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Ask the UK Pirate Party's Andrew Robinson About the IssuesVJ42 writes "With the 2010 UK general election fast approaching, The Pirate party of the United Kingdom will be fielding elections for the first time. The Digital economy bill and ACTA are hot topics for UK geeks, and the Pirate party is looking to pick up some votes. Their leader Andrew Robinson has agreed to answer your questions. Normal Slashdot interview rules apply."
Read more of this story at Slashdot.
Source: Slashdot | 8 Mar 2010 | 3:06 am Ubisoft's DRM locks out gamers - Computerandvideogames.com
Source: Sci/Tech - Google News | 8 Mar 2010 | 2:38 am Happy International Women's DayHappy International Women's Day to everyone, but especially to all the strong, brave women who fought and fight for a world where women and men have equal opportunities, equal representation in all fields...Source: RSS feed - channel BNBlogTech | 8 Mar 2010 | 2:27 am Happy International Women's Day Happy International Women's Day to everyone, but especially to all the strong, brave women who fought and fight for a world where women and men have equal opportunities, equal representation in all fields of endeavor, and equal rights in society, custom and law. I am privileged to have been raised by my strong, feminist mother and father to be a feminist man. For my Mom, my grandmothers, my wife, and my daughter, happy IWD! International Women's Day (Thanks, @brigittekhair!)
Previously:
You won't be able to make much out in the leaked video, but hey—there's audio! Here's the official synopsis, if you missed it last time:
How about someone at Disney, still high off their "Up" win at the Oscars yesterday, press the button and make the official trailer appear on YouTube? Anyone? [Giant Freakin Robot via Digg]
 Source: Gizmodo | 8 Mar 2010 | 2:17 am New Iron Man 2 trailer is here (and it’s awesome)
We’ve given you a first look at Iron Man 2 way back in June last year, and two months ago, we reported it will be Marvel’s first IMAX movie when it hits screens on May 7, 2010. It’s 2.32 minutes long and very, very cool. This is the official synopsis of the movie:
Here’s the new trailer (Trailer on Apple.com in HD) And to make things complete, here is the first official trailer (released in December last year):
Source: CrunchGear | 8 Mar 2010 | 2:08 am Don't Get Too Excited About the Chip Recovery [Voices]By Eric Savitz, Blogger and Columnist, Barron’s I’ve been remiss, dear readers, in not pointing out a rather interesting piece of skepticism today by chip industry research firm iSuppli arguing that you not get too excited about the roaring recovery in chip sales. Read the rest of this post on the original site Source: All Things Digital | 8 Mar 2010 | 2:03 am ABC returns to Cablevision, but talks go onCablevision and ABC were negotiating a deal Monday that tentatively ended a dispute over fees and restored millions of viewers' access to the Academy Awards telecast in New York, New JerseySource: RSS feed - channel BNewsTech | 8 Mar 2010 | 1:45 am ABC returns to Cablevision, but talks go on
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 New York Times (blog) | Apple's IPad Hype Machine Rolls Into Action at the Oscars PC World The Cupertino, California, company kept the ad simple, showing the device set on someone's lap and being used for a range of activities, from viewing pictures to surfing the Internet and reading e-books. The commercial has already been posted on ... No iPhone Tethering For the Apple iPad Says Jobs Apple posts surprise ad for iPad during the Oscars iPad ad launches during the Oscars--predictable? |
You can hit up the Apple link for the trailer in its full HD glory, but be sure to come back here so we can talk about how amazing Ms. Johansson and all those slick battle suits look. [Apple via MTV]
 TopNews United States | After errors, global warming gets a cold shoulder Boston Globe A series of highly publicized errors in a landmark report about manmade global warming - and lingering controversy over hacked e-mails between climate scientists - is eroding public confidence in the research and could further stall ... Global warming show elicits varied views Climate Change as an Act of Faith? New Study: Humans Are Causing Climate Change |
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John Harrison looks like an unmade bed, talks more than Larry King and says he sees sound as color. He makes speakers out of hemp, and to spend any time with him leaves you thinking he’s smoking some of the product.
It would be easy to dismiss him as a lovable, eccentric old hippie. But the man might just be a mad genius. He has rethought the most fundamental part of a speaker -– the cone –- and traded paper for hemp. The result is the Tone Tubby, and it makes guitar amps sing like Aretha Franklin. You’ll find them in rigs used by everyone from Billy Gibbons and Carlos Santana to Keith Richards and the guys in Metallica.
“That is one fine, fine piece of product,” Gibbons told the guitar gurus at ToneQuest Report. “They look great, but most importantly, they sound great. They are really stunning, and they’ll stand tall with anything.”
High praise indeed. But you don’t have to be an ax-slinger to appreciate what a little hemp can do for your sound. Harrison’s outfit has higher ambitions.
Photo: Jim Merithew/Wired.com
Of course, pirates and people who break Ubisoft's DRM can still play. Way to correctly align the incentives, Ubisoft.
Ubisoft DRM Authentication Servers Go Down (Thanks to everyone who suggested this!)Well, as it turns out, when the Ubioft severs go down, no one can play their games and Ubisoft customers get very upset. At around 8am GMT, people began to complain in the Assassin's Creed 2 forum that they couldn't access the Ubisoft servers and were unable to play their games. Fast forward ten hours and it seems that the problem still hasn't been resolved, despite the assurances from a Ubisoft representative that the servers were 'constantly monitored'
"I don't have any clear information on what the issue is ... but clearly the extended downtime and lengthy login issues are unacceptable, particularly as I've been told these servers are constantly monitored," said 'Ubi.Vigil', adding, "I'll do what I can to get more information on what the issue is here first thing tomorrow and push for a resolution and assurance this won't happen in the future."
Here's video of some subway buskers in NYC's Times Square station getting the entire station to help them sing the finale to "Hey Jude." That's some heartwarming stuff right there. Or, as Patrick put it on Making Light: "The terrifying, tough-as-nails world of the NYC subway system at night. How do people manage to live in this urban hellhole?"
Hey Jude Times Square Subway Station (via Making Light)
(Thanks, Marilyn!)
Read more of this story at Slashdot.
That’s the most excellent caption for this photo, posted Sunday night by blogger Wayne Sutton.
Squint and you can see the Apple (AAPL) cofounder and CEO in the middle of shot, standing next to the woman in the white dress (click to enlarge).
Thanks to CNET’s intrepid Caroline McCarthy for spotting the shot. I asked Sutton to expand on the caption and he obliged, via email:
“I was a part of the Kodak red carpet guest blogger access. Steve looked surprised when I was yelling his name. I was the only one yelling from my section of the bleachers. Others were like, “Who’s he and why am I yelling,” because he’s not in a movie.”
Jobs, of course, does have a good reason to be at the Oscars: Pixar, the company he sold to Disney (DIS) in 2006, is in the running for multiple Academy Awards. Note that he does not seem to be carrying a sack of iPads to hand out.
And here’s a more intimate shot of Jobs at the event, via Jon M. Chu (who is the director of something called “The Legion of Extraordinary Dancers,” which has an Oscar performance planned for the evening).
On the off chance that the Jobs sightings and photos are part of a baroque prank/publicity stunt, I’ve asked Apple PR to confirm his attendance at tonight’s awards.
Oh. And here’s first iPad commercial, which ran during the broadcast (via Engadget):
Brazil is sort of a strange country to throw into the “emerging market” category. It’s not a particularly young country like India or Israel, nor is it a country like China or Russia that embraced capitalism fairly recently. Brazil is as old as the US and has had a decently built out infrastructure of things like roads and phone lines for some time.
Yes, it’s a growing country with a young and stabilizing democracy that has a long way to go in terms of technology, modernization and bridging a quality of life between very wealthy and very poor. In that sense, it shares enough in common with emerging markets that Wall Street, at least, tosses it in the “BRIC” bucket. Indeed, Wall Street has had a way bigger crush on Brazil to date than Silicon Valley.
That seems to have had two effects on the startup scene in Sao Paulo. The first is that there’s a good deal of innovation in the finance space. Banks in Brazil had to become advanced, many people told me, because of the runaway inflation that plagued the country for so many years. As opposed to other huge markets like Mexico, China or India that lagged in the adoption of checking accounts and other basic services, in Brazil you had to have your money in the bank, because the value of cash changed so rapidly. So it’s no surprise more of those there’s-a-better-way spin-offs have come in finance than, say, Web 2.0 or mobile. (There’s a ton in agriculture and other sectors outside the cities too, but more on that in a future post.)
My favorite finance company that I met during my February trip to Brazil is called Crivo, and it left me wondering if that great wave of finance innovation might come from our Southern neighbors, not us.
Crivo has developed a way to do lightning-fast, three-second credit checks. Its servers pull information from a variety of sources, including all the places you’d expect but but also sources like utility records to verify an applicant’s address or ensuring that their phone number doesn’t just go to a payphone. “Even a single piece of information can be useful in detecting fraud,” says Daniel Turnini, one of Crivo’s founders. (Pictured above, on the right, with his co-founders.)
There’s nothing like a FICO score in Brazil so, in the past, credit decisions were made based on negative data and positive data. In other words you are “good” or “bad” in the bank’s eyes. There’s little record for positive data in Brazil, because the wealthiest people don’t want how much they paid for a house or a car in public records. It’s a security issue, Turnini says. That only leaves negative data.
So if there’s no information about you, it’s assumed you’re a good credit risk. But miss one payment and you have a “dirty name,” Turini says. It’s a flawed system. Many good credit risks (indeed I’d bet most people) have missed a payment before, and it’s a huge assumption to make that someone with no credit history would be a good borrower. In recent years there have been banks, insurance companies, and similar institutions vying to cash in on Brazil’s emerging middle class and increasingly wealthy upper classes, but had no real way of knowing how to extend credit.
Sound like great timing? It would have been if Crivo wasn’t started in 1998. Back then, few banks in the US would have been early adopters of something like this, let alone banks in Brazil. (Ok, most banks in the US still wouldn’t be.) Nailing that first customer was near impossible. The founders kept thinking they were on the right track because potential customers would freak out when they saw how quickly the software worked, but they’d never quite pull the trigger on a purchase. Always hoping things would finally click the next year, the founders kept bootstrapping the company. Finally, it did. Toyota’s Brazilian financial arm bought their software and used it to rapidly approve people for loans, beating other car makers who were flooding into the growing market. The company has been on a sharp growth rate for five years now. They did roughly $12 million in revenues last year, and expect that to double in 2010, Turini says. Crivo says it has more than 80 employees and 100 customers today.
There are clear ripple effects if Crivo does well. More people getting credit cards helps grow spending and ecommerce, more small businesses can get loans, and more people who can’t afford to pay in cash can buy houses – to name just a few advantages. We’ve seen the benefits of “greenfield markets” when it comes to innovation in telecom and even physical infrastructure, like roads and trains. Might Brazil be able to come up with some greenfield solutions for finance? It’s easy to see how a FICO score could be improved on and, ahem, really easy to make the argument that way too much credit has been extended in the US in the last ten years. But while we have a system in place, who is going to upend the apple cart and force widespread-adoption of a newer, smarter system? It’s South Korea and telecom all over again.
And there’s another benefit to an emerging market that plays host to lots of finance and consulting multinationals. While countries like Israel and India have gotten a raft of talented coders thanks to US outsourcing, their own startups struggle when it comes to finding locals with sales and management expertise. Those jobs are usually kept in the US or done by transplanted Americans.
Yes, I realize that to many tech entrepreneurs, the idea of a country amassing an army of 
middle managers sounds about as appealing as a resurrection ship of Cylons. But a lot of the most talented local entrepreneurs, managers and even investors I met in Brazil had spun out of a year or two in consulting and finance.
An example was Diego Simon of VivaReal (pictured right, working in his tiny home office), a broad Latin American real estate portal that has increasingly been focusing on Brazil. Neither of the founders are Brazilian – or even live in Brazil – so finding someone like Simon was essential. Entrepreneurs from other South American countries say selling to Brazil as an outsider is harder for them than selling to China. That makes Simon exactly the Droid any company like VivaReal is looking for: He had experience running his family’s business, worked a stint for a multinational but left because he wanted to do something vaguely entrepreneurial – although he didn’t know exactly what. I’ve never been particularly bullish on real estate portals, but if VivaReal does well, it will be in no small part due to Simon criss-crossing Sao Paulo in his Fiat extolling the virtues of online listings under the auspices of a common culture and language.
The problem is—like in China and India—the allure of the multi-national paycheck and prestige is strong in Brazil. The management expertise may be there in greater numbers, but convincing someone to take a gamble on an unproven startup for stock is as hard as it is anywhere in the emerging world.
OMG! Isn’t it strange to see our twisted little obsessions encroach on real life?
When it was revealed that Ubisoft’s new DRM scheme would require you to be online at all times, and if disconnected for any reason would boot you out of the game, people immediately asked the obvious question: “Well, what if your DRM servers go down?” Ubisoft was not forthcoming, unless this little calamity is their roguish idea of an answer. Yes, the servers which must be connected to constantly in order to play, save, or do anything at all went down early this morning, and everyone who wants to play their new legitimately-purchased copy of Assassin’s Creed II is SOL.
The outage appears to be ongoing, if this forum thread is any indication, and I don’t see any official response stickied or anything. A little googling shows some workarounds for getting into the game but no crack yet from any of the major groups. Don’t worry, that’ll only take a couple more days. So everyone is pretty much dead in the water at this point. Some people are floating the idea that it’s a DDoS attack, and hey, why not? Let’s be honest: they were practically begging for it.
Now, the informed, vocal, forum-going internet citizen might be able to bear this outage philosophically, because they understand what DRM really is and how this particular DRM works. It sucks, yes, but most will grin and bear it. But there are many, many people out there who are completely unaware of the vast network of strings being pulled behind the scenes, and will simply return the game, thinking it broken. And really, it is, isn’t it?
In any event, is anyone even watching tonight? [CNET]
Update: Macrumors has a pic from an "attendant" dancer/director John M Chu at the Oscars:
Read more of this story at Slashdot.
Read more of this story at Slashdot.
In the wake of Apple’s sudden decision to remove nearly all “sexy” applications from the App Store, we’ve been hearing that the company is also clamping down on so-called “cookie-cutter” applications — iPhone apps that are built from templates using one of the many app-building services available. This would be yet another major change for the App Store, as it already features thousands of such applications. And, perhaps more important, quite a few companies have sprung up to facilitate building iPhone applications. I’ve reached out to Apple to ask if they’d like to clarify their stance, but given their lack of transparency in the past, I’m not betting on getting anything definitive. To try to get to the bottom of the current situation, I spoke with multiple developers (some of whom wished to remain anonymous) to find out what Apple was telling them.
Between the developers I spoke to, the consensus was this: Apple doesn’t appear to be opposed to ‘app generators’ and templates per se, but in the last month or so it has started cracking down on basic applications that are little more than RSS feeds or glorified business cards. In short, Apple doesn’t want people using native applications for things that a basic web app could accomplish. For some of these services that’s bad news, because that’s exactly the sort of application they produce; any new applications they submit are going to get rejected. But all hope isn’t lost for them, provided they can make their apps more useful.
Unlike the ’sexy’ app ban that took place a few weeks ago, when Apple gave developers no options to keep their apps on the store, over the last month the company has been reaching out to at least a few app building services to suggest what they should be doing.
The founders of Appmakr, which has been used by publications like The Atlantic to build iPhone applications, say that the process has been quite positive (though they are quick to clarify that applications built with their tools are more full-featured than the basic RSS apps described above). After some suggestions from Apple, the service is integrating new features like in-app purchases, instant notifications, offline access, and landscape viewing modes to their app templates. Another developer mentioned that they might include a tip calculator for restaurant apps. Appmakr’s hope (and one that I’m sure is shared by other developers) is that applications generated using their tools will eventually be given an accelerated path through the App Store’s approval process, because Apple is familiar and happy with the kind of apps they produce.
However, from what I’ve gathered not everyone is having as much luck as the Appmakr team. Multiple developers mentioned that they’d heard of some app vendors that Apple wasn’t being nearly as accommodating towards — I suspect services offering the most basic templates are getting hit hardest. That said, the developers I spoke to said that they’d only heard about Apple blocking newly submitted applications, and that there wasn’t an indication that Apple is going back and removing all of the overly-basic apps they can find.
So why is Apple doing this? Here’s what Medialets CEO Eric Litman had to say, which I think perfectly summarizes the situation.
This is the ongoing balance point between encouraging innovation and growth on one side and wanting to tightly control user experience on the other. Apple wants iPhone apps to be superior to Web experiences because they are extremely sticky and drive people specifically to buy the iPhone over competing smartphone platforms. Apps that are too simple or largely indistinguishable from the Web, other apps or particularly other apps on other platforms send the message to end users that the iPhone app ecosystem might not be particularly special.
Now the challenge for Apple is that the app building platforms are extremely attractive to a wide swath of the market that would otherwise be reluctant to bear the cost and complexity of developing an app from scratch. We have already seen apps from personal bloggers up to major media brands using some of these platforms, and many of the folks in that spectrum have content Apple would certainly want in the App Store. Interestingly, some of those same developers also have fully custom-built apps in the App Store, too.
So what are the platforms to do about the recent crackdown from Apple? There’s really only one choice if they want to continue to exist on the iPhone: invest in building out considerably more flexibility into their platforms to allow each app to differ from the others they build. Integrate more features and take the time to nail the design and UI elements to be representative of what Apple wants to see in every app.
For better or worse, Apple will be looking more closely at apps from the platforms than from individual developers. AppLoop, the first startup to announce and iPhone-specific app builder, is already gone. Others will almost certainly follow.
Overall, this will almost certainly result in a better experience for users as they have to deal with fewer spammy apps. But, as I wrote when Apple launched its war on sex apps last month, the policy change may also scare developers. After effectively sending a message to developers that basic applications were okay, Apple is again changing its mind. Some developers may be hesitant to build their businesses around the iPhone, knowing that at any moment Apple could have a change of heart and cut off their only mode of distribution.
Thanks to Robert Strojan for the tip
Photo by Goosmurf
Read more of this story at Slashdot.
As has been made abundantly clear to me over the past two weeks, just about every location-based service is planning big things for the SXSW festival, which starts later this week in Austin, Texas. A few of the players have already started rolling out small changes, such as aesthetic upgrades. But a new, subtle update by Foursquare may have much larger implications.
As we noted last week, Foursquare has begun revamping the “history” area of its website. This is likely part of the larger goal to completely revamp the website itself (which isn’t very useful right now), and this data also ties in to the new Foursquare iPhone app set to launch later this week. But another update makes the history area show not only where you checked-in, and the category of the venue, but also who you checked-in with.
Basically, Foursquare has just turned on a new layer to your location history data. And this layer is very interesting because it goes back in time to show you who you were with at a certain venue when you were there.
Now, to be clear, it only shows you the friends you were with — not all Foursquare users. (But this means that they have that data as well.) Still, this data paints a clearer picture around your location history and potentially enriches your social graph. It’s one thing to say you’re “friends” with someone on a social network, but another to have checked-in to the same venue at the same time over and over again. Either you’re torturing yourself, or you really are good friends with that person.
This is a huge part of location as the bridge between social networking and actual social activity.
Foursquare has highlighted similar data for a while on the stats page, showing you who you check-in with most often. But this new history data takes that to the next level. And while the data right now only seems to go back to last December or so, Foursquare plans to implement it all the way back to 2003 — yes, 2003.
That’s because before Foursquare, co-founder Dennis Crowley ran a similar service called Dodgeball, which Google bought in 2006, and deadpooled last year. But users were able to import their old Dodgeball data before it went under, so Crowley now hopes to build a full location history social graph going back that far for long-time users.
“We gotta backfill some of the data (easy, but for those who imported their Dodgeball history before Google took the site down, we can give you a good idea of the trends around who you’ve been hanging out w/ going back to 2003.) It’s awesome awesome awesome,” Crowley writes in an email to us.
Something else Crowley is excited about is the potential for the visualization of this data. While this location history + friends isn’t yet in the API, it definitely will be, he notes. Depending on how that data is shared, that may raise some privacy issues, but Foursquare has made it clear that they’re well aware and very serious about the issues surrounding the sharing of location data.
Even on the most basic level, this new layer of location history data should be interesting to people. It’s great to look back and see not only where you were on a certain date, but who you were there with. That’s what social data is all about.
 WA today | Even More Portal 2 Details Surface 1UP.com Portal 2's existence was only just recently confirmed a few days ago, but details out of Game Informer's cover story continue to make their way online. Now the entire cover story itself has evidently been scanned, ... Valve and GameInformer detail Portal 2 Portal 2 Announced Through April GameInformer Cover; Scans Leaked Portal 2 Coming To Macs |
AFP - Somali pirates raked in an estimated 60 million dollars in 2009 but the Indian Ocean's ransom hunters have also spurred a much larger industry of ship protection devices.
Read more of this story at Slashdot.
Geezer speed aside, it's the musculature that's the takeaway here. Modeled after human muscles, bones, tendons and ligaments, the system is incredibly flexible for a robot, and its 60 degrees of motion bests the aforementioned Asimo by a good 26 degrees. It's also lighter than your traditional humanoid robot, which designers content will make it more friendly when humans have to interact with it.
Mental note: Lighter materials also mean one can chuck it farther, perhaps off a cliff, should "more friendly" actually be "more deadly" if and when it goes haywire. [IEEE Spectrum via Engadget]
Read more of this story at Slashdot.
Tonight is the 82nd annual Academy Awards. Some people watch the show for the movies. Some watch it for the glamor. And some, watch it to gamble. And Google is making that easier than ever.
While the show is almost always way too long, one way to get into it is to have an Oscar pool, where everyone picks who they think will win in each category. Google has set up a special Google Docs template that allows you to easily create this pool and send it to all your friends. It’s so simple, that you can even set it up to be filled out right within an email.
When you send the email to a friend, they’ll be asked to enter their name, and then simply select who they think will be the winner in each category. Google has already populated all of this data in the template, so there’s really nothing more for you to do. When they send this information back, it will be imported into a Google Spreadsheet, so you can compare the data from all your friends. You can also see a more visual “summary” of the data.
Categories such as “Best Short Film (Live Action)” also ensure that this can be a pretty fun drinking game, as well. You have a few hours til the show, get picking.
So we finally have the official press release from Panasonic, we of course got a glimpse of the G2 and G10 the other day, but now we know all the news that’s fit to share. Both look like some decent kit, and a definite step up from most of the P&S cameras out there.
Just to recap, the G2 and G10 are the latest from Panasonic using the Micro Four Thirds format. They both sport a 12.1 megapixel sensor and a 3″ LCD screen. Both shoot in 720p, and come with a 14-42mm F3.5-5.6 lens in the basic kit. The G2 also has an LCD touchscreen that is capable of folding out and twisting to whatever angle (within 180 degrees side to side and 270 degrees up and down). The G10 is a little more basic, but has a software set designed towards the beginning user. The G10 also has a standard LCD display instead of the touchscreen/rotating display. Pricing is still not available yet, but we should know about a month before release.
Here’s the press releases for all the gritty technical details:
LUMIX DMC-G2, WORLD’S FIRST* INTERCHANGEABLE LENS SYSTEM CAMERA WITH TOUCH-CONTROL MOVABLE LCD
Panasonic LUMIX G2 Features a 3-Inch Touch-Screen, Allowing for Quick and Intuitive Setting Changes, such as Focus, with a Single Touch
Secaucus, NJ (March 7, 2010) – Panasonic today announces the LUMIX DMC-G2, the world’s first* digital interchangeable lens system camera with a movable LCD that allows for touch-control, and the successor to the award-winning and revolutionary LUMIX G1, which was the world’s first Micro Four Thirds digital camera. The intuitive touch-control shooting elevates the camera’s operability, letting the user adjust auto focus (AF) simply by touching the subject on the large 3.0-inch 460,000-dot high- resolution LCD. The LUMIX G2, also shoots 720p High Definition video using the AVCHD Lite format, and joins the LUMIX G10, also introduced today, as the latest models in the LUMIX G Micro System.
With the touch-screen operation, users can even snap a photo by touching the LUMIX G2’s screen. Additionally, the touch-screen operation excels not only for shooting but also during playback. Users can touch one thumbnail viewed among many to quickly and easily see the full size of the desired photo. Also, to view images one-by-one, photos can be dragged across the screen to browse as though flipping the pages of a book.
“With the LUMIX G2, Panasonic is pleased to continue to lead the evolution of the Micro Four Thirds platform and also be the first in the industry to offer a touch-screen interchangeable lens system camera,” said David Briganti, Senior Product Manager, Imaging, Panasonic Consumer Electronics Company. “Touch-operation is a user interface with which many consumers are both familiar and expect, and we think the LUMIX G2’s touch-operation makes it easier and quicker to take photos and videos that have professional-like effects.”
Using the touch-screen operation, once a user locks onto a subject, the LUMIX G2 enables AF Tracking and will track the subject as it moves within the frame. Then, with a touch on the screen, users can select the part and the size of AF area with the 1-area AF. The Multi-area AF sets a group of AF points according to the composition. While using the manual focus, users can enlarge a subject by touching it and then choosing to enlarge it by 1x, 5x or 10x and then smoothly moving the part by dragging it on the screen. With this touch operation, menu settings can be changed quickly; cutting the time it takes to navigate using standard cursors. However, all setting changes can still be done using the control pad, if preferred.
The LUMIX G2 records 1280 x 720 HD videos in the AVCHD Lite format, which increases recording capacity and is highly compatible with audio-visual equipment. With a dedicated video record button, users can easily start recording a video. To complement its high-quality video capabilities, the LUMIX G2 features advanced audio options, as sound is recorded with Dolby Digital Creator and an optional accessory stereo microphone can be attached. A Wind Cut function further enhances the sound as it helps reduce noise caused from background wind.
The 3.0-inch touch-operation LCD has a wide-viewing angle and rotates 180° from side to side and tilts 270° up and down, providing approximately 100% of field of view. This free-angle LCD with a touch-screen operation makes it possible to both view and touch the screen from any angle. The double Live-View function offered by the high-resolution, 460,000-dot free-angle Intelligent LCD and 1,440,000-dot 1.4x (0.7x) Live View Finder allows users to see the settings’ results before pressing the shutter.
The 12.1-megapixel Live MOS sensor featured in the LUMIX G2 offers the best of both worlds – the outstanding image quality of a CCD sensor, and the lower power consumption of a CMOS sensor. Advanced technology enables it to read four channels of data simultaneously, helping the LUMIX G2 to deliver 60 frames-per-second Full-time Live View images, while faithfully reproducing high-resolution images with fine detail and rich gradation. Plus, with the high-speed, high-performance Venus Engine HD II, which has been re-engineered to further improve image quality.
The new high-speed, high-performance Venus Engine HD II supports the new image processing technology Intelligent Resolution, which enables the recording of beautiful photo and HD video with high quality signal processing. With Intelligent Resolution technology, three areas – outlines, detailed texture areas and soft gradation – are automatically detected. The outline parts are enhanced effectively to give edges increased clarity, while simultaneously giving a moderate accentuation to the textured areas so they look finely detailed. For the soft gradation areas, the improved noise reduction system of the Venus Engine HD II is applied to achieve a smoother effect. Apart from the uniform enhancement of sharpness, the innovative technology Intelligent Resolution precisely performs signal processing pixel by pixel in the most effective way, resulting in images that are naturally clear.
For users looking for additional creative options for both photos and videos, the LUMIX G2 delivers. While shooting HD video, users can set the camera in “P” mode – to change the aperture for professional-like movie effects where the images blur into focus. For still photos, the LUMIX G2 features the My Color mode with a total of seven preset effects – Expressive, Retro, Pure, Elegant, Monochrome, Dynamic Art, and Silhouette while also keeping the Custom mode, which lets users manually set the color, brightness and saturation levels and save their favorite settings into memory.
On the other hand, for beginner users not yet ready for manual modes – the LUMIX G2 features iA (Intelligent Auto), a popular setting in the LUMIX point-and-shoots that automatically engages features and settings for optimal image quality by detecting the shooting environment. Panasonic iA is available in both still photo and video recording settings and a new dedicated iA button, which illuminates in blue when engaged, makes it even easier to use this handy feature.
Other features of the LUMIX G2 include:
• Dust Reduction System: If dust or other foreign matter gets inside the camera when you’re changing lenses, it could cling to the image sensor and show up as a spot in your photos. The Dust Reduction System in the G2 helps eliminate this possibility by placing a supersonic wave filter in front of the Live MOS sensor. Vibrating vertically around 50,000 times per second, the filter repels dust and other particles effectively.
• Included Software: PHOTOfunSTUDIO 5.0 HD Edition makes it possible to sort and organize photos. Videos can be uploaded directly to YouTube using the built-in YouTube uploader – even in HD quality. It also lets you create a 360-degree rotation panorama file in .MOV files. The software is compatible with the Windows 7.The Panasonic LUMIX G2 will come equipped as part of its kit, with the newly announced LUMIX G VARIO 14-42mm/F3.5-5.6 ASPH/MEGA O.I.S. lens. The new lens offers a versatile zoom range of 14-42mm (35mm camera equivalent: 28-84mm), making it suitable for a wide variety of scenes, everything from dynamic landscape to portrait. Additionally, the LUMIX G2 is compatible with all Micro Four Thirds System lenses, allowing users even higher levels of performance in a digital interchangeable lens camera.
The LUMIX DMC-G2 and other LUMIX G Micro System digital cameras can use any interchangeable lens that complies with the Four Thirds standard via an optional mount adaptor DMW-MA1 and with the prestigious Leica M/R Lenses via DMW-MA2M or MA3R. Other accessories include external flashes, filters, a remote shutter, HDMI mini cables and a variety of stylish straps and bags. To learn about the Panasonic LUMIX Micro Four Thirds System and all the available accessories, visit www.panasonic.com/lumix. The Panasonic LUMIX G2 will be available in red, blue and black models and pricing and availability will be announced 30 days prior to shipping date.
PANASONIC LUMIX G10, WORLD’S LIGHTEST* DIGITAL INTERCHANGEABLE LENS SYSTEM CAMERA WITH A VIEWFINDER
Compact and easy-to-use, the LUMIX G10 shoots high-quality photos and HD video and is an approachable alternative for users new to system cameras
Secaucus, NJ (March 7, 2010) – Panasonic today introduces an addition to its Panasonic LUMIX G Series, the LUMIX DMC-G10, the world’s lightest* digital interchangeable lens camera with a viewfinder, which packs a host of advanced digital camera functions designed to be easy-to-use for users new to system cameras. The new compact and portable LUMIX G10, which can record High Definition (HD) video in addition to high-quality still images, joins the LUMIX DMC-G2, also introduced today, as part of the Panasonic LUMIX G Series.
“The LUMIX G Micro System has revolutionized the photography industry ever since the release of the Panasonic G1, the world’s first interchangeable lens system camera based on the Micro Four Thirds System standard,” said David Briganti, Senior Product Manager, Imaging, Panasonic Consumer Electronics Company. “We continue to expand this award-winning LUMIX G Series, and with its easy-to-use features and compact size, we expect the G10 to attract a lot of new users who want to step-up from their point-and-shoots.”
The LUMIX G10, with its incredible compact body and portable design, uses a mirrorless structure as part the Micro Four Thirds System standard, eliminating a number of components that are found in a conventional interchangeable lens camera, including the mirror box and optical viewfinder unit. This innovative structure allows for the LUMIX G10 to be the world’s lightest system camera in a compact digital camera design that is a desired feature for new users. Adding to its lightweight body, the LUMIX G10 will come equipped as part of its kit, with the newly announced LUMIX G VARIO 14-42mm/F3.5-5.6 ASPH/MEGA O.I.S. lens. The new lens offers a versatile zoom range of 14-42mm (35mm camera equivalent: 28-84mm), making it suitable for shooting a wide-range of scenes, from dynamic landscape to portrait.
Panasonic designed the LUMIX G10 to be easy to use offers iA (Intelligent Auto) mode – with its shooting assist functions that have proven extremely popular in LUMIX compact cameras. Panasonic’s iA (Intelligent Auto), an easy shooting mode with automatic optimization according to the scene in either photo and video recording, is helpful to beginner users unfamiliar with an interchangeable lens system camera. With the new dedicated iA button, which illuminates in blue when engaged, activating this mode is even easier and can be used to shoot both photos and videos.
When shooting still photos, iA offers the following: MEGA O.I.S., which helps prevent blurring from hand-shake; Intelligent ISO Control, which reduces motion blur by adjusting the ISO sensitivity if the subject moves; Intelligent Exposure optimizes exposure for each part of an image, preventing blocked shadows and blown highlights and helping ensure that gradation and details are reproduced properly; Intelligent Scene Selector detects the most common shooting situations – Portrait, Night Portrait, Scenery, Night Scenery, Close-up and Sunset – and switches to the appropriate Scene mode automatically – no setting changes needed.
The LUMIX G10 can record 1280 x 720 HD video in Motion JPEG, QVGA, VGA and WVGA formats. Users can enjoy recording HD videos while taking advantage of the high quality lens and the flexibility to change to other lenses. Even users new to recording videos will find the LUMIX G10 makes it easy. Panasonic’s iA for video offers the following: Optical Image Stabilizer (O.I.S.) helps prevent handshake when using high-powered zoom; Face Detection** automatically detects a face in the frame and adjusts focus, exposure, contrast, and skin complexion; Intelligent Exposure continually checks the ambient light level and adjusts the exposure setting as conditions change to prevent blown highlights and blocked shadows; Intelligent Scene Selector automatically switches between Normal, Portrait, Close-up, Scenery, and Low Light modes according to the situation to optimize visual quality.
With AF Tracking, the LUMIX G10 can lock onto any subject and keep it in focus even if it moves – making it easy to get beautiful, clear shots of moving subjects, such as children and pets. Simply aim, lock, and shoot. The Face Recognition function remembers registered faces to give an appropriate AF/AE on the people. In playback, you can choose to display only photos that contain a specific registered face using Category Playback. The contrast AF system adopted by the LUMIX DMC-G10 is not only accurate and easy to use, but also very fast. Users can choose from a wide range of AF modes, including AF Tracking, 1-area AF, Face Detection AF/AE and 23-area AF.
The LUMIX G10’s Live View Finder, with a resolution of 202,000-dot equivalent, 1.04x (0.52x*) retains the viewability of an optical viewfinder and displays information about its settings that users can see without removing their eye from the subject. The 60 fps Live View is powered by the Live MOS sensor, which takes signals directly from the image sensor and sends them continuously to the LCD, in real time. Both the Live View Finder and LCD provide approximately 100% field of view. This allows the user, when composing a shot, to check the framing accurately from corner to corner. The 3.0-inch large 460,000-dot high-resolution LCD with wide viewing angle automatically controls the brightness according to the situation as an Intelligent LCD.
The 12.1-megapixel Live MOS sensor and the new Venus Engine HD II help to separate chromatic noise from luminance noise and apply the optimal noise reduction to each, so users can capture clear and beautiful images even when shooting at high ISO sensitivity levels. The high-speed, high-performance Venus Engine HD II, which has been re-engineered to incorporate the new image processing technology, Intelligent Resolution, enables the recording of beautiful photo and HD video with high quality signal processing. With Intelligent Resolution technology, three areas – outlines, detailed texture areas and soft gradation –are automatically detected. The outline parts are enhanced effectively to give edges increased clarity, while simultaneously giving a moderate accentuation to the textured areas so they look finely detailed. For the soft gradation areas, the improved noise reduction system of the Venus Engine HD II is applied to achiever a smoother effect. Apart from the uniform enhancement of sharpness, the innovative technology Intelligent Resolution precisely performs signal processing pixel by pixel in the most effective way, resulting in images that are naturally clear.
All Panasonic LUMIX G Series digital cameras are equipped with the highly-efficient Dust Reduction System. If dust or other foreign matter gets inside the LUMIX G10 while changing lenses, it could cling to the image sensor and show up as a spot in your photos. However, with the Dust Reduction System, it helps eliminate this possibility by placing a supersonic wave filter in front of the Live MOS sensor. Vibrating vertically around 50,000 times per second, the filter repels dust and other particles effectively.
Other features of the LUMIX G10 include:
• My Color mode with a total of seven preset effects – Expressive, Retro, Pure, Elegant, Monochrome, Dynamic Art, Silhouette. Also includes Custom mode, which lets users manually set the color, brightness and saturation levels. For beginners, the LUMIX G10’s full-time Live View function lets users see how these settings will affect the images before they shoot, making it easier to capture the exact mood or atmosphere desired.
• Scene modes total 26, including the Peripheral Defocus mode, which lets users take a photo where the foreground is in focus and background is blurred – or vice versa. This popular effect can be intimidating for a beginner, but in the Peripheral Defocus mode, by simply selecting the objects to be blurred and focused using the camera’s keypad, it is simple for photographers of any level.
• Exposure meter can be displayed in the P/A/S/M shooting modes. The correlation between shutter speed and aperture is shown, with a color-coded warning system that alerts users when the settings are not in the proper range. For those new to system camera digital photography, this makes it easy to learn proper settings both visually and logically, enhancing their photography skills.The Panasonic LUMIX G10 is compatible with Micro Four Thirds System lenses, allowing users even higher levels of performance in a digital interchangeable lens camera. In addition to LUMIX G lenses, the LUMIX DMC-G10 and LUMIX G Micro System can use any interchangeable lens that complies with the Four Thirds standard via an optional mount adaptor DMW-MA1 and with the prestigious Leica M/R Lenses via DMW-MA2M or MA3R.
Pricing and availability for the Panasonic LUMIX G10 will be announced 30 days prior to shipping date. It will be available in black. To learn about the Panasonic LUMIX Micro Four Thirds System and all the available accessories, visit www.panasonic.com/lumix.
PANASONIC ANNOUNCES COMPACT AND LIGHTWEIGHT STANDARD ZOOM LENS FOR LUMIX G SERIES DIGITAL CAMERAS
SECAUCUS, NJ (March 7, 2010) – Panasonic today introduces a new interchangeable lens for its LUMIX G Micro System, the ultra-compact and lightweight LUMIX G VARIO 14-42mm/F3.5-5.6 ASPH/MEGA O.I.S. lens offers versatile zoom range of 14-42mm (35mm camera equivalent: 28-84mm), making it suitable for a wide variety of scenes, everything from dynamic landscape to portrait. The LUMIX G VARIO 14-42mm/F3.5-5.6 ASPH/MEGA O.I.S. lens will be part of the kit lens for the latest additions to the LUMIX G Series of digital cameras: the LUMIX DMC-G10 and LUMIX DMC-G2, also introduced today.
The new LUMIX G VARIO 14-42mm/F3.5-5.6 ASPH/MEGA O.I.S. lens incorporates Panasonic’s MEGA O.I.S. (Optical Image Stabilizer), which makes it easy to shoot clear photographs, even in low-lit situations, by suppressing the blur caused by a shaky hand. Adopting an inner-focus system driven by a stepping motor, the superior optical design realizes outstanding smoothness to support the high-speed AF (Auto Focus) system of LUMIX G cameras. When mounted on any of these cameras, this new lens allows users to maximize all of the AF system’s functions.
With its minimum focus distance of 30cm even at full zoom, this lens provides a maximum photographic magnification of 0.32x (35mm equivalent). Seven aperture blades make up a circular aperture diaphragm to produce an attractive smoothness in out-of-focus areas even when shooting at a large aperture. The LUMIX G VARIO 14-42mm/F3.5-5.6 ASPH/MEGA O.I.S. lens system uses multi-coated lens elements that reduce blur, helping to deliver superior performance. This new lens system also features excellent contrast even at its highest zoom level. The inclusion of an aspherical lens improves optical performance by minimizing distortion, even at the 28mm wide end. For more information on the Panasonic LUMIX G Series digital cameras, lenses and accessories, please visit www.panasonic.com/lumix.
It's also capable of morphing from one simple shape to the next, and can be suspended from the ceiling, a la a chandelier, or placed on a table, where it will neither burn out your eyes nor damage your table.
The light source, sadly, is not fusion or even fission, but a 5W LED in each of the two panels. [Igendesign via Design Blog]
In this case, however, the system is automated. Cars opt in and opt out at the driver's convenience, forming a moving, amorphous "train" of vehicles that maintain constant speed and distance form one another thanks to software.
Unlike many cool ideas/concepts, this one is actually being tested, right now, in Europe by Ricardo UK.
The three-year trial will see seven wireless-linked vehicles traveling the continent as part of an attempt to achieve a 20% fuel consumption reduction per vehicle. Reduced travel times and congestion are also goals.
And don't forget texting. We may soon return to a world where texting while driving is just obnoxious, not deadly, as it is today. [BBC via Treehugger]
AP - A new online database promises to crack some of the nation's 100,000 missing persons cases and provide answers to desperate families, but only a fraction of law enforcement agencies are using it.
 BBC News | Microsoft Gives Rival Browsers a Lift New York Times PARIS — Rivals of Microsoft's market-leading Web browser have attracted a flurry of interest since the company, fulfilling a regulatory requirement, started making it easier for European users of its Windows operating system to switch. ... Windows' Browser "Choice Screen" Delivers Mixed Resu ... Microsoft's Week Involved Cloud Strategy, EU Ballot Screen, Windows 7 Sales Windows 'Choice Screen' boosts rival Web browsers |
This guest post is authored by Alex Rampell, the founder and CEO of TrialPay. This is a follow on to an earlier article “The End Of Brand Advertising,” where Rampell argues that the collision of online and offline advertising paradigms will have a profound impact on free content. Rampell’s most recent guest post for us was in the wake of the Scamville series: Tragedy Of The Social Gaming Commons: A Blueprint For Change
The marriage of brand advertising and free content is facing peremptory annulment. There is no shortage of punditry around “the death of the media company” and whether it is a just dessert or a societal travesty. But that’s looking at it from the media company and consumer viewpoint – what do advertisers think about all of this? Where is online advertising headed and what does that mean for free content?
Making content free was not a well thought out business model. Rather, before the days of Sirius XM and DirecTV, there was no more of a way to charge for freely accessible radio waves than there was to charge for air or sunshine. Making content free, and charging for advertising interspersed in that free content, was pretty much the ONLY business model back then.
And it worked pretty well, because supply (advertising “units”) was limited by the amount of content produced and, more importantly, by the narrow “channels” where such content was made available. With such low supply, high demand, and massive reach, it was easy to reach large swaths of the populace. The advertisers couldn’t really quantify their results, but they came up with a wide variety of methods to attempt to do so. Market research firms such as ACNielsen flourished to fill the need for “metrics.”
But, as I argued in my last piece, brand advertising doesn’t really work – or, perhaps better put, is superseded by “transactional advertising.”
The old logic went like this — people were more likely to buy Coca-Cola versus Carbonated Dark-Colored Sugar Water X because Coca-Cola had a brand (which Coca-Cola has spent billions on). What’s the value of Coca-Cola’s brand? Pure math – it’s the Net Present Value (NPV) of the difference that consumers will pay for Coca-Cola versus, say, RC Cola, for the lifetime of the consumer and duration of the brand. When you pay $1 for a Coke versus $.50 for an RC Cola, the $.50 difference is chalked up to the “brand.” (Yes, perhaps there are differences in taste, too – but even with an identical formula and taste, I would argue RC Cola wouldn’t sell as well as Coke). Multiply $.50 times billions upon billions of cans of Coke, and you see the power of brand.
I don’t disagree with this notion, but I would argue that it is becoming largely irrelevant for a large class of goods and service providers (think soda or television set, not Rolex or BMW), and that the “brand” advertising money can be better spent, thereby imperiling expensively produced, freely distributed content. To wit: what if Walmart refused to stock Coca-Cola, instead stocking just RC Cola? Granted, Walmart stocks Coca-Cola because consumers demand it, and consumers demand it because of the brand that Coca-Cola has created, but that can easily be reversed. If Walmart decided to stock only RC Cola and expel Coca-Cola from its shelves, this would change RC Cola’s fortunes, and harm Coca-Cola, quite a bit.
Preferential placement of a good or service at/near the point of a transaction is something I call “transactional advertising,” which I predict will expand as a category in the coming years. Transactional advertising describes a clear food chain of brand and positioning; the titans at the top are Google, Amazon, Walmart, and other “aggregators” who themselves hold considerable brand equity and/or organic traffic. Smaller players exist in niche fields: BankRate, Shopping.com, Edmunds.com, Lending Tree, even Diapers.com have become destinations that steer consumer decisions. These have potential to be the new “media” companies in a transactional advertising universe, odd as that might sound.
This form of transactional advertising exists today, although you might not know it. Proctor & Gamble spends great effort and expense (though it pales in comparison to their brand advertising spend) to ensure eye-level placement wherever its products are sold. Many retailers “charge” for shelf-space, with the clear understanding that better merchandised goods have a better chance of ending up in consumers’ shopping carts.
Today you see very little in the way of transactional advertising online; rarely does one brand pop up in another brand’s checkout experience. There’s a good chance that will change in a major way in the near future. If old media companies can figure out how to attach themselves to more transactions, they have a fighting chance of sticking it out online.
Read more of this story at Slashdot.
I haven’t even looked at these yet. I saw them on Reddit and immediately came here to put them up. So that’s why this post is so short. Wait, I just read this: “Portal was a test bed. Portal 2 is a game.” Ah jeah! And it’s out this fall.
All these are in this month’s issue of Game Informer. Go to your local newsstand!
Daniel Valdez built this steampunk Professor Xavier wheelchair (complete with bubbling cranberry and vodka tubes on the back). It's powered by an Adafruit Waveshield -- an Arduino-based audio kit -- that gives it a series of awesome SFX. It's built around a 19th century rocker, with pistons from a steelworks.
Steampunk Professor Xavier Wheelchair Project - powered with an Adafruit Waveshield! (Thanks, PT!)
Tonight’s Oscars are as much about technology as they are good movies. Granted, movie-making has always been about embracing new technology—critics complained when movies first appeared, when they added sound, when they added color, etc.—but Avatar can be looked at as nothing more than a glorified tech demo. A win for Avatar tonight is a win for 3D technology, end of.
I write this not having seen any of the movies nominated for best picture. This year just seemed sort of “meh.” I did grab the movie Un Prophète, but the odds of me staying away from Napoleon: Total War long enough to closely watch it are pretty much non-existent. (Note: Napoleon: Total War is my Game of the Year so far. Unless Crysis 2 is as good as it looks, and unless Gran Turismo 5 actually comes out this year, which, well, the less said the better, it’ll probably stay that way. Worst constructed sentence ever.) But let’s put it this way: if Avatar was only a plain ol’ 2D movie, would it even have been nominated for the Oscar? Based on what I’ve read, no.
So, 3D. It’s going to be the savior of Hollywood, so they say. It makes going to the movie theater a fun experience, and discourages staying at home and watching, say, There Will Be Blood on Blu-ray on your 60-inch plasma. Well, until 3D TVs come down in price, but don’t expect that to happen too soon. Plus, based on what I saw at CES this past January (and having played Battlefield: Bad Company 2 in 3D last week), I’m going to say that your Avatar-like movie-going experiences are going to be unique enough that they’ll continue to be a draw, at least for a little while. Alice in Wonderland, also in 3D, did huge numbers this weekend, so there’s that.
But will it win, and should it win? The second point—should it win—is the more contentious question. It’s basically Pocahontas in Space (again, as I understand it), and if I wanted to see a movie that’s sorta based on Pocahontas, I’d see The New World again. (That reminds me to watch The Thin Red Line again soon. Now there’s a competent director.) Will it win? Is Avatar better than Hurt Locker? I’ve heard mixed things about Kathryn Bigelow’s film: some people love it, and others think it’s just OK. Precious? Inglorious Basterds? Neither of those are really the savior of Hollywood—how much money did James Cameron make everybody with his film?
Whether or not Avatar wins tonight, 3D technology is here to stay—we’ve already seen how sports networks have begun to embrace it.
One thing I do know: come 8pm tonight, I’ll probably be playing Napoleon: Total War and listening to Ron and Fez’s live Oscar coverage (there’s no way in hell I’m going to watch the actual Oscar ceremony) on Sirius XM satellite radio—maybe I’ll even join in on that Twitter party fun?
Oh, one more thing: FIFA stinks. That has nothing to do with anything, but whatever.
Read more of this story at Slashdot.
Wednesday, March 10Steampunk Film Festival (Thanks, Rina!)
The Variety Preview Room Theatre
The Hobart Bldg., First Floor
Entrance between Quiznos & Citibank
582 Market Street at Montgomery & Second
Seating is limited; numbers will be given upon entrance to ensure that we fairly seat everyone. First come, first seated.
 The Guardian | 10 Issues Apple Needs to Address Before Releasing the iPad eWeek News Analysis: The iPad is now less than a month away from hitting store shelves, but there are still significant issues with it that Apple hasn't addressed. Here are some of the issues Apple needs to think about before the iPad hits store shelves in ... Jobs: iPad Won't Tether with iPhone All about the Apple iPad (FAQ) Key to Apple iPad? Uh-Oh, It's Magic |
I’ve always had mixed feelings about the DMCA.
On the one hand, as an author, I like that it gives me a way to stop illegal copies of my work being distributed in the US, so ensuring that I can continue to make a living without having to get a proper job. On the other hand, as an occasional journalist, I hate that it can also be used by trigger-happy lawyers to prevent certain embarrassing documents entering the public domain.
Thus conflicted, it was with some trepidation that I received news from the old country that Gordon Brown’s government is getting ready to enact its very own version of the DMCA. Called the Digital Economy Bill (DEB), the new statute aims – amongst other things – to halt the rising tide of intellectual property theft on the Internet. But unlike the DMCA, its reach won’t be limited to national borders: any site anywhere in the world that’s accessible from the UK needs to obey the law or else it’s liable to find itself blocked from the entire country. I’m not kidding, this is China-level enforcement.
The bill originated in the House of Lords (our second law-making chamber) where it’s being tweaked and plucked, with various clauses added and removed – before being sent to the Commons (our first chamber) for debate and a final vote. Here in a nut are the key clauses as it currently stands:
Firstly, if the law passes, ISPs will be obliged to keep track of all allegations of illegal file-sharing made by copyright owners. These complaints will be used to produce an list of “persistent offenders” (subscribers who had received more than, say, 50 complaints about them) which will be made available on request to the copyright owners. The list will be anonymised, with subscribers identified only by a reference number, but copyright owners can then apply to the British courts to subpoena the names and addresses of the subscribers involved. Copyright owners can then take legal action directly, claiming substantial damages for each violation. The government is also able to take action: demanding that ISPs cut off internet access from households identified as persistent offenders.
A second – and even more controversial – clause was bolted on by members of the House of Lords in response to the claim that over 35% of copyright breaches occur not through P2P sharing, but rather through media hosts like YouTube and file locker services like Rapidshare. The new amendment will give the courts the power to demand that British ISPs block access to any site that knowingly and unlawfully hosts copyright material. That’s not just sites hosted in the UK but any site anywhere in the world. As with the DMCA, the ISP won’t be liable until they are notified of the illegal content (the ’safe harbor’ defence) providing they then take immediate steps to block the sites hosting them. If, however, the ISPs refuse to act, they will be liable to the full legal costs of the copyright owner. But unlike the DMCA, the amended bill contains absolutely no penalties for copyright owners who file bogus or spurious claims. The effects are about as chilling as can be: it is in the copyright owners’ interests to make as many claims as they like, and in the ISP’s interests to immediately block every site they’re notified of in order to avoid potentially huge legal costs.
Opponents of the bill point out that most cases will never come to court as ISPs will roll over immediately, as they frequently do under DMCA in the US. But the opponents don’t stop there. Hell, they don’t really stop anywhere. Between the amended blocking clause which could, in theory, see sites like YouTube blocked from the UK – and the potential for having one’s entire house disconnected from the web, the DEB has come in from a veritable gale of criticism, much of it vented right here in the blogosphere. Who’d have thunk it?
TechCrunch’s own Devin Coldewey notes that the “persistent offenders” list won’t just affect domestic file-sharers. Internet cafes, hotels and anywhere else that offers public wi-fi access could find themselves taken offline if their customers are found to be swapping copyright files. If anything, these public access points are even more at risk as it doesn’t take many teenagers using your cafe to rack up 50 copyright violations: this despite there being no way for the establishments to police what their customers are doing online. As Boing Boing’s Cory Doctorow put it, almost entirely without hyperbole, “UK Digital Economy Bill will wipe out indie WiFi hotspots in libraries, unis, cafes“
In fact Doctorow is one of the bill’s harshest critics, writing numerous posts about its dangers. Not only is he vehemently opposed to the persistent offenders clause but he also rails against the site-blocking amendment, arguing that it will essentially ban file lockers from the UK, even when much of the content hosted on them is perfectly lawful. In response to Doctorow and his ilk, thousands of UK web users have signed petitions opposing the bill. Even members of parliament have come out to publicly attack the proposed measures – as Tom Watson MP told me on Twitter: “Enshrining net filtering at ISP level scares me half to death…. Law has to have a starting point. This isn’t it. Copyright reform for the internet age should be Step One. Rip it up. Start again.”
A clusterfuck, then. A total shit show, even more draconian than the DMCA and even more packed to the gills with chilling effects. There’s an election coming up in the UK and the government is apparently anxious that the law be pushed through before then, but to do so would be a travesty – instead the bill should be scrapped and revisited in the next parliament.
Or at least that was my first thought. Then I actually read the bill.
And, you know what, it’s actually not that bad.
For a start, the first point of contention – the compilation of a persistent offenders list, and the potential banning of them from accessing the Internet – isn’t quite as unfair as it sounds. Despite Doctorow’s claim that “your entire family [can] be cut off from the net if anyone who lives in your house is accused of copyright infringement, without proof or evidence or trial”, there are actually multiple points at which evidence comes into play, and the accused file-swapper is given a chance to defend themselves. The bill requires the creation of an independent tribunal body to hear claims of unfairness arising from the new laws, and alleged infringers have not one but two rights of appeal to the tribunal. With each alleged breach, the new law demands that the ISP send a letter to the subscriber putting the allegations and the evidence to them.
Only once a significant number of breaches have been alledged (the drafters of the bill suggest 50) will the subscriber be added to the persistent offenders list. Again, they will be notified. Only at this point can the copyright owner appeal to the court – using a law that has been around for 36 years – to get the name and address of the offender. Even then, though, they won’t be taken to court. Instead, the copyright owner has to send the subscriber yet another letter (this will be their 52nd) warning them that legal action is imminent if they don’t stop. It’s only then that legal action will be taken, leading to a possible fine and – only at the extreme end of the scale – their Internet access being disconnected.
The second point of contention – the blocking of file-sharing sites – is still pretty bad, but again it’s not quite what some commentators [*cough* Cory *cough*] suggest with headlines like “Lords seek to ban web-lockers (YouSendIt, etc) in the UK“. Yes, the courts will have the power to require ISPs to block sites that egregiously host copyrighted files. But they can only do so if the site involved has refused to remove the copyrighted files – a last resort against foreign file lockers who ignore British court injunctions. More importantly it’s also a power that the British courts have had since the 2002 E-Commerce Directive Regulations (with ISP’s being similarly liable for inaction): the new legislation simply creates a DMCA-style process for making take-down requests easier to issue.
After several hours of reading – not just the proposed new law but also all of the existing copyright law, plus the current World Intellectual Property Organisation Treaty (the UK is a signatory) and also hundreds of pages of discussion around all of the above – a few things became clear…
For one thing, many of those opposing the bill don’t seem to be opposed to the bill itself so much as they’re opposed to the entire notion of copyright law, particularly when it’s used by “greedy record companies” or “rich recording artists”. As one commenter put it on the Guardian: “If you want to be solely a ‘recording artist’ and find you’ve been caught short – tough. No one owes you a living. You’ve been rendered obsolete by technology (not me) and you either adapt or fade away like so many other industries.” The only copyright law that people like that will accept is one that lets them steal whatever they like.
Far be it from me to suggest that Cory Doctorow has an anti-copyright agenda, but there’s no doubt he’s the world’s leading proponent of the ‘give everything away free and reap the tangential rewards’ model of intellectual property protection. Creative Commons might work perfectly for a man who makes his living writing and speaking about how he gives things away free, but it’s not always the answer for musicians, authors and filmmakers who don’t have that particular sideline. And I say that as an author who just gave his last book away under a Creative Commons license and who isn’t going to go broke any time soon.
Whatever Doctorow’s biases, headlines like “UK Digital Economy Bill will wipe out indie WiFi hotspots in libraries, unis, cafes” or “Leaked UK government plan to create ‘Pirate Finder General’ with power to appoint militias, create laws” do nothing to encourage rational debate. In fact, they’re curiously reminiscent of “Obamacare will kill grandma” claims from Republicans in the US. Why debate facts when you can drive people to your way of thinking through scary headlines?
And yet, shrill objections aside, it’s equally clear that the Digital Economy Bill has its fair share of potential problems. There’s not a huge amount of new law in the bill, but there are a whole bunch of new processes – new takedown notices, persistent offender lists etc – all of which will need to work properly from day one. In the British government’s haste to rush it through before the upcoming election, there’s a huge risk of passing a bad statute which will prove impossible to enforce.
Most clear of all though is that, beyond a general call to “scrap the bill and start again” (again: paging the Republicans), none of the opponents of the bill are suggesting a credible alternative. For all of our fears of “chilling effects” the fact is that the Internet is shitting all over the intellectual property rights of the UK creative industries (industries which account for 7.9% of the nation’s GDP). Existing law offers almost all of the protections required by copyright owners, but it’s too slow and costly to enforce in the face of widespread online infringement. A shake-up of the enforcement process is much needed – not just to protect fat cat record companies, but also to ensure the livelihoods of thousands of musicians, authors, filmmakers, photographers, artists and the rest who contribute to our cultural landscape. To those people, the effects of an online copyright free-for-all are just as chilling. If the DEB isn’t the right bill , then it is beholden on those attacking it to suggest an alternative.
Here’s mine:
1) My parents run a business that offers free wi-fi to their customers. I know it’s impossible for them to act as copyright police and so, alarmed by the proposed bill, they’ll likely choose to close down their wi-fi hotspots. To avoid that, the law needs to distinguish between domestic and business internet users when it comes to the persistent infringers clause. For domestic users, the 50-strikes and you’re out clause – and the disconnection threat – should stand: it’s a powerful deterrent, and there are plenty of points at which householders can appeal. For businesses and public wi-fi providers, the disconnection threat should be dropped entirely – it’s clearly a disproportionate punishment – but the fine should remain. In both cases, though, the burden should rest on the copyright owner to prove complicity in the infringement. Domestically, this is as simple as proving multiple breaches from the same IP address – there is a duty on the homeowner to lock down their wi-fi and to know what is happening under their roof, especially after receiving multiple notifications. For businesses, though, the copyright owner should face the (almost impossible) task of showing that the business owner is knowingly permitting copyright breaches on their premises. They’ll basically have to send private detectives round and catch the owner in the act – something only worth doing in extreme cases.
2) The current site-blocking amendment should be dropped entirely. Instead it should be replaced with a virtual carbon copy (quelle irony) of the DMCA’s takedown procedures, but with even more severe punishments for copyright owners who file spurious claims. If an alleged infringer files a counter-notice but the copyright owner decides not to then pursue legal action, the former should be immediately entitled to claim damages against the latter, set at a fixed amount (say £250 – a little under $400) for every day each affected file was offline. In the case of entire sites being blocked, these damages could be enormous. The result: copyright owners will have a costly disincentive against filing spurious claims.
3) Finally, and most importantly, the bill should be abandoned until the next parliament. Rushing through legislation is almost never a good idea – and it’s not like it’s going to be a vote winner, either for this government or the next one. With the full lobbying force of the creative industries behind a new law, there’s virtually no chance that it won’t be passed in the next twelve months so MPs should take the next few months to revise it, to consult with experts, to explain it to critics and generally to ensure that everything that can be done to make it fair has been done.
The UK’s creative industries generate £112.5 billion in revenue for the British economy. The Digital Economy Bill should be passed, and it should be passed soon. But more than all of that, it should be passed right.
The Abnormal, Gruesome Gall - Alien Invader in Your Yard (Thanks, RJ!)
(Image: Too many galls, a Creative Commons Attribution Sharealike photo from anemoneprojectors' photostream)
Section: Video, Content, DVD/DVR/Blu-ray, Portable Video, Communications, Cellular Providers, Smartphones, Mobile, Features, Originals
If your one of the many that have been induced into a package that offers one low price for broadband, phone and television, the Comcast Mobile App is a fantastic tool to control many of the broad features of these products. Comcast recently upgraded it’s already decent mobile app for the iPhone to version 2.0.1. The new version features enhancements for DVR owners while continuing to improve on delivering quality digital voice controls in a very intuitive program. I’ve been using the app now since it came out and Comcast really has done an outstanding job with this app.
The biggest news in 2.0.1 is (in some markets, rolling out now) the ability to remotely control your DVR. The new service, called rDVR, lets customers decide to record programs while on the go. It looks pretty slick and although I do have Comcast service, my TiVo with CableCard prevents access to Comcast’s On-Demand services, so I was unable to test this new feature out.
The other features the app services continue to improve. The 2.0 app update brought push notifications to the app along with sounds to alert users to missed calls. The guide to TV listings is surprisingly fast and localized. Comcast email, address book and a really handy phone log are all done extremely well. To me, the Digital Voice part of the app is where this app really shines.
In the Digital Voice section of the app, users can see all calls, both incoming and outgoing. Tabs provide filters of the bulk data, one for just Outgoing calls, one for missed calls and one just for voice mail. Voice messages can be played through the speaker. From a simple button in the lower right corner, I can forward my Comcast Digital Voice number to any number I plug in, right from this app. Absolutely fantastic.
I am a big fan of this app as it makes the services I already use so much more friendly and honestly has changed how I view Comcast. Other phone service providers should be taking their cues from Comcast and this app. The app is free and available in the Apple App store now.
Product page: [Comcast] iTunes link: [iTunes]
Full Story » | Written by JG Mason for Gadgetell. | Comment on this Article »
DWalk sent us in a tip about a new trailer for Tron. It’s been pretty hard to track down but I think we caught it in the wild. It’s nigh on unwatchable, but any artifact from a potentially horrible (but also potentially great (see Transformers v. Dark Knight)) movie that will destroy our childhood memories is a valuable one, right?
What do you guys think of the new Tron? Should they even bother?
Cascaad, which is billed both as an ‘awareness engine’ and a ’smart social media browser’ by the Italian startup behind the service, aims to make the realtime streams you tap into more about you.
Essentially, the tool is designed to filter the never-ending incoming message stream from your friends and millions of others by continuously distilling which part of the chatter is about stories, things and places that match your specific interests, context and social affinities.
Here’s how the service, currently only available as a beta iPhone app (iTunes link), gets pitched in their own words:
The goal is to potentiate your extended awareness of what is happening right now of personal relevance in your world. It is basically a very sophisticated realtime networked search, discovery and filter engine that distills automatically what both your friends and millions of other people are paying attention to on Twitter and other social platforms into the attention-grabbing stories, things and places that match personal interests and social affinities.
Cascaad will soon be releasing a full-fledged Web-based experience, and the company is also working on integrating new data sources and capabilities, including location awareness, as well as extending the platform’s reach. Last week, Cascaad released its first beta of what it calls the SuperTweet API, which it says will allow third-party Twitter applications to “add smart contextual information and monetization [...], including semantic entity markup, nonintrusive in-text affiliate commerce links, related content [and] social relevance scores”.
The startup was founded in 2008 by Erik Lumer (PhD Stanford, formerly at Xerox Parc and founder and ex-CEO of Internet TV startup Babelgum). The company’s R&D unit is based in Milan, employs 8 people and will be opening an office in Silicon Valley some time this quarter.
Cascaad has raised close to $2 million in financing over two rounds (one in November 2009, and one last month) from Italian VC firm Innogest Capital.
Another venture-backed startup doing similar things is Israel-based my6sense.
Online dating sites can be daunting. Between setting up the perfect profile and then trying to meet your dream partner from profiles of hundreds of thousands of people on each site (or on some of the more popular sites like Match.com, millions of users ). One startup, OneGuyOneGirl, aims to simplify this process.
The site displays One Guy and One Girl each day. You can see a picture on the site and access their Facebook and Twitter pages, as well. And if you like what you see, you can email as the guy/girl directly. You can also request to be featured on the site.
I admire the simplicity of OneGuy and One Girl, but there are a few holes I’d like to point out. First, it’s unclear how the site will actually makes money and doesn’t appear to have a viable business model. Also, some of the Facebook profiles of some of the featured guys/girls are available, which makes it difficult to know much about the person besides their age and a one sentence description about the individual’s interests. Lastly, the site seems to skew very young; both individuals who were featured today are only 18 and when I’ve checked the site out previously, the individuals were in the same age range.
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