations. Unfortunately for the content industry, the FCC doesn't generally have the right to tell manufacturers how to build their products. The rules were thrown out by an appeals court in 2005.

Undaunted, the industry tried again in Congress. Last year, when a rewrite to the 1996 Telecommunications Act was being considered, broadcast flag legislation was in fact attached to the bill and even made it through committee before bogging down.

Sununu's bill will attempt to rein in the FCC and prevent it from reviving the broadcast flag without Congressional authorization to do so. "The FCC seems to be under the belief that it should occasionally impose technology mandates," Sununu said in a statement. "These misguided requirements distort the marketplace by forcing industry to adopt agency-blessed solutions rather than allow innovative and competitive approaches to develop. We have seen this happen with the proposed video flag, and interest groups are pushing for an audio flag mandate as well. Whether well-intentioned or not, the FCC has no business interfering in private industry to satisfy select special interests or to impose its own views."
http://arstechnica.com/news.ars/post/20070111-8596.html





Congress to Take Up Net’s Future
Stephen LaBaton

Senior lawmakers, emboldened by the recent restrictions on AT&T and the change in control of Congress, have begun drafting legislation that would prevent high-speed Internet companies from charging content providers for priority access.

The first significant so-called net neutrality legislation of the new Congressional session was introduced Tuesday by Senator Byron L. Dorgan, Democrat of South Dakota, and Senator Olympia J. Snowe of Maine, one of the few Republicans in Congress to support such a measure.

“The success of the Internet has been its openness and the ability of anyone anywhere in this country to go on the Internet and reach the world,” Mr. Dorgan said. “If the big interests who control the pipes become gatekeepers who erect tolls, it will have a significant impact on the Internet as we know it.”

In the House, Representative Edward J. Markey, the Massachusetts Democrat who heads the Energy and Commerce Subcommittee on Telecommunications and the Internet, said recently that he would introduce legislation soon and planned to hold hearings.

Despite the flurry of activity, the proposals face significant political impediments and no one expects that they will be adopted quickly. But the fight promises to be a bonanza for lobbyists and a fund-raising tool for lawmakers. It pits Internet giants like Google, Yahoo, eBay and Amazon, which support the legislation, against telecommunication titans like Verizon, AT&T and large cable companies like Comcast.

The debate may also affect the plans of the companies to develop new services and to consider certain mergers or acquisitions.

Consumer groups have allied themselves with content providers. The groups maintain that without the legislation, some content providers would be discouraged from offering services while others would impose costs on providers that would either discourage them from offering new services or pass them on to consumers. They also feel that small companies would be unable to compete.

But the telephone and cable companies say that efforts to limit their ability to charge for faster service would discourage the pipeline companies from making billions of dollars in investments to upgrade their networks, and would, as a practical matter, be even more harmful to consumers.

Beyond the debate, the fight over net neutrality is, like most regulatory political battles, a fight over money and competing business models. Companies like Google, Yahoo and many content providers do not want to pay for the kinds of faster Internet service that will enable consumers to more quickly download videos and play games.

In their thirst to continue to grow rapidly, content providers are looking to expand, but they consider any attempt by the telephone and cable companies to charge them for priority services as restricting their ability to move into new areas.

On the other hand, the telephone and cable companies — the so-called Internet pipes — want to be able to charge for access, particularly as they begin competing with content providers by offering their video services and programming.

The phone companies have also been studying a business model not unlike that of the cable TV industry: charging premiums to certain content providers for greater access to their pipes.

They say that existing rules, as well as sound business judgment, would preclude them from trying to degrade or slow their broadband service and that what they oppose is regulation that would prevent them from charging for offering a faster service. They also point out that many content providers are already charging customers for priority services, so that what they are proposing is not unduly restrictive.

While the debate has broken largely along partisan lines — with Democrats among the staunchest supporters and Republicans the biggest foes — there remains considerable Democratic opposition. Last June, a vote on an amendment by Mr. Markey similar to what he plans to introduce failed by 269 to 152, with 58 Democrats voting against the measure.

Many of those Democrats have been allied with unions, which have sided with the phone companies because they believe that the lack of restrictions will encourage the companies to invest and expand their networks.

In the Senate, where the party in the minority has considerably more power than in the House, the measure suffers from similar political problems. Last year the Republicans blocked the measure from reaching the Senate floor.

But several developments have given some momentum to the supporters of the measures. The House is now under the control of the Democrats, and the new speaker, Nancy Pelosi of California, has been a vigorous supporter of the legislation. Ms. Pelosi’s district in San Francisco is near Silicon Valley, the home of many companies that have sought the legislation.

Moreover, the conditions that the Federal Communications Commission imposed on AT&T as a condition of its acquisition of SBC Communications represented an important political victory for proponents of the legislation. After one of the five members of the commission removed himself from the proceeding, the commission’s two Democrats forced the companies to agree to a two-year moratorium on offering any service that “privileges, degrades or prioritizes any packet” transmitted over its broadband service.

The conditions imposed no significant immediate costs on AT&T. The company does not yet have the equipment in place on its network to offer a priority service on a large scale. But the conditions imposed by the F.C.C. showed that, contrary to assertions of the phone companies, it was possible to draft language that would preclude the companies from discriminating against providers.

The conditions also set a political benchmark of sorts, and gave the supporters of the legislation two years to try to gain more momentum just as all of the companies are trying to figure out their next major sources of revenue.
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/01/10/washington/10net.html





Mr. Rock ’n’ Roll Goes to Congress
Kate Stone Lombardi

AT the peak of their popularity, the 1970s band Orleans was touring 10 months a year, performing their big hits “Still the One” and “Dance With Me.” But John Hall, the band’s guitarist, wasn’t content to stick to the bouncy tunes and lyrics about sweet romance. He also used the stage to lecture audiences about the dangers of plutonium production.

“He would take the liberty of getting on the soapbox at a lot of concerts and go on a bit about nuclear power,” said Larry Hoppen, the bass guitarist for Orleans. “But you have to understand it in the context of the ’70s, with the Nixon thing and the nuke thing.

“In retrospect, it was uncomfortable sometimes, but it was never so bad that a manager said, ‘Hey, you’ve got to cut this stuff out.’ ”

Mr. Hall’s rock friends became used to the policy wonk within. Jackson Browne remembers him talking politics backstage while packing up his guitar.

Mr. Hall was one of many political activists from that era. But when he was sworn in as a congressman on Thursday, he became the first bona fide rock ’n’ roll musician in the House of Representatives. (Sonny Bono did not play an instrument.)

The ratty T-shirts and the long hair are gone, and the bare-chested album covers have given way to dark suits, conservative ties and wingtip shoes. When Mr. Hall, 58, unfolds his lanky frame out of his Subaru Outback, he looks corporate, and when he speaks, the words spew in paragraphs on topics like the importance of renewable energy and raising the minimum wage.

But then there is that moment he plays air guitar to illustrate how facile he is with his left hand. And there are the first name references to Bonnie, Jackson and Pete (Raitt, Browne and Seeger).

“John somehow managed to keep the idealism that so many people had in the ’60s and ’70s, while at the same time mastering a kind of pragmatism,” said Mr. Browne, who collaborated with Mr. Hall in the studio and in an antinuclear movement in the 1970s.

Mr. Hall, a Democrat, defeated Sue W. Kelly, the Republican who had held the seat for six terms, to represent the 19th Congressional District of New York, which stretches from the Connecticut line, through the Hudson Valley, across the Catskills and to the Pennsylvania border.

His inauguration ceremony was attended by his daughter, parents, brother and other supporters; afterward his New York delegation colleagues Nita Lowey and Elliot Engel stopped by. That day, he also helped elect Nancy Pelosi as the first female speaker of the House and tackled ethics rules and legislation.

Other entertainers have been elected to office — Ronald Reagan, Arnold Schwarzenegger — but most have been Republicans. Mr. Hall is as liberal as the “Bring Them Home” ribbon decal on his car suggests, campaigning not only for the withdrawal of troops from Iraq but also for universal health care and reduced dependence on foreign oil.

Even in a Congress elected to bring change, his positions are a step to the left of many representatives, and he is a relative novice to politics, his previous electoral experience limited to winning a seat on a local school board and in the Ulster County Legislature. There, he helped defeat a proposal for a trash-burning facility in Saugerties, near Woodstock — a victory that some say hardly merits election to Congress.

“John was in a band and helped fight a dump, but there’s a big difference between stopping a landfill and fighting issues like terrorism,” said Robert T. Aiello, a Republican Ulster County legislator. “I wish him the best, but he absolutely has his work cut out for him.”

Ms. Raitt, who organized Musicians for Safe Energy (MUSE) with Mr. Hall in the 1970s, said that early on, the group relied on his ability to think and speak on his feet.

“John was the brains in the outfit,” she said. “While we were all educated and informed and motivated, in terms of explaining the nuts and bolts, John was always very intellectually astute and articulate, as well as being incredibly facile on the guitar and very plugged into that creative muse.”

And even as he was writing tunes with stick-in-the-head melodies and sappy lyrics, Mr. Hall was turning out songs about the environment — “Power” — and the economy — “Plastic Money.”

“His big hits are very sweet, but he’s also really written songs about what he believes in,” Mr. Browne said. “It will be interesting to see what creative power he’ll be able to bring to the political business.”

Mr. Hall was advised to play down his past in the campaign. He rarely appeared in anything less formal than a suit. His statements were deliberate and careful.

Which makes it hard to explain how he ended up singing a duet of “Dance With Me” with Stephen Colbert on Comedy Central. In the segment, which ran a few weeks before the election, Mr. Colbert teased Mr. Hall about how pleased he must have been that President George W. Bush had used “Still the One” as a theme song for his 2004 reelection campaign. Mr. Hall said that he had a lawyer draft a formal complaint.

Mr. Colbert persisted, saying what a fitting song it was for the president because, “we’re still having fun and he’s still the one.” A few minutes later, Mr. Colbert asked his guest to harmonize. Mr. Hall demurred, saying that his advisers had told him to stick to political issues. But when Mr. Colbert chided him, “I say go with what you know,” Mr. Hall was soon singing. The clip, widely circulated on YouTube, helped make the long-shot race competitive.

Mr. Hall, who won a crowded primary for the Democratic nomination, began with a campaign fund of $57,000 to Mrs. Kelly’s $900,000. But having famous friends didn’t hurt.

“I didn’t have Exxon or Mobil, but I had Jackson and Bonnie and Pete,” Mr. Hall said. Their concerts in the Hudson Valley area not only raised money — Mr. Browne’s netted $100,000 in two days — but also generated publicity.

Mr. Hall, who is usually serious and low-key, became emotional when talking about the relationship between music and politics.

“Jackson sang a song, ‘Waiting Here for Every Man,’ ” Mr. Hall said, his voice catching as he referred to Mr. Browne’s “For Everyman,” “which I remember from his first album, a song that struck me as being about the lethargy and apathy and fatalism of most Americans while they wait for someone to please sort out this mess.”

The campaign was intense. At one point, an unsigned flier circulated with the message: “John Hall, wrong for America.” It featured Mr. Hall from his rock days, long-haired and bare-chested.

The day before the election, voters were swamped with automated calls featuring President Bush, who urged them to re-elect Mrs. Kelly.

“I was going to say thank you,” Mr. Hall said of the phone campaign. “Of all the campaign blunders, it was the most significant.”

Mrs. Kelly did not reply to messages seeking a response.

Now Mr. Hall has gone to Washington. A few days after his election, he attended new-member orientation, with lectures on everything from staffing district offices to finding housing. The new members picked up tips like: If you find a pair of comfortable shoes, buy one pair for Washington and one for home.

On a bus ride to one event, Mr. Hall compared notes about being well known with his fellow freshman Heath Shuler, a former professional football player.

A few representatives asked him to sing with them, including Paul W. Hodes of New Hampshire, a fellow guitar player. He joked that the two could form a duo, Hall & Hodes — sounds like Hall & Oates, another popular ’70s singing group with whom Mr. Hall is often confused.

Mr. Hall also spent a week at the John F. Kennedy School of Government at Harvard, attending sessions that he described as “sobering.”

In Washington, he has been assigned to the House Committee on Transportation and Infrastructure.

In some ways, the transition will be easier for him than for other new members. Mr. Hall is used to being a public figure and to traveling. He also has family in the Washington area, including his daughter, Sofi, who is studying for a Master of Fine Arts degree at the University of Maryland, and a brother, Jerry, a Jesuit priest who teaches at Catholic University. His parents live outside of Baltimore.

Mr. Hall lives in Dover Plains with his wife, Pamela, a lawyer who, according to Mr. Browne, also plays a mean guitar.

Between orientation sessions and apartment shopping, he has been back in his district, on “listening tours.” At a recent holiday fair in Putnam County, he segued from discussing post-traumatic stress syndrome with a police officer who had been at the World Trade Center to wetlands management with a woman from a conservation group, and stopped to buy a T-shirt with the message “The One with the Most Guitars Wins ” for his wife.

Mr. Hoppen said that people might underestimate his former partner.

“People may figure he’s just a rock star and he lucked out because of the general tide, and they’re wrong,” Mr. Hoppen said.

Ms. Raitt said she sees him in the mold of Bill Bradley, the former New Jersey senator. “Of all the musicians I know that have been activists,” she said, “the best suited for the job of actually going to Congress is John.”

Mr. Browne’s take: “A guitar player for Congress, it makes all the sense in the world to me. Musicians organize the world in certain ways. John’s idealism comes from the same place his music does. It comes from joy.”

Still, the night before his election, Mr. Hall said, he and his wife rented the movie “The Candidate,” starring Robert Redford. “When he wins, he says, ‘What do we do now?’ ” Mr. Hall said.

“You get the feeling, the look, the personality, the few catchphrases, the buzzwords, the talking points. But then you have to get down to the complexity of actually having to govern.”
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/01/07/fa...ml?ref=fashion





Canada Considering Tough New Copyright Law?
Nate Anderson

The Canadian Press is reporting that Canadian politicians are set to introduce a tough new copyright bill that will outlaw the circumvention of DRM schemes but might not contain any "fair use" provisions for Canadian consumers.

The text of the legislation has not yet been released, but that has not stopped a wave of speculation as to its contents. The Canadian Press quotes experts who say that "all signs point to a new regime that will improve safeguards for major music, film and media companies and artists for unpaid use of their material, but neglect to make exemptions for personal use of copyrighted content." The article speculates that CD ripping and even the recording of television content could become illegal under the new legislation.

The legislation is being spearheaded by two government ministers, Maxime Bernier (Industry) and Bev Oda (Heritage), who are ranked numbers two and three on a recent list of underperforming politicians.

Michael Geist, a law professor at the University of Ottawa, noted last year that much of Oda's fundraising, in particular, could be traced to copyright lobby groups, record labels, broadcasters, and cable companies. Canada's version of the RIAA, the CRIA, is on the list, as are all the major music labels and the Writer's Guild.

Regarding the current controversy, Geist doesn't think a bill can pass without strong fair use provisions. "Unless the government addresses the fair use issue, expect Canadians (and the media) to be very vocal about the failure to address a fundamental issue in need of reform," he wrote.

Graham Henderson, who heads the CRIA, didn't want to talk about fair use as much as he wanted to get the word out about piracy and the culture of "free music" that he claims has developed within Canada. Legal music download services have not flourished in Canada, he tells the Canadian Press, because "it's a big black market effect and so instead of 25 percent [of the total music market], it's 8 percent here. People are simply abandoning the marketplace altogether, and they've made the decision they'll just download the music and worry about how the artist gets paid later."
http://arstechnica.com/news.ars/post/20070112-8607.html





The Future of 'Telcos' May Be 'Comminfotainment'
Victoria Shannon

When Olivier Baujard looks into his digital crystal ball, he sees us all being customers of "comminfotainment" providers.

Within five years or so, the familiar land-line "telco" and even the mobile operator will disappear, in his view. Instead, broadband service providers will replace them, selling packages, bundles or channels of communications, information and entertainment.

As the new year draws near, it is worth stopping for a moment to look forward, and Baujaurd's view of the future is worth taking under advisement since, as chief technology officer of Alcatel-Lucent, the telecommunications equipment giant, part of his job is to peer a few years downstream.

"Deutsche Telekom is already an infotainment company," Baujard said during a recent interview. "Telecom Italia — they woke up one day and decided they were going to be a media company. Asian phone companies are already content providers. I just don't believe there will be phone companies anymore."

Another critical difference will be that these companies will focus on marketing a package of products, not a technology, he said.

"Even today, you don't know whether it's UMTS, FTTH, GPON," Baujard said, tossing out a few obscure telecommunications acronyms. "Instead, it's 'X number of channels' for Internet TV, or 'X megabits per second' for browsing, or 'free calls from home.' This will be the core of their marketing campaigns for years to come."

Even better, we will be able to balance and customize our package ourselves, he said. In other words, we can tell the provider that getting smooth video on demand is more important to us than fast Web surfing, or that crystal-clear phone calls over our broadband connections should get the highest priority.

"You can use your bandwidth however you want," he said.

The third big change Baujard sees will be a greater emphasis on how much and how fast we can upload, not just download. This is because we are progressively spending more time and effort on our own content — sending photos or videos to friends via e-mail, or multimedia blogging on our personal Web sites.

"The peer-to-peer debate was focused on illegal sharing, but that is only the thin skin on something larger: you and me creating our own content for the communities that we belong to," he said.

"And not just from home or the office, but from wherever you are. We will still be massively focused on the downstream speed for years, but upstream will be more and more important as we broadcast and multicast."

The challenge of this "comminfotainment" world of the future, he said, will be for policy makers to decide two critical issues: how to balance the interests of the consumers in getting access to content for a reasonable price against the interests of businesses in getting a reasonable return on their infrastructure investments — and how to guarantee a minimum quality of service.

"Who will guarantee what actually happens at the end of the pipeline into your home?" he asked. "Who do you go to? Providing the pipeline is not enough. Somebody has to explain to you what you're getting, how it will work, what your combination of megabits will deliver. And then they have to warranty it."

The loser in Baujard's scenario is not the traditional media and entertainment company, but the traditional distributors: broadcasters and physical retailers. "They are middlemen," he said, "and their value will be drastically challenged."

Media companies, by contrast, will continue being creators and producers. The "comminfotainment" providers will not take that away from them. Baujard said the service companies might well acquire some rights to content, or become partners in joint ventures in order to get access to rights, but they would not be content creators, by and large. "The economics of content are much different than what they are used to," he said.

What will be unfolding until then is that today's phone companies will be fighting to avoid being left behind as mere utilities, he said.

I hope they invest in some branding advice, too, and see if they can improve on the name "comminfotainment."
http://www.iht.com/articles/2006/12/...ss/ptend21.php





No High Def For You!

High-Quality DVDs Will Not Operate on Some Vista PCs
Jonathan Richards

Microsoft has been forced to acknowledge that a substantial number of PCs running the new version of its Windows operating system will not be able to play high-quality DVDs.

The Vista system will be available to consumers at the end of the month. However, in an interview with The Times, one of its chief architects said that because of anti-piracy protection granted to the Hollywood studios, Vista would not play HD-DVD and Blu-ray Discs on certain PCs.

Dave Marsh, the lead program manager for video at Microsoft, said that if the PC used a digital connection to link with the monitor or television, then it would require the highest level of content protection, known as HDCP, to play the discs. If it did not have such protection, Vista would shut down the signal, he said.

The admission will be a blow to Microsoft, which is hoping that more users will turn to their PCs for watching films and other content.

According to DSG International, which owns PC World, about 15 per cent of PCs sold at present in Britain use digital connections, but that number is expected to grow.

Virtually none of the PCs that use a digital connection have HDCP. “It’s up to the content providers to set the level of protection that Vista applies, but they’re likely to be pretty firm on the need to use high-definition content protection [HDCP] when using a digital connection,” Mr Marsh said. “At the moment HD DVD and Blu-ray Discs certainly require such protection.”

Mr Marsh added that computers with built-in HDCP protection — which could play such discs — were being phased in, but that, in the meantime, Microsoft was obliged to ensure that the studios’ content was being used securely.

Computers using an analog connection will not be affected and the requirement does not apply to regular DVDs.

Peter Gutman, a researcher in computer security at the University of Auckland, who produced a report on the compatability of Vista with various hardware, said: “When this aired at a couple of Windows conferences last year, I thought: ‘This is so bad it’s going to die.’ But it didn’t.

“To downgrade the signal so that the HD-DVD will play, you need a constrictor, but that doesn’t seem to be present in many of the computers that are shipping. Given that it downgrades signal quality, most manufacturers aren’t rushing to include it.

“Any computer which has an LCD monitor is potentially at risk of not being able to play this content.”

A DSG International official said that the number of PCs with digital connections would grow as the computer came to be used more as an entertainment device.

“The PC is moving out of the study and into the living room as users begin to connect up their computers with their TV,” the official said. “The majority of HD-TVs sold now have a digital input on the back.”

Protection still full of holes

A recent study by the Motion Picture Association estimated that illegal copying cost the industry $6.1 billion in 2005

Microsoft has built a component into the studios’ new operating system, Vista, that recognises high-quality DVDs, called HD-DVD and Blu-ray discs, and checks whether the system on which the film is being played provides a sufficient level of protection

This protection, known as high definition content protection (HDCP), must be present throughout the entire system — usually the computer, or a television. If it is not, Vista will disable the connection

The requirement only affects digital connections

About 15 per cent of all computers sold in the UK now have digital connections

Almost no computers using digital connections have HDCP, according to computer experts, although those that do are being phased in.
http://business.timesonline.co.uk/ar...536050,00.html





Music Fans: Dismantle DRM

New lawsuits are using antitrust law to challenge media giants' music download policies, claiming they unfairly restrict users' purchases
Catherine Holahan

When it comes to legal action over downloaded music, the defendants are often individuals: The lone user downloads one too many copyrighted files and Big Media goes on the offensive. But now, the little guy is turning the tables.

A fresh crop of lawsuits filed on behalf of individuals argue that it's the big companies that are ripping off the consumer.

Melanie Tucker, a San Diego resident, says Apple Computer (AAPL) unfairly restricts how its iTunes Store customers can use legally purchased music. Apple uses its so-called Digital Rights Management, or DRM, software to prevent iTunes songs from easily running on media players that compete with its iPods. (The files can be converted but the process is time-consuming and can be confusing.) Apple's brand of DRM software, called FairPlay, also prevents music purchased through services other than iTunes from playing on the iPod.

Tucker maintains that the company, which controls between 70% to more than 85% of the legal music download market and perhaps a 90% share of the digital music player market, is behaving like an overly aggressive monopoly, stifling competition in violation of antitrust legislation. "Apple has monopoly power in both markets through iTunes and iPod and they have made a conscious decision to disable people from freely using other formats on their iPod and vice versa," says Andrew S. Friedman, one of Tucker's attorneys. Friedman is seeking class-action status for the suit.
My Tunes vs. iTunes

Tucker's suit comes on the heels of a March, 2006 class action filed by Scott Ruth against music industry players including Sony BMG Music Entertainment (owned by Sony (SNE) and Bertelsmann Media), Universal Music Group, Time Warner Music Group (TWX), and EMI (EMI). Ruth, an Arizona resident, argues that the labels are violating antitrust agreements by using DRM to prevent music from being sold by a variety of retailers, thereby stifling competition that could keep prices down. Both Ruth and Tucker's suits seek compensation for music download customers as well as a change in the restrictions.

The arguments in Ruth and Tucker's suits are not particularly new. Consumers have long complained that legally purchased songs cannot be played on all their devices in part because of restrictions on the number of devices that can hold a license for a song at any one time. Traditionally, the record labels and download services have argued that the restrictions are necessary to combat piracy and ensure artists are compensated. Seeing few alternatives, many music lovers have begrudgingly accepted this answer—or opted for illegal downloading.

But the lawsuits show customers are no longer willing to accept the status quo. Some DRM opponents have begun arguing that DRM restrictions are actually fueling piracy by forcing users to choose between buying music that they will only be able to play on a limited number of compatible devices or stealing music that they can play anywhere. "Right now the fact is that pirated music and pirated movies are actually worth more than the movies and music you buy," says Rob Enderle, principal analyst with the Enderle Group. "I can't think of another product that is actually worth more stolen than if you purchased it."
Music Biz Ready to Play

The music industry is showing signs of softening. While record labels aren't changing their tune on the need for DRM to prohibit piracy, the Recording Industry Association of America, which represents the major labels, wants changes that would let users play downloaded music across a variety of devices. "We are focused on interoperability," says RIAA President Cary Sherman.

Over time, the recording industry has gradually shown other signs of flexibility. It has allowed music subscription sites to license music and has enabled services that give songs away for free in exchange for exposing customers to advertisements. It has even enabled users to put rented songs, obtained through subscription services, on portable devices—long a sticking point between the industry, the services, and the users who did not want to get subscriptions without the ability to take their music with them (see BusinessWeek.com, 9/5/06, "Meet the iTunes Wannabes").
Interoperability Is Key

Much of the change in attitude has resulted from consumer backlash and the music industry's growing frustration with Apple, which has refused to give the industry more control over pricing (see BusinessWeek.com, 12/19/05, "Apple May Be Holding back the Music Biz"). The trouble is, Apple is opposed to interoperability and labels don't have a choice but to do what the Web stores want. "How powerful is a company when they are negotiating with Wal-Mart (WMT)?" asks Sherman. "Want Wal-Mart to carry your stuff, your prices are going to come down. Record companies have to negotiate with Apple because they are the dominant player."

Both Apple and Microsoft (MSFT), maker of the Zune music player, have said they have not made their products interoperable because people want a seamless experience between download store and device. The more media player manufacturers and download services are involved, the more difficult seamless interoperability becomes. Microsoft experienced this with its "PlaysForSure" technology, which was used by Samsung, Creative Labs (CREAF), and others with only varying degrees of success. That's one of the reasons why, in releasing Zune, Microsoft opted for a system that didn't have to work with products it didn't control (see BusinessWeek.com, 11/12/06, "A Method to Microsoft's Zune Madness"). Calls to Apple and Microsoft representatives were not returned.

However, such interoperability issues would likely not exist if the companies just did away with DRM altogether, allowing users to download music and then copy it to as many devices as they want. Several download services such as eMusic and Amie Street have developed businesses around nonrestricted music files and flexible price models. And eMusic, which focuses on independent label artists similar to Amie Street, has been particularly successful. In the three years it has been in business, it has sold more than 100 million songs. "Paying customers will stay paying customers and people looking for free music will continue to look for free music," says eMusic president and chief executive officer David Pakman. "We challenge the notion that [DRM] is a requirement in order for the industry to grow."
New Business Model

What's more, eMusic has seen steady growth. It is now the No. 2 music service after iTunes, based on volume of songs sold (Apple sells about 1.8 million songs a day). On average, eMusic customers buy 20 songs a month, spending about $168 a year on songs, says Pakman. The average iPod owner buys fewer than 15 songs a year per owned iPod (see BusinessWeek.com, 11/21/06, "Online Music's Elusive Bottom Line").

Pakman sees the number of songs his customers buy as evidence that songs can be progressively priced in a way that reflects demand for particular songs and discourages piracy. Elliott Breece, co-founder and CEO of Amie Street, concurs. Songs at Amie Street start free and then become gradually more expensive as they start to sell. Prices are capped at 98 cents, a penny less than the price for each iTunes song. Amie Street has sold more than 70,000 songs since its October launch. Breece says that Amie Street wouldn't be able to compete if users couldn't download songs and play them wherever they wanted. "People want to buy and own stuff," says Breece. "In a lot of ways DRM isn't really natural."

The protections, however, are a way to secure loyalty among customers. After all, why would a longtime iPod user want to buy another, comparably priced music device if doing so would require spending hours to convert files into the appropriate format? Thus, barring an anti-Apple court decision (which even Friedman concedes would be a couple years off at the earliest), there's no real reason for Apple to change. Unless, of course, consumers start voting with their pocketbooks by purchasing music through non-DRM services and listening to it on non-iPod players.
An Open-Format Future?

Michael Bebel is CEO of Ruckus Network, an advertising and subscription-supported music download service that is focused on college students and uses Microsoft's PlaysForSure technology. Bebel says he can see a future with no DRM—if consumers stand up in big enough numbers. "I think that at least the calls for change are going to reach a critical point this year," says Bebel. "But change never occurs as rapidly as one might hope or like."

The labels could help speed the change by refusing to license certain songs to iTunes in order to bolster less restrictive forms of DRM. But they would risk losing sales from frustrated fans who might not want to purchase an actual CD to get an individual song on their iPods. If in the unlikely event labels drop DRM altogether, Apple would still be able to affix its own restrictions when selling through iTunes. That's why music sold through iTunes from labels such as Nettwerk Music Group, which does not use DRM, still cannot be easily played on non-Apple media devices. "Our whole motivation in the digital world is to not try to control the consumer experience," says Brent Muhle, Nettwerk's general manager. "So if a consumer is a rabid iTunes user and they want to buy from iTunes we want them to have a media file to buy. If they want to buy directly from us, we are going to give it to them in as open a format as possible."

Still, no one tech service remains dominant forever. Remember when Microsoft ruled the world? It still has the most dominant operating system, but it is facing accelerating competition and has been forced by courts to play nicer with rivals. And the lawsuits certainly hurt Microsoft's public profile and emboldened the competition.

Apple could suffer a similar fate, eventually relaxing its stance on interoperability. After all, France is suing the company because of its reluctance to open up the iPod to other music services (see BusinessWeek.com, 3/21/06, "Apple vs. France"). That suit, coupled with Tucker's potential class action and others, could make Steve Jobs think harder about making the iTunes Store or the iPod more compatible with competing devices or stores. But, short of a court order, don't expect a change of heart any time soon.
http://businessweek.com/technology/c...7s+top+stories





Who's Killing MP3 and iTunes?
Eliot Van Buskirk

Everyone knows the MP3 format is used by more devices and people than any other file-based digital-audio format. Most also know that record labels prefer DRMed alternatives such as the ones sold by Apple's iTunes, because they make it harder for people to share music.

But wait -- was that a pig flying past my window just now? Evidence is mounting that major labels may start to prefer the MP3 format, as impossible as that used to seem.

Here are seven reasons why MP3 is the future of the music industry:

1. The labels don't have a choice

When CD sales finally tank completely, record labels will be faced with a tough decision: distributing music nearly exclusively through Apple's iTunes store or rethinking their approach to digital-rights management, or DRM, from the ground up.

Already feeling hamstrung by Apple, there's no way they're going to let Steve Jobs completely monopolize the distribution of their music. Labels that survive the CD-sales nosedive to come could decide it's time to treat music fans like paying customers, rather than like high-level pirates. Instead of launching another PressPlay or MusicNet, partnering with multiple MP3 stores would make more sense.

EMusic is the number two digital music retailer behind Apple -- even without access to the massive and popular major label catalogs -- because it sells digital music rather than digital rights. The labels want Apple's dominance to end, and MP3 looks like the only way to make that happen.

2. Apple might be forced into interoperability

A class-action lawsuit accuses Apple of antitrust behavior due to the fact that songs bought from iTunes can only be played by iPods or iTunes (as well as cell phones made in partnership with Apple). Apple tried to have the suit dismissed, claiming that forced interoperability would inhibit innovation, but the judge wouldn't dismiss the case, which is now headed to a "case management conference" on Jan. 22nd.

Apple's recent SEC filing shows (bottom of page 26) Apple admitting the possibility of being forced to react to legislation demanding that iTunes-purchased music play on other MP3 players. If this happens, perhaps Apple would go with Sun Microsystem's open-source DRM plan.

But that would involve new devices, as well as a third party exercising influence over the iPod. Steve Jobs would hate that for sure. A switch to the MP3 format would work with existing devices and let Apple keep control. Sure, a lack of DRM would upset the labels, but then again, they don't have a choice (see above).

3. Thomson has endorsed selling watermarked MP3s

The labels' switch to the MP3 format wouldn't necessarily mean losing the ability to track unprotected files sold by online music stores. The Digital Watermarking Alliance (including Thomson Multimedia, which owns the right to license the MP3 codec), recently made a statement in support of the idea of major labels selling watermarked MP3s. This would let labels sell non-DRMed music without losing the ability to track the files.

Ideally, these serial, unique watermarks would be used not to sue people who release a purchased MP3 into file sharing networks (sophisticated users would probably figure out a way to strip the watermark before doing this anyway). Instead, the watermarks could be used to monitor playback in order to determine how to pay artists out of a shared revenue pool, tracking not only what was bought, but how much it was played.

Such a shift would automate accounting in the recording industry to an unprecedented degree -- another bitter pill it may have to swallow. They're suspected of using dodgy accounting to rip off artists (many of whom can't pay for prohibitively expensive accounting audits) for a long time.

4. Amazon is rumored to start selling MP3s by April

One of the more intriguing rumors emerging in the digital music area originated with an agent for Taylor Dane, Led Zeppelin and John Sebastien: He claims that by April 1 of next year (granted, the date makes this seem less-than-trustworthy), Amazon will launch an online music store that deals only in MP3s, although it's unknown how much major label content will be a part of that. To that end, Amazon's most powerful negotiating tool is allowing the majors to price their songs at different points -- something they have been long denied by Steve Jobs.

Licensing their music to Amazon's MP3 store would serve two purposes for the labels (aside from increasing sales volume tenfold or more): It would enable their variable pricing structure, while driving a stake into the heart of the iTunes store (knowledgeable users generally prefer MP3s to Apple's DRMed AAC files, and more users become knowledgeable each day).

5. Sony: "DRMs are going to become less important"

In New York last month, Sony Electronics' head Stan Glasgow told a room full of reporters that while Sony was considering launching a store/device combo like the iTunes/iPod or Zune ecosystems, he also sees DRM schemes becoming "less important" in the future.

One way to interpret this would be that Sony thinks a device that handles DRMed music from multiple sources is the way to go. But he nixed that idea, calling the implementation of multiple DRMs on the same portable device "a nightmare." Other than a computer-based program capable of translating DRM from one format to the other (which would also be a nightmare), using the MP3 format is the only way to make DRM less important.

6. People love AllofMP3.com

There's already a case study of what an MP3 store could look like: the Russian site AllofMP3.com, which people are still reporting access to, despite attempts to starve it of U.S. credit cards. Its popularity also indicates that digital music pricing should drop (a 10-cent to 25-cent per unprotected MP3 sounds about right to me).

Since increased sales of a digital good can't affect inventory, the labels would more than make up for the price drop by selling far more songs -- especially considering the endless targeting capabilities online music stores could eventually offer. (For instance, what if something like Pandora were used as a front end to an AllofMP3-type service?)

7. MP3 has future options

Although it's an aging technology, the MP3 format has been made over a couple of times. Coding Technologies has been working hard to give the MP3 format a future in terms of sound quality (MP3PRO) and surround sound (MP3 Surround).

Although they haven't taken off yet, these formats are reverse-compatible with MP3, unlike other advanced formats. This allows them to play on devices that support MP3s but not MP3PRO or MP3 Surround. And from what I understand, existing devices could add support for those with a simple firmware upgrade.

But the labels could also differentiate their MP3s from the versions available on file-sharing sites by offering a 320-Kbps bit rate and completely maxed-out, accurate ID3v2 tags.

I know I'd pay a quarter for better sound, lyrics that are synced to the music, BPM-based play lists and other things that such deep, accurate tagging would enable.
http://www.wired.com/news/columns/1,72412-0.html





EMI Abandons CD DRM
Cory Doctorow

EMI has announced that it will no longer infect its CDs with DRM. I remember just a few years ago when an EMI customer-service rep sent an email to an irate customer promising that every CD in Europe would have DRM within a decade.

William sends us this rough translation of a Dutch article from NVPI:
"EMI Music Group has ceased the implementation of copy protection on new cd-releases. This means that at the moment, not a single record company releases CDs that are protected against making digital copies, says the international industry-magazine 'Billboard'. At the same time, Macrovision has stopped the development and sales of her TotalPlay-system (previously CDS).

Record companies use copy protection to counteract the illegal distribution of the recordings - in particular on the internet. According to 'Billboard', it has now become clear that the cost of using this technology does not add up against the results. Aditionally there seems to be, says 'Billboard', a fear for compatibilty/playback problems with new computer-software.

Copy protection on CDs should not be confused with the protection-systems applied to music-files which are distributed via the internet. Those 'Technological Protection Measures' are for counteracting unlicenced use and form with the licence and payment-system the Digital Rights Management (DRM)."

Nice of NVPI to adopt EMI's volcabulary -- "protected against making copies!" Since when do you protect data by NOT backing it up?! Link (Thanks, William!)
http://www.boingboing.net/2007/01/08...ns_cd_drm.html





Why DRM's Best Friend Might Just Be Apple Inc.
Nate Anderson

DRM is dying. It's a statement being echoed with increasing frequency around the Web over the last few weeks, and is perhaps best articulated in this Billboard article. Antony Bruno lays out his case for why 2007 will be the year that the major labels "get it" and stop alienating their customers with restrictive DRM schemes. But before music lovers start dancing on the ashes of the digital locks they hate so much, let's all set down the New Year's champagne and indulge in a spot of pessimism. DRM is dying?

Yes, there are plenty of signs that DRM as we know it is changing, perhaps even withering on the warm California grapevine where it's been growing for so long. Yahoo has conducted several experiments in the last year, selling MP3-encoded versions of selected popular songs. The Sony rootkit debacle showed the general public what a bad idea some of these schemes could be. Every P2P company still in existence seems to be moving towards some kind of paid-downloads model, and some hope to do this without adding DRM. And Amazon is rumored to be eyeing the online music store market, but only if it can offer MP3s (though recall that Amazon's last attempt at whipping iTunes, its Unbox music service has hardly managed to unseat the leader). Et cetera, ad nauseum, ad infinitum.

And while it's certainly possible that the music labels will collectively find salvation like a late-70's Dylan, we're (reluctantly) going on record with the opposite prediction: it ain't going to happen in 2007. Sure, there will be plenty of experimenting. Labels have certainly realized that DRM isn't the answer to their many woes, and with declining overall album sales, they'll be more willing to take chances. Great! But there's a powerful force standing in the way of this DRM-free panacea, and it might not be the one you expect: Apple, Inc.
The gatekeeper

As the online music and movie store with the biggest sales numbers and mindshare (no one else even comes close in the US), Apple is a clear trailblazer. It sets the trends; it owns the market. Labels and studios think long and hard before crossing Apple if they want their content to be available on iTunes. In fact, Apple's power is so strong that when the iTunes Store gained video, the studios were hesitant to join, and so far only Paramount and Disney have jumped on board.

Why? Apple is a stalwart on its pricing scheme, and the video guys are afraid because they saw the public battle between Apple and the music companies. When labels demanded pricing flexibility, Steve Jobs called them greedy. And Steve won the argument.

Apple stands to benefit greatly by keeping the FairPlay DRM system up and running. The lock-in afforded by FairPlay creates an Apple ecosystem that essentially ties the iPod to iTunes and to Apple, at least for commercial transactions. Someone has even launched an antitrust suit against Apple over this, though the suit's specific claims are rather broad.

The symbiotic relationship between iTunes and the iPod has been so profitable for Apple that Microsoft has blatantly ripped it off for its new Zune music player. Apple has managed to create an ecosystem populated with high-margin devices; the company's overall gross margins are nearly 30 percent, and so even if iTunes were used solely to drive sales of iPods, it would be worth it for Apple to run the store.

Apple has, in an important sense, become a digital gatekeeper for media companies; iTunes is the best way to reach consumers with music, movies, podcasts, and television. Content companies have paid close attention to the success of iTunes; they've seen how it saved The Office, pushed billions of dollars in revenue to Disney, and established itself as such a de facto standard on college campuses that students would rather use iTunes than free alternatives. The content companies now need Jobs & Co. as much as Apple needs them.
Control

Content owners may not like this, but it's the situation that they are faced with in 2007. With iPods commanding such a large part of the player market, and iTunes integration so complete that it's the easiest option for new iPod owners in search of more music, Apple can present the best case for DRM to the industry: the success of the iTunes Store. Given that iTunes is now the #5 music retailer in the US and rising, the Apple mantra isn't pro-DRM or anti-DRM, but that "the experience is king." If Apple opens its DRM, that walled-garden experience could be degraded as customers migrate to other stores with lower prices but more technical problems. This creates a scenario in which we think Apple can work its influence to keep DRM alive and well in the face of labels showing doubts—and we're not at all sure that the labels' doubts are that strong.

Apart from independent labels, no serious, sustained experiment in offering unprotected files has been made by any of the major players in the film, television, or movie businesses. In fact, Hollywood has spent the last several years drawing up two new draconian forms of DRM (AACS and BD+) to protect next-generation video content. They have also been lobbying like mad for Congressional action on broadcast flags, and they've gone paranoid about putting CableCARDs in home-built Vista PCs (it won't be possible). The content owners want to be in control.

No, what the content idustry and the consumer electronics industry alike want is not the end of DRM, but a truly interoperable, robust DRM that puts them in control of their content without ceding too much power to one player (Apple). But now that PlaysForSure has gone bust in all but name and Apple steadfastly refuses to license Fairplay, that's not going to happen in the music industry. And Apple's toehold in the movie and TV business is rapidly becoming a beachhead. The only way to bypass Apple and still reach the massive iPod demographic is to throw open the digital gates and begin offering content in open MP3 and MPEG-4 formats that can still be played on Apple's devices—but losing control this way is just as scary to content owners as losing control to Apple.

DRM is dying? Not while Apple lives.
http://arstechnica.com/news.ars/post/20070111-8595.html





Mininova Reaches 1 Billion Downloads

Mininova, one of the most popular BitTorrent search engines just passed the 1 billion torrent downloads mark. We had the chance to do an exclusive interview with Niek, one of the founders of mininova.

TorrentFreak: When did you first learn about BitTorrent?

Niek: I guess that was somewhere back in 2003. Rob, one of the other Mininova staff members, pointed me to a new kind of P2P protocol, named BitTorrent, and soon thereafter I became a regular visitor of websites like Torrentse.cx, Lokitorrents.com, Bytemonsoon.com and of course Suprnova.org. Those websites are all dead now (the first two disappeared suddenly after running a successful donation round…), but they have to be credited for setting the first steps in building a torrent search engine.

TorrentFreak: When and why did you decide to start mininova?

Niek: That was back in December 2004. Andrej decided to take Suprnova down, which was a very popular torrent website at that time (although not as popular as the top-3 BitTorrent sites individually nowadays). As one of the regular visitors of Suprnova (and a programmer myself), I decided to code a new torrent search engine. Erik, Jos, Matthijs and Rob joined me, and we released the first public version of Mininova on January 15, 2005. My poor DSL line couldn’t handle the bandwidth the site was generating, but luckily Gottfrid of ThePirateBay offered us a hosting account. Well, the site got way too popular, so we had to look for a new hosting place. We temporarily moved to Gary of isoHunt, but it didn’t took long before we got our own set of servers. Since that time, Mininova have seen continuous growth in both popularity and content.

TorrentFreak: Did you ever expected that the site would be such a great success?

Niek: No, definitely not. Of course we hoped that Mininova would become a success, but not of this magnitude. Who would have thought that Mininova would become more than two times as popular as Suprnova was on its peak days?

TorrentFreak: What do you think the future will bring for BitTorrent, and BitTorrent sites?

Niek: In the previous years we’ve seen additions like DHT, encryption and other enhancements to the BitTorrent protocol. I think we’ll see some other nice enhancements in the future (maybe TCP/UDP hole punching?). Also, BitTorrent sites keep innovating new features, and I’m happy to see we’re (one of) the leader(s) in this area.

TorrentFreak: Are there any future plans or developments you want to share with our readers?

Niek: We just released our new site with many new features, but we’re already planning and prototyping new features for the next version. Of course we’re always open for feature requests, so in case anybody got a great idea: please mail us

TorrentFreak: What keeps mininova in the air?

Niek: This is our current server setup:
9 servers at XS Networks for the main site (100mbit/s traffic)
3 servers at Leaseweb for the blog/advertisements (20mbit/s traffic)
1 server in the USA for the forum (10mbit/s traffic)

Our staff consists of 5 administrators: Erik, Jos, Matthijs, Rob and I. And of course we couldn’t be anywhere without our dedicated group of moderators!

TorrentFreak: Do you get a lot of DMCA takedown notices? And how do you handle these?

Niek: I think we get on average 2 or 3 removal requests per day. We handle these with care according to our copyright policy. I’m happy to say we’ve never had any problems in this area.

TorrentFreak: What makes mininova stand out compared to other BitTorrent sites?

Niek: The simplicity, the speed, the no-nonsense design and functionality. And of course the new features, which we keep inventing, to improve usability. I guess we also have quite a few users due to our family safe policy, we don’t allow any pornographic torrents on our site.

TorrentFreak: What are you doing when you’re not working on mininova?

Niek: Keeping a website of this size running requires quite some time. But in my spare time I’m socializing with friends, studying, hanging out in the pub, and all the other kind of things guys of my age tend to do

TorrentFreak: Anything to add?

Niek: Thanks for the interview; I really appreciate the time you take to run TorrentFreak. I think it’s a good addition to the (not always very objective) journalism on torrent sites.

TorrentFreak: Thank you for taking the time to answer these questions.
http://torrentfreak.com/mininova-rea...ion-downloads/





BitTorrent Accelerator Chip to Power Home Media Devices
Jon Stokes

Star Semiconductor and the Taiwan-based IAdea Corporation have announced the world's first BitTorrent accelerator chips, the STR9810/20. The two new processors share an ARM-based design that works sort of like a TCP/IP offload engine, but it's specifically intended for accelerating BitTorrent traffic on embedded devices like media centers, NAS products, and mobile hardware.

The design also includes a network interface and two USB 2.0 ports for easier integration with storage and media devices.

I've yet to find a block diagram or whitepaper on the new products, so I'm not 100% sure which bottlenecks, if any, they actually fix. My understanding of BitTorrent clients is that they're memory-intensive, which is why they don't perform as well on embedded devices with small amounts of RAM. But a dedicated BT chip that accelerates the protocol and intelligently manages swap traffic might be just what the doctor ordered. (If you know more than I do about the nuts and bolts of BitTorrent, and that's not hard to do, I'd love to hear your thoughts in the discussion thread.)

Note that these products are not intended for full-blown PCs, since they definitely wouldn't do any good there.

At any rate, the new chips are due out sometime this quarter, so I'll be watching closely for products that take advantage of them. Star and IAdea haven't yet announced any design wins (that I know if), but with the number of BT-aware home media products on the immediate horizon they're bound to find some takers.
Why do I care about BT support in embedded devices?

Count me in the camp that was mightily disappointed by MWSF keynote's lack of attention to the Mac line, and specifically (in my case) the Mac Mini. I've had my eye on the Mini as a media center PC plus always-on BitTorrent client ever since I got to try out a G4-based Mini in that capacity last year. (I don't care about PVR functionality since I don't do cable.) With DVI, support for any format you can throw at it, and the ability to run Azureus, the Mini upstages the newly announced AppleTV in every way. But boy, am I glad that Jobs didn't give me what I wanted: a Core 2 Duo-based Mac Mini.

Jobs' failure to announce a Mini update poked a small hole in the RDF for me, and through that hole, I was able to get a glimpse of the rush of relatively inexpensive, BitTorrent-enabled, media-savvy, networked consumer devices that's coming our way this year. Some of the devices, like the Asus WL-700gE "BitTorrent router," are already in stores, and others are just around the bend.

At this point, BitTorrent, especially when coupled with a secure RSS subscription that pushes down new content when it becomes available, is a fantastic cable TV replacement—ad-free HD content whenever, wherever and however you want it. That's why it's such a shame that the AppleTV lacks DivX support. Truly, Wes Felter was spot-on the other day when he said, "A much bigger complaint against AppleTV is that it isn't compatible with the market-leading video download service: the darknet."

As I said above, there are any number of media centers, NAS, and router products coming this quarter that are fully and aggressively darknet-compatible, all from companies that aren't in bed with Big Content and so have nothing to lose by supporting every format and protocol under the sun. For my part, I'll be skipping both the AppleTV and the updated Mac Mini in favor of a solution that's cheaper and more flexible.
http://arstechnica.com/news.ars/post/20070112-8605.html





MediaZone Launches P2P Online TV
Liz Gannes

MediaZone, an enabler of subscription online television services for companies such as NBC Sports, is set to announce Tuesday it is beta-launching an ad-supported P2P streaming online television network. The idea is essentially cable-style television offered for free online.

As opposed to on-demand efforts such as Brightcove and the Venice Project, MediaZone will offer linear, streamed programming. It is Windows-only, with a peer-to-peer client available either via ActiveX or desktop app. You won’t get any of the fancy premium content all the VOD players are fighting for, but you will get free instant content.

“As we’re broadening into broadband offering, particularly one that’s free and advertising supported, P2P allows it to be financially viable,” said MediaZone CEO Michelle Wu in an interview last week.

The launch of MediaZone’s “Social TV” includes channels for local programming from places such as China and Trinidad and Tobago, and extreme sports. MediaZone will enable larger sites to play channels as well as provide advertising and hosting on its own destination site for smaller programmers.

Though “Social TV” doesn’t pack much punch as a moniker, MediaZone is following through on the name by including chat, ratings, comments, and blogging features alongside channels.

For now everything will be free, though future versions of Social TV promise to have subscription and pay-per-view options, according to the company.

San Carlos, Calif.-based MediaZone is a subsidiary of South African media company Naspers. Wu, an entrepreneur with experience at Xerox PARC and the China Internet Group, says she runs the two-and-a-half-year-old company as if it were a startup and Naspers an investor. She leads 80 employees in the United States and an additional 250 in China.
http://newteevee.com/2007/01/08/mediazone/





Copyrights and Congress
Dan Mitchell

ADVOCATES for looser restrictions on copyrights had high hopes for the new Democratic Congress. Those hopes faded somewhat last month when Representative Howard L. Berman was named chairman of the House subcommittee that oversees the Internet and intellectual property.

Putting Mr. Berman in charge of the panel, diminishes the chances for “real reform” of copyright policy, Lawrence Lessig, perhaps the best-known authority on the legal issues surrounding intellectual property and the Internet, wrote last week on his blog (lessig.org). Change is needed, he wrote, “to fit the legitimate objectives of copyright — to assure that artists have the incentives they need to create great new work — into the contours of digital technology.”

Mr. Berman, though widely regarded as a smart and savvy politician, is a favorite boogeyman of advocates for copyright reform, many of whom say he is in the pocket of his Hollywood constituents (he actually represents the San Fernando Valley, but many media industry figures live there).

In 2002, he introduced a bill that would have allowed media companies to hack into peer-to-peer networks to “disrupt” or “impair” illicit file trading. The proposed law would have limited the liability of copyright owners to $50 “per impairment to the property of the affected file trader.”

Critics said the measure, which never got out of committee, would have essentially allowed copyright holders to destroy people’s computers with near impunity. Mr. Berman labeled the loudest criticism as “hysteria,” and insisted his bill included adequate limitations and consumer protections.

Putting Mr. Berman in charge of the copyright committee “is like making a congressman from Detroit head of an automobile safety subcommittee, or a senator from Texas head of a global warming subcommittee,” Mr. Lessig wrote.

NO. 1 WITH A BULLET Hitwise, which tracks online traffic trends, reported this week that use of iTunes was up 413 percent on Christmas Day compared with the previous year, beating Microsoft’s new Zune service by 30 to 1 (informationweek.com).

Traffic was brisk at Zune, too, though, up 1,030 percent over the previous Monday. Traffic on iTunes was up 1,222 percent during the same period. The increase, of course, came mostly from people who received iPods as gifts. The Apple Store section of iTunes showed an increase in traffic of 110 percent over the previous Christmas. Traffic was so heavy, that customers were complaining about slowdowns and error messages.

Electric Junk What should be done with those old iPods and other electronics once they’ve outlived their usefulness? That’s not an easy question, thanks to all the toxic chemicals they contain, notes the Web site of Technology Review magazine (technologyreview.com).

Many companies (including Apple) will take back products, and some states force them to, but it’s not always easy to tell which companies accept returns for recycling, or how well they’ll handle the task if they do.

Enter the Computer Takeback Campaign, which offers a company-by-company guide (www.computertakeback.com).

While some companies do a good job, “the majority of recyclers are not responsible recyclers,” Robin Schneider, a member of the group, told Technology Review. In many countries “recycled” electronics end up polluting the land, air and water with mercury, cadmium and other nasty stuff.

The electronics industry offers its own online guide at ecyclingcentral.com.

LOOK BEFORE YOU LEAP According to AppleInsider, more than two million Macs were sold this holiday season (appleinsider.com). Converts from Windows will spend much of January getting used to their new machines — and it’s not always as easy as Apple would have you believe. Cameron Banga offers a list of “Things I Wish I Had Known Before I Switched to a Mac” on his blog “Confessions of a Teenage Fanboy.” No. 1: “When you install an application, you might not have actually installed an application” (teenagefanboy.blogspot.com).
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/01/06/bu...ref=technology





Preloaded

Not an iPod, but It’s Child-Friendly and Uses One AAA Battery
Warren Buckleitner

Playaway is known for its Ready-to-Go line of audio book players, which are about the size of an iPod and play one book each. It is a concept that seems easy to apply to music, and that’s the idea behind the company’s $30 Kidz Bop to Go players, each featuring 20 songs aimed at children.

The players are most notable for the features they don’t have. There are no U.S.B. cables, CDs to rip or burn, downloads, online stores or batteries to recharge. Just turn them on, put in the headphones and you’re ready to go.

There is a tiny LCD screen that displays the track number and time remaining. The device is powered by one AAA battery that lasts 12 hours.

Volumes 1 and 2 of Kidz Bop to Go (www.playawaydigital.com) feature songs from the Kidz Bop team, who perform highly engineered versions of Top 40 songs. The sound quality is good, although the volume can get uncomfortably loud.

When looking for music to keep the children entertained, consider that for the price of 30 songs from the iTunes store you can get 20 preloaded Kidz Bop selections, with the player and earbuds to boot.
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/01/04/te...ref=technology





Apple Unveils All-In-One iPhone

Cell phone will have music, Internet capabilities, camera and more
Ellen Lee

Apple CEO Steve Jobs ushered in a new era at the Cupertino technology company he co-founded more than 30 years ago, jumping into the cell phone market Tuesday with the highly-anticipated iPhone and cementing the company's part in the rapidly changing digital media landscape.

Jobs, speaking at the Macworld conference in San Francisco, unveiled the iPhone, which marries the iPod, cell phone and Internet handheld into one slim, portable device. He also announced the Apple TV, formerly known as the iTV, moving music, photos, television shows and movies from the computer to the living room.

Both products signal the broad shift the company has made in recent years from computers to consumer electronics, as it aims to become the core element in the digital life of the future.

To commemorate the move, Jobs announced that the company was dropping "Computer" from its corporate moniker.

"From this day forward we're going to be known as Apple Inc.," Jobs said before a roaring crowd.

With the iPhone, some 2½ years in the making, Apple dives fully into the cut-throat, mobile phone market.

"It's the best iPod we've ever made," said Jobs. "No matter what you like, it looks pretty doggone gorgeous."

Weighing in at 135 grams with a 3.5-inch touch screen, the iPhone looks like an iPod without its well-known scroll wheel. It has no conventional buttons, instead using a finger for navigation.

It will be available in June through an exclusive, multi-year partnership AT&T's Cingular Wireless and cost between $499 and $599 each.

Consumers will need to purchase a two-year plan with the iPhone, said Glenn Lurie, Cingular's president of national distribution. They may also want to purchase a monthly data plan to take advantage of the iPhone's Internet tools, although the Internet features are also available wherever there is wireless Internet access. Current Cingular data plans cost between $9.99 and $39.99 per month.

Cingular CEO Stan Stigman, appearing alongside Jobs at the keynote, said the cell phone carrier entered into an agreement without even seeing a design for the iPhone. The two have been partners in the past, introducing a Motorola cell phone last year that incorporated Apple's iTunes software. But the phone, like other cell phone and digital music player combinations so far, was not popular because it proved difficult to use and held a small number of songs.

Jobs also brought both Yahoo CEO Jerry Yang and Google CEO Eric Schmidt onto the stage, though not at the same time. The Internet companies will supply e-mail, mapping, search and other Internet services on the iPhone.

Yahoo will supply a special e-mail service that acts like a Blackberry and "pushes" the emails to the iPhone, so that the user receives the latest message instantly. With Google, whose CEO sits on Apple's board, the iPhone will have Internet search functions and mapping - including satellite images - on the iPod phone.

Jobs called the iPhone a revolutionary device that will leapfrog current technology. He said the company expects to sell about 10 million of them next year, which would account for just 1 percent of the 1 billion cell phones sold each year.

"Even if they get an itty bitty share of the market, it translates into" a large number of cell phone sales and opens a new, large market opportunity for the company, said Van Baker, an analyst with research firm Gartner. "It's not just a computer company anymore."

But unlike the MP3 player market, which the iPod has dominated even with the entrance of rivals such as Microsoft Corp.'s Zune, the cell phone market is much more fragmented. "There is not one device that everyone buys," said telecommunications analyst Jeff Kagan.

In an Alexander Graham Bell moment of sorts, Jobs made the "first" call on his iPhone from the Macworld stage, saying he was calling Apple's famed designer, Jonathan Ive.

"I can't tell you how thrilled I am to make the first public phone call with iPhone," Jobs said to Ive.

Jobs also used the iPhone's Google mapping feature to find Starbucks coffee shops near the Moscone Center, where Macworld is being held. He prank called one of them, ordering "4,000 lattes to go" and then hanging up.

Shares of Apple rose more than 8.3 percent Tuesday to $92.57 per share on news of the iPhone. Meanwhile, competitors Palm, the Sunnyvale maker of the Treo smart phone, fell nearly 5.7 percent to $13.92 per share and Research in Motion dropped 7.85 percent to $131 per share.

Before it is released, the iPhone still must go through a few hurdles. It must be approved by the Federal Communications Commission, which reviews all wireless phones sold in the United States.

Apple will also settle a name dispute with Cisco Systems, which last month introduced a family of Internet phones it called the iPhone, a name it trademarked.

In a statement, Cisco said it had been negotiating with Apple for several years over the iPhone and that it expects Apple to sign an agreement to use the name.

An Apple executive said that the company felt it could use the iPhone name because Apple's product applies to a cell phone while Cisco's product refers to its Internet phones.

Everything -- from typing e-mail to making phone calls -- is done via the touch screen. People use fingers, not a stylus, to type or touch the screen. The phone's features include the ability to "pinch" the screen to zoom in and out, as well as switch to a widescreen picture.

The iPhone will also incorporate Apple's Web browser, Safari, and operating system, Mac OS X.

The phone announcement was the crowning moment to a relatively long speech by Jobs at Macworld, an annual event at which he kicks off his company's biggest trade show and also uses the podium to launch new products.

Joined by the likes of Google CEO Eric Schmidt, Yahoo co-founder Jerry Yang and musician John Mayer onstage during his speech, Jobs had plenty to more to talk about.

Most significantly, Jobs unveiled Apple TV, a set-top device that allows users to port media between computers and televisions. Previously code-named iTV, Jobs said it will be in stores some time in February.

By beaming content from the computer to the television, consumers can download movies and music via the Internet, but enjoy them on their home entertainment system. It will cost $299.

Users will be able to stream content from five computers, and program it to download material automatically onto the Apple TV's 40 GB hard drive from one computer.

In other news, Jobs said Apple has reached 2 billion music downloads since introducing its popular iTunes music service, selling 58 songs a second. It has also had 1.3 million movie downloads since launching the movie download service last fall. To keep those numbers rising, Jobs announced a new partnership with Paramount to include the studio's movies on iTunes.

Chronicle Staff Writer Dan Fost contributed to this report. E-mail Chronicle Staff Writer Ellen Lee at elee@sfchronicle.com
http://sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cg...AGIBNFK493.DTL





In Cingular-Apple Deal, Only Phone Was Missing
Matt Richtel

When Cingular executives went to the company’s board last year to get approval for a deal with Apple, they did so without so much as a prototype of an Apple phone to show the directors. The board signed off anyway.

“We got this deal approved without them ever seeing the device,” said Glenn Lurie, president for national distribution at Cingular Wireless, who was responsible for the project on the Cingular side.

The approval was a leap of faith on Cingular’s part that Apple Computer could produce a phone as groundbreaking as its iPod music players.

Apple came up with the iPhone. The phone was unveiled Tuesday and will not be released until June, but it is already shaking up the market for high-end cellphones. Shares of the companies that make Treo and BlackBerry devices, the iPhone’s most obvious competitors, began to slide while Steven P. Jobs was still on stage in San Francisco, demonstrating the phone’s features.

Cingular and Apple may be fast-moving technology companies, but they took their sweet time putting the iPhone deal together. Officials of the two companies began discussions nearly two years ago, in February 2005. They quickly agreed that they should work together on a phone project, but there were far-reaching conversations and brainstorms about what the product should be.

They considered an Apple-branded mobile phone service that would piggyback on the Cingular network, but rejected the idea. Then, a year ago, they settled on the final concept, an Apple-made phone for subscribers of Cingular, which is owned by AT&T.

Details of the negotiations and partnership were provided in interviews with Mr. Lurie and Eddy Cue, a vice president of Apple who is in charge of its iTunes service and oversaw the relationship on Apple’s end. They said they had spoken nearly every workday over the last two years and had, above all, one mandate: to maintain secrecy.

In keeping with Apple’s tradition of keeping silent about product development, they were fiercely protective of the iPhone, and colleagues and co-workers knew to say nothing about it outside their circle.

Mr. Lurie, in particular, said Cingular wanted to prove to Apple it could be trusted to keep the project secret so that it could be disclosed on the companies’ terms. “We were going to try to be like Apple and keep things quiet,” Mr. Lurie said. “A big part of the partnership is trust.”

The deal marries two companies with considerable heft, though with somewhat different goals. Cingular, the nation’s largest wireless carrier, hopes the iPhone will help it attract new subscribers and keep disgruntled ones from fleeing to competitors, like Verizon Wireless.

Apple, a major innovator in consumer electronics, hopes to break into the market for a product “everyone wants to use and uses every day,” Mr. Cue said.

But the potentially powerful combination of Cingular and Apple may not be as attractive to consumers as they hope, said Roger Entner, a wireless industry analyst with Ovum Research. Mr. Entner said the device would doubtless be state of the art, but that is not the whole battle. He noted that some laptop computers are cheaper than the $499 iPhone.

“Is it futuristic? Yes,” Mr. Entner said. “Is it affordable? No.”

Mr. Entner said phones costing $500 or more represent less than 1 percent of those sold in the United States. As a result, he said, Apple could initially be competing for the attention of a few million consumers who rely on advanced devices like the Treo from Palm Inc. and the BlackBerry from Research In Motion. “This sets a high bar for the high-end device, but on the low end it has no impact,” Mr. Entner said.

Mr. Jobs’s announcement had perhaps its most immediate effect in the stock market, where Palm’s shares fell 5.7 percent and R.I.M.’s dived 7.9 percent. Shares of Motorola, which makes a broader array of phones, fell 1.8 percent. Apple’s stock surged more than 8 percent.

Executives of R.I.M., based in Waterloo, Ontario, did not answer phone messages seeking comment on the iPhone. Nick Agostino, a technology analyst with Research Capital in Toronto, said the decline in the stock most likely reflected investors’ concerns about the fate of R.I.M.’s BlackBerry Pearl consumer model.

But that concern appears to center more on lost potential for R.I.M. in the broad consumer market than on any threat to the company’s core market of business users. The e-mail system the iPhone will use lacks the security features and other properties of the BlackBerry e-mail service, making it unlikely that business users will switch to Apple’s offering, Mr. Agostino said.

As part of its pitch to consumers, however, the Pearl is the first BlackBerry to include multimedia entertainment abilities and a digital camera. Mr. Agostino said that R.I.M. might have trouble attracting customers who are interested in those additional features. “A guy who has e-mail at the top of his list is likely to want a Pearl,” he said. “A guy who has e-mail fifth or sixth on his list is going to look at the iPhone.”

The relatively high price of the iPhone may also swing some buyers to the BlackBerry offering. T-Mobile, for example, is now offering the Pearl for $200 with some of its plans.

Marlene Somsak, a spokeswoman for Palm, said the iPhone did not appear to be aimed at the business market, “where e-mail and quick and easy text entry for messaging and Web navigation are a requirement.”

The iPhone has a touch screen that can display a kind of virtual keyboard. Ms. Somsak said Palm believed that full keyboards like those on its devices were essential.

Tim Bajarin, president of Creative Strategies, a Silicon Valley consulting firm, said the iPhone would make current so-called smartphones obsolete. “It’s certainly going to cause them to go back to the drawing board,” Mr. Bajarin said, referring to phone manufacturers.

Laurie J. Flynn contributed reporting from San Francisco and Ian Austen from Ottawa.
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/01/10/bu...rtner=homepage





Cisco, Claiming Ownership of ‘iPhone,’ Sues Apple
John Markoff

And now, iSue?

Maybe Steven P. Jobs should have named his new gadget the Apple Phone instead of the iPhone. Or maybe the real winners will be the intellectual property lawyers.

In any case, just a day after acknowledging that they had been discussing rights to the iPhone trademark with Apple “extensively” in recent weeks, Apple’s Silicon Valley neighbor, the computer networking giant Cisco Systems, filed a trademark infringement lawsuit in United States District Court against Apple, claiming rights to the iPhone brand.

On Tuesday, after Mr. Jobs had unveiled the iPhone to much fanfare, Cisco issued a statement saying that Apple had been in negotiations to obtain the trademark for several weeks and had been asking for “permission” to use it since 2001. Cisco recently introduced a WiFi-based phone with the same name.

On Wednesday, however, Cisco went to court to stop Apple, and its lawyer said the two companies had been unable to reach an agreement over several “principles” that Cisco had been demanding to permit Apple to use the trademark.

“The action we’ve taken is about protecting our brand,” said Mark Chandler, Cisco’s general counsel.

Cisco would have been willing to share the trademark, he said, if Apple had agreed to its terms, which involved a commitment to interoperability on Apple’s part and an agreement to differentiate the two products in the market.

On Wednesday evening, Apple fired back by noting that several companies besides Cisco were currently using the iPhone brand name. A quick Web search reveals that Comwave, Nuvio and Teledex are all using the brand in different ways.

“We believe that Cisco’s U.S. trademark is tenuous at best,” said Katie Cotton, Apple’s vice president for worldwide communications. “We are the first company to use the iPhone name for a cellphone and we’re confident we will prevail.”

In its lawsuit, Cisco said that the company had obtained the iPhone trademark in 2000 when it acquired InfoGear, a company in Redwood City, Calif., that developed consumer-oriented Internet appliances. Mr. Chandler said Cisco began selling an iPhone product last spring and introduced the product publicly at the end of 2006.

InfoGear began selling iPhone products as early as 1997. According to the lawsuit, the original iPhone was a device that combined a telephone and a dial-up Internet portal.

The lawsuit describes a “surreptitious” Apple attempt to obtain the rights to the iPhone name. In September 2006, a corporation calling itself Ocean Telecom Services filed an application for the trademark based on an earlier filing in Trinidad and Tobago. That same month, Apple separately filed an application to use the trademark in Australia.

In the lawsuit, Cisco states that it believes that Ocean Telecom Services is a front corporation for Apple. Ms. Cotton declined to comment on whether Apple is related to the company.

Apple decided to use the iPhone brand despite its earlier decision to switch the name of its digital video system from iTV to Apple TV. When asked during an interview if Apple Phone would have been a better brand choice for the new wireless phone, Mr. Jobs said he liked the iPhone brand.

Apple has prevailed in other sticky trademark disputes. Last May a British court ruled in Apple’s favor against Apple Records, the Beatles’ Apple Corps recording label.

On Tuesday, Mr. Jobs appeared to take a step toward consolidating his hold over the Apple brand when he shortened Apple’s name by dropping the word “computer.”
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/01/11/te...y/11apple.html





Nice Phone, Mr. Jobs, But ...
Joe Nocera

IS there anyone who introduces products with more panache than Steven P. Jobs? Let me rephrase that: has there ever been anybody in the history of marketing to introduce products with the sheer, dazzling showmanship of the legendary Apple chief executive?

Take, for instance, last Tuesday. Apple is holding its annual Macworld Conference and Expo in San Francisco, and Mr. Jobs is onstage, looking at an adoring crowd. For months, rumors have been swirling that the company may be unveiling an Apple cellphone — which will surely be the coolest, sleekest, smartest cellphone ever. The anticipation is almost unbearable.

Mr. Jobs is wearing his trademark jeans and mock turtleneck. From time to time, he breaks into a sly smile as he walks around the stage and whips the crowd into a frenzy. “Today,” he says, “we’re introducing three revolutionary products,” and then he names them: a “widescreen iPod with touch controls,” a “revolutionary mobile phone” and a “breakthrough Internet communication device.” He repeats this mantra several times until it is clear to everyone that the three products are one device: the iPhone.

“Even before it was over,” said Charles Wolf, who covers Apple for Needham & Company, “everybody stood up and applauded Steve. I’ve never seen that at a Macworld.” The stock quickly jumped. Tech bloggers began salivating, even though the iPhone won’t be on the market for months. The next day, Mr. Jobs and his iPhone made the front page of The New York Times.

And Mr. Jobs cemented his reputation as not only a great marketer and a brilliant innovator, but perhaps the single most valuable chief executive in the land. Mr. Jobs is his company’s touchstone, its savior, its tyrant, its guiding light. “The guy is a genius,” Mr. Wolf said. “Without Steve, the stock would fall 25 percent.”

Of course, the fact that Mr. Wolf could even be raising the possibility of an Apple without Mr. Jobs speaks to a somewhat more sobering question surrounding Mr. Jobs these days. Has he broken the law?

UNLESS you’ve been living in the proverbial cave, you know about the other, less pleasant Apple storyline that has been hovering since the summer. The company and its leader are embroiled in the options backdating scandal, which has now ensnared upwards of 200 companies, many of them in Silicon Valley, where the practice was commonplace during the late 1990s tech boom. Mr. Jobs is by far the most prominent executive to be caught up in it. Which also means, inevitably, he is the most prominent subject of interest for federal investigators.

It looks as if federal prosecutors and the Securities and Exchange Commission are serious about getting to the bottom of one particular backdated option grant that Mr. Jobs received in 2001. A few weeks ago, an investigation conducted by a committee of Apple board members, led by Al Gore, cleared Mr. Jobs of any misconduct. But the committee report — at least as it has been recounted in Apple’s recent financial documents — has its own set of problems, about which more in a minute.

Before going into the particulars of Mr. Jobs’s situation, it is worth taking a quick detour into why options backdating is a scandal in the first place. Almost every article on the subject points out that backdating — that is, picking a date retrospectively to grant options that are already “in the money” when they are issued — is not necessarily illegal. But the practice has to be disclosed, and if it’s not, that’s a violation of securities law. Backdated options also have a different accounting treatment, and thus, they violate accounting rules when they are not disclosed. And there are tax consequences as well.

Dozens of companies at this point have had to go back and restate earnings because they backdated options and, in truth, the restatements have generally not been huge numbers. Apple is typical: it took an $84 million charge, which is akin to petty cash for a company its size.

But as the Lehman Brothers tax and accounting expert Robert Willens points out, the problem really isn’t one of size — it’s the ethics of the thing. “It is pretty hard to defend by any standard,” he said. The technology consultant Rob Enderle said: “Executives should never have a significant advantage over every other shareholder. It is like insider trading with 100 percent hindsight.”

Folks in Silicon Valley like to say that options backdating was a way to retain employees during the boom. And there is no question that was a lot of the motivation at a lot places, including Apple. But how, then, to explain the fact that Mr. Jobs himself got two enormous options grants that are problematic? That’s where things really start to smell.

The first grant, of 10 million shares (at the time, the largest option grant ever), was “memorialized” (to use the language Apple now uses) on Jan. 18, 2000, even though it had been “finalized” on Jan. 12. Before Jan. 12, Apple’s stock had been sinking; by the time Jan. 18 rolled around, it had jumped more than $15 a share. “It is highly awkward that the six days would go by and it turns out the price is the trough,” said the executive compensation consultant Brian Foley. “There is no logical explanation for taking six days.”

As for the second grant, of 7.5 million shares — this is the one that is being “actively investigated” — the facts are even more squirrelly. In that case, the grant was “finalized” in December 2001, but it carried an October 2001 date, when it was supposedly approved during a board meeting. But the board meeting never took place. The committee report said that no member of current management — including Mr. Jobs, who is on the board, of course — knew about the “irregularity.”

In addition, the special Apple committee acknowledged that Mr. Jobs “recommended the selection of some favorable grant dates.” And yet the committee not only cleared Mr. Jobs of any wrongdoing but announced that the board “has complete confidence in Steve Jobs and the senior management team.” An Apple spokesman told me that the special committee, after an “exhaustive” review, had found no misconduct by Mr. Jobs.

For one thing, the committee says that Mr. Jobs didn’t understand the accounting implications of backdating. But it also says that “he did not receive or financially benefit from these grants.” Instead, in 2003, the grants were dissolved, and replaced by five million shares of restricted stock, which today (with a stock split thrown in) are worth more than $900 million. The shares closed yesterday at $94.62. Why did the Apple board make the switch? Could it have had anything to do with the fact that the stock had declined and the options were worthless, backdating or no?

Besides, what difference does it make whether he reaped the reward or not? He got the grants, they weren’t disclosed properly and the second one was a part of the Apple restatement. You could just as easily argue that he did get a benefit, since they were replaced with the restricted stock grant.

What is striking is the difference between the way Apple has dealt with Mr. Jobs’s backdating problems and the way many other companies have dealt with their scandal-tainted chief executives. At plenty of companies chief executives have been forced to step down. In a number of those cases, it is unclear whether their involvement was any deeper than Mr. Jobs’s at Apple.

Thus the committee report has the feel of an exercise in circling the wagons around the one man Apple can’t do without. There are so many questions the report doesn’t answer — what are the circumstances of the board meeting that never happened? what does it mean that Mr. Jobs “recommended” some option dates? — that it is difficult to accept it at face value.

And because the stock market also accepts the notion that Mr. Jobs is indispensable, it is also circling the wagons. “The only issue that really matters in the end is whether Steve will have to give up the C.E.O. of Apple,” said Mr. Wolf, the analyst. He added, “If I had to assign a probability to his staying, I would put it at 99.9 percent.”

Others made the case that Mr. Jobs was so important to Apple — and Apple was such an important company — that it would be wrong-headed to push him out. “Steve Jobs is one of the few certifiable geniuses in corporate America, and it would clearly hurt Apple’s shareholders if Steve were unable to continue,” said Joseph A. Grundfest, a Stanford law professor. Clearly, if the federal government decides to go after Mr. Jobs, there will be an outcry not unlike the outcry that surrounded the Martha Stewart prosecution.

But of course the federal government never stopped pursuing Martha Stewart until it put her in prison. And it is highly unlikely that the government is going to back off just because Mr. Jobs is indispensable at Apple. On the contrary, prosecutors and S.E.C. lawyers can make their reputations bringing down as big a target as Steve Jobs —that’s just how the world works. If he is truly in the clear, then great. And to be sure, these kinds of cases are difficult to bring because they require proof that someone knowingly did something wrong. But if he’s done something wrong, he’s unlikely to walk away simply because he’s the great Steve Jobs.

Which is also why Apple’s whole approach to the options backdating scandal has been so misguided. “If you fool around with regulators, if they think you are manipulating them, you are going to pay a price,” said Harvey Goldschmidt, a former S.E.C. commissioner, who now teaches law at Columbia. The Apple spokesman assured me that the company was cooperating fully with the government — he described Apple’s cooperation as “proactive and voluntary.” But the disclosures made to the investing public, including the special committee report, have been too cute by half, a series of grudging admissions that don’t give anything close to the whole picture. If the company is taking the same approach with the government, it is pretty much guaranteed to inflame the regulators. As a result, I think Mr. Jobs is in for a far rougher ride than the market now seems to think.

Steve Jobs may have a golden gut when it comes to cool tech products. But when it comes to dealing with regulators and prosecutors, it sure looks as if he and his company have a tin ear.
http://select.nytimes.com/2007/01/13.../13nocera.html





Verizon to Announce Plan for TV Shows on Cellphones
Laura M. Holson

Verizon Wireless is expected to announce on Sunday that it will offer full-length programming to its cellular subscribers from several major television networks, according to people apprised of the deal.

The service, which should be in operation by the end of March, will consist of eight channels and will include popular shows from NBC, CBS, Fox and MTV, they said. ESPN is reportedly also in negotiations to offer programs, which will be offered for the cellphone screen soon after they appear on television.

What is significant is that the programs will be among the first full-length television shows to be offered to cellular subscribers in the United States. In Europe, where mobile phone technology is more advanced, such programming is more widely available.

It will also make the mobile phone more competitive with devices like the iPod from Apple Computer. In 2005, Apple announced that it would offer shows from the Walt Disney Company’s ABC network for sale through its iTunes Store. Other entertainment companies quickly followed suit.

Media companies will receive a fee based on consumer subscriptions. A spokesman for Verizon Wireless could not be reached for comment on Friday evening.

In the deal, Verizon is joining with MediaFLO U.S.A., a subsidiary of Qualcomm, which has created technology to transmit high-resolution video through its own dedicated network. MediaFLO’s quality rivals European and Asian standards, media executives say.


Verizon Wireless and Qualcomm have been partners for some time; they first announced an agreement to work together in 2005. MediaFLO was reported by those apprised of the Verizon deal to be in talks to offer television shows through other wireless phone companies as well.

Samsung and LG are two phone makers whose equipment is compatible with the MediaFLO network.
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/01/06/te...y/06phone.html





Apple Reveals Plans for Joining PC to TV
Tom Krazit

Apple thinks it's come up with the missing link between the PC and the television.

CEO Steve Jobs unveiled the Apple TV product, formerly known by its iTV code name, during his keynote address at Macworld on Tuesday. Apple TV, as discussed in September, is a small white box that plugs into a flat-panel TV and wirelessly connects to a Mac or PC over an 802.11n network, allowing content stored on the computer to play on the television.

Jobs revealed a few more details about the $299 device on Tuesday. Apple started taking orders for the device Tuesday, though it won't start shipping until February.

It supports 720p high-definition TV, rather than the 1080p standard used by many HDTVs unveiled this week at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas. It comes with a 40GB hard drive, so movies, TV shows and music can be stored directly on the device. But the Apple TV box can also access files stored on a Mac or PC over the 802.11n wireless standard, a newly emerging standard that's much faster than 802.11g and has better range.

When connected to a Mac or PC, the Apple TV will show up in iTunes just like an iPod, allowing users to sync television shows to its hard drive just like transferring songs to an iPod, Jobs said. Apple TV can only sync with one computer, but can play content streamed from up to five other computers. For example, if a friend comes over with a notebook, the friend could stream the latest episode of Lost to the Apple TV, but it doesn't appear that he could transfer the file to the Apple TV's hard drive.

The PC industry has been searching for something that connects the PC to the television for years. Early attempts based around Microsoft's Windows Media Center Extender program have received tepid support, due in part to how complicated it can be to set up.

However, Apple has a chance to change that with a more friendly user interface, said Tim Bajarin, an analyst with Creative Strategies.

"It has to be ridiculously simple, and this is the simplest design I've seen," he said. The Apple TV interface is controlled by a small white remote control with few buttons and resembles the iPod navigation tree.
http://news.com.com/Apple+reveals+pl...3-6148790.html





By addicts for addicts

Satellite Television in a Portable Box
Lorne Manly

Rick Rosner is a self-described television junkie.

Not only he is the creator and producer of many television series, most notably “CHiPs” and “The New Hollywood Squares,” he feels an overpowering need to surround himself with television everywhere he may be. Fourteen television sets jostle for space in Mr. Rosner’s penthouse condominium in Marina Del Rey.

When more than a decade ago he moved into his previous home, in Coldwater Canyon, only to learn he could not pick up a cable signal, he dispatched a production assistant to Phoenix to get something not yet available on the West Coast: DirecTV. On location shoots he would lug one of his DirecTV set-top boxes along and then rent or buy a satellite dish and attach it to his balcony railing with duct tape.

That hassle got him thinking: What if there were a portable satellite dish, which folds up like a piece of luggage, and could be used for camping and tailgate parties or in dorm rooms? And that’s how a longtime television producer turned into an inventor.

The result of his obsessive handiwork will be on display today at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas, when DirecTV will unveil the Sat-Go, a mobile satellite and television system weighing about 25 pounds that will sell for $1,000 to $1,300. DirecTV hopes that the Sat-Go will help differentiate the company from its cable-television competition and attract a different type of customer when the product goes on sale this spring.

“I love to try different things,” the 65-year-old Mr. Rosner said when asked to explain the moonlighting. “That’s sort of the story of my life.”

Mr. Rosner’s affection for all things television began as a child, when shows like “Captain Video and His Video Rangers” and “The Howdy Doody Show” captivated him, and working as a page at NBC during college cemented that connection. When he dropped out of veterinary school at Cornell University after six weeks, he moved to New York and reclaimed his post at NBC before getting a job at “Candid Camera” and becoming a television producer.

The walls of his condominium are crammed with pictures of people he’s worked with and for over the years, like Mike Douglas, Regis Philbin, John Davidson and Joan Rivers. But even while involved in the television business, his enthusiasms took him in different directions.

When on one episode of “The Steve Allen Show” the host was made to scuba dive, an emergency rescue unit came in to school Mr. Allen, and Mr. Rosner struck up a friendship with the visitors. That led him to taking a course at the Los Angeles County sheriff’s department. One night, he and his partner were parked at a Winchell’s doughnut shop in Los Angeles when two California highway patrolmen, complete with darkened helmet visor and shiny boots, pulled up behind them. But that intimidating sight melted when the two took off their helmets and sunglasses.

“Right there, it hit me,” said Mr. Rosner over a lunch of shrimp cocktail and Caesar salad at a dockside restaurant near his condominium. “That’s a TV series. Two guys racing around the L.A. freeway system. Two good guys doing a job.”

“He incorporates parts of his life into his business,” said Michael Gelman, executive producer of “Live With Regis and Kelly,” who became friends with Mr. Rosner when he worked on “The New Hollywood Squares” more than 20 years ago.

A similar connection explains the genesis of Sat-Go. After getting his inspiration for Sat-Go during an early morning walk in Vancouver, he hooked up with David Kuether, a friend who was an engineer at DirecTV, and the two set out to build a mobile satellite TV.

Mr. Rosner then called in a favor from another friend, his former art director on “The New Hollywood Squares” who is now the head of “The Tonight Show’s” prop shop. They built a prototype — “it looked like a big sewing machine,” he said — and then tried to persuade DirecTV to build and sell it.

At first, they were greeted with a decided lack of interest. But the head of the set-top box division sent Mr. Rosner and his contraption to see Eric Shanks, executive vice president of DirecTV Entertainment. Luckily for Mr. Rosner, Mr. Shanks was a “CHiPs” fanatic and jumped at the chance to meet its creator. “It’s my second-favorite show,” he said. (“The A-Team” is No. 1.)

DirecTV will be selling Sat-Go in places it has never been before, like Cabela’s, the hunting, fishing and camping store, and advertising in unfamiliar publications, like RV magazine. Although the modest first-run of production (about 10,000) makes Sat-Go an expensive toy, that price should come down, and the monthly subscription fee of $4.99 is the same as adding a box, according to Mr. Shanks.

Mr. Rosner has continued to be involved in every aspect of the Sat-Go’s development, particularly its design. Mr. Rosner and DirecTV executives both knew they wanted it to look like a high-end piece of luggage, one that could come from the likes of Louis Vuitton. But the color never satisfied. After the fifth or six try with the manufacturer, Mr. Rosner arrived one day with a carton full of Hershey dark chocolate bars — the hue reminded him of an early Bentley from Rolls-Royce — and announced this was the color the SAT-Go casing should be.

“It just looked so rich,” said Mr. Rosner, who this late December day in a chilly Southern California was wearing a chocolate brown slacks with a chocolate brown Sat-Go sweater. “It said money.”

Mr. Rosner’s nearly constant presence — in the past year and half he estimated that he dropped by DirecTV’s headquarters in El Segundo two or three times a week — could be unnerving to SatGo’s development team, so much so that the head of engineering called Mr. Shanks to complain that Mr. Rosner was distracting him. But Mr. Rosner has a history of barreling through obstacles and getting what he desires.

“Rick has always been a champion of the what-if scenario of television,” said Harry Friedman, executive producer of “Wheel of Fortune” and “Jeopardy” and a friend of Mr. Rosner’s since they worked together on “The New Hollywood Squares.” Mr. Rosner was the first to take game shows out on the road, plopping “The New Hollywood Squares” down in New York’s Radio City Music Hall and on the beach in the Bahamas. Now that the Sat-Go is a reality, Mr. Rosner can turn his attention to his next big entertainment project, a feature film based on “CHiPs.” Wilmer Valderrama (“That 70s Show,” “Fast Food Nation”) will play Officer Frank “Ponch” Poncherello, the Erik Estrada role, and Warner Brothers expects to shoot the picture this year.

But Mr. Rosner is not done with DirecTV; he is helping the company develop different Sat-Go offshoots. The Sat-Go Pro will come in a hardened plastic case and be marketed to users like FEMA, the Federal Emergency Management Agency. The Sat-Go Light will be about half the weight. And Mr. Rosner wants DirecTV to build a version with a digital video-recorder, too.

“I am the biggest DirecTV fan in the world,” he said. “No one appreciates that company more than me.” And Mr. Rosner wants to make sure no one will ever have to go without television again.
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/01/08/te...satellite.html





Westinghouse Shows Off the Quad HDTV
Mark Raby

1080p is really what you should be looking for in a new high-definition HDTV, but the next generation is just around the corner: Westinghouse showcases a 2160p - commonly referred to as a Quad HDTV.

Westinghouse has a fairly modest booth at this year's CES, but there were some things that really stood out, most notably the Quad HDTV that was announced a few days before the show. That, along with a handful of new 1080p TVs and high-definition computer monitors are headlining the first batch of new 2007 releases, underscoring the future trend for the digital division of Westinghouse.

Of course, the Quad HDTV was our first target at the Westinghouse booth. The 52" TV runs a super high-resolution of 2160p (3840 x 2160 pixels). In absolute numbers, the device is running a stunning 8.3 megapixels - four times more than 1080p TVs (1920x1080p) and more than twice the resolution of Dell's, HP's and Apple's 30" desktop LCDs. So, what do you get from this resolution, especially if HD DVD and Blu-ray are running only 1080p anyway?

According to Westinghouse, the TV does not really target the consumer market, but high-end industrial applications. What we saw was a demo of an oil company viewing a digital version of a mining site. And even at this very specialized application, the difference to the best 1080p we saw at CES appeared to be marginal, at least to our eyes. However, of course you do see a much clearer picture when compared to some lower-priced 1080p TVs. Westinghouse said that it has begun taking orders for the 2160p. However, the TV will not come to the consumer market anytime soon. Company officials decline dto comment on pricing, but the highest resolution on the market combined with limited availability are a good indication for one pricey TV.

Otherwise, all of the displays at the booth were LCDs, showing off Westinghouse as one of the very few companies that has always been devoted to only one of the two formats of HD displays. The most impressive consumer model they were showing off is the TX-52F480S, a 1080p TV with a whopping four HDMI inputs, and two sets of composite/component inputs. It is scheduled for a May 2007 release. Pricing was been available.

Rounding out the first set of new 1080p models will be the TX-42F430S, a 42" model with 4 HDMI and 2 component/composite with a $2000 MSRP, and the TX-47F430S, a 47" display with the same inputs and a $2500 retail price. Both will be available in April.

Noteworthy is also a Westinghouse 24" widescreen PC monitor with a 1920 x 1200 resolution. When hooked up to a PS3, the image clarity was just as clear as when it is viewed on a large-screen 1080p TV. The model number is L2410NM and it will be available later this month for about $700.
http://www.tomshardware.com/2007/01/...quad_hdtv_com/





License: EXPIRED

Vista Testers Get Unexpected Holiday Gift: No TV
Ina Fried

Some people testing Microsoft's Windows Vista got an unexpected holiday surprise: their TVs stopped working.

Media Center, which is included in the Home Premium and Ultimate versions of the Vista operating system, allows remote-control access to a variety of entertainment options, including television, for machines that have a TV tuner.

However, for those running the "release candidate 1" version of the software--the most broadly distributed of the Vista test versions--the TV feature stopped working on December 31.

Microsoft blamed the issue on the fact that it has a paid license for the video decoder and Dolby sound technology, and it only licensed those through December 31. The overall RC1 software is not scheduled to expire until June.

"As of December 31, 2006, users running Windows Vista RC1 beta code will no longer have access to the Media Center functionality, due to the expiration of the MPEG 2 decoder and Dolby Digital components built into Windows Vista and used by the Media Center experience," Microsoft said in a statement in response to inquiries by CNET News.com. "Because these technologies are licensed and royalty bearing, they will expire within a certain time period, according to our license agreements."

A Microsoft representative declined to comment on whether the company could have extended its license, saying it doesn't comment on the terms of such licensing deals.

Windows wait
Some enthusiasts have installed their own third-party video decoders. But that won't solve the TV issue, as many have discovered.

"There is not a solution Microsoft can provide around this in RC1, as it is not within our rights to extend the trial period for these licensed technologies," the company said in its statement.

The representative noted that Microsoft did recommend that users not try Vista on their main machines. The software maker said that testers who are members of its MSDN developer network have access to the final version of Vista. That version, along with a revamped Office suite and new Exchange e-mail server, went on sale to business customers in November.

However, many consumers who installed RC1 won't have access to the final version of Vista until it is made broadly available. Microsoft has said that it will release Vista and Office 2007 to consumers worldwide on January 30.

The first release candidate version of Vista arrived in September, and it was eventually made available to more than 5 million people, including technical beta testers, developers, corporate customers and tech enthusiasts. A second release candidate was issued in October, but only about 100,000 consumers were able to upgrade to that version.

Microsoft has high hopes for Vista adoption in the coming months. CEO Steve Ballmer said this will be the most widely marketed launch of any set of products that the Redmond, Wash.-based software maker has ever done. It will spend "hundreds of millions of dollars, a very big number," on Vista and Office 2007 marketing, he said in November. "It's more than we spent of Windows 95 and Office 95."

Both Vista and Office had originally been slated to arrive on store shelves and new PCs in time for last year's holiday season. However, last March, Microsoft said it would delay the mainstream launch of the products and instead make the software available to businesses only in November 2006.
http://news.com.com/Vista+testers+ge...3-6147259.html





Wii Outsells PlayStation 3 in Japan
Martin Fackler

Japan is offering some of the first glimpses into the hotly contested market for new video game consoles, and the view so far doesn’t look good for struggling Sony and its much-touted PlayStation 3.

Enterbrain, a Tokyo-based video game magazine publisher, released sales estimates in Japan today that showed Sony fell far short of its goal of selling one million PlayStation 3 consoles here last year. Sony sold 534,336 units between their debut in Japan on Nov. 11 and Jan. 7, Enterbrain said.

By contrast, Enterbrain reported that rival Nintendo sold 1.14 million units of its less expensive new game console, Wii, by the same date, despite going on sale three weeks after PlayStation. Microsoft’s Xbox 360, which has had limited success breaking into the Japanese market, has sold 311,053 units since arriving in December 2005, Enterbrain said.

Analysts said these figures offer some of the first hard data on how PlayStation 3, which debuted here a week before the United States, was faring in a major marketplace. Analysts said the figures also added a note of caution to Sony’s announcement over the weekend that it was on track to ship six million PlayStation 3s worldwide this year.

Slow sales could spell trouble for Sony, which badly needs PlayStation 3 to be a hit to overcome years of lackluster profits and polish its brand image. Sony’s Welsh-born chief executive, Sir Howard Stringer, has repeatedly said the company’s future depends on turning out “champion products,” and analysts say PlayStation 3 is the only potential mega-hit now visible in the company’s pipelines.

Analysts said the Japanese sales figures could offer an advanced look at how PlayStation 3 and Wii could fare in the United States, though they cautioned there were differences between the countries. They said consumers in the United States, for instance, may be more willing to embrace PlayStation 3 because its sharper graphics could be better suited to the larger television screens in America’s more spacious homes.

Analysts also said they had expected a slow start by PlayStation 3 in all major global markets, as production delays limited the number of machines available. But they and retailers said they have been surprised by just how tepid Japanese demand has been so far. They said the main reason consumers were shunning PlayStation 3 was its high price, twice as expensive as Wii.

“We are getting our first real peek into the marketplace,” said Masayuki Otani, a video games industry analyst at Maruwa Securities in Tokyo, “and it’s obvious already that Wii is bolting ahead.”

Mr. Otani also cautioned that it was too early to write off PlayStation 3, saying that Sony still had ample opportunity to catch up as more games and other software became available. He said there was also a concern that Wii’s popularity may prove a flash in the pan, though it will likely take Sony at least two or three years to catch Wii’s sales figures.

The Japanese sales estimates came just days after Sony announced that it had met its goal of shipping one million PlayStation 3s to the United States by the end of last year. That announcement was made on the opening day of the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas, where Sony is showcasing PlayStation 3.

However, analysts point out that the American figure only reflects shipments to retailers, not actual purchases by consumers. They also noted that Sony did not mention whether it had met its goal of shipping two million units combined in America and Japan by year-end. Production problems forced Sony to delay the rollout in Europe until March.

In a statement, Sony said it had put PlayStation 3s onto weekly flights to the United States to ensure there were enough machines for the Christmas shopping season. Analysts said Sony was apparently focused on winning American consumers, even to the point of diverting machines there from Japan.

Retailers across Japan, reached by phone, indicated that those diverted machines were not being missed. They said that while demand for Wii was booming, PlayStation 3s were sitting on store shelves. Most blamed price; the cheapest model of the new PlayStation 3 sells here for 49,980 yen, or $425, versus Wii’s price of 25,000 yen, or $210. In the United States, the same machines cost $499 and $250 respectively.

At a Yodobashi Camera store in the northern city of Sendai, deputy manager Satoshi Hino said Wii machines were selling out as fast as they arrived. He said shoppers had bought up last week’s shipments of 3,000 Wii consoles within an hour, but the store had yet to sell many of the 3,000 PlayStation 3s received at the same time.

“Shoppers still line up for Wii, but not for PlayStation 3 anymore,” Mr. Hino said, referring to the long lines that initially greeted PlayStation 3’s November rollout.

Sony has said PlayStation 3’s high prices are justified by top end features, including the high-speed Cell processing chip, co-developed with IBM and Toshiba, and the next-generation Blu-ray DVD disk drive. Analysts said that PlayStation 3’s powerful processing and graphics made it a machine that would remain competitive for years.

“The new PlayStation could take a while to catch on with consumers,” said Hirokazu Hamamura, president of Enterbrain. “But this is a machine with enormous potential.”
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/01/10/te...n er=homepage





Brazilian Court Reverses Ban on YouTube

A Brazilian court said Tuesday that Internet service providers could allow Web surfers access to the popular video-sharing site YouTube, a day after they started blocking it because of a celebrity sex video.

Daniela Cicarelli, a model and ex-wife of soccer great Ronaldo, sued YouTube after a video of her apparently having sex with her boyfriend in shallow water on a beach in Spain was posted to the site.

Judge Enio Santarelli Zulianio last week ordered YouTube, a unit of search engine Google, to be shut down until the video was removed.

But on Tuesday he revised his ruling to say that Internet providers could reestablish access to the site if YouTube permanently removed the video.

He also said the Internet providers must block access to the steamy footage, which was the most viewed video in Brazil for several days last year.

YouTube said it is being cooperative.

"We trust that Brazilian authorities have recognized our efforts to remove all copies of the video, and we will continue to do so as we become aware that it has been reposted," said Jaime Schopflin, a YouTube representative.

Technology experts say getting rid of the video entirely is difficult because users can repost it under different titles.

YouTube fans who could not access the site on Monday sent 20,000 e-mails to Cicarelli's employer, MTV Brazil, complaining about the ban, local media reported.

Cicarelli and boyfriend Renato Malzoni, who works for Merrill Lynch, filed last year to force YouTube to take the video down and demanded $116,000 in damages for each day the video remained.

The case dragged on for several months before Malzoni filed a third suit in December requesting that YouTube be shut down as long as the video is available.
http://news.com.com/Brazilian+court+...3-6148913.html





Abroad at Home
Kate Murphy

Like many illegal immigrants, Javier Huete did not dare plan a trip home for the holidays for fear he would not be able to re-enter the United States. But he was able to see his mother, in-laws and cousins in Honduras anyway thanks to videoconferencing services provided at an Order Express storefront in Houston.

A check-cashing and money-transfer company based in Michoacán, Mexico, Order Express has been offering videoconferencing at a dozen of its 300 locations throughout the United States and Latin America.

Mr. Huete, a delivery truck driver, said in Spanish, “I talk to my family on the phone all the time, but with this they can see the children.”

During the 40-minute videoconference with a dozen of his relatives assembled at an Order Express in Honduras, Mr. Huete’s infant daughter squirmed in his lap and his 4-year-old daughter stood with her nose nearly touching a 60-inch flat-screen TV on which the image of her teary-eyed grandmother cooed “Qué bonita!” or “How beautiful!” Normally, a half-hour visit costs $40, but he got an extra 10 minutes because there was trouble hooking him up initially.

Because of stricter border enforcement since 9/11, increased broadband access and reduced cost of video equipment, more businesses are offering videoconferencing services to reunite immigrants with their families back home. Typically found in or near places immigrants frequent like money-transfer operations or consular offices, these kinds of services are often reserved for weeks in advance. “I’m booked Dec. 20 through Jan. 1,” said Ivan Fernando Rojas, owner of a small videoconferencing business in Bay Shore, N.Y., called A Tu Alcance, which means Reach Out.

Such businesses are often run by immigrants like Mr. Rojas who is from Colombia: “I know how it feels being in a country without your family.” He started A Tu Alcance in 2004 with money he saved from cleaning office buildings: “I got the idea 12 years ago when I was dusting videoconference equipment in an office.” But back then, the technology cost $10,000 to $20,000. Today, a complete videoconference setup costs as little as $2,000, according to Laura Shay, director for marketing at Polycom, a leading brand.

While no one keeps track of the number of videoconferencing businesses marketing their services to immigrants, sales representatives at companies like Polycom report increased inquiries and purchases for the applications. “This was not a successful business model until recently because now you have both the affordability of the equipment as well as the wider availability of Internet cable connections which you need to have on both sides, here and there,” said Charlie Macli, senior vice president for sales and marketing at IVCi, a provider of video communications and network services in Hauppauge, N.Y.

Though most videoconferencing businesses tend to be small single-shop operations, a company called AmigoLatino has locations in eight cities with large Hispanic immigrant communities including New York, Los Angeles, Chicago and Miami. It also has affiliate offices in eight Latin American countries as well as in Spain. Moreover, AmigoLatino oversees videoconferencing operations at Order Express shops like the one in Houston where Mr. Huete linked up with his family in Honduras.

Founded in 2002 by Gabriel Biguria and a small group of private investors, AmigoLatino caters mostly to Spanish-speaking immigrants. “It would work equally well for immigrants from Asia or Africa but the time difference would be a challenge,” said Mr. Biguria, who is from Guatemala but holds an M.B.A. from the Kellogg School of Management at Northwestern University. He formerly worked in marketing and sales for Hewlett-Packard and several Silicon Valley start-ups.

“There’s incredibly high demand for this kind of service,” particularly given Hispanic culture’s traditional emphasis on family togetherness, said Raúl Hinojosa-Ojeda, professor for international development and Chicano and Chicana studies at the University of California, Los Angeles. His mobile banking services company, No Borders, offered videoconferencing between sites in the United States and Latin America for two years before it spun off that part of the business in 2005 to a concern in Pueblo, Mexico, called Creative Networks.

Creative Networks links personal computers at a dozen affiliates in the United States to a Latin American network of Internet cafes with broadband access, Mr. Hinojosa-Ojeda said. The owner of Creative Networks, Sergio Garnelo, could not be reached for comment.

Hispanic immigrants typically do not have computers at home much less have the kind of high-end computers and broadband access necessary for clear live video transmission and reception.

“The way most PCs allocate power to images is less than what you need to get really good quality,” said Elliot Gold, president of Telespan, a company that provides market analysis of the teleconferencing and videoconferencing industry. “The image gets really grainy when you blow it up on a large screen.” Specialized videoconferencing equipment, he said, is usually best to get an experience that “the other person is in the room with you.”

And that is what homesick immigrants like Mr. Huete in Houston want. “It’s good to feel as if the family is in the same place,” he said. Many times, immigrants set up a videoconference to mark a special occasion. For example, Mr. Rojas in Bay Shore said families in two countries assemble before video screens to celebrate birthdays, engagements and 50th wedding anniversaries. They sit around, talk, eat cake and drink wine. One customer recently scheduled a videoconference to show her mother in El Salvador the gown she was going wear at her wedding. “I cry 9 times out of 10,” Mr. Rojas said.

The cost of these kinds of virtual reunions ranges from $80 to $120 an hour depending on the Latin American country. This is far less than at places like FedEx Kinkos, which charges $265 to $350 and requires the party in Latin America to provide its own equipment since the chain, which offers business services, does not have locations there.

While still expensive for many immigrants, most say the service is worth it. “I was able to see my auntie and uncle,” said Blanca Leticia Pineda de Juarez, a nanny in Los Angeles who left Guatemala 15 years ago. She had not seen them since then and she was able to introduce them to her infant daughter recently during a videoconference at AmigoLatino’s Los Angeles office.

“It made me feel so good,” she said in a telephone interview. “I’m definitely going to do it again.”
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/01/06/te...y/06video.html





EU to Criminalize Non-commercial Sharing?
Jackson West

Across the pond, two members of the European Parliament have moved to amend the second Intellectual Property Enforcement Directive (IPRED2) in order to criminalize even small-scale, non-commercial use of protected intellectual property. French MEPs Nicole Fontaine and Janelly Fourtou simply want to strike the language specifying that criminal penalties only apply for infringement of IP rights “on a commercial scale.”

In a summary on the P2P Blog, heise.de goes on to report that the proposed amendments would also double potential minimum penalties up to EU600,000 in one case, and would make it criminal to even bring home a pirated DVD from a vacation outside the EU. Currently, citizens in EU member states face only civil penalties for small-scale, non-commercial infringement.

Fourtou, spouse of a former Vivendi CEO, is a controversial figure online owing to her advocacy on behalf of software patents. A vote on tabling the amendments is due on January 19th or 20th in Brussels.
http://newteevee.com/2007/01/04/eu-t...rcial-sharing/





BitTorrent Bullies: BitTyrant and BitThief
Michael Calore

Impatience doesn't get you anywhere. It causes stress and frustration and it usually gives everyone around you the impression that you're a total jerk. And as these two new P2P clients demonstrate, impatience also has the potential to ruin BitTorrent.

Yesterday, TorrentFreak alerted us to a new BitTorrent client with a "selfish" anti-social streak. BitTyrant, a project of the University of Washington's computer science department, is based on the code for Azureus 2.5. So, it's a cross-platform Java application -- that's good. What makes BitTyrant bad is that prioritizes your upload connections, favoring the peers that provide the best download speeds. You end up sharing more of the torrent with only the peers that give you the biggest chunks. The slower peers that aren't giving you as much data are choked and relegated to the bottom of the list.

This velvet rope approach improves the client's download performance, and it probably doesn't do a lot to harm the distribution of a fileset within a massive swarm. But BitTyrant still rotten bananas, especially if people start to use it in large numbers.

Now there's BitThief, which is straight-up nefarious and wrong -- the client downloads torrents without uploading. TorrentFreak tells us how it works:

[BitThief] constantly pretends to be a newly arrived peer that doesn't have anything to offer itself. Additionally, the client re-announces itself many times during the start of the download, and it ignores the 30 minute announce interval.

According to TorrentFreak's Ernesto, who tells me he has tested the client first-hand, BitThief (a Swiss project, go figure) does what it promises by clocking higher download speeds on large swarms. On regular swarms, it performs about the same as any other client. But it also opens 500 simultaneous connections (compared to the Mainline client's default 80) so it hoses your router almost instantly.

These clients go against the fundamental purpose of BitTorrent: efficiently distributing files to a large number of peers at once.

But BitThief is total jerkware. Downloading without uploading? Seriously, what's the point? So you have to wait 20 minutes to download a file instead of 15 -- big deal. What's the rush? Is the world going to end if you don't get that Lost episode before everyone else?

I'm with Ernesto -- I hope these clients get banned on every tracker in the universe.
http://blog.wired.com/monkeybites/20...rent_bull.html





Digital Sales Boost Music Industry

Album sales drop yet again
Phil Gallo

The music biz can't stem the bleeding, but for now, digital tracks are proving to be a secure Band-aid.

Album sales dropped for a seventh consecutive year, but a dramatic increase in the sale of digital tracks helped keep the music industry afloat in 2006.

Some 588.2 million album units sold last year, down 4.9%, while consumers purchased 581.9 million digital tracks -- a 65% increase from 2005's 352.7 million sold. Nielsen SoundScan, which released the figures Thursday, counts a block of 10 tracks sold as an album.

However, while hits were created -- Daniel Powter's "Bad Day," Gnarls Barkley's "Crazy," Shakira's "Hips Don't Lie" -- no top-selling artists generated follow-ups that did significant business.

Disney's "High School Musical" soundtrack was 2006's top seller at 3.7 million units -- the lowest total for the year's chart-topper in the 15 years SoundScan has been keeping sales figures.

Good news: Sales were spread around many different artists. Bad news: The bar for a "hit" is reduced and in many cases the return on investment for a label is smaller.

"High School Musical" is the first soundtrack to become the No. 1 album since "Titanic" sold 9.3 million copies in 2002, a feat that should have Disney -- an indie in the recorded music field -- smiling. But it should concern the rest of the business that no major label act could beat a TV soundtrack aimed at tweens.

As artists go, it was Rascal Flatts' year. Disc "Me and My Gang" (Lyric Street) was the top-selling album by a single artist at 3.5 million. The country trio also registered the year's biggest sales week, moving 722,000 copies of "My Gang" in the first week of its release. Band was tops in digital sales, and the biggest seller overall, edging Johnny Cash 4.97 million to 4.83 million. (Figure counts every album, video and track sold by the artist).

Daniel Powter's "Bad Day" topped the digital tracks list, selling 1.9 million copies. Gnarls Barkley's "Crazy" was No. 2 at 1.6 million. Every title in the top 10 sold at least 1.28 million copies.

The Fray's "How to Save a Life" posted the year's biggest digital album sales tally: 198,000. And Akon's "Smack That" was the No. 1 ringtone, selling 1.6 million.

In market share, Universal Music Group remained No. 1 with 31.6%; Sony BMG Music Entertainment came in at 27.4%; Warner Music Group had 18.1%; and EMI held onto 10.2%.

Digital continues to make inroads as the number of albums sold as downloads doubled from 2005. Current albums represented 18.6 million units sold, a rise of 93.7%; 14 million catalog albums were scanned, a 108.9% spike; and 9.8 million deep catalog albums were downloaded, a 104.2% rise.

Digital albums represent 5.5% of all albums sold. Warner Music continued to build on its digital market share, rising 1.72% to 23.29% of the digital album universe. UMG is at 27.4% of all digital album sales, Sony BMG 24% and EMI 10%.

Sales of current physical albums came in at 363.9 million, a 6.5% drop from '05. Catalog was down 8.1% -- 210.2 million sold -- and deep catalog was at 148.4 million, a 2.8% dip.

As for genres, classical and soundtracks saw considerable bumps, rising 22.5% and 18.9%, respectively. Country was flat, and Christian/gospel rose 1.3%. The biggest-selling genre is rock at 170.1 million albums sold, but the genre was not tracked in 2005. R&B, at 117 million units sold, took a big hit, dropping 18.4% from the previous year. Rap sold 59.5 million units in 2006, falling 21%.

Year's data from Nielsen SoundScan revealed that customers are not going to record stores like they used to. Chain stores saw just 41% of all sales, down from 48% two years ago. Indie music stores account for 6% of all sales, down from 7% last year and 9% in '04.

On the other hand, nontraditional merchants -- online services, TV, kiosks at concert venues -- saw their sales grow 44% to 69.3 million. Mass merchant outlets like Wal-Mart and Target accounted for 40% of all sales, up 1% from '05 but 7% from 2002.

As has been the case for the last two years, 20% of all sales occurred during the last six weeks of the year.
http://www.variety.com/article/VR1117956655.html





16-year-old Norwegian Filesharer Charged
Jan Libbenga

A 16-year-old from Stavanger in Norway who shared thousands of movies and songs through the P2P program Direct Connect, has been charged with illegal file-sharing, Norwegian Aftenposten reports.

The boy allegedly ran the Stavanger Dragon Hub, from where at least 7,000 movies, 150,000 songs and 20,000 video clips were shared illegaly.
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The server was tracked down last year by Norwegian law firm Simonsen, which is acting as regional representatives for the Motion Picture Association (MPA). The hub was closed immediately.

The 16-year-old now faces 60 days in jail and a fine of NOK4,000 ($644) if convicted. His parents could also be hit with "a six figure fine to compensate for lost revenues by the music and film industry". Lawyer Espen Tøndel still has to determine the exact amount.

Marte Thorsby of the recording industry organization IFPI told Dagbladet that the boy "was fully aware of his actions" and the case will be "a powerful signal to parents, who must pay more attention to what their children are doing,"

In 2005 a 36-year-old man from Oppland County was sentenced for sharing film and music files. The Sandefjord man placed material on his employer's server to facilitate the illegal transfers. A police raid revealed more than 60,000 pirated film and music files.
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2007/01...ged/print.html





Unsigned Band Set to Crash Charts
Ian Youngs

Essex rock band Koopa could become the first unsigned group to land a UK top 40 hit thanks to new chart rules.

Their download-only single Blag, Steal & Borrow is on course to enter Sunday's top 40, early sales figures suggest.

Chart rules were changed at the start of January to count all digital single sales, even if there is no CD version.

"It's fantastic that a band like us can have an opportunity to put ourselves into the top 30 with Razorlight and U2," manager Gary Raymond told the BBC.

Until 1 January, an artist needed to release singles on CD or another physical format - and therefore have a record deal - to qualify for the chart.

But bands who sell songs themselves through approved download services are now eligible.

Koopa were at number 17 in the unofficial midweek chart - based on Monday's sales - and are expected to end up in the lower half of this week's top 40.

"With the new rules, it does give hope for genuine talent," singer and bassist Joe Murphy said.

"You don't need to be dictated to by the big boys, by the record labels.

"You can release a song and if you've got the fanbase and people buy it, you'll get into the charts - it's great."

Other unsigned bands with healthy followings were likely to follow suit, he said.

"I wouldn't be surprised if we see a few more but it would be great if we could be the first."

Gig veterans

Koopa, from Colchester, have been together for seven years in various forms and have built up a fanbase on the internet and on the live circuit.

They have played almost 500 gigs in the past three years, including a headline show at the Mean Fiddler in London last summer.

Record labels have already contacted them on the strength of this week's chart showing.

"It's absolutely out of this world and fingers crossed it could be the start of a good career for us," Murphy said.

"If someone comes along and gives us an offer, we'll talk to them.

"But it depends whether we need it. If we can get enough exposure and get in the top 40 by the end of the week, do we necessarily need a large label?

"Probably nowadays, no you don't. We'll get the exposure ourselves just from being in the charts."

Their success is a result of years of hard work, he said.

"It's not easy to get people buying, and we've done quite well because we're quite big on things like MySpace so we've been able to advertise ourselves via the internet.

"But it's not as easy as people think, even with the new rules. They need to be genuine bona fide sales."

Mobile downloads

The live experience is just as important as sites like MySpace, according to Mr Raymond.

"There's no point being an internet band. You've got to be a live band and you've got to be able to hack it."

The bulk of Koopa's followers are teenagers who are buying the single using a mobile phone rather than an online store, Mr Raymond believes.

It costs £1.50 to send a text message and receive a code to download the song on a computer.

"The average 16-year-old doesn't have a credit card but they've got a mobile phone," the manager explains.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/pr/fr/-/2/h...nt/6248535.stm





AOL, Now Focused on Free, Sells Its Paid Music Service
Saul Hansell

After six years of trying to build an online music service, AOL agreed yesterday to sell its AOL Music Now to Napster. Napster will pay $15 million to add AOL’s 350,000 subscribers to its own 566,000.

The price amounts to about $43 a subscriber, which appears low considering that Napster — which only sells a music service — is valued at $186 million, or $328 a subscriber.

One reason may be that AOL’s music business has been shrinking quickly. It had 450,000 subscribers in the middle of 2006, when the company stopped marketing the service as part of a shift away from fee-based businesses.

“AOL is treating this like a nonessential business,” said Fred Moran, an analyst with the Stanford Group. He said the deal was positive for Napster, which disclosed in September that it had hired investment bankers to evaluate potential acquisition offers. The bankers are still working, said a Napster spokeswoman, Dana M. Harris, who would offer no details.

Napster’s shares rose by 30 cents, to $4.12.

AOL is now focused on free sites supported by advertising, and it continues to operate AOL Music, the second-most-popular music destination on the Internet.

AOL first helped found MusicNet, a consortium that included several record labels and the digital media company RealNetworks. It introduced a music service based on MusicNet in 2003. In October 2005, AOL bought Music Now, a similar service that had been owned by the electronics retailer Circuit City. The price was reported at the time to be $10 million to $15 million, although AOL would not confirm it.

AOL’s services, much like Napster and Rhapsody, which is now owned by RealNetworks, mainly offer subscriptions for unlimited song downloads, but the songs stop playing if the customer does not pay the monthly bill.

This model has not proved to be as popular as the à la carte model used by Apple’s iTunes Store. One reason is that music from the subscription services cannot be played on Apple’s popular iPod players. AOL, Rhapsody and Napster all use software from Microsoft that lets their songs play on a variety of players from Samsung, Creative, iRiver and other manufacturers. But none of these devices have come close to challenging the iPod. Microsoft further confused the market last year when it introduced its Zune player, which was not compatible with any subscription services other than its own.

This month, the Virgin Group said that it would close its Virgin Digital music service.

AOL and Napster both charge new customers $9.95 a month if they want to listen to music only on a computer and $14.95 a month if they want to use a portable player as well. Some AOL subscribers have been paying $8.95 a month, and Napster will continue to honor that price for them. AOL customers will be converted to Napster unless they choose to cancel their subscriptions.

As part of the arrangement, Napster, based in Los Angeles, will promote its service on AOL’s music pages, and it will make additional payments to AOL if it reaches certain new subscriber targets.
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/01/13/te...13napster.html





Interpreting the Beatles Without Copying
Allan Kozinn

Lately I’ve been wondering why, as a more than casual Beatles fan, I’m not interested in note-perfect covers by Beatles tribute bands, even though, as a classical music critic, I happily spend my nights listening to re-creations — covers, in a way — of Beethoven symphonies and Haydn string quartets. What, when it comes down to it, is the difference?

Obviously, this is something of a comparison between apples and oranges: we first heard the Beatles’ music on their own recordings, whose sounds are imprinted on our memories and are definitive. Our first encounters with, say, Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony were through performances that, however spectacular, have no direct link to Beethoven himself. Yet Beethoven’s score of the work is a detailed blueprint of how he expected it to sound, and any performance will be governed by that, allowing for interpretive leeway that may be subtle or dramatic. A cover band, hoping to reproduce the original recording, has less flexibility.

But a new album by the Smithereens shows how much interpretive leeway a rock band can have, even when it intends to perform faithful covers. The disc, “Meet the Smithereens!” (Koch), which comes out next week, reproduces the track lineup and, to a great degree, the original arrangements (at the original tempos and in the original keys) of the Beatles’ 1964 American breakthrough album, “Meet the Beatles!” But it does more: the 12 songs are filtered through the Smithereens’ own crunchy New Jersey bar-band sound, a quality likely to come through even more strongly when the band plays the album live at the B. B. King Blues Club and Grill tonight.

The Smithereens made their name playing their own material, but they have recorded Beatles songs before, and they have always had a soft spot for the concision and zest of British Invasion bands. So they approach this music as fans who know it intimately, but also as composers who know what makes a great song durable.

They are hardly the first to cover a complete Beatles album. Big Daddy recorded a doo-wop version of the full “Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band” in the early 1990s. Phish released a live performance of the complete “White Album” in 1994. In the late ’80s, the Slovenian art-rock band Laibach released “Let It Be,” a ponderous, reordered version of the Beatles’ album of the same name, albeit without the title track.

What makes “Meet the Smithereens” unusual is the degree to which, like a good classical performance, it balances fidelity to the original with a projection of the interpreter’s style. Typically, Beatles covers and pop covers in general are an interpreter’s art and emphasize the performer’s vision. After all, if you don’t have a distinctive perspective, even one as off the wall as Laibach’s, why should someone listen to your version instead of just playing the original?

Tribute acts, by contrast, are purely recreative. Their goal is to reproduce a band’s music rather than to make their own mark on it. The Smithereens acknowledge this world without quite joining it. These days, everyone from the Grateful Dead to R.E.M. has its own shadow specialists. But Beatles tribute bands have long been a global industry.

Many, though by no means all, borrow a page from the Elvis impersonators’ playbook and turn their performances into theater pieces. They dress up in period costumes, changing from short to long wigs, moving from collarless jackets to psychedelic outfits and affixing paste-on beards and mustaches as the show progresses. And they imitate the Beatles’ accents and jokey patter. (A band that takes this approach, 1964 the Tribute, is playing at Carnegie Hall on Jan. 27.)

I’ve never understood the appeal. When I saw “Beatlemania” on Broadway, in the late 1970s, I admired the stage band’s skill, but left the theater feeling I’d have been better off listening to the records and paging through old Life magazines. And watching other faux mop-tops trading on Beatles nostalgia over the years, I’ve always felt a little embarrassed for the musicians, who had clearly devoted significant effort to learning arrangements that in some cases were too complex for even the Beatles themselves to perform live, yet who were sublimating their personalities (and musicianship) to the business of role-playing.

Which is not to say that what they do is without merit; quite the opposite. For anyone who has listened closely to how the Beatles’ vocal and instrumental arrangements work, it’s hard not to admire the musicianship of bands that reproduce it accurately. Still, you could argue that at least some of the Beatles’ music — recorded layer by layer, carefully polished in the studio, and using tape loops, backward sounds and other innovations — is actually electronic music: the recordings are the score and the performance, self-contained, just as much as a tape work by Stockhausen is.

Even so, those recordings can be transcribed fairly precisely, as Tetsuya Fujita, Yuji Hagino, Hajime Kubo and Goro Sato demonstrated in “The Beatles Scores” (published by Hal Leonard in 1993), and those transcriptions can be learned and recreated live with startling exactitude, just as the score of a Shostakovich symphony can. And Glenn Gould’s manifestos about the death of the concert notwithstanding, there will always be something electrifying in a live performance that cannot be captured on a recording.

That live experience is something tribute bands offer that can no longer be had from the Beatles themselves (although Paul McCartney and Ringo Starr still perform their old hits on tour). For that matter, tribute bands offer something — quite a lot, actually — that the Beatles never did. Between late 1962 and the summer of 1966, the Beatles recorded 118 songs. But during their international touring years (starting in late 1963), they played a mere 33 songs in concert. The last album from which they played any material live was the 1965 LP “Rubber Soul”; thereafter, they recorded another 100 songs on six albums. With technology far beyond what the Beatles had (sampling keyboards, in particular), tribute bands can play them all.

That said, when a string quartet plays Haydn, it doesn’t set out to produce an unvaried copy of what’s in the score. The players make interpretive decisions about tempos, balances and tone color; ideally, a quartet’s reading will breathe differently from night to night, and will be distinct from a competing ensemble’s account. And except for the occasional misconceived children’s concert, quartets don’t don Haydn-era wigs and costumes, or adopt Austrian accents.

This is what I like about “Meet the Smithereens!”: it bridges the extremes of note-for-note fidelity and pure interpretation, offering the best of both worlds. The band has treated “Meet the Beatles!” as a symphony, a complete cultural artifact, to be heard intact. It barely matters that “Meet the Beatles!” was not quite the album the Beatles intended, but rather a compilation made by Capitol Records, using 9 of the 14 songs from the group’s British album “With the Beatles,” as well as three songs released as singles. For American listeners who discovered the Beatles at the time, as the Smithereens did, “Meet” has an emotional resonance that “With” does not.

The arrangements on “Meet the Smithereens!” have all the vibrant energy and directness of the originals, and even minor details like the keyboard glissandos in “Little Child” and the overdubbed handclaps on “I Want to Hold Your Hand” and “I Saw Her Standing There” are faithfully preserved.

Yet you wouldn’t mistake it for the Beatles, as you might with a tribute band. Pat DiNizio’s vocals have the dark, slightly flattened quality you hear on signature Smithereens songs like “Blood and Roses” or “A Girl Like You,” and if his guitar solos follow the contours of George Harrison’s, they aren’t slavishly identical.

Where the Beatles moved to acoustic guitars for “Till There Was You” — the only cover on “Meet the Beatles!” — the Smithereens opted to keep it electric, with a touch of distortion, and to abandon the saccharine quality that Paul McCartney brought to the vocal.

The guitar tone and effects, and the way the vocal harmonies are balanced on, for example, “This Boy” and “Hold Me Tight,” are the Smithereens’ own. And so are their accents. The album manages to scream Beatles 1964 and Smithereens 2007 all at once.
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/01/13/ar...ic/13beat.html





Microsoft Pulls Four Planned Patches
Joris Evers

Microsoft has pulled four bulletins from its announced list of Patch Tuesday fixes, but did not specify why it was backpedaling on the security releases.

It now plans to issue four security bulletins on Tuesday, rather than the eight originally announced, the software giant said Friday in an updated notice on its Web site.

Three bulletins will contain fixes for Office, at least one of which will be rated "critical," Microsoft said. Critical vulnerabilities typically can allow a worm to spread or allow a Windows system to be fully compromised with minor or no interaction from the person using it. The fourth bulletin, for Windows, is also tagged critical.

On Thursday, Microsoft listed eight bulletins it intended to issue next week in its monthly patch cycle. It appears to have pulled two bulletins for Windows, one for Windows and Visual Studio and one for Windows and Office. These patches will now likely be released on a future Patch Tuesday.

The Redmond, Wash.-based software giant did not provide any explanation for pulling the bulletins only a few days before their scheduled release. "There are many factors that impact the release of a security update, and every vulnerability presents its own unique challenges," a Microsoft representative said in an e-mailed statement.

The company does not specify ahead of time which security vulnerabilities are addressed by its patches. As a result, it's unknown what security holes will now be left without a fix. eEye Digital Security, on its Zero-Day Tracker Web site, lists eight zero-day vulnerabilities that Microsoft still has to address, with four each in Office and Windows.

Zero-day vulnerabilities are security holes that have been publicly disclosed without a fix being available. In some cases, exploit code may be available for such a flaw, and there may be cyberattacks that take advantage of it. However, Microsoft's patches often address vulnerabilities that have not been publicly disclosed.

The company sometimes deviates from the Patch Tuesday advance notification. Last month, for example, it issued one more security bulletin than it had said it would. It has also dropped bulletins, citing quality issues. However, it has never before pulled four bulletins.
http://news.com.com/Microsoft+pulls+...3-6147705.html





Threatened by the Internet, Time Magazine Slims Down
David Carr

Richard Stengel, the managing editor of Time, took his wife and kids out to dinner Friday night.

As historic moments go, it was not such a big deal, but it reflects a seismic change. Time, the magazine that has been coming out every Monday for over 36 years, hit the streets on Friday instead.

Stengel said in his editor's note christening the issue that the switch had been made because, "I believe that getting the magazine on newsstands on Friday helps us set the news agenda."

It is hard to see how that will happen, except by feeding the Sunday morning talk shows some fresh grist. But unlike revolutions that have been announced at Time before, only to fizzle, this change is coming from above.

Time Inc. management, on the advice of consultants from McKinsey, is trying to cut costs, reflecting the brutal realities of the mass magazine business. At the end of the month, there will be significant layoffs at the magazine division, and it will not be limited to cuts among Time's 280 editorial employees. Other magazines in the Time Warner division will re-engineer and cut as well.

At Time, Stengel has moved swiftly. In the past six months, the huge rate base of Time magazine has been cut by almost 20 percent, the street date has been moved, and at the end of the month, the standard editorial model — a centralized, well-paid cadre processing every bit of copy that appears in print — will be kaput, replaced by a leaner enterprise built on star voices who will presumably get less editing.

And a tremendous amount of effort has been expended on Time's new Web site, which makes its debut Monday. It is thought by many at the magazine that the highly regarded editor there, Josh Tyrangiel, will one day take over whatever Time magazine/Time.com becomes.

Of course, there are those who would argue that in a society that seems to have no general interest (other than, say, Paris Hilton and the Super Bowl) there is no room or need for a general interest magazine. But Stengel said he would not be imprisoned by the tyranny of big numbers in making changes at Time.

"I think it is a false choice to say that something that is mass has to be dumbed down," he said. "We want to be accessible, but we want our readers to know that we understand they are smart."

To do this, he is prepared to eschew Time's historically Olympian editorial voice, and its penchant for cover articles that track trends in lifestyle, and instead present point-of-view journalism, booking "revered economist Jeffrey Sachs" and "great modern historian and Harvard University professor Niall Ferguson" as contributors.

In the current issue of Time, the new order seems long on convention, if not consistency. Two somewhat battered hawks — William Kristol, editor of The Weekly Standard, and Peter Beinhart, former editor of The New Republic — are given space to argue that American Greatness is still a pretty great idea.

Kristol is stumping for a plan by Frederick Kagan, a military analyst and neocon favorite, while a few pages away the veteran Time writer Michael Duffy (who describes The Weekly Standard as "the neocons' house organ") names Kagan as one of the authors of the so-called surge plan that will commit still more American troops to the war in Iraq.

Stengel sees no problem with what seems like a U-turn in the middle of the magazine. "I am giving the reader two interesting takes," he said, "and saying to them: 'You are smart enough to figure it out, and I will help you do that.'"

Print publishing is becoming a business built on rich people who read. Information that can be digitized and commoditized, like the kind of data that weeklies historically traded in, ends up being consumed on the Web.

Magazines that are prospering now offer an environment that cannot be replicated online. You cannot open your browser and have an experience akin to the September issue of Vogue, with its hundreds of pages of trendy ads mixed in with chatty, breathless articles. The physical properties of a magazine have become increasingly important.

In its current state, a meager weekly printed on increasingly thin paper, Time magazine is not much of a thing to behold. But Stengel said that more will be revealed over the next few months when the redesign of the magazine and the Web site are complete.

"We want our magazine to be much more, to be seen as a premium product, a special and beautiful thing," he said.
http://www.iht.com/articles/2007/01/...iness/carr.php





Layoffs Imminent at The Philadelphia Inquirer
Katharine Q. Seelye

The Philadelphia Inquirer was expected to announce Wednesday that it would lay off 68 to 71 employees, or about 17 percent of the newsroom staff, just seven months after a group of local business executives took over the newspaper and its sister publication, The Daily News.

The Daily News is exempt from this round of cuts.

The announcements began Tuesday night as editors called employees at home. With The Inquirer's advertising revenue and circulation down, employees have known for months that layoffs were coming and have been finding their place on the seniority list so that they could try to make plans.

"The guillotine has finally fallen," said Dawn Fallik, a medical reporter for who has been at The Inquirer for four years and will be laid off. "In a way, it's kind of a relief."

The Newspaper Guild, which represents newsroom employees at the two papers, recently concluded bitter contract negotiations that nearly led to a strike. Editors and reporters had been told that if they did not compromise on economic issues, as many as 150 people could be laid off.

"This number is significantly less than the numbers that had been discussed earlier," said Jay Devine, a spokesman for Brian Tierney, the publisher of the papers and one of the new owners.

Still, the layoffs will continue a contraction of The Inquirer, which in its heyday in the 1980s and 1990s had a staff of more than 500, with 15 foreign bureaus. Today, the staff numbers about 400, with one foreign bureau. It lost more than 75 people in buyouts a year ago.

The Daily News cut 25, leaving its newsroom with about 109.

Among those who received calls Tuesday night and was told he was losing his job was Jeff Shields, a reporter who covers gambling, a young and growing industry in Pennsylvania.

"These last two weeks, knowing this was coming, have really been Kafkaesque," said Shields, who has two children and has been at the paper for almost four years. He said he hoped to parlay his knowledge of the gambling industry into a job at a paying Web site or doing research.

A subject he would like to write about is the effect of casinos on their hometowns — "the kind of story you might pitch to an editor but in this day and age would never get approved," he said, alluding to declining ambitions at many daily newspapers.

His editor, Eugene Kiely, is also leaving The Inquirer, although voluntarily, and will take a job at USA Today. He said he wanted to continue his newspaper career at a place he thought would have stability.

The Philadelphia papers were sold in March by the Knight Ridder chain to McClatchy, another newspaper group. McClatchy, in turn, sold them to a group of local business owners, led by Tierney, an advertising and public relations executive.

Tierney hailed his entry into the newspaper business as a turning point, both for the Philadelphia papers and the industry, as he took the reins from a distant corporate owner and began a much-watched experiment in local, private ownership without having to answer to Wall Street investors.

But things changed over the summer as advertising revenue for papers across the country plummeted and circulation continued its years-long decline. At The Inquirer, the consolidation of local department stores and telecommunications companies has meant fewer ads, with revenue falling 10 percent in September 2006, from September 2005.

Daily circulation fell 7.6 percent, to 330,000, in the last year. Sunday circulation was down 4.5 percent, to 682,000, in the same period.

The newsroom was initially cautious but hopeful when Tierney took over, but since the contract settlement, the mood has shifted to resignation.

"If it's a new day for local journalism, it's a sour day," said Stu Bykofsky, a columnist at The Daily News. At least with Knight Ridder, he said, there were buyouts, not layoffs.

A few years ago, The Inquirer hired more than 40 young reporters as part of a major expansion into the suburbs. Now many of those jobs are being eliminated.

In the recent contract negotiations, however, the company won the right to exempt certain reporting beats from seniority rules so it could keep some of the younger reporters, depending on how much time they had spent on a beat.
http://www.iht.com/articles/2007/01/...ness/paper.php





Copyright Suit in China Called Opening Salvo in Media War
Howard W. French

A lawsuit that has been filed by one of China's largest newspapers against one of the country's leading Internet portals over the issue of massive copyright violations is being described here as the opening salvo in a media war.

In the suit, which was filed in October and is expected to go to court soon, The Beijing News is seeking $400,000 in damages from a popular Internet site called Tom.com for having copied and republished more than 25,000 articles and photographs without authorization since 2003.

In recent years, China has acquired a reputation as a sort of no-man's land for intellectual property rights, with companies in virtually every industry freely copying designs and other content both from foreign companies and from domestic rivals with little fear of punishment.

The Beijing News lawsuit, however, comes at a time of accelerating legal reform efforts and signs of increased attempts by law enforcement agencies to protect copyrights and other forms of intellectual property. The suit also comes at a critical time for China's newspaper industry, which has experienced explosive growth in the past decade or so only to find itself confronted with an even faster growing rival in the form of new Internet-based media.

Now, as has happened in the United States and many other countries, with computer usage and broadband access both booming here, newspapers are losing readers — especially among young, prosperous city dwellers — to large corporate-owned Web sites. What set China apart from much of the rest of the world, until recently, was that these Web sites faced no legal obstacles in copying material from newspapers, often wholesale.

"There is a very brutal competition between newspapers, with seven or eight big ones just in Beijing, and now a big new player, the Internet, wants to wipe them all out, to change the landscape," said Yu Guofu, a lawyer who specializes in intellectual property matters.

"The press is leading a hard life and facing an unpleasant future, but it has decided it is better to protect its rights than just sit and wait to die," Yu said.

According to one recent academic study, newspaper readership in China has declined sharply in the past three years, with the proportion of people who say they read a newspaper at least once a week falling to 22 percent from 26 percent since 2003.

A major presumed cause for the decline is that big Internet content providers, or portals, have become one- stop sources for all manner of information, from news and entertainment to blogs. Until recently, for most portals the general practice involved lifting news and other information directly from other sources, sometimes crediting the original source and sometimes not, but rarely paying for it.

In Europe, Google is awaiting a ruling, likely this month, in a copyright dispute with Belgian newspaper publishers after the introduction of Google News Belgium. In November, Google settled with two Belgian groups representing photographers and journalists for undisclosed terms.

Google News, which made its debut in 2002, scans thousands of news outlets and highlights articles in various categories. Google asserts that its service benefits publishers by bringing readers to their Web. But the French news agency Agence France-Presse has sued Google in U.S. District Court in Washington, arguing that the Google service adds little value because its news site looks much like those of AFP subscribers. Meanwhile Google has agreed to pay The Associated Press for articles and photographs. But neither Google nor the AP has disclosed financial terms.

The Beijing News lawsuit comes a little more than a year after a meeting of major newspaper publishers in Nanjing at which strategies were discussed to shore up the industry's base and combat the loss of content — and readers — to China's large Internet companies.

Representatives of The Beijing News declined to comment on the lawsuit. A spokesman for Tom.com, Tu Jianglu, denied the alleged violations.

"As a big company, we respect copyright and property rights," he said. "I can only say that there are other facts that make this more complicated."

Until recently, China's laws have generally been anything but clear on intellectual property issues. Moreover, they made it difficult to successfully sue over an alleged infringement.

Such an environment may have served the country's needs well earlier in China's industrial takeoff, amid a huge push to master new technologies.

The battle in the news media reflects part of a broader shift in the intellectual property landscape as China's growing place in world trade has brought strong new pressures to rein in wholesale piracy.

Many of the country's largest Internet companies, for example, are listed on foreign stock exchanges, making them liable for lawsuits filed abroad.

"We've signed agreements with over 1,000 traditional news organizations in China, which means that if we use their articles or reports, we definitely have reached prior agreement with them," said Zhang Xin, a spokeswoman for Sina.com, one of China's largest portals.

Very gradually, an awareness also seems to be taking hold that China's companies must build strong brands of their own to be successful, and that this cannot be accomplished in an environment where copying goes unpunished.

"To enhance the country's development we are trying to encourage innovation," said Xu Chao, vice director of the National Copyright Bureau.

"We are placing more emphasis on intellectual property and have made improvements in the law. It used to be possible for traditional media or Internet media to simply copy each other's work, but now this has been forbidden."
http://www.iht.com/articles/2007/01/.../copyright.php





Deleting Online Predators Act: R.I.P.
Steve O'Hear

It looks like the Deleting Online Predators Act (DOPA) has died a slow death. DOPA was proposed during the height of last year's moral panic around the issue of child safety and sites like MySpace. The legislation would have banned the use of commercial social networking websites in US schools and libraries which receive federal IT funding — therefore undermining much of the pioneering work being done by educators in the e-learning 2.0 space.

A "commercial social networking website" was defined by the act as any web service that:

"…allows users to create web pages or profiles that provide information about themselves and are available to other users; and offers a mechanism for communication with other users, such as a forum, chat room, email, or instant messenger."

Despite opposition from teachers, librarians, internet activists (and a few politicians), DOPA was passed in the House of Representatives and moved up to the Senate. Then what happened?


As Andy Carvin blogs:

…something quite unexpected happened: nothing. With all the criticism being lobbed by the blogosphere and the media, DOPA found itself among a group of skeptical senators who were in no rush to pass the legislation.

To make matters worse (for supporters of the act) the Mark Foley scandal took place. Followed by a number of the act's main sponsors losing their seats.

But the final nail in DOPA’s coffin came with the switch of Congress from Republican to Democrat. Legislation that doesn’t get signed into law by the end of a congressional term has to start from scratch during the next term. In January, the Democrats will be in charge of both houses of Congress, and there’s no sign that they’re going to rush and re-introduce DOPA.

It's very unlikely that we will ever see DOPA return in its current form, and hopefully, if the issue arises again in the future (which is may well do) any new legislation will be better written and more sensibly debated than DOPA ever was. Having said that, much of the damage that would have been caused by DOPA has already happened, as many school districts routinely block access to much of the social web.
http://blogs.zdnet.com/social/?p=55





Proposal

San Francisco's Wireless Broadband Internet Access (WiFi) Network

Process

San Francisco has undertaken a thorough, innovative, and transparent process to reach an audacious goal: free WiFi for our residents. By undertaking two competitive processes, we asked the citizens of San Francisco what theythought we should do and we asked the best and brightest technical minds what they thought we should do.

Call for Action: In his 2004 State of the City Address, Mayor Gavin Newsom outlined a vision of the future -- a future where no San Franciscan was to be without basic building blocks to personal economic freedom. Those building blocks include access to the internet and a computer.

RFI/C -- The City conducted a Request for Information/Comment, which solicited extensive public input including over 300 public comments and 26 proposals from the private and non-profit sectors for how best to provide affordable, universal WiFi. The City incorporated many of the ideas and practices that were presented in the RFI/C process into the RFP.

RFP -- A review panel of city employees and an internationally known outside consulting firm undertook a detailed analysis of the proposals, each ranking them according to a methodology outlined in the RFP. The scores were combined and a final rating created for each proposer. EarthLink was the highest scorer.

Negotiations -- For the past seven (7) months, a team of City employees and consultants have been negotiating an agreement between the City and EarthLink to provide at little or no cost to the City, affordable and ubiquitous wireless Internet Broadband service.

Public/Private Partnership

San Francisco is pursuing a cooperative model that leverages the collective strengths of the public and private sector as well as the community itself. This model is consistent with many other large cities.

The City is providing access to certain rights of way and assets.

Earthlink installs, manages, and operate wireless broadband Internet access networks in municipalities throughout the United States in order to provide wireless broadband products and services to governments, businesses and consumers.

Google contributes to our model by being the provider of the free service tier, and bringing innovative new applications and services to the network.

Agreement

San Francisco has negotiated an agreement that reflects a balanced approach to the provision of wireless broadband Internet services, taking into account a broad range of input, often contradictory. San Francisco has been able to negotiate an agreement that delivers more community benefit than any other City in the United States.

Consumer Choice: This agreement fundamentally reflects the resident's rights as a consumer -- to choose to use or not use the system.

Cost to the City: With no financial commitment, taxpayer burden or risk for the design, deployment, operation, maintenance or support of the network.

Term: A short, 4-year initial term, providing flexibility should market and/or technology changes occur. This is the shortest initial term of any U.S. city. The initial term of the agreement is four (4) years, with three (3) optional 4 year extensions.

Fees paid to the City:

$600,000 in guaranteed payments for access to the City's right of way.

An estimated $40,000 per year for the use of City facilities (street light poles);

A 5% share of all gross access revenues, estimated to generate $300,000 per year, depending on paying subscriber uptake. These funds may be used to fund computer and other equipment, training and self-help programs and community relevant content development.

Network Speed:

A 300 Kbps free tier of service for use by all residents, businesses and visitors. This 300 Kbps tier is adequate for most basic Internet tasks such as web, email and even VoIP. Assuming 30% uptake of the free tier of service, this generates more than $4 million in value per year for the community.

A 1 Mbps symmetric services at a price of $21.95 per month for all residents and businesses. With identical upload and download speeds, this service is faster than existing ADSL services, plus it brings the added benefit of nomadic and mobile use.

A 1 Mbps service at the discounted rate of $12.95 per month for up to 3,200 qualifying low-income residents. This service delivers an estimated $350,000 one year in community value.

More





Whoosh! Goes the Internet: International Research Team Blazes the Optical Trail with Record-Setting Molecules
Press Release

The internet could soon shift into overdrive thanks to a new generation of optical molecules developed and tested by a team of researchers from Washington State University, the University of Leuven in Belgium and the Chinese Academy of Science in China.

The new materials, organic molecules known as chromophores, interact more strongly with light than any molecules ever tested. That makes them, or other molecules designed along the same principles, prime candidates for use in optical technologies such as optical switches, internet connections, optical memory systems and holograms. The molecules were synthesized by chemists in China, evaluated according to theoretical calculations by a physicist at WSU and tested for their actual optical properties by chemists in Belgium.

“To our great excitement, the molecules performed better than any other molecules ever measured,” said WSU physicist Mark Kuzyk.

The team’s findings are published in the January 1 issue of the journal Optics Letters, available online at www.opticsinfobase.org/abstract.cfm?msid=74078.

Ever since optical technologies became prominent in the 1970s, researchers have tried to improve the materials used to handle light. In 1999, Kuzyk discovered a fundamental limit to how strongly light can interact with matter. He went on to show that all molecules examined at that time fell far short of the limit. Even the best molecules had 30 times less “optical brawn,” as he calls it, than was theoretically possible. The molecules described in the new report break through this long-standing ceiling and are intrinsically 50 percent better than any previously tested, which means they are far more efficient at converting light energy to a useable form.

Earlier this year Kuzyk and two WSU colleagues published theoretical guidelines describing molecular structures that should excel at interacting with light. Koen Clays, a chemist at the University of Leuven in Belgium, had pioneered the use of a test called hyper-Rayleigh scattering to measure the strength of a molecule’s interaction with light. He was in the process of measuring molecules that had been sent to him by chemists from around the world, when he realized that some of his test molecules met the design criteria set forth in Kuzyk’s paper. One series of seven molecules, which had been supplied by chemist Yuxia Zhao at the Chinese Academy of Sciences, looked especially promising. When lead author Xavier Perez-Moreno studied the molecules, he found that two of them showed a more powerful interaction with light than had ever been observed before.

"We found an excellent agreement with Kuzyk's theoretical results,” said Perez-Moreno. “We use the quantum limits to try to get a clearer view of the nonlinear optical interaction and we wish to unveil the unifying principles behind the interaction of light and matter—a very ambitious goal. This summer we set some of the foundations of the quantum limits framework."

Perez-Moreno, a native of Spain, is pursuing a joint Ph.D. degree through Washington State University’s Department of Physics and the University of Leuven’s Department of Chemistry. He will be the first WSU student to receive a doctoral degree in conjunction with a non-U.S. institution.

The new design parameters call for a molecular structure that increases a property known as the “intrinsic hyperpolarizability,” which reflects how readily electrons in the molecule deform when the molecule mediates the merger of two photons into one, an action which is the basis of an optical switch.

Other researchers in the field hailed the breakthrough.

“This is a great lead,” said Geoff Lindsay of the U.S. Navy Research Department. “I would say this is the greatest advance in organic dye hyperpolarizability theory since the field began.”

According to physicist Ivan Biaggio of Lehigh University, the work “is a very important contribution that may help the community to finally deliver the all-optical switching performances that are needed for tomorrow’s all-optical data-processing networks, an aim that has eluded researchers for 20 years.”

In the new designs, each molecule has a component at one end that donates an electron and a component at the other end that accepts an electron. In between is the “bridge” portion of the molecule. Previous efforts to boost the interaction with light focused on “smoothing out” the bridge to allow electrons to flow more easily from donor to acceptor end. Kuzyk’s calculations showed that a more “bumpy” structure actually enhanced the interaction with light; and Clays recognized that Zhao’s structures filled the bill – which was confirmed by measurements made by his group. Quantum mechanics explains the behavior of electrons in this situation, Kuzyk said.

“When you’re looking at something like an electron, you can’t really think of it as a classical little ball that’s moving around,” Kuzyk said. “In reality what ends up happening is that the electron is in a lot of places at the same time. When the electron is all spread out, it can be interfering with itself. By inserting these speed bumps, you’re causing it to bunch up in certain places, and preventing it from interfering with itself.”

The molecules described in the current report have just one “speed bump;’ now that researchers have confirmed that the theoretical designs work, they are synthesizing molecules with more bumps.

“The calculations show that the more bumps, the better,” said Kuzyk.

He said that for use in optical switches or other products, the molecules would probably be embedded in a clear polymer that would provide structural assets such as the ability to be formed into a thin film or into fibers, molded into other shapes or used to coat circuits or chips.

Kuzyk is Boeing Distinguished Professor and associate chair in the Department of Physics and Astronomy at Washington State University. Clays is professor in the Department of Chemistry at the University of Leuven and an adjunct professor in the Department of Physics and Astronomy at WSU. Perez-Moreno is a graduate student jointly enrolled at WSU and the University of Leuven. Zhao is associate professor at the Technical Institute of Physics and Chemistry of the Chinese Academy of Sciences in Beijing. Their research was supported by the University of Leuven, the Belgian government, the Fund for Scientific Research in Flanders, the National Science Foundation and Wright-Paterson Air Force Base.

For more information, go to http://washington-state-magazine.wsu...May/kuzyk.html
http://www.wsunews.wsu.edu/detail.asp?StoryID=6216





Rupert Murdoch Doesn't Read This Column: Bob's Predictions for 2007.
Robert Cringely

This is my 2007 predictions column, where I first examine my predictions from 2006 to see how well or poorly I did (my multiyear average is around 75 percent) then provide a list of predictions for the current year that are sufficiently vague that I may be able to squint and claim that they were correct, too, a year from now.

I have to admit up front that it doesn't look good. I still think I am on track, but many things are taking longer to happen than I expected, especially from Apple.

1) I predicted that Apple would announce iPhone and iTV products as well as content deals. The content deals happened and some of the iTV technology was demonstrated, but I think we'll have to wait another week or so for the rest, so I guess I was wrong.

2) I said OS X would run on generic Intel hardware, though Apple wouldn't support it. This is true in the sense that people have made OS X run on generic Intel hardware, but APPLE hasn't, so the item is wrong.

3) More products, services, and a stock split for Google. I was right about the first bits but that's like predicting sunset will come. The split didn't happen because I never realized how much cash Google was going to generate -- far more than they can even spend. So the item is wrong.

4) More bad news for Sun. That's true.

5) IBM customers revolt. It is happening slower than makes sense, but yes, they are revolting. True.

6) More Vista delay. I'm going to claim this one because the Vista that's just appearing was delayed twice in 2006 alone and is a shadow of what it was intended to be. True.

7) PS3 is in trouble as is Howard Stringer. This is all true. The PS3 was late to market, the blue laser diode shortage has hurt the company, developers aren't amused, and the word inside Sony is that Sir Howard is toast. True.

8) WiMax will suffer under Sprint Nextel. My feeling here was that merging the two cell companies would be too distracting for them to do very much with their top asset (in my view) -- all those WiMax licenses. Since they didn't roll out much of anything in 2006, I'd say this one is true.

9) Media Center PCs still won't take off as they try to compete with cheaper embedded devices. True.

10) TiVo will be bought. Obviously wrong, though I still don't see the company surviving as an independent. Wrong.

11) Intel will rebrand itself and nobody will notice. Intel did, we didn't -- true.

12) No desktop OS or PC from Google. People (not me) were absolutely convinced this time last year that Google was going head-to- head against Windows. Nope. It didn't happen, and won't. I was correct.

13) Skype won't make much, if any, money for eBay in 2006 (or 2007). Skype got a lot of press and moved a long way toward building a better service that makes more business sense, but the company is still at least a year away from making money. True.

14) Yahoo will surprise us. Wrong. Yahoo is in a crisis from which the company may not recover with current management. Sigh.

15) Apple will license technology from Burst. They should have by now but the companies are still fighting in court. For those following the fight, a hearing on February 8th will lead to a decision less than a month later that will tightly define this patent battle in a way that will make one party or the other very happy. Nothing will happen until after that so-called Markman Claims Construction ruling, but then events should move forward quickly. Still, I was WRONG.

That is my worst performance EVER. I got nine of 15 predictions correct for a 60 percent average. In my defense I'll point out that just because I am wrong now doesn't mean I'll still be wrong in another week. Three years ago I predicted Intel would support AMD's 64-bit instruction extensions, but they took 53 weeks to do so, making me off by seven days. I think that by the end of February, 2-3 of these predictions could still swing the other direction.

But enough weaseling -- on to 2007! These are in no particular order:

1) Apple releases iTV, a bunch of flat-panel MacTV's that contain Mac Minis, etc. This is broken record and exactly what I predicted last year, but I still mean it.

2) Apple settles with Burst.com, takes a license, etc. Same broken record, same reason.

3) Apple (this is the last one, I promise) drops Akamai in favor of a different edge-serving CDN (content delivery network) -- possibly Apple's own or one Apple-labeled but Google-owned. I keep looking for a reason why Eric Schmidt is on the Apple board.

4) No one DRM technology emerges as the winner and the RIAA begins to back off as it loses a few legal cases. Still, no Internet-only song wins a Grammy or is even recognized as existing.

5) AMD and Intel continue to beat the crap out of each other with customers gaining but wondering why there is no software that supports those new 8-way processors, as both compilers and third-party developers fail to keep up.

6) Sony solves Blu-ray laser diode problem just in time for IBM to suffer production difficulties with the Cell processor. More bad news for Sony.

7) The Sony news is SO bad that it deserves two predictions. I would predict the fall of CEO Howard Stringer again if there were clearly somebody at Sony who wants his job. The business is in such difficulty that Microsoft is discussing internally how to help Sony from going under, since that would create a raft of antitrust problems for Redmond. I am not making this up.

8) Speaking of Microsoft, Windows Vista SP1 ships in June despite the fact that Vista structurally shouldn't require service packs. Except it will.

9) Zune 2.0 appears, isn't brown, but still nobody buys it.

10) The year the net crashed (in the USA). Video overwhelms the net and we all learn that the broadband ISPs have been selling us something they can't really deliver.

11) This one is subtle, you may have to read it twice. The year will see two kinds of large cap tech and media companies: those that destroy shareholder value quickly by acquiring companies and those that destroy shareholder value slowly by not acquiring them.

12) Some smart or lucky company will buy FeedBurner, which ought to be the YouTube or Skype equivalent for 2007. Yahoo really needs it and ought to buy, but being without a brain or a required sense of urgency Yahoo may miss the opportunity. Google ought to buy it but may not because Google has a similar service in beta that probably won't succeed. But SOME company will buy FeedBurner and start printing money as a result.

13) Sand Hill Road goes into a panic when it becomes clear that there is more money available than good opportunities for investing it, shades of 1999. No bubble this time, though, because the reasons behind the effect are different -- there is a decided lack of IPO activity -- but VCs will still be excessively crashing their MacLaren F1s as they see their era fading.

14) Remember outsourcing and offshoring? That tide turns for a bunch of reasons but mainly because a new class of CEOs will say the old class of CEOs was filled with idiots.

15) Google's Grand Plan is finally revealed, explaining all. Hey, wait, that's next week's column!
http://www.pbs.org/cringely/pulpit/2...05_001440.html





EBay Pressured to Move on Skype

Analysts worry that the online auctioneer is moving too slowly on its multibillion-dollar investment. Will more content allay their concerns?
Olga Kharif

When eBay Chief Executive Meg Whitman acquired Skype in fall 2005, she said, "by combining the two leading e-commerce franchises, eBay and PayPal, with [Skype], we will create an extraordinarily powerful environment for business on the Net." The deal, valued at $2.6 billion in cash and stock, plus an extra $1.5 billion in additional payments through 2009 if certain performance targets are met, set Wall Street tongues wagging.

Among the hoped-for gains: added business lines, new buyers and sellers to the auction site, and a jump-start for growth. But more than a year after the deal was struck, many analysts question whether eBay (EBAY) has done all it can to harness Skype and its technology. Some investors concur, as evidenced by the 20% decline in eBay's share price since September, 2005.

Some of the slump is due to concerns that eBay's core auctions business, accounting for 66% of sales, is slowing as e-commerce and online search competitors muscle their way onto eBay turf. Still, "strategic questions remain about Skype," says Laura Martin, an analyst with Soleil—Media Metrics. "It's still unclear how it benefits the core eBay platform. And monetization [on eBay's investment] has been slower to occur than we had hoped."
Slow Mover

Analysts including Paul Keung, who covers eBay for CIBC World Markets, speculate that Skype didn't reach its first set of performance-based goals, resulting in missed payments, or so-called earn-outs. A recent management shuffle sent Skype President Alex Kazim back to an executive post at eBay after only six months. Skype declined to comment on earn-outs and claims Kazim left because his new responsibilities made for a long commute.

Sure, there's been movement in the right direction. The Web-calling outfit is expected to book $195 million in sales in 2006, three times the 2005 figure; in December, Skype introduced a subscription-based calling plan, and it's expected to announce other service fees and more paid service plans later this month.

The problem, say many on Wall Street, is the lack of a broader vision for Skype. "This is probably enough to offset regulation fees," Michael Arden, an analyst with consultancy ABI Research, says of the new fees. What's lacking is greater and speedier integration with other eBay properties and a grand, sweeping plan hinted at by Whitman and others at eBay back in 2005.
Skype's Potential

The company says big changes are on the way and that more of that vision will come to the fore. "We are working on developing new e-commerce- and content-oriented, and advertising-related revenue streams," says Don Albert, vice-president and general manager of Skype North America. For now, most of the company's sales derive from telecom services like SkypeOut, which allows for calls from PCs to phones. "Over time, we see these [other revenue streams] accounting for the larger share of Skype's revenues," Albert says.

Consider the potential in online search ad revenues. Since last August, Skype has been working with search heavyweight Google (GOOG) to enable so-called click-to-call ads, which let the user place a call to a desired number directly from a list of ads that appear next to search results. The new feature, due to be in place in late 2007, could let eBay offer a completely new category of listings—and maybe even to share in online advertising dollars collected by Google.

The company is also toying with the idea of offering contextual advertising as part of its new text chat and Skypecast feature, allowing dozens of users to join regular live conversations on various topics, or even virtual concerts, where members sing and play music instruments for each other. It's easy to imagine how a weekly chat on gadgets might feature ads for the latest phones from the likes of Motorola (MOT) or Nokia (NOK), which announced on Jan. 8 that it will integrate Skype into its new tablet PC. For now, Skypecast use is still limited.
eBay's Offerings

More promising are the possibilities of integrating Skype with other eBay properties. The auction site is expanding use of Skype Me! buttons in various auction categories. Limited data seems to show the feature helps clinch sales. Yet, sellers using Skype Me! buttons are "few and far between," because many sellers aren't interested in fielding phone calls, says Keung, who doesn't expect that attitude to change any time soon.

There's also wide latitude for integrating Skype with eBay's online payment service, PayPal. This year, PayPal will become the preferred payment method used on Skype worldwide. And, some time in 2007, Skype will enable users to send money to each other via PayPal, Albert says. That could increase eBay's share of the personal remittances business. Considering the size of Skype's user base (136 million users at the end of the third quarter), this move could hit money-transfer agents and banks hard and result in extra business for eBay.

All in all, though, telecommunications remains Skype's main focus. "We think there's a tremendous opportunity of capturing our consumers' telecom spending," Albert says. Indeed, while small today, the Web-calling business is expected to grow: Worldwide revenues from Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP)—a fancy name for Web calling—will rise from $1.65 billion in 2006 to $19.1 billion in 2012, according to ABI Research. If Skype keeps its current 12% share of that money, its sales will reach nearly $2.3 billion by 2012. That would certainly be material for eBay, which booked $1.45 billion in the third quarter of 2006.
New Leader Needed?

All of which leaves some analysts wondering: What is taking you so long? "They need to do something soon," says Arden. "If [some big move] is not announced, Skype is going to be seen as a bad investment." Some wonder why eBay hasn't moved to combine its properties, including Skype, to, say, start an online brokerage firm, a social-networking site competing with News Corp.'s (NWS) MySpace, or a video-sharing site like YouTube. Others say eBay could have begun selling its Skype application to more large companies.

Some query whether Skype might do better under a visionary like News Corp.'s Rupert Murdoch, or under Virgin's Richard Branson, says Web-calling expert Jeff Pulver. "If they are not getting all they can out of it, the property is still valuable, they've grown it a lot," says David Prokupek, the founder of Geronimo Financial, which invested in eBay stock as the auction powerhouse's valuation slid. "We suspect Skype is more valuable today than when they purchased it. In this [mergers and acquisitions] market, maybe someone else could do more with it." A spokesperson says eBay has no plans to sell or spin off Skype.

Whatever it does, eBay needs to move soon. A slew of competitors are pushing into its market. Take, for instance, an outfit called Jajah, backed by powerful venture capital firm Sequoia Capital. The company allows for free calling between cell phones—a service that Skype users need to download additional software and to pay SkypeOut charges for (see BusinessWeek.com, 09/26/06, "Jajah's Mobile Ambitions"). It's just the kind of service eBay could make work. "They are pretty creative people," says Donald Yacktman, portfolio manager for the Yacktman Funds, which purchased eBay shares on price weakness last summer. It may just be a matter of putting that creative energy to work.
http://businessweek.com/technology/c...7s+top+stories





Attack of the Zombie Computers Is Growing Threat
John Markoff

In their persistent quest to breach the Internet’s defenses, the bad guys are honing their weapons and increasing their firepower.

With growing sophistication, they are taking advantage of programs that secretly install themselves on thousands or even millions of personal computers, band these computers together into an unwitting army of zombies, and use the collective power of the dragooned network to commit Internet crimes.

These systems, called botnets, are being blamed for the huge spike in spam that bedeviled the Internet in recent months, as well as fraud and data theft.

Security researchers have been concerned about botnets for some time because they automate and amplify the effects of viruses and other malicious programs.

What is new is the vastly escalating scale of the problem — and the precision with which some of the programs can scan computers for specific information, like corporate and personal data, to drain money from online bank accounts and stock brokerages.

“It’s the perfect crime, both low-risk and high-profit,” said Gadi Evron, a computer security researcher for an Israeli-based firm, Beyond Security, who coordinates an international volunteer effort to fight botnets. “The war to make the Internet safe was lost long ago, and we need to figure out what to do now.”

Last spring, a program was discovered at a foreign coast guard agency that systematically searched for documents that had shipping schedules, then forwarded them to an e-mail address in China, according to David Rand, chief technology officer of Trend Micro, a Tokyo-based computer security firm. He declined to identify the agency because it is a customer.

Although there is a wide range of estimates of the overall infection rate, the scale and the power of the botnet programs have clearly become immense. David Dagon, a Georgia Institute of Technology researcher who is a co-founder of Damballa, a start-up company focusing on controlling botnets, said the consensus among scientists is that botnet programs are present on about 11 percent of the more than 650 million computers attached to the Internet.

Plagues of viruses and other malicious programs have periodically swept through the Internet since 1988, when there were only 60,000 computers online. Each time, computer security managers and users have cleaned up the damage and patched holes in systems.

In recent years, however, such attacks have increasingly become endemic, forcing increasingly stringent security responses. And the emergence of botnets has alarmed not just computer security experts, but also specialists who created the early Internet infrastructure.

“It represents a threat but it’s one that is hard to explain,” said David J. Farber, a Carnegie Mellon computer scientist who was an Internet pioneer. “It’s an insidious threat, and what worries me is that the scope of the problem is still not clear to most people.” Referring to Windows computers, he added, “The popular machines are so easy to penetrate, and that’s scary.”

So far botnets have predominantly infected Windows-based computers, although there have been scattered reports of botnet-related attacks on computers running the Linux and Macintosh operating systems. The programs are often created by small groups of code writers in Eastern Europe and elsewhere and distributed in a variety of ways, including e-mail attachments and downloads by users who do not know they are getting something malicious. They can even be present in pirated software sold on online auction sites. Once installed on Internet-connected PCs, they can be controlled using a widely available communications system called Internet Relay Chat, or I.R.C.

ShadowServer, a voluntary organization of computer security experts that monitors botnet activity, is now tracking more than 400,000 infected machines and about 1,450 separate I.R.C. control systems, which are called Command & Control servers.

The financial danger can be seen in a technical report presented last summer by a security researcher who analyzed the information contained in a 200-megabyte file that he had intercepted. The file had been generated by a botnet that was systematically harvesting stolen information and then hiding it in a secret location where the data could be retrieved by the botnet master.

The data in the file had been collected during a 30-day period, according to Rick Wesson, chief executive of Support Intelligence, a San Francisco-based company that sells information on computer security threats to corporations and federal agencies. The data came from 793 infected computers and it generated 54,926 log-in credentials and 281 credit-card numbers. The stolen information affected 1,239 companies, he said, including 35 stock brokerages, 86 bank accounts, 174 e-commerce accounts and 245 e-mail accounts.

Sensor information collected by his company is now able to identify more than 250,000 new botnet infections daily, Mr. Wesson said.

“We are losing this war badly,” he said. “Even the vendors understand that we are losing the war.”

According to the annual intelligence report of MessageLabs, a New York-based computer security firm, more than 80 percent of all spam now originates from botnets. Last month, for the first time ever, a single Internet service provider generated more than one billion spam e-mail messages in a 24-hour period, according to a ranking system maintained by Trend Micro, the computer security firm. That indicated that machines of the service providers’ customers had been woven into a giant network, with a single control point using them to pump out spam.

The extent of the botnet threat was underscored in recent months by the emergence of a version of the stealthy program that adds computers to the botnet. The recent version of the program, which security researchers are calling “rustock,” infected several hundred thousand Internet-connected computers and then began generating vast quantities of spam e-mail messages as part of a “pump and dump” stock scheme.

The author of the program, who is active on Internet technical discussion groups and claims to live in Zimbabwe, has found a way to hide the infecting agent in such a way that it leaves none of the traditional digital fingerprints that have been used to detect such programs.

Moreover, although rustock is currently being used for distributing spam, it is a more general tool that can be used with many other forms of illegal Internet activity.

“It could be used for other types of malware as well,” said Joe Stewart, a researcher at SecureWorks, an Atlanta-based computer security firm. “It’s just a payload delivery system with extra stealth.”

Last month Mr. Stewart tracked trading around a penny stock being touted in a spam campaign. The Diamant Art Corporation was trading for 8 cents on Dec. 15 when a series of small transactions involving 11,532,726 shares raised the price of the stock to 11 cents. After the close of business that day, a Friday, a botnet began spewing out millions of spam messages, he said.

On the following Monday, the stock went first to 19 cents per share and then ultimately to 25 cents a share. He estimated that if the spammer then sold the shares purchased at the peak on Monday he would realize a $20,000 profit. (By Dec. 20, it was down to 12 cents.)

Computer security experts warn that botnet programs are evolving faster than security firms can respond and have now come to represent a fundamental threat to the viability of the commercial Internet. The problem is being compounded, they say, because many Internet service providers are either ignoring or minimizing the problem.

“It’s a huge scientific, policy, and ultimately social crisis, and no one is taking any responsibility for addressing it,” said K. C. Claffy , a veteran Internet researcher at the San Diego Supercomputer Center.

The $6 billion computer security industry offers a growing array of products and services that are targeted at network operators, corporations and individual computer users. Yet the industry has a poor track record so far in combating the plague, according to computer security researchers.

“This is a little bit like airlines advertising how infrequently they crash into mountains,” said Mr. Dagon, the Georgia Tech researcher.

The malicious software is continually being refined by “black hat” programmers to defeat software that detects the malicious programs by tracking digital fingerprints.

Some botnet-installed programs have been identified that exploit features of the Windows operating system, like the ability to recognize recently viewed documents. Botnet authors assume that any personal document that a computer owner has used recently will also be of interest to a data thief, Mr. Dagon said.

Serry Winkler, a sales representative in Denver, said that she had turned off the network-security software provided by her Internet service provider because it slowed performance to a crawl on her PC, which was running Windows 98. A few months ago four sheriff’s deputies pounded on her apartment door to confiscate the PC, which they said was being used to order goods from Sears with a stolen credit card. The computer, it turned out, had been commandeered by an intruder who was using it remotely.

“I’m a middle-aged single woman living here for six years,” she said. “Do I sound like a terrorist?”

She is now planning to buy a more up-to-date PC, she said.
http://news.com.com/Attack+of+the+zo...l?tag=nefd.top





CES: Like Woodstock for Marketing Execs
Michael Kanellos

The Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas is more than a nearly week-long peek into the future of home electronics. It's also a panicky mob of people from all over the world trying to figure out who will be the winners and losers in a multibillion-dollar global business.

Here are some expected highlights of the massive event, which kicks off at 6:30 p.m. PST Sunday with a preshow keynote address by Microsoft Chairman Bill Gates and then runs through Thursday.

• IPTV. Cellular carriers, TV networks and Microsoft are expected to announce initiatives (or flesh out previously announced plans) to deliver television programming over the Internet. An IPTV dream world will take time to create: program guides will need to be tweaked and it will need to be determined how consumers will pay for content. (Subscriptions? Pay per show?) Still, the concept has become inevitable, and it's moving forward fast. Two years ago at CES, high-ranking Microsoft execs talked about IPTV, and the idea seemed more like a distant vision.

This week, CBS Research released the results of a poll that said 56 percent of Americans knew they could watch programs by streaming them.

Samsung will even show off an RV rigged up with broadband to show the benefits of IPTV (South Koreans already get TV over the Net). So not so many years from now, you'll be able to say, "I've scoured the Internet and nothing's on."

Likely to discuss IPTV in their respective keynotes are Gates, not only chairman at Microsoft but also the company's CVS (chief V-neck sweater wearer); Walt Disney CEO Robert Iger, speaking Monday; and CBS Chief Executive Leslie Moonves, speaking Tuesday. Expect cable companies to chime in on the debate too.

• Home networks. Companies such as Cisco Systems, Intel and Gateway for years have tried to get consumers to link their TVs, PCs and stereos into home networks. So far, consumers haven't bitten to any large extent. But the sudden rise of Internet video, technologies like powerline networking and breakthroughs in wireless technology are giving the concept momentum.

Many companies at CES will announce wireless speakers and hubs. Cisco CEO John Chambers will likely tout the idea in his speech on Tuesday. Also that day, but on the other side of the Sierra Nevadas, Apple Computer will likely do the same at Macworld in San Francisco.

• Next-generation DVDs. Blu-ray and HD DVD kiss and make up. Earlier this week, I predicted that the two factions would settle their differences in a parking lot. LG Electronics beat the rush. On Wednesday, the South Korean manufacturer said it will offer a combo player in the first quarter. Many component manufacturers are producing parts for this as well. Questions remain. A combo player will likely be expensive, and it's unclear how many other manufacturers will follow LG's lead.

Still, the slow sales of these devices could prompt other companies to roll out plans for combo players. Pioneer was going to do it earlier, but scrapped its plans.

LG will provide details on its player on Sunday morning at 8 a.m. PST.

• The return of Sony. Sony historically has been synonymous with cutting-edge electronics and sterling design. Lately, though, it's also been linked with recalls, product shortages and delays. The Japanese giant will aim to use the show to rebound from the past two years. Although not on the keynote roster, executives such as CEO Howard Stringer will likely use the show as a stage to talk about what the future holds for Sony. Look for a number of products at the Sony booth.

• Dell comes back too. Dell's another company that didn't exactly have a stellar 2006. On the gadget front, market share figures also show that Dell has not done as well as smaller companies like Vizio or Westinghouse in digital TV. Michael Dell delivers a keynote on Tuesday, where he will launch an environmental initiative and likely trot out some Dell products. Other Dell execs will be on hand too.

• Car tech. The automotive pavilion at CES has been growing steadily. Although a lot of car manufacturers are revving up to make their big announcements at the Detroit Auto Show, which starts Sunday, expect to see a lot of gear for watching DVDs or storing MP3s in cars.

• Set-top boxes in stores. Remember back in the '90s, when visionaries talked up intelligent set-top boxes that could retrieve information from the Internet, bring movies on demand, and provide other information? The concept fizzled, but it's now making a comeback. By the middle of 2007, cable companies will be required to let consumers buy their own set-tops rather than rent them. Digeo, which years ago bought Moxi, and others will make announcements at the show.

• Bigger, brighter TVs. Manufacturers will come out with 1080p TVs, which offer the highest level of performance today. But expect to see Pioneer, Westinghouse and others show off TVs that provide even better performance. At Ceatec in Tokyo last October, Sharp showed off a TV that provides four times the resolution of the sharpest TVs today and the company will likely show off some novel technology at its press conference on Sunday and at its booth. Some Japanese companies have even sharper TVs.

Philips, which last year revealed a 3D TV initiative and later showed off its screen, will likely bring some of the sets along. Samsung is expected to dip a 3D toe in the water.

One TV you won't see, however, is Toshiba's SED TV. Legal issues prevent Toshiba from showing it in the states, sources say.

• Home defense technology. There's always a great collection of night scopes, Taser guns and personal-defense items at CES. I'm not sure why, but this stuff is always great to see.

• Hard drives vs. flash memory. Before CES formally begins, there will be Storage Visions, where hard-drive makers will tout terabyte drives and hybrid drives, while flash makers show how they plan to get into notebooks. Ideally, the conference would conclude with a pushup contest to decide a winner, but that's another decision that will be left to the marketplace.

• WiMax. It's coming for notebooks, but expect more later in the quarter when Intel formally introduces its new line of notebook chips.
http://news.com.com/CES+Like+Woodsto...3-6147618.html





A Cool Gadget Here, an A-List Chieftain There
Richard Siklos

WITH the end of the holidays comes a fresh start and new resolve to lead a loftier, healthier, simpler life. Maybe it’s time to tend the garden, take up the harpsichord or read Proust. Then, before you know it, everyone in the media business hops on planes to Las Vegas and swarms the Consumer Electronics Show, which starts today.

More than the Oscars, the Emmys, the Grammys or the endless investment bank conferences and guru gatherings where media honchos strut, C.E.S., as the event is known, has quickly emerged in the last few years as the Super Bowl of cluster-huddles. Over the next few days, 150,000 people will jam convention center floors in the Nevada desert.

Sure, most of the people darting around the endless rows of display booths are either representatives of electronics, computer or software companies that are showing off their wares, or are buyers from retail chains trying to figure out what the must-have gizmo will be next Christmas.

But for the first time this year, the Consumer Electronics Association, host for the palaver, has tallied the number of media industry — or “content,” as they put it — attendees: about 10,000. The media chieftains Leslie Moonves of CBS and Robert A. Iger of the Walt Disney Company will occupy two of five slots for industry keynote speeches, which are increasingly seen as symbolically important for showing everyone how brilliant and tech-savvy one’s company is and how glorious its future is shaping up to be.

Last year, the keynote speakers included Sir Howard Stringer of Sony, Terry S. Semel of Yahoo and Larry Page of Google, accompanied on stage by the likes of Tom Hanks and Tom Cruise, Robin Williams and Dan Brown, author of “The Da Vinci Code.” Peter A. Chernin of the News Corporation was the featured speaker at a big dinner the electronics association held for dignitaries.

In other words, this is the chance for media biggies to show that they know their Bluetooth from their Blu-Ray, their OutKast from their Comcast.

But there are deeper tensions in the hospitality suites as the corporate titans combine and recombine themselves in various consortiums and partnerships with gadget makers and Web giants with hopes of getting a jump on the next guy.

Every time I’ve been to Las Vegas, at C.E.S. or otherwise, I have marveled at the incongruity amid the theme park architecture, pulsing lights and thumping music — and at how many glum faces there are in the crowds and at the casino tables. There’s a lot more losing going on than winning.

The question this year is: Which technologies can Hollywood throw its resources behind to generate the next wave of profits? After all, DVD growth has slowed, radio is struggling to find new revenues, the music industry continues to grasp for footing and the television business is on the brink of reinvention.

Last year, Americans spent $150 billion on all manner of devices needed to play, watch, communicate and learn. And so it is no accident that the technology and engineering branch of the Emmy Awards will hand out its awards at C.E.S. for the first time, and the Academy of Recording Arts and Sciences is host for a Grammy party on Monday night.

Gary Shapiro, the president of the Consumer Electronics Association, points out that the trade floor will include a “legal downloading area” and tells me that Dan Glickman, head of the Motion Picture Association of America, will be there as his “special guest.”

It was not ever thus. The first C.E.S., held in the summer of 1967 in New York City, attracted a crowd roughly one-tenth the size of this year’s and featured various symposiums and seminars and, according to the C.E.S. Web site, an “all industry” banquet with an “all-inclusive price” of $10 per person.

The first solid-state TV was introduced at that debut show, while the 110 exhibitors — compared with more than 2,500 today — showcased the latest in transistor radios, stereos and small-screen black-and-white TVs.

C.E.S. didn’t fully begin to draw the media crowd — the movie and television producers and the music executives — until the DVD was introduced a decade ago and digital technology took hold. Then, of course, the Internet ushered in a whole new category of products and Web applications like file-sharing that at first blush posed more of an immediate threat than a benefit to existing business models.

Another boost for C.E.S.’s profile came when its main rival in the realm of what Mr. Shapiro calls “converging industries,” the computer trade show Comdex, sputtered out in 2003.

Even five years ago, the media industry was largely at odds with the consumer electronics folks, who in turn were dueling with the computer and software people whose products were increasingly competing for household dominance. Hollywood executives sent emissaries to poke around C.E.S. and to report on the latest things to worry about.

Mr. Shapiro, who spends the rest of his year lobbying for the electronics association, noted that Mr. Iger’s keynote performance would be a milestone because his legendary predecessor, Michael D. Eisner, was a staunch opponent of the electronics industry on a number of lobbying fronts.

“I started my career fighting Disney on new technologies including the VCR in the 1970s and 1980s,” Mr. Shapiro recalled. “When Robert Iger came on, it was like a 180-degree switch and I can’t tell you how happy I am. Instead of fighting them in Washington, we’re working with them.”

Mr. Iger’s speech is noteworthy in another respect: given the arrival a year ago of Steven P. Jobs, the Apple Computer founder, on the board of Disney — where he is also the largest individual shareholder — closer alliances between Disney’s content and Apple’s iPods and other gadgets have been forged.

Yet Apple is the one company that pointedly sits out C.E.S. in favor of its own clambake, Macworld, which this year is even running at the same time as C.E.S., but up in San Francisco. It’s not exactly Nixon coming to China, but Mr. Iger’s appearance in Las Vegas shows that he is taking the temperature of the times and shrewdly keeping his options open.

AND so this week his company, Viacom and Time Warner are just a few of the media businesses expected to announce new ventures during the convention, including the new Total HD videodisc from Warner Brothers. That product is meant to bring détente between warring manufacturers of high-definition DVD players by creating a disc that will work in both machines.

The general rule may still be that what happens in Vegas stays in Vegas. But what happens at C.E.S. will shape the media battleground for the year ahead. Maybe tending the garden can wait until next year.
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/01/07/bu.../07frenzy.html





Companies Pay Dearly for Tech Trade Show
Brad Stone and Damon Darlin

For a small technology company called Digeo, the annual Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas is one of the biggest opportunities of the year. For the next few days, the city will be jampacked with potential customers, partners and press — but the price of participation is daunting.

It starts with $24,500 for reserving 700 square feet of booth space on the sprawling convention center floor, tens of thousands more to furnish and operate the booth, plus $300 a night for hotel rooms for each of the 29 Digeo employees who are attending the convention.

Then there is the cost of rental vans, thousands of dollars to advertise at the show and meals for employees. The eight-year-old company, which makes gear and software for home entertainment, estimates that it will spend $500,000 to $1 million on the show this year.

Is it worth it? “Ask me afterward,” said Allison Cornia, vice president for marketing at Digeo.

Financial anxieties aside, Digeo, like almost every other technology company, hardly thinks twice about attending the event, North America’s largest trade show and the industry’s flashiest stage, which turns 40 years old this year.

Luminaries like Bill Gates, Michael S. Dell and Robert A. Iger, the Disney chief executive, will deliver keynote speeches. Starting Monday, powerhouses like Sony, Samsung and Panasonic will light up the showroom floor for four days with their largest high-definition TVs, smallest digital music players and latest high-tech gadgets, many of them months away from going on sale.

The event, known in the industry as C.E.S., provides more than $80 million in revenue for the Consumer Electronics Association, an industry trade group and lobbyist. It has thrived even as Comdex, the computer industry show that once held sway here, went bust. And it is a windfall for a booming city.

The Las Vegas Convention and Visitors Authority estimates that 140,000 attendees and 2,700 exhibiting companies will pump about $230 million into the city economy this year, 40 percent more than the show generated in 2001.

But for many of the exhibiting companies, C.E.S. is something else entirely: a huge and ever-growing bill and a challenge to be heard by the industry elite over a deafening cacophony.

“I don’t think you can buy the value you are getting from exposure to that many people,” said Sterling Pratz, chief executive of Autonet Mobile, a month-old company trying to bring Internet access into cars.

Mr. Pratz is bringing all six of his employees to the show and asking them to share hotel rooms to save money. “We are putting the people who snore together,” he said.

Headaches for companies at C.E.S. go far beyond simply opening the corporate pocketbook. Hotels triple their rates for the event, and most of the city’s 133,000 rooms are sold out for months in advance.

A regular suite at Caesars Palace that runs $99 a night any other weekday will go for $350 during C.E.S. On the other end of the spectrum, Verizon Wireless is renting the Hardwood suite at the Palms Casino Resort — which features a half basketball court and 10,000-square-foot room. The room goes for $25,000 a night.

Hewlett-Packard, a major exhibitor that has paid $40,000 to brand big plastic tote bags with its Connecting Your World slogan, has to find accommodations for 500 employees for the week. It does get a discount because it buys in bulk, a marketing executive said, but he said total show expenses easily run to several million dollars.

On the convention floor, booth space costs $35 a square foot for association members and $40 for anyone else. That means the electronics giant Samsung, this year’s largest exhibitor, with a 25,000-square-foot booth, will pay the Consumer Electronics Association $875,000 for real estate alone.

C.E.S. is so vast that GES Exhibition Services, the show’s main contractor, lays 350,000 feet of extension cord, enough to run up and down the Empire State Building 140 times, and 1.2 million square feet of aisle carpet, enough to cover 600 average homes.

Other charges include union labor to bring the booth materials into the hall ($70 an hour), separate union workers to actually build the booth (up to $1 million for the larger setups), Internet access ($1,195), booth “spokesmodels” ($300 a day plus agency fees) and water ($49 for a case of 24 bottles) to keep everyone properly hydrated.

The toll on the expense accounts, and sanity, of technology executives does not stop there.

Limousines are used to chauffeur many executives from the convention center to the hotels on the Strip, where companies set up hospitality suites or showrooms. But the streets are so clogged with traffic that it can take 30 minutes to travel from the convention center to a nearby hotel.

The city’s entire fleet of limousines has been booked, often for 30 percent over the regular rate, and one of the few available minibuses would cost a company’s marketing department $4,656 over four days, according to one firm, Las Vegas Transportation.

Restaurants are sold out months in advance. Craftsteak, the star chef Tom Colicchio’s steakhouse at the MGM Grand, is booked solid for the first three days and says it will do 40 percent more business than usual. The “surf and turf” tasting menu (Kobe beef, lobster and salmon) costs $135 a plate, but the restaurant asks for a minimum bill of $3,000 to $4,000 from large groups.

Putting on parties is not cheap either. On Tuesday night, Dell is renting out Madame Tussaud’s wax museum. Such a party, including music, food, premium liquor and photos of guests with Lucille Ball and George Washington, can cost $60,000.

On many nights during C.E.S. there are miniconventions in hotel ballrooms, like tomorrow’s Digital Experience at Caesars Palace. Exhibition tables at the event go for up to $12,000 to companies like Sony and Microsoft, which seek to court the attending journalists.

Chris O’Malley, a partner at Pepcom, the company that runs Digital Experience, says the cost of operating his event at C.E.S. goes up 20 percent each year. As attendance grows, he said, prices for food, drinks, labor and ballroom rentals rise, too.

“Las Vegas is the ultimate supply-and-demand city,” he said. “The cost to host 1,500 hungry, thirsty people during the most expensive week in the city is now a little staggering.”

Yet pretty much every company in the intermingling fields of consumer electronics, entertainment, automotive gadgets and video games arrives for C.E.S. and takes part in some way, even if it is not directly on the showroom floor. I.B.M., which says its computer business is growing indistinguishable from consumer electronics, is returning to the convention center after a 10-year hiatus and renting 3,600 square feet.

On the other hand, DirecTV, after renting a booth for the last decade, is leaving the show floor amid concerns about rising costs and what its co-president, John Suranyi, calls “the hype and clutter of the experience.” Instead, it is renting a ballroom at Caesars Palace and holding its own events during the show.

Some companies clearly do not mind the chaos. Monster Cable, a company in Brisbane, Calif., that makes home entertainment products that in any other context would appear numbingly dull — like cables connecting audio and video equipment — leaps at the annual opportunity to catch a bit of Las Vegas glamour.

This year it will put 140 employees up at the Venetian Hotel, operate two separate booths and six private demo rooms at the convention center, and put on a Monday night concert at the Venetian Palace that will unite the jazz greats George Benson and Al Jarreau.

The company would not specify its overall C.E.S. expenditure but said that it devoted 10 to 15 percent of its annual marketing budget to the show.

Monster’s chief executive, Noel Lee, said the investment was worthwhile because the show gave his employees a singular goal and deadline. “If it weren’t for C.E.S., we could not have grown the company the way we have,” he said.

Many companies say the show actually saves them money by allowing sales representatives to meet all their prospective customers in one place, instead of taking multiple business trips later in the year.

“There is an amazing ability for a small company like us to go in and be able to meet with senior executives all at once,” said Singu Srinivas, co-founder of HiWired, a three-year-old company from Needham, Mass., offering technical support to consumers and small companies.

Last year at C.E.S., HiWired scored a promising partnership with the retailer OfficeMax after Mr. Srinivas met its executives at a cocktail party and went out with them the next night for an informal dinner. “The nature of meetings is very different in Las Vegas,” Mr. Srinivas said.

This year, HiWired will bring six of its employees and will pay $20,000 to attend C.E.S. and rent a table at a press event, ShowStoppers, on Monday night.

For some attendees, C.E.S. is not just expensive and essential — it is also a tad bittersweet. Jason Chudnofsky, who will attend this year on behalf of the trade show and publishing firm Pulvermedia, ran the Comdex conference for 16 years before it imploded in 2003 after the technology bust. Many of the companies, speakers and attendees have since migrated to C.E.S.

Mr. Chudnofsky thinks that even though the same growing pains that afflicted his show also plague C.E.S. — overcrowding, draconian room rates and grueling convention floor walks — the annual Consumer Electronics Show is not going away anytime soon.

“The reason is simple,” he said. “There is no other event that can take its place and bring the entire industry together like C.E.S.”
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/01/06/te...ref=technology





A Wireless Boost for Video at Home
Marguerite Reardon

Everyone from Apple Computer to Microsoft is promising products this year that will stream photos, movies, and music from PCs to TVs and other screens around the house. How is all that content going to make it from your living room to other devices around the house?

The answer is likely to be: through a wireless connection. Some technology groups are promoting the use of existing cable TV infrastructure or electrical wiring throughout the home to distribute media. Many pundits, however, say wireless could be the cheapest and most convenient option for distributing media throughout the home.

"The cable or satellite TV hook up is never where you want it," said Craig Mathias, an analyst at Farpoint Group. "And running new wires throughout the house is expensive and a mess. Wireless lets you move the TV or use another device to watch something anywhere in your house."

Truth be told, wireless media streaming has had its problems. Companies such as Linksys, Dell, and Sony have released products, and sales have stunk. Still, experts say new wireless technologies could make in-home wireless distribution more compelling.

These technologies are likely to be hot topics of discussion this week at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas, where several companies will be touting multiroom DVRs, media centers and adapters, and at MacWorld in San Francisco, where Apple will likely give more details about which wireless technology it plans to use with its iTV product.

Technologies likely to get the most buzz will be Wi-Fi and maybe even Wimax along with shorter range wireless technologies, such as ultra-wideband (UWB) and the new Wireless HD technology.

Most of the chatter around Wi-Fi will come from companies showing off products based on the emerging standard 802.11n. While the IEEE hasn't yet ratified the standard, the Wi-Fi Alliance is expected to certify equipment as pre-standard 802.11n later this year. Experts don't expect the standard, which has been batted around by different companies in the industry for more than a year, to change much from what the Wi-Fi Alliance certifies and what the IEEE ratifies in late 2007 or early 2008.

Many vendors have been shipping routers that comply with the first draft of the 802.11n standard for more than a year. Some of these players will be showing off their equipment at CES. The new Wi-Fi standard is being groomed for video delivery because it delivers higher data rates than previous versions of Wi-Fi did, boosting throughput to as much as 540 megabits per second at its peak. This is 10 times the peak data rate of 802.11g technology. Realistic sustained speeds are likely to be much less than this, but 802.11n still transmits much faster and farther than the current generation of Wi-Fi.

And because 802.11n uses MIMO (multiple-in, multiple-out) technology, it can reach greater distances--up to 150 feet indoors. When implemented correctly, it can also penetrate through several walls, providing coverage throughout an entire home, said Greg Raleigh, vice president of wireless connectivity for Qualcomm and formerly the president of MIMO chipmaker Airgo, which was recently acquired by Qualcomm.

"When 802.11n is deployed well, it is a no-brainer for delivery of video," he said. "You don't have to worry about any old cable plant or circuit breakers that may impact transmission."

Companies, such as the start-up Ruckus, have developed technologies that work with Wi-Fi to improve reliability. Because Wi-Fi uses an unlicensed spectrum, it can suffer from interference from other household wireless devices, such as wireless phones and garage door openers. Ruckus has already developed a "smart Wi-Fi subsystem" for 802.11g signals, and it will likely introduce one for 802.11n as well.

Other companies have also tinkered with Wi-Fi to improve performance and reliability. Neosonik, a start-up from Northern California, has come up with a proprietary spin on 802.11a for a wireless home stereo system. Quartics also has devised a Wi-Fi chip for this task.

Some companies, such as Radiospire Networks, have suggested using Wimax to transmit video throughout the home. Intel and Motorola have been working to develop Wimax chipsets for PCs and other consumer electronics. But for the most part, the technology has been seen as a wide-area broadband technology that could replace or augment cellular or citywide Wi-Fi services. Nationwide cell-phone carrier Sprint Nextel has already said it plans to use Wimax to deliver its next generation wireless service over 2.5GHz spectrum.

While 802.11n Wi-Fi greatly improves throughput for Wi-Fi signals, the technology is not fast enough to support high-definition streams without compressing the video signals. By contrast, other wireless technologies are emerging that provide very high bandwidth, but those transmissions are over much shorter distances.

For the last couple of years, chipmakers have touted UWB technology as the high-speed, short-range, low-power wireless technology that would do away with cables. But for over a year, it has languished without a firm standard. Even so, the technology seems to be getting a bit of a revival as the WiMedia Alliance starts certifying some products. Belkin has announced a wireless USB Hub that offers transfer speeds up to 480Mbps at more than 30 feet. The European Union has given the technology the green light, and SK Telecom in Korea has stated plans to work with chip vendors to embed UWB in cell phones.

In general, the UWB technology is capable of offering data transmission speeds ranging from 100 megabits per second to more than 2 gigabits per second. But unlike Wi-Fi, it is limited in distance, only transmitting between 10 feet and 30 feet. For this reason, Wi-Fi supporters say the UWB technology will never catch on for distributing video throughout the home.

"Ultrawideband has no hope in distributing video in the home because 10 feet is just too short a distance to be worthwhile," said Qualcomm's Raleigh. "That barely gets you out of one room, and it doesn't allow you to transmit through walls. If you want to transmit video from a central DVR to another DVR in another room, it just won't work."

But some experts like Farpoint's Mathias believe the distance limitations may not be such a problem as repeaters could be used to boost the signal over greater distances. He said it could be much more important to transmit signals uncompressed so that users don't have to sacrifice picture quality.

Other emerging short-range wireless technologies could prove ideal for transmitting uncompressed HD video. Late last year, Sony, Panasonic, Samsung, Toshiba, NEC, and LG Electronics announced they were working on a technology called WirelessHD , which could transmit high-definition video and audio between a consumer's entertainment devices by using the unlicensed 60GHz spectrum. The final specification is expected by spring 2007, and products could ship in 2008, the companies said.

Each of these technologies is evolving, and each has positive and negative attributes, which makes Mathias hesitant to pick a single winner. By next year's CES, the picture should be much clearer.

"None of these technologies is perfect," he said. "But eventually the market will settle on one or two."
http://news.com.com/A+wireless+boost...3-6107938.html





Sony Dips Its Toes Into Internet TV
Eric Taub

The day when consumers can download content from the Internet directly to their TV may not be that far off. Last night, Sony announced a plan to sell a module that, when connected to their next generation of flat panel TVs, will allow customers to watch music, short videos, and other high-def content that’s streaming off the Internet.

Sony is certainly not the only company that’s testing the Internet waters. Netflix has long talked about its interest in having customers download movies rather than sending out physical DVDs.

Sony’s free programming will be streamed, available to viewers soon after it’s requested. Sony has struck deals with AOL, Grouper and Yahoo for the material. To insure program integrity, the data will be buffered, which means that long-form programming like movies won’t be available in this first version of the rollout.

The module, which company officials said privately would cost in the $300 range, may eventually be superceded by a model that includes a hard drive. At that point, downloading feature films from the Internet could become a reality–assuming that the Hollywood studios agree.

Keeping Our Eyes on the Road
Brad Stone

Few companies at CES can claim their products save lives. In fact, all the firms trying to fill our cars with distracting GPS devices and flat-panel screens are, arguably, endangering them.

VoiceBox, a Seattle-based speech recognition company, has a promising answer. Today it announced it is targeting the automotive market. It is working with car makers like Toyota, car-gadget makers like Tom and XM Radio, and speech recognition developers like IBM, Microsoft and Nuance to bring voice commands to automobiles. With VoiceBox, you can speak to your gadgets, instead of taking your hand from the wheel and your eyes from the road.

I just rode in a VoiceBox-equipped car. We changed channels on its XM Radio, made a few phone calls on the car phone and asked for GPS directions—all with spoken commands. It worked well. Unfortunately, VoiceBox marketing vice president Tom Freeman doesn’t think the majority of after-market auto gadgets will listen to voices until 2008; the technology won’t truly saturate cars until 2010.

BitTorrent Comes to the Television
Brad Stone

Yesterday we discussed the three ways tech companies are fighting to bring Internet content to TV screens. This week we are going to hear a lot from the class I called The Extenders, who want to send Web video from the PC, where it currently resides, to the TV, where it really belongs.

Case in point: today’s partnership between tiny San Francisco-based BitTorrent, and Silicon Valley network-equipment maker Netgear. BitTorrent fancies itself a major player in the emerging video download market, right alongside Apple. Though its software is known more for Napster-style illegal-file swapping, the company has scored major deals with movie studios like Paramount and Warner Bros. and plans to launch a legal movie download store on its Web site in February. This new Netgear product, developed with BitTorrent, will find any media that is sitting on your PC (high-def movies, music, photos, etc) and send it over to your TV, over a speedy wireless standard that the techies call 802.11G.

There will be two different reactions to this product. Geeks will love it; they can now watch all their Web goodies (illegally acquired and otherwise) on their sparkling new high-def TVs. On the other hand, say the word “802.11G” to the typical football-loving, beer-guzzling, couch-indenting American, and he will put you in a headlock. Capturing the normal folks - that will be challenge for all “extenders” like BitTorrent, Netgear – and soon, Apple.

LG’s Show Stealer
Damon Darlin

LG’s announcement of a dual-DVD player that will play HD-DVD movie discs as well as Blu-ray movie discs has sucked the air out of every other announcement about HD-DVD and Blu-ray players.

The price is not going to compel many people to run out and buy one. It’s $1,200. But the fact that it can play both kinds of discs would give some peace of mind to consumers who aren’t sure which new DVD standard will eventually prevail. (At this point, no analyst has a good handle on which will win out.)

Other makers announced Blu-ray players in the $1,000 to $1,200 range. Sharp’s first Blu-ray is $1,200, for example.

Toshiba, the main force behind HD-DVD, is still fighting. It announced a new player Sunday that will cost $600. It will display 1080p content, a feature that previously was available only on its $1,000 model.

The LCD Juggernaut
Damon Darlin

Last year, 13.2 million liquid-crystal diplay TVs were sold in the United States. This year, 21.2 million L.C.D. TVs are expected to sell, according to DisplaySearch, a market research firm.

A 60 percent increase in sales means that more than half of American households will have an HDTV this year. (The penetration rate is about 32 percent right now.) It also means that sales of rear projection TVs using digital light processors or D.L.P., have peaked and are now in decline.

The other implication: plasma is not the ultimate TV. Sales of plasma TVs, a rival technology that used to come in larger sizes and provide better pictutres than L.C.D., have been eclipsed by L.C.D. Plasma sales are expected to grow about 20 percent this year, analysts said. LCD makers have matched plasma in screen contrast (which makes blacks blacker) and have bested plasma in screen resolution.

Meanwhile, prices on L.C.D. TVs will continue to fall at rates similar to last year.

Sharp Has the Biggest
Damon Darlin

The bragging rights for making the biggest TV were won Sunday by Sharp Electronics. The company displayed a 108-inch liquid-crystal display TV that it said would be in production this summer.

No price on the TV yet, but the company said it is bigger than any other LCD and bigger than any plasma TV too. At least as of Sunday afternoon. Companies use the Consumer Electronics Show, which opens Monday, to show their latest and greatest products.

At that size, the company figures the 108-incher will first be used in commercial applications as a billboard or in conference rooms. “It will influence the influencers and it will trickle down to consumers,” said Robert Scaglione, the senior vice president of marketing for Sharp’s American operations.

A New Sweet Spot
Damon Darlin

Hitachi won the bragging rights for making the first 3.5-inch hard drive that can hold a terabyte of data.

Seagate quickly rushed out a statement that its terabyte drive is coming soon.

But the really stunning part of the announcement was the price of the new drive: $400. It will be a little cheaper than that when it hits store shelves in 90 days.

That’s 40 cents a gigabyte. Just last week I was marvelling to someone in the office that the price of storage was dropping below 50 cents a gigabyte. This is getting so cheap that home storage will certainly be an even hotter category for retailers this year.

Garmin Gets Gas
Damon Darlin

Garmin, the maker of what it now calls PNDs or personal navigation devices, introduced a bunch of them at CES.

The highlight is a deal it has worked out with MSN to supply traffic information, movie times and gas prices to the new devices. The nuvi 680, with a bigger and flatter screen, is $1,000 and the StreetPilot c580 will be $800. You’ll see both in stores next month.

It also developed a PND–this term will never catch on–a GPS device for motorcycles. All the buttons are on the left side, so the rider doesn’t take his or her hand off the throttle, and the tabs on the touchscreen are extra big becuase the rider is probably wearing gloves. The zumo 450 will be $800 and availaible in March.

Finally, it has two GPS devices that link to a cellphone or Treo to give directions and maps on screen with voice commands. It turns your PDA into a PND.

The Garmin Mobile 20 will be $300 and the smaller Mobile 10, about the size of two flashdrives, will be $150.

Garmin Goes to the Dogs
Damon Darlin

Among the host of GPS navigational devices that Garmin just announced at CES is one specialized for hunting dogs.

The device is attached to harness on the dog. The hunter carries a GPS unit about the size of a walkie-talkie. The screen shows where the dog is relative to the hunter so the dogs don’t get lost or the hunter doesn’t wing his animals.

It is also being shown at Shot, the hunting industry’s show in Orlando this week.

The company said that the device, called the Astro, can also tell the hunter where the dog is running or has stopped and is pointing (or maybe sniffing another dog’s rear).

A spokeswoman said that a friend of hers wanted to drop one in her child’s trick-or-treat bag to track the child on Halloween. I think it would be great for wandering cats. It might cut down on those sad “Missing: Fluffy” posters on telephone poles.

Ride and Pitch
Damon Darlin

Two big problems at the Consumer Electronics Show looking for a solution:

No. 1. With 150,000 visitors in Las Vegas for the CES, it is very difficult to get from the airport to the hotel or from the hotel to the convention center. There are long waits for shuttle buses, cabs, even the monorail that runs alongside the Strip.

No. 2. With 2,700 exhibitors, it is very hard for the startup to get much attention from buyers or journalists. People are too busy to stop by to see their products.

Here’s a solution: The little companies ought to hire cars or vans and offer to ferry the people to and from their hotels. They’ll have a captive audience. The prospects will get to the show or the hotel with less aggravation.

A few smart companies are already doing this.
http://bits.blogs.nytimes.com/





HD DVD Versus Blu-ray - The Porn Industry Says HD DVD
Aaron McKenna

Knowing their audience quite well, the adult entertainment industry holds their annual get together in Las Vegas to coincide with the CES. There is also a very pertinent crossover between the adult and tech industries - porn has a tendency to drive, and be driven, by technology. Which means HD DVD when it comes to high-def.

Quite famously in the war between Betamax and VHS the latter won especially because the adult industry preferred it. If you've been around long enough, you probably remember that the very early home video rental stores were primarily responsible for driving Betamax out of the market. And those stores carried almost exclusively pornographic content.

Although the market environments from then do not really compare to today's home video market, parallels are drawn between the Betamax-VHS battle to the ongoing and escalating fight between Blu-ray and HD DVD. One of the key questions at this year's CES actually is "Which high-def format will win the current format war - Blu-ray or HD DVD?" Surprisingly, it seems that there is no such question in the minds of the adult industry luminaries.

Putting myself through the arduous trek through the floor of the adult expo I did a quick straw poll on, the virtues of HD DVD versus Blu-ray, and the answer from a dozen companies, big and small, including Pink Visual and Bangbros editor-in-chief, is going into a single direction: HD DVD is the preferred format. Period.

One of the big problems they have with Blu-ray is its expense, followed by its market share. "Blu-ray has superior quality, yes," said a spokesperson for porn studio Bangbros, "but HD DVD is easier to produce, cheaper to produce and there are more HD DVD players in homes than there are Blu-ray players, for example in the Xbox 360."

Pink Visual heavily complained about the fact that Blu-ray discs cannot be replicated and a range of other studios, who did not want to be mentioned by name indicated that the cost of going with Blu-ray cancels the technology as a possible HD solution for this industry. "Only bigger studios can afford Blu-ray, and even then it's not economical," we were told.

It would seem that either Blu-ray has to do some catching up very quickly. But we got the strange feeling that HD DVD has won the format war already, at least in the porn industry.
http://www.tgdaily.com/2007/01/11/ce...hddvd_blu_ray/





Three HD Layers Today, Ten Tomorrow
Marcus Yam

To add more capacity to optical formats, stack on more layers

HD DVD’s dual-layer 30GB and Blu-ray’s dual-layer 50GB media is enough space to store crystal-clear 1080p video and uncompressed audio for today's movies, but media manufacturers are continuously looking for ways to increase capacity. Toshiba Corporation quietly announced on the first day of CES that the company has developed a triple-layer HD DVD-ROM (read only) disc with a capacity of 51 gigabytes.

HD DVD discs hold 15GB per layer. In order to reach a dual-layer Blu-ray Disc-besting capacity, an extra 2GB per layer was squeezed in, for a total of 51GB. Toshiba states that continued improvement in disc mastering technology has achieved further minimization in the recording pit, allowing for the boost in capacity to 17GB in single layer and a full 51GB on a single-sided triple-layer disc.

The new disc shares the same disc structure as standard DVD and previously announced HD DVD formats: two 0.6-mm thick discs bonded back-to-back. According to Toshiba, the added cost to produce discs with the third layer is minimal, thanks to the use of the same physical disc structure as DVD. Toshiba aims to secure approval of the new disc by the DVD Forum within this year.

While Toshiba has publicly announced its achievement, Ritek is disclosing behind closed doors at CES its own achievements in multi-layer HD optical media. Ritek claims to not only have been able to produce a three-layer and four-layer HD optical discs, but to have successfully designed HD media with a full 10 layers. The company says that its multi-layer process can be applied to both HD DVD and Blu-ray formats.

At base specifications, 10 layers on an HD DVD would yield 150GB, assuming 15GB per layer. For Blu-ray, the total over 10 layers jumps to 250GB, assuming the base 25GB per layer.

While those numbers do sound impressive, Ritek officials point out that the real barrier to this advancement is the lack of reader and writer laser diode technology to support the additional eight layers above the current standard.
http://www.dailytech.com/article.aspx?newsid=5656





Book reviews

Capitalist Punishment
Allan Sloan

ON “THE WEALTH OF NATIONS”

By P. J. O’Rourke.

242 pp. Atlantic Monthly Press. $21.95.

Before we had radio, telephones, television, the Internet and iPods, we had books. Long books. Complicated books. Books that got read, their length and complexity notwithstanding, because before talk shows and chat rooms, what else was there to do?

Back then, people like Adam Smith wrote long, long, long volumes like “The Wealth of Nations,” which revolutionized economic thought and theory when it was published in 1776. Smith’s treatise, as transformational in its own way as the American Revolution, established the intellectual foundation of capitalism, free markets and individual choice, which are taken as givens in American life the same way that life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness are.

Today, however, almost no one other than the obsessed (or the assigned) is likely to read Smith’s book, which runs more than 900 pages; the author’s convoluted prose makes it seem even longer than that.

So the free market in books has produced Smith-lite: P. J. O’Rourke channeling Adam Smith in a work titled “On ‘The Wealth of Nations.’ ” Think of it as a hardcover blog, in which O’Rourke cites Smith’s essential points, and riffs while preaching Smithian doctrine.

For instance, when O’Rourke discusses one of Smith’s passions, free trade, he notes that “at my house I see a ‘Made in China’ label on everything but the kids and the dogs. And I’m not sure about the kids. They have brown eyes and small noses.” This opus is part of a series its publisher calls Books That Changed the World, a description to which we should append, as O’Rourke says, the further title “Works Which Let’s Admit You’ll Never Read the Whole Of.” Due soon are two other oft-cited but rarely-read-in-full classics: The Koran and Darwin’s “Origin of Species.” It’s a very clever, very market-driven thought: getting to know the classics without having to read them.

The 1937 Modern Library edition of Smith’s work, which O’Rourke cites as his text and I borrowed from my local public library, runs 903 pages, not counting introductions and indexes. Those pages are in small type. Make that very small type.

O’Rourke’s book, by contrast, runs to fewer than 200 pages before appendixes and notes, and has a typeface and layout suitable for modern eyes. And unlike Smith, O’Rourke is a wonderful stylist. Even if you disagree with his conservative political and economic views, as I sometimes do, you’ve got to admire his facility with words.

Consider the following passage, in which O’Rourke parodies Smith’s style while explaining why readers aren’t storming bookstores to buy “The Wealth of Nations”: “Pretty soon Smith gets enmeshed in clarifications, intellectually caught out, Dagwood-like, carrying his shoes up the stairs of exegesis at 3 a.m., expounding his head off, while that vexed and querulous spouse, the reader, stands with arms crossed and slipper tapping on the second-floor landing of comprehension.” Add one more phrase, and that sentence would snap in two of its own weight. Which is, of course, the point.

Before we proceed, a confession. I’ve been a business writer since 1969, I specialize in unearthing journalistic nuggets buried in lengthy financial documents that even lawyers find dull — and I’ve never been able to get more than 50 pages into Adam Smith. For several years, I took “The Wealth of Nations” with me on summer vacation, vowing that this time I’d finish it. Alas, I never came close.

But over the years, I’ve read introductions to the book and commentaries about it, listened to discussions of its principles and have even cited some of its points in my own articles. As with the Bible or “Moby-Dick,” you don’t have to be familiar with the entire work in order to grasp its essence.

Smith’s thesis, which still resonates today, is that setting people free to pursue their own self-interest produces a collective result far superior to what you get if you try to impose political or religious diktats. Free people allowed to make free choices in free markets will satisfy their needs (and society’s) far better than any government can. Finally, Smith believed passionately in free trade, both within countries and between them. He felt that allowing people and countries to specialize and to trade freely would produce enormous wealth, because freeing people and nations to do what they do best will produce vastly more wealth than if everyone strives for self-sufficiency.

Now, let’s reduce this theory to microeconomic reality. I can go to my local hardware store, and for $1.79 (plus sales tax), I can purchase a pound of eight-penny nails manufactured in China, thousands of miles from my home. It would take me forever and a day to manufacture my own nails. Instead, I get paid to write articles, which is my specialty, and I can buy a pound of nails for the economic equivalent of a small amount of my time. The store owner, who specializes in helping people like me who’d rather get cheerfulness and good service than go to Home Depot, can use her profit to buy a copy of The New York Times, which helps give the paper the money to pay me for writing about O’Rourke writing about Smith writing about what makes nations wealthy. See? Isn’t that simple?

This all works out fine for O’Rourke and me and whoever is running the nail-making machine in China; he or she is presumably better off doing that than being a peasant farmer or an unemployed urbanite. However, my ability to purchase cheap China-made nails is unlikely to have worked out well for the people who once made nails in the United States. This is Adam Smith’s famous hand of the market at work: it pats specialists like O’Rourke and me on the head, while it gives unemployed blue-collar workers in the Midwest the middle finger. Maybe as a society, the United States saves money by exporting manufacturing jobs and importing so many manufactured goods — but I still have trouble believing that it’s good for us in the long run.

Unlike many free-market devotees, O’Rourke and Smith don’t confuse self-interest with greed: “A recurring lesson in ‘The Wealth of Nations’ is that we shouldn’t get greedy,” O’Rourke writes. Good for them, because while it may seem a subtle point, self-interest and greed are antithetical to each other.

Consider Enron, where cooking the corporate books inflated the stock price, making some book-cookers hugely wealthy. For a while. Ultimately, the scheme came undone, the greedy book-cookers suffered jail sentences, capitalism got a well-deserved black eye. Greed wasn’t good — and it sure wasn’t smart.

I could do without some of O’Rourke’s gratuitous insults of various people, almost all of whom seem to be liberals. Despite this peccadillo — some people might say because of it — this book is well worth reading. You’ll pick up a few good lines, you’ll see a primo stylist at work. And you’ll see why Adam Smith is so often quoted but so rarely read.
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/01/07/bo...w/Sloan.t.html





Plagiarism: Everybody Into the Pool
Charles McGrath

The Little Book of Plagiarism
By Richard A. Posner
Pantheon Books; hardcover

Historians in Trouble
By Jon Wiener
The New Press; hardcover

Plagiarism and Literary Property in the Romantic Period
By Tilar J. Mazzeo
University of Pennsylvania Press; hardcover

THE club of people accused of plagiarism gets ever larger. High-profile members include Stephen Ambrose, Doris Kearns Goodwin, Kaavya Viswanathan — of chick-lit notoriety — and now even Ian McEwan, whose best-selling novel “Atonement” has recently been discovered to harbor passages from a World War II memoir by Lucilla Andrews. Plagiarism is apparently so rife these days that it would be extremely satisfying to discover that “The Little Book of Plagiarism,” by Richard A. Posner, has itself been plagiarized.

The watchdogs have been caught before. The section of the University of Oregon handbook that deals with plagiarism, for example, was copied from the Stanford handbook.

Mr. Posner, moreover, is a judge on the United States Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit and a law professor at the University of Chicago who turns out books and articles with annoying frequency and facility. Surely, under deadline pressure, he is tempted every now and then to resort to a little clipping and pasting, especially since he cuts members of his own profession a good deal of slack on the plagiarism issue. In the book he readily acknowledges that judges publish opinions all the time that are in fact written by their clerks, but he excuses the practice on the ground that everyone knows about it and therefore no one is harmed. What he doesn’t consider much is whether a judge who gains a reputation for particularly well-written opinions or for seldom being reversed — or, for that matter, who is freed from his legal chores to do freelance writing — doesn’t benefit in much the same way as a student who persuades one of the smart kids to do his homework for him.

Sadly, however, “The Little Book of Plagiarism” appears to be original. It’s a useful and remarkably concise overview of the subject, and is in almost every respect a typically Posnerian production: smart, lucid, a little self-satisfied and tilting noticeably toward the economic-analysis end of legal theory. In defining exactly what plagiarism is, for example, Mr. Posner insists on two main criteria: not just deceit but fraudulence, in the sense that the reader is tricked into behaving differently — into buying a book, say, that he would have ignored had he known it was copied. For plagiarism to be wrong in the Posner sense it has to be materially harmful, in other words, and yet bookbuyers seldom act as if originality matters much to them. Mr. Ambrose’s and Ms. Goodwin’s sales didn’t slip much when they were accused of plagiarism, and it’s hard to imagine that, in the long run, Mr. McEwan’s borrowings, which amount to only a couple of hundred words in a long and brilliant novel, will do much to change the esteem in which “Atonement” is generally held.

Most of the time, if we readers care about plagiarism, it’s because it seems cheesy and a little embarrassing. We’d rather not think that Doris Kearns Goodwin, of all people, was guilty of scholarly shoplifting. Of course, there is sometimes a moral component to plagiarism — as when a student cheats by turning in a term paper not his own — but in the public sphere it more often seems like an aesthetic offense, a crime against taste.

This is how the Romantics, supposedly the first generation to conceive of literary ownership in the modern sense, really thought about the issue, according to Tilar J. Mazzeo’s “Plagiarism and Literary Property in the Romantic Period.” In style and methodology, Ms. Mazzeo’s new book is an academic wheezer, a retooled dissertation perhaps, but it’s also smart and insightful, and points out that 18th-century writers took a certain amount of borrowing for granted. What mattered was whether you were sneaky about it and, even more important, whether you improved upon what you took, by weaving it seamlessly into your own text and adding some new context or insight.

Interestingly, the Australian novelist Thomas Keneally recently defended Mr. McEwan in just this way, writing, “Fiction depends on a certain value-added quality created on top of the raw material, and that McEwan has added value beyond the original will, I believe, be richly demonstrated.” In the case of “Atonement,” the principle seems inarguable, but it’s also a slippery slope. You could argue that Kaavya Viswanathan improved upon the raw material of the Megan McCafferty novel she relied on so liberally, and yet no one is rushing to her defense.

Perhaps Ms. Viswanathan’s other great failing, besides cluelessness and the belief, surprisingly common among plagiarists, that you can get away with copying something that practically everyone has read, is that she doesn’t have tenure and friends in high places.

At the same time that he is letting judges off the hook, Mr. Posner acknowledges that in academic circles there is a double standard for plagiarism, with professors often getting off far more lightly than their students. The reason, he says, is that the left, which dominates the professoriate these days, is soft on plagiarism because the left is uncomfortable with ideas of individual creativity and ownership. (Surprisingly, he fails to take a whack at French theorists like Barthes and Foucault, who argued that in the strictest sense there is no such thing as an “author,” because all writing is collaborative and produced by a kind of cultural collective.)

In “Historians in Trouble” (published in 2005 but due out in paperback this coming spring), Jon Wiener argues the same thing in reverse, claiming that though underrepresented in academe, the right nevertheless has more power to make public fuss about academic misconduct. He points out that it was The Weekly Standard that flung the most mud in the direction of Stephen Ambrose, even though Mr. Ambrose, no lefty, was a celebrant of patriotism and the military.

No wonder young people are confused, and no wonder they continue to plagiarize in record numbers, with more than 40 percent of college students admitting to copying from the Internet in 2001. We talk to them about plagiarism in absolute terms, as if we were all agreed on what it was, and yet the literature suggests that once you’re out of school, it proves to be a crime like any other, with the punishment partly depending on whom you know and on how well you pull it off.
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/01/07/ed...e/07books.html





Mr. Ford Gets the Last Laugh
Chevy Chase

IN recent days, I’ve been bombarded by requests to comment on my relationship with President Gerald Ford. Until now, I’ve tried to say nothing — any remarks from me during the Ford family’s private time of grief would have been inappropriate.

The requests were understandable, I guess. You see, I made a reputation for myself 30 years ago on “Saturday Night Live” in part because of a number of sketches and “Weekend Updates” that I wrote or appeared in ridiculing Mr. Ford for his apparent “stumble-bumbling” (though he was perhaps the best athlete to have been president) and making fun of his presidency.

Luckily for me, Mr. Ford had a sense of humor.

I’ve often thought how odd it was that we became linked together. It’s not like we had a lot in common. After all, Mr. Ford had never been helped for any problems with “self-medication” in a facility that has helped so many throughout these past decades. And he had never been castigated by the press for such atrocities as “Oh! Heavenly Dog” or “Cops and Robbersons,” among other slightly awful films I had made in Hollywood.

But linked together we were. And not just in the obvious ways. If it hadn’t been for the courage of Mr. Ford’s wife, Betty, for admitting to an alcohol problem, I would never have received the help I needed in the early 1980s at the Betty Ford clinic, located not far from the Ford residence near Palm Springs. During my short stay there, I often saw Mrs. Ford personally surveying the clinic and generously offering a helping hand to those who were lucky enough to face their problems and, with the learned help of the clinic staff, appraise their behavior and their lifestyles.

One day when my wife, Jayni, came to visit me at the clinic, the Fords invited us to lunch. As it happened, Mrs. Ford had become so beloved and respected by many for her earlier openness about breast cancer and her alcoholism that a television network was in preproduction on a special bio-pic about her. Mr. Ford suggested that while we ate lunch, the four of us could view the videotape of various performances by actors being considered to play the part of the president.

Seated at a small table set for four in a simple dining room also containing a somewhat complicated videotape recorder and TV set were the former commander in chief and I making friendly small talk before lunch was brought in. And on all fours, literally on their hands and knees in front of the bulky and confusing tape machine, were Mrs. Ford and Jayni trying their best to figure out the wiring of the playback machine and the way the whole system worked, so we could watch the screen tests. Noting the effort the ladies were putting into getting the VCR to work, I suggested to Mr. Ford that perhaps we might help them out.

As I began to stand up from my chair, he took gentle hold of my arm, sat me back down and said: “No, no, Chevy. Don’t even think about it. I’ll probably get electrocuted, and you’ll be picked up and arrested for murder.”

We both laughed.

I’ll never forget that moment. My laughter was hearty and genuine.

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/01/06/op...4ba&ei=5087%0A





AT&T: Will the Big Bell Keep Ringing?

It might be tough to repeat a 50% gain this year, but the union with BellSouth should help drive free cash flow and wireless growth
Isabelle Sender

From Standard & Poor's Equity ResearchIt's nice to be big Ma Bell, again. With the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) blessing of the union between AT&T (T; ranked 3 STARS, hold) and BellSouth, Standard & Poor's thinks the honeymoon between investors and the largest U.S. telecom company could last through 2007.

But as with all love affairs, there are likely to be challenges. Because AT&T's shares ignited portfolios with their outperformance in 2006, we at S&P think AT&T investors will expect the company to maintain this pace and to continue making money for them. On a total return basis, the stock appreciated 53.2% in 2006 (it hit a 52-week high of $36.21 on Dec. 29). Shareholders will expect the new Ma Bell to preserve her fundamental attractions in terms of value, dividends, and profit growth.

S&P revised its 2007 earnings estimate to $2.50 a share from $2.45, but reiterated its hold opinion on the shares on Jan. 3. Wall Street expects AT&T to earn $2.57 on average, according to Bloomberg, and 21 out of 30 analysts think the stock is worth buying.
A Dominating Force

S&P equity analyst Todd Rosenbluth expects the company's 2007 revenues to be $124 billion, with earnings improvements driven by cost savings from merger benefits. AT&T will continue to support its stock price with share buybacks, he says, adding that his opinion is supported by the stock's 4% dividend yield.

With the help of the nation's leading wireless provider, Cingular, which AT&T now fully controls as a result of the merger with BellSouth, AT&T dominates the telecommunications sector and the wireless industry in the U.S.

"We believe Cingular will be the primary revenue driver for AT&T in 2007 and—due to improved customer retention through its exclusive wireless handsets from suppliers such as Motorola (MOT; ranked 4 STARS, buy) and Samsung, and a denser network—the wireless segment should help to expand the company's operating margins," Rosenbluth says.
Win Some, Lose Some

He also expects AT&T's ownership of Cingular (which should generate 33% of its 2007 revenue) will result in greater wireline/wireless product integration. "In about a decade, the U.S. wireline industry has shrunk to just two dominant players, AT&T and Verizon Communications (VZ; ranked 3 STARS, hold), from 10 major entities," Rosenbluth says.

That alone may not be enough to keep AT&T on top. Household spending on communications services—wireless, wireline, Internet, and video services—keeps climbing as new subscribers join the network (the monthly bill for services was $175 as of March, 2006). However, increased consumer spending and regulatory changes have resulted in greater competition, and Ma Bell is likely to lose in some areas and gain in others, Rosenbluth believes.

AT&T is winning its share of Internet connection customers through its broadband offerings, but its traditional wireline customer base is eroding, as consumers substitute wireless for regular phones or choose a voice and video package from the local cable provider. Another challenge is keeping Cingular wireless customers loyal, according to Rosenbluth.

Ed Whitacre—who almost single-handedly orchestrated the consolidation of the telecom sector—and his leadership team have not managed to get this far without facing challenges. Under Whitacre, SBC had lost more than half of its value from 1999 to 2005 before merging with, and changing its name to, AT&T in 2005. During that time, the company piled up about $30 billion in additional debt, according to news reports.
Rewarding the Patient

As of Sept. 30, the new AT&T, including Cingular, had about $63 billion of debt reported, according to S&P Credit Ratings Services (which operates separately from S&P Equity Research Services), which rates the combined entity "A." S&P Ratings Services removed the debt from CreditWatch after the FCC approved the merger because it meant one fewer risk to the repayment of the long-term debt.

AT&T's chief financial officer Rick Lindner said in a conference call that AT&T's acquisitions and patience have finally paid off. Profits are expected to have improved more than 30% in 2006, while cost savings from the integrations and share buyback programs are rewarding holders of AT&T shares, he said.

While Rosenbluth believes that AT&T paid a premium for BellSouth to gain control of Cingular, the company should generate strong free cash flow, after capital investments, in 2007, through wireline cost reductions, wireless revenue growth, and an overall improving business landscape.

Rosenbluth has a target price of $36 on AT&T's stock (which closed at $34.50 on Jan. 4), based on a premium relative multiple to its peers. Among the risks to Rosenbluth's recommendation and target price are increased competition from cable carriers, regulatory changes, and weaker-than-projected wireless-services execution and rollout of its fiber-based video services. Although AT&T may not repeat the success of 2006, investors should find the shares to be a worthwhile holding.
http://www.businessweek.com/investor...pStories_ssi_5





EU Study Says OSS Has Better Economics Than Proprietary Software
Eric Bangeman

The debate over the costs associated with using closed-source and open-source software has been raging for years now, and a new study from the European Union is certain to add fuel to the fire. Titled the "Economic impact of open source software on innovation and the competitiveness of the Information and Communication Technologies (ICT) sector in the EU," the study looks at the role of OSS in the economy, its direct economic impact, indirect economic impact, and concludes with trends, scenarios, and policy strategies.

The headline-grabbing data is found about a third of the way through the 287-page report. In a section titled "User benefits: interoperability, productivity, and cost savings," the study's authors (researchers from five European universities) make the claim that OSS is a less-expensive alternative to proprietary software.

Six public and private organizations that have transitioned to OSS were studied, and the authors found that while OSS migration costs were high, initial purchasing costs were higher for proprietary solutions. Maintenance costs are comparable—with the OSS solution being more expensive in some cases—but the overall annual total cost of ownership was lower for OSS in five of the six cases studied.

"Our findings show that, in almost all the cases, a transition toward open source reports savings on the long-term costs of ownership of the software products," says the study's authors.

The organizations studied made the move from Microsoft Office to OpenOffice.org as part of their transition to OSS, and the study looks at the overall productivity of workers before and after. Overall, the report found "no particular delays or lost [sic] of time in the daily work due to the use of OpenOffice.org." Researchers also surveyed workers, with 20 percent reporting that they could be just as productive using the open-source office suite, 70 percent saying that they experienced some problems but could still be just as productive, with the remaining 10 percent reporting that they were less productive with OpenOffice.org.

Researchers also looked at overall OSS penetration in Europe. The continent's investment in OSS software amounts to €22 billion (compared with €36 billion in the US), which represents 20.5 percent of total software investment.

The report concludes with some recommendations for EU policymakers. First, and foremost, policies that favor proprietary software over OSS should be changed. Researchers suggest supporting OSS in research, avoiding vendor lock-in in educational settings, providing equitable tax treatment for OSS creators, supporting OSS in "precompetitive research and standardization," and encouraging partnerships between the enterprise and the OSS community.
http://arstechnica.com/news.ars/post/20070112-8606.html





Hack This Application!

Vendors can build a buzz around products by embracing the hacker community, according to technology company executives speaking at the International Consumer Electronics Show.

Vendors often offer development tools to allow professional users and third-party developers to customize business-productivity products. In the consumer electronics market, however, vendors tend to resist the idea of allowing customers to tamper with their products, noted vendors speaking at the show, which ended Thursday in Las Vegas.

But there are benefits to opening up consumer products to hackers and hobbyists.

One example is TiVo Inc., founded in 1997 to develop digital video technology that allows users to record TV shows.

TiVo, based on Linux, is an extensible platform, and from its early days the company welcomed hackers and professional developers.

"When we first came out no one knew what DVR was," said Richard Bullwinkle, vice president of products at entertainment networking company Mediabolic Inc., and formerly a senior member of TiVo's product marketing team. "So we made it hacker friendly."

Hackers formed an early adopter community that helped promote the product, he said.

"We had forums where you could go in and see what was happening," Bullwinkle said.

Microsoft Corp., which entered the game market late with the Xbox and faced formidable competition from companies including Sony Corp., came out with a gaming software architecture that is extensible.

XNA is a set of tools designed to allow people to create their own games, said Jim Baldwin, product unit manager for the IPTV (Internet Protocol TV) program within the Microsoft TV Division. Though some tools are meant for professionals, XNA Game Studio Express is also targeted at students and hobbyists.

"The idea was to embrace the gaming community and give them the ability to make their own games; it's a good way to bring people into the business of building games," Baldwin said.

There are legitimate business reasons, however, for companies to resist having users alter products, the panelists acknowledged.

"If you make some thing too easy to hack, people will call you when they break things," Baldwin said. Then, the vendor loses money when the help desk aids users sort though problems, he noted.

"You have to achieve a balance, it's hard to know where to set the dial," Bullwinkle said.

Sony Corp. has been too strict about preventing users from playing around with hacks into products like the PlayStation Portable, Bullwinkle and other panelists agreed. While Sony had a huge hit in the 80s with the Sony Walkman portable CD player, it is behind in the music player arena now, and Microsoft has caught up to the company in the game market, they noted.

The music industry also has been too strict about DRM (digital rights management) copy controls, the vendors said. Consumers are confused and angry about not being able to play songs acquired from one vendor on other vendors' devices, they said.

"If they made things easy to use they might make a lot more money on it," Bullwinkle said.
http://www.itworld.com/Tech/5051/070...p/pfindex.html





Local news

Teacher Guilty in Norwich Porn Case
Greg Smith

State Prosecutor David Smith said he wondered why Julie Amero didn't just pull the plug on her classroom computer.

The six-person jury Friday may have been wondering the same thing when they convicted Amero, 40, of Windham of four counts of risk of injury to a minor, or impairing the morals of a child. It took them less than two hours to decide the verdict. She faces a sentence of up to 40 years in prison.

Oct. 19, 2004, while substituting for a seventh-grade language class at Kelly Middle School, Amero claimed she could not control the graphic images appearing in an endless cycle on her computer.

"The pop-ups never went away," Amero testified. "They were continuous."

The Web sites, which police proved were accessed while Amero was in the classroom, were seen by as many as 10 minor students. Several of the students testified during the three-day trial in Norwich Superior Court to seeing images of naked men and women.

Computer expert W. Herbert Horner, testifying in Amero's defense, said he found spyware on the computer and an innocent hair styling Web site "that led to this pornographic loop that was out of control."

"If you try to get out of it, you're trapped," Horner said.

But Smith countered Horner's testimony with that of Norwich Police Detective Mark Lounsbury, a computer crimes investigator. On a projected image of the list of Web sites visited while Amero was working, Lounsbury pointed out several highlighted links.

"You have to physically click on it to get to those sites," Smith said. "I think the evidence is overwhelming that she did intend to access those Web sites."

Among the sites Amero visited were meetlovers.com and femalesexual.com, along with others with more graphic names.

Defense attorney John Cocheo moved for a mistrial shortly before closing arguments Friday, based on reports jurors had discussed the case while eating lunch at the Harp and Dragon. Each of the jurors denied the allegation under questioning by Judge Hillary Strackbein and the motion was denied.

Cocheo, who said he was surprised by the verdict, especially with the "contradictory evidence," said he planned to appeal. Amero had no visible reaction to the verdict, though her family was obviously upset.

Amero, because the charges are felonies, faces 40 years in prison at her March 2 sentencing. Her family, present in court for entire trial, declined comment about the verdict.
http://www.norwichbulletin.com/apps/...12/1002/NEWS17





Advertising in Video Games

Product placement possible by exploiting secret codes
Rachel Konrad

Crouched in military fatigues, you peer through night-vision goggles and brandish a semiautomatic gun as you hunt down terrorists who've overtaken Las Vegas.

Incongruously, while patrolling a neon-decorated side street in the video game "Rainbow Six Vegas," you spot a jar of body wash. You spray the container with bullets, and voila! A 60-second video of whimsical bloopers pops up, and billboard advertisements of scantily clad women hawk Unilever Corp.'s Axe shower gel: "Score with Axe."

Welcome to the new world of video gaming, where software companies are becoming more imaginative in wringing money from gamers.

In-game advertising has been going on for years as marketers try to reach people who've largely stopped watching television.

But beyond running crass advertisements on billboards written into the gaming landscape, many game developers now accept product placements for milk, DVDs and other wares, embedding them deep into the game's software codes. You'd need the type of secret tips and tricks long circulated for unlocking special powers and other bonuses.

Other companies are charging real-world dollars for the privilege of gaining magical powers and better equipment for virtual characters, leading to complaints the companies are exploiting gamers who already pay $60 or more for the most popular titles.

Veterans of the $7 billion U.S. video game market defend the corporate co-option of the techniques once solely the realm of techies: If Hollywood has been employing product placement and other unconventional marketing tricks for years, why not the game industry?

The standard advertisements aren't waning. But gaming executives say the newer, unusual pitches are more effective: They can be funny and tap into many gamers' desire to explore the darkest nooks and crannies of a game and discover tricks they can boast to friends.

"Purist gamers see this development as negative, and it can ruin the game for someone," said Peer Schneider, vice president of content publishing at IGN Entertainment. "But our kids don't see it as negative. They see it as an unexpected thing in the game."

For more than two decades, programmers have tucked silly surprises into the recesses of computer games -- from the 1980 Atari 2600 game "Adventure" to the current hit "Scarface: The World Is Yours."

In many games, players who enter the top-secret "cheat code" could become invisible, get unlimited ammunition or play in an all-powerful God mode. Or they'd play for hours until discovering brightly decorated circles or balls -- known as Easter eggs -- that unlocked bonus points, monster-slaying swords, extra lives or infinite health.

Only recently have game companies found ways to profit from these quirks. Software developers are now coordinating with marketing executives -- and with Madison Avenue advertising gurus -- almost from the game's conception.

"Developer teams have always said, 'We have these codes if you want to use them,' but only in the last two years did the marketing teams significantly incorporate them into our strategy," said Jill Steinberg, director of promotions for San Francisco-based Ubisoft. "The goal of the promotions is to get buzz."

But the buzz isn't entirely positive.

Although many gamers viewed the Ubisoft-Axe promotion as quirky and unobtrusive, they criticized Redwood City-based Electronic Arts Inc. in October, when the world's largest video game publisher began to sell downloadable tricks for the Tiger Woods PGA Tour 2007.

Gamers could redeem points worth $3.75 to buy a software "add-on" that unlocks pro shop gear to drive the ball farther. Another $3 gets Wood's lucky red shirt (In real life, Woods wears a red shirt during a game's final round because he says it intimidates competitors and symbolizes power).

Offended gamers wrote scathing online entries about EA. Other companies that try to sell add-ons would likely encounter similar hostility, said Greg Off, founder of Off Base Productions, a San Francisco-based consulting company specializing in video game advertising and marketing.

"They're seen as looking for yet another revenue stream," Off said. "Did they push it too far? Possibly."

Although few companies sell cheats and other tricks outright, almost all are trying to exploit them subtly.

Some give away cheats when players register, subscribe to newsletters or pre-order titles. Others use cheats to revive sales weeks or months after their debut.

EA shipped "Superman Returns: The Videogame" to retailers on Nov. 20, and eight days later Time Warner Inc.'s Warner Home Video Inc. released the movie sequel on DVD, complete with a special cheat code for the game.

The DVD told players to enter a command sequence on their game consoles -- Up, Right, Down, Right, Up, Left, Down, Right, Up -- then fly to the top of a building to morph into Superman's destructive clone, Bizarro. Playing as Bizarro lengthens a game that, without special content, is a relatively short six hours.

Steve Jenkins, who calls himself "cheat executive officer" of Maple Valley, Wash.-based CheatCodes.com, said few players realize how scripted and marketed cheat codes and other insider tricks have become.

"Sometimes my secret source fires off this stuff to me, but it's usually the public relations person, publisher or developer who gives us the stuff," said Jenkins, whose site publishes thousands of cheats. "They might give us five cheats and say, 'Release this one now, this one a month later.'"
http://www.newstimeslive.com/enter/story.php?id=1027834





Jazz Is Alive and Well. In the Classroom, Anyway.
Nate Chinen

IF you happen to stop by the Hilton New York or Sheraton New York during the latter half of this week, you’ll be about as close as possible to the global epicenter of jazz. That’s because both hotels are playing host to the 34th annual conference of the International Association for Jazz Education, which is expected to attract more than 8,000 registered attendees from 45 countries: students and teachers, promoters and producers, and musicians of every tier of accomplishment.

Wandering the overcrowded ballroom levels of either hotel, or through a 75,000-square-foot expo hall, you might draw a simple conclusion: Jazz is booming. And you would be right, in one sense. “I don’t have empirical data,” said Bill McFarlin, the executive director of the association, “but I would have to guess that the jazz education industry has quadrupled in the last 20 years.”

Yet the conference also offers workshops like “Jazz Radio in Crisis: Why That’s a Good Thing.” The panic in that title, and the strained attempt at reassurance, are emblematic: while jazz education is thriving, the business of jazz itself, as measured by things like market share and album sales, has been in a tailspin.

Fifty years ago those fortunes were reversed. Jazz, like any folk music, was imparted from mentor to pupil, or forged through trial and error. For many of those making it, the most valuable lessons came not in the classroom but on the bandstand. That was true even of artists who received some higher education, like Miles Davis, who matriculated (but did not linger) at Juilliard. The music’s instructional methods were rigorous but not yet codified.

Today’s aspiring player has a choice of school programs, method and theory books, videos and transcriptions. “I can recall back in the early ’60s, when it was sort of taboo for jazz to be presented in the classroom,” said Greg Carroll, the jazz education association’s director of education. “Now it’s unusual if a music program does not have a jazz program embedded within it.” This profusion of information may be a mixed blessing. “You can learn every Coltrane solo there is without ever listening to a record,” the saxophonist Bill Pierce said recently in his office at the Berklee College of Music, where he is the chairman of the woodwind department. “I’m not saying that’s a good thing. But it’s there. The musicianship, on a purely technical level, is accessible to anyone who wants to pursue it.”

With its clinics, performances, ceremonies and panels, the conference is where the disconnect between jazz education and the performance and business of jazz comes into starkest relief. Still, the event illuminates how profoundly jazz education has come to influence the aesthetics and mechanics of the music. Though separate, the two worlds are symbiotic, and the big question is this: How can one be so anemic when the other is so robust?

If the mass commercialization of jazz instruction has a decisive moment, it would probably be the arrival in 1967 of a play-along album and guidebook called “How to Play Jazz and Improvise.” The recording featured a rhythm section only, leaving room for anyone to fill in the blanks. Though not the first effort of its kind — a company called Music Minus One was already in business — it was quickly the most successful, and influential.

Jamey Aebersold, the man behind “How to Play Jazz,” was no stranger to formal study, having received a master’s degree in saxophone from Indiana University, one of the few colleges in the country with a jazz department at the time. He originally conceived of his target audience as hobbyists playing at home.

“Until I got up to about Volume 25 or so, I wasn’t thinking this was going to be a foundation for jazz education,” Mr. Aebersold said recently from his home in Indiana. But he acknowledged that the Aebersolds, as his play-along kits are now widely known, have become a regular part of jazz’s training arc. “If they haven’t heard of me, they’re probably not doing jazz,” he said, sounding not boastful but matter-of-fact. The series is now up to Volume 118.

High school students especially take advantage of play-along materials; for most young players it’s the best option they have. That’s partly because improvisation is not the focus of their training, even among the increasing number of secondary schools with serious jazz programs. For hands-on solo training, many students turn instead to extracurricular experiences like the Jamey Aebersold Summer Jazz Workshop or the Stanford Jazz Workshop, which have both been around for more than 30 years.

Big bands, relatively rare on the performance circuit, are still the focus of high school jazz education. This explains the continuing success of Jazz at Lincoln Center’s Essentially Ellington High School Jazz Band Competition. And it explains the unusual prominence of Gordon Goodwin’s Big Phat Band, whose leader makes his original charts available to band directors.

“We’re like rock stars to these kids,” said Mr. Goodwin, who in the grown-up jazz world is known mainly as an accomplished studio professional. “It’s kind of a crackup.” At the jazz education conference, he will be promoting the first Big Phat Summer Camp, which won’t have enough openings to meet the demand.

So far the legions of high school band students haven’t produced armies of jazz consumers. That’s partly a standard retention problem; consider how many drama club members actually go on to become avid theatergoers. And not every member of a high school jazz ensemble is a true jazz fan to begin with. “When you look at the choices high school students have in general music education today,” Mr. Carroll said, “the menu doesn’t read, ‘Classical, Jazz, Hip-Hop, Rock.’ You mainly see classical music and jazz. I think one reason jazz is so popular in schools today is that it’s the closest style of music to what they listen to outside the school arena.”

On the other hand record sales may be a flawed measure of jazz’s popularity. More and more jazz albums these days are self-produced or released on independent or European labels. Those albums — many sold in person, at concerts and clinics — can slip under the radar of Nielsen SoundScan or the Recording Industry Association of America, which have reported a downward turn in jazz sales even worse than the general decline. There are almost certainly more jazz consumers than the data indicate.

Stroll through the closed environment of the conference, and the statistics come to seem irrelevant. The students in attendance make it almost impossible to get inside the door of some major ballroom performances. They pack many instrumental clinics as well, hanging on to every word. One gets a strong sense that jazz is something they’ll find a way to support, if not pursue.

At the higher levels the infrastructure for training professional jazz musicians is clearly working. Every year there are more supremely skilled players with university degrees and strong, sophisticated ideas. For almost every prominent under-40 artist, you could name an affiliated program, from the pianist Brad Mehldau (the New School) to the saxophonist Miguel Zenón (Berklee). For musicians now in their 20s the ratio is even more extreme. By most measures the age of the autodidact is over.

When that trend started in the 1970s and ’80s, a common complaint arose: too many musicians sounded as if they were hatched in a practice room. The problem with institutionalized jazz education, the argument went, was that it fostered bland homogenization and oblivious self-absorption. And the idea held at least a kernel of truth.

“It was the Me Generation,” said the trombonist and Berklee educator Hal Crook, characterizing a succession of students obsessed with running harmonic gantlets and indulging in empty feats of technique. “Now it’s more of an Us thing, where the focus is on more interaction, communication on the bandstand, continuity in the solos. Audiences have fallen away from jazz in the past because it’s gotten away from that.”

At Berklee, in Boston, one recent Friday Mr. Crook led a student ensemble in a classroom session that felt a lot like a rehearsal. The students got a piece of music and a conceptual objective, and Mr. Crook guided them through it, stopping now and then to issue a pithy critique. For the most part his comments had more to do with the collective concentration of the ensemble than the particulars of any single player.

Mr. Crook was basically behaving more like a mentor than a professor, filling a niche of jazz instruction once upheld by bandleaders like Art Blakey and Betty Carter. And in that regard, he is not alone. “The apprenticeship model doesn’t exist in the way that it once did,” said Mr. Pierce of Berklee, a Blakey alumnus. “So it’s being incubated in institutions.”

The august New England Conservatory is part of that movement, and so is the five-year-old Juilliard Institute for Jazz Studies, which benefits from a partnership with Jazz at Lincoln Center. At the University of Southern California, the Thelonious Monk Institute of Jazz Performance admits only enough students to populate a small combo, which is advised by that program’s artistic director, the trumpeter Terence Blanchard. And the New School for Jazz and Contemporary Music, which has a network of hundreds of private lesson instructors, consciously upholds what its executive director, Martin Mueller, recently described as a “tradition of the practitioner as educator.”

It’s no wonder that the most serious high school musicians pay close attention to the faculty at college music programs. “That’s my highest priority, who’s the faculty there,” the pianist Zachary Clarke, a senior at the High School for the Performing and Visual Arts in Houston, said in the school library on a recent afternoon.

Because of their talent and their training, students at that school rank among the nation’s elite young players. “I’d like to be signed to Blue Note,” said the guitarist William Donovan, another senior, when prompted for a blue-sky aspiration. “I know I have more of a chance of getting electrocuted by lightning,” he quickly added. One week earlier Mr. Donovan had seen a clinic by the pianist Robert Glasper, a graduate of the school and a recent addition to the Blue Note roster. Another alumnus, the pianist Jason Moran, has recorded seven albums for the label.

Mr. Donovan was not far off the mark, but an increasing number of bright young musicians are preparing to defy the odds.

“There’s an interesting phenomenon happening,” said Roger H. Brown, the president of Berklee, “which is that some of our hottest players are majoring in music business, or production and engineering. They believe they are going to have good careers, though they’re entering a world where there’s no superstructure to take care of your needs.”

The place where musicians find increasing opportunities, not surprisingly, is within educational institutions, which often means a better quality of instruction. Accomplished musicians like the pianist Kenny Barron and the saxophonist David Liebman (both faculty members at the Manhattan School of Music) have gracefully balanced education and performance. At Jazz at Lincoln Center, Wynton Marsalis is a teacher as well as a player, sometimes even in the context of his own band.

And the instructional efforts of working jazz musicians, through the model established by Mr. Aebersold, can have a positive impact well beyond the academy. “I’ve got about eight books out on jazz education, and they’re all doing great,” Mr. Crook said. “They’re doing better than I’m doing,” he added, laughing.

What remains to be seen is whether the rise of jazz education can cultivate new audiences for the music. Some institutions, notably Jazz at Lincoln Center, are not taking any chances; the organization’s education department encompasses an ambitious array of jazz-appreciation initiatives, starting at the preschool level.

N.E.A. Jazz in the Schools, an outreach administered by the National Endowment for the Arts and produced by Jazz at Lincoln Center, reached an estimated four million students last year. “This could be an enormously powerful force in terms of audience development,” the endowment’s chairman, Dana Gioia, said of the program, a Web-based high school curriculum designed to run as a weeklong lesson during Black History Month. “The training of musicians is only one half of the necessary support for a thriving jazz culture.”

Of course, exposure to jazz doesn’t ensure an embrace of it; the biggest onus is on the artists who maintain the state of the art. “We have incredibly talented young folks out here now, but they have to create a market for themselves,” said the saxophonist Jimmy Heath, who retired from full-time teaching at Queens College not quite a decade ago and was named an N.E.A. Jazz Master in 2003.

However counterintuitive it sounds, local action may be the best hope for the revitalization of the music’s audience. Thanks to these educational programs, jazz now exists in college towns and isolated high schools where no club scene has ever thrived. The implosion of the monolithic music industry has little effect on that network. In that sense, jazz has a shot at becoming a folk music again.

“What I’m hoping for the future of the music,” Mr. Pierce said, “is that the students who come to these schools go back to their communities, create their own scenes and develop their own audiences so the music can come back to some level, as it maybe once was. When you multiply all these individuals and all these institutions, maybe that can happen.”

It may already have started. “These kids coming out of high school are more advanced than they ever were before,” said Mr. Crook, “and it’s because of the people teaching them, graduates of programs like this one. They’re bringing it back to the culture.”

In that sense, the International Association for Jazz Education conference might be understood not as a collision of worlds but as a gathering of the tribes. And the most important thing that happens there isn’t a clinic or show or ceremony, or a negotiation on the expo floor. It’s what happens after, when the various jazz constituencies pack up their stuff and head home.
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/01/07/ar...aee&ei=5087%0A





Spocko Rocks ABC! Micky Mouse Blinks!
Mike Stark

When I started CallingAllWingnuts, one of the hundreds of bloggers that came by to introduce themselves was Spocko of Spockosbrain (now defunct, for reasons soon to become revealed). Spocko was doing some work related to my own in his own market in California's Bay Area. His target? KSFO, home of Melanie Morgan, Lee Rogers, Brian Sussman and other poisonous 2nd rate talk show wingers.

Since this is Spocko's gig, I'm gonna pretty much use his words to explain what's gone down. Before the flip, to give you something to chew on as you click to the full story, I can tell you this much: you're gonna love what you read. Spocko has actually cost Disney money - he chased away advertisers and forced them to pay a law firm to intimidate his ISP. The story isn't all good though - Spocko's broke and can't afford to wage the legal battle, so he's shut down. That said, maybe we can use this space to buck up his spirits a little bit and see if there are any lawyers that want to file a Rule 11 motion against Disney's unscrupulous lawyers...

anyway, flip for the complete story.
Mike Stark's diary :: ::

First, here's what Spocko did to piss them off:

To: Wendy Clark, VP-advertising, AT&T

Dear Ms. Clark:

Thanks to radio hosts from KSFO your brand is being associated with torturing and killing people. Would your marketing people be happy to hear your commercial ran after Lee Rogers said this about a black man in Lincoln, Nebraska?

"Now you start with the Sear's Diehard the battery cables connected to his testi*les and you entertain him with that for awhile and then you blow his bleeping head off. " (Audio link)

You should know the person calling for the execution and torture of the black man in that clip READS THE AT&T commercials on the air. Right now on KSFO Lee Rogers is THE VOICE of AT&T to the SF Bay area. (Audio Link)

Sadly, calling for the death and torture of individuals and groups of people is a regular occurrence on KSFO 560 AM, owned by ABC Radio Disney.

Another example: immediately after the 6 am ABC Radio news on October 27th:

Lee Rogers: I say they catch the person, tie 'em to a post and burn 'em. Set 'em on fire.

Officer Vic: Yeah.

Lee Rogers: Let 'em know what it feels like.

Melanie Morgan: Hog tie 'em first. That would be good.

Next, Lee Rogers talks about a protester at a Cindy Sheehan event:

"Whoever did that should have been stomped to death right there. Just stomp their bleeping guts out." (Audio link).

Within three minutes they called for someone to be burned alive and a protester to be stomped to death. If you dismissed the first clip as a "joke", note that in this clip they were clearly not joking:

Melanie Morgan famously called for Bill Keller of the New York Times (and nine editors from other papers) to be hanged. (Audio link)

On Nov. 14th Melanie Morgan said this about Nancy Pelosi:

"We've got a bulls-eye painted on her big laughing eyes."

(Audio link)

Also note that Morgan reads the Cingular Wireless commercials on KSFO.

Of course political speech is protected, but I believe the FBI and the FCC frown on targeting elected officials for death or inciting violence toward leaders of any political party.

Because of how ads are purchased, your ad placement agency probably didn't know that Tom Brenner (the "comic relief" called Officer Vic) regularly mocks advertiser's products. Listen as he:
calls Chevrolet's product "shi**y"
(audio link)
suggests an anti-virus product is part of a protection racket (audio link)
pretends a cold pill is really a suppository (audio link)


The odds are your product will be mocked. If they don't respect a big client like Chevrolet, will they respect your brand?

And it's not simply calls for killing specific people or mocking products, the radio hosts at KSFO proudly talk about their anti-Muslim views. Based on my research, your business has rules about discrimination against people of other religions, so what message are you sending when your employees or customers hear your advertisements right after Brian Sussman demands of a caller:

"Say Allah is a Wh*re!" (audio link)

Or when Lee Rogers says,

"Indonesia is really just another enemy Muslim nation. ... You keep screwing around with stuff like this we are going to kill a bunch of you. Millions of you. " (audio link)

Maybe you haven't heard any complaints. Would KSFO management let you know about complaints? Doubtful. Morgan's husband, Jack Swanson, is KSFO's operations manager. The president of KSFO, Mickey Luckoff, started the station format and has a history of defending hosts like Michael Savage until he was forced to fire him.

I understand you can't listen to all the shows you advertise on - no one can. You rely on the accurate representation of the sales reps and the show description. But you don't need to take my word, listen to the programs. You probably won't have to listen long to hear something that offends or disgusts you. If you wish to hear the complete context on any clip or the audio during a date your ad ran contact me I have an educational archive of audio clips, I've listed a few below.

I want to emphasize that if you withdrawal your ads you aren't limiting their free speech, just removing your paid support of it. Some other company without the values you describe on the AT&T website can support them. You can choose to advertise elsewhere. This is really about YOU. Do YOU want to be associated with these comments? Do you want your company and brand to be associated with these comments?
I urge you to discontinue advertising on KSFO during the shows hosted by Melanie Morgan, Lee Rogers, Tom Brenner and Brian Sussman.

If you want to contact KSFO here is a link to their website. If you wish to express your displeasure to their parent company contact Zenia Mucha, Senior Vice President, Corporate Communications, The Walt Disney Company PHONE: (818) 560-5300 CA, (212) 456-7255 NY or email Heather Rim, Vice President, Communications, ABC, Inc. heather.rim@abc.com.
Sincerely,

P.S. I would appreciate hearing your final determination in this matter.

Heh. Heh. This has got to be one of the best constructed letter to any advertiser I've ever read. He hits every point of weakness.

So what happened?

Again, here's Spocko:

ABC Radio Lawyer tells Spocko to Shut Up
Two days before Christmas I got a Cease and Desist letter from ABC regarding my use of audio clips from KSFO radio hosts Melanie Morgan and Lee Rogers on my blog, Spocko's Brain (see attached PDF).

KSFO is a Disney affiliate whose radio hosts broadcast violent rhetoric directed toward journalists, liberals, Democrats, Arabs and Muslims all over the SF Bay Area and to the world via the Internet. I commented about the content of these host's broadcasts on my blog and informed KSFO's advertisers about what they were supporting by letting them listen to the exact audio quotes from the hosts.

Why the C&L Letter Now?
In mid-December I got confirmation that a major national advertiser, VISA, pulled their ads from the Melanie Morgan and Lee Rogers show, based on listening to audio clips I provided them. I also think that FedEx, AT&T and Kaiser are considering pulling their ads. Visa isn't the first advertiser who has left KSFO, multiple advertisers have left the station, especially from the Brian Sussman show. In July of this year when KSFO lost MasterCard as an advertiser someone from KSFO "outed" me on a counter-blog (which I won't link to). This same person has also threatened me with local and federal criminal action for using the audio (which I clearly used under the fair use portion of copyright law). And because they have suggested violence toward me (in addition to talking about suing me "for everything I have") I have chosen to remain anonymous.

As Thers has said, 95 percent of blog fights don't mean anything, but I think this one does since KSFO is using the full weight and force of an ABC/Disney lawyer and copyright law against a private citizen blogger. I dared to use the audio content in question for nonprofit educational purposes (I don't even have ads on my blog!), and thus under the protection of the Fair Use Doctrine set forth in Section 107 of the Copyright Act, 17 U.S.C.§107.

It's about Money not Ideology
Talk Radio is a multi-billion dollar industry. It is also a regulated industry because the public gave the broadcast airwaves to radio stations. There are rules. First there are FCC rules with fines of $325,000 for obscene and indecent speech, thanks to the Christian Right. Interestingly, the radio union, (which KSFO hosts hate so much) worked very hard to stop those fines from being directed to individual radio hosts. So the corporation will bear the burden of any fines. Next, there are guidelines at the local station level, the network level and the parent company level. So even if the inciting of violence and hate speech is ignored by the FCC, the continued violent rhetoric has been, and continues to be, approved at the station level (KSFO) the group level (KGO-KSFO) the company level (ABC Radio) and the parent company level (Disney). They are ALL aware of this speech, and because they have not acted in a meaningful way, they all are giving approval for it to continue.

No Management Action
When Keith Olbermann and Media Matters ran Melanie Morgan's comments about "putting the bull's-eye on" Speaker-elect Nancy Pelosi, management did nothing. Morgan did a jokey non-apology where she never even mentioned she used the term bull's-eye.

I'm guessing Lee Rogers may have gotten a memo telling him to stop talking about burning people alive, torturing them and blowing their brains out, because on November 30th, he defiantly said to management and advertisers, "Nobody is gonna tell me what to talk about or not talk about or in what fashion on this radio program. It ain't gonna happen!"
ABC/Disney acted only when they lost revenue. Then they went after ME with a cease and desist letter.

Why me? I'm not the one saying journalists should be hanged, thieves should be tortured and killed, people should be burned alive, stomped to death or have their testicles cut off. I'm not the one saying that millions of Muslims should be killed on the presumption that they are extremists or just because they live in Indonesia. I'm not the one who says that lying is as natural as breathing to Egyptians and Arabs or demanding that a caller "Say Allah is a Whore" to prove he is not an Islamist. I'm simply documenting this speech and providing it to the people who are paying KSFO hosts on commercially supported broadcast radio.

They have Lawyers, Guns and Money. I've got a 5th tier blog and no money
Because I and some other listeners hit right-wing talk radio in the pocket book, they are acting like wounded animals and brought out the big guns, Corporate Lawyers. Am I scared? Hell yes. They can easily squish me like a bug and tie me up in legal battles for the rest of my natural life (and Vulcans live a long time), not to mention that unlike KSFO radio hosts, I'm not getting paid hundreds of thousands of dollars and generating millions of revenue for a multibillion-dollar parent company. If I pursue this further I expect the next step is a "CyberSLAPP" suit.

I don't want to consider the possibility of Morgan's good friend Michelle Malkin deciding to publish my address and real name so that her minions can send me death threats or "white powder" in the mail. Chad Castagana, was charged with mailing more than a dozen threatening letters containing white powder to liberals. He got the idea from someone that journalists, liberals and democrats were the enemy and deserved to die.

Brian Sussman proudly poses with his handgun in KSFO publicity shots and says that he thinks that everyone should have the right to have a machine gun. Maybe I'm over reacting, why would they attack me? I'm not famous, I'm not an elected official, I tried very hard to be accurate about what THEY said BY USING THEIR OWN WORDS.

I tried to help companies protect their brands from being tainted with the violent rhetoric and anti-any-religion-but-right-wing-christianism speech. I wanted to help the VPs of marketing avoid being associated with Lee Roger's "testicle talk" or Sussman talking about cutting off a finger and a penis of an Iraqi in his imaginary torture sessions.

It's about Brands: All the Blessings, None of the Taint
I have found out that KSFO is sold to advertisers as "a Disney affiliate" with all the associated family-friendly connotations. So KSFO is getting all the benefit of the Disney name as well as the massive infrastructure of ad sales at the national level. Clearly ABC Radio doesn't want KSFO hosts' horrific comments to actually reach advertisers. Advertisers are kept in the dark so KSFO can benefit from the Disney brand glow (ABC Radio News creditability glow?).
Advertisers should be able to decide if they want to keep supporting this show based on complete information. We already know that management at ABC and Disney support these hosts, which means that the ABC/Disney Radio brand now apparently includes support for violent hate speech toward Muslims, democrats and liberals.

But instead of directing the hosts to refrain from violent rhetoric and hate speech, they go after the weakest person with the fewest resources. It's cheaper and easier.
Bottom line: ABC/Disney is supporting and profiting from this violent speech, they should at least also accept any negative connotations or financial impact it might have to their image.

What can you do?
As El Gato Negro suggested, let's distribute the audio clips of violent rhetoric and hate speech to multiple locations on the internet so that the ABC/Disney lawyers will have to find and send cease and desist letters to ISPs with stronger policies than the nice people at 1&1.
Crank this up around the blogosphere, if you have a blog link and post about this.
Let's see if anyone in the mainstream media cares. Sadly they have a hard time writing about people who want them dead. I would think that at least the PUBLISHERS and MANAGEMENT at the New York Times, the Washington Post, the Wall Street Journal, and the Associate Press would want to at least defend their own journalists and photojournalists. To date only the LA Times has called Morgan out for accusing them of photojournalist misconduct...

Some members of the press HAVE covered this. When Joe Conason at Salon did a story about Morgan and KSFO he got called a hack by Morgan. When Todd Milbourn of the Sacramento Bee did a story about Move America Forward he got called a liar by Morgan.

Donate to groups who would defend bloggers, journalists and others that Morgan, Rogers and Sussman attack. Specifically I'm recommending you donate money to the Electronic Frontier Foundation, the Committee to Protect Journalists , and Media Matters.

You can also support the journalists who are doing their jobs and are threatened with death from talk radio hosts.
Write the advertisers of KSFO. I have a list of SOME of the advertisers who advertise on KSFO. Drop me a line at spockosemail @ gmail.com and I'll send you a link to an updated list.


As always, be polite, let them know what they are supporting and how it is impacting their brand in your eyes. They often times have their own stated values that they want to maintain, you may want to ask if their corporate values align with what is being said on KSFO (often times the hosts are the VOICE of their brand in the Bay Area, so it's not just the fact that their ad is run right after some violent hate speech, but that the person who is reading their copy is the person who is spewing the violent rhetoric.)

I'm open to other ideas too.

I'd like to thank everyone who has written letters to advertisers, especially PTcruiser and BP. Thanks Blog-Integrity folks for the forum, and special thanks to El Gato Negro.
LLAP,
Spocko

I've got visions of Micky Mouse with his snapped neck caught in a mousetrap of Spocko's making. Spocko took on a giant and so far, is winning.

How'd he do it? He did it the way it's always done - by working within the law, identifying points of weakness, exploiting them and being absolutely tenacious.

At this point I'm not sure what Spocko's next steps will be. I can tell you what I think though.

I'm hoping somebody more trained in the law than I can reach out to him and offer him some representation. It appears to me as if Disney is attempting to bully a little guy in an unethical manner. Any media lawyer worth the air she breathes knows that Spocko's use was well protected. What I'd like to see is somebody step up and file a counter-claim against Disney on Spocko's behalf. Don't rest until Disney is ofrced to publicly apologize and either stand behind the work of Melanie Morgan (who also wrote the book that called Cindy Sheehan an internet sex-addict) and Brian Sussman, or condemn it. This has the potential to be an enormous black eye for Disney. The most wonderful thing about this? They brough it on themselves. The corporatist wingers stepped in thier own shit again.
http://www.dailykos.com/story/2007/1/3/202110/2838

Thanks Roadblock!




Talking Tapes



A long thin plastic strip, about 60cm long. It doesn't look like much, but it talks! Along the length of the strip is a pattern of fine ridges or lines. Run your thumb nail along the ridges, and the tape speaks. However the sound needs to be magnified, so that you can hear it. One method is to hold one end of the strip between your teeth. Then, when you run your nail along the strip you hear it talk, but no-one else does. Or you can stick one end of the strip to an inflated balloon or a paper cup using sticky tape. The balloon or cup acts as an amplifier, and you can then demonstrate it to anyone nearby. Never heard a balloon talk? You have now!

What do the tapes say? One says 'Happy Birthday' others say 'Congratulations' or 'Have a Nice Day'. We have 5 different messages, and we supply 4 tapes of each message, making a pack of 20 Talking Tapes.
http://www.grand-illusions.com/acatalog/info_14.html