Peer-To-Peer News - The Week In Review - January 6th, 2007

[JackSpratts]

"They move fast." – Jan Veilleux


"Cable companies have been busy trying to offer telephone services, and telephone companies are trying to duplicate the cable TV model. They should stop focusing on 20th century services and realize it's the 21st century. There are exciting new advanced services they could make money from." – Gary Bachula


"I actually became a producer because I saw the producers getting all the babes. They were stealing them from the guitarists." – Daniel Levitin


"I have to laugh when people refer to XO as a weak or crippled machine and how kids should get a 'real' one. Trust me, I will give up my real one very soon and use only XO. It will be far better, in many new and important ways." – Nicholas Negroponte


"Really, we brought the adults back to the movies this year, which is part of the reason why we're doing so much better." – Jeff Blake


"Total domestic box office reached $9.4 billion, a shade shy of the 2004 record but 5 percent more than in 2005. Attendance was up 3.3 percent." – David M. Halbfinger


"In Weird Al's case, offering MP3s for free via his web site helped propel him into the Billboard Top 10 for the first time in his career." – Jacqui Cheng


"I know it all sounds bizarre because in a way, I’m funding their attacks against me and others like me." – Tenise Barker


"When even Muzak programmers are facing up to life during wartime, pop is no escape." – Jon Pareles


































Ho Ho Ho

The invitation was unexpected, posted as it was on the front page and coming at an awkward time. I had run out of room on my latest hardrive when my favorite tracker announced a “free” holiday special. They would suspend the count, or track, of all our downloads, so that those with poor ratios could grab as much as they wanted for Christmas. Since uploads would still be tracked it also offered members the chance to rebuild those bad ratios by uploading to scores of very hungry leechers. For those with good ratios like me it offered a way to splurge without care. No matter how much I leeched my ratio could only do one thing: improve, and it was going to last for ten whole days, right through Christmas and New Years.

I immediately told every member I knew. Might as well. If I couldn’t store anything, maybe they would let me have some of whatever they got later on.

Who was I kidding? This would be the opportunity of the year! The tracking site has a fearsome reputation for quality and motivated uploaders. In other words the stuff is great and there’s plenty of it! I hit the internets for some big-box hard drive deals. The next thing I knew I was out the door and in the car for a 120 gig mini a site said was in stock. It was, and it was small and slick but the sales girl showed me an even higher capacity model for less money. I bought two. Within less than an hour it was hooked up and my new 160GB external hard drive was slowly filling with holiday cheer.

Funny thing about the client I use. µTorrent has a few options that make short work of multiple downloads. To begin with the bittorrent protocol rapidly reserves all the space it needs to store a file. Whether it’s a single 7 gig movie or thousands of thumbnails, BT creates the folder, names the files and lays claim to the hard drive, all before completing a single transfer. This is normally a good thing since it makes sector collisions impossible, but it can make archiving problematic. It’s easy to move uncompleted projects to other folders without fully checking their status, especially when there are lots of them arriving at the same time. BT doesn’t flag incomplete files as such, and since the missing bits can be absolutely anywhere, once you’ve moved a file and killed the torrent the only way to know for certain is by painstakingly checking every one very thoroughly. If it’s a music download for instance it means exhaustively listening to every single bit in real time. To avoid this you’d wait until the client says it’s finished before archiving and changing folders and file names, but when you’re dealing with hundreds of items all at once mistakes will happen, and you can wind up damaging a lot of work. Fortunately µTorrent has a simple solution: It allows you to pre-select a final archive location that will receive the file, but only after it’s been certified complete, and it does this automatically. It will even move it to anther drive and continue tracking and seeding it if you like. I vaguely remembered seeing the feature but had never needed it and so wasn’t prepared for the repercussions of such massive multiple transfers. I queued up about 30 downloads and started carefully moving the completed folders when I realized this was going to be a major project and that’s when I looked around for a solution. I remembered something about the provision so I took a closer look at the preference panel, found it and selected the option right away. It made a huge difference over the course of what would become a zany holiday week.

The statistics at this particular site are fairly impressive. It tracks some 100,000 torrents upped by several thousand dedicated members. Most are music files and since a torrent usually comprises an album or discography, a “single” torrent will have anywhere from a dozen to a hundred files. My guess is there are around two million files at any one time with everything separated into standard categories like “Rock” or Hip-Hop,” “70’s” or “House” so it’s all easily searchable. It’s blindingly fast too. With excellent servers tracking all the various torrents searches never take more than a second or two. It’s almost always faster than Google. It updates in real time and with hundreds of torrents added daily you can see their progress by hitting the refresh button in your browser and watching the older entries crawl down the page, and eventually off the system entirely. They prune regularly. The content is very dynamic and if a torrent isn’t being leeched it’s gone in a matter of days. I’ve found it’s smart to start with the oldest first since they’re the closest to destruction, although most users start with the new stuff to get in on a hot up and boost their ratio. Depending on one’s needs either can be good strategies. For the free week, which they dubbed “Leechfest,” what I needed was content and lots of it. I wanted to see what a motivated leecher could grab in 9 days with some judicious pre-selection and a typical 1500/384 connection. My drives were humming. It was time to begin.

Starting with the very last torrent under the “60’s” section (number four thousand and something) I raced backwards towards the beginning, grabbing every single file I was interested in. Since I have little patience for bad sound this meant rips of at least V0 quality, although they were the exception. I was aiming for lossless flacs and that’s what I was getting. If 2006 wasn’t the year of the flac believe me, 2007 will be. They’re all over the place and if they don’t by themselves guarantee quality, a lossless rip is sure better than a lossy one and I was piling them on like a starving man at a Miami buffet. I buzzed through the A’s., D’s, F’s, H’s right up to and including the Z’s (I skipped a bunch), but more than a third were lossless. µTorrent handled the onslaught with ease and even my old clunker of a server that I picked up used at a computer fair dealt with it reasonably well. Things really have come a long way since Napster and Grokster. Memory leaks are basically history and resource use is way down. Frugal Bluebeards don’t need much in the way of pricey iron to swap gigs anymore. Pretty much anything that gets warm can plunder a hard drive. I think you can set yourself up for a trillion dollar lawsuit for less than a hundred bucks now. How’s that for leverage? I pushed it out of my mind and headed for the “70’s” section. On it went.

Did I mention I pinned my connection? It’s the first thing that happened and it got so bad I couldn’t surf. Pages took so long to load, the news was old before I saw it. I have neighbors who must think wireless security means if there’s no wire it must be secure so I was able to locate temporary signals for my laptop. Lucky for me, it’s how last week’s WiR got out. I was running a continuous 165 on my download meter, hour after hour, day after day, and it was all these transfers, there was nothing else moving. With the exception of a few minor dropouts from spontaneous synch loss (packets can’t make the trip if the queue is jammed so signal loss sometimes occurs) once I got rolling I didn’t stop for a sandwich. I averaged 12.25 GB down every day for 8 straight days. The whole Leechfest thing wound up netting me over 100 gigs in just under 10 days. I was impressed to put it mildly. Ecstatic might be a more accurate description and yet I wasn’t even a contender. There were reports of user totals in the terabyte range. I’m still trying that on for size.

As for me one thing is clear: short of swapping hard drives with another trader this was the fastest, most concentrated bout of quality file sharing I’ve ever participated in. It was the Woodstock of Peer-To-Peer, an electric orgy of bit swapping. It reminded me of my first few weeks on Napster when computer sessions were marathons and I wasn’t sleeping, but that was dial-up and the pickings were long in coming. Compared to that however this was the Oblivion Express. That it was sandwiched between Christmas and New Years made it all the more surreal. I couldn’t shut down, nobody could. There was So. Much. Stuff! What an end to 2006. What a fine start to 2007.

That I accomplished it with a fairly pedestrian internet connection, and one I’ve had throughout the 00’s is testament to where we are as file-sharers today and how despite corporate malfeasance P2P has flourished furiously. We are, to put it mildly, light years beyond our old Napster days. If you’ve just been futzing around here and there you won’t believe what’s going on today, but many of you already know, especially those with ultra fast connections. To that end I’ll be quadrupling my own download speed in the next few months. That’s going to be interesting. As for the next Leechfest, I fully expect it to be even bigger than this one, but that’s something I’ll need the next few months to wrap my mind around.



Leechfest - The JackStats:

Duration – 224 Hours (I missed the first 16 hrs)

Average Daily Download – 1065 Files, 11.78 GB

Completed Downloads - 9946 Total Files, 110 GB

MP3s – 5055, 28.1 GB

FLACs - 3014, 73.5 GB

M4As – 193, 2.12 GB

APEs – 13, 658 MB




















Enjoy,

Jack

























January 6th, 2007







Ailing Music Biz Set to Relax Digital Restrictions
Antony Bruno

The anti-digital rights management (DRM) bandwagon is getting more crowded by the day. Even some major-label executives are pushing for the right to sell digital downloads as unprotected MP3s.

In 2007, the majors will get the message, and the DRM wall will begin to crumble. Why? Because they'll no longer be able to point to a growing digital marketplace as justification that DRM works. Revenue from digital downloads and mobile content is expected to be flat or, in some cases, decline next year. If the digital market does in fact stall, alternatives to DRM will look much more attractive.

Revenue from digital music has yet to offset losses from still-declining CD sales, and digital track sales remain a cause for concern. Month-over-month download figures were largely flat through 2006, even in the face of year-over-year gains. If the expected post-holiday spike in download numbers that has occurred in the past two years is weak, look for the glass on the panic button to break.

"People in the industry will have a very different conversation in January when the dust clears and they realize just how bad this year really was," says Eric Garland, CEO of peer-to-peer (P2P) tracking firm BigChampagne.

Even more of a concern is mobile. According to Gartner G2 analyst Mike McGuire, the ringtone market -- currently contributing more than half of all digital revenue -- will soften during the next 12-18 months as it matures.

Meanwhile, the music industry wants a strong competitor to the monster it created called iTunes. Forcing would-be competitors to sell music incompatible with the popular iPod is not showing any signs of working. Removing DRM would attract powerful new players to the market, and that -- the theory goes -- will result in more buyers.

"The majors . . . have got to capitulate, or they will continue to have a fractured digital media market that will slow down and stagnate," says Terry McBride, president of Nettwerk Music Group, management home of such acts as Sarah McLachlan and Avril Lavigne.

Here are five places to watch this year's DRM developments:

AMAZON

The online retailer reportedly is itching to get into digital downloads but is holding out for a DRM-free service. It sells as many iPods as anybody and is a haven for music that is disappearing from physical retail shelves. "They already have a relationship with our consumer the way that a lot of others don't," Blue Note GM Zach Hochkeppel says. Viewed as the biggest threat to iTunes, Amazon has the power to force a DRM strategy shift.

LIMEWIRE

Still in the process of settling with the music industry, the P2P file-sharing service wants to start charging its 40 million users $1 per download and share the revenue and user-behavior information with the music industry. But it wants to stay DRM-free. The company hired TAG Strategic consultant Ted Cohen, a former EMI exec, to convince the majors to at least test the idea for six months.

MYSPACE

The most popular Internet destination in the world is working with SnoCap to launch a music download service that would let musicians sell music directly from their profiles and that of their fans. But it will only sell files as MP3s. It is moving ahead by focusing on independent and unsigned artists willing to release unprotected music, and a successful showing would make the majors take notice.

EMUSIC

The indie-only specialist just surpassed 100 million downloads; it's the second-largest digital music retailer after iTunes, all sans DRM. CEO David Packman says he is not interested in selling major-label fare, but he may have no choice if majors suddenly allow his competitors to sell in MP3 as well. But even if the majors did relent to MP3 sales on eMusic, the company's business model would have to change--no label will agree to 50 downloads for $15 per month.

YAHOO MUSIC

GM David Goldberg has convinced Sony BMG and EMI Music Group to test the DRM-free waters with limited, promotional "experiments" involving Jessica Simpson, Jesse McCartney, Relient K and Norah Jones. The lessons learned from these tests will either speed or slow their path to eliminating DRM.
http://ca.today.reuters.com/news/new...archived=False





Music Biz Hopes to Profit From Consumer Content
Antony Bruno

If 2006 was the year of user-generated content, 2007 will be the year the music industry learns to generate new revenue from the hugely popular trend.

Labels are striking licensing deals with sites like YouTube so that fans can post copyrighted content or include it in videos they make themselves. Additionally, labels are expected to start releasing new types of content -- such as unused clips or video montages -- specifically created for fans to manipulate in new ways.

By doing so, record labels can then share in the advertising revenue these sites collect. Rather than just suing YouTube and its ilk for how their sites are used, the music industry can now profit from them, not to mention reap the promotional benefits.

"They're doing it anyway," says Ted Cohen, former EMI Music Group digital executive and now founding partner of consulting firm TAG Strategic. "There's a chance to monetize this behavior."

Additionally, music companies have the chance to let their fans actually sell music to one another via playlist-sharing services and peer-recommendation sites. Word-of-mouth marketing is exploding online through user-generated activity, creating a new generation of tastemakers. How well labels tap this effective source of music discovery will be a barometer of their overall digital strategies.

Here are five technologies shaping this space:

SNOCAP

Launched with much fanfare in 2005, SnoCap has generated little momentum to date. But after scoring a big win with MySpace, which selected it to power its digital music service, 2007 could be SnoCap's year. The company's audio fingerprinting technologies -- as well as those from Audible Magic and Gracenote -- will play a key role in monetizing user-generated content by shifting the burden of acquiring licenses for copyrighted works from the end user to the service provider. Each time a fan uploads a copyrighted track, for whatever purpose, the technology notes who owns the rights, which ad is on the page hosting the content and how much the service provider is then owed.

BRIGHTCOVE

Another method of monetizing existing behavior, Brightcove works with content owners like Warner Music Group to make videoclips available to fans wishing to post content on their blog or Web site. Its embedded video technology then tracks how many times a given clip is viewed and compensates rights holders via its advertising platform. With broadband now in 80% of U.S. Internet households, analysts expect video to be the most important form of online media next year.

VENICE PROJECT

Analyst group In-Stat predicts that the Venice Project's peer-to-peer video project will be "the big viral media sensation of 2007." Founded by the brains behind Kazaa and Skype -- Janus Friis and Niklas Zennstrom -- the service uses P2P technology to distribute video a la BitTorrent, but also lets users modify the content within the rules that copyright holders set in advance. Unlike Kazaa, the Venice Project is built from the get-go with a business model and respect for copyrights, and already has attracted Paramount Pictures, MTV Networks, Twentieth Century Fox Film and Warner Bros. Home Entertainment to the fold.

ILIKE

iLike is one of several taste-matching sites designed to offer music recommendations by comparing the musical preferences of members and matching those with similar interests. The sites' social-networking aspect provides a human element to counter competitors that rely too heavily on algorithms, and iLike's integration of Apple's iTunes music service sets it apart from the pack. None of these music-discovery services -- others include Last.fm, MOG and Mercora -- actually sell music themselves, instead linking to other services and often not taking a cut. But Ticketmaster's mid-December 25% investment in iLike illustrates how digital retailers and other music interests will seek to either partner or acquire such sites to better-link the discovery process with a sale.

PASSALONG

Peer-retailing services like PassAlong reward users for the sale of each digital track they recommend to friends. So far such services haven't been a big hit. But PassAlong's answer has been to branch out with applications like OnTour, which notify users when any artist in their digital music library is scheduled to appear in their town. As more social networks follow MySpace's lead and enter the digital music retail game, peer retailers like PassAlong, Weedshare and Peer Impact will become ripe for acquisition.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn...010200030.html





Apple Faces US Lawsuit Over iTunes-iPod Link

Class-action suit alleges that Apple violates antitrust laws
Nancy Gohring

Apple Computer Inc. faces a lawsuit in the U.S., following similar charges in Europe, over tying its iTunes music store to the iPod digital music player.

Apple revealed the suit, submitted in July to the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California, in a filing with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission on Friday.

The suit was filed by a user, Melanie Tucker, and seeks class-action status. It alleges that Apple violates antitrust laws by refusing to allow music bought in its iTunes store to be played on any digital music player besides the iPod. It also charges Apple with not making it clear to customers that music from the iTunes store and the iPod are incompatible with music and devices offered by other companies.

The suit asks that Apple be forbidden to continue to support the exclusive tie-in between iTunes and the iPod and that Apple pay damages to anyone who has bought an iPod or music from the iTunes store after April 28, 2003.

In November, Apple filed a motion with the court to dismiss the suit but on Dec. 20 the court denied that request.

A consumer group in France filed a similar suit in early 2005 that is still ongoing. In addition, consumer groups in several Nordic countries are preparing a case against Apple, also charging it with illegally tying the music store and music player together.
http://www.infoworld.com/article/07/...lawsuit_1.html





Peer-To-Peer: Looking To 2007
Jackson West

On Saturday, I took a look at last year’s P2P news. Today I’ll extrapolate from some of those trends to look at what they might mean for the next year. The common thread that jumps out is that the medium of distributing content in general, and video content in particular, has undergone a fundamental shift, from scheduled, one-to-many to distributed, on-demand. And if legitimate services don’t figure out how to significantly improve the user experience, unauthorized means will continue to thrive.

Hi-Def Blowback: What’s taking high-definition so long to saturate the marketplace now that the hardware prices have finally begun to fall to reasonable levels? Crippleware. Simply put, from HDMI to software DRM to the lack of HD content made available because of piracy fears, mainstream consumers enter a Dantean circle of incompatibility hell. HD-DVD and Blu-Ray will become the focus of consumer ire; Apple could put together a simple, functional solution and thereby set some standards; networks will leverage this to perpetuate one-way HD transmission — but unauthorized distribution will still offer the best user experience.

Ad-supported P2P: Corporate networks that distribute files via P2P should continue to spring up, though will likely flounder due to limited catalogs and content restrictions. Why take up bandwidth downloading ads and DRM’d content from an incomplete selection? A more interesting case would be for an existing Internet radio network to leverage nascent P2P streaming technology in order to cut bandwidth costs, thereby increasing profits from their current revenue streams.

“Traffic shaping” and Encryption: ISP efforts to minimize the amount of P2P traffic will continue, driving more and more P2P users (legitimate or otherwise) to implement packet encryption. Developers of software and protocols will likely respond by making it significantly easier, if not transparent, to do so. ISP efforts will likely focus on better packet prioritization algorithms and more blunt measures against heavy users generally.

Legitimate Distribution via Torrents: The competitive advantage that distributing large files over P2P networks has not gone unnoticed by content developers. Especially for small to medium businesses, the opportunity to reduce bandwidth expense will be too good to pass up. The download of boutique games, independent video and music and software trial versions over P2P networks will actually be encouraged by their rights holders.

More Bulk Lawsuits: With news that the German music industry will be employing the RIAA’s tactic of suing a small percentage of unauthorized file traders on a regular basis, look for the prosecution and defense of small-scale, non-commercial copyright abusers to become a profitable sector of the legal field. Neither the record companies nor the general public will be happy with the results either way, but law firms will certainly have an interest in the situation being perpetuated.

The Great BitTorrent Compromise: I don’t know which side will have to cede the most, but between BitTorrent and their content partners, something has to give if BitTorrent is going to become the go-to portal for online video. Either Bram and team will be succesful in convincing the studios to improve the experience, or BitTorrent’s growth will be dictated by the acceptance of the studios’ terms by their user base. In the meantime, look for content providers to continue failing miserably at developing their own distribution solutions.

Automated Content Policing: A number of new products that promise to spider online catalogs and flag copyrighted content will become vogue for both the discovery of infringing uses and for reporting content and context to refine ad targetting. Google’s deployment of their solution on YouTube should serve to indicate if such systems are currently realistic on a large scale. More aggressive policing could include more honeypots, client-side indexing by trojans and even malicious viruses.

Convergence: Ultimately, P2P will finally enable video content to divorce itself from being identified wholly with the television set. The sheer number and variety of devices that can play content combined with the many means of acquiring the content will ultimately change our language and behavior. The primary mediator of the experience will be software, from inexpensive tools to manage and time-shift media input across multiple inputs to the holy grail of convergence, a universal communication tool. Television’s last chance may be HDTV broadcast, but even that ship may have sailed already thanks to unauthorized, P2P-enabled distribution.
http://newteevee.com/2007/01/02/peer...oking-to-2007/





Which Movie Download Site Is Best?
Michael W. Muchmore

Sure, you've gone to YouTube and watched that occasional, amusing, few-minute-long video whose URL a friend emailed you. But what if you're in the mood for something longer and at a better picture quality? We took five services offering just that out for a spin: CinemaNow, MovieFlix, Movielink, Amazon's Unbox, and Starz's Vongo. Each has a somewhat different take on what your online movie downloading experience should be. They vary in what they offer, how you should pay, and whether you subscribe to a film library, rent, or purchase the content.

Though video on demand has been a glimmer in tech execs' eyes since the turn of the millennium, the enabling technologies are finally maturing, and two of the services we review just appeared in 2006—Amazon's Unbox and Starz's Vongo.

There are also a lot of illegal, pirated-movie download sites out there that we don't recommend and won't dignify with publishing the names or links of. Some of them are no more than web interfaces for file-sharing technologies like Bittorrent. When a site claims "all free" movies (which they make you pay a site subscription for), you can bet it's one of these.

The legal movie sites we review claim to take the trip to the video store or that wait for mail from Netflix out of your home theater viewings. Is the convenience worth it? What do you gain and what do you lose when switching to internet-delivered entertainment? Continued... CinemaNow offers five different ways to get and pay for your movies: Free, Subscription, Rent, Buy, and Burn to DVD. To help cut down on the possible confusion with so many different options, the tabbed page for each section has a "Learn How it Works" button:

The service offers a nice selection of free movies. And CinemaNow claims more than 4,000 feature-length films, television programs, and music concerts from licensors such as 20th Century Fox, Disney, Lionsgate, MGM, Miramax, NBC Universal, Paramount Pictures, Sony, Sundance Channel, and Warner Bros. Since the service includes adult content, it also provides parental controls.

CinemaNow requires Internet Explorer and Windows Media Player 10 or higher, but you don't have to download a separate catalog/player application to use it. It does require you to install an ActiveX control for Internet Explorer to play movies, however.

CinemaNow's site has a pretty thorough page on how to connect your PC to your television to see the movies on a bigger screen, but we still had to purchase a VGA-to-component converter to get our laptop to talk to our HDTV-ready TV understandably.

Let's now take a detailed look at each of CinemaNow's five levels of service:

Free
Free movies come from independent sources rather than the big movie studios, and they are stream-only. The Free area is very accessible and well organized, but you won't find many movies you've even heard of in there. Surprisingly, the Foreign movie section has more choices than you'll find in the more-expensive "Rent" or "Subscription," options, and there isn't even a Foreign genre choice for "Buy" or "Burn to DVD." We found a couple of very enjoyable but relatively unknown pictures you can watch on a shoestring. Free movies stream at your choice of 300Kb/s or 700Kb/s, neither delivers spectacular quality, but the 700K option was watchable on a non-huge screen. It would be nice to be able to search by picture quality—i.e., bitrates from 300 to 1500K. You may only be interested in titles that will look good on a bigger television.

The CinemaNow video player uses Windows Media Player behind the scenes when you're in the small ActiveX control, and overtly when you view in full screen. During fast panning scenes, we could see the jitter of lost frames. And when watching the free 2004 comedy Baptists at Our Barbecue, this occurred sometimes, but mostly the picture was perfectly watchable.

We did run into one problem of the image going upside-down, and then the window closing, but that may have been related to turning of hardware acceleration in order to take screen captures for this article.

Subscribe
Subscription selections weren't much hotter than the free ones, though you don't have to put up with the annoying ads as you do if you're watching free movies. Subscribing gives you access to more films, but they're still not top Hollywood releases and most are quite low-budget. Subscription also lets you download as many movies as you want. At the medium bitrate of 700K—the highest allowed for "subscribe" movies—we saw some banding, but the picture was usually better than VHS. A company rep told us that picture quality was often related to the quality of the print supplied to CinemaNow by the studios.

Rental gets you better picture quality—for some titles that offer Premium 1500K download bitrate—more film choices, and more up-to-date and in-demand movies. Rental fees start at 49 cents, but you won't find hit films at that price, those usually cost $3.99 or sometimes $2.99. Some categories have even less choice than the Free movies: in Foreign there was only one page of six films to choose from, whereas under Subscription there were three pages of choices. In general, you won't find anywhere near as many choices of movies to rent as you would on Netflix or at your local video store. But if it's raining, you're far from a store, and you don't want to wait for the Netflix package in the mail, renting this way is a viable option.

At the time of review, the movie Little Miss Sunshine was a new release on Netflix, but wasn't available as a rental on CinemaNow; it was available to buy for $14.95 however. Some titles in this section are only available in 700K, medium bitrate. For that, we'd expect them to be included among the Subscription choices rather than costing the extra rental fee. And some of the categories aren't exactly apt: Would you consider Ghostbusters II to belong in "Classics." We guess they include any movie older than ten years a "classic."

When you first download a Rent movie, you hit Rent Now and then get a checkout page. When you actually start downloading the film, you have to pick a directory to save the movie file too—something not very well explained in the software. The page for the movie we chose said it was a premium 1500K version, but when we actually paid and downloaded it, it turned out to be 1200K. The file format is WMV, and we could start watching it after about 15 minutes of downloading; it would have been quicker with a connection faster than our 150KB/sec DSL. Once you first click Watch Now, you have 24 hours to complete your viewing. Doing so launches whatever app is registered to play WMP files, in our case Winamp, which actually reported a bitrate of 1299K.

Be warned that you can only watch Rented movies on one PC; we made the mistake of downloading a Rent movie to an office PC, thinking we could continue watching it at home after logging in to the same account. Since we paid to watch the movie within 24 hours, we'd expect to be able to do so from anywhere we had web access.

In any case, we can report that the picture quality was excellent at 1200K on a 19-inch 1280x1024 LCD.

Buying Movies
This is where you pay usually $14.95 (older titles for $9.95, super in-demand ones for $19.95) to download a movie for keeps. A feature-length film takes about an hour to download over a fast connection. You can watch the movie while it downloads (after 10 percent or so of the movie's been downloaded) and view it while you're offline.

The movie choices were quite up to date in this section: At the time of review, Jackass Number 2 and Little Miss Sunshine were available—those titles were also new releases on Netflix. CinemaNow has deals with Disney, Fox, Lionsgate, MGM, Sony, and Warner Brothers to get this content—more sources than other internet movie download sites.

File size for bought movies is about 1.5GB, with encoding rates of 1200K to 1500K; most we saw here were 1200K.

An important difference between Buy and Rent is that when you Buy, you can watch the movie on more than one PC.

Burning DVDs
CinemaNow claims to be the only site that lets you burn Hollywood content. Downloading a movie for burning to DVD gets you the highest quality image. To download a movie for burning to DVD, you first have to download the 12MB DVD burning software. The burn feature has that telltale little "beta" tag, so the company seems to be covering themselves in case the feature doesn't work quite right.

The download preview only works after the movie's completely downloaded and is being converted to VTS format:

You can also play DVD from your HD without burning. When we did this, it tried to play in Windows Media Player, but you need DVD Decoder plugin to do so. These cost $15 to $20 to download.

After a couple of DVD blanks were rejected, we got CinemaNow to successfully burn a DVD, which did, as advertised, include the menus and special features, and was playable on our normal DVD player. But the picture quality was not first-rate DVD quality.

Product: CinemaNow

Company: CinemaNow

Price: Free for some less-in-demand movies; 29.95/month for Subscription

Pros: Burn complete DVDs; decent amount of free content

Cons: Picture quality for free and subscription content not so great; complicated strata of memberships.

Summary: CinemaNow is the most mature movie download site we've reviewed, and the only to let you burn DVDs of Hollywood content that will play in a regular DVD player. The selection of content is arguably the largest of any movie download service, and the ActiveX player does the job well using Windows Media Player. The five different ways of getting movies: Free, Subscribe, Rent, Buy, and Burn to DVD can be a bit confusing, but we'd rather have lots of choices than fewer.

Rating:

MovieFlix offers a large collection of free and subscription movies, but no top current blockbusters. Most of the films are a bit faded around the edges, but at the cheapest monthly fee of any service we reviewed, you can still find some enjoyable entertainment here.

MovieFlix has no player/manager software that you need to download. It relies on its web site and RealPlayer to get you the movies you want. (And this reviewer ain't a big fan of Real's many popups, messages, calls home, and other baggage.) If you pay the $7.95 monthly membership fee, you can also use Windows Media Player, though we couldn't get WMP to find the MovieFlix server, even after allowing it access in our firewall. And the MovieFlix help on the topic—"please make sure your Windows Media Player is properly installed"—was no help at all. An attempt on another computer at a different location, too, couldn't play the WMP version, stating the file type or codec wasn't supported.

Unlike any of the other services here, there's no download video rental: It's purely streaming. One nice thing over some of the other services is that you can fast forward and use the progress indicator to position your place in the film right away, without waiting for the entire movie to download.

The MovieFlix site is somewhat less sophisticated than the other services reviewed here, with a large field of genres to pick from, and when you click on one or search, you get an alphabetical text and link list, without thumbnails. You can search, but there's no Advanced Search as in CinemaNow, which lets you specify genre and such. You can, however sort the list by Year, Length, and whether the title requires membership.

When we say that the films are not major movies, we're talking about titles like the animated Aquarium of the Aliens and lots of stuff you haven't heard of from the 1930s to 1960s. And even pictures listed under "Member Favorites" had titles like Son of the Sheik and Zoltan Hound of Dracula.

Parental controls seem limited to a "Family Filter," which you can turn on and off. We couldn't even find help on the site about how to actually prevent anyone from just turning it back off if you've set it on.

The streams we viewed were coming in at 200Kbps and 225Kbps—lower than any other service, but that's one price you pay for instant gratification: Most of the other services make you wait ten minutes or so while the beginning of the film is downloading. This bitrate of MovieFlix doesn't lend itself to even a full-screen viewing on a 19-inch display, let alone a large television.

As you might expect for such a bare-bones service, there's no support for portable devices, or even for offline viewing.

MovieFlix doesn't offer in-demand recent movie hits, nor the ability to download films for rent or purchase, but for a quick entertainment fix, you can't beat the price.

Product: MovieFlix

Company: MovieFlix

Price: Free or $7.95/mo premium access to full collection.

Pros: Cheap and decent free movies selection; can rewind and fast forward right away; no extra software download; adult material.

Cons: Picture quality worse than other movie download sites; no new popular movies in library; adult material (with only weak parental control).

Summary: The low-priced MovieFlix is fine for a quick fix if you're absolutely bored and need feature-length entertainment, but you won't find recent popular movies, and the picture quality trails other movie download services.

Rating:

Vongo boasts over 2000 titles, but just over 100 available for rental. A big difference between this service and CinemaNow is that Vongo doesn't offer any way to permanently own a movie or burn it to a DVD. It also doesn't have any free movies; you either subscribe for $9.95 per month or rent individual titles.

When first running Vongo, our software firewall required a lot of okays to let it access the internet. You can play content on devices running Version 2 of the Microsoft Portable Media Center (PMC) operating system. At present, that pretty much limits you to Toshiba's Gigabeat S series.

There's an 8-page registration process, which tests your bandwidth and asks your preferences (including age range and whether you prefer mainstream or independent films). We noted that the user license states that the company can use personally identifiable information about you for marketing—pretty much par for these services.

You can sign up as either a Registered User or as a Member. Registering without membership entitles you to see what films are available to watch previews, rate films, and download Pay-per-view content. The $9.95/month Membership lets you fully use the service, giving you lots of included movies provided by Starz Entertainment and also gets you Starz's channel streaming. It also lets you watch movies on three separate devices.

The service requires you to download a software client that will let you select the movies you want to watch. A nice touch in this nicely designed application is that it will play the preview of any movie you're interested in.

It also (below the preview) shows you the download file size and format. But it doesn't tell you the bitrate, which determines the picture quality. You can download movies immediately or schedule them to download at any hour of the day. The service only lets you have 10 content files on your HD at a time, and you have 10 days to view content; pay-per-view selections must be watched within one 24-hour period.

You can also enter a Parental control password, but PG-13 and R and above are the only choices for control; CinemaNow offers more flexibility in this area. We noticed that our example recent releases, Jackass Number 2 and Little Miss Sunshine were not available on Vongo, so the content is limited by what's available to Starz. We did find some older mainstream flicks: Pretty Woman and Sleepless in Seattle, for example. And The Da Vinci Code, a recent release, was available in Pay-per-view.

The search only had four category listings: Action, Anime, Comedy, and Drama—far fewer than available on some of the other services. The browsing panel adds Kids & Family, Romance, Sci-Fi & Horror, and Starz Channel to that list.

When you hit Watch Now for a movie, you get Vongo's player:

Blowing this view up to full screen still doesn't allow fast forward or reverse, and the progress bar slider can't be used to advance or put back your position in the movie until after the whole movie has been downloaded. Your only choices are pause and stop. The resolution (as determined by opening the WMA file in the Vongo directory and playing a movie in Winamp) was 720x390 at a bitrate of 1395K for one film we downloaded, and the picture quality was quite satisfying. But we still saw banding in other movies, even on a 19-inch LCD. Another minor detractor from the cinematic experience was the intermittently appearing Starz logo in the lower-right hand corner of the screen.

We think the subscription choice in Vongo, at only $9.99 a month is the better way to go if you're interested in this service, with its slick player/downloader software. The number of titles included with the subscription is plentiful enough to keep you entertained for many hours. We think it would have been nice for Vongo to throw in a few free movies, as CinemaNow and MovieFlix do.

Product: Vongo

Company: Starz Entertainment Group

Price: $9.95 per month; free registration allows Pay-per-view access.

Pros: Plays previews on the movie catalog to help you decide; pretty good selection of movies you've heard of included with the subscription

Cons: Player doesn't fast forward or rewind; top current blockbusters not available; not many subgenres to sort by; no free movies; no permanent ownership of movies.

Summary: Vongo is a good deal as far as it goes—lots of movies and shows included for $9.99 a month, but you can't purchase movies permanently, the selection doesn't include current recent DVD releases of blockbusters, and the player is limited.

Rating:

Movielink has a good selection of recent titles—it should, as it's a joint venture of Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Studios, Paramount Pictures, Sony Pictures Entertainment, Universal Studios, and Warner Bros. It doesn't require subscription fees and offers movies just two ways: Rent or Purchase. There's no subscription option and no monthly charge, but you have to register (which you can even do without a credit card, similar to CinemaNow). Renting works similarly to CinemaNow, while Purchasing lets you keep the movie but not burn it to DVD format. You can burn the movies to disk in WMF format. Some movies will only be available as purchases and others as rentals, depending on what the distribution gods of Hollywood have deemed allowable. Most purchase movies we saw went for $9.99, but some were as high as $19.99; rentals were mostly $2.99 or $3.99.

Some of the purchased movies seemed overpriced at $9.99—old movies you could find in the bargain bin for less at the video store. But we actually got a deal when renting: The movie we saw listed as a $2.99 rental, but turned out to only cost $1.19 at checkout! And we found top current films—e.g., Superman Returns—that turned out to cost half to rent than the catalog page showed.

For rented movies, you have 30 days to watch within one 24-hour period after download. As with the other services, you can start watching a movie even before you've finished downloading it, but the Manager started out a bit optimistic, reporting that we'd be able to watch in 2 minutes, only to later revise that to 17 minutes. It depends on whether you're using your internet bandwidth for other tasks.

Movielink offers a few free sample movies to give you a taste of what to expect. Like Vongo, the service uses client software, Movielink Manager, which you download before watching your first film. It's a very quick download and install, though Media Player update downloads made it a bit longer of a process for us, with three restarts required (though one should be blamed on WMP alone).

As to picture quality, the Movielink site explains, "For most movie downloads, Movielink uses a minimum encode rate of 1.3 Mbps and a peak of 4 Mbps, with sound encoded at 96kbps. Movielink movie downloads are provided in letterbox format, with an array of approximately 150,000 pixels…For the streaming previews, Movielink uses a constant bit rate (CBR) encoding of 300 kbps. The 1.3 Mbps movie download file contains more visual information than the 300 kbps streamed movie file and is therefore of better quality." DRM prevented us from viewing content in WinAmp, so we can't verify this.

As with Vongo, Movielink movies can also be downloaded for PMC (Windows Portable Media Center) devices. Unlike Vongo, the Manager software doesn't also serve as the catalog of films, so of course doesn't preview the movies unless you specifically download a preview.

Movielink doesn't appear to have any parental controls. There are ample genres to choose from: Foreign was even broken down into 12 countries plus "other," though there weren't a ton of films in each of these subcategories to choose from.

We like using MovieLink, its picture quality was very pleasing, software worked well and clearly, and it offers a good selection of recent titles to choose from.

Product: Movielink

Company: Movielink

Price: Per movie rental/purchase; generally $3.99 for rental and $9.99 to purchase.

Pros: Decent selection of recent DVD releases; no monthly fee.

Cons: No free movies; no subscription option.

Summary: Movielink does a good job of getting you recent, popular titles at decent resolution, its operation is clear and simple, but there's no subscription option to access a library of films.

Rating:

Amazon's video download service—the newest of the services here, launched in Fall 2006—claims to give you web-delivered DVD-quality video that's as easy as taking a disc out of a box. Unbox offers TV shows and movies for download and rental. The selection of over 2400 movies includes recent popular DVD releases. TV shows are $1.99, movie rentals are mostly $3.99, and movie purchases are about $15.

The service requires you to download the Unbox video player (a 3.8 MB download), which installs .Net Framework 2.0—the service requires Windows XP. You can set this application up on multiple PCs and share videos through Amazon's RemoteLoad system. There's very thorough Help on the site for all of this setup. The player has three panels: one for your video library, one for actually playing videos, and one for hooking up remote devices.

As you'd expect from an internet shopping powerhouse like Amazon, the categorization and recommendation features top the pack. Getting a movie into your player is smooth—no figuring out which directory you should save it in. While a movie is downloading, you can pause it from the notification icon in the desktop tray if you need bandwidth for other actions. Movies take between 20 minutes and an hour to download, depending on the speed of your broadband connection (and of course the length of the film).

Movies you've bought or rented appear in the right pane of the player. We successfully used RemoteLoad to download the movie we bought, SuperMan Returns, to another PC, which, as it was our workplace PC, the faster download speed meant we could start watching the movie after just a couple minutes. There's also a web page version of your library.

Though the 2.5Mb/sec bitrate of movies downloaded from Unbox is about half that of actual DVDs, the service uses the VC-1 codec that powers HD-DVD content. And indeed the picture quality we got with Unbox was the closest to DVD quality of any of the services we reviewed.

The movie player lets you fast forward and rewind even before the whole movie's been downloaded, using these controls, which autohide at the bottom of full screen play.

Unbox had the broadest claims for support of portable devices, including for most Plays for Sure certified video devices, with a link to a page listing such devices. The player's tab for devices is also well thought out. You just drag the movie from the left to the center panel in the Devices tab.

The service has no parental controls, but neither does it offer adult content.

We found Unbox to be one of the best services we tested, in terms of ease of use, content selection, and picture quality. It takes somewhat different skills than opening a DVD box, but it really isn't that much more difficult an operation.

Product: Unbox

Company: Amazon.com

Price: No subscription fee; TV shows $1.99, movie rentals $2.99-$3.99

Pros: Excellent image quality; good, easy-to-understand software; portable device support; recent and popular releases; ability to watch on multiple PCs.

Cons: No free or subscription content.

Summary: Amazon has possibly the best quality of the movie download services, and the content selection includes up-to-date, in-demand titles. Amazon's RemoteLoad feature, which allows you to download content to multiple machines, is how it should work.

Rating:

So what's the verdict on internet-delivered feature films? Mixed at best, but it's definitely a technology worth watching (literally).

Sure these services will save you a trip to the local video store or a wait for DVDs in the mail, but downloading a movie will take at least an hour—chances are you could get a DVD at the local video store faster. The selection of movies and picture quality isn't yet near what you get with Netflix or the brick-and-mortar video rental store. The average bitrate for a DVD is 5Mb/sec, compared with the best bitrate found in these services, Movielink's 1.3Mb/sec; most of the others were much lower.

Unless your internet connection is a T3 or better, you don't want to be doing too much on the internet besides downloading and watching your movie: It uses up all the bandwidth you can give it. Of course, there's always the chance your Internet connection gets interrupted in the middle of your watching a movie, though most of these services require a large prebuffer before letting you start viewing. But the point is, the faster your internet connection, the better prepared you are for using these services. Another consideration is that videos in excess of an hour of playtime take up some serious disk space; you'll want a fairly beefy hard disk if you plan on storing multiple movies this way.

Another issue is how to get the signal from your PC to your bigger-screen television. We tested with a laptop, most of which don't have TV-out connectors. We first tried connecting from the VGA port to an RGB adapter, but that doesn't support the component's Y Pr Pb signals. We ended up buying an AverMedia QuickPlay, which did the trick after some picture stretching and positioning in the graphics adapter's control panel.

Of course, watching movies from a PC player has drawbacks compared with just watching a DVD. Near the top of the list of these is the lack of a remote control. You could probably program a PC remote to control the player, but a preprogrammed remote would be helpful to more viewers. If you want to quickly pause your movie to get up for a snack, it's much easier on a remote than going to the PC. And if you want slow motion, it's not an option.

Also, all of these services are very limited by what the studios say is allowed: limited availability times, rent only or purchase only. If you go to a large video store, you're guaranteed a large selection of movies to rent or buy, and it's not like the studios ever say "Okay, you can't sell that title anymore, send it back to us."

Read up on Free Music Recommendation Services.

There are definite advantages to online video stores, but the services still have quite a bit of catching up to do with the ways you're currently used to getting your movie fix. And with these services, some movies become unavailable after a period based on what's allowed by the studios; it's not like a DVD in a rental store that will always be there. But since you can try all of these services by renting a movie for just a couple bucks, it's worth checking them out to see whether this new way of getting feature-length entertainment is for you.

The five services we looked at aren't the only ones out there; let us know your favorite way to get movies online in the ExtremeTech forum.

Finally, here's a summary of what you get with the five internet movie download services we reviewed:
Amazon Unbox CinemaNow MovieFlix Movielink Vongo

URL unbox.amazon.com CinemaNow.com MovieFlix.com movielink.com vongo.com

Price No subscription; rental usually about $3.99, purchase usually $9.99 $29.99/mo. or $99.95/yr $7.95/mo. No subscription; rental usually about $3.99, purchase usually $9.99 $9.99/month includes most movies; some rentals for $2.99-$3.99

Offers subscription for access to film library No Yes Yes No Yes

Movie rentals Yes Yes No Yes Yes

Movie purchase Yes Yes No Yes No

Burn movies to DVD No Yes No No (except in WMF) No

Number of genre subsets 18 18 36 24 7

Free movie selections No Yes Yes No No

Player/manager software to download Yes Yes, ActiveX Control RealPlayer Yes Yes

Bitrate 2.5 Mb/s 300-1500K 225K 1.3Mbps 1400K

OSes supported Windows XP Windows XP Any with RealPlayer support Windows XP Windows XP

Browser required Any IE IE IE Any

Mobile devices Portable Media Center No No Portable Media Center Portable Media Center

Adult content/parental filter No/No Yes/Yes Yes/Weak No/No No/Yes

http://www.extremetech.com/article2/...2078459,00.asp





Studios OK Movie Downloads Technology
Gary Gentile

Hollywood studios have approved a new technology and licensing arrangement that should remove a major obstacle consumers now face with burning movies they buy digitally over the Internet onto a DVD that will play everywhere.

Sonic Solutions Inc. is introducing on Thursday the Qflix system for adding a standard digital lock to DVDs burned in a computer or a retail kiosk.

The lock, known as "content scrambling system," or CSS, is backed by the studios, TV networks and other content creators and comes standard on prerecorded DVDs today. All DVD players come equipped with a key that fits the lock and allows for playback.

But movie download services such as Movielink, CinemaNow and Amazon.com's Unbox haven't been able to use CSS because studios fear widespread DVD burning could lead to piracy.

Studios have experimented with an alternative to CSS used by movie downloading service CinemaNow, but only a small number of titles are available for such burning and some users have complained of problems with playback.

With Qflix - and its studio-backed copy-protection system - consumers should have more options. But they'll need new blank DVDs and compatible DVD burners to use it.

The system can also be used in retail kiosks, which could hold hundreds of thousands of older films and TV shows for which studios don't see a huge market. Customers could pick a film, TV episode or an entire season's worth of shows and have them transferred to DVD on the spot.

Burning a DVD will take anywhere from 10 to 15 minutes using Sonic's technology, the company said.

Consumers still would be subject to restrictions placed by the movie service and studios. For instance, using the copy-protection technology in Microsoft Corp.'s Windows Media system, a service could specify that a given title can be burned no more than two times.

Sonic has been working for three years to develop the technology and get studios to agree to amend the CSS license to allow a "download to burn" option.

"We are pleased and encouraged to see efforts like Sonic's creation of Qflix that addresses the need for industry standard protection," Chris Cookson, chief technology officer at Warner Bros. said in a statement.

The initial companies participating in Qflix include Verbatim Corp., which makes blank discs, the movie download service Movielink, video-on-demand provider Akimbo Systems Inc. and the Walgreen Co. chain of drug stores.

Studios must still figure out pricing schemes that appeal to consumers and protect its lucrative retail business. Some retailers, such as Wal-Mart, have talked about starting their own online downloading services or installing kiosks to burn DVDs in the store.

Also, most consumers will need a new DVD burner that includes the latest software. Some burners can be updated, Sonic said, and companies such as Plextor, a Qflix partner, are expected to market Qflix- enabled DVD burners that connect with a USB cable.
http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories...LATE=DEFAUL T





New Disc May Sway DVD Wars
Richard Siklos

Consumers wary of buying new high-definition DVD players because of a technology war reminiscent of the days of Betamax versus VHS will soon have a new kind of DVD that might make the decision less daunting.

Warner Brothers, which helped popularize the DVD more than a decade ago, plans to announce next week a single videodisc that can play films and television programs in both Blu-ray and HD-DVD, the rival DVD technologies.

Warner Brothers, a division of Time Warner, plans to formally announce the new disc, which it is calling a Total HD disc, at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas on Tuesday.

Two rival camps introduced high-definition DVD players last year: a consortium called Blu-ray, backed by Sony and others, and a group called HD-DVD, backed by Toshiba and Microsoft. Retail and media executives say this clash of corporate titans and their incompatible machines has left some consumers bewildered and has slowed the introduction of what is intended to be the next great thing in home entertainment.

Executives at Time Warner and its Hollywood subsidiary hope to spur sales of new DVD players and movies by gaining the support of retailers and cajoling rival studios into making their film and television libraries available in both formats on a single disc.

In addition to reviving the ghost of the war that marked the introduction of videocassettes in the 1980s, the high-definition battle has been exacerbated by the decision of several major studios to support only one of the technologies.

Thus, for instance, a copy of 20th Century Fox’s “Ice Age: The Meltdown” is available only on Blu-ray, while Universal’s “The Break-Up” can be viewed only on a disc and player built with HD-DVD technology.

Barry M. Meyer, the chairman and chief executive of Warner Brothers, said in an interview that the company came up with the Total HD disc after concluding that neither Blu-ray nor HD-DVD was going the way of Betamax anytime soon.

“The next best thing is to recognize that there will be two formats and to make that not a negative for the consumer,” Mr. Meyer said. “We felt that the most significant constituency for us to satisfy was the consumer first, and the retailer second. The retailer wants to sell hardware and doesn’t want to be forced into stocking two formats for everything. This is ideal for them.”

In a world besotted with gadgetry, few consumer products have generated as much excitement — and head-scratching — as high-definition television. Flat-screen, high-definition TVs have been flying off the shelves for the last year and are now as common in homes as coffee pots. Yet few people are actually watching superclear high-definition programming.

Part of the disconnect is the lack of high-definition programming on cable and satellite television, and the additional outlay for decoder boxes and premium channels needed to get it. The rival movie player technologies have further blurred the outlook for high definition. Richard Greenfield, an analyst at Pali Capital, predicted in a recent report that this would be the first year since the introduction of the DVD that consumer spending on the discs would decline, putting pressure on the studios that rely heavily on them for profits.

For now, Sony; Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer, which is owned by private equity firms in partnership with the Comcast Corporation and Sony; 20th Century Fox, a division of the News Corporation; and Walt Disney Pictures are all exclusively releasing their DVDs in Blu-ray.

Universal Studios, which is owned by General Electric, is releasing only in HD-DVD. Warner and Paramount Pictures, a division of Viacom, are issuing DVDs in both formats.

Behind these allegiances are complex strategic questions revolving around everything from manufacturing costs to profit margins, debates over each format’s technical strengths and weaknesses, and how these players relate to Microsoft and Sony’s video-game strategies.

(Blu-ray players are built into the new Sony PlayStation 3, while Microsoft is selling HD-DVD drives that attach to its Xbox 360.)

Another wrinkle is plans by LG Electronics, and possibly other gadget makers attending the Las Vegas conference, to announce new DVD players with drives for both formats; however, such players will most likely be initially more expensive than other players.

Jeffrey L. Bewkes, the president of Time Warner, said the Total HD disc has a better chance of catching on than dual players. Research commissioned by Warner indicates that consumers are willing to pay several dollars more than current high-definition DVDs for a disc that works on both players. At the Web site for Best Buy, Warner’s “Superman Returns” DVD was selling yesterday for $19.99 in its standard format, $29.99 for Blu-ray and $34.99 for HD-DVD.

Still, it is not clear whether news of Warner’s Total HD disc would convince the studio heads who are backing one format or the other to release their wares in both. Sony, of course, has placed a big bet on Blu-ray’s success and does not want to relive the sting of Betamax’s defeat. The number of studios committed solely to Blu-ray has been seen as a competitive edge, particularly because HD-DVD came to market several months ahead of Blu-ray.

And HD-DVD’s boosters say they doubt gaming fans who have been snapping up the just-introduced PlayStation 3 will take advantage of its built-in Blu-ray player and buy movies as well as video games.

In recent interviews, executives at Fox and Disney were unequivocal in their support for Blu-ray. They said they believed that releasing DVDs in both formats would only prolong confusion and the emergence of a winning format. “I think the fastest way to end the format war is through decisiveness and strength,” said Bob Chapek, the president of Buena Vista Worldwide Entertainment, the home video arm of Walt Disney.

Like other Blu-ray proponents and partners, Mr. Chapek said that he favors Blu-ray because of its greater storage capacity and other attributes. HD-DVD offers the same vivid picture by storing less information on its disc, which means fewer minutes of video and other features. However, among its perceived advantages, HD-DVD players are less expensive.

Because of manufacturing complexities, the Total HD disc will not contain a standard format version, said Kevin Tsujihara, the president of Warner Brothers Home Entertainment Group. However, several months ago the company filed patents for a new disc incorporating all three formats, which it could produce in the future.

Mr. Tsujihara described the new disc as an elegant way for studios to make their content available more widely “in a way that is not conceding defeat” for the format they have been backing.

In the short term, Total HD would actually add to the number of formats retailers will have to stock, raising it from three to four. However, Irynne V. MacKay, senior vice president for entertainment products at Circuit City, said she supported the idea because it took pressure off consumers puzzling over which format to invest in. “The simpler the future is for us, the better,” said Ms. MacKay.
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/01/04/te...y/04video.html





What Will They Think of Next?
Steve Ballmer

With the arrival of the new year, experts from the tech community look ahead to the innovations that could change the ways we work, play and communicate in 2007.

Right now, I am as excited by the prospects for technology-driven change as I've ever been. The impact of the Internet, e-mail and mobile phones has been so powerful that people tend to think the digital revolution has already happened. I think it's just getting started.

Many technologies have the potential to catch fire, including Internet television, mobile video devices and even robots. New business-intelligence technologies will make sophisticated data-analysis tools easy enough for anyone to use. New "digital rights" technology, which gives copyright holders more control over the distribution and reproduction of their work, will continue to transform the entertainment industry.

But when we look back in 10 years, it probably won't be a specific device or company that stands out. Instead, 2007 will be the year when unified communications technology helped us regain control of our information and our lives. Ironically, the proliferation of new technologies up until now has made communications harder, not easier.

In 2007, I believe that phone numbers and e-mail addresses will begin to give way to a single identity, and the desktop phone will merge with the PC and mobile phone. Messages will be routed to you on a device that will be smart enough to know whether you can be interrupted based on what you are doing and who the message is from. Instead of being ruled by e-mail and cell phones, we'll have control over when and how we can be reached, and by whom.
Steve Ballmer is the chief executive of Microsoft Corp.

The trend to watch in 2007: virtual worlds, one of the most populous of which is Second Life, a 3-D environment built and owned by its residents (currently about 2 million).

These digital playgrounds combine elements of social networking with aspects of a multiplayer online game. At Second Life's virtual marketplace, residents buy, sell and trade millions of dollars in digital goods. Even more fascinating from a business standpoint is that millions of dollars in real-world currency are being generated from the exchange of virtual dollars into hard cash.

A cottage industry is beginning to develop around virtual communities, with real-world businesses profiting from the sale of related goods and services. For instance, there's an e-commerce site that allows you to customize your "avatar" - the persona you create for yourself online - and another company that puts together custom games for organizations that want to use Second Life for training and education.

Second Life may not grow to the scale of a MySpace or a YouTube, but it may be laying the groundwork for something that will.
Ned Sherman is chief executive and publisher of Digital Media Wire (digitalmediawire.com).

I expect that this year, at least one file-sharing - or "peer-to-peer" - television service will hit the exponential growth curve of Napster, Skype and MySpace. YouTube woke up users to the Internet as a video platform, but because even a small video file can take up several megabytes, a centralized Web site such as YouTube needs to limit clips to a few minutes.

P2P applications make every recipient of a file also a potential server, distributing the load throughout the network. This is the technique Napster and Kazaa used to upend the music business. By leveraging the distributed power of the network, P2P video allows you to download and watch much larger programs more quickly than you could at a centralized Web site.

There are several candidates lined up to be the YouTube of P2P video. BitTorrent has content partnerships with major media companies. The Venice Project is being developed by the team that created Kazaa and Skype. Or, the winner might be one of the fast-growing P2P video companies already operating in China, such as Xunlei and PPLive.

Not enough attention is being paid to these services because of the perception that YouTube has already "won" the Internet video war. But central video hosting was just one battle. P2P video will become too big to ignore.
Kevin Werbach (werbach@wharton.upenn.edu) is an assistant professor of legal studies and business ethics at the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania and the organizer of the Supernova technology conference (supernova2007.com).

I'm willing to bet that 2007 is the year when somebody figures out how to make video advertising work in a YouTube world. And if I'm right, the TV industry is going to get very rocky, very fast.

I doubt that the same disruptive force will hit movies, however. The big-screen home-theater boom created a market for high-def films, and that factor-of-10 increase in downloading time bought Hollywood another five years or so to figure things out.

I also think that this will be a big year for video gamers, and not just because of the delightful game-play innovations of the Wii and the power of the Xbox 360. (I can't wait for Halo 3.) Equally important is the fact that all of the current-generation consoles now have built-in Internet connections. Their role as a bridge from the Net to the TV isn't just a big deal for gaming, it's also potentially a breakthrough moment for online video of all sorts.

We knew gaming competed with television for time, but now we're learning that mainstream acceptance of networked gaming may also create the greatest competitor for the broadcast distribution model itself.
Chris Anderson is the editor in chief of Wired magazine.

Kiss your laptop goodbye. Virtualization technologies are making it possible for all of us to move beyond personal computers.

Google and Microsoft are fighting over where you keep your "state" - your operating system, your applications and all your files. Google wants you to keep it on the Internet; Microsoft wants you to keep it on your laptop.

Virtualization technologies have been used for years to improve the usefulness of big servers. They allow a computer to move quickly and seamlessly among different operating systems with different "stacks" of applications.

Applied to personal computers, though, virtualization could radically expand the portability of all your computer work. A company called Moka5 has a program that keeps a snapshot copy of your state at all times. There is no reason why you could not carry that copy with you on different media - on a USB memory stick, on a cell phone or even an iPod - wherever there is some memory. Wherever you take it, your software, your files and your operating system will be available to use on any computer.

This splits the difference in the fight over where you store your work. You are no longer bound to a particular piece of hardware - and you also don't have to risk storing your stuff with a server-side provider such as Google.

More and more, you are in charge.
Hank Barry, a lawyer, was chief executive of Napster.

We will see migration of social applications as user-generated content moves to the WiFi environment. YouTube, MySpace and multi-user games will be available on hand-held devices, wherever you go. People will carry their digital assets much like their bacteria. Israeli tech guru Yossi Vardi calls it "continuous computing."

The nanotechnology world foreseen by K. Eric Drexler arrives in the form of MEMS, or microelectronic mechanical systems. Very inexpensive moving parts will be mass-produced like a semiconductor. But unlike semiconductors, they move. This is useful for anything that employs moving parts.

Synthetic biology pioneer George Church of Harvard University expects to see $3,000 personal genomics kits in stores.

Rod Brooks, director of MIT's computer lab, is looking at new Web services aimed at the baby boomer age group, who realize that, in terms of IT use, they've been passed by, missing out on IM, text-messaging, MySpace, etc.

But don't put much stock in predictions. Consider that YouTube/MySpace/Napster didn't change the real world for most people very much.
John Brockman is publisher and editor of Edge (edge.org).
http://www.baltimoresun.com/news/opi...oped-headlines





P-to-P Goes Hollywood

BitTorrent co-founder talks up business plans and death of DRM
InfoWorld Staff

With all the legal disputes arising from P-to-P (peer to peer) file sharing networks such as Napster, Gnutella, and KaZaa in recent years, it’s easy to forget that the concept of P-to-P networks is almost as old as the Internet itself. In fact, decentralized networks that harness the computing resources of hosts rather than servers are behind services as diverse as Usenet and IRC.

Since the late 1990s, however, the term P2P been sullied by its association with illegal online music and video swapping, not to mention software piracy. Now the folks over at BitTorrent hope to change that. In recent weeks, the San Francisco company has taken bold steps to shake off its “underground” status, landing $20 million in venture capital funding and striking content deals with leading media companies.

InfoWorld Senior Editor Paul F. Roberts caught up with BitTorrent co-founder Ashwin Navin to talk about the company’s fast evolving plans to be a commercial content distribution platform and take on the likes of iTunes as a media distribution hub.

InfoWorld: P-to-P has been associated with file sharing in the minds of many people, but you’re saying it has broader applications. What problems can BitTorrent solve that companies have now?

Ashwin Navin: One of the fundamental concepts of what people call Web 2.0 is that the audience has the capacity and the resources. Successful Web 2.0 companies harness the intelligence or resources of its audience. The Internet is a two-way medium, unlike the broadcast world. BitTorrent asks its audience to upload while it’s consuming, so that demand brings supply. And that’s the interesting concept, and it’s something that pure online retailers haven’t grasped yet. We’re trying to provide that layer of technology to everyone who’s providing content on the Internet.

IW: You’ve been described as a technology without a business model. How would you respond to that?

AN: I think our business model is pretty well defined. As far as we’re concerned, there are two ways for us to make money. The first is aggregating content and selling it to our audience; that’s our media business. The second is that we deliver content from customers’ Web sites. That’s our content delivery business. We’re going to launch both businesses early next year. The content aggregation business in February [2007].

IW: P-to-P has been a minefield of litigation. How do you navigate that minefield so that lawsuits don’t get in the way of your vision?

AN: We take comfort in the Supreme Court decision on Grokster. That placed a lot of emphasis on intent. So if you have the right intent you should take comfort in the fact that the law and any courtroom will look at what you’ve done to validate your status. From the very early days, [BitTorrent inventor] Bram [Cohen] never encouraged anyone to use BitTorrent for piracy. In fact, he said that would be a stupid thing to do, because BitTorrent doesn’t guarantee you any anonymity. In fact, we’ve gone to copyright holders and tried to engage them in licensing efforts so people can go out and license their content legally.

IW Nevertheless, people enjoy BitTorrent for the access it gives them to unlicensed content. Are you going to clean up torrents to get rid of that?

AN: Absolutely. BitTorrent.com is filtered so that we will not surface links for unlicensed content.

IW: Where is the fulcrum between sharing content and preventing free-form piracy?

AN: I actually don’t think that if content owner and content rights holders take an inventory of the way that people want to consume content and embrace, rather than fight it, DRM almost becomes irrelevant. If people can use content in the way they want offline and online they won’t care about DRM, because the content is consumed in a flexible use case.

IW: So over the time DRM goes away?

AN: Over time. Yes. There’s huge amounts of value for publishers to license a TV show over and over again. Today they can’t stomach the risk of allowing content to be published free and clear of DRM. But eventually they’ll realize that’s the way people are going to consume it anyway, so they might as well profit from it.
http://www.infoworld.com/article/07/...1NMmain_1.html





Top 10 Media Trend Predictions for 2007
Ashkan Karbasfrooshan

1 - VIDEO

a) FLIGHT TO QUALITY IN CONTENT

As a result of a regression to the mean, users will demand more quality in online video. We’ve gone a bit too far to one end of the spectrum in terms of, well, having too much crap online. Folks, America’s Funniest Home Videos was one (albeit popular) show, but it was not the only show, on for 24/7, and one that spawned stars.

Yet, somehow every media company wants to make funny home videos the cornerstone of their digital video strategy. It’s lame, it’s enough. Move on.

For the love of all things holy, the folks at WatchMojo.com seem to put more time, energy and effort in the Web TV strategy that some major media companies do and let’s face it, that ain’t right.

b) CONSOLIDATION IN TECHNOLOGY

Way too many platforms, way too many formats etc., as an industry we need a sweeping determination of standards (imagine where online advertising would be if there was no standard ad sizes!)

We also will see a lot of companies merge due to a shortage of talent at the top (you simply can’t take an old media executive and parachute him at a Guba, for example, it will not succeed. But merge Revver and Guba, and you might have a match of senior management strengths. Of course, there could be ego matters, but that’s not our problem) or technology and content (say Revver has the “business model” but lacks content, and Metacafe has boatloads of content but no model - I have no idea if they do, just using as example), these could merge and will have to because…

The bottom line is that for most online video sites that are merely technology platforms will not see anymore VC money. The technology alone is not impenetrable. The audience is fickle. Heavy.com is a video site that just raised more money, but it’s a content aggregation and publishing site.

Read: Online Video: It was the best of times, It was the worst of times | Tough Times Ahead After GooTube Deal.


2 - PERSONALIZATION

For a few years now, we’ve seen developers, programmers, engineers, designers (can you tell I don’t know who does what - I’m kidding, well…) create fantastic tools, features and applications that streamline and facilitate the content creation and aggregation process. Blogging software is just one example.

We’ve seen publishers - old and new - increasingly harness and master these tools to better manage and distribute content.

We’ve also seen individual users pull up a seat at the big boys’ table and create compelling content. Rafat Ali has more influence that most if not all writers at the New York Times to web audiences, mind you. Along with the regression to the mean, these two will converge. But you get our point.

Lower along the totem pole, some of the content is crap, some of it is ok, some of it is wonderful (like my nugget of wisdom says: “there are hot girls in all countries!”).

Point is, people who want content will be able to pick and choose what they want (through RSS, newsletters, etc.) and people who create content can push it out by customizing what and how they produce content. Think MyYahoo! on a large scale.

The main challenge we face now is noise - pure and simple. Too many blogs all blogging about the same thing to get linked, too many image-sharing sites, too many video file-sharing sites… but this will start to “clean up” in 2007 and become a reality in 2008. One reason why to follow below.

3 - INTERMEDIATION

When Bear Stearns Cable and Satellite analyst Spencer Wang published: “Why Aggregation & Context and Not (Necessarily) Content are King in Entertainment,” he was not saying anything new to legions of web-wannabe-analysts (the WWA baby!). And yes, yours truly is definitely included amongst the WWA.

Content has evolved online, we won’t see new portals per se, but we will see vertical portals, or countless niche sites, some of which produce niche, contextual content along verticals and others who do not create any content but simply aggregate it.

As a direct result of intermediation and personalization, a lot of people will drop Digging (I’m using the term here for what Digg represents: the good, bad and ugly of Web 2.0 and not only contributors to Digg) and the like and start doing similar things for themselves.

We have a social bookmarking tool that is ready to go that costs very little to create. There’s nothing defensible about that, and the system to duplicate it is somewhat easy.

As per Digg’s users: people are inherently greedy. Remember: “Greed is good…” and people will realize that toiling away to generate content for Digg while a select few laugh all the way to the bank is not a fair system, especially when the community is asked to clean up spammers and Digg gamers and the CEO says “What problem?”

At the end of the day, people want to be paid for their work.

Combine that with the fact that a lot of these diggers will hit puberty and they realize that they’d rather own a tiny space online instead of, well, you know what: nothing of Digg.

Social media will not disappear, but it will change. People will take ownership back. I edited a few posts to Wikipedia about two topics I know more of than the average person: Def Leppard and Alexander the Great (did I just admit that?). Yet the Wikimafia deleted it. So I built two sites to showcase my interest in Def Leppard and Alexander the Great.

4 - THE RETURN OF EMAIL

It won’t make large waves, but with CAN-SPAM having cleaned up the spam situation, and with more and more people signing up to feeds and what not, we see email marketing making a slow but sure return to the landscape in 2007.

5 - VERTICAL RISING

The rise of vertical communities will continue. You will have large vertical sites, you will have people maintaining tiny vertical sites. The point is, this is something that started in 2004 and 2005, rose to prominence thanks to things like Mr. Wang’s study and will only accelerate in 2007 and beyond.

6 - ACQUISITIONS & MANAGEMENT SHUFFLE

CNET (CNET) for sale? Perhaps. With Shelby Bonnie gone - nothing against Mr. Ashe - we see CNET being acquired. We also think it’s possible that CNET makes one or two small, somewhat medium-sized deals to bolster itself for an acquisition.

Yahoo! and AOL (TWX)? We think Google will block that like, being the tease that they are.

Microsoft (MSFT) won’t make a huge acquisition. It’s not in their culture. But we do see it ">buying an online ad company like Blue Lithium, aQuantive (AQNT) or Valueclick (VCLK). Read our analysis here.

But eBay (EBAY) will probably make a major move, maybe even with InterActive Corp (IACI). Together, they’ll have more bargaining power with advertisers, since both are traditionally weak there and mainly e-Commerce powerhouses. With e-Commerce gaining prominence, this will position them for growth over time.

Barry Diller will be needed as Meg Whitman will leave eBay. Where to? Keep reading.

Peter Levinsohn - who replaced Ross Levinsohn - will prove to be great in many ways but in the end Mr. Murdoch will begin to ask for immediate returns (as in, in addition to Google’s $900 million deal, which we think they overpaid for in a defensive move against Yahoo! and MSN) and a series of events will mark changes atop FIM.

While we put MySpace atop our Top 10 Best Web Acquisitions of All Time, in 2007 Mr. Murdoch will ask for more tangible results. After all, News Corp.’s (NWS) stock rose 30% in 2006 due to the giddiness over MySpace, so investors will ask to see financial results from FIM in 2007. Disney too rose 30% but it was powered on financial metrics, hence why we made Disney (DIS) the media stock of 2006.

What do all of these events mean?

Rupert Murdoch is clever and wise and for a few years will not not tinker with MySpace. But in May 2007, it will be two years and Mr. Murdoch will get impatient.

He’ll push Levinsohn to make changes at MySpace, who will in turn push Chris DeWolfe and Tom Anderson (MySpace founders) for changes. DeWolfe and Anderson will push back and grumblings from these two about their discontent over the Intermix deal, where they feel they were underpaid.

To quiet the potential mutiny, Murdoch will side with the MySpace guys, which in turn makes the job impossible for Levinsohn. News Corp. will begin to tweak with MySpace in subtle ways. Ultimately, by mid-year, Murdoch openly asks why not enough Fortune 500 advertisers are on the site “with the most pageviews” and as a result, will push to clean the site. The result: the users will migrate elsewhere… adding to the rise of the verticals.

After MySpace fails with advertisers, Rupert Murdoch will turn to eBay’s Meg Whitman and lure her to run FIM/MySpace. Between her experiences at Disney and eBay, Mr. Murdoch views her as perfect for the new and improved e-Commerce fueled MySpace. Peter Levinsohn will focus on other areas of FIM, notably, IGN’s Digital Distribution platform.

And speaking of IGN, IGN will drop its lawsuit against me (they lost Round 1 and know they cannot win Round 2), and, in a sudden twist of good karma, they will get a lot of positive press coverage after MySpace cools off.

Over time, IGN will look like the crown jewel as more and more media companies slowly but surely move to embrace IGN’s digital distribution platform. IGN’s in-game advertising continues to grow as video game companies hire IGN to plug away advertisers in their games. Meanwhile, IGN’s media properties continue to grow. Rumors begin to swirl that IGN is worth $6 billion (investors and analysts wonder where they have heard this before) and Mr. Murdoch is planning an IPO while Mark Jung, who has been sitting idle since leaving the firm, is rumored to have Great Hill Partners finance a potential buyout.

CBS Digital (CBS) and the NYT (NYT) will get into a slugfest over Rafat Ali of PaidContent.org. In the end, Ali prefers to walk to the beat of his own drums and Paidcontent.org remains independent. Neither company makes a deal. Quincy Smith wonders what his next career move will be when he sees few news takeover targets that will move the needle. He joins Montgomery Securities.

Viacom’s (VIA) Philip Dauman will go insane and pull 3 deals: one for less than $200 million in Q1, but the Street will say it’s not enough, so he’ll pull a $500 million and one massive one for $1 billion by year’s end.

Facebook will not sell. That ship has sailed. Of course, never say never, this could be the massive $1B+ deal Viacom finally pulls but we doubt it. Investor Peter Thiel’s mega successful hedge fund is making so much money that the notion of a modest Facebook exit of $1B is not worth his time. Zuckerberg graces cover after cover, while the MySpace guys’ jealousy raise to the point of rage.

Disney will grow organically online, we called it the stock of 2007 in media and it will simply look internally and test the waters by adding content from Disney, ABC and ESPN online. It’s squeaky clean image will help it with F500 advertisers online.

Disney will be even more successful in 2007 than in 2006.

7 - OLD MEDIA TO TAKE ON NEW MEDIA

After many failed attempts, old media will wake up and realize that Google is worth much more than they are combined and they try to collude to take on Google. They will continue to think defensively and ask Google to cease indexing their sites, Google refuses; things get ugly and they ask all video file sharing sites to take down videos. Google pays off one media company to play one against the others.

The charade ends when Google buys a media company: either a newspaper company, a magazine company or a radio company. The notion of a fat, juicy premium from Google makes the more diversified media companies calm down.

However, no offensive game plan: no successor to Napster or AllofMP3, no successor to or YouTube Killer.

All right, so they won’t ask Google not to index their content. But it would be a pretty amazing showdown.

The Street wonders how Yahoo!’s Terry Semel will fare… more on this below.

2006 marked a year when many old media companies fared well: Disney, News Corp, Time Warner and even Clear Channel (CCU) did well. We expect this to continue as many shed underperforming assets and expect more from faster growing divisions.

Which leads us to…

8 - OUTDOOR TAKES OFF

Clear Channel begins to integrate Wifi billboards, Viacom (or is it CBS Outdoors now?) enables digital outdoor signs to allow for audio and video ads, time-targeted and weather-targeted ads.

9 - SATELLITE RADIO CRASHES

Crash is too strong of a word, but we don’t see satellite radio getting stronger. For more details, click here. Sirius’ Mel Karmazin resigns… and joins Yahoo! as CEO. Terry Semel hands off the baton, looking like a genius and joins an old media company’s board.

10 - WIRELESS HYPE

We’re big believers in wireless, who isn’t? But it’s still 75% hype and 25% substance. There will be some common sense injected in this market: companies raising $100 million in financing? Give me a break.

So, there you have it.

DISCLOSURE: I think all disclosures are in there. Please note that as a writer and entrepreneur, some of these “so-called” trends I believe in so much that I am also trying to capitalize on. It’s not the other way around.

Otherwise, of the companies mentioned above I only own shares in Yahoo!
http://media.seekingalpha.com/article/23373





The Lazy Top 10 Anything
Dan Mitchell

AS any media consumer knows, this is the season of the list. Dan Hunter of the blog Terra Nova, which focuses on virtual worlds and online gaming, notes that late December “is the point where lazy editors tell their lazy pundits to knock out a couple of hundred words structured around the topic: ‘Top Ten Moments in X for 2006,’ ” where X stands for the subject the media outlet covers (terranova.blogs.com).

In the blogosphere, the top 10 moments of 2006 tend to involve navel gazing. Kyle Bunch of Blogebrity.com offered his list of the “Top 10 Blogebrities of 2006” to Laist.com. They included Jason Calacanis, the founder of Weblogs, and Kevin Rose, the founder of Digg.com. At No. 1: Ze Frank, whose daily videos take on subjects ranging from trade sanctions on North Korea to which fresh fruits are best for wearing on your fingers (zefrank.com/theshow).

Most of the lists, though, are much more down to Earth. CNNMoney.com proffered the 10 “best and worst” technology stocks. The best: Nvidia, a maker of graphics chips whose shares doubled this year. The worst: ADC Telecommunications, whose stock has fallen by more than a third.

Advertising Age commissioned the Consumerist to write up “Top 10 Biggest Business Debacles” of 2006. The Consumerist did not include, say, the implosion of Amaranth Advisors, a hedge fund that lost $6.6 billion in bad bets on natural gas futures.

Rather, the No. 1 debacle was when an AOL customer service representative refused to cancel a customer’s account. That customer, Vincent Ferrari, recorded the call, and much to AOL’s chagrin, posted it online. “Subsequently,” the Consumerist notes, “AOL began to hemorrhage subscribers at record levels” (consumerist.com).

Consumeraffairs.org listed the year’s top 10 scams. If you believe the recent barrage of spam promoting pump-and-dump stock schemes must be at No. 1, you’re mistaken: it’s No. 6. The biggest scam based on complaints the site collected was the fake-lottery swindle, which promised victims (again, often via spam) that they had won money in a Canadian or European lottery. Targets were duped into sending money to cover insurance or taxes.

Some lists are particularly esoteric. The European-focused Tech Digest lists what it thinks are the top 10 “retro gadgets” of the year. Its No. 1 pick: the SpeckTone iPod docking station, which looks like “that ‘wireless’ your grandparents had,” but “is every bit the modern docking station” (techdigest.tv).

Looking back is only half the fun. Predictions for the coming year make up the other half.

Business 2.0 offers “15 Surprises Ahead in 2007.” At the top: “India and China race to the moon.” At No. 8: the release of Windows Vista, “bug fixes willing” (business2.com).

The burgeoning online-marketing blog ShoeMoney predicts that in 2007, Microsoft will acquire Yahoo, and offers 10 reasons. Most of them have to do with Microsoft being far behind Google and other competitors in areas including search technology, online video and social networking. ShoeMoney’s proprietor, Jeremy Schoemaker, believes Yahoo would give Microsoft a leg up (shoemoney.com).

Blogger Todd Russell offers a point-by-point rebuttal at MakeYouGoHmm.com.

Search Demographics Google says its top 10 searches this year were nearly all technology- or Web-focused. “Bebo” was the No. 1 search term, Google says. “MySpace” was No. 2.

Over at Yahoo, the results were a bit more, um, common. “Britney Spears” came out on top. “WWE” was No. 2. Other female celebrities made up most of the rest. AOL’s list showed that its users were more utilitarian, searching for “weather,” “dictionary” and “maps.”

“Looking back over the results,” writes Nicholas Carr on RoughType, “I think I can suggest the following market segmentation: Google users are dweebs. Yahoo users are horndogs. And AOL users are geezers” (roughtype.com).

A blogger at Business 2.0, though, notes that “these lists are essentially works of fiction produced by the search engines’ PR departments” (blogs.business2.com).

Complete links are at nytimes.com/business.
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/12/30/bu.../30online.html





It’s O.K. to Fall Behind the Technology Curve
Damon Darlin

The day after Christmas, prices on big screen TVs went down and Raul Axtle pounced.

Mr. Axtle and his 16-year-old son, Shaheen, headed to a Best Buy electronics store in Emeryville, Calif., to buy the TV that Shaheen had decided was the perfect screen for displaying video games, a 40-inch Samsung liquid crystal display flat panel.

It sold for $3,000 in April when it was introduced, but Mr. Axtle bought it for $1,600: $600 less than it was before Christmas.

And, yes, he knows it will be even cheaper tomorrow. “Everything keeps coming down in price,” he said. “Next year the TVs will be even better.”

Paying less in the future for a device that can do more is now taken for granted when shopping for consumer electronics. Gone is last century’s theory of planned obsolescence in which manufacturers designed and built products that would quickly wear out and have to be replaced. Whether it is a big flat screen TV or cellphone, handheld music player, digital camera, flash drive and or external hard drive, these electronics do not usually wear out before they are replaced. Rather, the consumer may feel compelled to buy because the device does more, does it faster or does it better for less money than the original.

“There is a fundamental shift that is taking place,” says Samir Bhavnani, research director at Current Analysis, a market research firm. “People thought a product would last 10 years. They keep it three years. They upgrade their cellphone every year.”

But this new form of obsolescence can stymie the consumer because it makes little sense to buy now if the product will be cheaper tomorrow. Knowing when to buy becomes as important as knowing what to buy, particularly now through the Super Bowl on Feb. 4 as retailers and manufacturers knock prices down to extend the holiday buying season.

Mr. Axtle, who already has a 51-inch Sony flat-panel TV in his “entertainment room,” thinks of TV like he did PCs more than a decade ago. “You’d get the most money could buy,” he said, but it wasn’t enough because the technology changed so quickly, making the PC obsolete in only a few years. “You couldn’t hope to get ahead,” he said.

The best advice to consumers back then was to “future proof” your PC by buying the one with the most memory, the biggest hard drive and the fastest processor. Now, when people buy PCs there is less thought given to getting ahead of the technology curve.

You cannot hope to keep pace with the technological change. You buy what you need when you need it — and when you can truly afford it.

It might be useful to apply the PC lessons to TVs and other devices. The best prices for TVs right now are for a level of screen resolution called 720p, which is what the Axtles bought.

The number is television industry shorthand for the number of pixels, or dots, on the screen. More pixels and the picture is more defined. So TVs with 1080p are better. But they are also more expensive. A 46-inch Sony liquid crystal display TV, for example, with 1080p resolution costs about 40 percent more than Sony’s 720p version. “If you buy 1080p, you pay a pretty high price premium,” Mr. Bhavnani said. “Ten years down the line, 1080p will still be fine and it will be cheaper.”

But isn’t something even better coming? Yes, 1440p, an even higher level of resolution, although at this point only one maker, a large but obscure Taiwanese manufacturer, Chi Mei Optoelectronics, claims to have one ready for production in 2007.

Do not get flummoxed thinking about ever-higher levels of resolution when you still have the faithful Magnavox with a cathode ray tube glowing in the living room. Stan Glasgow, president of Sony’s electronics unit in the United States, says resolution will continue to improve, just like digital cameras take pictures with more megapixels or PCs come with ever-larger hard drives. “It will be a longtime coming,” he said of the 1440p standard. (Several industry analysts said it would be affordable around the end of the decade.)

You want to know what to do now. The basic point to remember is that in screens with a diagonal measurement of less than 60 inches, which is what most people buy, it makes little difference whether the TV is 720p or 1080p. That is because if your TV is 10 feet away or more, you cannot tell the difference, said Carlton Bale, an engineer and home theater design consultant who runs a blog on big-screen TVs.

“Most people do not sit that close to their TV,” Mr. Bale said. His blog, carltonbale.com, has a useful chart (http://www.carltonbale.com/wp-conten...tion_chart.png) that shows how close a TV has to be to the viewer before it makes a difference.

So why does Mr. Bale want a 1080p screen? “Every enthusiast with a 720p home theater right now is wishing they’d waited for 1080p, myself included,” he said. He’d like to be able to take advantage of high-definition content on HD-DVD or Blu-Ray disc that is just hitting stores and of the more immersive real-theater feeling that comes when you sit close enough to the big-screen TV to fill most of your entire field of vision.

Nonetheless, he counsels against trying to future proof. “Don’t go for the highest-end model out there,” he said. “You probably won’t be able to regularly use the features of the highest-end models for a while.”

Screens, meanwhile, will get bigger. And prices are expected to fall at the same pace as recent years. While the resolution may not change drastically over the next few years, manufacturers have the technology to tweak the contrast ratio, color saturation and color accuracy to improve the picture quality in smaller increments.

“The rate of change in capabilities will go so much faster,” said Steve Tirado, chief executive of Silicon Image, a chip maker that specializes in the devices that connect one device to another. “It will only get better every year.”

Still, Mr. Tirado said: “It is of little comfort for consumers. It will be like the early days of the PC. At a certain point, it will be as good as it will ever be.”

That good-enough feeling has not hurt the recent sales of PCs, at least sales of notebook computers. Even though technological improvement of computers has slowed significantly, during the holidays, sales jumped 64 percent, according to NPD, a firm that tracks consumer products.

A similar effect was seen with digital cameras, where consumers are discovering that while they could buy 8- or 10-megapixel cameras, 5- and 6-megapixels is good enough. Camera makers reacted by styling cameras for different kinds of consumers and adding features like special modes for shooting underwater.

Despite earlier predictions that camera sales would slow, 2006 proved to be a record year, according to NPD. More than 30 million were sold in the United States, 20 percent more than the year before, as the average price of a digital camera dropped about 12 percent, to around $163, from $182 a year earlier.

As for 16-year-old Shaheen Axtle, after getting the TV, he was thinking about replacing his year-old cellphone. “There will always be something better,” he said. “I’m used to that by now.”
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/12/30/te...y/30money.html





UK in Plastic Electronics Drive
BBC

UK firm Plastic Logic has said it will build the world's first factory to produce plastic electronic devices.

The Cambridge-based company has secured $100m (£50.6m) venture capital funding for the German plant.

Once built it will manufacture circuits crucial for the development of novel gadgets such as electronic paper.

Unlike silicon, plastic circuits can be made using simple printing techniques and could dramatically reduce the price of consumer electronic goods.

The factory will be built in Dresden, known for its strength in silicon technology.

Plastic spin-out

Plastic Logic is a spin out from Cambridge University and has been developing plastic electronic devices since 2000.

The firm is working on "control circuits" that sit behind screens on electronic displays. In particular, it is working on the electronic circuitry for "electronic paper" displays.

These flexible devices can store the text of thousands of books or newspapers and could one day replace paper.

Industry experts forecast the market for plastic electronics could be worth $30billion by 2015.

When it is built in 2008, the new factory could produce one million control circuits in a market that is tipped to expand to 41.6 million units in 2010.

The factory will be backed by funding from Oak Investment Partners and Tudor Investment.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/pr/fr/-/2/h...ss/6227575.stm





Interactive Boom Drives Need for Better Upload Speed
Anick Jesdanun

Blame the Internet's legacy systems if Jay Glatfelter falls asleep Thursday mornings.

Co-host of an online audio show about "Lost," Glatfelter must wait about 40 minutes to finish posting his program to the Internet in the hours after ABC's Wednesday night broadcast. If he were downloading it as his listeners do, the same file would take only a few minutes over a cable modem.

"At 3 in the morning, that's really brutal," said Glatfelter, 21, who lives in Raleigh, N.C. "It's an extra 40 minutes and you want to go to sleep."

The information superhighway isn't truly equal in both directions. Cable and phone companies typically sell asymmetrical Internet services to households, reserving the bulk of the lanes for downloading movies and other files and leaving the shoulders at most for people to share, or upload, files with others.

The imbalance makes less sense as the Internet becomes truly interactive. Users are increasingly becoming contributors and not just consumers, sharing photos, video and in Glatfelter's case, podcasts.

In a nod to the trend of user-generated content, Time magazine recently named "You" -- everyone who has contributed -- as its Person of the Year.

It's a little-known fact because advertisements for cable and DSL services generally focus on download speeds. Glatfelter, like other Internet content providers, is stuck unless he shells out hundreds of dollars a month for business-grade services that provide equal speeds upstream and downstream.

Traffic boost: YouTube's rapid rise in 2006 -- and Google Inc.'s November purchase of the video-sharing site for $1.76 billion -- "clearly points to symmetric traffic as being important," said John Cioffi, a Stanford engineering professor and pioneer in DSL technology.

Furthermore, people also are increasingly sharing among themselves, rather than through central servers that normally absorb the upload pressures. In recent months, Viacom Inc.'s Paramount Pictures, Time Warner Inc.'s Warner Bros. and other movie studios began embracing the BitTorrent file-sharing system to more economically distribute online movies.

It's only a matter of time before people will want to retrieve digital media from home while vacationing at a beach house.

Yet the ability to upload still lags -- in some cases, downloads are 10 to 15 times faster.

"The system is a hangover of the old mass media days," said Paul Saffo, a technology analyst in Palo Alto, Calif. "Some consumers are uploading a tremendous amount of information and that's the thing the establishment just doesn't get."

Not an issue? Cable and phone providers insist they are keeping up with demand, in many cases increasing both upload and download speeds, but they say they haven't had a huge clamoring for symmetry.

"Speed has not been an issue for most of our customers, or we'd hear about them," said Mark Harrad, spokesman for Time Warner Cable.

AT&T Inc. spokesman Michael Coe said customers may indeed be sharing more files, but "the majority of their time is spent downloading. As needs change, we'll look at offerings that meet customers' needs, whether it's symmetric service or it's just higher upload speeds."

He said AT&T tripled its upload speeds within the past two years, but downloads remain four times faster for its middle-tier DSL service. The gap is wider for higher-priced plans.

Even Verizon Communications Inc.'s superfast FiOS initiative brings download speeds 2.5 to 7.5 times faster than uploads.

Technical trouble: The origins of the imbalance are technical. Too much uploading can interfere with download signals on DSL services, while cable TV providers must squeeze uploading within the broadcast spectrum below television's Channel 2.

But even as engineers overcome the limitations, it's unclear how much service providers will allocate to uploads. More bandwidth for sharing means less for television, video on demand and the like.

"In any kind of revenue-generating model, the consumer is willing to pay to receive something," said John Chapman, a distinguished engineer with Cisco Systems Inc. "A lot less consumers are willing to pay for the privilege of contributing" video and other media.

Phil Leigh, senior analyst at Inside Digital Media, said cable and phone companies both see the Internet as threats to their traditional holds in video and voice.

For many Internet users, the imbalance still synchs with their needs.

YouTube visitors, for instance, view more than 100 million video clips a day but upload only 65,000. Elsewhere, the few uploads that people do send tend to be small files -- an e-mail attachment or text to a discussion board.

Furthermore, uploads aren't often time sensitive. Internet users can send photos and other items in the background, but want to watch the movie clip right away.

Americans can usually pay more if they need symmetric services, but many aren't even convinced they need high-speed service at all, said Maribel Lopez, a vice president with Forrester Research.

Sondra Lowell, 62, who uploads several video items a week to promote an independent movie she's producing in Los Angeles, only recently abandoned dial-up for a low-end DSL plan.

"I'm not doing too badly for their pricing," she said. "It's not like I'm uploading 100 a day where I really do need the speed."

And faster upload speeds won't always translate into performance, said Mike Baldwin, senior product manager for Symantec Corp.'s pcAnywhere remote-access software, which can generate data-heavy transfers. Other factors include computer speeds, available memory and bottlenecks elsewhere in the network, even the parts designed for symmetric traffic.

But most experts agree that demand for better upload speeds -- if not symmetric -- will only increase with time.

"We hear a lot about the dial-up wait," said John Horrigan, associate director of the Pew Internet and American Life Project. "If broadband providers aren't planning appropriately to increase upload speed, broadband wait may be emerging in the next several years."

Dave Burstein, editor of the industry newsletter DSL Prime, said 10 minutes of camcorder footage would take more than eight hours to send at the highest resolution. As more people buy camcorders, he said, they will grow increasingly frustrated.

Telecommuters, meanwhile, want to send PowerPoints and other files as quickly as they can to their offices, and emerging tasks like online backups, video conferencing and telemedicine will tax systems even more, experts say.

"Users every year get a little more demanding," said Jake Soder, director of product management with broadband provider Speakeasy Inc.

Broadband options are already better in many countries outside the United States, thanks to better government incentives and fewer rural regions that are difficult to reach. There, residents have access to a wider range of symmetric services.

Gary Bachula, a vice president with the super-speedy, next-generation Internet2 network for government agencies and universities, said users in the United States might not even realize yet what they are missing. Service providers, he said, should be nudging customers toward data-intensive applications and realize they will pay more for value.

"Cable companies have been busy trying to offer telephone services, and telephone companies are trying to duplicate the cable TV model," Bachula said. "They should stop focusing on 20th century services and realize it's the 21st century. There are exciting new advanced services they could make money from."
http://www.yorkdispatch.com/business/ci_4935990





Venice Project Would Break Many Users' ISP Conditions
Venice Project would break many users' ISP conditions

Internet television system The Venice Project could break users' monthly internet bandwith limits in hours, according to the team behind it.

It downloads 320 megabytes (MB) per hour from users' computers, meaning that users could reach their monthly download limits in hours and that it could be unusable for bandwidth-capped users.

The Venice Project is the new system being developed by Janus Friis and Niklas Zennström, the Scandinavian entrepreneurs behind the revolutionary services Kazaa and Skype. It is currently being used by 6,000 beta testers and is due to be launched next year.

The data transfer rate is revealed in the documentation sent to beta testers and the instructions make it very clear what the bandwidth requirements are so that users are not caught out.

Under a banner saying 'Important notice for users with limits on their internet usage', the document says: "The Venice Project is a streaming video application, and so uses a relatively high amount of bandwidth per hour. One hour of viewing is 320MB downloaded and 105 Megabytes uploaded, which means that it will exhaust a 1 Gigabyte cap in 10 hours. Also, the application continues to run in the background after you close the main window."

"For this reason, if you pay for your bandwidth usage per megabyte or have your usage capped by your ISP, you should be careful to always exit the Venice Project client completely when you are finished watching it," says the document

Many ISPs offer broadband connections which are unlimited to use by time, but have limits on the amount of data that can be transferred over the connection each month. Though limits are 'advisory' and not strict, users who regularly far exceed the limits break the terms of their deals.

BT's most basic broadband package BT Total Broadband Package 1, for example, has a 2GB monthly 'usage guideline'. This would be reached after 20 hours of viewing.

The software is also likely to transfer data even when not being used. The Venice system is going to run on a peer-to-peer (P2P) network, which means that users host and send the programmes to other users in an automated system.

OUT-LAW has seen screenshots from the system and talked to one of the testers of it, who reports very favourably on its use. "This is going to be the one. I've used some of the other software out there and it's fine, but my dad could use this, they've just got it right," he said. "It looks great, you fire it up and in two minutes you're live, you're watching television."

The source said that claims being made for the system being "near high definition" in terms of picture quality are wide of the mark. "It's not high definition. It's the same as normal television," he said.
http://www.out-law.com/default.aspx?page=7604





The Digital Give And Take
Derek Slater

Many progressives are partying like it's 1992 in the wake of the November election. But when it comes to technology and civil liberties policy, the newly elected Congress presents both new opportunities and new challenges. The truth is, neither Democrats nor Republicans are universally good or bad across all digital rights issues.

The power shift in Congress is likely to generate greater scrutiny of government surveillance. Democrats have already indicated that they will hold hearings regarding the massive and illegal National Security Agency spying program. In a speech last week, incoming Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Patrick Leahy, D-Vt., deemed investigating the program a top priority and reportedly threatened to use subpoenas to get information from the Bush administration.

Such oversight is long overdue. It has now been over a year since the press first reported on this unprecedented violation of the Fourth Amendment and the legal safeguards set up by Congress. Three courts have already rejected the government's bogus arguments shielding the program from judicial scrutiny, including Judge Vaughn Walker in the EFF's case against AT&T for its role in the spying. Yet Congress has so far failed to thoroughly investigate the details of this still-shadowy program, let alone pass legislation to stop it. Instead, it spent significant energy last year considering proposals that could have rubberstamped the spying and let the government off the hook for breaking the law.

Fortunately, these bills stalled, but holding the line isn't enough. Investigative hearings could be an important step towards reining in this illegal activity and protecting the millions of ordinary Americans whose privacy is still being violated.

The newly elected Congress' effects may be more mixed when it comes to digital copyright and protecting the public's interests. Hollywood and major record labels have long sought legislation that would expand copyright holders' control over innovation and threaten your legitimate use of great gadgets like TiVos and iPods. A broad coalition of groups including EFF helped beat back such power grabs last year, but the entertainment industry will be back again with some of its Hill supporters in stronger positions.

Some Democrats are among the entertainment industry's strongest allies. For instance, incoming House Internet and Intellectual Property Subcommittee Chairman Howard Berman, D-Calif., hails from the Los Angeles area and is a well-known defender of large entertainment companies' interests. In 2002, he authored a bill that would have allowed copyright holders to break the law in their efforts to stop peer-to-peer file sharing. Senator Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif., introduced a bill last year that would have crippled digital radio and satellite devices, precluding anyone from creating a TiVo-for-radio without draconian recording restrictions.

On the other hand, Rep. Rick Boucher, D-Va., has championed the public's interest in digital copyright issues and will likely re-introduce a proposal that would help consumers exercise their rights to make legitimate use of copyrighted media. The record labels also lost a key ally in outgoing Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist, R-Tenn. Recording Industry Association of America Chairman Mitch Bainwol was formerly chief of staff for Senator Frist, who co-introduced Senator Feinstein's digital radio restrictions bill.

Finally, the election may bring broader, bipartisan support for electronic voting reform, but not because of who was or wasn't elected. When voting systems fail to make sure every vote is accurately counted, that's bad for our whole democracy, not just a particular candidate or political party.

Congress failed to pass electronic voting reform in 2006, and voters paid the price at the polls. Most significantly, millions of voters nationwide cast their votes on e-voting machines that lack paper trails. Voters thus could not verify that their votes were accurately recorded, and election officials were not able to conduct full and thorough recounts.

E-voting problems are especially tragic given that these machines were used in some of the nation's closest races. For instance, in Sarasota County, Florida, the congressional race was decided by 363 votes, yet over 18,000 ballots cast on the county's e-voting machines registered no vote in the race, an exceptional anomaly. A coalition of advocacy groups including EFF are representing Democratic and Republican voters in a lawsuit that seeks a re-vote.

This problem reaches beyond any one county or state. Thankfully, Congress can help provide a nationwide solution by passing Representative Rush Holt's, D-N.J., Voter Confidence and Increased Accessibility Act this year. Holt's bill includes a requirement of a paper audit trail for all electronic voting machines, random audits, and public availability of all code used in elections. The bill gained the support of 220 bipartisan co-sponsors in the last Congress and will be re-introduced at the start of the new year.

That's just a sampling of technology and civil liberties issues likely to come up in 2007. For continuing updates on new legislation, check out EFF's blog and Action Center .
http://www.tompaine.com/articles/200...e_and_take.php





U.S. Bars Lab From Testing Electronic Voting
Christopher Drew

A laboratory that has tested most of the nation’s electronic voting systems has been temporarily barred from approving new machines after federal officials found that it was not following its quality-control procedures and could not document that it was conducting all the required tests.

The company, Ciber Inc. of Greenwood Village, Colo., has also come under fire from analysts hired by New York State over its plans to test new voting machines for the state. New York could eventually spend $200 million to replace its aging lever devices.

Experts on voting systems say the Ciber problems underscore longstanding worries about lax inspections in the secretive world of voting-machine testing. The action by the federal Election Assistance Commission seems certain to fan growing concerns about the reliability and security of the devices.

The commission acted last summer, but the problem was not disclosed then. Officials at the commission and Ciber confirmed the action in recent interviews.

Ciber, the largest tester of the nation’s voting machine software, says it is fixing its problems and expects to gain certification soon.

Experts say the deficiencies of the laboratory suggest that crucial features like the vote-counting software and security against hacking may not have been thoroughly tested on many machines now in use.

“What’s scary is that we’ve been using systems in elections that Ciber had certified, and this calls into question those systems that they tested,” said Aviel D. Rubin, a computer science professor at Johns Hopkins.

Professor Rubin said that although some software bugs had shown up quickly, in other instances “you might have to use the systems for a while before something happens.”

Officials at the commission and other election experts said it was essential for a laboratory to follow its quality-control procedures and document all its testing processes to instill confidence in the results.

Commission officials said that they were evaluating the overall diligence of the laboratory and that they did not try to determine whether its weaknesses had contributed to problems with specific machines.

Computer scientists have shown that some electronic machines now in use are vulnerable to hacking. Some scientists caution that even a simple software error could affect thousands of votes.

In various places, elections have been complicated by machines that did not start, flipped votes from one candidate to another or had trouble tallying the votes.

Until recently, the laboratories that test voting software and hardware have operated without federal scrutiny. Even though Washington and the states have spent billions to install the new technologies, the machine manufacturers have always paid for the tests that assess how well they work, and little has been disclosed about any flaws that were discovered.

As soon as federal officials began a new oversight program in July, they detected the problems with Ciber. The commission held up its application for interim accreditation, thus barring Ciber from approving new voting systems in most states.

Ciber, a large information technology company, also has a $3 million contract to help New York test proposed systems from six manufacturers. Nystec, a consulting firm in Rome, N.Y., that the state hired, filed a report in late September criticizing Ciber for creating a plan to test the software security that “did not specify any test methods or procedures for the majority of the requirements.” The report said the plan did not detail how Ciber would look for bugs in the computer code or check hacking defenses.

A spokeswoman for Ciber, Diane C. Stoner, said that the company believed that it had addressed all the problems and that it expected to receive its initial federal accreditation this month. Federal officials said they were evaluating the changes the company had made.

Ms. Stoner said in a statement that although the Election Assistance Commission had found deficiencies, they “were not because Ciber provided incomplete, inaccurate or flawed testing, but because we did not document to the E.A.C.’s liking all of the testing that we were performing.”

She added that the test plan cited in New York was just a draft and that Ciber had been working with Nystec to ensure additional security testing.

The co-chairman of the New York State Board of Elections, Douglas A. Kellner, said Ciber had tightened its testing. But Mr. Kellner said yesterday that Nystec and Ciber continued to haggle over the scope of the security testing.

New York is one of the last states to upgrade its machines, and it also has created some of the strictest standards for them. Mr. Kellner said only two of the six bidders, Diebold Election Systems and Liberty Election Systems, seemed close to meeting all the requirements.

Besides Ciber, two other companies, SysTest Labs of Denver and Wyle Laboratories, in El Segundo, Calif., test electronic voting machines. Ciber, which has been testing the machines since 1997, checks just software. Wyle examines hardware, and SysTest can look at both.

The chairman of the Election Assistance Commission, Paul S. DeGregorio, said SysTest and Wyle received interim accreditations last summer. Mr. DeGregorio said two other laboratories had also applied to enter the field.

Congress required greater federal oversight when it passed the Help America Vote Act of 2002. Since then, the government also put up more than $3 billion to help states and localities buy electronic machines, to avoid a repeat of the hanging punch-card chads that caused such confusion in the 2000 presidential election.

The commission was never given a substantial budget, and it did not finish creating the oversight program until last month. Until then, the laboratories had been at the heart of the system to evaluate voting machines, a system that seemed oddly cobbled together.

While the federal government created standards for the machines, most of the states enacted laws to make them binding. The states also monitored the testing, and much of that work was left to a handful of current and former state election officials who volunteered their time.

As a result, voting rights advocates and other critics have long been concerned about potential conflicts of interest, because the manufacturers hire the laboratories and largely try to ensure confidentiality.

Michael I. Shamos, a computer scientist who examines voting machines for Pennsylvania, said about half had significant defects that the laboratories should have caught.

Besides certifying the laboratories, the Election Assistance Commission will have three staff members and eight part-time technicians to approve test plans for each system and check the results. The manufacturers will be required to report mechanical breakdowns and botched tallies, and Mr. DeGregorio said those reports would be on the agency’s Web site.

Dr. Shamos said, “This is not the sea change that was needed.”

He said he was disappointed that the commission had hired some of the same people involved in the states’ monitoring program and that it never announced it had found problems with Ciber operations.

Dr. Rubin of Johns Hopkins said the laboratories should be required to hire teams of hackers to ferret out software vulnerabilities.

And the laboratories will still be paid by the voting machine companies, though a bill now in Congress could change that to government financing.

A recent appearance in Sarasota, Fla., by the SysTest Labs president, Brian T. Phillips, also raised eyebrows. After a Congressional election in the Sarasota area ended in a recount last month, the victorious Republican candidate hired Mr. Phillips as a consultant to monitor the state’s examination of whether there had been a malfunction in the voting machines.

Several critics questioned whether Mr. Phillips should have taken such work, either because of its partisan nature or because it represented such a public defense of the industry.

Mr. Phillips said he did not see any conflict because his laboratory had not tested the software used in Sarasota. And the project does not appear to have violated the ethics rules of the election commission.

Ian Urbina contributed reporting.
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/01/04/wa...rtner=homepage





When ‘Refurbished’ Takes on an Earth-Friendly Vibe
Barry Rehfeld

JARED SELTZER faced more than the usual megabyte headaches recently while shopping for a desktop computer for his office in Takoma Park, Md. As the information technology director of the Center for a New American Dream, a small environmental group, he wanted to buy a computer that would be relatively easy on the ecosystem.

His search brought him to the Dell Web site, where he chose an OptiPlex model that had been refurbished.

“I wasn’t losing anything by not buying new,” Mr. Seltzer said. “And it was good that I was being true to what we’re about.”

Refurbished computers, he explained, are not generally made from old clunkers on their last legs. They are typically returned by buyers shortly after delivery and spruced up by the manufacturer. And they often have the same guarantees that new computers do.

Like many other consumers, Mr. Seltzer is concerned about the environmental effects of computers, which can contain hazardous substances including lead, cadmium and mercury, among others.

Hazards occur when these substances are extracted from the earth and, on the other end, when they are disposed of. At either end, toxic substances can find their way into the air, soil, water and eventually into people, where they have the potential to cause serious health problems.

Refurbished computers lessen the blow to the environment because they have effectively been recycled, albeit at warp speed. They can also be easier on the bank account. Mr. Seltzer’s desktop cost him $379 — less than half the $800 price of a new one.

Lynn Rubinstein, executive director of the Northeast Recycling Council in Brattleboro, Vt., faced a similar challenge when she needed to replace her personal laptop in October. She could not find a refurbished model to fit her needs, so she consulted the Electronic Product Environmental Assessment Tool, or Epeat, an electronics rating system available free at www.epeat.net.

The system, now five months old, is funded by the Environmental Protection Agency and is meant primarily for bulk buyers. But it is useful for individuals, too. Electronics — only computers now, with more products to follow — can be achieve ratings of gold, silver or bronze.

Ratings are done largely on the honor system, subject to reviews by the Green Electronics Council, a nonprofit group in Portland, Ore., that maintains the list. Manufacturers score their products against a set of environmental standards, including levels of hazardous substances, energy efficiency and ease of recycling. There are 23 requirements just to win a bronze.

More than 300 types of desktops, laptops and monitors have received at least a bronze, and most also have a silver rating, which means that they also meet at least half of 28 optional standards. None of the computers have it to gold, which means that they would meet all the required standards as well as three-quarters of the optional ones.

An NEC monitor made from a corn-based plastic has the top score: 42, just two points shy of the gold standard. Dell, Apple Computer, Hewlett-Packard and Lenovo all have at least one desktop and laptop that qualify for silver.

Epeat-rated computers are likely to save buyers money on their electric bills. The E.P.A. estimates that 600,000 megawatts of energy, as well as 13 million pounds of hazardous waste, will be saved over the next five years by the purchase of Epeat-rated computers.

“It was enough for me just to get one that made the list at any level,” said Ms. Rubinstein, who chose a Dell Latitude computer that had a bronze rating. She paid the same price as she would have for a comparable laptop without an Epeat rating, but the Latitude was listed as having significantly lower levels of hazardous substances.

Consumers seeking new environmentally sound computers may also want to consider keeping their existing ones just a while longer, said Diganta Das, a research scientist at the Center for Advanced Life Cycle Engineering at the University of Maryland in College Park. There will be a much broader selection of greener computers and other electronics by 2008 because all manufacturers are under pressure to make their products meet hazardous-substance standards that are as high or higher than those of Epeat, he said.

The push is coming from new technology and government initiatives. The most important political change came in July, when the European Union issued its Restrictions on Hazardous Substances. The RoHS directive essentially will require all manufacturers and retailers selling their products in the European Union to greatly reduce the presence of six hazards.

There is nothing like those standards in the United States, but the directive is nonetheless having an impact here. Wal-Mart Stores, for example, said last spring that it would sell the first laptop compliant with the European standards in the United States: a $700 Toshiba model. Other computer makers are quickly following suit.

CONCERNS about the environment don’t end once a computer has been bought. Consumers also need to consider what to do with their computers when it comes time to retire them.

According to the National Safety Council, three-quarters of all existing computers are sitting in closets and other places where they are no longer being used. Besides the closet option, there are two other main solutions: disposal and recycling.

Disposal, however, is the hardest on the environment. In May, New Hampshire became the fourth state — after California, Massachusetts and Maine — to ban the disposal of all video display devices from landfills and incinerators. Two months later, Minnesota passed a law prohibiting the disposal of monitors in the trash.

As for the recycling option, many localities offer programs. But the best recycling route may be the one back to the source: Many manufacturers now take back old computers free, and some of their parts can be reused.
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/12/31/bu...y/31green.html





MP3s for a Nickel
Statastico

In online music news, the Record Industry Association of America (RIAA) is suing the Russian website allofmp3.com for the comical sum of $1.65 trillion, more than double Russia’s nominal GDP of $763 billion. To be sure, allofmp3 is skating on thin legal ice by using loopholes in lax Russian copyright laws to sell MP3s discounted as much as 90% from iTunes pricing. But if it weren’t so legally ambiguous, who would complain about song downloads for as little as a dime?

A few weeks ago I had the good fortune of happening upon a Tower records in the process of liquidating its CDs for half price. The place was mobbed. It seems that while people no longer can stomach paying $19 for a CD, the $9.50 price point was much more tolerable. This is not as much a lesson in bricks and mortar versus online music, the lesson is that people buy more music when the music is less expensive.

iTunes has noticed that the $10 price point is significant to customers. But it’s still too high. After all, they’ve compressed a higher quality digital format, cut out shipping costs and eliminated printing of CD booklets. It’s possible to buy CDs online for a similar price, the only trouble is that you’ll have to wait for several days to receive it.

A couple of years ago during an NPR round table about digital rights management (DRM), someone suggested a groundbreaking approach. Why not put every song ever recorded online and let users download them for a nickel each? When allofmp3 started that’s basically what they did. At that price, there’s no reason not to be impulsive. Five cent downloads would reduce incentives for file sharing and encourage listeners to experiment with new music.

A nickel per song doesn’t sound like much revenue for artists, but artists would drastically increase sales volume. If artists picked up 60% of the revenues, or 3 cents per song, then selling an albums with a total of 15 songs would only earn them $.45. If 10 million people downloaded the album they would earn $4.5 million on album sales alone. And what if the artists benefited from the mashups and amateur remixes that now proliferate on the web? Artists could offer up song pieces for sale and then split revenues with bedroom DJs.

As hard drive prices decline, the cost of storing music approaches zero. And if the price of acquiring the music approaches zero, then people have no reason not to buy it. Imagine the innovative companies that might spring up: online DJs who choose playlists from your own MP3 collection. Or, while listening to online radio you could simply push the repeat button for a song you like. The service would charge you a nickel, download the song instantly to your hard drive. Better yet, store your music library of thousands of songs online and stream it wherever you go.

This will never appeal to the RIAA lawyers who make their living by imagineering $1.65 trillion lawsuits. But it would benefit the artists and the public. And artists that no longer make their living attempting to sell overpriced albums can always sell overpriced tickets to sold out concerts (there’s evidence that this is already happening), incentivizing bands to play live more often.

Statastico would love a copy of TV on the Radio’s critically acclaimed “Return to Cookie Mountain.” The single Wolf Like Me is fantastic, as is their live show and nearly everything they’ve produced thus far. So how does someone like me get music? At about $.27 per track emusic.com if my first choice. If they don’t have it (and they don’t), then I buy the CD and endure the long wait. There are many other options, so I decided to evaluate them compared to my dream website anysongonearthforanickel.com.

Statastico compiled an entirely biased and unscientific assessment of the methods most people might use to acquire music. There are two scores, the price score and the usability score. Price score was taken as the inverse of the price as a percentage of $11.50. In other words, if it’s free it scored 100 and if it is close to $11.50 it scored near 0. The usability score is based out of 100 and is the average of the scores from the following 6 categories:

1. Legality: Sharing songs with friends, file sharing and allofmp3.com scored 1 and 10 in this category; all others scored 100.
2. Ease of Use: File sharing is time consuming and risky, while amazon.com and iTunes are straightforward. Emusic was marked down to 75 because they require a subscription.
3. Music Selection: How many albums can you find? Predictably, our theoretical “any song on earth for a nickel” came out on top.
4. Flexibility: Can users share the music easily with other, are there digital rights management, can you re-download MP3s that you may have lost (as on emusic)? CDs scored slightly higher because they allow users to select their own music compression, allowing flexibility for more advanced compression formats in the future.
5. Audio Quality: CD format was given 100, AAC was rated higher than MP3s because of better quality at lower bitrates, and file sharing was marked down to 50 out of 100 because of inconsistent downloads.
6. Instant Gratification: How long it takes to get the music? Physical transfers involving UPS scored low, online transfers (except file sharing) scored higher.

As you can see, the fictional website anysongonearthforanickel.com wins. Of the next four best options only allofmp3 would (allegedly) pay royalties to TV on the Radio (emusic doesn’t carry the latest album).

The RIAA should remember that customers - especially young customers - are extremely price sensitive and tech savvy. The RIAA will never shut down peer-to-peer networks, (in fact allpeers just developed an add-on for Firefox). The RIAA must embrace innovation rather than outmoded business models. By shifting the paradigm to low-cost song downloads, artists may once again get paid for their hard work.
http://statastic.com/2007/01/04/mp3s-for-a-nickel/





Can Google Come Out to Play?
Deborah Schoeneman

ON a Thursday afternoon before the holidays, the game room at Google’s new offices in Chelsea was being put to good use. Two engineers were taking a break from coding at the pool table. A programmer in a purple Phish T-shirt was practicing juggling. “Sweet Child O’ Mine” by Guns N’ Roses blasted from the flat-screen television, where two 22-year-olds played Guitar Hero, a video game that lets players strum scaled-down guitars — karaoke without the singing.

Only one guitarist, Aaron Karp, worked for Google. “It’s very convenient that he works in such a cool place and invites me over,” said Mr. Karp’s roommate, Alex Hurst, who works in the breaking news division of CNN. “We don’t have this, or Razor scooters, at CNN. It makes me want to work here.”

Last August, Google started moving its 500-plus employees in New York from a cramped Times Square office to a former Port Authority building occupying a full city block, from Eighth Avenue to Ninth Avenue and from 15th Street to 16th Street.

The new office, which officially opened Oct. 2, is the company’s largest engineering center outside its headquarters in Mountain View, Calif., which is dubbed the Googleplex.

You could be forgiven for not knowing that a satellite Google campus is growing in downtown Manhattan. There is no Google sign on the building, and it’s hard to catch a glimpse of a Googler, as employees call themselves, on the street because the company gives them every reason to stay within its candy-colored walls.

From lava lamps to abacuses to cork coffee tables, the offices may as well be a Montessori school conceived to cater to the needs of future science-project winners. The Condé Nast and Hearst corporations have their famous cafeterias designed by, respectively, Frank Gehry and Norman Foster; but Google has free food, and plenty of it, including a sushi bar and espresso stations. There are private phone booths for personal calls and showers and lockers for anyone running or biking to work.

The campuslike workspace is antithetical to the office culture of most New York businesses. It is a vision of a workplace utopia as conceived by rich, young, single engineers in Silicon Valley, transplanted to Manhattan.

The New York tradition of leaving the office to network over lunch or an evening cocktail party has no place at Google, where employees are encouraged to socialize among themselves. There are groups of Gayglers, Newglers and Bikeglers (who bike to work together). Every Thursday afternoon there is a gathering with wine and beer called Thank God It’s Almost Friday (originally it was a T.G.I.F. event, modeled after one in Mountain View, but Googlers in New York didn’t want to stick around late on a Friday).

At lunch on a recent afternoon in the Hemispheres cafeteria, the two major Googler factions, engineers and sales representatives, tended to sit segregated at long tables. It was easy to tell them apart: engineers wore jeans, T-shirts and sneakers; sales representatives wore suits, no tie. There was nary a designer handbag or gray hair in the room. But you’re wrong about who the cool kids are. At last, engineers are the big men (and a few women) on campus.

“These are power geniuses,” said Jane Risen, a statuesque brunette who works in training for the sales staff and is considered among the best dressed on campus — she was wearing a brown blazer from the Gap. “If they don’t have the same social skill or style sense, they’re extremely interesting people or else they don’t get hired.”

The power geniuses are more straight-laced than some of their predecessors in Silicon Alley. During New York’s original dot-com boom, the entrepreneur Josh Harris of Pseudo.com was known for decadent parties in his loft offices that featured live sex shows. DoubleClick was the host of a legendary Willy Wonka-themed party for 2,000 with bartenders as orange Oompa Loompas.

The current Silicon Alley resurgence has brought back a bit of that tradition — the guys of CollegeHumor.com have been celebrating the largess of a multimillion-dollar investment from Barry Diller by holding dance parties at a TriBeCa loft — but the naughtiest it gets for Manhattan Googlers is custom-made trans fat-free ice-cream sandwiches.

FOOD is a major perk at the Manhattan Googleplex. Every Tuesday afternoon, tea with crumpets and scones is served. In the cafeteria a dry-erase board lists local purveyors of the ingredients in the meals like a sign at the Union Square Greenmarket. (Dry-erase boards are big in Google culture; ideas flow quickly).

All the free food has created a problem familiar to college freshmen. “Everyone gains 10 or 15 pounds when they start working here,” said James Tipon, a member of the sales team, who actively contributes to the four pounds of M&Ms consumed by New York Googlers daily. “I definitely gained that when I started working here, but I think I shed some of it,” Mr. Tipon said. “I try to be disciplined but it’s really hard.”

The strategy of keeping employees happy and committed to spending endless hours on campus seems to be working. Richard Burdon, 37, an engineer who joined Google two years ago, has been staying past midnight to prepare for the introduction of a project. (Google’s Manhattan engineers have been responsible for developing Google Maps and are working on some 100 other projects.)

“Google is about as interesting as starting your own startup because you can really follow your own ideas,” said Mr. Burdon, who previously worked for Goldman Sachs, Sony and I.B.M. The only time he could remember leaving the office during the workday was to buy a friend a birthday present.

Sure, the snacks and the employee affinity groups are nice. But the biggest perks are stock options dating from before Google’s initial public offering in August 2004.

The majority of New York Googlers joined the company after its initial public offering, and it was the success of that launch, along with the meteoric rise of the stock (still high, although the price on Friday was around $50 below its high point of $513 in November) that allowed a hiring boom, which lead to the move into new offices.

There doesn’t seem to be open initial public offering envy in the New York office among newer hires, although the question, “How long have you worked here?” carries more weight than at most companies. “I’m not jealous,” said one engineer, Ioannis Tsoukalidis, a recent M.I.T. graduate. “I’m still pretty happy I’m here.”

Google occupies about 300,000 square feet over three floors of its blocklong building. One reason it liked the site, according to the discussion among Google-watching bloggers, is because the building sits over a major Internet fiber-optic line running up Ninth Avenue.

For a Thank God It’s Almost Friday gathering on Dec. 14, Laura Garrett, a sales operations specialist, organized an art show. “Being a Googler and being part of Chelsea, I wanted to do something that was more downtownish than a typical Google event,” said Ms. Garrett, a blonde wearing Marc Jacobs heels. Williamsburg artists created the work on display, for prices from $225 to $8,000. About 150 Googlers showed up and five pieces sold.

It was the first time that employees could bring a guest to an event at their offices. The Empire State Building glowed red and green in the background as if color-coordinated to the Googleplex’s interiors rather than Christmas. By 6:30 p.m., Steve Saviano, 22, a software engineer, was hanging out with his fellow Googlers at a table littered with empty beer and wine bottles.

“This is academic life all over again,” Mr. Saviano said. “But I’m getting paid. This is a 100 percent better option than graduate school.”
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/12/31/fashion/31google.html





Woodies



And Now, Memory on a Twig
Brendan I. Koerner

WHILE entertaining viewers with tales of galactic voyaging and hostile aliens, the “Star Trek” franchise also preached the virtues of interracial (and interspecies) harmony, endearing it to millions. But according to Guido Ooms, a Dutch product designer, “Star Trek’ also warped the minds of consumers and product designers by portraying electronic gadgets as uniformly sleek and unadorned.

“The computer stuff that is coming out right now, it is all plastic and symmetrical and aerodynamic in shape, like ‘Star Trek’ stuff,” said Mr. Ooms, founder of the design studio Oooms in Eindhoven, the Netherlands. “I think there’s no reason for that, really, other than that it looks like it works properly.”

A year ago, Mr. Ooms and his girlfriend, the designer Karin van Lieshout, started brainstorming on ways to demonstrate that high-quality computer products needn’t look antiseptic. A result of their collaboration is a U.S.B. memory stick that takes its product description literally; it is a data storage drive encased in a real, handpicked piece of wood.

The memory stick began, like all of Mr. Ooms’s creations, as a series of rough sketches. In February, he posted the drawings to Core77.com, an online magazine for industrial designers. The feedback was so enthusiastic that Mr. Ooms and Ms. van Lieshout decided to make some prototypes, a process that started in a forest outside Eindhoven.

“We went into the woods with big shopping bags and found dead trees that were lying on the floor,” Mr. Ooms said. Not just any branch would do; they focused on sticks with unusually knobby protrusions, or with gnaw marks from rodents.

“Little animals, they make really nice carvings sometimes,” said Mr. Ooms, noting that one squirrel left a pattern resembling a Chinese dragon.

Back at the studio, Mr. Ooms and Ms. van Lieshout drilled holes through the center of each piece of wood, sanded and polished the exterior, then inserted a U.S.B. drive they had bought off the shelf from a local electronics shop. The drives were secured inside the wood with dabs of putty.

After the memory sticks went on sale last spring, customers began complaining that the putty wasn’t resilient enough; the drives kept breaking free from their organic casings. So Mr. Ooms and Ms. van Lieshout added another step to the construction process, lining each stick’s interior with a veneer of glue.

They also reduced the product’s maximum size, in response to criticism from Apple PowerBook users. Because the newest PowerBooks are so thin, Mr. Ooms said, larger sticks forced the laptops to rise at odd angles. In their forest expeditions, then, Mr. Ooms and Ms. van Lieshout must be careful to gather twigs with diameters of less than two inches.

Mr. Ooms says he has been surprised by the popularity of the memory sticks, which are available at Oooms.nl. He estimates that he has sold 3,000, at prices ranging from about $59 for a 256-megabyte version to nearly $92 for the top-of-the-line, one-gigabyte model.

The key to the product’s success, Mr. Ooms says, is the way it makes passers-by do a double take when they see the quintessential information-age accessory, a laptop, paired with the quintessential Stone Age utensil, a wooden stick.

Sales have been so brisk that Mr. Ooms is considering hiring some outside production help. Under a program in the Netherlands, he said, prisoners can be hired to perform basic manufacturing tasks — in this case, that would involve drilling the holes and sanding the twigs.

But there are limits to how much of the work can be outsourced to inmates: unless they can find a Dutch prison with a sizable forest on its grounds, Mr. Ooms and Ms. van Lieshout will continue handling the procurement of raw materials.
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/12/31/bu...y/31goods.html





Not Everybody Loves Patricia
Jesse Green

AT Frank E. Campbell’s funeral chapel on Madison Avenue two weeks ago, friends and colleagues gathered to remember the actor Peter Boyle, who died on Dec. 12 at 71. They told stories about his impishness, his artfulness, his liberal fervor. Judy Collins sang “Amazing Grace.”

In the pews Patricia Heaton couldn’t stop sobbing. For the nine seasons she had played Debra Barone on the sitcom “Everybody Loves Raymond,” Mr. Boyle had played her Neanderthal father-in-law. They passed much of their downtime jousting about politics.

More conservative than he, she would call him a “pinko flag-burning Commie.” He would counter, “So tell me about this Christian God of yours.” Feeling unarmed for such battles, Ray Romano, the show’s star, said he usually hustled off “to see what the new doughnut was at the craft table.” He needn’t have. Their differences were serious, but the jibes were good-natured: tokens of closeness, not distance. And now he was gone.

And not just him. In the nearly two years since “Raymond,” one of America’s most popular television shows, went off the air, a lot of the former givens have disappeared. ABC toyed with but chose not to broadcast a new sitcom Ms. Heaton developed; a documentary that she produced (and that her husband, David Hunt, directed) had trouble finding a distributor.

“It was like I had been the queen of a planet where everyone loved me and did everything I asked, and suddenly I was back home on Earth,” she said with a laugh over breakfast recently. “I wasn’t worshiped anymore.”

She was speaking, in part, about the instant downgrading of her self-image from celebrity mother to plain old mom, complete with soccer schedules and puky laundry. (She and Mr. Hunt have four boys: 13, 11, 9 and 7.) But she was also speaking about the difficulty of finding satisfying film and television projects at 48, a difficulty that has led her to risk a return to the theater, which she pretty much ditched 16 years ago as one might ditch an abusive lover. In defiance of the usual Hollywood patterns, she is appearing not in a diva role, but as part of the ensemble cast of Theresa Rebeck’s new play “The Scene,” which opens off Broadway on Jan. 11 at Second Stage Theater.

For those familiar only with Ms. Heaton’s light comedy or political profile, her gale-force performance and her gleeful way with the obscenity-packed dialogue may come as a surprise. This is, after all, the same woman who walked out of the 2003 American Music Awards telecast, before her scheduled appearance, in disgust over the language and behavior of some presenters.

It’s also the woman who in 1998 became honorary co-chairwoman of Feminists for Life, a group whose goals include economic and social support for women who “refuse to choose” abortion. Ms. Heaton’s campus speeches and Washington lobbying resulted in the occasional snub from strangers (and the argumentative attention of friends like Mr. Boyle), but she managed to avoid the organized wrath of the left. More recently, however, she has found that the protective varnish of sitcom stardom degrades very quickly and that the ideal of affection, or even civility, among people who disagree is not widely upheld.

Her latest skirmish began several months ago when an industry friend expressed his concerns about embryonic stem-cell research. In Missouri, he explained, voters were considering a constitutional amendment that would permit the harvesting of stem cells from donated eggs and aborted fetuses. Because of the close race for control of Congress, the proposal drew national attention; the Democratic candidate for the Senate supported the amendment, while the Republican opposed it.

“I told my friend: ‘I don’t want to do anything about this. It’s not even my state,’ ” Ms. Heaton recalled. “But he said: ‘I just feel like I can’t sit by. I have to answer for my actions at the end of my life.’ And I’m like, ‘Well, thanks a lot, now I have to too, because you told me about it.’

“In the end,” she said wistfully, while nevertheless digging into a plate of blueberry pancakes, “you’re responsible for the knowledge you have.”

So she agreed to tape a 12-second message for a fund-raising video, in which she said: “Amendment 2 actually makes it a constitutional right for fertility clinics to pay women for eggs. Low-income women will be seduced by big checks, and extracting donor eggs is an extremely complicated, dangerous and painful procedure.”

But the video, which also included St. Louis sports figures, turned into a Mel Gibson-size nightmare when it got onto the Internet and, without her knowledge, was then shown as an advertisement on television during Game 4 of the World Series. It didn’t help that it looked so cheesy or that it began, inexplicably, with the actor Jim Caviezel (who had played Jesus in Mr. Gibson’s “Passion of the Christ”) staring weirdly at the camera and speaking in Aramaic.

“Oh my God, it was a disaster,” Ms. Heaton acknowledged. “And then there was the whole Michael J. Fox aspect.”

Also unbeknownst to Ms. Heaton, Mr. Fox, his Parkinsonian tremors clearly visible, had just appeared in an ad supporting the amendment. Because of the timing, her comments looked like a response to his and became associated with Rush Limbaugh’s suggestion that Mr. Fox was faking his symptoms for sympathy.

Ms. Heaton was appalled, she said. “Not only was the ad so bad, but why was it put on? It took the focus off of what we’re talking about, which is very serious, and made it look like a feud or something, a Hollywood tabloid subject, a media thing of pitting people against each other.”

The Internet floodgates opened. Web sites weighed in on “Fox v. Heaton” and generally eviscerated her. On YouTube.com, April Winchell, a California radio personality, posted a 38-second remix of Ms. Heaton’s clip. It starts out saying, “I’m Patricia Heaton, and I’m a religious zealot who thinks she knows what’s best for everybody” and gets uglier from there: “I could give you the whole story, but I’d rather beat you over the head with my Bible. And besides it’s not like stem-cell research makes you look younger. I mean, if it did, I’d be all over it.”

That last dig was a reference to Ms. Heaton’s plastic surgeries, about which she has been unusually candid. In her 2002 book, “Motherhood and Hollywood” (Villard), less a celebrity memoir than a collection of spiky, self-deprecating essays, she described herself as a “5-foot-2 runt” whose stomach, “after four C-sections and too many years of nursing,” had become “a big old wrinkly suede bag hanging down,” and whose breasts “had to be folded up like origami” to fit into strapless gowns. Now she looks toned and lovely.

If Ms. Heaton has made her surgery fair game, her political views are not so easily pigeonholed. Some derive from the “seamless garment” doctrine of her “devout Catholic upbringing” (she opposes both abortion and the death penalty) while others are clearly her own. (She supports gay rights and the use of most birth control.) And she is not, in person, prudish or judgmental. Most of her friends have had abortions, she said, and they’re still her friends.

It isn’t so much her views that cause her trouble as her unwillingness to finesse them for public consumption. She is compulsively honest, though she feels that’s not so much a virtue as “an illness, like Tourette’s.” Even her more extreme positions are stated without hedging: If it were up to her, she said, there would be no abortion for any reason. But she offers such thoughts with a sense of helplessness, as if she were trapped by the implications of her core principles.

And then there is her un-wingnutlike desire for conciliation. As soon as she realized what had happened, she sent Mr. Fox a message saying that she was sorry and that she prayed for his recovery. He responded graciously (the amendment passed with 51 percent of the vote) and later said, “If we can have a healthy dialogue about issues that people see differently, that’s marvelous.”

That’s a big if. Most of the dialogue, Ms. Heaton said, has been brutal: “People saying they hope my kids get sick and die so I’ll know what it’s like to need medical research.” Colleagues have attacked her at industry functions; gossips claiming to know her have described her as a horrible person. A theater Web site recently ran a discussion thread on boycotting “The Scene.” And castmates have told Ms. Heaton that their friends were saying things like: “You’re working with her? You know what her thing is, right?”

Ms. Rebeck, the playwright, knew and didn’t care. “That’s flawed thinking,” she said of the boycott chatter, “like what happened with the Dixie Chicks. And I would hate to think of liberals as the new conservatives. I don’t agree with all of Patty’s politics, but she’s not the kind of political thinker who drives you crazy with their solipsism, and I think the country might be in better shape if we could engage with each other in the way she does. Anyway, she’s pretty great in the play” — she called Ms. Heaton’s comic timing “something I dream about” and her emotional availability “staggering” — “so that’s where I come down.”

There’s a connection between responding credibly to a fictional situation and responding to real-world issues. But Ms. Heaton mistrusts that connection, even in herself, because she has seen how easily actors can manipulate emotions and turn an embarrassing need for attention into a cause.

“Being an actor, I love what we do,” she said, “but I don’t have that high a regard for it. And when embarrassing people, myself included, talk about their views, you just have to laugh. Who cares? And yet somebody’s given you a pulpit, so you do it. On the other hand, you can do a lot of good without going on CNN, and I totally respect actors who never discuss their views. I wish I was one of them. Too late now. I’m trying to get back in the box.”

It’s hard to see how she can do that while simultaneously exploring more and deeper means of expression. On “Raymond” she took a character who was something of a cipher in the pilot episode and filled her in with despair; her anger at being stuck with all the domestic chores was so visceral that it often seemed like a brick lobbed through the screen. Mr. Romano said that’s what got Ms. Heaton the job; it also won her two Emmys. She says she drew that anger directly from her experience as a wife in the middle passage — “the seething years” — of marriage.

But there was only so far she could take such insights within the confines of the sitcom format. “The Scene,” which is billed as a “brutal comedy,” is what might have happened if “Raymond” had been written for HBO and doctored by Dickens. In it Ms. Heaton plays Stella, a talk-show booker whose marriage to an out-of-work actor, played by Tony Shalhoub, spirals out of control. All of Stella’s carefully balanced disappointments and color-coded accommodations collapse in the face of something very much like evil.

Ms. Heaton knew instantly upon reading the play that she had to take the role. She understood Stella subcutaneously; when one of the characters described her as a “frigid Nazi priestess,” she felt it was almost a compliment. But she also understood the play’s unflinching moral outlook. Though it is set in high-rise Manhattan instead of a Cleveland suburb, it felt like home to her, with its portrait of people who know life is a battle between right and wrong but who don’t always have the will to join the right team.

Ms. Heaton’s parents left no doubt as to which team was which. They attended Mass every day, and their taste in interior decoration ran to pictures of St. Lucy holding her eyeballs on a platter. There wasn’t much room for young Patty’s “Look at me!” demands for attention, but her childhood was marked by nothing much worse than benign neglect until she was 12, when her mother died. The resulting flare of grief seemed to etch the pattern of her mother’s standards on her forever, and also her distance from them.

In college, and especially during eight subsequent years of hapless struggle in New York, that distance became a kind of no-man’s-land she had to traverse daily, from bad job to binge to church and back again. The churches varied: Catholic, Calvinist, New Age cult. (She now attends Sunday school, but not services, at a Presbyterian church.) Nothing closed the gap, not an early marriage or quick divorce, not sinning or atoning or jobs modeling shoes. By the time she left for Los Angeles in 1990, her “slightly annoying Ohio enthusiasm” had been expunged, and she was “emotionally battered.”

What finally helped was meaningful work, marrying Mr. Hunt and the huge responsibility of caring for children. (“And thank God I found somebody good to do it for me,” she said. “I mean, I wouldn’t hire just any Swedish nanny.”) The chaos of otherness calmed her down, brought her closer to her parents’ ideal of the sacrificial life, of “dying to yourself.” But living that ideal when you are an actor can be somewhat contradictory, which is pretty much the heart of Ms. Heaton’s artistic and personal drama as she awakes from a “16-year coma.” What is she good for? What is she called on to do?

She knows she often flubs the answers. “But I take comfort,” she said, “in noticing that all the people that God chose had problems and failings: David, Peter, Paul, Mary Magdalene.” She spoke these names without special deference, as if they were pals from high school glee club. “God reached out to them specifically. And I’ve always felt closest to God when I’m on a stage. I guess it’s really useful to be damaged in this business, because it makes it possible for you to express things — and get paid for it.”

She laughed at herself. “Though it can,” she admitted, “be inconvenient in real life.”
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/12/31/theater/31gree.html





Hubba *wheeze* hubba

The Graying of Naughty
Sharon Waxman

DE’BELLA — or Debbie, as everybody calls her — decided late in life to become a porn star. This year she turned 50, time, she knew, to chase her dream.

“I love sex,” she explained, biting into a Burger King special before embarking on her scene for the day at a rented house in the San Fernando Valley. She was wearing a bright pink satin and black chiffon nightie with a matching thong and heavy makeup.

“I decided I wanted to do something different,” she said. “I’d been working behind the scenes, and my friends said: ‘Why not do movies? Have some fun, and get paid for it?’ ”

So she has. Since May, De’Bella (she did not want her real name published) has used days off from her job as an administrative assistant at a sex-related entertainment company, Platinum X, to shoot about 30 scenes, with men mostly 19 and 20 year old.

And while she is sort of a novelty — appearing on “The Howard Stern Show” to talk about her new career — it is no longer unusual (hey, Hollywood, pay attention) to see women, and men, of a certain age performing in sex movies.

“There has been a greater openness to older performers than there once was,” said Mark Kernes, a senior editor at Adult Video News, or AVN, the industry’s main trade paper. “Typically, once you got to 35, your possibilities were pretty much shot.”

Not anymore. The pornography industry, that multibillion-dollar-a-year symbol of airbrushed American carnality, is aging. The advent of Viagra, the maturing of sexually aware baby boomers and overall improved health and beauty are all contributing to the graying of naughty.

The biggest change is in the sexual desirability of women old enough to be the viewer’s mother. It has been fueled in part by pop culture’s embrace of the sexy 40-something women of “Desperate Housewives” and “Stacy’s Mom,” the 2003 hit song about a teenager’s mother who “has got it going on.”

The mature-woman genre represents one of the fastest growing areas of video pornography, say leading distributors and retailers, and next month it will be inaugurated as a category at the AVN Awards, the Oscars of the skin trade.

Most of the movies are like the one De’Bella is shooting on this particular day in the Valley, a gonzo shoot — meaning it is more or less plot-free sex for 40 minutes or so. De’Bella’s dark hair is up in a chignon, pinned with a couple of rhinestone clips. When her performing partner, Rod Fontana, 54, shows up — he’s tall and gangly with a shaved head — she smiles sweetly and shakes his hand. They have never met before.

“What’s the premise on this one?” he asks. “Pizza boy?”

Whatever. Within a few unscripted minutes they’re mostly unclothed, panting and moaning for the camera, engaged in sexual contortions and obviously unbothered by visiting onlookers.

The director, Urbano Martin, points his camera strategically, scarcely disguising his boredom. “I shoot specialty films,” he explains during a break in filming, adding that he has been in the business for 17 years. “Fat women, old women, hairy girls — all kinds. We feed the niche.”

The market for beautiful, airbrushed young women “is oversaturated,” he says. “This is more normal people, more meat on the bone, like what you have at home.”

De’Bella is not one of those otherworldly California creatures untouched by time. She looks like what she is, an attractive 50-year-old, with eyelids and cheeks that have succumbed to gravity and concentric circles of rippled skin on her belly from childbirth, three decades ago, and from dropping 38 pounds this year.

Still married to the same man after 28 years, De’Bella comes from a small town in Colorado and never imagined that she might become involved in pornography. “I was married and had a baby at 19,” she says. “I don’t know if I could have done it then.”

That baby grew up and moved to California to become a sex-film performer under the name Jewel De’Nyle, which started her mother down the same path.

De’Bella’s husband, Larry Schwarz, is fully supportive. “She’s doing it for the right reasons,” he said.

Other mature stars are retired pornography performers who have been lured back into the limelight, like a 40-something former star known as Lisa Ann, and 35-year-old Tiffany Mynx or the performer turned director Devinn Lane, who has started a Web site to recruit women for her hardcore short films.

Vicky Vette, 41, blond and buxom — who could pass for 10 years younger — jumped in a couple of years ago, explaining on her Web site that after a career as an accountant and housing contractor with her husband, she won an amateur photo contest in Hustler magazine and began making sex videos. (She declined an interview, perhaps because her husband committed suicide in June and in a letter discovered posthumously accused her of being a white supremacist. She has denied this.)

WHO watches this stuff? By far the most avid consumers of older-woman pornography, producers say, are young men fulfilling boyhood fantasies of teacher lust or yearning for the attractive mothers of their friends. Some, it has been suggested, may be tired of what one producer, Oren Cohen, has called, in a recent AVN article, “the young, helpless teen thing.”

David Joseph, 38, De’Bella’s boss and the president of Platinum X, said: “It’s totally an erotic thing people are attracted to. There’s a huge market out there for older women. I’m trying to understand it myself.”

But the older-woman fantasy is nothing new, even if the video pornography industry is scarcely more than three decades old. It may be that the revival of young men’s teenage fantasies, along with the sexual confidence of older women, is fueling the supply side as well as the demand.

The genre has been credited as the idea of Bonnie Kail, 48, the national sales manager of Wicked Pictures. A few years ago Ms. Kail was working for a small company, Heatwave Entertainment, which specialized in fetish sex, including so-called granny porn, which feature old women. She thought there was room for less freakish fantasy.

“I had said from my personal experience that, being divorced, I’m lucky if I can meet someone my age,” Ms. Kail recalled. “Most guys who want to date me are in their late 20s. So I thought, let’s get some hot-looking, 40-ish women and make that the theme.”

Her boss at the time, Gabor Szabo, was the first to package mature-women movies as a distinct genre, and nearly every other sex-movie company has followed with its own line. Popular titles include “Hot 50+” and “Housewives Unleashed.”

Still, the trend has taken a lot of the pornography world by surprise, including Mr. Joseph of Platinum X. When De’Bella asked him for permission to pursue a sex-film career in her spare time, he was mystified.

“It was weird to me,” he said. “She could be my mom. At first I thought it would blow over and that maybe no one would hire her. But then people started hiring her, and then they wanted her for magazines. It’s crazy. This is supposed to be an industry with the youngest, newest, most beautiful girls in the world. Isn’t youth what everyone wants?”

Apparently not. And if women performers traditionally last just a handful of years before losing their sizzle, there are male performers who have been stars for as long as there has been a thriving sex-film business in the Valley, ever since the shotgun marriage of video and sexual liberation in the 1970s.

Ron Jeremy, perhaps the industry’s best-known male star, is 53 and still appears in sex movies. Randy Spears, 45, has been performing in them for 20 years and is still going strong.

At 66, Dave Cummings bills himself as the oldest pornographic-film star working, though he is a relative newcomer to the business. Married for 22 years until his wife left him, as he put it, “for someone with hair,” Mr. Cummings has four grandchildren and a thriving film career.

“My daughter’s feeling is: ‘Dad, I love you. It doesn’t make any difference,’ ” he said by phone from San Diego, where he began swinging with couples after his divorce in the 1990s, which led to his sex-films gig. “My son thinks of me as his hero,” he added. “When he’s out chasing girls, he says, ‘Ever hear of Dave Cummings?’ My son is getting action because of me.”

The dirty little not-so-secret weapons of aging male performers are erectile aids like Viagra and Cialis. Mr. Cummings said he prefers Viagra, but uses it rarely, for instance when he is scheduled for back-to-back sex scenes or “when I’m working for a producer who’s very demanding.” De’Bella’s recent partner, Mr. Fontana, said he used only herbal stimulants.

Like a lot of experienced actors in the business, Mr. Cummings directs as well as acts in his movies (don’t ask: mirrors are involved), and they frequently play on dirty old man fantasies, with titles like “It’s a Daddy Thing,” “Sugar Daddy” and one just three months ago featuring a 19-year-old woman and a group of older sex-film stars. Mr. Cummings is on the cover of the DVD, leaning on a walker.

He intends to stay in the game as long as he can. “I’m not looking to get married,” he said. “I’m too old for that. I don’t know that there’s anyone out there I could easily find who could understand that the reason I’m not having sexual climax this morning isn’t because I don’t love her. It’s because I have to go to work.”
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/12/31/fa...287&ei=5087%0A





New 'Indiana Jones' Starts Filming in 2007
AP

George Lucas said Friday that filming of the long-awaited "Indiana Jones" movie will begin next year.

Harrison Ford, who appeared in the three earlier flicks, the last one coming in 1989, is set to star again.

Lucas said he and Steven Spielberg recently finalized the script for the film.

"It’s going to be fantastic. It’s going to be the best one yet," the 62-year-old filmmaker said during a break from preparing for his duties as grand marshal of Monday’s Rose Parade.

Exact film locations have not been decided yet, but Lucas said part of the movie will be shot in Los Angeles.

The fourth chapter of the "Indiana Jones" saga, which will hit theaters in May 2008, has been in development for over a decade with several screenwriters taking a crack at the script, but it only recently gained momentum.

Lucas kept mum about the plot, but said that the latest action flick will be a "character piece" that will include "very interesting mysteries."

"I think it’s going to be really cool," Lucas said.

At the inaugural Rome Film Festival in October, the 64-year-old Ford said he was excited to team up with Lucas and Spielberg again for the fourth "Indiana Jones" installment. Ford said he was "fit to continue" to play the title role despite his age.

Ford played Indiana Jones in 1981’s "Raiders of the Lost Ark," 1984’s "Temple of Doom" and 1989’s "The Last Crusade."

Lucas praised Ford for breathing life into his character.

"Mostly it’s the charm of Harrison that makes it work," he said.
http://www.newstimeslive.com/enter/story.php?id=1027178





Mel Gibson Loses it, Borat Takes Over the Planet: The Year in Pop Culture
Charlie McCollum

It was the year of YouTube, some inconvenient truths, "American Idol" and O.J. Simpson back on the loose. The still-defiant Dixie Chicks returned. Two wily veterans of the music wars came up with unexpected masterpieces.

The year saw the final words from Lemony Snicket, the death of a film master, a visit from a guy named Borat and the passing of one of TV’s finest series. Katie Couric flew high, Mel Gibson had his ups and downs, Tower Records vanished and "High School Musical" became a cultural phenomenon. These are some of the moments that defined our popular culture in 2006:

Top pop of the year:

There were other Web sites for viral videos, but the ultimate — a sort of TiVo for the nation — was YouTube. It resurrected dead TV shows ("Nobody’s Watching"), revived interest in others ("Saturday Night Live"), helped jump-start careers (Stephen Colbert), damaged careers (Michael Richards), altered political races (the U.S. Senate campaign in Virginia) and created its own iconic figures and cultural controversies (Lonelygirl15, the Chinese Backstreet Boys). In the end, the popular site was gobbled by Google (for a snappy $1.65 billion) and could end up losing its guerrilla cache. But for one year, it loomed large on the cultural landscape.

America gets ‘Musical’:

When "High School Musical" debuted on the Disney Channel, almost no one over the age of 18 noticed. But millions of teens and ‘tweens tuned in to the energetic, feel-good TV movie, turning Disney into the hottest cable channel, the movie’s soundtrack into the top-selling album of the year and the cast into bona fide stars. Now, there is a concert version playing arenas, stage productions in dozens of cities across the country and a sequel in the works.

Million little lies:

Author James Frey seemed to have it all: His book, "A Million Little Pieces," had received good reviews, became a No. 1 non-fiction bestseller and was blessed by none other than Oprah Winfrey. The only problem: Much of his inspirational memoir of drug addiction, crime, rehab and redemption never happened. When he appeared on "The Oprah Winfrey Show" to explain himself, the chagrined hostess treated him to a public pillorying.

Courting Katie:

For months, there had been rumors that Katie Couric, the star of NBC’s "Today Show," would take over the anchor desk on "The CBS Evening News," becoming the first woman to solo anchor a network evening newscast. Rumor became reality April 5 when Couric signed a three-year, $45 million deal to sit in the chair once occupied by Walter Cronkite and Dan Rather. So far, Couric hasn’t been a big boost to the newscast’s ratings, but it takes a while.

An ‘Idol’ moment:

You could pick any of a number of moments from the past season of "American Idol" to make a point about its transcendent popularity and the way it dominated network TV. With no disrespect intended toward winner Taylor Hicks, we’ll go with the night in May when odds-on favorite Chris Daughtry got voted off, stunning the judges, Daughtry himself and seemingly much of the country. That his departure was talked about for weeks is a measure of just what a hold "Idol" had on America.

Return of the Chicks:

Three years after they talked smack about President Bush and the war in Iraq — and incurred the wrath of country music stations, right-wing talk show hosts and much of their fan base — a totally unrepentant Dixie Chicks finally came out with a new album, "Taking the Long Way," and hit the road for a national concert tour. While concerts in some red state cities were canceled for lack of ticket sales, the Chicks did big business elsewhere. The album hit No. 1 on the charts and earned the group five Grammy nominations.

Out of office:

Officially, "The West Wing" didn’t end its influential seven-season run until May. But that the seventh year of the White House drama would become its last was almost inevitable from the day John Spencer, who played presidential adviser Leo McGarry, died in December 2005. Spencer’s death made it difficult for the show to continue and slumping ratings ultimately made it impossible.

Warming signs:

Who would have thought a documentary on a subject like global warming with an Al Gore lecture as its centerpiece would become a big hit at the box office? "An Inconvenient Truth" did just that, doing big business at the multiplex and becoming one of the year’s most talked-about films. If Gore had been half as engaging on the campaign trail as he is in the film and during his appearances to promote "Truth," he might not have lost the presidential election six years ago.

Mel to pay:

It was a bad year — make that a very bad year — for Mel Gibson. In late July, the actor-director-icon got pulled over in his Lexus by a L.A. County deputy sheriff. His blood level was a snappy 0.12 percent, but that was only part of the problem. After the stop, Gibson launched into an anti-Semitic, profanity-laced tirade that got leaked to the press. Not even good reviews of his new "Apocalypto," a stint in rehab and a skillfully executed effort at spin control could undo the damage.

Master of mystery:

Hard to believe but four decades into his career, Bob Dylan came up with one of his finest albums. Simple-sounding but complex in its emotions and ideas, "Modern Times" mixed jazz, blues, old-time rock and folk with Dylan-esque takes on God, politics and American culture. One track, "Workingman’s Blues 2," may be, when all is said and done, one of the most powerful songs the Artful Dodger ever penned.

Is Borat!:

Sure, Sacha Baron Cohen’s "Borat: Cultural Learnings of America for Make Benefit Glorious Nation of Kazakhstan" — now that’s a film title — is tasteless, offensive and, at times, just plain mean-spirited. But the faux documentary about a Kazakhstan reporter running amok in the United States also was hilarious, insightful and politically influential. It also struck a chord with moviegoers, bringing in more than $120 million at the box office. Even people who hadn’t seen it talked about it.

An American original:

Robert Altman did not go silently into that good night. To the very end, the 81-year-old was making films and planning to make films. And when he died Nov. 20, he left behind an imposing legacy of movies ("Nashville," "MASH," "McCabe and Mrs. Miller," "The Player") and television work ("Combat!") that influenced and shaped a generation of younger filmmakers.

Game day:

In another era, fans would go into a frenzy over pop singers and movie stars, swarming theaters for a glimpse of their faves. These days, it’s the latest technology that attracts the mobs, and at the start of the holiday shopping season, nothing was hotter than Sony’s PlayStation 3 and Nintendo’s new Wii. People lined up for hours to grab one of the new game systems, and entrepreneurs were reselling PlayStations online for double the retail price. Some shifty folks robbed buyers of their systems as they left the store. Now, that’s the holiday spirit.

Towering inferno:

A moment of silence, please, for the passing of Tower Records. The record store chain was more than just a company. For a generation in the days before downloads and iPods, it was a place to hang out and talk about music, as well as to buy the latest albums and singles. But battered by the pressures of the growing Web economy, the chain filed for Chapter 11 and was sold to a liquidation company for $134.3 million. With that, Tower stores across the country started shutting their doors, ending an era.
http://www.newstimeslive.com/storyprint.php?id=1027038





Comcast Increasing Rates for 2.6 Million New England Customers
AP

The average Comcast Co. customer's bill in New England will increase about 3 percent starting Feb. 1, with standard cable service alone increasing 3.7 percent in the Hartford area.

Comcast, the largest cable TV provider in Connecticut, announced the rate increase Friday. It affects about 2.6 million customers in New England, including 525,000 in Connecticut.

Company officials attributed the increase to an $800 million investment in better products and services.

Comcast raised the average New England customer's bill by about 3.7 percent effective Feb. 1, 2006, including a roughly 7 percent increase in standard cable service in the Hartford area. The new rates go into effect Feb. 1, 2007.

Under the new increase, Comcast's standard cable service in the greater Hartford region will rise from $49.15 a month to $50.99, or 3.7 percent.

More than 65 percent of customers buy multiple products from Comcast, so the overall increase for the average customer in New England works out to about 3 percent, the company said.

Digital packages for cable will increase an average of $1.25 a month, partly offset by a 76-cent decrease in the cost of a cable box and remote.

Rates will not change for the company's digital voice service, high-speed Internet, home networking and cable modems, a la carte multicultural channels or Latino programming packages.
http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories...12-30-11-42-45





JS Item of Interest

Ask Slashdot: Vista and the Music Industry
BanjoBob

"Vista locks down all the DRM functionality and actually reduces the quality of playback of some media. This includes both audio and video content. As a company creating music and video products, how can we use Vista to create, distribute, and use legal media? I have read nothing to indicate that Vista has a model to allow 'authorized' use without causing problems. Currently we use Windows 2000 and Linux products. If what we understand is true, Vista and future Microsoft products won't be viable options for us since prior to publication, media must be copied multiple times, edited, moved around, re-edited and often modified into various forms (trailers, etc.) before, during, and after production. This naturally includes backups and recovery. If Vista is intent on prohibiting these uses, then Microsoft is intent on keeping their products out of the realm of content creation and editing. How do others deal with these issues?"
http://ask.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=06/12/31/2150255





Eventually to maintain that growth they'll have to start protecting rights or they'll become a victim like they have been victimizing the rest of the world. How good do you feel paying $10 to see a movie so the Chinese can pay a $1 for a DVD?

It's funny you mention that. I was in Thailand not too long ago, and the price of a legal, licensed VCD was about $1. Legal DVD's were about $40, because they were a luxury item that only the rich could afford anyway.

Companies charge whatever the market will bear. If movie studios think they can get $10 out of an American audience to watch a movie, that's what they'll charge. It doesn't matter what's going on in China, except to say that they'll throw up all sorts of technical and legal barriers to importing their cheaper goods from that region. Likewise, a new CD in Brazil can cost 3 - 5 dollars. Again, legally.

China and other less restrictive countries are looked upon as bastions of IP freedom because there are some major ways in which they are. India, for example, allowed knockoff drugs for a very long time on the grounds that it was immoral to value western company's exploitive drug pricing schemes above human life. Go to Taiwan and *gasp* you can get DVD players that will let you play movies you have legally bought and paid for in any region of the world. You can get CD's in other regions of the world where the corporations convicted of illegal price fixing actually compete with local music companies and pirate CD creators to come to a more reasonable cost structure. Heck, until a few weeks ago you had to travel abroad to get the cellphone you've purchased unlocked from that one restrictive provider.

All of the above seem reasonable, but are completely banned in the US. It's nice to go to a country where the huge companies do not simply write whatever laws they want, but have to contest with the needs of the consumer, who have alternatives to the restrictive legal route.

cgenman (325138)

http://it.slashdot.org/article.pl?si...034238&tid=164





Brief Outline of Medical Imaging Information Flow
Ears (71799)

This is part of the subtext both of the original article, and of this most recent post, so I thought I'd share what I know about it. FWIW, I'm a radiologist--that is, an MD who interprets the results of imaging studies--and an informatics geek.

Images are created on whatever imaging device--CT scanner, MR scanner, ultrasound machine, digital X-ray machine--and manipulated by the device's controlling system to do simple annotations, reformatting, etc. This is typically a Unix-based system running custom software designed and maintained by the device's vendor. The images are not usually interpreted on these systems.

From there, the images are sent to the PACS (Picutre Archiving and Communication System) [wikipedia.org], which is just a gigantic central image database. These also tend to be Unix-based systems.

There tend to be two front-ends for looking at images in the PACS database. The first is the radiologist's interface, which is a high-end video workstation dedicated to showing medical images with the greatest possible fidelity. Most systems I've seen are Windows-based (Windows 2000, in our case) and run software which was built by the the imaging system vendors in the late 1990's. Much is made of the "lossless" nature of the images which are displayed; for example, when you log into such a machine, you're warned about how "This is a medical device" and that you shouldn't mess with it. Much is also made of "diagnostic-quality monitors" and high-end video cards to drive the monitors. This is an artifact from the early days of digital imaging interpretation in radiology, when there was a great deal of concern about whether the quality of the digital images would be adequate for us to figure out what was going on in Grandma's chest X-ray if we weren't looking at a piece of acetate. Most of these concerns have died away, as the differences in resolution and dynamic range turned out to be relatively minor and the added conveniences of being able to manipulate the images digitally turned out to be huge. For example, the new LCDs I seen being put on PACS workstations are off-the-shelf Dell 22-inchers, as far as I can tell.

Finally, there are "non-diagnostic" interfaces to the PACS images, which do tend to be web-based. These are so non-radiologist doctors can look at the images, too. Some are IE-based, and use an ActiveX control to display the images, and some use a Java applet. These are displayed with lossy compression (since someone might want to look at them from off-site via a VPN), and officially are not allowed to be used for interpretation. And in fact, I wouldn't want to; it's a lot harder to see subtle things on them than on a full-blown PACS workstation. Part of that is just the interface (it's hard to use those stupid ActiveX/applet things) and part of it is crummy/mis-configured monitors, but I suppose compression artifacts could also play a role.

So, to review: you go see your doctor, Dr. Smith, in her office, and she orders a chest X-ray for you because you're coughing and have a fever. You come to the hospital, and the nice technologist takes frontal and lateral view of your chest on the digital X-ray machine. He then goes back to the X-ray control room, and sees that the images are pretty good, and so he sticks your name on them, and a marker of the date/time and his name, and so on, and then sends them to the hospital's PACS system. I (the radiologist) am working at my PACS workstation, going through the long list of all of the CT scans, MR scans, and X-rays taken in the hospital. I get to your chest X-ray and look at it; I don't seen any sign of pneumonia, so I write a report (the subject of a whole different set of informatics) that basically says "Clear lungs" and that gets entered into your electronic medical record. Then, Dr. Smith back in her office can see your X-ray via her Web-based interface. If she wonders about something she sees, she can call me up and say, "What's that stuff at the left apex?" and I pull up your X-ray again and say, "Oh, it's just the end of the first rib." So Dr. Smith doesn't give you antibiotics, tells you to rest and drink plenty of fluids, and you feel better in a few days.

My basic reaction to the DRM-protections in Vista with regards to medical imaging is that I can't imagine they'll have a significant effect. The current generation of hardware and software is adequate to the task of displaying the images for radiologists, and no one's in a hurry to mess with that. I'm sure these systems will still be running Windows 2000 for at least another five years and require only incremental upgrades in hardware.

The problem is this: the next generation of systems for displaying these datasets should be coming soon. There are a ton of ideas we could implement to make interpreting images more accurate, more efficient, and more useful to patients. Many barriers are in place to creating and installing such systems, however. Most of them have to do with the fact that the first generation systems (which are now in place pretty much everywhere) were designed without any idea of expansion, upgrade, or evolution. But the Vista DRM stuff will make engineering and delivering new solutions even more difficult and expensive, just because Windows platforms will be that much more difficult to work with, and hardware (especially high-end video hardware) will be more expensive. And I suspect that there are many little niches like this one where the cost of an all-out commitment to DRM will hinder innovation.
http://it.slashdot.org/comments.pl?s... &cid=17368942





The Bill of Wrongs

The 10 Most Outrageous Civil Liberties Violations of 2006
Dahlia Lithwick

I love those year-end roundups—ubiquitous annual lists of greatest films and albums and lip glosses and tractors. It's reassuring that all human information can be wrestled into bundles of 10. In that spirit, Slate proudly presents, the top 10 civil liberties nightmares of the year:

10. Attempt to Get Death Penalty for Zacarias Moussaoui
Long after it was clear the hapless Frenchman was neither the "20th hijacker" nor a key plotter in the attacks of 9/11, the government pressed to execute him as a "conspirator" in those attacks. Moussaoui's alleged participation? By failing to confess to what he may have known about the plot, which may have led the government to disrupt it, Moussaoui directly caused the deaths of thousands of people. This massive overreading of the federal conspiracy laws would be laughable were the stakes not so high. Thankfully, a jury rejected the notion that Moussaoui could be executed for the crime of merely wishing there had been a real connection between himself and 9/11.

9. Guantanamo Bay
It takes a licking but it keeps on ticking. After the Supreme Court struck down the military tribunals planned to try hundreds of detainees moldering on the base, and after the president agreed that it might be a good idea to close it down, the worst public relations fiasco since the Japanese internment camps lives on. Prisoners once deemed "among the most dangerous, best-trained, vicious killers on the face of the earth" are either quietly released (and usually set free) or still awaiting trial. The lucky 75 to be tried there will be cheered to hear that the Pentagon has just unveiled plans to build a $125 million legal complex for the hearings. The government has now officially put more thought into the design of Guantanamo's court bathrooms than the charges against its prisoners.

8. Slagging the Media
Whether the Bush administration is reclassifying previously declassified documents, sidestepping the FOIA, threatening journalists for leaks on dubious legal grounds, or, most recently, using its subpoena power to try to wring secret documents from the ACLU, the administration has continued its "secrets at any price" campaign. Is this a constitutional crisis? Probably not. Annoying as hell? Definitely.

7. Slagging the Courts
It starts with the president's complaints about "activist judges," and evolves to Congressional threats to appoint an inspector general to oversee federal judges. As public distrust of the bench is fueled, the stripping of courts' authority to hear whole classes of cases—most recently any habeas corpus claims from Guantanamo detainees—almost seems reasonable. Each tiny incursion into the independence of the judiciary seems justified. Until you realize that the courts are often the only places that will defend our shrinking civil liberties. This leads to ...

6. The State-Secrets Doctrine
The Bush administration's insane argument in court is that judges should dismiss entire lawsuits over many of the outrages detailed on this very list. Why? Because the outrageously illegal things are themselves matters of top-secret national security. The administration has raised this claim in relation to its adventures in secret wiretapping and its fun with extraordinary rendition. A government privilege once used to sidestep civil claims has mushroomed into sweeping immunity for the administration's sometimes criminal behavior.

5. Government Snooping
Take your pick. There's the NSA warrantless eavesdropping program wherein the president breezily authorized spying on the phone calls of innocent citizens, in violation of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act. The FBI's TALON database shows the government has been spying on nonterrorist groups, including Quakers, People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals, and Veterans for Peace. The Patriot Act lives on. And that's just the stuff we know about.

4. Extraordinary Rendition
So, when does it start to become ordinary rendition? This government program has us FedEx-ing unindicted terror suspects abroad for interrogation/torture. Khalid El-Masri, a German citizen, was shipped off to Afghanistan for such treatment and then released without charges, based on some government confusion about his name. Heh heh. Canadian citizen Maher Arar claims he was tortured in Syria for a year, released without charges, and cleared by a Canadian commission. Attempts to vindicate the rights of such men? You'd need to circle back to the state-secrets doctrine, above.

3. Abuse of Jose Padilla
First, he was, according to then-Attorney General John Ashcroft, "exploring a plan to build and explode a radiological dispersion device, or 'dirty bomb,' in the United States." Then, he was planning to blow up apartments. Then he was just part of a vague terror conspiracy to commit jihad in Bosnia and Chechnya. Always, he was a U.S. citizen. After three and a half years, in which he was denied the most basic legal rights, it has now emerged that Padilla was either outright tortured or near-tortured. According to a recent motion, during Padilla's years of almost complete isolation, he was treated by the U.S. government to sensory and sleep deprivation, extreme cold, stress positions, threats of execution, and drugging with truth serum. Experts say he is too mentally damaged to stand trial. The Bush administration supported his motion for a mental competency assessment, in hopes that will help prevent his torture claims from ever coming to trial, or, as Yale Law School's inimitable Jack Balkin put it: "You can't believe Padilla when he says we tortured him because he's crazy from all the things we did to him."

2. The Military Commissions Act of 2006
This was the so-called compromise legislation that gave President Bush even more power than he initially had to detain and try so-called enemy combatants. He was generously handed the authority to define for himself the parameters of interrogation and torture and the responsibility to report upon it, since he'd been so good at that. What we allegedly did to Jose Padilla was once a dirty national secret. The MCA made it the law.

1. Hubris
Whenever the courts push back against the administration's unsupportable constitutional ideas—ideas about "inherent powers" and a "unitary executive" or the silliness of the Geneva Conventions or the limitless sweep of presidential powers during wartime—the Bush response is to repeat the same chorus louder: Every detainee is the worst of the worst; every action taken is legal, necessary, and secret. No mistakes, no apologies. No nuance, no regrets. This legal and intellectual intractability can create the illusion that we are standing on the same constitutional ground we stood upon in 2001, even as that ground is sliding away under our feet.

What outrage did I forget? Send mail to Dahlia.Lithwick@hotmail.com. (E-mail may be quoted by name unless otherwise stipulated.)

Wishing you and yours a happy, and freer, New Year.
http://www.slate.com/id/2156397/





Chatterbox

Smalls said

Well.. I guess it’s about sharing music with the zune…

That new eyeball will disappear within a couple of days
http://techzo.com/wordpress/?p=242





Music of the Hemispheres
Clive Thompson

“Listen to this,” Daniel Levitin said. “What is it?” He hit a button on his computer keyboard and out came a half-second clip of music. It was just two notes blasted on a raspy electric guitar, but I could immediately identify it: the opening lick to the Rolling Stones’ “Brown Sugar.”

Then he played another, even shorter snippet: a single chord struck once on piano. Again I could instantly figure out what it was: the first note in Elton John’s live version of “Benny and the Jets.”

Dr. Levitin beamed. “You hear only one note, and you already know who it is,” he said. “So what I want to know is: How we do this? Why are we so good at recognizing music?”

This is not merely some whoa-dude epiphany that a music fan might have while listening to a radio contest. Dr. Levitin has devoted his career to exploring this question. He is a cognitive psychologist who runs the Laboratory for Music Perception, Cognition and Expertise at McGill University in Montreal, perhaps the world’s leading lab in probing why music has such an intense effect on us.

“By the age of 5 we are all musical experts, so this stuff is clearly wired really deeply into us,” said Dr. Levitin, an eerily youthful-looking 49, surrounded by the pianos, guitars and enormous 16-track mixers that make his lab look more like a recording studio.

This summer he published “This Is Your Brain on Music” (Dutton), a layperson’s guide to the emerging neuroscience of music. Dr. Levitin is an unusually deft interpreter, full of striking scientific trivia. For example we learn that babies begin life with synesthesia, the trippy confusion that makes people experience sounds as smells or tastes as colors. Or that the cerebellum, a part of the brain that helps govern movement, is also wired to the ears and produces some of our emotional responses to music. His experiments have even suggested that watching a musician perform affects brain chemistry differently from listening to a recording.

Dr. Levitin is singular among music scientists for actually having come out of the music industry. Before getting his Ph.D. he spent 15 years as a record producer, working with artists ranging from the Blue Öyster Cult to Chris Isaak. While still in graduate school he helped Stevie Wonder assemble a best-of collection; in 1992 Dr. Levitin’s sensitive ears detected that MCA Records had accidentally used third-generation backup tapes to produce seven Steely Dan CDs, and he embarrassed the label by disclosing it in Billboard magazine. He has earned nine gold and platinum albums, which he tucks in corners of his lab, office and basement at home. “They look a little scary when you put them all in one place, so I spread them around,” he said.

Martin Grant, the dean of science at McGill, compares Dr. Levitin’s split professional personality to that of Brian Greene, the pioneering string-theory scientist who also writes mass-market books. “Some people are good popularizers, and some are good scientists, but not usually both at once,” Dr. Grant said. “Dan’s actually cutting edge in his field.”

Scientifically, Dr. Levitin’s colleagues credit him for focusing attention on how music affects our emotions, turf that wasn’t often covered by previous generations of psychoacousticians, who studied narrower questions about how the brain perceives musical sounds. “The questions he asks are very very musical, very concerned with the fact that music is an art that we interact with, not just a bunch of noises,” said Rita Aiello, an adjunct professor in the department of psychology at New York University.

Ultimately, scientists say, his work offers a new way to unlock the mysteries of the brain: how memory works, how people with autism think, why our ancestors first picked up instruments and began to play, tens of thousands of years ago.

DR. LEVITIN originally became interested in producing in 1981, when his band — a punk outfit called the Mortals — went into the recording studio. None of the other members were interested in the process, so he made all the decisions behind the board. “I actually became a producer because I saw the producers getting all the babes,” he said. “They were stealing them from the guitarists.” He dropped out of college to work with alternative bands.

Producers, he noted, were able to notice impossibly fine gradations of quality in music. Many could identify by ear the type of amplifiers and recording tape used on an album.

“So I started wondering: How was the brain able to do this?” Dr. Levitin said. “What’s going on there, and why are some people better than others? And why is music such an emotional experience?” He began sitting in on neuroscience classes at Stanford University.

“Even back then, Dan was never satisfied with the simple answer,” said Howie Klein, a former president of Reprise and Sire Records. “He was always poking and prodding.”

By the ’90s Dr. Levitin was disenchanted with the music industry. “When they’re dropping Van Morrison and Elvis Costello because they don’t sell enough records,” he said, “I knew it was time to move on.” Academic friends persuaded him to pursue a science degree. They bet that he would have good intuitions on how to design music experiments.

They were right. Traditionally music psychologists relied on “simple melodies they’d written themselves,” Dr. Levitin said. What could that tell anyone about the true impact of powerful music?

For his first experiment he came up with an elegant concept: He stopped people on the street and asked them to sing, entirely from memory, one of their favorite hit songs. The results were astonishingly accurate. Most people could hit the tempo of the original song within a four-percent margin of error, and two-thirds sang within a semitone of the original pitch, a level of accuracy that wouldn’t embarrass a pro.

“When you played the recording of them singing alongside the actual recording of the original song, it sounded like they were singing along,” Dr. Levitin said.

It was a remarkable feat. Most memories degrade and distort with time; why would pop music memories be so sharply encoded? Perhaps because music triggers the reward centers in our brains. In a study published last year Dr. Levitin and group of neuroscientists mapped out precisely how.

Observing 13 subjects who listened to classical music while in an M.R.I. machine, the scientists found a cascade of brain-chemical activity. First the music triggered the forebrain, as it analyzed the structure and meaning of the tune. Then the nucleus accumbus and ventral tegmental area activated to release dopamine, a chemical that triggers the brain’s sense of reward.

The cerebellum, an area normally associated with physical movement, reacted too, responding to what Dr. Levitin suspected was the brain’s predictions of where the song was going to go. As the brain internalizes the tempo, rhythm and emotional peaks of a song, the cerebellum begins reacting every time the song produces tension (that is, subtle deviations from its normal melody or tempo).

“When we saw all this activity going on precisely in sync, in this order, we knew we had the smoking gun,” he said. “We’ve always known that music is good for improving your mood. But this showed precisely how it happens.”

The subtlest reason that pop music is so flavorful to our brains is that it relies so strongly on timbre. Timbre is a peculiar blend of tones in any sound; it is why a tuba sounds so different from a flute even when they are playing the same melody in the same key. Popular performers or groups, Dr. Levitin argued, are pleasing not because of any particular virtuosity, but because they create an overall timbre that remains consistent from song to song. That quality explains why, for example, I could identify even a single note of Elton John’s “Benny and the Jets.”

“Nobody else’s piano sounds quite like that,” he said, referring to Mr. John. “Pop musicians compose with timbre. Pitch and harmony are becoming less important.”

Dr. Levitin dragged me over to a lab computer to show me what he was talking about. “Listen to this,” he said, and played an MP3. It was pretty awful: a poorly recorded, nasal-sounding British band performing, for some reason, a Spanish-themed ballad.

Dr. Levitin grinned. “That,” he said, “is the original demo tape of the Beatles. It was rejected by every record company. And you can see why. To you and me it sounds terrible. But George Martin heard this and thought, ‘Oh yeah, I can imagine a multibillion-dollar industry built on this.’

“Now that’s musical genius.”

THE largest audience that Dr. Levitin has performed in front of was 1,000 people, when he played backup saxophone for Mel Tormé. Years of being onstage piqued Dr. Levitin’s interest in another aspect of musical experience: watching bands perform. Does the brain experience a live performance differently from a recorded one?

To find out, he and Bradley Vines, a graduate student, devised an interesting experiment. They took two clarinet performances and played them for three groups of listeners: one that heard audio only; one that saw a video only; and one that had audio and video. As each group listened, participants used a slider to indicate how their level of tension was rising or falling.

One rapid, complex passage caused tension in all groups, but less in the one watching and listening simultaneously. Why? Possibly, Dr. Levitin said, because of the performer’s body language: the clarinetist appeared to be relaxed even during that rapid-fire passage, and the audience picked up on his visual cues. The reverse was also true: when the clarinetist played in a subdued way but appeared animated, the people with only video felt more tension than those with only audio.

In another, similar experiment the clarinetist fell silent for a few bars. This time the viewers watching the video maintained a higher level of excitement because they could see that he was gearing up to launch into a new passage. The audio-only listeners had no such visual cues, and they regarded the silence as much less exciting.

This spring Dr. Levitin began an even more involved experiment to determine how much emotion is conveyed by live performers. In April he took participants in a Boston Symphony Orchestra concert — the conductor Keith Lockhart, five of the musicians and 15 audience members — and wired them with sensors to measure their state of arousal, including heart rate, body movements and muscle tension.

At one point during the performance Mr. Lockhart swung his wrist with such force that a sensor attached to his cuff went flying off. Dr. Levitin’s team tried to reattach it with duct tape, until the conductor objected — “Did you just put duct tape on an Armani?” he asked — and lighter surgical tape was used instead.

The point of the experiment is to determine whether the conductor creates noticeable changes in the emotional tenor of the performance. Dr. Levitin says he suspects there’s a domino effect: the conductor becomes particularly animated, transmits this to the orchestra and then to the audience, in a matter of seconds. Mr. Lockhart is skeptical. “As a conductor,” he said, “I’m a causatory force for music, but I’m not a causatory force for emotion.” But Dr. Levitin is still crunching the data.

“It might not turn out to be like that,” he said, “But wouldn’t it be cool if it did?”

Dr. Levitin’s work has occasionally undermined some cherished beliefs about music. For example recent years have seen an explosion of “Baby Mozart” videos and toys, based on the idea — popular since the ’80s — that musical and mathematical ability are inherently linked.

But Dr. Levitin argued that this could not be true, based on his study of people with Williams syndrome, a genetic disorder that leaves people with low intelligence. Their peak mental capacities are typically those of young child, with no ability to calculate quantities. Dr. Levitin once asked a woman with Williams to hold up her hand for five seconds; she left it in the air for a minute and a half. “No concept of time at all,” he said, “and definitely no math.”

Yet people with Williams possess unusually high levels of musical ability. One Williams boy Dr. Levitin met was so poorly coordinated he could not open the case to his clarinet. But once he was holding the instrument, his coordination problems vanished, and he could play fluidly. Music cannot be indispensably correlated with math, Dr. Levitin noted, if Williams people can play music. He is now working on a study that compares autistics — some of whom have excellent mathematical ability, but little musical ability — to people with Williams; in the long run, he said, he thinks it could help shed light on why autistic brains develop so differently.

Not all of Dr. Levitin’s idea have been easily accepted. He argues, for example, that music is an evolutionary adaptation: something that men developed as a way to demonstrate reproductive fitness. (Before you laugh, consider the sex lives of today’s male rock stars.) Music also helped social groups cohere. “Music has got to be useful for survival, or we would have gotten rid of it years ago,” he said.

But Steven Pinker, a cognitive scientist at Harvard known for his defense of evolutionary psychology, has publicly disparaged this idea. Dr. Pinker has called music “auditory cheesecake,” something pleasant but not evolutionarily nutritious. If it is a sexual signal for reproduction, then why, Dr. Pinker asked, does “a 60-year-old woman enjoy listening to classical music when she’s alone at home?” Dr. Levitin wrote an entire chapter refuting Dr. Pinker’s arguments; when I asked Dr. Pinker about Dr. Levitin’s book he said he hadn’t read it.

Nonetheless Dr. Levitin plugs on, and sometimes still plugs in. He continues to perform music, doing several gigs a year with Diminished Faculties, a ragtag band composed entirely of professors and students at McGill. On a recent December afternoon members assembled in a campus ballroom to do a sound check for their performance that evening at a holiday party. Playing a blue Stratocaster, Dr. Levitin crooned the Chris Isaak song “Wicked Game.” “I’m not a great guitarist, and I’m not a great singer,” he said.

But he is not bad, either, and still has those producer’s ears. When “Wicked Game” ended, the bass player began noodling idly, playing the first few notes of a song that seemed instantly familiar to all the younger students gathered. “That’s Nirvana, right?” Dr. Levitin said, cocking his head and squinting. “ ‘Come As You Are.’ I love that song.”
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/12/31/ar...424&ei=5087%0A






In Silicon Valley, the Race Is On to Trump Google
Miguel Helft

In brand-new offices with a still-empty game room and enough space to triple their staff of nearly 30, a trio of entrepreneurs is leading an Internet start-up with an improbable mission: to out- Google Google.

The three started Powerset, a company whose aim is to deliver better answers than any other search engine — including Google — by letting users type questions in plain English. And they have made believers of Silicon Valley investors whose fortunes turn on identifying the next big thing.

“There’s definitely a segment of the market that thinks we are crazy,” said Charles Moldow, a partner at Foundation Capital, a venture capital firm that is Powerset’s principal financial backer. “In 2000, some people thought Google was crazy.”

Powerset is hardly alone. Even as Google continues to outmaneuver its main search rivals, Yahoo and Microsoft, plenty of newcomers — with names like hakia, ChaCha and Snap — are trying to beat the company at its own game. And Wikia Inc., a company started by a founder of Wikipedia, plans to develop a search engine that, like the popular Web-based encyclopedia, would be built by a community of programmers and users.

These ambitious quests reflect the renewed optimism sweeping technology centers like Silicon Valley and fueling a nascent Internet boom. It also shows how much the new Internet economy resembles a planetary system where everything and everyone orbits around search in general, and around Google in particular.

Silicon Valley is filled with start-ups whose main business proposition is to be bought by Google, or for that matter by Yahoo or Microsoft. Countless other start-ups rely on Google as their primary driver of traffic or on Google’s powerful advertising system as their primary source of income. Virtually all new companies compete with Google for scarce engineering talent. And divining Google’s next move has become a fixation for scores of technology blogs and a favorite parlor game among technology investors.

“There is way too much obsession with search, as if it were the end of the world,” said Esther Dyson, a well-known technology investor and forecaster. “Google equals money equals search equals search advertising; it all gets combined as if this is the last great business model.”

It may not be the last great business model, but Google has proved that search linked to advertising is a very large and lucrative business, and everyone — including Ms. Dyson, who invested a small sum in Powerset — seems to want a piece of it.

Since the beginning of 2004, venture capitalists have put nearly $350 million into no fewer than 79 start-ups that had something to do with Internet search, according to the National Venture Capital Association, an industry group.

An overwhelming majority are not trying to take Google head on, but rather are focusing on specialized slices of the search world, like searching for videos, blog postings or medical information. Since Google’s stated mission is to organize all of the world’s information, they may still find themselves in the search giant’s cross hairs. That is not necessarily bad, as being acquired by Google could be a financial bonanza for some of these entrepreneurs and investors.

But in the current boom, there is money even for those with the audacious goal of becoming a better Google.

Powerset recently received $12.5 million in financing. Hakia, which like Powerset is trying to create a “natural language” search engine, got $16 million. Another $16 million went to Snap, which has focused on presenting search results in a more compelling way and is experimenting with a new advertising model. And ChaCha, which uses paid researchers that act as virtual reference librarians to provide answers to users’ queries, got $6.1 million.

Still, recent history suggests that gaining traction is going to be difficult. Of dozens of search start-ups that were introduced in recent years, none had more than a 1 percent share of the United States search market in November, according to Nielsen NetRatings, a research firm that measures Internet traffic.

Amassing a large audience has proved to be a challenge even for those with a track record and resources. Consider A9, a search engine owned by Amazon.com that received positive reviews when it began in 2004 and was run by Udi Manber, a widely recognized search specialist. Despite some innovative features and early successes, A9 has captured only a tiny share of the market. Mr. Manber now works for Google, where he is vice president of engineering.

The setback apparently has not stopped Amazon or its chief executive, Jeffrey P. Bezos, from pursuing profits in search. ChaCha said it counts an investment company owned by Mr. Bezos among its backers, and Amazon is an investor in Wikia. An Amazon spokeswoman said Mr. Bezos does not comment about his personal investments.

Some start-ups are similarly bullish. “We expect to be one of the top three search engines,” said Riza C. Berkan, the chief executive of hakia. It is a bold claim, given that hakia’s technology is not yet ready for prime time, and Mr. Berkan readily concedes it will take time to perfect it.

The dream, however, is quintessential Silicon Valley.

“It is hard for me to believe that anybody thinks they can take Google’s business from Google,” said Randy Komisar, a venture capitalist who was once known as Silicon Valley’s “virtual C.E.O.” for his role as a mentor to scores of technology firms. “But to call the game over because Google has been such a success would be to deny history.”

In some ways, the willingness of so many to make multimillion-dollar investments to take on Google and other search companies represents a startling change. In the late 1990s, when Microsoft dominated the technology world, inventors and investors did everything they could to avoid competing with the software company.

Yet many of today’s search start-ups are putting themselves squarely in the path of the Google steamroller. Most explain that decision in similar ways.

They say that Google’s dominance today is different from Microsoft’s in the late 90s when its operating system was a virtual monopoly and nearly impossible to break. In the Internet search industry, “you earn your right to be in business every day, page view after page view, click after click,” said Barney Pell, a founder and the chief executive of Powerset, whose search service is not yet available.

They also say that the market for search simply is too large to resist. Google, which, according to Nielsen, handles about half of all Internet searches in the United States, is valued at an astonishing $141 billion. So, the reasoning goes, anyone who can grab even a small slice of the search market could be well rewarded.

“You don’t need to be No. 1 to be worth billions of dollars,” said Allen Morgan, a partner at Mayfield Fund, a venture capital firm that invested $10 million in Snap. The company is also backed by Bill Gross, an Internet financier who pioneered the idea of linking ads and search results, only to see Google seize the powerful business model and improve on it.

Almost all of today’s search entrepreneurs also say that Google’s success lends credibility to their own long-shot quest.

When Lawrence Page and Sergey Brin first started tinkering with what would become Google, other search engines like AltaVista and Lycos and Excite were dominant. But the companies that owned them were distracted by efforts to diversify their businesses, and they took their eye off the ball of Internet search and stopped innovating.

Some now say that search has not evolved much in years, and that Google is similarly distracted as it introduces new products like word processors, spreadsheets and online payment systems and expands into online video, social networking and other businesses.

“The more Google starts to think about taking on Microsoft, the less it is a pure search play, and the more it opens the door for new innovations,” said Mr. Moldow, the Foundation Capital partner. “That’s great for us.”

But at the same time, Google, Yahoo and Microsoft have thousands of engineers, including some of the world’s top search specialists, working on improving their search results. And they have spent billions building vast computer networks so they can respond instantly to the endless stream of queries from around the world.

Search “is becoming an increasingly capital-intensive business,” said Marissa Mayer, Google’s vice president for search. That makes it harder for start-ups to catch up to the giants, she said.

That is not stopping entrepreneurs from betting that they can. Powerset has search and natural-language experts among its two dozen employees, including former top engineers from Yahoo and a former chief linguist from Ask Jeeves, Ask.com’s predecessor. They are the kind of people who could easily land jobs at Google or Microsoft or Yahoo.

Steve Newcomb, a Powerset founder and veteran of several successful start-ups, said his company could become the next Google. Or, he said, if Google or someone else perfected natural-language search before Powerset, then his company would make a great acquisition for one of the other search companies. “We are a huge story no matter what,” he said.

Ms. Dyson, the technology commentator and Powerset investor, captured the optimism more concisely and with less swagger. “I love Google,” she said, “but I love the march of history.”
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/01/01/te.../01search.html





Loaded With Personalities, Now Satellite Radio May Try a Merger
Eric A. Taub

Last year’s debut of Howard Stern’s radio show on Sirius Satellite Radio put the technology on the map, raising the public’s awareness of satellite radio and helping to boost significantly subscriber totals for Sirius and its larger rival, XM Satellite Radio.

Today, thanks in part to the outsize radio personality, the Stern Effect has increased Sirius’s base to about six million subscribers, up 80 percent from one year ago. XM has increased its numbers by more than 30 percent, ending 2006 with 7.7 to 7.9 million customers.

“There is a tendency to view satellite radio as if the glass is half empty, and that it is a failure or disappointment,” said Craig Moffett, senior cable analyst for Sanford C. Bernstein.

“In fact, nothing could be further from the truth,” he said. “Satellite radio is growing faster than any consumer product except for the iPod.”

But Sirius and XM shares have taken a battering on Wall Street, with prices for both off about 50 percent from their year-ago levels. On Friday, Sirius closed at $3.54, while XM ended the year at $14.45.

And now, the industry may be getting ready to try an even more dramatic third act — a possible attempt to merge the two services.

The benefits of a merger have been promoted by the chief executive of Sirius, Mel Karmazin, for a number of months, and Sirius officials continue to say that a merger would be a good thing. XM has not commented on the possibility, and neither company has said whether they have actually discussed the issue.

“When you have two companies in the same industry, we have a similar cost structure. Clearly, a merger makes sense from an investor’s point of view to reduce costs, and to have a better return,” said David Frear, the chief financial officer for Sirius.

Both companies have continued to lose hundreds of millions of dollars because of marketing and other subscriber acquisition expenses. During the year, XM sharply lowered its expectations for 2006 subscriber levels, from January’s predicted end-of-year total of 9 million to a maximum of 7.9 million. (Sirius reduced its subscription projection by about 100,000.)

Nate Davis, XM’s president, said his company believed that the slower-than-expected growth rate was of its own making and not a result of any market indifference. “We did not stimulate the market with new products,” he said.

XM’s most talked-about receivers, the Pioneer Inno and Samsung Helix, were first announced one year ago. Several new receiver models will be introduced later in 2007. In addition, production of some receivers was temporarily halted to stop a condition that was allowing satellite signals to be picked up by neighboring vehicles.

The hiccups typical of fledgling industries appear to be over. Both companies have their programming lineups largely in place and a wide range of receivers available in retail stores.

In addition to Howard Stern, Sirius features personalities like Deepak Chopra, Judith Regan, Richard Simmons and Martha Stewart. Sports programming includes N.B.A., N.F.L., and N.H.L. games; Nascar programming begins this year.

XM has shows with hosts including Bob Dylan, Ellen Degeneres, “Good Morning America” personalities, and Oprah Winfrey. XM broadcasts every Major League Baseball game as well as P.G.A. golf.

Yet the vast majority of programming remains duplicative. Each company offers a wide variety of rock, pop, folk, and other musical genres, as well as the same news channels, which include the BBC, CNN, Fox, and MSNBC. Sirius and XM each claim that their music channels are more compelling than the competition’s, but most casual listeners would be hard-pressed to tell the difference.

“The services mirror each other tremendously,” said Richard Doherty, an analyst with the Envisioneering Group, a research firm. “More people know that one service has Howard Stern than know which one has him.”

Except for a relatively small handful of viewers looking for particular programs, consumers searching for a satellite service in a retail store often make their decision not on the merits of one over the other, but which one is more convenient to buy.

“For the subscriber, it all comes down to which one of the two is closer to the cash register. Customers cannot tell the difference between the two services,” Mr. Moffett said.

Customer choice will play an even smaller role in the coming years as both companies come to rely more on selling satellite radio as a factory-installed option on new cars, and less on receivers sold at retail stores.

Both companies have exclusive agreements with the automobile companies. Customers typically get free service for a number of months, and then must pay $12.95 a month to continue listening.

XM has exclusive arrangements with General Motors, Honda, Hyundai, Nissan and Porsche. Sirius has similar alliances with BMW, DaimlerChrysler, Ford, Kia and VW-Audi.

Today, about 63 percent of XM’s subscribers are buyers of new cars, and Sirius’s new subscribers are derived equally from new car and after-market sales. As more cars are equipped with satellite radios, the new car market could grow to as high as 70 percent of sales in the next few years, Mr. Moffett said.

“We see greater and greater demand in the car market,” said Mr. Davis of XM. “And we think the used car market will be an opportunity to sell to new subscribers.” Used car subscribers incur no additional hardware costs if the receiver is already in place.

And if the companies were to merge and effectively double their subscriber base, the new company could reduce programming costs through increased negotiating clout, removal of duplicative channels and elimination of redundant employees.

Whether Sirius and XM attempt to merge, a number of variables that will determine the size of the industry’s success remain unknown.

They include the number of new cars that will be equipped with satellite radio receivers; the percentage of new car owners who will subscribe after the free trial period ends; and whether purchasers of used cars equipped with satellite radio will be more or less likely to subscribe than new car owners.

The business may also be vulnerable to subscription overload, Mr. Doherty said, if consumers find that monthly recurring expenses from cellphone bills, cable TV, and other services are too high.

Yet even if that is true, there is little doubt that the concept of satellite radio is no longer alien to consumers. According to Sirius, 83 percent of consumers aged 18 to 55 are now aware of the technology.

Mr. Frear became personally cognizant of that when he tried to rent a car with a Sirius radio recently but found they were all taken.

“Every year, satellite radio just sinks deeper and deeper into the public consciousness,” he said.
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/01/01/te...satellite.html

[JackSpratts]

Using Web Cams, the Young Turn to Risky Sites
Brad Stone

Popular Web sites like YouTube and MySpace have hired the equivalent of school hallway monitors to police what visitors to their sites can see and do by cracking down on piracy and depictions of nudity and violence.

So where do the young thrill-seekers go?

Increasingly, to new Web sites like Stickam.com, which is building a business by going where others fear to tread: into the realm of unfiltered live broadcasts from Web cameras.

The site combines elements of more popular sites, but with a twist. In addition to designing their own pages and uploading video clips, its users broadcast live video of themselves and conduct face-to-face video chats with other users, often from their bedrooms and all without monitoring by any of Stickam’s 35 employees.

Other social networks have decided against allowing conversations over live video because of the potential for abuse and opposition from child-safety advocates. “The only thing you get from the combination of Web cams and young people are problems,” said Parry Aftab, executive director of the child protection organization WiredSafety.org. “Web cams are a magnet for sexual predators.”

The larger Internet companies have come under increasing pressure to make their sites safer for children and friendlier to copyright holders, so start-ups like Stickam are pursuing their own slices of the market, often at the price of taste, ethics and perhaps even child safety.

“Letting people do whatever they want is one way for these sites to differentiate themselves,” said Josh Bernoff, a Forrester Research analyst. “It is the race to the bottom.”

Video-sharing sites in particular are filling niches abandoned by YouTube, which is now owned by Google and had more than 25 million visitors last month. Since its inception in 2005, YouTube has banned nudity and taken down copyrighted material when rights holders file specific complaints.

Last March, under additional pressure from copyright holders, YouTube placed a 10-minute limit on clips.

Smaller start-ups who are not able, or willing, to be as diligent are seeing their audiences explode as users seek the more freewheeling environment that typified YouTube’s early days. Users post 9,000 new videos a day to Dailymotion, which had more than 1.3 million visitors in November, up more than 100 percent since May, according to the tracking firm ComScore Media Metrix.

A recent search on Dailymotion, which is based in Paris, found hours of copyrighted material: entire episodes of NBC’s “Heroes” and CBS’s “Without a Trace,” recordings of Beatles concerts and plenty of nudity. The firm places no length restrictions on uploaded video.

Benjamin Bejbaum, the chief executive of Dailymotion, said the firm’s 30 employees move quickly to take down video when users or rights-holders flag it as inappropriate or illegal. Mr. Bejbaum’s company is seeking the kinds of revenue-sharing deals with copyright holders that Google has struck, he said.

Dailymotion currently shows ads to its users in France, which make up 40 percent of visitors to the service, and is studying an entry into the United States.

Another new video-sharing site, LiveLeak, based in London, has positioned itself as a source for reality-based fare like footage of Iraq battle scenes and grisly accidents. Last week, popular clips on the site included one of an agitated man in Muslim dress on a fast-moving treadmill and video of an American A-20 aircraft bombing Taliban forces in Afghanistan.

Hayden Hewitt, a co-owner of LiveLeak, said that people who have been barred from YouTube for uploading explicit footage of the Iraq war have migrated to his site. LiveLeak “won’t ban anyone for showing the truth,” Mr. Hewitt said. The site also features ample sexual content that would never make it onto YouTube or MySpace.

To support itself, LiveLeak runs ads from the syndicated ad network Adbrite. Mr. Hewitt said the company was not trying to get rich or dethrone YouTube, but to create a place on the Web for unvarnished reality.

Few of these new video sites, though, worry child-safety advocates as much as Stickam, which mostly attracts young people comfortable with the idea of a continuous self-produced reality TV show starring themselves. Stickam, based in Los Angeles, says it has 260,000 registered users — 50,000 of them say their age is 14 to 17 — and is adding 2,000 to 3,000 each day.

Advanced Video Communications, a Los Angeles company that builds video conferencing systems for companies, founded Stickam (pronounced stick-cam) late last year to demonstrate its technology. Its first product was a program that let users bring a live Web cam feed directly onto their MySpace pages and other social networks and bulletin boards.

In October, MySpace blocked the Stickam service. MySpace’s chief security officer, Hemanshu Nigam, said the firm “has not implemented video chat features, given the safety implications for our users.”

By then, Stickam was testing its own social networking service to compete directly with MySpace. The new site prohibits anyone under 14 from joining, and its terms of service forbid “obscene, profane and indecent” behavior. But since the company does not verify a user’s age, and because users’ broadcasts are live, even the firm’s chief executive, Hideki Kishioka, concedes those rules are unenforceable. The company is “relying on users to monitor each other,” he said.

Even enthusiastic Stickam users say the site often feels lawless. “People are very vulgar and like to ‘get their jollies’ from harassing people, mainly girls, to take off their clothes,” said Chelsey, a 17-year-old user from Saskatchewan in Canada, who signed up after her 13-year-old sister violated the site’s age rules and joined the service.

“I’m pretty sure none of their parents know or even think about the things that they are doing on this site,” said Chelsey, who said in an e-mail message that she did not feel comfortable using her last name in an interview.

Other companies that offer Web cam chats say that the technology seems to attract abuse. “There are just some people who, if you give them a Web cam, are going to take off their clothes,” said Jason Katz, founder of PalTalk, an eight-year-old service that lets users converse over Web cams on various topics. Unlike Stickam, PalTalk asks for a credit card and charges a monthly fee, which it says prevents minors from signing up.

At least one major media company has embraced Stickam. Last month, Warner Brothers Records opened a page on the service for two of its artists, Jamie Kennedy and Stu Stone, and trained a Web cam on them as they recorded a music video. More than 9,500 users watched the event and chatted with the performers during breaks in filming.

Robin Bechtel, Warner’s vice president for new media, said she thinks Stickam “could be the next MySpace” and that people would migrate to even controversial video sites if they have features that MySpace and YouTube did not. “People are going to go where the content is,” Ms. Bechtel said. “If Stickam has celebrities and is entertaining, they will go there.”

Mr. Kihioka of Stickam said that in some respects, his site was actually safer than other social networks. Live video feeds let users “know who they are talking to,” he said. “Unlike MySpace, it is hard to disguise yourself.” But he added that his company had the same concerns about child safety as MySpace and was working on an automated system that would monitor live video feeds for indecency.

Child-safety experts are not convinced. They say that sites like Stickam are the motivation for them to work closely with sites like MySpace and YouTube to create safeguards.

“If we discourage the use of the more corporately responsible social networking sites, kids will go underground to more edgier ones,” said Donna Rice Hughes, president of the Internet safety organization Enough Is Enough in Virginia. “Then we’ll have more of a problem.”
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/01/02/te... ner=homepage





Kid Tested


Ruby Kulles, 7, is engrossed in an illustrated children's book from the International Children's Digital Library (ICDL) Foundation. Kulles is part of Kids Team, a research arm of the Foundation at the University of Maryland's Human-Computer Interaction Lab, involving children in the design and testing of the Library's interface for children's books across digital media. The bright green computer she is using is a test model of the new, low-cost laptop developed by the One Laptop Per Child (OLPC) organization (www.laptop.org). ICDL Foundation has the world's largest collection of children's literature available freely on the Internet. It's on the Web at www.childrenslibrary.org. (Photo Credit: Aaron Clamage)

Low-Cost Laptop Could Transform Learning
Brian Bergstein

Forget windows, folders and boxes that pop up with text. When students in Thailand, Libya and other developing countries get their $150 computers from the One Laptop Per Child project in 2007, their experience will be unlike anything on standard PCs.

For most of these children the XO machine, as it's called, likely will be the first computer they've ever used. Because the students have no expectations for what PCs should be like, the laptop's creators started from scratch in designing a user interface they figured would be intuitive for children.

The result is as unusual as - but possibly even riskier than - other much-debated aspects of the machine, such as its economics and distinctive hand-pulled mechanism for charging its battery. (XO has been known as the $100 laptop because of the ultra-low cost its creators eventually hope to achieve through mass production.)

For example, students who turn on the small green-and-white computers will be greeted by a basic home screen with a stick-figure icon at the center, surrounded by a white ring. The entire desktop has a black frame with more icons.

This runic setup signifies the student at the middle. The ring contains programs the student is running, which can be launched by clicking the appropriate icon in the black frame.

When the student opts to view the entire "neighborhood" - the XO's preferred term instead of "desktop" - other stick figures in different colors might appear on the screen. Those indicate schoolmates who are nearby, as detected by the computers' built-in wireless networking capability.

Moving the PC's cursor over the classmates' icons will pull up their names or photos. With further clicks the students can chat with each other or collaborate on things — an art project, say, or a music program on the computer, which has built-in speakers.

The design partly reflects a clever attempt to get the most from the machine's limited horsepower. To keep costs and power demands low, XO uses a slim version of the Linux operating system, a 366-megahertz processor from Advanced Micro Devices Inc. and no hard disk drive. Instead it has 512 megabytes of flash memory, plus USB 2.0 ports where more storage could be attached.

But the main design motive was the project's goal of stimulating education better than previous computer endeavors have. Nicholas Negroponte, who launched the project at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology's Media Lab two years ago before spinning One Laptop into a separate nonprofit, said he deliberately wanted to avoid giving children computers they might someday use in an office.

"In fact, one of the saddest but most common conditions in elementary school computer labs (when they exist in the developing world), is the children are being trained to use Word, Excel and PowerPoint," Negroponte wrote in an e-mail interview. "I consider that criminal, because children should be making things, communicating, exploring, sharing, not running office automation tools."

To that end, folders are not the organizing metaphor on these machines, unlike most computers since Apple Computer Inc. launched the first Mac in 1984. The knock on folders is that they force users to remember where they stored their information rather than what they used it for.

Instead, the XO machines are organized around a "journal," an automatically generated log of everything the user has done on the laptop. Students can review their journals to see their work and retrieve files created or altered in those sessions.

Despite these school-focused frameworks, its creators bristle at any suggestion XO is a mere toy. A wide range of programs can run on it, including a Web browser, a word processor and an RSS reader - the software that delivers blog updates to information junkies.

The computer also has features anyone would love, notably a built-in camera and a color display that converts to monochrome so it's easier to see in sunlight.

"I have to laugh when people refer to XO as a weak or crippled machine and how kids should get a `real' one," Negroponte wrote. "Trust me, I will give up my real one very soon and use only XO. It will be far better, in many new and important ways."

Although the end result is new, the lead software integrator, Chris Blizzard of Red Hat Inc., said 90 percent of the underlying programming code was cobbled together from technologies that long existed in the open-source programming community.

In keeping with that open nature, details and simulations of the user interface, nicknamed Sugar, have been available online, to mixed reviews.

Some bloggers have said that even as Sugar avoids complexities inherent in the familiar operating systems from Microsoft Corp. or Apple, it just creates a different set of complexities to be mastered.

How hard that is should be one key measure of the project's success. One Laptop plans to send a specialist to each school who will stay for a month helping teachers and students get started. But Negroponte believes that kids ultimately will learn the system by exploring it and then teaching each other.

Still, no one appears to doubt the technical savvy Sugar represents.

Wayan Vota, who launched the OLPCNews.com blog to monitor the project's development because he is skeptical it can achieve its aims, called Sugar "amazing - a beautiful redesign."

"It doesn't feel like Linux. It doesn't feel like Windows. It doesn't feel like Apple," said Vota, who is director of Geekcorps, an organization that facilitates technology volunteers in developing countries. He emphasized that his opinions were his own and not on behalf of Geekcorps.

"I'm just impressed they built a new (user interface) that is different and hopefully better than anything we have today," he said. But he added: "Granted, I'm not a child. I don't know if it's going to be intuitive to children."

Indeed, the XO machines are still being tweaked, and Sugar isn't expected to be tested by any kids until February. By July or so, several million are expected to reach Brazil, Argentina, Uruguay, Nigeria, Libya, Pakistan, Thailand and the Palestinian territory. Negroponte said three more African countries might sign on in the next two weeks. The Inter-American Development Bank is trying to get the laptops to multiple Central American countries.

The machines are being made by Quanta Computer Inc., and countries will get versions specific to their own languages. Governments or donors will buy the laptops for children to own, along with associated server equipment for their schools. The project itself has gotten at least $29 million in funding from companies including Google Inc., News Corp. and Red Hat.

But that's not to say everything has fallen into place for One Laptop.

India's government originally expressed interest but backed out. Even though Brazil plans to take part, it is hedging its bets by evaluating $400 "Classmate PCs" from Intel Corp. Brazil's government is a big fan of open-source software as a cost-saver, but at least in initial tests, officials have said those Classmate PCs just might run Windows.

___

On the Net:

http://www.laptop.org

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20061231/..._dollar_laptop





Pirates, Penguins and Potboilers Rule the Box Office
David M. Halbfinger

A year after Hollywood rediscovered weighty political and social issues in movies like “Syriana,” “Crash” and “Brokeback Mountain,” the box office story of 2006 was that moviegoers finally said, “Enough.”

They showed no appetite for a critique of their eating habits in “Fast Food Nation.” They weren’t ready to fly along on “United 93,” no matter how skilled its exposé of homeland insecurity. They didn’t care to see combat or suffer its after-effects in “Flags of Our Fathers.” And even Leonardo DiCaprio couldn’t interest them in touring the ravaged Africa of “Blood Diamond.”

While Al Gore’s prophecies in “An Inconvenient Truth” produced a respectable $24 million for Paramount, it was the message-movie exception that proved the rule. The big money was to be made making people laugh, cry and squeeze their dates’ arms — not think.

“What worked was classic, get-away-from-it-all entertainment,” said Rob Moore, Paramount’s marketing and distribution chief. “What didn’t was things that were more challenging and esoteric.”

Comedy, animation and adventure, all with a PG-13 rating or tamer - and for young adults, R-rated horror flicks - were the escapist recipe for success.

Reminding moviegoers of what was on the news, and in an election year at that, only turned them off. (Unless it was on the news nine years ago, as in “The Queen.”)

While Disney’s “Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man’s Chest” set a new opening-weekend record and topped the box office tables with $423 million, the winner among studios was Sony Pictures, which said it would end the year with nearly $1.7 billion domestically - besting its own industry record - and $3.3 billion overseas.

In an off year for its Spider-Man franchise, Sony managed to win a record 13 weekends, led by Adam Sandler (“Click”); Will Ferrell (“Talladega Nights: The Ballad of Ricky Bobby”); an animated hit (“Open Season”); James Bond (“Casino Royale,” which has grossed $155 million, a franchise record); and Will Smith (“The Pursuit of Happyness”).

Mr. Smith’s film broke $100 million, and he appears to have bolstered his stature as Hollywood’s man who can do no wrong, a bankable star in dramatic, romantic, comedic or action roles.

(When actors play against type, however, it can be deadly, as Russell Crowe showed in Ridley Scott’s film “A Good Year,” for 20th Century Fox. Coming after his nose dive in “Cinderella Man,” Mr. Crowe’s belly-flop raised questions about his status as a top box office draw.)

Then there was what Jeff Blake, Sony’s marketing and distribution czar, called “that rare adult blockbuster,” Ron Howard’s “Da Vinci Code.” Fans of the book ignored the film’s reviews, and it grossed $218 million.

“Really, we brought the adults back to the movies this year, which is part of the reason why we’re doing so much better,” Mr. Blake said of the industry, tipping his hat to Warner Brothers’ “Departed” and 20th Century Fox’s “Devil Wears Prada.”

Sony also got a boost from its Screen Gems unit; four of its horror films opened at No. 1. Typical was “When a Stranger Calls,” made for just $15 million, which grossed $48 million domestically.

Over all, the top tier of the box office held its usual contours: 5 blockbusters exceeded $200 million, and 12 fell in the $100 million to $200 million zone. In addition, 39 exceeded $50 million, 7 more than in 2005. Total domestic box office reached $9.4 billion, a shade shy of the 2004 record but 5 percent more than in 2005, said Paul Dergarabedian, president of Media by Numbers, which tracks box office results. Attendance was up 3.3 percent.

No. 2 Disney had its second-best year ever worldwide, with more than $3.27 billion internationally, and exceeded $1 billion domestically for the 10th time, thanks largely to “Pirates” and the year’s No. 2 movie, Pixar’s “Cars,” with $244 million.

Mark Zoradi, who runs marketing and distribution for Walt Disney Motion Pictures Group, said basic entertainment had proved to be the cure for the industry’s woes. “People love to go to the movies to laugh, to feel emotion and cry,” he said. “That’s why ‘Cars’ is so big. It wasn’t a straight-out slapstick comedy. At its core, it was an emotional movie with comedy in it.”

The slate of movies at year’s end was much stronger than on the same weekend a year earlier: up 10 percent in the aggregate, and 12 percent when comparing just the top 12 grosses. Fox’s “Night at the Museum,” the Ben Stiller comedy, led the field, raking in $38 million for a total so far of $117 million.

Among animated films, Fox’s “Ice Age: The Meltdown” came in at No. 2, nearly hitting $200 million. Bruce Snyder, president for domestic distribution, said Fox had been wise to get its movie into theaters well before the deluge of more than a dozen other computer-animated movies about animals.

One that suffered was Warner’s “Ant Bully,” which was sandwiched between Sony’s “Monster House” and Paramount’s “Barnyard” and came away with just $28 million in sales. Paramount, too, might have regretted the title of its “Flushed Away,” which cost $150 million but grossed only $62 million. “Happy Feet” was a much-needed big hit for Warner, which had been less than overjoyed by the $200 million gross of “Superman Returns.”

Despite the animation glut, the potential payoffs — Paramount’s “Over the Hedge” grossed $155 million, and “Happy Feet” reached $176 million on Sunday — are huge enough to make this a recurring phenomenon.

For Fox it was a strong year; “X-Men: The Last Stand” was the No. 3 movie, at $234 million, and Meryl Streep’s performance turned a formulaic comedy into a worldwide hit in “Prada.” Fox also had the year’s most original film, “Borat: Cultural Learnings of America for Make Benefit Glorious Nation of Kazakhstan,” which was made for less than $20 million and grossed more than $125 million.

Among thought-provoking movies, “Flags of Our Fathers” showed how treacherous it can be to open an Oscar contender in September or October. While “The Departed” was a hit, “All the King’s Men,” “Hollywoodland” and “Running With Scissors” all bombed. Back-to-school audiences much preferred Lions Gate’s “Saw III.”

Warner missed, meanwhile, with “Blood Diamond,” a big action movie that also had something to say. Alan Horn, the studio’s president, said he thought the film had managed the feat, but audiences didn’t, and the film has grossed $36 million so far.

“The audience is telling us that either they want lighter fare, and they just don’t want to go there and have a movie as thematically heavy as ‘Blood Diamond’ is, or it’s the quality of the movie,” he said.

Audiences apparently weren’t eager to read, either. With directors like Clint Eastwood, Alejandro González Iñárritu and Mel Gibson pushing for authenticity, the studios wound up releasing subtitled movies that were shot largely or entirely in Japanese, Moroccan, Mexican, Mayan and Russian. But even Brad Pitt couldn’t draw big crowds for “Babel,” and the Fox Searchlight release of the Russian blockbuster “Night Watch” proved that some cultural exchanges will remain a one-way street.

It remains to be seen whether “Letters From Iwo Jima,” Mr. Eastwood’s critically adored Japanese companion piece to “Flags,” could lure sizable audiences once it expands from a micro-release.

Fifth-place Paramount was cheered by the low-budget comedies “Jackass Number Two” and “Nacho Libre,” but was counting for redemption on “Dreamgirls,” which opened to packed houses on Christmas Day. In just 852 theaters, the movie grossed $38.5 million through New Year’s weekend, and the studio was counting on Oscar attention to make it a megahit.

Universal, in a leadership transition, struggled to fill a gaping hole in its slate. The studio hasn’t released a movie that it made since August, and won’t have one till April. (“The Good Shepherd,” its lone prestige release at year’s end, was financed by Morgan Creek.) Its biggest movie was “The Break-Up,” at $118 million, but more typical were duds like “Miami Vice,” “Man of the Year,” “Let’s Go to Prison,” and “The Black Dahlia.”

New Line’s year, finally, was summed up by “Snakes on a Plane,” a trip you’d want to forget, as long as you could survive it. The studio’s standout performers were “Final Destination 3” and “The Texas Chainsaw Massacre: The Beginning.” New Line’s stab at exploiting the religious Christian market, “The Nativity Story,” cost $35 million, but grossed just $37 million.

By comparison, a tiny proselytizing football movie called “Facing the Giants,” made for just $100,000 by a Southern Baptist congregation in Georgia, grossed $10 million in a limited release.
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/01/02/movies/02boff.html





Controversy Rules Oscar Contenders
Charles Lyons

“I didn’t go there to make a point,” said Laura Poitras, a documentary filmmaker, about traveling in Iraq to make “My Country, My Country,” one of four documentaries about the war contending for Oscar nominations this year.

“I don’t think I would risk my life to make a point,” she added, seated in her comfortable TriBeCa office early last month. “But I did feel it was important to understand this war — and to document it — and I didn’t think that the mass media was going to do it.”

Ms. Poitras, 42, used her own camera and recorded sound herself as she followed an Iraqi physician for eight months. An outspoken Sunni critic of the American occupation, he was seeking a seat on the Baghdad Provincial Council during the national elections in January 2005, but did not win.

“My Country, My Country” may not capture the best-documentary Oscar, or even be selected as one of the five nominees, to be announced by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences on Jan. 23. (The awards ceremony is on Feb. 25.) But its presence on the highly competitive feature-length documentary shortlist — 14 other films are on that list — highlights a shift toward gritty, guerrilla filmmaking, a willingness to tackle controversial subjects, no matter the obstacles.

Issue-oriented documentaries dominate the shortlist, chosen by the 138 members of the documentary branch of the academy. Eighty-one films met the eligibility requirements; of those, the members who voted selected 15 and will further narrow the field to the 5 nominees.

“This is the year of the angry documentary, of the ‘Take back America’ documentary,” Sheila Nevins, president of HBO Documentary Films, said in a telephone interview. “The theatrical documentary,” she added, “has replaced the television documentary in terms of talking back to the administration. That’s one of the only places where one can do it.”

But one pioneering filmmaker, Albert Maysles, did not seem enthusiastic about the trend. “I am a strong advocate of distancing oneself from a point of view,” he said recently. “What is good for the documentary world in ‘Fahrenheit 9/11,’ ” — Michael Moore’s 2004 film — “is that Michael’s heart was in the right place” for viewers who agreed with him, he said. “But he damages his cause because he is out to get people. He’s using people in a nonloving fashion to serve the purpose of his argument. If what you think is correct, what do you have to fear in telling the full story?”

Stanley Nelson, the director of another shortlisted film, “Jonestown: The Life and Death of Peoples Temple,” said that while Mr. Moore was “over the top,” his work occupied a significant position within the genre. Speaking at an Upper West Side coffee shop, Mr. Nelson said, “What’s fascinating about documentary today is the different ways to approach it.”

Referring to his own film about Jim Jones, who led the mass suicide in which more than 900 people died in Guyana in 1978, Mr. Nelson said: “It was essential for us not to say that this guy was only evil. Just by being somewhat objective, we were being revolutionary.”

Mr. Nelson’s comment reflects a climate in which the pursuit of objectivity in documentaries is hardly the norm, as it had been during the 1950s and ’60s. In that period, American filmmakers like Mr. Maysles advocated “direct cinema,” where the camera was thought of as a fly on the wall, capturing but not commenting on life. Still, some of the shortlisted documentaries adopt this approach more than others in treating subjects like these:

Global warming: Davis Guggenheim’s box office hit, “An Inconvenient Truth,” with former Vice President Al Gore.

Religion: Rachel Grady and Heidi Ewing’s “Jesus Camp,” about born-again Christian children at an evangelical summer camp in North Dakota; Amy Berg’s “Deliver Us From Evil,” about Oliver O’Grady, a former priest and convicted pedophile; and Mr. Nelson’s film about Jim Jones.

Race: Ricki Stern and Annie Sundberg’s “Trials of Darryl Hunt,” about a wrongly convicted African-American man.

Free speech: Barbara Kopple and Cecilia Peck’s “Shut Up & Sing,” on the fallout after Natalie Maines, of the Dixie Chicks, publicly criticized President Bush on the eve of the 2003 invasion of Iraq.

The political campaign process: Frank Popper’s “Can Mr. Smith Get to Washington Anymore?,” which follows the 2004 grass-roots campaign of Jeff Smith, a Missouri Democrat, for Congress.

The two-party political system: Henriette Mantel and Steve Skrovan’s “Unreasonable Man,” a profile of Ralph Nader.

In addition to Ms. Poitras’s film, the three other shortlisted documentaries on the Iraq war are James Longley’s “Iraq in Fragments,” Deborah Scranton’s “War Tapes” and Patricia Foulkrod’s “Ground Truth.”

Ms. Kopple, a two-time Oscar-winning documentary filmmaker who once worked for Mr. Maysles, said more people were seeing documentaries because they wanted to watch passionate stories about unforgettable characters.

“Audiences are smart enough to decide for themselves if they agree with the point of view onscreen,” she said. “I’m not sure that ‘distance’ is a positive thing in nonfiction filmmaking. I think there’s a time and place for distance; in television journalism, for example.”

She agreed with Mr. Maysles about letting a story unfold naturally. “The most important factor, in my opinion,” she said, “is not do we grow too close to our subjects, it’s are we willing to go on a journey with them that may not end up as we first envisioned it?”

One director who took such a journey was Mr. Guggenheim with “An Inconvenient Truth.” Speaking from Los Angeles, he recalled the beginning of his own transformation after watching a presentation by Mr. Gore on climate change, which became the centerpiece of the film.

“All movies are personal,” Mr. Guggenheim said. “When I make a movie, I don’t have activism in mind; I have an experience in mind. Before I saw Al’s slide show, I was not an environmentalist. But when I saw it, it shook me to the core.”

In a telephone conversation in New York with Ms. Ewing and Ms. Grady, the directors of “Jesus Camp,” Ms. Grady said their film was as “balanced as humanly possible for us.”

“It’s unattainable to have no point of view at all,” she said. “We’re human, and we did the best we could.”

With its concentration on national politics, the academy passed over a clutch of well-made films that in other years might have fared better: for example, Christopher Quinn’s “God Grew Tired of Us: The Story of the Lost Boys of Sudan”; Doug Block’s “51 Birch Street,” an exploration into the lives of his parents; and Ward Serrill’s “Heart of the Game,” about girls’ basketball.

Similarly, the three remaining shortlisted movies, all set in foreign countries other than Iraq, may face an uphill battle. They are Lucy Walker’s “Blindsight,” about six blind Tibetan children; Yael Klopmann’s “Storm of Emotions,” about the Israeli pullout from the Gaza Strip; and Kim Longinotto and Florence Ayisi’s “Sisters in Law,” a profile of two Cameroon women — a judge and a prosecutor — fighting for women’s rights.

However the academy members vote, Ms. Poitras said she already considered “My Country, My Country” successful. She cited a scene she had shot at the Abu Ghraib detention center: a 9-year-old Iraqi boy is being held for some unspecified reason by American Army officers who call him a dangerous juvenile. Moments such as these, she said, “will bring a sense of questioning and shame about some of the things we are doing in Iraq.”

So even a filmmaker like Ms. Poitras, who by her own account employed a subtle and patient approach, may have made a point after all. In the current climate for documentaries, she certainly is not alone.
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/01/03/mo... tner=homepage





Pop Music and the War: The Sound of Resignation
Jon Pareles

“I was a lover, before this war.” Those are the first words sung on TV on the Radio’s “Return to Cookie Mountain,” one of the most widely praised albums of 2006. Whatever the line means within the band’s cryptic lyrics, it could also apply to the past year’s popular music. Thoughts of romance, vice and comfort still dominated the charts and the airwaves. But amid the entertainment, songwriters — including some aiming for the Top 10 — were also grappling with a war that wouldn’t go away.

Pop’s political consciousness rises in every election year, and much as it became clear in November that voters are tired of war, music in 2006 also reflected battle fatigue. Beyond typical wartime attitudes of belligerence, protest and yearning for peace, in 2006 pop moved toward something different: a mood somewhere between resignation and a siege mentality.

Songs that touched on the war in 2006 were suffused with the mournful and resentful knowledge that — as Neil Young titled the album he made and rush-released in the spring — we are “Living With War,” and will be for some time. Awareness of the war throbs like a chronic headache behind more pleasant distractions.

The cultural response to war in Iraq and the war on terrorism — one protracted, the other possibly endless — doesn’t have an exact historical parallel. Unlike World War II, the current situation has brought little national unity; unlike the Vietnam era, ours has no appreciable domestic support for America’s opponents. Iraq may be turning into a quagmire and civil war like Vietnam, but the current war has not inspired talk of generationwide rebellion (perhaps because there’s no draft to pit young against old) or any colorful, psychedelically defiant counterculture. The war songs of the 21st century have been sober and earnest, pragmatic rather than fanciful.

Immediate responses to 9/11 and to the invasion of Iraq arrived along familiar lines. There was anger and saber-rattling at first, particularly in country music; the Dixie Chicks’ career was upended in 2003 when Natalie Maines disparaged the president on the eve of the Iraq invasion. There were folky protest songs about weapons and oil profiteering, like “The Price of Oil” by Billy Bragg; in a 21st-century touch, there were denunciations of news media complicity from songwriters as varied as Merle Haggard, Nellie McKay and the punk-rock band Anti-Flag.

Rappers, who were already slinging war metaphors for everything from rhyme battles to tales of drug-dealing crime soldiers, soon exploited the multitude of rhymes for Iraq, while some, like Eminem and OutKast, also bluntly attacked the president and the war.

In 2006 songwriters who usually stick to love songs found themselves paying attention to the war as well. “A new year, a new enemy/Another soldier gone to war,” John Legend sings in “Coming Home,” the song that ends his 2006 album, “Once Again.” It’s a soldier’s letter home, wondering if his girlfriend still cares. “It seems the wars will never end, but we’ll make it home again,” Mr. Legend croons, more wishful than confident.

John Mayer starts his 2006 album, “Continuum,” with “Waiting on the World to Change,” a pop-soul ballad defining his generation as one that feels passive because it’s helpless: “If we had the power to bring our neighbors home from war,” he sings, “They would never have missed a Christmas/No more ribbons on the door.” The best he and they can do, he muses, doubtless to the disgust of more activist types, is to wait until “our generation is gonna rule the population.”

There is more rage in the guitar onslaught of albums like Pearl Jam’s politically charged, self-titled 2006 album. Contemplating the death of a soldier in “World Wide Suicide,” the song lashes out at a president “writing checks that others pay,” but ends up wondering, “What does it mean when a war has taken over?” And in “Army Reserve,” a wife and child wait: “She tells herself and everybody else/Father is risking his life for our freedoms.” The righteousness of old protest songs has been replaced by sorrow and malaise.

After three years of war, bluster has toned down, even in country music. Merle Haggard, a populist who has always been skeptical of the war in Iraq, tersely insists, “Let’s get out of Iraq, get back on the track, and let’s rebuild America first,” on his most recent solo album, “Chicago Wind.” In another song on the album, Toby Keith, whose “Courtesy of the Red, White and Blue (The Angry American)” was one of country’s most bellicose war songs in 2002, joins Mr. Haggard for a duet, suggesting a reconsideration.

Like the electorate, all pop can agree on across political lines is sympathy for the troops. Bruce Springsteen’s “We Shall Overcome: The Seeger Sessions” included an old song, “Mrs. McGrath,” about a soldier crippled in battle; the album’s expanded edition added an updated version of a blunt Pete Seeger song from 1966, “Bring ’Em Home.”

On the hawkish side, the country singer Darryl Worley had a 2003 hit, “Have You Forgotten?,” that justified the Iraq invasion as a reaction to 9/11. Now, he has a current Top 20 country hit that reiterates his support for the war but concentrates on its human cost, describing a returned soldier’s post-traumatic stress in “I Just Came Back From a War.”

In a song called “Bullet,” the rapper Rhymefest portrays a soldier who enlisted as a way to get scholarship money for college and dies “with a face full of hollowtips.” Even as cozy a singer as Norah Jones starts her next album, due this month, with “Thinking About You,” a song about a lover killed in combat.

There were plenty of other songs directly about the war in 2006. But beyond topicality, the war also seeped into popular music more obliquely. The year’s best-selling country album, “Me and My Gang,” by Rascal Flatts, includes “Ellsworth,” a song about “Grandma” and her dead husband, a veteran who left behind “his medals/A cigar box of letters.” Gnarls Barkley’s ubiquitous hit single, “Crazy,” is about self-destructive insanity: “You really think you’re in control? Well, I think you’re crazy.”

Thoughts of mortality fill albums like “The Black Parade,” by My Chemical Romance, and “Decemberunderground,” by A.F.I. War isn’t the only factor behind all the foreboding in current popular music, but it’s certainly one.

The 2000s are not the late 1960s, culturally or ideologically, but the musical repercussions of the Vietnam War may hint at what comes next. As that war dragged on, the delirious late 1960s gave way to not only the sodden early 1970s of technique-obsessed rock and self-absorbed singer-songwriters, but also to a flowering of socially conscious, musically innovative soul, the music that John Legend and John Mayer now deliberately invoke. It’s as if this wartime era has simply skipped the giddy phase — which didn’t, in the end, turn bombers into butterflies — and gone directly to the brooding. The end of the Vietnam War in 1975 was quickly followed by the rejuvenating energy of punk and hip-hop; there’s no telling what disengagement from Iraq might spark.

Music and the other arts, unlike journalism, don’t echo the news. They can be counterweights and compensations, the fantasies that work out, rather than the facts that don’t. In the weeks before Christmas, I started noticing that nearly every time I wandered into a store or heard holiday music from a radio, John Lennon’s “Happy Xmas (War Is Over)” — that chiming, purposefully optimistic song with the somber undercurrent — was on the playlist. When even Muzak programmers are facing up to life during wartime, pop is no escape.
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/01/02/ar...rtner=homepage





Looking for a Lucky '07 in Music
Jim Farber

This time last year, anyone who heard the words "Gnarls Barkley" would have thought someone just garbled the name of a basketball player. And the only time anyone uttered the term "blunt" was in reference to either a murderous object or an illegal drug device.

As it turned out, 2006 saw Gnarls Barkley's single "Crazy" and James Blunt's "You're Beautiful" dominate the airwaves, turning those performers into names everyone knows. Which goes to show, no one knows exactly which scores and stumbles a given year will bring.

Luckily, we don't need a crystal ball to report the arrival of a host of albums and concerts people will spend some time listening to and/or arguing about in the first blush of 2007.

Here's a sneak peek:

Breakthrough stars scheming to follow up a hit:

Pretty Ricky: The Miami-based teen-dream quartet returns Jan. 23 with "Late Night Special," featuring more of their eager sleaze.

Fall Out Boy: Feb. 6 brings "Infinity on High," the first album from these Chicago-born emo whiners since the "From Under the Cork Tree" CD turned them into platinum stars.

Bobby Valentino: The followup to the 2005 debut from this R&B smoothie (and Ludacris protege) slips into stores Feb. 13.

Joss Stone: The British blue-eyed soul shouter puts out her not-yet-titled, but still hotly anticipated, second CD March 6.

An American Idol out to prove it in the studio:

Katharine McPhee: The self-titled, and much delayed, debut from Idol 5's first runnerup finally (!) arrives Jan. 30.
Vintage stars boasting cover stories:

Carly Simon: The deep-voiced chanteuse soothes the world's woes with lullaby takes on songs from "Oh! Susannah" to the Cat Stevens-penned title tune, "Into White" (Jan. 2).

John Waite: In which the former singer of the Babys and Bad English covers himself by redoing his earlier hits, along with some potential new ones. "Downtown: Journey of a Heart" comes out Jan. 9.

Comebacks from those missing in action:

America: A double CD from the sweet-voiced '70s folk-rockers, covering unexpectedly hip material (from the likes of My Morning Jacket and Nada Surf) along with reruns of their old hits, rendered live. Titled "Here & Now," the disk arrives Jan. 16.

Maxwell: The first new work from the sultry R&B singer in over five years, "Black Summer Night" appears Feb. 13.
Brand names on the rebound:

John Mellencamp: A possible commercial comeback from the heartland rocker. The very politically minded "Freedom Road" arrives Jan. 23, boosted by the song "Our Country," already ubiquitous in a car ad.

Norah Jones: "Not Too Late," the third CD from the burgundy-voiced star, arrives Jan. 30. It's Jones' first since the death of her original producer, Arif Mardin.

Barbra Streisand: This two-CD concert set, titled "Live Streisand," was cut during Babs' recent opening shows in Philly and New York. They were the shows where her political bits got loudly heckled. Will the protests, and her F-bomb retorts, make the cut? (Feb. 6)
Surprises:

Belinda Carlisle sings French ballads, for some reason, on "Voila!" (Feb. 6)

Rickie Lee Jones gets religious on her Christian-themed CD "The Sermon on Exhibition Boulevard." (Feb. 6)

Erasure goes country for "On the Road to Nashville." (Feb. 20)

Dolores O'Riordan, singer of the Cranberries, flies solo (sometime in the coming year).
http://www.newstimeslive.com/enter/story.php?id=1027281





Old Media Fights Against Titans of Tech
Chris Nuttall

Silicon Valley schmoozed with the stars of Hollywood at the Consumer Electronics Show (CES) in Las Vegas in 2006 but the 2007 sequel of America's biggest trade show is giving the Titans of Tech only B-Movie status.

Tom Cruise embraced Terry Semel at the Yahoo chief executive's keynote address last January while Robin Williams cracked a joke with Google co-founder Larry Page and Tom Hanks appeared with Intel's Paul Otellini.

They will not be providing a repeat performance when CES opens on Monday January 8.

Attendees will instead listen to a line-up heavily skewed towards traditional media companies and the telecommunications, cable and satellite companies that deliver their content.

CES, with the chief executives of leading companies mingling with 2,700 exhibitors and 150,000-plus attendees, has come to reflect current trends in consumer electronics, computing and the internet in addition to serving as the shop window for products yet to come.

The CES of 2006 caught the moment of internet and technology companies trying to converge with and grab a significant share of the consumer electronics space.

The 2007 keynotes suggest that old media and carriers are fighting back and approaching the internet on their own terms.

Mr Semel had argued that the internet – and Yahoo – had become the delivery channel of choice for content. He announced Yahoo Go, an interface for the TV similar to Microsoft's Windows Media Center.

That has barely registered with consumers over the past 12 months and Intel's unveiling of Viiv, its brand for multimedia living room PCs, has yet to become anything like a household name.

Google announced a content distribution agreement with CBS at CES last year and went on to acquire YouTube.

But it still faces lengthy negotiations to strike agreements with all the leading content providers.

Those companies have re-thought how they will make their content available over the past year.

Walt Disney-owned ABC began selling TV shows such as Desperate Housewives on Apple's iTunes service in October 2005.

Now the shows can be watched for free on its own website, helping viewers to catch up and then carry on watching on the regular TV medium.

Robert Iger, Disney's chief executive, will be a keynote speaker next week as will Les Moonves, CBS chief executive.

The heads of the leading cable, satellite and phone companies will debate new options for content delivery becoming available to consumers, such as AT&T and Verizon's plans to deliver comprehensive TV services via phone lines or fibre-optic cables to the home.

AT&T will deliver Internet Protocol TV but its medium will be a different beast from downloading content from Google's video sites.

CES will also recognise the growth of the mobile phone and the expansion of content and services to it.

The chief executives of Motorola and Nokia will deliver significant speeches at the start of a year when more than a billion phones are expected to be sold worldwide.

Bill Gates will give his customary eve-of-CES speech on Sunday and is expected to focus on Vista – the much-delayed Windows operating system finally released to consumers this month.

Vista software will also help usher in a whole new range of hardware products.

These will include a fresh crop of ultra-mobile PCs (UMPCs).

The mini-laptop/display devices should cause more excitement than the pricey versions with poor battery lives launched under Microsoft's Origami Project banner last year.

At the 2006 CES, it was the large screens of high-definition televisions that stood out and some of the displays will be even larger this year.

"I would not be surprised to see a 108-inch Samsung display," says Roger Kay, analyst at Endpoint Technologies.

"But whereas last year you saw an unbelievable tour de force of displays in all sizes, this year it's going to be more of the same – the big deal is that they are much cheaper than a year ago."

The CES celebrates its 40th anniversary this year.

It first took place in New York in 1967, featuring 110 exhibitors and attracting 17,500 attendees.
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/16430928/





YouTube Software Threat to Google Plans
Richard Waters

YouTube's failure to complete a key piece of anti-piracy software as promised could represent a serious obstacle to efforts by Google, its new owner, to forge closer relations with the media and entertainment industry.

The video website, the internet sensation of 2006, promised in September the software would be ready by the end of this year. Known as a "content identification system", the technology is meant to make it possible to track down copyrighted music or video on YouTube, making it the first line of defence against piracy on the wildly popular website.

YouTube said on Friday the technology would not be formally launched this year and YouTube's offices were closed until the new year. While providing no further details about when the system would be made formally available, it said tests of the system had been under way with some media companies since October and the system remained "on track".

Mike McGuire, a digital media analyst at Gartner, said the important part systems such as this played in building better relations between internet companies such as YouTube and the traditional media industry meant there was likely to be little patience for missed deadlines. "The technology industry really has to start living up to the media industry's expectations," he said.

If the delay lasts for more than a week or two into the new year, suggesting more than just a slight technical hitch, "this is certainly going to be a serious issue", Mr McGuire added.

Leading music companies have already made clear they see completion of YouTube's anti-piracy technology as an important step in any closer co-operation. Failure to build adequate systems to protect copyright owners could also add to the risk of legal action against the site.

Doug Morris, chief executive of Universal Music Group, hinted at legal action against YouTube late last summer, accusing both it and MySpace of being "content infringers [that] owe us tens of millions of dollars". Universal went on to sue MySpace but was one of the companies to reach a partnership with YouTube, partly based on the ability of its promised content identification system to track down copyrighted music.

The delay to the software could also spell wider problems for Google, which has been trying to negotiate partnerships that will give it access to content from a number of big media and entertainment companies. The company could not immediately be reached for comment.

On Friday night, a YouTube spokeswoman said the company had never promised general availability by the end of the year.
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/16398962/





Patent Lawsuit Names Leading Technology Firms
John Markoff and Miguel Helft

In 1997, Jonathan T. Taplin, a veteran film and television producer, stood up at a cable industry convention and asserted that in the future all movies would be distributed over the Internet. He recalls being laughed out of the room.

Mr. Taplin may laugh last. Online distribution of movies has arrived, at places like Apple Computer’s iTunes Store. And even though Mr. Taplin’s own video-on-demand company, Intertainer, shut down operations five years ago, it says it deserves some credit — and cash.

Last week, Intertainer filed a broad lawsuit asserting that Apple, Google and Napster are infringing on a 2005 patent that covers the commercial distribution of audio and video over the Internet.

Founded by Mr. Taplin and two other Hollywood entertainment executives in 1996, Intertainer developed technology to distribute movies on demand through cable and phone lines for viewing on televisions and personal computers. It gained investors including Intel, Microsoft, Sony, NBC and Comcast.

“Intertainer was the leader of the idea of entertainment on demand over Internet platforms before Google was even thought up,” said Mr. Taplin, now an adjunct professor at the Annenberg School for Communication at the University of Southern California. He and a secretary constitute the entire remaining staff of Intertainer.

Theodore Stevenson, a partner at McKool Smith, the Dallas firm representing Intertainer, said the company filed suit against Apple, Google and Napster because they were perceived as leaders in the market for digital downloads. He declined to specify the damages that Intertainer was seeking.

Apple, Google and Napster all declined to comment on the lawsuit.

Intertainer’s tale is somewhat different than other intellectual property suits brought by technology licensing firms. By 2002 the company seemed to have a growing business, with 125,000 Internet subscribers for its servers and 35,000 TV subscribers through the Comcast cable system.

But in the fall of 2002, the company shut down its service and filed a lawsuit against some of the backers of Movielink, a competitor backed by five Hollywood studios, including Sony, Universal and Warner Brothers. At the time Mr. Taplin said the studios were using Movielink as a price-fixing vehicle to kill Intertainer.

An antitrust investigation by the Justice Department into Movielink was dropped in 2004.

The studios settled the lawsuit last March for an undisclosed sum, and Mr. Taplin said in a phone interview Tuesday that Intertainer would henceforth pursue a patent licensing business.

The company holds nine patents, including United States Patent No. 6,925,469, which was issued in 2005 and is intended to cover the management and distribution of digital media from various suppliers.

Despite initial backing from Microsoft and Intel, Mr. Taplin said the two companies were not involved in the decision to bring the Apple, Google and Napster lawsuit. He said that decision was made by Intertainer’s board and that none of his original corporate backers have board seats. Several of the company’s original investors have taken patent licenses, he said, but he would not name the companies.

Despite the company’s decision to file the case in a federal district court in Texas that has traditionally looked favorably on plaintiffs in patent lawsuits, several digital media experts said that Intertainer might have a difficult time enforcing its patent because of its relatively recent filing date of 2001.

By that time, for example, Real Networks, the Seattle-based pioneer in streaming digital media, had begun an Internet subscription service for digital content.

Legal experts said it was difficult to handicap Intertainer’s claims. “There are so many of these lawsuits nowadays,” said Eric Goldman, director the High-Tech Law Institute at Santa Clara University School of Law. “It is hard to figure out which ones are a serious threat and which ones are not.”

Mr. Goldman also said it was unclear what specific technology or service was covered by the Intertainer patent.

“I have the same problem with this patent as so many of the patents of the dot-com boom days: I don’t know what it means,” Mr. Goldman said.

Mr. Stevenson, the Intertainer lawyer, said the patent covers a system that can be used by content owners to upload their content and used by consumers to download it. “It is pretty basic to the architecture of digital content delivery nowadays,” he said.

Mr. Taplin, who once worked as a road manager for Bob Dylan and produced several movies, including “Mean Streets,” “The Last Waltz” and “To Die For,” has a history of activism on technology issues. In 2002, he encouraged those attending a technology conference to urge the Federal Communications Commission to ensure that broadband providers would not be able to block specific Web sites — an early version of a hot-button issue that has become known as network neutrality.

Earlier that year, he testified before the Senate against legislation that would have forced high-tech manufacturers to incorporate technology to prevent piracy in their software and hardware.
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/01/03/te.../03patent.html





Stealing Your Family Vacation: Memories of a Media Card

Have you ever taken an embarrassing or exposing picture with your digital camera, but then immediately deleted it from the camera before anyone had a chance to see it? Well, we've got some news for you... that picture may still exist — and we might just have it!

Over the last few years, there has been a lot of media coverage about the kinds of data that can be recovered from used hard drives and cell phones. Everything from sensitive financial information to text message records has been pulled off these devices. The result of this exposure is that people are learning to secure their data and ensure that they properly wipe their storage devices before getting rid of them. But what are people doing with alternate forms of digital storage such as compact flash cards found in cameras, or Sony Memory Sticks that are used in PSP's? Well, we decided to investigate and this article details our results.

The Project

Early in 2004 we purchased roughly 10 hard drives off of eBay for research purposes. Our goal was to see just how much data was out there for the taking. While the results of this test were never officially reported, we found that eight of the ten formatted drives still had data on them. Using tools like Autopsy and EasyRecovery Pro, we were able to recover social security numbers, bank account details, medical records and more.

Now here we are three years later and things are a little bit better, with regards to the proper wiping of data on resold hard drives. However, at the same time, the gadget market has exploded, and with it so has digital media. Digital cameras, console systems, handheld devices, MP3 players and more are all taking advantage of cheap flash memory cards. The result is that the average consumer will have several of these media cards lying around, many of which will rarely be used because they are too small or aren't compatible with the currently owned camera. Thankfully, for us, eBay is the perfect place to dump these cards.

Unfortunately, many of these media card owners have no way to view the card, and if they do, assume that their data is properly deleted using the cameras formatting feature — at least this was our theory. So, over a period of a couple weeks we kept a close eye on eBay and snatched up a few older/smaller compact flash media cards on which we would test our theory.

File Structures and Recovery

File recovery is not a complex or overly technical process to understand. In many ways, file recovery is just glorified searching. The reason for this is that most files have a standard format, so recovering a specific file means searching a drive for data in that format. In the case of a JPG, the beginning of the file will always start with the hex values of FF D8 and end with FF D9. So, to locate all JPG's on a hard drive, a program will scan the disk until it comes to a FF D8, mark the position, continue scanning until FF D9, and extract the data in between.

There are some issues that can complicate this process. For example, large files are often fragmented across the hard drive. In this case, the scanner may detect the FF D8 value, but will fail to find the end of the file. The same would apply to a file that was partially overwritten. In addition, not all file types are easy to spot because they are raw data (i.e. text file). In this case, a program has to scan for specific strings, such as 'HTML', which may indicate a web page file.

There are many programs on the market that perform data recovery. Some are free, such as PhotoRec. Others are a bit more costly and can run you in the range of $1000 (Forensic Toolkit and DataRecovery Pro). For this exercise we are going to use PhotoRec that you can download at http://www.cgsecurity.org/wiki/PhotoRec.

Recovering the Data

The following will walk you through the steps and screens of PhotoRec as we attempt to recover deleted files from a compact flash media card. The only requirement is that you have the card inserted into some kind of reader, and that Windows recognizes the card and assigns it a drive letter. Once this criteria is met, double click the photorec_win executable, which will open a window that lists all the drives and their sizes (figure 1).

Figure 1: PhotoRec listing the drives available for recovery

Select the drive that most closely indicates the size of the card you are recovering files from. The larger the drive, the longer the recovery process will take.

Next select the partition table type, which will be 'Intel' for the normal media card (figure 2).

Figure 2: Select the correct partition table

Next select the 'empty' partition, which basically tells PhotoRec to process the whole disk.

Figure 3: Choosing the right options

Finally, select the destination folder and hit the letter Y (figure 4). At this time, the program will start searching the media card for files that it will extract out and save to your hard drive (figure 4).

Figure 4: Select the output folder

Figure 5: PhotoRec recovering data

Once the recovery is complete, go to the defined directory and view the images. As you can see, data recovery does not have to be difficult, time consuming, or expensive!
The Statistics and Results

Our budget for this project was roughly $100. While limiting, small capacity cards are relatively cheap. In all, we spend $70.47 on a selection of 16 cards (plus another $42.60 on shipping!). Of these, one got lost in the mail and another was dead upon arrival.

The following outlines our findings. Note that some of the cards contained content that was never deleted, which we indicate in the 'Viewable Data' field.Card

Statistically, this indicates that 78% of the cards we obtained on eBay contained recoverable data. In total, we found 240 pictures, 17 movies, and a wide range of files from the card with computer files. The following lists the main subjects of the images.

· Lots of close ups of pets, babies, teenagers, young adults and couples posing (with clothes on)
· Teenager practicing gang signs?
· Disney world vacation
· Insurance company pictures (someone took pictures of various insurance agency signs from Georgia)
· Niagara Falls and Jehovah Witness Watchtower Expose
· Construction contractor digital log
· People partying, getting drunk, and passing out

The evidence suggests that people are not aware that their privacy is at risk. In addition, the fact that some of the cards contained undeleted images is a bit disconcerting. At a bare minimum media card owners should have deleted the viewable images.

While these statistics may seem high, they are inline with other studies performed on used hard drives purchased from eBay. For example, in a research project performed by PointSec in 2004, it was discovered that roughly 88% of used drives contained sensitive information. In 2005, a follow up study found that 71% of drives contained recoverable data. So, it is not surprising to discover that a majority of our media cards also contained files.

Deleting the Data

Fortunately, deleting the data is not too difficult or expensive. If you are a Windows XP Professional owner, then you already have the tools needed to ensure your drive is clean. All you need to do is click Start — Run and type in cmd. Then at the command prompt, type in the following:

cipher /w:<drive letter>: Where <drive letter should be replaced by the media card drive letter that is listed in Windows Explorer (figure 6).

Figure 6: Using cipher to wipe a media card.

Another option for those of who prefer a GUI interface is a freely available program called Eraser. Using this program, you can over write all the empty space on a drive, which will also overwrite any data that was not truly deleted. Figure 7 illustrates this program in action.

Figure 7: Using Eraser to wipe a media card

Summary

In this digital era your data can reside almost anywhere. Hard drives, USB sticks, camera cards, PDA's, phones, or even a digital picture frame could hold information you wouldn't want the world to see. It only takes a few minutes to properly delete your data storage device, and if you don't know how, then it might just be worth it to physically destroy the item instead of reselling it. Hopefully the results of this project has helped to highlight the fact that all forms of digital storage should be treated the same, regardless of their size, shape, or how many MB's it might hold.
http://www.informit.com/guides/conte...eqNum=234&rl=1





Sharing files

Fewer Excuses for Not Doing a PC Backup
David Pogue

If there’s one New Year’s resolution even more likely to fail than “I vow to lose weight,” it’s “I vow to start backing up my computer.”

After all, setting up and remembering to use a backup system is a huge hassle. The odds are good that you don’t have an up-to-date backup at this very moment.

Fortunately, 2007 may turn out to be the Year of the Backup. Both Microsoft and Apple have built automated backup software into the latest versions of their operating systems, both to be introduced this year.

At the same time, an option that was once complex, limited and expensive is suddenly becoming effortless, capacious and even free: online backups, where files are shuttled off to the Internet for safekeeping.

Online backup means never having to buy or manage backup disks. You can have access to your files from any computer anywhere. And above all, your files are safe even if disaster should befall your office — like fire, flood, burglary or marauding children.

As it turns out, the Web is brimming with backup services. Most of them, however, offer only 1 or 2 gigabytes’ worth of free storage.

That may be plenty if all you keep on your PC is recipes and a few letters to the editor. But if you have even a fledgling photo or music collection, 2 gigs is peanuts. You can pay for more storage, of course, but the prices have been outrageous; at Data Deposit Box, for example, backing up 50 gigabytes of data will cost you $1,200 a year.

Nobody offers unlimited free storage, but lately, they’ve gotten a lot closer. Two companies, Xdrive and MediaMax, offer as much as 25 gigabytes of free backups; two others, Mozy and Carbonite, offer unlimited storage for less than $55 a year.

(Note that this roundup doesn’t include Web sites that are exclusively dedicated to sharing photos or videos, like Flickr and MediaFire. It also omits the services intended for sending huge files to other people, like YouSendIt and SendThisFile; such sites delete your files after a couple of weeks — not a great feature in a backup system.)

XDRIVE This service, owned by AOL, offers 5 gigabytes of free storage. It’s polished, easy to use, and as fully fledged as they come. Right on the Web site, you can back up entire lists of folders at a time, a method that works on Macintosh, Windows or Unix.

If you use Windows, however, an even better backup system awaits. You can download Xdrive Desktop, a full-blown, unattended backup program. It quietly backs up your computer on a schedule that you specify, without any additional thought or input from you.

Better yet, a new disk icon appears on your PC (labeled X), that represents your files on the Web. You can open and use its contents as though it’s an ordinary, if slowish, hard drive. A Mac version of Xdrive Desktop is in the works.

As a bonus, you can share certain backed-up folders, so that other people can have access to them from their Macs or PCs. (This requires, however, that they sign up for their own free Xdrive accounts.) You can view your backed-up photos as an online slideshow, or organize and play your backed-up music files on the Web page.

Upgrading your storage to 50 gigabytes costs $100 a year, which isn’t such a good deal. But if your Documents folder fits in 5 gigabytes, then congratulations; you’ve got yourself a free, effortless, automatic backup system. Happy New Year.

CARBONITE This one’s as pure a backup play as you’ll find; there’s no folder sharing, photo viewing or music organizing. The Windows-only backup software is completely automatic and stays entirely out of your way, quietly backing up whenever you’re not working. You get no free storage — the service costs $50 a year — but you do get something else few others offer: an unlimited amount of backup storage.

Carbonite is aimed at nontechnical audiences. It’s sold in computer and office-supply stores, for example, and it’s the easiest online backup software to use — in fact, to not use, since it’s completely automatic. The only change you’ll see are small colored dots on files and folders that have been backed up — and a Carbonite disk icon in your My Computer window that “contains” all the backed-up folders and files.

At the moment, Carbonite doesn’t back up individual files that are larger than 2 gigabytes. It also doesn’t back up pieces of files, so if your 500-megabyte Outlook e-mail database changes, the whole database must be backed up again. And, of course, there’s no Macintosh version. The company says that a new version, due in April, will wipe out all three of these drawbacks.

MOZY In many regards, the recently introduced Mozy is a Carbonite copycat. The price is $55 a year, storage is unlimited, an automated background Windows program keeps your PC continuously backed up and a Mac version is planned.

Mozy offers 2 gigabytes of backup at no charge. If you’re willing to do the company’s marketing for it, you can nab another free gig for every four people you persuade to sign up.

Mozy is more flexible, too — and more technical. It can back up only changed portions of files. You can specify times and dates for backups (instead of offering only the Continuous option, like Carbonite). You can view 30 days’ worth of backups, too — a feature that prevents you from deleting a file from your PC accidentally and then finding its deletion mirrored in your latest backup. And Mozy offers dozens of novice-hostile options like “Enable Bandwidth Throttle” and “Don’t back up if the CPU is over this % busy.”

MEDIAMAX Talk about value. How does 25 gigabytes of free storage strike you?

The service began life with an emphasis on organizing and sharing photos, video and music — which it still does well. But its new Windows backup program, now in beta testing, adds automated unattended backups of any kind of computer files, just like its rivals.

It’s pretty bare-bones; for example, it offers no continuous real-time backup, no choice of weekdays — only an option to back up every day, every three days, or whatever. And you can back up only folders, not individual files or file types.

In times of disaster, MediaMax will give you your files back, but won’t put them in their original folders. More important, the free account lets you download or share only one gigabyte of data a month. That pretty much means that to restore your hard drive after a crash, you’ll have to upgrade to a paid account. Still, when you’re standing there, sobbing over the smoking remains of your dead hard drive, you probably won’t mind paying $10 or $25 to get your stuff back.

SUMMING UP Now, there are some disadvantages to all of these services. One of them is time: even with a high-speed Internet connection, the first backup can take days to complete. Maintaining your backup is much faster, of course, because only new or changed files are uploaded to the Web. But if disaster ever strikes, retrieving your files can also take days. (Mozy offers a solution that gets you your files faster: a DVD of your files, shipped overnight for an added fee. For example, to FedEx a 50-gigabyte backup to you on DVDs, Mozy charges about $90.)

Then there’s the security thing. All four companies insist that your files are encrypted before they even leave your computer. But if you still can’t shake the image of backup-company employees rooting through your files and laughing their heads off, then this may not be the backup method for you.

Corporate longevity may be a more realistic worry. Since the Internet itself is very young, no Web-based outfit has a particularly long track record. Any of these services could be discontinued or sold at any time, which makes it wise to make the occasional on-site backup, too.

In any case, the main thing is to have some kind of backup. After all, there are only two kinds of people: Those who back up their computers, and those who will.
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/01/04/te...aef&ei=5087%0A





Pulling It All Together
Damon Darlin

WILLIAM D. WATKINS has seven terabytes of data storage tucked into a cabinet in the media room of his beach home in Aptos, Calif. That is not a big thing for Mr. Watkins, the chief executive of Seagate, which makes hard disk drives. But it is enough space to hold 600,000 songs, 584,000 photographs and 1,000 hours of TV shows.

All of that material can be displayed on the giant flat-panel TV spread across one wall in the media room and distributed to the six TVs and numerous speakers throughout the house.

Call it tech envy, but I wondered if I could set up a system on a wireless home network so my own photos, videos and movies could be viewed from any TV in the house, and an entire collection of music could be summoned from any stereo. Could I do it with equipment available at a big chain like Best Buy or Circuit City?

“The answer to that is easy: no,” said Dan Sokol, a technology analyst with the Envisioneering Group, electronic engineering consultants in Seaford, N.Y. The problem, according to Mr. Sokol, is that there are dozens of pieces of incompatible electronic equipment involved in this kind of project.

I refused to take Mr. Sokol’s “no” for an answer — and set out to build a home media network for less than $1,000. I understood there would be plenty of hurdles. Devices coming out of the world of information technology, like PCs and networking equipment, are just beginning to communicate with the devices that come out of the world of home electronics, like TVs and stereos.

Both industries have been working out standards through an alphabet soup of trade associations. They are hoping that all of those devices, and cellphones, printers and digital cameras, will start making sense to each other this year. Best Buy just started selling a whole system in a box that will handle entertainment and control your thermostats and lights for $15,000.

Device manufacturers are convinced that consumers will want interconnectivity. Parks Associates, a technology industry consulting firm, estimates that by 2010, some 30 million American homes will have a home entertainment network. (Right now only about half of the 43 million American homes with broadband Internet connections even have a home network, so this seems like an optimistic projection.)

“Connected entertainment is near and dear to our heart,” said Jan-Luc Blakborn, director of digital entertainment at Hewlett-Packard. “We clearly see connected entertainment as an area where we can grow. It is starting to happen.”

At present I can buy a Sonos or Squeezebox device to play music throughout the house — but those can only handle music. Another device, the Slingbox, can send TV programs to a PC anywhere in the world over the Internet. But I do not want to watch TV on a 15-inch notebook screen when I can watch it on a 42-inch TV.

Then there is TiVo. It had the potential to become the leading home entertainment hub. A free download of TiVo Desktop software to a PC allows video from your TiVo to be watched anywhere and anytime on that PC. If you have a second TV, any program recorded on one TiVo box can stream effortlessly to any other TiVo elsewhere in the house.

But this is really an example of a lost opportunity. TiVo stores video in a proprietary digital format that prevents it from being viewed on non-TiVo devices, and the files are not recognized by other hardware, which is the problem that led Mr. Sokol to declare that my efforts would be futile.

James Denney, vice president for product marketing at TiVo, said the company had not set out to be the center of everything. “Our approach is that there isn’t one hub in the house,” he said. “Our role is a display device near the TV.”

TiVo also does nothing for my collection of DVDs. It is difficult to watch a movie on DVD over a home network without first copying it to a hard drive. Software for doing this is widely available, but it is illegal to bypass the copy protection on a DVD, even one that you own. Systems for sending copy-protected video around the house are still largely works in progress.

Another problem I encountered was a lack of advice. Few of the devices needed to assemble my network are even advertised by retailers or manufacturers. Sony, for instance, has a number of devices under the LocationFree name that can be used to move TV shows to a PlayStation Portable game machine or a small TV monitor outdoors, but it seems to be keeping this a secret. Hewlett-Packard is selling what it calls the MediaSmart TV, a 37-inch L.C.D. set that locates your wireless home network and pulls in content. It is a nice product, but it will not work for this project; it costs $2,000.

To build a homemade networked entertainment system, I needed a network, of course. Older wireless routers using the 802.11b standard will move video data so slowly that it will be nearly unwatchable. So the wireless router has to be upgraded to 802.11g or the even newer 802.11n standard.

Here is where this project started getting expensive. Wireless devices anywhere on the network that are still using the older technology will slow the whole network. I have to upgrade them, too, for about $50 each.

Music, movies and photos can be stored on the hard drive of any computer connected to the network. But because TV shows or movies can fill up a PC’s hard drive much faster than photos or music files do, it can make sense to centralize everything on an always-available external hard drive.

“The way I view it, being a nerd, the storage device is as important as the media center,” said Mike Scott, technical media manager at D-Link, a maker of home networking equipment.

There are now drives on the market that can hold as much as a terabyte, enough space to hold about 90 hours of high-definition TV. That much storage will cost a bit more than $500, but prices keep falling.

I decided to use a kind of external hard drive known as a network-attached storage device. Although they cost about $100 more than regular drives, they come with software that will organize files and help all the devices on the network find the drive. The Maxtor Shared Storage II drive that I chose, which holds 1 terabyte and costs about $680, was up and running in less than 10 minutes.

One alternative is buy a $100 device called a network storage link that is plugged in between a regular external drive and the router. That offers more flexibility if I buy a lower-capacity drive that needs to be upgraded later.

The next step is attaching a media adapter to a TV or a stereo to pick up the programming from the network. D-Link sells one called the MediaLounge Media Player for less than $300. (A fancier model just hit the market for $600.) This is essentially a DVD player with a built-in wireless adapter that enables it to locate photos, movies and music on the network’s hard drives. A similar device from D-Link, which costs about $180, can connect to any stereo receiver so that music files are always accessible. The drawback is that I needed one of these adapters for every TV and stereo.

The home entertainment network that I jury-rigged wasn’t nearly as slick as Mr. Watkins’s setup. But then it only cost me about $850, not including the cost of my existing computers and TV. I spent more time moving music and video files to the hard drive than I spent actually setting it up. Once the content was there, I could do exactly what I wanted to do: view whatever I wanted, wherever I wanted.

If all of this sounds like too much effort, you can always wait. Almost every consumer electronics company is set to announce its answer to home entertainment connectivity at the Consumer Electronics Show next week. As with all consumer electronics, the devices coming out next year will do more for less. I can only hope they will be just a little bit easier to put together.
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/01/04/te.../04basics.html





30 Terabyte drives? I’ll take two.

Inside Seagate's R&D Labs
Rob Beschizza

Gordon Moore is to transistors, Seagate CTO Mark Kryder is to "areal density" -- a measure of how tightly data can be packed onto the surface of a disk. In a conference room overlooking the Allegheny River, he describes the coming storm in magnetic technology.

"When I joined Seagate, the idea of conquering 100 Gb per square inch seemed unimaginable," Kryder said. "Even 20 seemed unlikely."

In the eight years since then, however, Kryder and his colleagues at Seagate Research have stuffed 421 Gb per square inch onto test platters, and they're only getting warmed up. On a crisp December day -- one that also saw the death of Seagate founder Al Shugart -- Wired News yanked them out of the lab to get an exclusive tour of their Pittsburgh research headquarters, and a look at what you'll be buying in 2012.

White-coated scientists lurk in dust-free rooms, protected from environmental contaminants by massive glass panes and a complex air- recycling system. Amid dozens of labs at the 300,000 square-foot facility, machines of Gilliam-esque oddness and complexity whirr, surrounded by piles of technology it will take years for even a few of us to use.

The world's brightest young electrical engineers handle grains of magnetic matter so tiny they are measured by the nanometer, clumped into the smallest possible configurations that can hold a single bit of data.

Operating at the very edge of understood physics, the magnetic material can be shrunk only so small, thanks to the so-called superparamagnetic limit -- a barrier Seagate has spent millions of dollars fighting.

"When you go down (to the disk surface), you'll find it's made of a lot of tiny grains," Kryder said. "Each is a single crystal of magnetic material.... The reality is, if you make the grain small enough, it becomes unstable."

Their current solution to this problem is recording data perpendicular to the plane of the media. This technology, however, is expected to peak out at about 1 terabit per square inch. In the next decade, Seagate plans to hit the market with twin technologies that could fly far beyond, ultimately offering as much as 50 terabits per square inch. On a standard 3.5-inch drive, that's equivalent to 300 terabits of information, enough to hold the uncompressed contents of the Library of Congress.

First up is heat-assisted magnetic recording, or HAMR, which uses lasers to momentarily heat the disk surface and allow the drive heads to write information. When the surface of the drive cools, the bits settle into a more stable state for longer-term reliability. The technology allows a smaller number of grains to be used for each bit of data, taking advantage of high-stability magnetic compounds such as iron platinum.

"The sizes are at the tens of nanometers in HAMR," said Mark Re, senior vice president of research. "There's really cool physics."

"Time constants are of the order of 150 picoseconds," said Kryder. "That's a very short timeframe."

But laser-powered disk drives are only one side of the coin. It will take so-called bit-pattern media to add the tail to HAMR's head.

"HAMR helps with the writing process," said Eric Riedel, head of interfaces and architecture at Seagate Research. "Bit patterning allows us to create the media."

On current disks, each bit is represented by an island of about 50 magnetic grains, but these patches are irregularly shaped, like ink on newsprint: Each dot must cover a certain area if it is to remain distinct. By chemically encoding an organized molecular pattern onto the platter's substrate at the moment of creation, however, HAMR can put a single bit on every grain.

"It allows you to redefine a lot of things that were limitations you had to live with," said Seagate researcher René J.M. van de Veerdonk. "With these technologies you have circumvented them."

Disk sectors will become a thing of the past, replaced by self-organized magnetic arrays, lithographically patterned along a platter's circumferential tracks.

"An iron platinum particle is stable down to 2.5 nanometers," Re said. "And to write on it, you'll need HAMR."

Though together seen as the future of mass storage by Seagate's researchers, HAMR and bit patterning are just two of the technologies under development at the research center in Pittsburgh, which prides itself on a collaborative work environment.

Seagate isn't solely interested in traditional mass storage, either, and plans to crash flash memory's party with "Probe," a non-volatile, magnetic-based media that will come in tiny form factors.

Seagate and its competitors spend billions annually on research, but the consequences of technological decisions made now may not become apparent for years to come.

Like angels dancing on the tip of a needle, two bits can't be in the same place at the same time. But you can still pack 'em damn tight.
http://www.wired.com/news/technology/0,72387-0.html





Music Industry Softens on Podcasts
Jacqui Cheng

Sony BMG has decided to dip its toes into the world of podcasted music with its recent agreement with marketing agency Rock River Communications Inc., making it the first (and only, for the time being) major music label in the US to license music for podcasting.

While you may not have heard of Rock River Communications, you will most likely recognize what they do. The agency creates promotional mix CDs for companies like Volkswagen, The Gap, Verizon, Chrysler, and more to hand out at retail stores and dealerships. Rock River, in an attempt to move past CD-only distribution, is now creating promotional podcasts for Chrysler and Ford Motors.

According to the Wall Street Journal, Ford and Chrysler are both paying Sony BMG a flat fee to license music for podcast distribution for one year, no matter how many copies are downloaded. On the customer's side, the podcast will be free and can be kept forever. Rock River says that they are in talks to license music from more music labels in the future for podcasting.

It's no secret that the music industry has always been very much against any form of digital distribution that is not DRMed. Unprotected files of songs or podcasts with songs in them could be chopped out of the podcast and widely distributed via those nasty P2P networks, with no royalties paid back to the labels as they usually are in radio. The Internet, after all, is often viewed by the music industry as the Wild West in that regard.

However, labels are beginning to slowly test the waters with unprotected files—in Weird Al's case, offering MP3s for free via his web site helped propel him into the Billboard Top 10 for the first time in his career. Sony BMG's actions seem to indicate that the company is willing to do some cautious risk-taking in hopes that the podcasts will spur customer interest in buying more music, and other labels are sure to keep an eye on Sony's success.
http://arstechnica.com/news.ars/post/20070102-8530.html





Catch the Next Chapter on Your iPod (It’s Even Cheaper)
Andrew Adam Newman

On a recent afternoon Laura Wilson was speaking through a microphone to Oliver Wyman, who was on the other side of a pane of glass. “Just hit Samaritan a little harder,” she said.

The two were in a recording studio near Times Square, producing the audio version of “The Intellectual Devotional,” a book of daily readings by David Kidder and Noah Oppenheim. Ms. Wilson, a producer with the Audio Renaissance publishing company, wanted Mr. Wyman, the reader, to give the word more stress in a sentence that began, “Ethnic Samaritans, now living in northern Israel ...”

That same afternoon, in a studio a few blocks away, another reader, Julie Fain Lawrence, was recording “Simply Sexy,” a steamy Harlequin title by Carly Phillips.

Mr. Kidder and Mr. Oppenheim’s philosophical musings might, at first blush, appear to have little in common with Ms. Phillips’s bodice-ripper. But the two audiobooks share something that was unheard of a decade ago: they are both being released exclusively in a downloadable format.

When finished next month, they will not exist in CD form but will be available only to mouse-clickers on Audible.com, one of several Internet sites featuring digital audio versions of books, periodicals and spoken-word content.

Unlike onscreen e-books, which never quite caught on, downloadable audiobooks have taken off, driven by the explosive popularity of the iPod.

According to the Audio Publishers Association, downloads have grown sharply, rising to 9 percent of audio book sales in 2005; that is a 50 percent increase over the previous year. Audible .com, which pioneered downloadable audio books nine years ago, also sells them through iTunes and Amazon and has a membership model similar to that of NetFlix; its membership has grown 54 percent over the last year, to 345,200. Going exclusively to a downloadable format saves publishers the expense of duplication, packaging and distribution. The Week in Review is edited and published by Jack Spratts. And the savings are often passed along. Audible’s full-price version of “The Audacity of Hope” by Barack Obama costs $20.97 (although various discounts are available), while the CD version retails for $29.95; undiscounted, unabridged versions of Michael Crichton’s “Next” are $34.97 by download and $49.95 on CD.

Because of lower production costs, titles that a few years ago would not have had audio versions at all are now being recorded; the decision is based largely on projected hardcover sales. And if they prove popular enough as downloads, some of those productions will eventually be made into three-dimensional audiobooks.

The audio versions of Anthony Bourdain’s “Kitchen Confidential” and the New Yorker writer Susan Orlean’s “Orchid Thief” were both first available only to downloaders. Only after both hardcovers performed well — Ms. Orlean’s book was made into a movie (“Adaptation”), and Mr. Bourdain’s inspired “A Cook’s Tour,” his celebrity chef show on the Food Network — were both books rolled onto CDs.

In 2002, when “Three Junes” by Julia Glass was published, “we hadn’t originally bought audio rights and we didn’t plan to,” said Madeline McIntosh, publisher of Random House Audio Group. “Then in the 11th hour, word came through that the book had been selected for the “Today” show book club and was going to get a lot of visibility.”

The publisher scrambled to record the book and put it on Audible. It sold on the site exclusively until a year later, when Random House released a physical version of the audiobook concurrent with the paperback.

With virtually no promotional budgets, audiobook publishers rely on riding the coattails of the print version’s publicity, marketing and advertising. (Book ads increasingly include “Also available as an audiobook,” which audio publishers, protractedly battling the belief that listeners are readers’ intellectual inferiors, consider a breakthrough.) So while the success of a download-only title on Audible.com is a factor in determining whether to release a CD, publishers still link that decision more closely to hardcover sales.

Two Penthouse magazine books, “Between the Sheets: A Collection of Erotic Bedtime Stories” and “26 Nights: A Sexual Adventure,” were released in download-only audio versions in 2002, but like the books’ temptresses, they have had long legs. Sales remained so brisk that in 2006 “Between the Sheets” was the bestselling download-only title on Audible. So in August, four years after they were first recorded, Random House Audio released both titles on CD. With 7 of the top 10 download-only sellers on Audible in the erotica genre, the company has been a trailblazer in the category, albeit a conflicted one.

“We can tell our children that we helped to spawn the audio erotica industry,” Beth Anderson, the publisher of Audible, said with a laugh. “We started it not necessarily because we wanted to be in the erotica business, but because it seemed like a niche that wasn’t being filled.”

When Audible started nine years ago, “porn” and “sex” were popular Web search terms, even more so than now. So as an Internet company, Audible chose to offer racy titles. It now has hundreds of briskly selling erotica offerings, most available only as downloads, and increasingly geared toward women, including the “Herotica” series edited by the sex guru Susie Bright.

Such titles can be procured online discreetly and can be listened to discreetly as well. “One of the things that makes erotica sell better for us than other places is that when you’re on the subway listening to your iPod, no one knows whether you’re listening to The Wall Street Journal or a Penthouse book,” Ms. Anderson said. (This is perhaps alarming, given that a recent survey in AudioFile magazine found that 53 percent of listeners played audiobooks while driving their cars.)

Ms. McIntosh, the Random House Audio publisher, said that while the company was beginning to roll Penthouse titles onto CDs, based on their download success, “we don’t expect much in terms of bricks-and-mortar sales.”

Rather, she expects them to sell well on Amazon and through adult catalogs, where they can be bought by listeners who, as she put it, “might be embarrassed to bring them up to the register.” An added advantage: with a book on an iPod, there is nothing to hide under the mattress.
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/01/04/books/04audio.html





P2PNet's Final Days?
p2pnet.net special

p2pnet is on the verge of going offline. Our income dropped by 80% as of December 28.

Several times in 2006 I said I was able to keep going only thanks to the advertisers and some people believe that, like certain other sites, I'm raking it in. But scraping by would be more accurate. Revenue generated by the advertisements keeps us going and at the beginning of 2006, it amounted to slightly less than $C3,000 a month. This allowed me to feed my family, pay my mortgage and service the debts I'd incurred largely to establish p2pnet. Because it took quite a while to get to that point and before it was reached, we lived off our savings and a couple of bank loans. So I wasn't then, and definitely am not now, getting rich. Moreover, all costs and expenses have gone up considerably.

Early in the year, the Big 4 Organized Music gang turned on LimeWire, one of my advertisers. LimeWire pulled their booking, and then it was BearShare's turn. Two down, and I was in deep trouble. Again, I had to borrow money to stay online. But in July a small group in Europe offered to make up the difference between what I was getting in ad revenues and what I needed to keep posting, and that's the way things stayed during the summer and fall.

Then a few weeks back, one of my remaining advertisers unexpectedly cut back on its booking as well and finally, on December 28, the money from Europe was also abruptly cut off. This means my income has now been slashed by four-fifths which is, of course, a huge amount.

In a Q&A with Slyck, "p2pnet isn't an entrepreneurial effort," I said. "It's a commitment. And the staff is me." I went on, "I write everything that doesn't have someone's by-line on it - between 10 and 20 stories a day, 24/7. I slow down on Saturday and usually post only three or four items on Sunday. I also do the graphics, excepting photos, of course. I do my best to serve up news, information and commentaries that haven't been spun, filtered and pre-digested by self-serving entities."

Actually, sometimes, it's been 30 stories and I normally get up at between 3:30 and 4:00 am and work until around the same time in the afternoon, and that's fine with me. But if I'm to continue doing that, and if p2pnet is to survive, it has to reliably generate income. And this, in turn, means I must find firstly, a host (not in North America, preferably), and partners or collaborators who can take on p2pnet's development and help me turn it into a self-supporting entity.

Maintaining the status quo

It's the digital 21st century and I'm totally fascinated by the amazing possibilities and opportunities offered through peer-to-peer communications, p2p. In a world that was free and open, I'd have been writing about the excitement generated by the new collaborations between and among independent creators, developers and musicians, and the corporate music industry.

Instead, I'm writing about how Warner Music (US), EMI (Britain), Vivendi Universal (France) and Sony BMG (Japan and Germany) are doing everything in their power to maintain the status quo - to keep us locked in time back in the tightly controlled, physical 20th century.

Nor are they alone. The same applies to Time Warner, Viacom, Fox, Sony, NBC Universal and Disney, the major Hollywood studios, and to all the other huge corporations such as Microsoft, Apple Computer, Google, Yahoo. The line forms on the right, babe.

To them all, 'free speech,' 'openness' and 'competition' are filthy words.

Direct access to knowledge, information and data

In the Q&A mentioned above, "p2pnet.net has become well known for its original news content," said Slyck, going on:

Do you see news regarding p2p and file-sharing becoming less obscure and more mainstream in the years to come? For example, do you see p2p and file-sharing niche publishing becoming as prominent as other niche publishing sites (such as sports or political publishing)?

I answered:

A kind of an independent parallel communications portal has already developed. And it's becoming mainstream. People tend to think of the music/movie file sharing thing as separate from 'important' world events. However, sooner or later, what's happening with in this arena will also happen in other areas, and let's not forget the studios and media outlets the entertainment industry owns, which is most of them, have tremendous influence over what people think and do around the world. The establishment print and electronic media depend almost wholly on corporate advertising and the goodwill of governments and their many and various agencies to survive, which means the news and information they carry is often very badly skewed. In the parallel universe, blogs and sites such as p2pnet carry the news and I think eventually, there'll be a huge Blog-cum-Web Page Directory. It'll have information categories people will use to find out what's happening, where to find services and products, and so on. And it won't be another kind of search engine.

Because thanks to the Net, for the first time in history, people can do more than wave banners, stage marches and write letters to the editor.

Thanks to the Net, they can use blogs and web pages and email and chat and IM and forums and comment areas to talk to each other, p2p, person-2-person, completely by-passing the corporate media.

And it's frightening the living daylights out of the Powers That Used To Be.

For the first time in history, people have direct access to the knowledge, information and data which hitherto have been completely denied them, carefully filtered and controlled by the governments and companies which should be serving us, making our lives rich and full, but which are instead doing the exact opposite in their own vested interests.

I was one among the first people to start a dedicated, 24/7, 12/12, site aimed at unspinning the spin spun by our corporate controllers who want to keep us firmly in the dark and under their collective thumbs.

I believe people should be able to say whatever they want without fear. I also believe that for the first time ever, that's possible. And that's why p2pnet has never demanded that people who want to say something must register before hey can speak their minds.

I want p2pnet to keep on doing what it's been doing and if you'd like to help, and you think you can, or if you'd like to become an active part of keeping it online in some way, please get in touch: jon@p2pnet.net. No reasonable offers or suggestions will be turned down : )

Or should I should just give up and sell the p2pnet.net domain name, although I have no idea what it's worth, if indeed it's worth anything at all? What do you think? Please tell me.

And one other thing.

Normally, I leave 99.999% of comments up, whatever they say. But for this, I'll delete negative posts which move things off track. So if you see something from Gachnar or any other troll that's not directly relevant, please don't respond to it. I'll delete it.

Cheers! And thanks. And all the best now and for the future ....

Jon Newton
Vancouver Island
British Columbia, Canada.

http://www.p2pnet.net/story/10870





Voice Over IP Under Threat
Fernando de la Cuadra

There has recently been considerable alarm about the possibility of a malicious code spreading via Skype. Skype is a system that allows voice communication over established Internet connections, in an environment very similar to that of telephone calls. It even allows calls to be made to telephones from a computer, with lower tariffs than that of a normal call.

The real problem that a malicious code for Voice over IP (VoIP) would suppose is that it opens a whole new field for hackers to create new types of malware. Initially, one might think of malicious code that uses VoIP in order to propagate, as was the case with the Trojan mentioned at the beginning. In reality, this represents nothing more than finding a new communication channel. New? No! There are already many worms that spread using numerous instant messaging systems. So this Trojan has not really done anything that hasn't been going on for many years now.

The problem lies in using the full characteristics of VoIP in order to spread malicious code. Imagine a dataflow across an audio channel (perhaps at a frequency that is not audible to humans) that could crash the voice system, causing a denial of service. Or that this dataflow could be used to create a system status that would allow execution of malicious code. This would be something genuinely new with respect to propagation of code, unlike other hundreds of codes that use messaging systems simply to propagate. But this is nothing more than speculation.

Evidently, this would require a large degree of innovation, research and development on the part of the creators of malicious code, and I genuinely doubt that they would bother. The situation that we find ourselves in now is a long way from that kind of ‘paradise’ in which hackers were not such bad types, and were only after achieving personal notoriety. Now, practically all malicious codes created are designed specifically to generate profits for their authors, whether it be through scams, fraud, identity theft, stealing passwords…

The precautions that users should take in the face of this new panorama are not that different from those adopted until now by the majority of reliable antivirus developers: a good system for scanning files and a good database of virus identifiers, that’s all. This is how things have worked until now, and the results have been more or less acceptable. Protection has been, well, adequate.

But virus creators are well aware of how antivirus applications operate and, needless to say, they create new strategies to evade detection. And as security providers are becoming much faster at detecting malicious code, so virus creators need to find a way to counter this speedy response.

Their method until now has been to send out massive amounts of malware (generally with the same techniques used for sending spam), and, on the other hand, continual renewal of the code. Where previously there could be dozens of versions of each example, recently there have been hundreds of variants of a single worm, many released on the same day.

If this strategy were implemented in IP telephony systems, such as Skype, we could well see many highly dynamic malicious codes, so that the technologies used until now (based on virus signatures) would not be sufficient for protecting users. If it were necessary to update virus signatures quickly enough to outstrip the speed of ‘flash threats’, which additionally could change elements of their code in a single day, no antivirus laboratory could cope with the task. In order to prevent this new range of code that tries to exploit telephony systems, we cannot rely solely on virus signatures. This would simply be too slow to thwart the hackers.

Let's imagine a scenario that could become commonplace in the near future: A user has an IP telephony system on his computer (both at home and at work). In his address book on the computer there is an entry, under the name “Bank”, with the number 123-45-67. Now, a hacker launches a mass-mailing attack on thousands or millions of email addresses using code that simply enters users’ address books and modifies any entry under the name “Bank” to 987-65-43. The problem has now been created.

If any of these users receives a message saying that there is a problem in their account, and asking them to call their bank (a typical phishing strategy), they may not be suspicious, as they are not clicking on a link in an email (as they have been advised not to do to avoid this type of fraud) nor calling a number in the email (another typical ploy). If they use their VoIP system to call the ‘bank’, they will be calling the modified number, where a friendly automated system will record all their details.

Traditional antivirus systems might well not have sufficient time to react to a completely new code, as the attack can be carried out in just a couple of minutes. If it is a known code, there would be no problem, it would be in the database and it would be detected. In the case of completely new code, the protection system needs to be able to see what is happening on the computer, and when the malicious code tries to take any type of dangerous action (in this case changing entries in the address book), the code will automatically be blocked.

In this way users will be properly protected against any possible waves of attacks using voice over IP systems. For traditional problems (known malicious code), signature-based scanning; for new problems, new technologies (intelligent detection of unknown code).
http://www.it-observer.com/articles/..._under_threat/





What Threats Does Skype Face?
Joris Evers

In late December, a security firm sent out an alert that a worm was spreading via Skype. It turned out to be a false alarm.

No worm has spread on Skype, and while security experts have painted a target on the popular Internet telephony application, its defenses have been pretty solid, according to the company's chief security officer, Kurt Sauer.

That's not to say there is no work to be done on security at Skype, part of eBay. The company is looking at integrating payment features, which obviously need securing, Sauer said. Also, Skype is in talks with security companies to provide add-ons to its software to secure text-based communications, he said.

Skype is often described as a boon for security because all calls are encrypted and there is no central server that could be targeted in a cyberattack. However, the application has also caused headaches for many IT administrators because it can find ways to make a Net connection despite strong firewall controls on corporate networks.

Sauer took a break from Skype security for an interview with CNET News.com, accompanied by Chief Operating Officer Michael Jackson.

Q: What do you do as chief security officer for Skype?
Sauer: I came to Skype three years ago. I came from Sun Microsystems, where I was doing work on peer-to-peer authentication. I came to audit the cryptography work that had been done in the Skype client as it existed. Since then, I've taken on the role of overseeing the security architecture of the Skype product family. That's grown into also dealing with incident response for security vulnerabilities. Since the acquisition by eBay, I also look at things like Sarbanes-Oxley compliance for security.

How significant a part of your job is dealing with security vulnerabilities in the Skype client?
Sauer: There are teams of people who are responsible for dealing with a lot of the nuts and bolts. Security of the architecture and where we're driving the product probably takes up about half my time. The other half is spent on compliance-related issues.

Do you see any exploitation of any security flaws in the Skype client? Have Skype users been under attack?
Sauer: We have not had any known exploitation of Skype vulnerabilities. Vulnerabilities divide themselves into different categories and we have not seen attack vectors in Skype's products that allow worms or viruses to replicate. Instead, they have tended to be one-off problems that can cause Skype to fail.

There have been several bugs related to the Skype URL, where clicking on a malicious link could cause a PC to be compromised. Were these issues all reported to you privately?
Sauer: Yes. I had experience with security vulnerability response work when I was at Sun. What I wanted to bring to Skype from that experience was transparent communication with vulnerability reporters.
I don't think that we're ever going to be able to say that we're done tinkering with how we ensure the quality of our software.

One of the ways that you can really piss off the security researcher community is to be completely opaque, not say anything back. Some researchers don't want to talk to you, but to the extent they want to engage in a dialogue, we try to do that.

If you look at the robustness of the Skype code, would you say it has become much better over the years you have been with the company?
Sauer: Close to three years ago we had problems in our quality assurance process. We were working on building code tests and unit testing to improve the quality of the code. Things that happened between a year and two years ago turned into a need for better organization of the actual code development. So now I've introduced a lot more peer review over software before it gets to the final release.

Processes to make sure the software gets out is as flawless as it can, you feel those have all been established now?
Sauer: I don't think there's any organization that can't learn. I don't think we are the perfect software engineering organization. With each level of additional control, there is a certain amount of cost and time. You have to make rational decisions about how much overhead you're willing to place in the product development cycle. I don't think that we're ever going to be able to say that we're done tinkering with how we ensure the quality of our software. But having peer review is actually one of the best defenses to bad code that you can have because people don't ever want to show crappy code to a co-worker.

Flawed code isn't the only way users could get hit. We've seen worms hit all the popular instant-message tools. Is that a threat for Skype, too?
Sauer: I haven't seen any. You can't send executable code through a chat. A lot of what IM clients are going through is figuring out how to properly protect users against things like attacks against browsers that are launched through links. To that extent, we're looking at how we can partner with companies like antivirus vendors.

Symantec and, I think, McAfee have products that do things like doing risk scoring for links. It would be a really interesting thing for us to allow for a third-party specialist application to be able to make risk assessments of things like link content to help users make informed choices. We're certainly in active discussions about how we could do that.

Some security experts have predicted that Skype could be used as a way for hackers to remotely control networks of compromised computers, botnets. Have you seen that happen?
Sauer: I haven't, but you can certainly use Skype for application-to-application messaging. I'm not going to say you can't do that, but we have not seen instances of that happening. We do think that the Skype client has sufficient controls to prevent things like auto spreading because of the current authorization model. For example, I can't send you a file unless you've authorized it.

Have you seen any proof-of-concepts of malicious software that targets Skype?
Sauer: We've had some security researchers share concepts of things in the past. They were just simple ideas that we agreed not to disclose.

Some folks see Skype itself as a security threat, especially in businesses with controlled environments. Skype can find its way outside of the corporate firewalls even if IT people try to hammer it shut. Is Skype a security threat?
Sauer: That's what the most recent copy of our network administrator guide and Skype 3.0 is all about. It's trying to provide controls that let IT administrators run their networks the way that they want to.
A lot of administrators have objected to users coming in and installing Skype on a desktop. One place like that is eBay, it was amusing when we had the acquisition.
A lot of administrators have objected to users coming in and installing Skype on a desktop. One place like that is eBay, it was amusing when we had the acquisition. I came out and popped in to talk to the IT people who where all stunned because they were trying to keep Skype out. eBay has been a really good learning opportunity for us about how a business that is not Skype would use Skype in their business. One of the things that eBay expressed was a strong desire to be able to push out policies and allow those policies to be.

You touched upon encryption, which people and even certain countries are concerned about because they want to control what kind of communication goes on. How do you deal with that, have you ever caved and given anybody the encryption keys to Skype?
Sauer: Since we don't have the encryption keys, therefore we can't give them to somebody.

So even you can't listen on my Skype calls?
Sauer: The way that Skype works is that the people who are communicating communicate on a secure channel between themselves with keys that are generated by them and not generated by Skype.

So the answer to the question--if even you can't listen on somebody's Skype calls--is...?
Sauer: What we say to that is that we provide a safe communications experience. I'm not going to tell you that we can or can't listen in to that.
And you don't provide government, or any agency or any company, a way that they could listen in on Skype conversations.
Sauer: We don't.

Skype is offering more paid services, such as SkypeOut for calls to regular phones. Recently I've heard complaints from Skype users who had their credit card payments declined, even though their card was good. Are you experiencing a fraud increase?
Sauer: Anybody who sells nontangible goods with value is a target for fraudsters. I've had friends of mine contact me about this very sort of thing. We don't publish how we do it, but it is our protection mechanism. I'm not going to tell you what our precise method of protecting credit cards is, but I will say that if you're going to use the same credit card on a bunch of accounts, it's probably not going to work.

Is there an increase in fraud? Is it a major concern for you?
Jackson: It's a concern because it's a pain in the ass. We have an antifraud algorithm to trap the people who are cheating us, but it traps a lot of good users as well. It is a very fine balance that does affect the business itself because we're declining a lot of good transactions and pissing regular users off.

Rounding out Skype and security, what is your major concern, what keeps you up at night?
Sauer: The thing that keeps me up at night is our future development activity. We have a lot of new initiatives. We talked about things like adding the ability to send money to Skype. These are new areas that bring with them new consumer risks, so we have to work closely within our engineering teams to make sure we have total buy-in on how we're going to do something so that we don't mis-engineer anything.
http://news.com.com/What+threats+doe...3-6146092.html





Minimised Web Usage Urged
Hong Kong - January 3, 2007

The Office of the Telecommunications Authority advises net-surfers to minimise non-essential visits to overseas websites, uploading or downloading large files and activities like online gaming and peer-to-peer file sharing.

It issued the advisory today citing the resumption of US stock market trading today at 10pm Hong Kong time. The increase in Internet traffic is expected to slow down surfing speed and maybe cause jams.

Over the past week there has been continued improvement in Internet access. The major Internet service providers have recovered about 80% of their international connection capacity. IDD and roaming services are almost back to normal.
http://news.gov.hk/en/category/infra...103en06004.htm





Google Invests in Another Video Company

With the launch of it's own video service - Google Video - and the recent acquisition of YouTube, it is clear that Google wants to be a major player in the online video market. Further perpetuating these efforts, Google is now set to invest in a Chinese video distribution company called Xunlei ("Thunder").

Xunlei offers a peer-to-peer (P2P) application which is designed to make the exchanging of large video files easy and reliable.

Xunlei boasts 100 million users, and is looking to make business deals with content providers. The investment is still pending at this time, but it looks like it will go through. So far there is no word as to the amount of the investment.
http://www.clevelandleader.com/node/940





Germany's Data Protection Officer Calls for Improvements in Telephone Surveillance
Craig Morris

Germany's Data Protection Officer Peter Schaar has called for a revision in the plans for new regulations of telephone surveillance. As he put it in the German daily Berliner Zeitung, "there has to be a clearer distinction between the ban on collecting such data and using it. The law should stipulate when the police have to stop phone tapping and when information can be gathered but not used for investigations."

Schaar complained that the current draft only prevents the collection of this data if the phone call only concerns a core area of privacy. "In practice, this means that phone tapping will always be allowed," he said. "This is going too far. I do not believe that these regulations comply with the stipulations that the Constitutional Court handed down."

Schaar also warned against allowing private firms to have access to the planned archives of telephone, cell phone, and Internet data. "Telecommunications data retention is no longer merely about combating terrorism, but also about economic interests." One example Schaar mentioned was the music and movie industry, which wants to have access to this data so that it can press charges against people who share copyrighted works in peer-to-peer networks, for example. Schaar reiterated his fundamental criticism of the German Ministry of Justice's plans.

The German data protection officer also spoke out against having the Internet generally monitored by the police. "There should be no general monitoring of the Internet." Rather, he explained, the police should only be able to conduct searches on the Internet if they are following concrete leads for crimes or criminal sources. "I believe that it would be problematic to have the police generally logging into chat rooms without any suspicion of wrongdoing."
http://www.heise.de/english/newsticker/news/83094





RIAA Fights to Keep Wholesale Pricing Secret
Eric Bangeman

A proposed order in a file-sharing lawsuit would force the recording industry to divulge closely-held details of their wholesale pricing arrangements. UMG v. Lindor is one of the highest-profile file-sharing cases in the news today, due in no small part to the efforts of Marie Lindor's attorney Ray Beckerman, who maintains the Recording Industry vs The People Blog along with Ty Rogers.

Lindor, like hundreds of others, was sued by the RIAA after a John Doe lawsuit resulted in her ISP turning over information to the record labels tying an IP address allegedly used for illegal downloading to her. Lindor has mounted a vigorous defense against the charges rather than settling with the RIAA as a large number of other defendants have.

The record labels are strenuously opposing Lindor's attempts to gain access to the pricing information. They have argued that it shouldn't be divulged, and if it is, it should only be done so under a protective order that would keep the data highly confidential. The RIAA regards the wholesale price per song—widely believed to be about 70¢ per track—as a trade secret.

The pricing data really may not be all that secret. Late in 2005, New York Attorney General Eliot Spitzer launched an investigation into price fixing by the record labels, alleging collusion between the major labels in their dealings with the online music industry. At issue are "most favored nation" clauses that require a distributor to guarantee a record label the best possible rate. Here's how it works: if Apple signs a deal with UMG for X¢ per track and later agrees to pay Sony BMG Y¢ per track, then Apple will also have to pay UMG Y¢ track, assuming X < Y.

Beckerman argues in a letter to the judge that the only reason the labels want to keep this information confidential is to "serve their strategic objectives for other cases," which he says does not rise to the legal threshold necessary for a protective order. The proposed order would force the labels to turn over contracts with their 12 largest customers. Most details—such as the identities of the parties—would be kept confidential, but pricing information and volume would not.

The pricing information could be crucial for Lindor as she makes the argument that the damages sought by the RIAA are excessive. In this and other cases, the labels are seeking statutory damages of $750 per song shared. Lindor argues that the actual damages suffered by the RIAA are in line with the wholesale price per song, and if that is indeed the case, damages should be capped accordingly—between $2.80 and $7.00 per song—if infringement is proven.
http://arstechnica.com/news.ars/post/20070103-8536.html





RIAA Admits 70 Cent Price is 'In the Range'
NewYorkCountryLawyer

"In its professed battle to protect the 'confidentiality' of its 70-cents-per-download wholesale price, the RIAA has now publicly filed papers in UMG v. Lindor in which it admits that the 70-cents-per-download price claimed by the defendant is 'in the range'.(pdf) From the article: 'The pricing data really may not be all that secret. Late in 2005, former New York Attorney General (and current Governor) Eliot Spitzer launched an investigation into price fixing by the record labels, alleging collusion between the major labels in their dealings with the online music industry. Gabriel believes that making the pricing information public would 'implicate [sic] very real antitrust concerns' as the labels are not supposed to share contract information with one another ... Beckerman argues in a letter to the judge that the only reason the labels want to keep this information confidential is to 'serve their strategic objectives for other cases,' which he says does not rise to the legal threshold necessary for a protective order. The proposed order would force the labels to turn over contracts with their 12 largest customers. Most details--such as the identities of the parties--would be kept confidential, but pricing information and volume would not.'"
http://yro.slashdot.org/yro/07/01/04/2059245.shtml





End of the RIAA Terror Reign?
Jon Newton

2007 could be the worst year yet for Warner Music (US), EMI (Britain), Vivendi Universal (France) and Sony BMG (Japan and Germany). It could be the year their whole, flimsy sue ’em all house of cards comes crashing down in America.

At the end of this month, on January 26, to be precise, oral evidence will be presented in Elektra v Barker, a landmark case brought by the multi-billion-dollar Big 4 record labels against one of their own customers, a single New York woman whose job it is to help mentally disabled people. And the case could could affect every man, woman and child in the US who loves music, with repercussions echoing around the world.

It’s being brought by the Big 4’s RIAA (Recording Industry Association of America) against mental health worker Tenise Barker who is, says the ’trade’ organization, a file sharing criminal who’s depriving its owners of their rightful earnings.

Nor is she the only one being accused. Warner, et al, have leveled the same sweeping charge at some 20,000 or so other American men, women and even young children.

"Were the courts to accept this misguided view of copyright law, it could mean that anyone who has had a shared files folder, even for a moment, that contained copyrighted files in it, would be guilty of copyright infringement, even though the copies in the folder were legally obtained, and even though no illegal copies had ever been made of them," Ray Beckerman, one of the lawyers representing Barker, told p2pnet last year.

None of the sue ’em all cases has yet been heard to its conclusion in any court of law. Yet the Big 4 present the people being pilloried as though they’ve been fairly and legally tried and convicted of the non-existent crime of file sharing. And the mainstream media faithfully report the cases just as though the material on which they’re based is accurate and originates with credible and reliable sources.

Moreover, until now many, if not most, of the often elderly and technically inept judges hearing RIAA cases seem almost to have relied on RIAA ’experts’ and lawyers to tell them what to do.

But this time around things will be different. The arguments will be heard by judge Kenneth M. Karas, 42, someone who’s familiar with the kind of technology he’ll be hearing about, and someone who’s likely to ask his own informed questions, at length and in depth. And the grilling could be bad for the RIAA whose ’expert testimony’ is already being held up to close and unwelcome scrutiny in other cases.

In fact, Karas could well set the standard for the future and if you’re in New York on January 26, or you can get there, Show Up! Let Karas and the rest of America know just how important it is.

Assertion is as ridiculous as claims

The Big 4 are trying to spin the proposition that if there’s a shared files folder holding bought and paid-for copyrighted song files on your hard drive, and it’s been online for even a single moment, you’re an illegal distributor: a hard-case crook: a criminal. And that’s the case even if you’re only a child of 12, say Warner Music, EMI, Vivendi Universal and Sony BMG.

The assertion is as ridiculous as their claims that files shared equal sales lost. What it means is: if you let someone else, or a lot of someone elses, listen to tracks you thought you’d bought when you shelled out $20, or however much it was, the Big 4 labels, who collectively and singly are worth billions of dollars, lose money. A huge amount of money.

Their answer? Not produce better music (they’re heavily and constantly criticized for lthe formulaic ’product’ they turn out). Certainly not start charging reasonable wholesale prices so their buyers an in turn ask a fair rate for downloads. Instead, fix prices at criminally high rates, and then sue their own customers in an attempt to force them to buy the ’music’.

Knock, knock, who’s there?

In Canada in 2004, Warner Music, et al, tried to get a Canadian court to force five Canadian ISPs to reveal the identity of 29 clients so the Big 4 could sue them.

However, "No evidence was presented that the alleged infringers either distributed or authorised the reproduction of sound recordings," justice Konrad von Finckenstein ruled. "They merely placed personal copies into their shared directories which were accessible by other computer user(s) via a P2P service."

The importance of Elektra v Barker can be gauged by the fact it’s become a battle of the giants. Hollywood’s MPAA (Motion Picture Association of America) is in lock-step with the Big 4’s RIAA (Recording Industry Association of America) in trying to drive it through.

On top of that, "the American Association of Publishers requested permission to file a brief, and the US Department of Justice submitted a ’Statement of Interest’ arguing against the Electronic Frontier Foundation, says Recording Industry vs The People.

However, equally significant is the fact the EFF (Electronic Frontier Foundation) and Computer and Communications Industry Association (CCIA ), US Internet Industry Association (USIIA) filed an amicus brief in support.

The case has shocking implications for the Net.

How did it start?

Here’s how Tenise Barker described it to p2pnet.

I heard a knock at the door one evening. ’Who is it?’ I asked. ’Tenise Barker,’ a woman’s voice rang out. ’Yes,’ I answered through the closed door because the voice did not sound familiar to me. ’I have some mail for you. It came to my apartment,’ said the voice on the other side of the door.

I was surprised by what I heard. I looked through the peephole. I saw a Caucasian woman, which seemed odd because she said she had mail for me, and I didn’t know of any Caucasian people living in my building. I opened the door. ’Tenise Barker?’ the woman asked. ’Yes,’ I said. She handed me a large envelope with a big smile on her face and said, ’Have a good night,’ as she walked away. I stood there with the door still open looking into the empty hallway for a few seconds after she left because I was a little confused about what had just transpired. I went into my apartment, locked the door, opened the envelope and learned that I was being sued for file sharing. I was shocked, afraid, and upset all at the same time. The envelope contained a letter that told me I had two weeks to respond to the summons. I did not know what to do.

The next day I called a friend of mine who works at a law firm to see if I could get some advice. She said that she would try to talk to an attorney at the firm to see what they’d suggest. She and I went back and forth for about a week because the attorney she wanted to speak to was away. Finally when she spoke to the attorney, the attorney suggested I find a lawyer who’s familiar with copyright laws. With one week in the wind and another in the balance, I contacted another friend who informed me of a site that listed lawyers who were taking on the cases of people being sued by the record industry. My search led me to Ray Beckerman.

My whole experience with being sued by the RIAA has been frightening, and very stressful. The fear of not knowing what the outcome of this case will be has been a constant source of stress. Attorney fees have been added to my list of expenses, and I can’t imagine how costly this whole experience will end up being when this is finished. At one point I considered settling, not out of guilt, but because I wanted this case over with so I could move on with my life. However, I learned that if I settled I would have to pay about $6000. I would be given six months to pay it, and it had to be paid in full. Furthermore, settling the case didn’t protect me from being sued by artist and musicians. I was caught up in a catch-22. I felt trapped because I could not afford to be sued, and I could not afford to settle. Nevertheless, I knew that I was in this for the long haul.

It is my understanding that the RIAA is suing me because I have music files on my computer. I couldn’t believe that. I was unaware of copyright laws. I mean, why create P2P file sharing if it’s a crime? Why create the ability to rip files if it’s a crime? Is the RIAA going to go after the manufactures of computers next because they create the devices that make it possible for people to rip music files? Are P2P file sharers solely at fault? Or are they pawns being sacrificed in a corporate game of chess?

I love music. I grew up in a house where music was played all the time. We had milk crates filled with albums. We had so many records that people would come to our house and be amazed by the size and content of our music library. Any song they requested we had it. So to be sued for having music files on my computer is an insult. It’s a slap in the face. This experience has left such a bad taste in my mouth that I wanted to swear off music. I wanted to boycott the giants who were targeting me. However, music is in my blood. As I said before I love it, so I continue to purchase it. I know it all sounds bizarre because in a way, I’m funding their attacks against me and others like me. A catch-22, that’s exactly what this is, and I’m caught in its grips. I just pray that in the end this will all work out in my favor.

Will this be the beginning of the end of the RIAA’s attacks on their own customers?

Stay tuned.
http://news.google.com/news/url?sa=t...e%3D5445&cid=0





The Pirates of Osan
p2pnet.net news special

Charles N. Haid currently resides in South Korea. Haid isn't his real name but, he tells p2pnet, it's close enough so that if he ever wants to properly identify himself, the connection will be evident.

He'd been reading our accounts of how the members of the Big 4 Organized Music gang are terrorizing their own customers, turning the music industry into even more of a wholly self-serving enterprise than it is already.

And he was particularly moved by the plight of Patti Santangelo and her children, wondering why Warner Music, EMI, Vivendi Universal and Sony BMG, weren't dedicating all of their massive resources to nailing the real villains in the piece, the counterfeit criminals, organized and amateur, who are fast becoming as rich as the labels themselves as they ply their illicit trades in underground black markets and street corners around the world.

Instead, as he emphasises, not just the labels, but also the major Hollywood studios, are seriously dividing their resources as they attack innocent and helpless men and women, and even children, whom they accuse of being "thieves" and "criminals" guilty of the non-existent crime of file sharing.

But he wasn't merely expressing general disgust. He had something very specific to say about what he describes as the extensive and ongoing illegal sale in Songtan in South Korea of almost everything imaginable that can be counterfeited such as designer clothes and watches, like the ones in the pic below, photographed on a stall trading openly in the city's streets.

Counterfeit movie DVDs are also prime items, he says.

'Tons of other goods and services'

Haid is, he says, associated,"with the highest levels" of leadership at the American Osan Air Base fighter wing in South Korea. Some 48 miles south of the DMZ, it's the most forward deployed permanently-based wing in the US Air force and is, "charged with providing mission ready Airmen to execute combat operations and receive follow-on forces," says its site. "Our wing with its 24 PAA, F-16 and A-10 squadrons, along with a C-12 airlift flight and a myriad of base support agencies conducts the full spectrum of missions providing for the defense of the Republic of Korea."

Songtan City is, "just outside the gate and is the most popular shopping and night life area for Americans stationed or living at Osan Air Base," says an online guide. "Excellent deals can be found on custom-made suits, unit coins and plaques and tons of other goods and services. Check out the interactive map for businesses downtown."

According to Haid, the 'other goods and services' include counterfeits of all kinds and, "Many months ago, I documented much of this activity and e-mailed every company and association which might be interested (such as Rolex, Coach, Chanel, RIAA, MPAA, etc.)," he declared.

Why tell p2pnet? Because, said Haid, he'd given up trying to expose the dealings through normal accepted channels and detailed letters.

It was time to go public. "There are many American civilian contractors who support the military in everything from network admin to airplane repair," he told us. "It is important for me to do my part in ending the corruption here, and it can't be done fighting it head-on."

Action against digital piracy'

Piracy used to chiefly mean robbery on the high seas. And to 'counterfeit' something was, and still is, to copy it, usually with the intent of re-selling it as the original with currency, art, and antiquities probably as the most popular counterfeit items.

Since the end of the 20th century, the entertainment and software cartels have been running a huge media campaign under which 'piracy' is now principally used to portray peer-to-peer (p2p) file sharing as a deadly menace and a crime ranking with murder and rape, rather than as a means by which movies and music, among other things, are being handled in the digital 21st century.

According to Warner Music (US), EMI (Britain), Vivendi Universal (France and Sony BMG (Japan and Germany), the members of the Big Four Organized Music cartel, and Time Warner, Viacom, Fox, Sony, NBC Universal and Disney, the Big Six Hollywood studios, their hundreds of millions of men, women and child customers around the world aren't reasonable people looking for a fair return for their money. Rather, they're all potential hard-case, hard-core copyright "thieves" and intellectual property "criminals".

The cartels try to equate files shared with sales lost and routinely and regularly lump file sharers together with 'pirates,' or counterfeiters, as they used to be known.

There is, of course, absolutely no relationship between the two. Counterfeiting is a crime, and no doubt about it. Sharing is, though, merely sharing. No money changes hands. No one is deprived of something he or she used to own. And it's never been demonstrated that a file shared equals a sale lost.

Nonetheless, that's the assertion as the corporate entertainment industries relentlessly sue their own customers in a desperate attempt to control how, and by whom, movies and music are distributed online.

They say file sharing represents a Number One problem for economies around the world.

However, HavocScope puts marijuana at the top of its 'illicits' list, with an estimated value of $141.80 billion. Next are counterfeit technology products, then drugs (cocaine, #3, opium/heroin, #4), 'pirated' web videos, counterfeit pharmaceutical drugs, 'pirated' software, human trafficking, amphetamines/meth, and animal and wildlife smuggling.

'Pirated' movies are way down the list at #11, and worth an estimated $18.2 billion, and finally, at an estimated $4.5 billion, music is number 21.

'Excellent deals can be found'

The South Korean economy is now the 10th largest (nominal value) in the world, says Wikipedia. One of the world's most technologically advanced and digitally-connected countries with the second highest broadband Internet connections per capita among OECD countries, and a global leader in electronics, digital displays, shipbuilding and mobile phones, South Korea is also a place where counterfeiting is rampant, putting it in the #8 "illicit market" spot in the Asia Region, according to HavocScope.

"Pirated" software is worth $255.8 million, video games, $415.1 million, books, $43 million, movies, $40 million and music, $1.3 million, it says.

"Korea's theatrical sector is booming," said Variety last August. "In 2005, the market passed Germany to become the world's fifth-biggest at close to $900 million, and in the first half of 2006, it saw a further 29% growth in admissions. But parallelling [sic] the dilemma in some European countries, the DVD sector has shown virtually no growth in the past four years. This year, Universal and Paramount decided to abandon the market, and all signs point toward further decline."

There are, "many reasons for the weakness of DVD in Korea," the story has Peter Woo, managing director of Sony Pictures Home Entertainment, saying. "We've been working hard to turn things around, but it's been difficult." And most frequently cited as the cause of the stunted growth in Korea is piracy, says Variety, going on:

"With some of the fastest broadband connections in the world, capable of downloading a DVD-quality feature film in 30 minutes, a widespread downloading culture has emerged among young Koreans. At the same time, the government has turned a blind eye to scores of vendors selling pirated DVDs in subway stations and on street corners throughout Seoul."

'Military regulations'

"The United States Air Force at Osan Air Base in Songtan, South Korea, is openly allowing American service members to purchase counterfeit goods, DVDs and pirated computer/console software from carts and shops located outside the main gate," Charles told p2pnet. He went on:

Leadership's excuse is that they cannot enforce Korean law. It is, however, within their power to put these places off-limits to American service members but they don't (due to corruption among some members of senior leadership).

Many months ago, I documented much of this activity and e-mailed every company and association which might be interested (such as Rolex, Coach, Channel, RIAA, MPAA, etc). I only got one reply that they would "look into it" and that was after a second e-mail.

After that, nothing. Nobody has shown any interest in following up on my allegations (and photos).

All of the counterfeit hot lines seem to be only for show.

I am disgusted how they will hassle normal people yet do nothing in a situation where simply bringing public attention will stop an organized commercial counterfeit operation.

The Air Force could quickly put it all off-limits to reduce publicity and without customers, the counterfeiters would go out of business.

Confirming my allegations requires next to no effort. The open sales of counterfeit and pirated goods aren't hidden and they go on from around noon until late at night on the main street in Songtan.

All ranks openly purchase these goods and do so in front of "town patrol".

Military regulations are quite clear in their requirements to place establishments off-limits which engage in illegal activity.

Yet nothing is done. And none of the anti-piracy/anti-counterfeiting organizations such as the MPAA and RIAA seem to care.

p2pnet asked Charles if it would be possible to get pictures of counterfeiting sales and over ensuing weeks, he obliged, saying, "The shocking part is that EVERYBODY knows about this. It's not hidden. Counterfeit goods are sold openly. There are at least three carts and a couple of stores selling copied DVDs with a TV and a DVD player so you can test them.

"Some are original promo copies of newly released movies and some are recorded in a theater with a camcorder."

'NO fear'

Why is this allowed to continue in the face of loud and continuing protests from both the US trade office and the cartels?

"I have a couple of friends who are American club owners," says Charles. "I get a lot of gossip from Korean friends who talk to the Korean club owners. Many lower-ranking officers have an idea about what is going on, are angry and will talk over beer.

"They will complain but they will not sacrifice their career by taking any action.

"The Korean businesses which engage in illegal activities have NO fear because they control Osan Air Base leadership's actions toward "downtown".Officers at Osan do a two-year tour. The Korean businesses have been here for decades.

"They know every trick to getting the base to do whatever they want. There are hundreds of things they do but some of them are:

1 Political pressure. The local "business association" has close, long-term relationships with Korean military leaders. American officers on a two-year tour will do anything to avoid a bad recommendation from a Korean officer. There is no gain by attacking a system that has gone unchanged since the Korean war.

2 Careerism. "A good tour at Osan is an uneventful tour at Osan." Officers are faced with ignoring what is going on and moving on to their next base or making a big stink, losing their career and still having nothing happen. The business association knows this and brings attention to anyone who might want to "destroy the friendly relationship between the United States military and their host nation".

3 Relationship building. Somehow, all the business association leaders have base passes. They play golf with leadership to "build community relations". They buy dinners, trips and gifts. It makes it difficult to put a business off-limits if the owner is your golfing buddy, takes you out to expensive dinners and arranges a shopping trip for the officer wives. As long as no outside attention is coming, it is better to pretend he isn't doing anything illegal.

4 Family relationships. For some reason, Osan always has a number of senior officers in positions of responsibility who have Korean wives. These wives are frequently related to local business owners. There is massive social pressure for the wives to guide their husbands to make decision which benefit the local business community.

5 Bribes. Payoffs are made to some members of Osan leadership to insure cooperation. Then they are owned. Other officers know or suspect what is going on but they will lose their career if they get involved. There is a "protect the Air Force" mentality and ratting out a senior officer might get a public thanks but will certainly be a career-ender. There are people who will deny some of this but the best proof is that open illegal actions are still going on even when the base is directly informed about them.

We heard from Charles again today. He says he understands the US Department of Defense, Office of the Inspector General, is now looking into the situation at Osan.

Stay tuned.

Jon Newton

http://www.p2pnet.net/story/10890





BBC Embraces Internet File-Sharing Network; it May Get Swallowed Whole
Gareth Powell

The news that the British BBC plans to make hundreds of episodes of its popular British television programs available on a file-sharing network has three separate stories behind it.

The first is the BBC has done a deal between the commercial arm of the company, BBC Worldwide, and the Java-based BitTorrent client technological firm, Azureus. The file sharing means that users of Azureus` Zudeo software in the United States can legally download titles, such as ‘Little Britain.’

This coincides with the second pieve of news which is that the BBC, which is paid for by compulsory subscription, is not getting a rise next year. Indeed, it is getting a slightly less money if you allow for inflation.

Many critics - Richard Ingrams in The Independent leading the charge - have asked why ANY money should be given to the BBC.

Good point.

The truth is most voters are number into paying the charge but with other free entertainment systems’ arriving almost by the hour its importance diminishes. And there is no doubt that the BBC is substantially overstaffed in many areas. Listening to it I find it difficult to support its quite extraordinary demands for a budget increase next year.

So it has embraced the enemy, the Internet, and this new moves shows that it sees the writing on the wall. If entertainment is available elsewhere for free why should you pay the BBC - protected by some of the most severely enforced and Draconian laws in the world = serious money for that which you do not need?.

The third part of the story is that there now is simply no television maker who does not realize the product must, at some time, be released through the Internet. All that is argued now is when.

Simultaneous release is being dabbled with. It will soon grown into a major force. A tsunami of telly.

There is now no major television studio that does not grasp the power of YouTube. It is almost a given that a feature show is going to release teaser clips for YouTube and major advertisers are going to make what you make care to think of as YouTube original clips running about two to three minutes.

Which means the whole balance of power is shifting. Instead of resting with monolithic giants who think that only way to deal with revolution is to keep shouting ‘piracy’ in a strangulated scream it will rest more and more with the creators. And they will know whether they have got it right within a week of releasing it to YouTube.
http://tech.blorge.com/Structure:%20...allowed-whole/





BitTyrant - the New "Selfish" BitTorrent Client Server
soulxtc

It's like Azureus on steroids, claiming to increase download speeds by a startling 70% but, at what costs?

.First off I'd like to say that I'm a little hesitant to report this new suped-up version of Azureus as it has the potential to degrade download speeds for everybody.

As the creators of the BitTyrant client server note, "When all peers behave selfishly, (i.e. use BitTyrant) performance degrades for all peers, even those with high capacity."

Having said this, the news IS the news, and word of this new client is making its way across the net.

The basic premise behind BitTyrant is that it makes active decisions as to how many and with what peers to transfer data to, as compared to current BitTorrent client servers that exchange data according to a predetermined number of peers and settings.

The current data transfer protocol doesn't factor in the strength or capacity of individual peers. It's tit-for-tat irregardless of upload capacity.

Well, with BitTyrant, a modified version of Azureus 2.5, a "dynamic adjustment algorithm" is incorporated that "...maintains estimates of the rate at which peers will provide data...and the rate required to earn reciprocation., " and using this data selects "...highest capacity peers and send(s) them data at the minimum rate that will cause them to reciprocate."

The creators claim that this dynamic adjustment algorithm modification makes it much, much, faster than its regular Azureus 2.5 cousin.

They note:

During evaluation testing on more than 100 real BitTorrent swarms, BitTyrant provided an average 70% download performance increase when compared to the existing Azureus 2.5 implementation, with some downloads finishing more than three times as quickly.

It's a pretty bold claim but, after testing it out for myself, I have to agree.

I grabbed a torrent from TorrentSpy which was 350MB in size and had 1200 seeders and 1300 leechers.

Now normally I would average about a 70 kB/s DL speed or so for a total download time of around 30min.

With BitTyrant I averaged speeds of around 300kB/s, and it finished downloading in about 12 minutes.

This is all performed with a max 875 kB/s broadband internet connection.

Now, these statistics aren't scientific by any means but, for those of you who use public torrent tracker sites like TorrentSpy, you'll agree that 12 minutes for a 300MB file is pretty darn fast.

What's also interesting to point is that with Azureus you have the option of throttling the UL speeds PER/torrent tracker. By using BitTyrant you then get a maximized DL speed based on that THROTTLED UL speed.

As an example, I throttled a torrent tracker down to a 20 kB/s max UL speed. Even on a PUBLIC torrent tracker site, with 60 seeders and 113 leechers, it still managed to get an average 120 kB/s DL speed! Pretty darn amazing if I say so myself.

Is it fair to use BitTyrant? Will it harm the BitTorrent community? On the surface I'd like to say yes it does but, it does make a pretty good argument for itself.

The creators make the point that if a user is getting data from you at a rate of 30kB/s, then offers you less in return that it's unfair to you and wastes your precious upload capacity on somebody who is not mutually beneficial.

It constantly reassesses the "relationship" between yourself and each of the persons you're connected to in a torrent swarm.

Is it fair to you? Yes. Fair to others? Kind of. Fair to the BitTorent community? Probably not.

Some people have lousier connections than others, and so to start "hoarding" bandwidth and only sharing it with "worthy" people can have a seriously destructive effect on the file-SHARING and the BitTorrent community in particular.

From the client's FAQs:

Q: Won’t BitTyrant hurt overall BitTorrent performance if everyone uses it?

This is a subtle question and is treated most thoroughly in the paper. The short answer is: maybe. A big difference between BitTyrant and existing BitTorrent clients is that BitTyrant can detect when additional upload contribution is unlikely to improve performance. If a client server were truly selfish, it might opt to withhold excess capacity, reducing performance for other users that would have received it. However, our current BitTyrant implementation always contributes excess capacity, even when it might not improve performance. Our goal is to improve performance, not minimize upload contribution.

So who knows what the answer is for sure but, "maybe" is certainly not a good enough reason to start screening with whom and how much you share.

If we start being overly selective we'll begin to have our own P2P caste system, with AOL and dial-up as the outcasts and the guys with the T1 connections serving as the gatekeepers of precious data download streams.

For those that disagree, and think that it's only fair to get an equal amount of data in return for what you upload to others, BitTyrant is easy to set up and configure.

It's basically Azureus 2.5, and a guide on setup and installation can be found here.
http://www.zeropaid.com/news/8193/Bi...+client+server





A Primer

Make the Most Out of File Sharing

File sharing gives free access to music, films, software and more. We explain how how to do it
Nigel Whitfield

File sharing is one of the most popular applications on the internet. Every day, thousands of people download files from other internet users’ computers.

The file could be a fix for a PC problem, the latest episode of Desperate Housewives, a home video, or an obscure piece of music. The problem is that the vast majority of such downloads breach copyright agreements.

Some people rejoice in the free availability of just about anything you could imagine, while others look on aghast and wonder how actors, writers, singers and musicians will ever make a living when no-one pays for anything.

Technical experts worry about the dangers of viruses being spread, but marvel at the ingenuity of the way file sharing works while businesses back the efforts to get the technology itself banned. Whatever your opinion, one thing’s for sure – file sharing is now a major part of internet use, one that even organisations such as the BBC are investigating.

In this feature we’ll explain how file-sharing technologies work, set out the political risks associated with them and demonstrate legitimate uses for file sharing.

To understand what file sharing is, let’s start with a more traditional way of accessing information on the internet. Whether it’s via the web, or via an FTP server, when downloading a file it is stored in a particular place, such as Microsoft’s web server. To access it, you connect to that server and download a copy of the complete file using a web browser or a file-transfer program.

That works pretty well, but there are some problems with it. For example, what happens when there’s a really important new file available, like a security fix for Windows?

Everyone tries to download it at more or less the same time, and as a result you see “Server too busy” messages, or when the download does start, it’s incredibly slow. There’s another issue with downloading files in that way; the process is vulnerable to a single point of failure.

In the newspaper business, for example, printing presses are the single point; with files, it’s the web servers. If the hardware fails, no-one can access the file. File sharing – called peer-to-peer technology in the business – has provided solutions to both problems – just about anyone could make a file available, and by spreading it around more than one computer, you’re not relying on a single web server to provide the file to everyone.

What exactly does peer-to-peer mean? Ordinary file sharing – such as that used on a home network – isn’t very different from the usual way of making a file available on the web; everything’s stored in a single location.

But with a peer-to-peer system, there’s no central server. Instead, the files are stored on individual computers, and transferred between them using the internet. There are often multiple copies of each of the files, and no single point that a computer must connect to in order to fetch the file or information that’s been requested. Your computer is one ‘peer’ connected to the same network (the internet) as the other peers – hence the name.

Crucially, no single peer is required to obtain the entire file. You download a little bit of the file from each PC – the clever bit of peer-to-peer technology is how it works out which bit to retrieve from which PC – and remember, they’re spread all over the world.

This means that a peer-to-peer system can be very resilient. If one computer is operating slowly, a file can be requested from one of the others that has a copy of it, and if one or more of the PCs in the network crashes or is switched off, the others can carry on operating.

What’s out there?
Like it or not, just about everything in our lives is going digital – music, video, newspapers, photographs.

Anything you like can be scanned, saved and turned into a computer file. And once it’s in a file, you can – most of the time – do anything you like with it on a computer.

Even though there are attempts made to protect material – such as the encryption on DVDs – it doesn’t usually take very long for those to be circumvented. There are tools that will strip the copy protection from music you’ve paid for, enabling you to play it on any device, instead of just the approved ones. The music industry calls that piracy; other people think it’s just like making a tape of an LP to listen to in the car, instead of buying a second copy on cassette.

Few would argue, though, that it’s right to buy one copy of a film or a CD and then give away free duplicates to absolutely everyone you meet in the street, but that’s effectively what file sharing can allow people to do. This is why it’s such a legal hot topic, especially since you don’t need to invest in a big web server to distribute a popular file. Once one person has it, they can share it with others.

It’s the potential for free sharing of things that would otherwise cost money that has music and movie companies reaching for their lawyers.

How will the musicians be rewarded if their songs are shared freely, the music companies ask? But to counter that, music fans point to unsigned bands that have become popular precisely because their music was free.

Free downloads give people a chance to hear music that the overly commercial record companies wouldn’t have invested in – and when such bands are, eventually, signed to a record contract, many people will still buy the CDs.

It’s an argument that even the record industry must have some sympathy with, since free tracks are regularly made available on services such as iTunes. Before the advent of online music stores like iTunes, with their easy access to large back catalogues, many fans saw file sharing as a way to get copies of rare or unavailable tracks, in some cases ones that had never been made available on CD.

However, file sharing isn’t just about music. The original legal battles were fought mostly over music files, which are usually small enough to download in a few minutes. But as technology has improved, it’s become possible for much larger files, such as TV programmes or software, to be shared easily and effectively – thanks in large part to the advent of the distribution tool Bittorrent (on which more later).

If you know where to look, you can download TV shows as soon as they air in the US, or even obtain full versions of major software packages. The obvious concern for companies is that when this happens, people may not pay for a legitimate version; although, as with music, others suggest that people try before they buy.

If you rely on a piece of software for business, you’re likely to buy a real copy eventually, so you can get support. But if you can’t even try it first, will you buy it when you’re not sure if it’s suitable?

There’s another downside to file sharing besides the thorny legal issues, too, and that’s security. You’re not fetching information from a trusted source like the Microsoft website – you’re accessing it from the hard disk of a complete stranger.

The file that you think is an exciting piece of shareware could have a virus or adware embedded in it, although it is possible to scan downloaded files before opening them. Or the song you’ve been searching for could be a poor copy from a scratched album, with the last 20 seconds missing.

And you should also note that some file sharing sites provide links to pornography - and lots of it. You are unlikely to find it without specifically searching for adult terms but be warned; torrent sites are awash with hardcore videos and images.

Legitimate use

Although it might not be immediately apparent, there are plenty of legitimate ways for file sharing to be used.

For example, if you’re working with a group of people on a collaborative project, file sharing can be an easy way to ensure everyone has access to the documents they need, whether they’re spreadsheets, Word files or graphic designs.

It’s even possible to use file sharing to let friends on the other side of the world download your wedding video. It won’t necessarily be quick, but if you don’t have a DVD recorder on your computer, it’ll be cheaper than buying one. And it’s this potential for distributing information widely and cheaply that major organisations like the BBC are investigating.

As more people want to watch video online, the problems of distributing files are magnified. Even a large security update is probably under 20MB. A good-quality TV programme could be 10 times that size, and making it available online – as the BBC has said it would like to do with much of its material – would lead to massive bottlenecks and require huge servers to cope with the demand.

File sharing – and the increasing take-up of broadband – opens up the possibility of spreading the load across tens of thousands of computers, making it much easier for people to see the programmes they want. The same is true of other large files – using file sharing can be a quick and efficient way to distribute them, without the problems associated with putting a file on a single server.

To understand why organisations think file sharing can be useful – and why some others are so distrustful of it – it’s helpful to know a little more about how it works, and take a brief look at its history.

Past, present and future

There’s a very important component to peer-to-peer file sharing that people don’t always think about: when you fetch a file from Microsoft’s website, for example, you know how to do it – you type www.microsoft.com into the browser. But if files are spread across different computers, how on earth do you know where to look?

Peer-to-peer file-sharing systems get round that by grouping the computers that are sharing files into an ad-hoc network. To join the network, the computers have to be running special software, such as Kazaa, Limewire or Bittorrent.

When you want to access a file, the software finds out which of the currently connected computers have that file, and then your computer fetches the file directly from one of them or, in the case of Bittorrent, from several at the same time.

The first really popular file-sharing system was the original version of Napster, which allowed people to share their collections of files – usually music files – with other internet users.

When you set up Napster, your computer would send the Napster server a list of the files you had available to share. It would then build up a master index, allowing other people to search for files easily, and then connect to your computer to download things that they wanted.

But if you had a really popular file, several people would be trying to fetch it at the same time, and transfers would be slow – just like the old problem with a web server. More worryingly, the Napster index was, essentially, a list of music that was mostly copyrighted and being shared illegally.

It’s no surprise that eventually the music companies succeeded in shutting it down.
Napster was succeeded by Kazaa, and a network called Gnutella – Limewire is just the name of one of the programs compatible with the Gnutella network.

To avoid Napster’s problem, there’s no central index. Instead, when you look for a file, the request is passed from one computer to another, a bit like asking a friend who says, “No, I can’t help you, but I’ll ask my neighbour.”

Your request is passed on, and any positive answers are passed back, supplying the internet address of the computer from which the file can be downloaded.

It’s slower than Napster, and there’s still the same problem of popular files sometimes being slow to download, but there’s no central server to rely on, and no central authority for someone to contact if they want to complain about a file being shared. That’s made it much harder for organisations like the RIAA (Recording Industry Association of America) to shut such systems down.

The big name in file sharing right now, however, is Bittorrent. It’s popular because it’s uniquely suited to downloading large files – such as video clips, or software installation packages – and does it quickly. With Bittorrent, when you start downloading a file, you don’t do it from just one other computer.

Instead, files are divided into segments, and different segments are fetched from different computers. That’s especially useful with a typical broadband connection where you can receive information faster than you can send it.

Once a piece of the file arrives on the computer that’s requested it, that piece will be shared with anyone else who needs it, so everyone is helping to spread the load around. That’s one of the reasons why it’s so interesting to companies like the BBC – the Corporation’s Interactive Media Player is designed to make recent and archive material available over the internet.

By using Bittorrent technology, that can be done without the need for servers which could cope with tens of thousands of people all wanting to download the latest EastEnders or Little Britain. Instead, everyone who takes part in a download also contributes.

There are plenty of files on Bittorrent that can be shared without breaking the law. For example, when we visited www.bittorrent.com, pop group The Cardigans were offering the video of their latest single, and there were hundreds of free games available for download.

It’s best to start out by downloading the original Bittorrent. Don’t get a client from elsewhere – some clients try to charge money for downloads, or infect your PC with adware or viruses.

Once downloaded, follow the instructions to make a default installation of the software.

Once complete, go back to Bittorrent.com and find the file you want. Click on the green download link, and choose the ‘Open with’ option, selecting Bittorent from the drop-down menu. If you can’t find the downloaded file, select it in the Bittorrent window, click on the blue Info button, and select the Open Folder button on the right-hand side.

Reasons to be careful

Whether it’s the BBC sharing licence-fee funded material, a software company sending out test files, or just friends sharing a home movie, file sharing can be a really useful tool.

But it’s as well to remember that there are problems too. While the BBC will be using customised software and you can be fairly sure of what you’re getting, in many cases there’s nothing to stop someone sharing a file that isn’t what it says. It could be a virus instead of a music file, or a message from Madonna telling you that you shouldn’t be trying to rip off her songs.

As a rule of thumb, if the content you find on a file-sharing site is available to buy in the shops, or is currently on TV or at the cinema, it’s more than likely to be illegal to download it.

Remember that it is an offence and could result in prosecution. Although there haven’t yet been many cases in the UK, record companies will attempt to find out from internet service providers the identity of people sharing copyrighted files; and by its nature, file sharing can’t be completely anonymous.

But there are other things to watch out for, besides viruses. Earlier versions of the Kazaa software, for example, are notorious for containing adware and spyware, while some Bittorrent software may crash the computer. Before downloading any file-sharing software, check the web for advice and information, and keep adware detection software up to date.

That’s not all, either. You may find plenty of things to download, but don’t forget that many broadband accounts either have a download limit, or a fair-usage policy. Service providers can detect which users are using file-sharing software, and those are often the first ones singled out for attention.

Heavy users of file-sharing systems could find their connections blocked at peak hours to prevent them from slowing the service for others, or even disconnected completely.

While you can sometimes change the settings on a PC and router to avoid these measures, it’s not foolproof.

Most of the material linked to on file-sharing sites is illegal, and we do not recommend you break the law. But file-sharing technology has a bright future and we hope the entertainment industry fully harnesses it for legitimate use.

File sharing nasties

If you’re using file-sharing programs, it’s important to be aware of the risks.

Firstly, if sharing files from your computer, make sure that you have a folder just for files that you want other people to see, and copy them there. Don’t simply share your wholehard disk.

Make sure the anti-virus software is up to date, with on-access virus scanning enabled, so any downloaded file is checked before it is opened. Never assume that because a file looks like a music or video file that that’s what it is.

Read the information for the file-sharing program you’re using and make sure the computer’s firewall is as restrictive as possible, while still allowing the program to work.

Finally, check the options in the software,and decide how much of the connection you want to allocate to file sharing – too much, and you’ll find everyday tasks like web browsing will slow down.

The MySpace effect

Even more than the web, file sharing is a great leveller; it allows anyone to distribute their music or video clips easily and cheaply. Social networking sites like MySpace and BeBo allow unsigned bands to post their music online, where it can be discovered by fans and shared around the world. Aspiring film makers can do the same, showcasing their clips around the world.

With millions of people using sites such as MySpace, record companies and musicians see it as a key way to get sample tracks out in the public – so much so that some even employ publicity agents to give the impression of a struggling band and hype up their online presence.

Meanwhile, established performers like Billy Bragg point out that while bands may distribute their music easily online, the terms for sites like MySpace – before he persuaded them to amend them – effectively meant that the websites owned the music that unsigned bands uploaded.

File-sharing links:
Bittorrent
Bittorrent’s site provides software, films, games and more that you can access – legally

BPI
The British Phonographic Institute is the industry organisation for the UK’s record business

Brian’s Bittorrent FAQ
A useful site for information and troubleshooting Bittorrent

Gnutella
http://www.gnutella.org Home of the Gnutella network, with links to a range of software downloads

Guardian Digital Music
A guide from the Guardian to downloading music legally

Kazaa
Downloads and information from the popular Kazaa file-sharing software

Limewire
The most popular software for accessing the Gnutella file-sharing network

MPAA
The Motion Picture Association of America has its own view on file sharing

Pro-Music
http://www.pro-music.org Set up by the BPI, this site explains its version of the truth about file sharing.

http://www.itweek.co.uk/computeracti...e-file-sharing





For Sale

The Future Of The Music Market

Published By: Redshift Research
Date: September 2003
Report Code: #RR-5501
Price: $495 (USD)

The Future Of The Music Market looks at what is driving the slump in music sales. It draws on data from more than 60 countries around the world, examining a selection of markets with very different experiences of economic growth, file sharing, CD pricing and music quality. Based on this analysis, the report looks at how various factors have affected music sales in the past, and how the factors are likely to affect US music sales in the future. It examines what can be done to reverse the decline, and asks what impact the changing CD market will have on the online music sector.

The report addresses the following strategic questions:

What impact has peer-to-peer (P2P) file sharing had on US CD purchases over the last three years?
What impact has economic growth, CD pricing, music quality and spending on video games had on CD sales?
Will P2P file sharing continue to grow over the next two years?
How will US music sales move over the next two years?
How will record label revenues from CDs be affected?
What can be done to maximize US music sales?
Where do online music services fit into the picture?

The Future Of The Music Market uses the following research results to address the above questions:

Analysis of music sales trends in over 60 countries around the world.
A breakdown of P2P use in over 60 countries based on data gleaned from networks Napster, Kazaa and Audiogalaxy.
Data on economic growth and music prices on a country-by-country basis.
The average quality rating given by independent music critics to over 300 albums released since 1998.
Statistical techniques to isolate and measure the effect of each variable on music sales.

Table of exhibits:

US Music Sales, 1998-2002.
The Number Of Users Logged On To The Leading P2P System From 1999 Onwards.
The Number Of Files Available Through The Leading P2P System From 1999 Onwards.
The Estimated Impact Of All Factors On US Music Sales Over The Last Three Years.
How Music Sales Compare In Strong-Growth And Weak-Growth Economies.
Music Critic Quality Ratings For Leading US Album Releases.
How Music Sales Compare In High-P2P And Low-P2P Economies.
Music Sales In Countries With Rising CD Prices Versus Sales In Countries With Falling CD Prices.
The Projected Change In US CD Sales, 2003 and 2004.
The Projected Growth Of The Fasttrack P2P Network.
Strategies And Pitfalls Of Targeting Individual P2P Users.
How UK Radio Maintains Musical Diversity.
How Online Music Services Contribute To The US Music Market.

http://www.it-director.com/research.php?code=RR-5501





Opera: The True Browser Star

My heart belongs to Opera for its compactness, speed and security
Dennis Fowler

So Internet Explorer version 7.0 is finally with us. And so is Firefox version 2.0. Whoohoo. Such excitement.

Forgive my lack of enthusiasm, but my heart belongs to Opera. Back in the '90s I switched from IE to Opera for its compactness, speed, and security. While I've occasionally tried others, I've always come back to it.

Opera version 9 was released last June. It is now up to 9.02, and 9.1 may be available by the time you read this.

A browser prodigy, when Opera debuted in 1995 it could open multiple documents in a single browser window, a precursor of what are now tabs, which it added in 2000. No prima donna, its demands are modest. It sang like Callas on my outdated system in the mid '90s, and today, requiring nothing greater than Windows 95, 32MB of RAM and a Pentium 100 processor, it continues to play the Web's full repertoire, supporting all the bells and whistles set by W3C without dropping a note in terms of speed and security.

Featur-riffic

When it comes to features, Opera has always been a trailblazer, leaving Firefox and IE to play catch-up. For example, today's Firefox 2 saves your session in the event of a crash, so you can pick up where you left off when you recover. And you can save a group of tabs as a bookmark, new in both Firefox 2 and IE7.

Guess what? Opera pioneered these features back in version 7, released in 2003. Crash or prematurely close Opera and it's no loss, just relaunch for an instant encore. You can also save your browsing sessions under the File menu on the menu bar. And in version 8, Opera added a trash can icon to the page bar where closed tabs and blocked pop-ups are saved, just in case you need them.

Opera continues to lead the way with every major upgrade. Version 9 introduced thumbnail previews, which make it easy to find your way among multiple tabs -- just hover your mouse over any tab to see a thumbnail image of the Web page. Also new is the content blocker. See something you don't like on a Web page -- an ad or an offensive image, for example? Just right-click and choose "Block content" to make it disappear. Opera remembers your choice, so the next time you visit that page the content remains blocked.

Opera 9 also incorporates Widgets, small Internet applets that run directly on your desktop and can be saved on your system for quick future access. There are games, newsfeeds, reference tools, image tools, even a text editor. Mac OS X, Windows Vista and Yahoo have similar offerings, but the beauty of Opera's Widgets is that you can run them directly from the browser without having to have a Mac or get Vista or download Yahoo's Widget Engine. As of this writing there are more than 800 Widgets to choose from on Opera's Web site, written by programmers from all over the world.

Also native to Opera 9 are BitTorrent file transfers, available from Firefox only by downloading and installing an extension. BitTorrent is a file-sharing system in which users access files from each other rather than downloading from a central server. This load-sharing vastly speeds file transfers. Find the download you want by searching BitTorrent (available on Opera's configurable list of search engines) and initiate the download with a click. But if you use it, remember, BitTorrent requires sharing files you download with others. The sharing is terminated when you close Opera. BitTorrent is enabled by default, but it can easily be configured to limit bandwidth use, or disabled completely.

Tweak to your heart's content

This brings up another of Opera's strong points: It has always been highly configurable. If there's anything you don't like, chances are you can change it, often just by dragging and dropping. There are six toolbars to choose from, configure and place where you want. You can add colors and skins to personalize your window -- or strip it back to the bare bones.

The default list of a dozen or so search engines is editable. Opera can emulate a text browser, show images and links only, show only pictures that have links. You can block image downloads, which speeds things up on a dial-up connection. You can reconfigure your keyboard or create macros to open applications from Opera. Java can be turned on or off, cookies blocked or allowed, and so on, and so on.

Admittedly, finding and applying Opera's configuration tools used to be like trying to conduct Wagner's Ring Cycle without a score. Then, in version 8, the company consolidated the configuration options into four easy-to-use submenus under Tools on the menu bar, where they can easily be found for quick tweaking.

To really get under the hood, in version 9 there's a new Preferences Editor (enter "opera:config" in the address bar). With it you can configure anything, from Author Display Mode to Colors to Fonts to Security to Widgets. Each setting gets its own line with a checkbox or pick list, and each can be easily reset to the default setting which makes it fairly safe to tinker. Nevertheless, this is a powerful tool, so novices should stick to the menus if they aren't sure what they're doing.

Safe and secure

By default, Opera's security is conservative but not restrictive. Most cookies are allowed, most pop-ups rejected, and so on, but any of these settings can be changed under the "Quick preferences" menu. Of course, since Opera doesn't support Active X controls or Visual Basic, it avoids those notorious IE vulnerabilities.

There's also the "security by obscurity" factor. With a small share of the browser market, Opera doesn't present much of a target for black hats -- and that's the way I like it. (Which means, I suppose, that by writing this I'm shooting myself in the foot, shining a spotlight on Opera. But I hate to see you missing out on a great thing.)

Opera's ultimate security feature is what I call the "nuclear option." With two mouse-clicks you can instantly close all tabs, toss your cookies, erase the history of pages linked to, links typed in and the list of downloads, clear bookmark visited times (but not the bookmarks), delete all form-filling information, and erase all stored passwords. And of course you can configure this list to suit you.

Version 9.1, due out later this year, adds anti-fraud and anti-phishing features. I have yet to see a beta of the release, but Opera's record is good on making sure things are right before releasing them to the public.

A browser for everyone

What's that? You use an operating system other than Windows? From Mac OS X to Linux to Solaris to FreeBSD and more, Opera's Opera's got you covered, and most versions are available in multiple languages besides English.

In short, Opera has an unmatched repertoire of features, including what is probably the fastest browser rendering engine available. I've only scratched the surface here, not covering mouse gesture navigation, for example, or voice activation. Some people chide Opera for having a plethora of features as if it were a dirty word, claiming all the choices confuse the user with unnecessary complexity. I suspect it's because these features are something their browser doesn't have...yet. An unused feature isn't a complexity unless it gets in the user's way, and that simply doesn't happen with Opera.

Despite all the features it packs in, the Opera 9.02 for Windows U.S. installation file is only 4.6 MB, about 18% smaller than Firefox's 5.6 MB -- and the Opera download includes an e-mail client (POP3, SMTP and IMAP), IRC chat, and Usenet and RSS newsfeed readers.

As for IE7, I'm told to expect a Wagnerian 14.7MB download. Thanks, but no thanks.

Related Links

- Download Opera 9 (Opera)

http://www.computerworld.com.au/inde...4194304;fpid;1





Press Release

Cloakware Now Deployed on More Than 500 Million Devices Worldwide

Best-of-Breed Security Solutions Protecting the Digital Assets of Major Corporations Throughout the World

Cloakware Inc., the world’s leading provider of products and services to protect digital assets, today announced that the world’s leading manufacturers of PCs, portable devices, mobile phones and set-top boxes have deployed the company’s self-defending security solutions on more than 500 million devices.

Cloakware Robustness Solutions secure drivers, IPTV systems, games, as well as Digital Rights Management (DRM) and other content and applications. For mobile phones, PCs and set-top boxes, manufacturers include Cloakware protection in software that is pre-installed on the device, downloaded or shipped on media for installation or use with the device.

Despite the pervasiveness of Cloakware’s industry leading security solutions, many of the Fortune 1000 companies and leading consumer electronics manufacturers that deploy the company’s technology prefer not to be named.

“For our customers, the ability to provide a robust, reliable level of security against unauthorized file sharing, hacker attacks, piracy, reverse engineering and other security risks represents a distinct competitive advantage,” said Jeff Waxman, CEO of Cloakware. “Our ability to tailor solutions to their specific needs adds flexibility that supports and enhances innovation and enables customers to develop new product lines with the confidence that they can meet or exceed DRM and other security requirements.”

Cloakware is the only company offering turnkey solutions for all major content protection standards and protocols, supported on a broad range of device platforms, to enable OEMs to meet tight release deadlines with a robust product. Cloakware also provides secure interoperability between DRM systems to support transfer of licensed digital content among different devices.

In order to carry licensed digital content, OEMs need to ensure conformance with industry Robustness and Compliance Rules – a set of security measures that must be deployed into a device to ensure that all licensed content is protected from piracy. Cloakware Robustness Solutions provide the hardened SDK and key injection tools required to quickly implement content protection that meets license requirements. As a result, device manufacturers and independent software vendors (ISVs) can work with best-of-breed content protection implementations that will withstand hacker threats and continue to generate revenue.

Broad deployment is possible because Cloakware Robustness Solutions support all standard DRM systems used by the majority of consumer devices, cell phones and systems, including PCs and set-top boxes, that play copyrighted content. These standards include:

· Windows Media DRM 10 for Portable Devices (WMDRM-PD): WMDRM-PD enables secure delivery of protected content for playback on portable devices such as mobile phones and personal media players. Cloakware supports WMDRM-PD on a number of CE device platforms including Linux and Symbian operating systems on ARM and MIPS in addition to pSOS on the TriMedia chipset.
· Microsoft Windows Media DRM 10 for Network Devices (WMDRM-ND); WMDRM-NDT/NDR enables secure delivery of protected content for playback on a home entertainment network. Cloakware supports WMDRM-NDT/NDR on a number of CE device platforms including Linux on x86 chipset and pSOS on the TriMedia chipset.
· Protected Video Path - Output Protection Management (PVP-OPM)and Certified Output Protection Protocol (COPP): PVP-OPM and COPP are Microsoft protocols that authenticate graphics drivers and ensure that copy protection is reliably signaled to the graphics adapter. Cloakware secures PVP-OPM for Vista and COPP for the Windows XP SP2 operating systems.
· Digital Transmission Content Protection over Internet Protocol (DTCP-IP): DTCP-IP is a specification for the protection of copyrighted content transferred over a digital home network. Under this specification, digital content may be shared securely between devices in a user’s home but not shared with third-parties outside the home network. Cloakware supports DTCP-IP on Windows XP and Vista on x86 platforms, and will support numerous CE device platforms including Linux, WinCE and Symbian operating systems on ARM, MIPS and x86 chipsets by year-end 2006.
· Open Mobile Alliance Digital Rights Management(OMA DRM): OMA DRM specifies the end-to-end protocol for distributing protected content to devices. The OMA DRM security protocols are built on a PKI infrastructure and require that both the Rights Issuer and the Devices have access to private keys, certificates and trust anchors. Cloakware supports OMA DRM on a number of CE device platforms including Linux, WinCE and Symbian operating systems on ARM, MIPS and x86 chipsets. In addition, Cloakware provides a robust cryptographic OMA solution on Windows x86 platforms.

“Cloakware has both the experience and broad expertise to analyze the robustness requirements for each device and respond with a flexible product offering that targets those needs precisely and completely,” Waxman said. “Our customers’ confidence in our ability to secure DRM—and ensure both content delivery and their revenue streams—is reflected in the fact that we now support 500 million devices worldwide.”

About Cloakware

Cloakware is the world's leading provider of products and services to protect digital assets. The company’s software protection and anti-tamper solutions protect software, media, passwords and data from piracy and unauthorized access and use. Cloakware solutions are on more than 500 million devices, protecting the assets of some of the world's largest, most recognizable and technologically advanced companies. Cloakware’s patented code transformation technology takes software protection to the next-level. Unlike after-fact protection techniques of yester-year, Cloakware’s integrated software protection makes security inseparable from software. Cloakware’s reverse-engineering protection combined with break-through “white-box cryptography” delivers unmatched security. Partnering with Microsoft and in collaboration with Intel, Cloakware helps consumer electronics and Fortune 1000 companies and Federal agencies all benefit from reduced development costs, improved time to market and mitigated risks. The company is headquartered in Vienna, Va., and has offices in Ottawa, Canada and the UK, and regional sales offices throughout the US.

For further information: Cloakware Inc. Heather MacIntosh, +1-866-465-4517 x227 heather.macintosh@cloakware.com or Schwartz Communications, Inc. Avi Dines/Katherine Hunter, 781-684-0770 cloakware@schwartz-pr.com
http://www.cloakware.com/news_events...pr.php?PRID=51





School Shock at Vandal Web Video
BBC

A head teacher has spoken of his shock at seeing a video clip posted on a public website of a laughing pupil hurling a rock at a classroom window.

The shaky 15-second footage shows a clearly identifiable boy grinning as he strides up to throw the missile.

Head teacher Gordon Cunningham said it had been the Year 9 pupil's last day at Easthampstead Park School in Berkshire before he and his family emigrated.

"It's horrendous," he said. The police would be informed.

The clip, featured on a popular video-sharing website, also shows a boy and a girl dressed in school uniform who appear to have been encouraging the attack, while other voices can also be heard.

'Teacher deserved it'

Shouts can be heard of: "Everybody ready? Right come on, here we go," as the boy takes a run up towards the window.

The rock or lump of concrete that he throws smashes the glass - although the window does not break completely - and the clip ends with the group running away and laughing.

On the website, the video is accompanied by an explanation from the perpetrator saying his teacher deserved it for the way he had been treated all year.

Alerted to it by BBC News, Mr Cunningham said: "You can see from the video this is an act of wanton violence.

"It's not just the audacity of it, but to video it and then put it on a public website...."

He said it appeared to have been a parting shot at the end of the boy's last day at school, before his family moved to Canada.

'Fifteen minutes of fame'

The school said it would be in contact with the family. The other identifiable students had already been disciplined.

Chris Keates, general secretary of the NASUWT teachers' union, said: "Such behaviour is completely unacceptable and could have resulted in injury to staff and pupils as well as to the property.

"Unfortunately, any yob or vandal can now have their 15 minutes of fame, aided and abetted by readily accessible technology and irresponsible internet sites which enable such behaviour to be glorified."

She said the union supported a zero tolerance approach in schools to pupils who used technology to abuse and undermine teachers, and called for more rigorous legislative control of internet sites which gave them licence.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/pr/fr/-/1/h...on/6226223.stm





Computer Addiction Worries Faculty

MUMBAI: When news of final-year BTech student Srikant Mallepallu's death began to reach IIT students, mainly through chatrooms and web portals frequented by them, many felt a sickening feeling of deja vu.

"When I saw the link to a news story 'IIT student commits suicide' in my inbox, I couldn't believe it was happening again," said a batchmate of Srikant. Despite two suicides in one year, the IIT "system" remains unchanged, feel students.

Yet again the issue of excessive computer use by students is being discussed by faculty members.

After the suicide of Vijay Nukala, a fourth-year physics student last year, whose attendance had slipped with excessive computer use, authorities at IIT acknowledged that all-night (and sometimes day) gaming, music downloading and file-sharing, chatting and blogging were disrupting life on the campus, affecting attendance, grades and even non-academic life.
http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/N...ow/1014974.cms





WiFi on the Highway: Avis to Offer 3G-to-802.11 Bridge
Eric Bangeman

Business travellers will soon have another option for connectivity when they are on the road. Start-up Autonet Mobile and car rental giant Avis are partnering to offer renters a device that will provide laptop users with WiFi access on the road. You can take "on the road" literally in this case, as the device is designed to create a WiFi hot spot accessible from within 100 feet of the car.

Autonet Mobile's In-Car Router is about the size of a laptop and draws power from the car's cigarette lighter outlet. The hardware itself is a bridge for a cellular provider's 3G network (Avis will likely have contracts with 3G providers around the country), acting as a WiFi gateway for those connected to it. Other 3G-WiFi bridges are already available from the likes of Linksys and Kyocera, but this appears to be the first targeted exclusively at vehicles.

Autonet Mobile CEO Sterling Pratz told the International Herald Tribune that the In-Car Router will function in around 95 percent of the country, including all major US cities. Pratz claims to have minimized the problem of dropped signals with a technology similar to that used by the space shuttles to maintain an Internet connection.

In the absence of a WiFi network, laptop users can already get on the Internet at faster-than-dial-up speeds via 3G PCMCIA cards from the major cellular provides. Should you need to share that connection, it's easy enough to do so without using additional hardware via functionality built into your favorite modern OS.

Is it time to add surfing the Internet to the already-alarming list of distractions facing drivers? Actually, we're already way past that point. I've used my cell phone and laptop to check e-mail and get on IRC or even engage in some light browsing while on the road (only when someone else was behind the wheel). Autonet Mobile's solution—assuming it has indeed overcome the technical obstacles inherent in maintaining connectivity while travelling at high speeds—seems targeted at a niche market. Once Mobile WiMAX (802.16e) and 802.20 networks—which will provide broadband-class connections on the go—come online in the next few years, the shelf life for devices like the In-Car Router may prove to be relatively brief.

If the In-Car Router comes with a vanilla AC adapter for use outside of the car, it could at the very least provide an additional marketing hook for Avis as it battles for rental customers. Will it offset the increase in insurance premiums due to accidents caused by drivers distracted by YouTube?
http://arstechnica.com/news.ars/post/20070102-8531.html





Local news

Connecticut Motorist Nails Roo

Wallaby becomes casualty far, far from home
AP

Wallabies, the smaller cousin of a kangaroo, are native to Australia, but try telling Ellen Jagielo that.

The Marlborough woman was driving home Tuesday night when she struck and killed one along Route 66.

"I didn't know what it was," Jagielo said Wednesday. "I feel terrible. He's beautiful."

No one knows where the animal came from or why it was hopping out of a wooded area in Marlborough near Hebron.

"This is the weirdest car vs. animal call I've ever responded to," said Marlborough Resident Trooper Mark Packer.

Department of Environmental Protection officials suspect someone had been keeping it illegally and it escaped. But Jan Veilleux, of Plymouth wonders if it was her "Joey" _ a pet wallaby that escaped from her home in July 2004. She said a wayward wallaby could have easily hopped to Marlborough.

"They move fast," she said.

Veilleux, who has other wallabies and a red kangaroo, said she has an exotic animal license.

Jagielo said when she phoned her auto insurance company to report her car bumper had been damaged by a kangaroo, she was met with an awkward silence.

"Ma'am, this call is being taped," the woman from Allstate told her.

There also was disbelief from her co-workers at Manchester Memorial Hospital when she called to say she'd be late for work Wednesday morning and told them why. When she did arrive, there was a "kangaroo crossing" sign on her door, a stuffed kangaroo on her desk, and a picture of a wallaby on her screen saver.

"Nobody believes me," Jagielo said. "They wait for the punch line."
http://news.newstimes.com/news/updates.php?id=1027489


















Until next week,

- js.



















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