destinyland writes “YouTube’s most popular videos in 2007 were a bunch of major label music videos, and YouTube is scrambling to re-assure the net roots community with an alternate list of 2007′s “Most Memorable” videos. ‘The rankings, released by YouTube on Thursday, took into account the most shared, most discussed, top rated and general popularity of clips…’ One article argues that the real trend in 2007 was viral re-mixes of the original viral videos. ‘In 2007 the viral video stars spawned their own wave of counter-memes, proving once again that the internet moves in mysterious ways.’”

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phorest writes “One would have thought the choice of Ohio lawmakers to move away from Diebold touch-screen voting terminals would be welcomed by the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU). Instead, the group is warning the elections board that their alternative might be illegal under state laws. ‘The main dispute is whether a central optical scan of ballots at the board’s headquarters downtown would result in votes not being counted on ballots that are incorrectly filled out. The ACLU believes the intent of election law is to ensure voters can be notified immediately of a voting error and be able to make a second-chance vote.’”

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drewmoney writes “Misconceptions about what ‘open source software’ means has made elements of the US Defense Department reluctant to deploy in a live environment. DoD proponents of shared-source projects are now working to reverse this trend by educating IT decision-makers and demonstrating OSS usefulness. ‘The cost of cleaning up a “network spill” that introduces classified material on an unclassified network is running about US$11,000 per incident on the Navy/Marine Corps Intranet (NMCI), so the free Secure Save tool could produce monetary savings for the Navy. Additionally, it would cover more file formats than the costly commercial redaction product currently available on the NMCI.’”

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News.com is reporting that the next version of Ubuntu will see KDE unsupported, but only for the time being. Because of the dramatic changeover from KDE 3.5 to 4.0, Ubuntu sponsor Canonical is unwilling to initially support the popular Linux GUI. Gnome will still be supported, and the company expects to return support to kubuntu soon. “Developer interest is focused on KDE 4.0, but it’s not mature enough yet to use in the next KDE-based variation of Ubuntu, called Kubuntu, Scott James Remnant, leader of the Ubuntu Desktop team, said in an explanation to a Kubuntu mailing list. But most Kubuntu developers adding features “upstream” of today’s products are focused on KDE 4.0, meaning that it’s risky to release a long-term support version based on 3.5.”

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henrypijames writes “For months, users of Adobe Creative Suite 3 have been wondering why some of the applications regularly connect to what looks like a private IP address but is actually a public domain address belonging to the web analytics company Omniture. Now allegations of user spying are getting louder, prompting Adobe Photoshop product manager John Nack to respond, though many remain unsatisfied with his explanation.”

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christian.einfeldt writes “Computers and handheld devices running default GNU Linux or Unix OSes have swept Amazon’s ‘best of’ list for 2007, according BusinessWire.com for 28 December 2007. Best selling computer? The Nokia Internet Tablet PC, running Linux. Best reviewed computer? The Apple MacBook Pro notebook PC. Most wished for computer? Asus Eee 4G-Galaxy 7-inch PC mobile Internet device, which comes with Xandros Linux pre-installed. And last, but not least, the most frequently gifted computer: The Apple MacBook notebook PC.”

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Oddball weather is the norm in 2007. As the year draws to a close, it’s shaping up to be the hottest year on record in the Northern Hemisphere. Most alarming to climate scientists, the Arctic, which serves as the world’s refrigerator, dramatically warmed in 2007, shattering records for the amount of melting ice.

Originally Syndicated via RSS from Wired: Top Stories

GeneRegulator writes “The NY Times is running a story on communities that are forming around kids with rare genetic mutations. New technology that can scan chromosomes for small errors is being applied first to children with autism and other ‘unexplained developmental delays.’ It turns out that many of them have small deletions or duplications of DNA. Meanwhile, hundreds of little groups are forming around the banner of their children’s shared mutations. As new research shows that many of us have small deletions and duplications of DNA that separate us from our parents, and that many of these “copy number variants” contribute to skills and senses, the families described in the story may presage the formation of all sorts of ‘communities of the genetically rare’ in the general population, not just amongst the developmentally delayed.”

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The frozen carcass of a 37,000-year-old baby mammoth unearthed this summer in Siberia arrives in Japan for tests that researchers hope will shed new light on the internal structure of the ancient beasts.

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An MIT initiative called “OpenCourseWare” makes virtually all the school’s courses available online for free, and more than 100 universities worldwide, including Johns Hopkins, Tufts and Notre Dame, are joining MIT in a consortium of schools promoting their own open courseware.

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Token_Internet_Girl passed us a link to an MSNBC article on a very disappointed Star Trek fan. Mr. Moustakis of NJ bought a poker visor he thought was worn by Data in Next Generation at a Christie’s auction for some $6,000. When he brought it to a convention to have it signed, actor Brent Spiner explained that he’d already sold the well-known visor in a personal sale; like Senator Vreenak, Moustakis had been given a fake. “Christie’s spokesman Rik Pike stood behind the authenticity of the auction and said the disgruntled buyer’s case had no merit. The lawsuit, filed in state court in Manhattan, demands millions of dollars in punitive damages and a refund for the visor and two other items Moustakis bought at the 2006 auction.”

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stevedcc writes “The Guardian is running an article about members of the Writer’s Guild, still on strike, creating their own ventures to deliver content over the internet. The intention is to get their work to consumers while bypassing the movie studios. Their effort will include actors and directors, and it is not the first step they have taken to expand their interests during the strike. One particular project is said to include A-list talent, and will be released in roughly 50 daily segments before going to DVD. This is also relevant to the strike because, as the article states, ‘at the core of the current dispute is the question of how to reimburse writers for work that is distributed on the internet.’”

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ttnuagmada points us to an article about scientist David Wiltshire’s suggestion that theorized dark energy is not needed to describe the expansion of the universe. His work challenges assumptions made about the distribution of matter in the universe. Early solutions to general relativity were based on a “smooth distribution” of matter. Wiltshire’s approach focuses on a “lumpy” dispersal, which more accurately fits data from modern studies. We have discussed other theories about dark energy in the past. Quoting: “Through observational projects like the Sloan Digital Sky Survey and the 2 Degree Field survey, we now have a much better picture of the large-scale structure of the universe and we know that galaxies are not uniformly distributed. ‘Rather, they are in clusters sprinkled thinly in filaments and “bubble walls” surrounding huge voids hundreds of millions of light-years across,’ Wiltshire says.

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mytrip brings us a Wired blog about Jack Thompson’s recent press release, which claims an “unholy alliance” exists between the gaming industry and the U.S. Department of Defense. Game Politics also has a discussion of Thompson’s main points. From Wired: “Jim Blank, the head of the modeling and simulation division of the U.S. Joint Forces Command, says that commercial games don’t meet the demand of the military, adding, ‘first-person shooter games really don’t apply in this environment.’ Blank’s point is that game-like simulations are a valuable tool for training soldiers in situations that would be too expensive to simulate in reality.”

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Hugh Pickens writes “A prototype solar tree that recently went on display on a busy street in Vienna, Austria has passed a key test by providing light during the night-time even when the sun had been blocked by clouds for four days in a row. The branches of the solar tree were decorated with 10 solar lamps, each one powered by 36 solar cells. The tree included rechargeable batteries and electronic systems to measure the amount of light in the atmosphere and trigger the solar lamps to go on. ‘Not just trees but other objects could be decorated with solar cells and so keep streets well lit at night time,’ said Christina Werner from Cultural Project Management. Google uses a similar concept to light their parking lots with 3,000 solar panels that provide up to 10 percent of the Googleplex’s power demand. We discussed Google’s solar initiative last year.”

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davidwr writes “The St. Petersburg, FL, Times reports that Florida is going back to paper ballots, but with a twist. They are printing the ballots on-demand, right there at the polling booth. This isn’t machine-assisted voting where a touch-screen fills in your printed ballot for you. It’s just a way to save printing costs and reduce paper waste. ‘Without ballot on demand, poll workers at 13 early Hillsborough voting sites would need to stockpile stacks of every possible ballot type. With ballot on demand, poll workers can print out a person’s distinct ballot type when he or she arrives to vote.’”

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eldavojohn writes “New Jersey just passed legislation making it illegal for sex offenders to use the internet. NJ congresswoman Linda D. Greenstein said, ‘When Megan’s Law was enacted, few could envision a day when a sex offender hiding behind a fake screen name would be a mouse-click away from new and unwitting victims. Sex offenders cannot be given an opportunity to abuse the anonymity the Internet can provide as a means of opening a door to countless new potential victims.’ While they still can search for jobs, this is a major expansion over the prior legislation which barred them from social networking sites like facebook or myspace.”

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Ponca City, We Love You writes “Rolling Stone has an interesting story on how record producers alter the way they mix albums to compensate for the limitations of MP3 sound. Much of the information left out during MP3 compression is at the very high and low ends, which is why some MP3s sound flat. Without enough low end, ‘you don’t get the punch anymore. It decreases the punch of the kick drum and how the speaker gets pushed when the guitarist plays a power chord.’ The inner ear automatically compresses blasts of high volume to protect itself, so we associate compression with loudness. After a few minutes, constant loudness grows fatiguing to the brain. Though few listeners realize this consciously, many feel an urge to skip to another song.”

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sporkme writes “A DARPA-funded research project at UCLA has wrapped up a set of animal trials testing the effects of inhalation of the brain chemical orexin A, a deficiency of which is a characteristic of narcolepsy. Monkeys were deprived of sleep, and then given a shot of the compound. ‘The study … found orexin A not only restored monkeys’ cognitive abilities but made their brains look “awake” in PET scans. Siegel said that orexin A is unique in that it only had an impact on sleepy monkeys, not alert ones, and that it is ‘specific in reversing the effects of sleepiness’ without other impacts on the brain.’ Researchers seem cautious to bill the treatment as a replacement for sleep, as it is not clear that adjusting brain chemistry could have the same physical benefits of real sleep in the long run. The drug is aimed at replacing amphetamines used by drowsy long-haul military pilots, but there would no doubt be large demand for such a remedy thanks to its apparent lack of side-effects.”

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Anti-Luddite writes In an article on the Internet Evolution site, analyst Tom Nolle discusses the potential of ‘Intelligent Software Agent (ISA)’ technology. He points to specific types such as ‘search assistant ISAs,’ which will inevitably flop before their potential is realized. He speaks favorably of the ‘mobile ISA’ which he says, ‘involves dispatching mobile agents from one computer and delivering them to a remote computer for execution.’ While hailing the potential of this new generation of agent technology, Nolle seems skeptical about our ability to prepare for and handle its emergence, particularly because of flaws in the agent research community.”

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First we find out that Egypt is trying to abuse the concept of copyright law to add copyrights to the pyramids, and now comes a story from The Register about how things like the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel are involved in a copyright mess. The article at The Register is a bit confusing, unfortunately, and jumps around to a bunch of different things without ever tying them clearly back together or making a truly coherent point — but the key point is that the owners of certain artwork, which have long been in the public domain (much of which was created before the concept of copyright had ever been conceived of), are now asserting copyright over any photographs taken of that artwork. On top of that, the owners of such works, including the Sistine Chapel, are licensing out these “rights” over the artwork in exchange for cash to pay for restorations. So, in the case of the Sistine Chapel, the restoration was apparently paid for by the Japanese firm NHK in exchange for “exclusive rights” to the images of the restored Sistine Chapel. Unfortunately, the article doesn’t discuss how limited (or broad) the specific rights really are, but it does seem somewhat ridiculous to use copyright in such a manner.

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christian.einfeldt writes “According to open standards advocate Russell Ossendryver, Microsoft will be deprecating certain functionality in its Microsoft Office Open XML specification. Ossendryver says the move is an attempt to quiet critics of the specification in the run up to the crucial February ISO vote. The Microsoft-led industry standards group formally offering OOXML confirms in a 21 December 2007 announcement that issues related to the ‘leap year bug’, VML, compatibility settings such as ‘AutoSpaceLikeWord95′ and others will be ‘extracted from the main specification and relocated to an independent annex in DIS 29500 for deprecated functionality.’”

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In a move that seems calculated to evoke the film adaptation of 1984, the FBI has announced a plan to begin using some 150 Clear Channel digital billboards in major American cities to show national security alerts, information about recent crimes, and photographs of fugitive criminals and missing persons, all with real-time updates.

A pilot billboard in Philadelphia has already helped to capture several wanted criminals, and a spokesman for the outdoor advertising industry suggests that these kinds of publicity tactics can be as useful at demoralizing criminals as they are at generating tips:

“What law enforcement tells us is it contributes to an environment where the criminal feels they have no where to go. A lot of times they end up just giving up.”

In a way, the surprising thing is that law enforcement officials hadn't previously taken such visible steps to make use of the distributed eyes and ears of ordinary citizens. The problem, of course, is that publicity can also generate lots of time-consuming false leads. An advertisement currently ubiquitous on New York subways applauds the thousands of New Yorkers who phoned in reports of suspicious packages in the past year. But since we haven't heard reports of thousands of bombs recovered on the A train, it seems safe to surmise that the noise-to-signal ratio on such tips is quite high. As for national security alerts, our experience with color-coded national security warnings, and the attendant spectacle of panicked citizens mobbing Home Depot for plastic sheeting and duct tape, suggest that the Bureau might be well advised to exercise a bit of circumspection about those real-time updates.

Julian Sanchez is an expert at the Techdirt Insight Community. To get insight and analysis from Julian Sanchez and other experts on challenges your company faces, click here.

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theodp writes "A just-published Microsoft patent application for Monitoring Group Activities describes how a company or the government can determine if employees are not meeting their project deadlines through the use of detection components comprised of ‘one or more physiological or environmental sensors to detect at least one of heart rate, galvanic skin response, EMG, brain signals, respiration rate, body temperature, movement, facial movements, facial expressions, and blood pressure.’ Yikes."

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NewYorkCountryLawyer writes “In an interview with Jon Newton of p2pnet, Prof. Deirdre Smith of the University of Maine says that ‘our students are enthusiastic about being directly connected to a case with a national scope and significance’. The UM Cumberland Legal Aid Clinic is the first law school legal clinic in the U.S. to have taken on the RIAA, to have the opportunity for hands-on experience fighting the RIAA’s effort to rewrite copyright law. Smith went on to say that the case is probably one of the first intellectual property cases the clinic has ever taken on, and that if it proceeds further, she expects to also ‘draw on the considerable expertise in IP among members of our faculty and the Maine Center for Law and Innovation, another program of the Law School’. “

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While organizations like the BSA and the SIIA play silly games and announce bogus numbers about the “costs” of software piracy, it’s nice to see the whole thing beginning to backfire. We’ve already pointed to the backlash against the BSA for its activities, and now we’re seeing how these kinds of crackdowns are doing exactly the opposite of what BSA/SIIA members would want: they’re looking for open source alternatives. Following the ongoing “international crackdown” on software piracy, it appears that the Vietnamese government is the latest to start promoting open source alternatives. Of course, for proprietary software makers, this should be seen as worse than piracy. After all, as Microsoft and others have long admitted, you’re much better off if someone is using an unauthorized version of your software, than if they’re using the competition (especially if that competition is free). If they’re using an unauthorized version of your software, then at least there’s a chance that they’ll either buy it at a later date or convince others to buy it. However, by putting such a big effort in cracking down on software piracy, all the industry has done is highlight why people are better off going with free alternatives. This is a key point we’ve tried to highlight in the past. The issue isn’t piracy at all, but the fact that the competition will eventually learn to embrace “free.” Focusing on “piracy” only helps accelerate that process.

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WheezyJoe writes “Maybe OS X Leopard has its problems, but the New York Times seems to think Apple has designed the ideal techie retail store. A policy that encourages lingering, with dozens of fully functioning computers, iPods and iPhones for visitors to try, even for hours on end (one patron wrote a manuscript entirely at the store) has ‘given some stores, especially those in urban neighborhoods, the feel of a community center … Meanwhile, the Sony flagship store on West 56th Street, a few blocks from Apple’s Fifth Avenue store, has the hush of a mausoleum. And being inside the long and narrow blue-toned Nokia store on 57th Street feels a bit like being inside an aquarium. The high-end Samsung Experience showroom, its nuevo tech music on full blast one recent morning, was nearly empty.’”

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The Patent Troll Tracker is doing what he does best (well, other than pissing off patent hoarders and their lawyers): tracking patent litigation. As we approach the end of the year, he’s got a nice rundown on some numbers concerning patent litigation. For those who think that pointless and wasteful patent litigation is on the decline, think again. Even in just the last three months, the pace has been accelerating — perhaps as patent hoarders rush to get cases in before any patent reform makes progress in Congress — or before the Supreme Court (thankfully) quashes another abuse of the patent system. The Troll Tracker looks at the Fortune 100 to see who got sued the most for patent infringement, and found that the top 35 companies were sued a combined 500 times for patent infringement in the last two years alone. That’s an awful lot of money wasted on lawyers that could be going towards actual innovation. Of the lawsuits over the past two years, approximately 50% came from companies who didn’t actually make any products themselves. However, in the last 3 months, that number shoots up to 70% from companies that don’t make products. And if you limit the list to tech companies, 80% of the lawsuits came from companies that don’t make products. Shouldn’t this be ringing some alarm bells?

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narramissic writes “In the race for Consumer Electronics Show (CES) headlines, companies parade new, hot, and not-quite-ready-for-primetime products while keynote speakers rev things up with predictions for the year ahead. An ITworld article runs down the list of who stuck their necks out too far in 2007, starting with Sharp’s monster 108-inch LCD. ‘The set represented the biggest flat-panel TV developed — a title it still holds today — and came without a price but with the promise of availability during 2007. But wealthy consumers are still waiting. Sharp said recently that it is still working on plans for a commercial launch for the TV set.’”

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The original browser from the earliest days of the web will cease to be in February, AOL says. After playing second fiddle to Microsoft and being eclipsed by its offspring Firefox, the Netscape browser will be killed off by parent company AOL, which purchased the brand in 1999.

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Way back in 2003, then head of the MPAA, Jack Valenti, got so worried about “piracy” of movies coming from insiders that he banned the use of “screener” DVDs for those voting for the Academy Awards. If you’re unaware, traditionally, Motion Picture Academy members received “screener” copies of the movies up for awards on DVD or VHS tape so they could watch them at home and decide how to vote. Yet, in Valenti’s twisted world, this had to be stopped because screener copies were appearing online. Of course, banning screeners created quite a mess for the folks who actually had to vote on the awards, as there was no longer an easy way to actually see the movies. It also really upset smaller studios, who knew that their movies were less likely to be seen by Academy members if they couldn’t send out screeners. Eventually, the MPAA relented, but the following year came up with a new ridiculous solution. Rather than sending DVD screeners that members could watch with their existing home theater setup, it hired a company to make special DRM’d DVDs that would only play on special DVD players. Then it sent these special DVD players with the screeners to the Academy members. Of course, this was both a huge expense and still a tremendous pain in the ass for voters, who had to hook up this special DVD player that could only be used for screeners. It also made it difficult if the Academy member wanted to take the DVD somewhere else (say on vacation) and watch it elsewhere without dragging along this “special” DVD player. Apparently it only took 3 years of complaints before the MPAA realized that perhaps this was a dumb idea (that also didn’t stop the movies from getting online anyway). This year, it’s apparently phasing out the special DVD players and will provide (gasp!) normal DVDs for voting members.

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Kelson writes “After years of trying to figure out what to do with it, AOL is officially discontinuing the Netscape browser. In the four and a half years after they dismantled the development team and spun off the Mozilla Foundation as a lost cause, only to see Firefox take off, AOL has tried twice to reinvent Netscape. There was the chimera-like Netscape 8, which used both Mozilla’s and IE’s rendering engines, and just months ago they released Netscape 9, trying to ride the social networking wave. AOL will release security fixes through February 1, 2008, after which the browser will officially be dead. For the “nostalgic,” they suggest using Firefox and installing a Netscape theme.”

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This homemade car won’t win any beauty contests, but with fuel economy this good, who cares?

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In an age of readily available “snuff porn,” director David Cronenberg trades his sci-fi-tinged terrors for more everyday, earthly nightmares.

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yali writes “The U.S. Transportation and Security Administration has issued new rules limiting travel with lithium batteries. As of January 1, no spare lithium batteries are allowed in checked luggage. Batteries carried in the cabin are subject to limitations on per-battery and total lithium content, and spare batteries must have the terminals covered. If you’re returning home from the holidays with new toys, be sure to check out the new restrictions before you pack.”

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While AOL’s purchase of Time Warner is often considered one of the biggest M&A blunders of all time (and I’d still argue that the problem was in the execution, not the concept), it’s at least worth pointing out that prior to that acquisition, AOL made another huge blunder in purchasing Netscape for over $4 billion dollars in 1998, just as Microsoft’s Internet Explorer was finally taking over Netscape’s marketshare (AOL apparently believes in the buy high, sell low philosophy). This seemed odd, even at the time, as AOL had long been using a modified version of Microsoft’s Internet Explorer as its browser of choice (even back when IE was awful compared to Netscape). Even after the acquisition, AOL continued to use IE as its browser choice, and about the only thing that Netscape was good for was allowing AOL to sue Microsoft for antitrust violations. Microsoft eventually paid $750 million to AOL to settle the charges, leading many to assume that AOL was then going to kill off Netscape. While Mozilla (which was effectively spun out of Netscape) continued to gain traction, it made little sense for AOL to keep offering a “Netscape” browser, even if built on Mozilla code. Yet, in 2004 we were surprised to hear that AOL was still releasing a new Netscape browser. Since then, we’d pretty much forgotten that AOL actually offered Netscape as a browser and had assumed that it had been killed off. While that may have been effectively true, the reality was that the company was still working on a Netscape browser… until now. AOL has officially announced that it will be ending support for the Netscape browser for the six or seven people who still use it. While it won’t impact very many people, it certainly is an “end of an era” type moment. While there may be some post mortems to suggest that Microsoft “killed” Netscape, the reality is that bad strategic decisions at Netscape (wanting to charge for the browser, getting distracted with other projects, bloat, bloat, bloat) were more to blame for its real demise a decade ago.

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prostoalex writes “The Annals of Improbable Research, a scientific publication that hosts the annual Ig Nobel awards, has decided to offer its publication free online, News.com reports. According to the journal Web site, visitors can view HTML articles with low-res images or download low-res PDFs for free. High-resolution PDFs and ‘traditional on-the-toilet-readable paper-and-ink’ issues are still available for a subscription fee.”

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We’ve already seen two Storm attacks this week aimed at capitalizing on the holiday season. Now, a new Javascript exploit is migrating partially by linking itself to information on Benazir Bhutto’s assassination.

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Earlier this month, we wrote about the dangers of noncompete agreements and how they tend to slow innovation and hurt regions compared to those, such as California, that do not enforce noncompetes. Most of the research on noncompetes tends to compare Massachusetts, which enforces noncompetes, to California. And, in an unfortunate demonstration of the dangers of noncompetes, iRobot, a Massachusetts company has just forced a competitor completely out of business, and our troops may be less safe because of it. Many people know iRobot for the cute little Roomba vacuum cleaner robot, but the company’s main line of business has always been selling robots to the military to help them locate and dispose of explosives. A new company sprang up recently, called Robotic FX, founded by a former iRobot employee. Robotic FX had just scored an army contract to make some similar robots. The competition would have been good for everyone. It would have pushed both companies to continue to innovate and make better, more efficient and more cost effective robots. Instead, iRobot sued and has forced Robotic FX completely out of business and banned its founder from working in the industry for five years. Here’s a knowledgeable expert on robotics who can help make useful robots that will help keep our troops safer… and he’s not allowed to work in the industry for five years. That doesn’t seem like a good outcome for anyone… other than iRobot who can rest on its laurels rather than having to innovate in the face of competition.

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All that stands between you and seeing your cellphone turned into a conduit for endless sales-pitch intrusions is your mobile provider, who, for now at least, is skittish about violating any privacy laws. That could change, however.

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If your current 3G network isn’t fast enough for you, then just wait a bit. A new real-world test saw a leading 4G contender, LTE, reach a 173Mbps download peak.

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eldavojohn writes “A year after opening its movie download service, Wal-Mart has abandoned the endeavor. They claim this is a result of HP’s decision to stop supporting its video download store software. The article also notes that, unlike iTunes, Wal-Mart offered variable pricing which attracted a lot of studios. ‘The world’s largest retailer instead turned its rental service over to Netflix Inc. Wal-Mart still operates a music download service and continues to sell CDs and DVDs at retail stores and over the Internet for shipping by mail.’ Is this evidence of the strength of unified pricing in media downloads or just another company being squished by the giant Netflix & Apple?”

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It’s not all that surprising these days to hear about software companies having their software “phone home” in some manner or another, though it’s often quite annoying. However, it looks like Adobe has taken this to a new level. As highlighted by Valleywag, Adobe’s CS3 design software includes a system to provide your usage data quietly to a “behavioral analytics” firm named Omniture. Of course, it does this without ever asking you if you want some random company knowing every time you use this piece of software. While it may not be doing anything nefarious, this certainly has all the hallmarks of spyware, including the fact that it tries to (weakly) disguise the connection to Omniture by making it look like it’s simply pinging your local network. It’s really amazing that companies keep doing this type of thing thinking that people won’t catch on. There may be plenty of legitimate reasons for tracking the usage of a piece of software — but if so, why not be upfront about it and let the user of the software opt-in to sharing his or her data? Yet another reason to use a firewall that catches these sorts of sneaky outbound connections. Update: John Dowdell, an Adobe employee (and long time Techdirt reader) has replied in the comments, noting that he’s talking to folks at Adobe to find out the whole story, but he thinks it’s the “live update” function. I’m not sure I understand why a live update function would call an analytics firm — or why the ping to that analytics firm should be disguised as a local network ping, but that’s the story coming out of Adobe right now. Will update again if any more details become clear.

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While a whole lot of nuthin’ followed the joint announcement from Microsoft and DirecTV at CES 2006 announcement, recent rumblings and trusted sources tell Ars that satellite support in Media Center is very close.

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Lucas123 writes “Panasonic plans to unveil the thinnest Blu-ray Disc drive made yet at the upcoming CES show. The drive is 9.5mm high, which allows it to fit into standard laptop form factors instead of requiring manufacturers to redesign systems to fit high-def DVD players as they’ve been doing. ‘Panasonic has already begun offering samples of the drives to laptop makers with the hope that the companies will build it into new PCs.’”

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Offenders can be monitored, have their computers searched without warning, or have Internet and computer access banned altogether… even if they did not use a computer in the commission of their crime.

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Ponca City, We Love You writes “Daily Domainer has a story alleging that there may be a leak that allows domain tasters to intercept, analyze and register your domain ideas in minutes. ‘Every time you do a whois search with any service, you run a risk of losing your domain,’ says one industry insider. ICANN’s Security and Stability Advisory Committee (SSAC ) has not been able to find hard evidence of Domain Name Front Running but they have issued an advisory (pdf) for people to come forward with hard evidence it is happening. Here is how domain name research theft crimes can occur and some tips to avoiding being a victim.”

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Originally Syndicated via RSS from Slashdot

Way back in 2003, I wrote up one potential business model for musicians who want to embrace file sharing, but who still want to make money (i.e., most of them). It was never intended to be “the” business model for embracing free file sharing, but it always seemed like a good one to me. While we’ve seen tons of interesting, innovative, unique and creative business models from musicians over the years, I still haven’t come across one who completely followed the plan I described. The basics of the business model are easily recognizable to those who have read my series on economics, but it again, focuses on giving away the infinite goods and charging for scarce goods — in this case, in the form of a “membership” or “subscription” that gets fans additional (scarce) benefits not available to those who don’t pay the subscription. Thus, if you’re a subscriber, you might get to come visit the musician in the studio, get early access to new songs, be a part of the song-writing process, early access to concert ticket sales or perhaps the chance to have the musician play a private concert for you and your friends.

The Penny Distribution blog has alerted us to the news that musician Kristin Hersh has actually adopted something very much like the model I described. Her plan is even a little more advanced, as there are different “levels” of membership with different benefits included. At the base level of $10/quarter (which still seems a bit pricey to me — I would think that it would help more to have an opening level that costs less than a big record label CD per year), you get a sticker, a poster and a copy of her new CD before anyone else does. As the prices get higher, she starts to get more creative. For $30/quarter, you’ll also get “a works in progress sampler CD” of new music that she’s working on, plus you’ll get yourself and one other person on the guest list for one of her shows. There are even higher levels of support, including one where you’d get to spend time in the studio with Kristin all the way up to getting executive producer credits on her next album.

I think this is definitely a move in the right direction — and I’m hopeful that other bands will start to adopt similar policies. In this case, it feels like the prices are a little too high, and the benefits are a little too low, but it may depend on how popular the artist is (Penny Distribution says Hersh is popular — I’ve never heard of her). Also, in her mission statement about the new model, she seems to be suggesting that this model is “principles over profit” where she’s unlikely to profit as much through it. That doesn’t sound right either. If you embrace this model properly, you should certainly be able to profit nicely from it — as you can drum up a larger, more committed following who are more willing to pay sums of money directly to you, rather than filtered through a bunch of middlemen all taking their cuts.

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Originally Syndicated via RSS from Techdirt

Googling Yourself writes “More than 30,000 censors are employed in China to monitor the Internet, so it was no surprise when censors deleted a posting by Chen Yuhua protesting Beijing municipal government’s regulations barring any dog over 14 inches high and restricting each family to only one dog. The surprise (reports the Washington Post) was when Chen studied China’s civil code and marched into court with a lawsuit, only the second time that a Chinese citizen has gone to court over party censorship. ‘I was very careful to follow the correct procedure,’ Chen said in an interview, while pointing at the official legal manual on his dining room table. On December 14 Chen was told by clerks that the district court, after referring to higher-level judges for advice, had decided to reject the case. The next step, Chen said, is an appeal to the Supreme Court.”

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Let there be no question as to why Wal-Mart’s online movie service has folded: high prices and DRM that stomps on fair use colluded to produce one stinker of an offering. Good riddance.

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Originally Syndicated via RSS from Ars Technica