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02-10-2012 :: 10 Things in Tech You Need To Know

tech — Fri, 10 Feb 2012 13:47:57 +0000

Today’s News is brought to you by Business Insider

Here’s what happened at the Apple protest in San Francisco yesterday.

Craig Silverstein, Google’s number three employee, left for Khan Academy today.

Hackers have been robbing iTunes customers since 2010.

Here’s why Google’s foray into hardware will be a disaster.

This Kickstarter project raised nearly $1 million in a single day.

Groupon has found a new executive to handle Andrew Mason.

LinkedIn’s stock takes off after crushing earnings expectations.

Facebook has signed a mysterious deal with a mobile payment company.

Apple is now worth more than Google and Microsoft combined.

Sean Parker’s next big thing is Chatroulette for Facebook.

Bits and Bytes

The Hollywood Reporter reports that members of the iconic disco-era musical group Sister Sledge have filed a major class action lawsuit against Warner Music Group claiming that the music giant’s method for calculating digital music purchases as ‘sales’ rather than ‘licenses’ has cheated them out of millions of dollars from digital music sales. Songwriters typically make much less money when an album is ‘sold’ than they do when their music is ‘licensed’ (the rationale derives from the costs that used to be associated with the physical production of records) but record labels have taken the position that music sold via such digital stores as iTunes should be counted as ‘sales’ rather than licenses. The difference in revenue can be significant as Sister Sledge claim their record deal promises 25 percent of revenue from licenses but only 5-1/2% to 6-1/2% of net from sales. Eminem’s publisher brought a nearly identical claim against Universal Music Group and won an important decision at the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals in 2010 when the 9th Circuit ruled that iTunes’ contract unambiguously provided that the music was licensed. The lawsuit argued that record companies’ arrangements with digital retailers resembled a license more than it did a sale of a CD or record because, among other reasons, the labels furnished the seller with a single master recording that it then duplicated for customers. ‘Unlike physical sales, where the record company manufactures each disc and has incremental costs, when they license to iTunes, all they do is turn over one master,’ says attorney Richard S. Busch. ‘It’s only fair that the artist should receive 50 percent of the receipts.

Craig Silverstein, the first employee hired by Google co-founders Sergey Brin and Larry Page, will leave the search giant for Khan Academy, an online education portal based in Mountain View, Calif. Silverstein had been with Google shortly after it first launched in the garage of Susan Wojcicki, a friend of both Page and Brin, in September 1998. He had helped Brin and Page develop infrastructure when Google was just a Stanford grad school project, but when he officially joined the company, Silverstein became its technology director. The Khan Academy, where Silverstein is heading next, is a not-for-profit organization that aspires to change the education industry by providing free ‘world-class education to anyone anywhere.’ Microsoft chairman Bill Gates is an enormous fan of the service, telling CNN that he uses it with his kids.

NASA is looking for technology that could offer green rocket fuel alternatives to the highly toxic fuel hydrazine used to fire up most rockets today. According to NASA: ‘Hydrazine is an efficient and ubiquitous propellant that can be stored for long periods of time, but is also highly corrosive and toxic.’ It is used extensively on commercial and defense department satellites as well as for NASA science and exploration missions.

The Israeli newspaper Haaretz reports that the Syrian President, aides and staffers had their email hacked by Anonymous, who leaked hundreds of emails online. Reportedly, many of the accounts used the password ’12345′ (which their IT department probably warned them to change when the accounts got set up, of course).

Intel Corporation and the New York Attorney General have agreed to terminate the lawsuit alleging violation of U.S. and state antitrust laws that was filed by the New York Attorney General in November 2009. Intel did not have to admit any violation of law (if there ever was any) nor did it have to admit or deny that the allegations in the complaint are true. Most importantly, the settlement does not require any changes to how the company does business. The settlement includes a $6.5 million payment that is “intended only to cover some of the costs incurred by the New York Attorney General in the litigation.” Here’s the full settlement, and Intel’s official press release.

Protests against Apple and Foxconn due to furor over reports about working conditions have gone digital. A group known as SwaggSec has successfully hacked computers at Foxconn, and posted the stolen data to The Pirate Bay website. News of the hack comes as protesters paid a visit today to Apple stores around the world to deliver petitions demanding the improvement of working conditions at factories run by Apple suppliers in China and other countries. In response to the attack, Foxconn reportedly took down a website that explains the services it offers to some of its partners, including Apple, Cisco and Acer.

A story from UK’s Guardian reports on a study of ice levels from the Himalayas area, and finds that no significant melting has occurred, despite earlier predictions of losses of up to 50 billion tons of ice. ‘The very unexpected result was the negligible mass loss from high mountain Asia, which is not significantly different from zero,’ said Professor Jonathan Bamber, who also warns that 8 years simply isn’t enough time to draw conclusions. ‘It is awfully dangerous to take an eight-year record and predict even the next eight years, let alone the next century,’ he said.

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BBC iPlayer Plans Charging for Archive Access

tech — Wed, 08 Feb 2012 18:15:50 +0000

The BBC is reportedly planning to charge viewers for access to its archive programming. That may come as no real shock but it is surprising that its commercial arm, BBC Worldwide, is apparently not involved. The BBC says that any plans for such micropayments would need to be developed in conjunction with the industry and rights holders and denies that it would lead to a two-tier licence fee.

According to a report in the trade magazine Broadcast, the payment proposals are thought to have come from the BBC Online Direction Group, which is chaired by Ralph Riviera, the director of Future Media, who joined the corporation in October 2010 from Major League Gaming in New York.

It seems extraordinary that BBC Worldwide, the commercial division of the BBC, should not be involved in plans to provide paid-for access to its programming.

Ever since an online video service was first floated, from the early trials of an integrated Media Player or iMP in 2004, the idea was that there would be a catchup window during which programming would be available for free, after which it was envisaged there could be a revenue model.

At the same time, there were plans for a Creative Archive that would make available programming from its back catalogue. So far, those plans have not amounted to much, as it seems resolving the relevant rights issues remains complex, if not intractable.

The BBC iPlayer has been an undoubted domestic success. In 2011 the iPlayer received nearly 2 billion requests for radio and television programmes, with a record 187 million requests in December. While the majority were from computer platforms, there is significant growth across tablets and network-connected televisions. The BBC used to publish detailed breakdowns of usage, but appears to have stopped doing so in recent months.

BBC Worldwide, the commercial division of the BBC has meanwhile launched its own global version of the iPlayer. This includes a selection of both current and back catalogue programming, presented as a Best of British proposition. This is available on a subscription basis for €6.99 a month, or €49.99 a year. Already launched in a number of European countries, Canada and Australia, it is expected to extend to the United States and other markets.

The global BBC iPlayer subscription is currently only available on the iPad, iPhone and iPod Touch, with Apple presumably taking a healthy 30% of any revenues.

The service will differ slightly for international users compared to those in the UK – some content will be offered for free (supported by advertising), but to gain full access, users will be encouraged to take out a subscription for €6.99 a month or €49.99 a year (equivalent to about $10/month or $71/year USD). Considering that in the UK every household in possession of a TV has to pay an annual license fee of €165 (equivalent to about $235/year USD), the fee for overseas users of the iPlayer looks pretty reasonable – but don’t be fooled.

Sure you get all the BBC content than you’ll ever have time to watch,but, the BBC iPlayer does carry the Channel 4, SeeSaw, ITV, or Catchup content (or the many non-BBC stations) . . . the best option is to pay $10/month for VPN and not limit yourself just to the BBC iPlayer.

With a VPN account you can watch MLB without any blackouts and all NFL 2011 games.

Try the VPN out – with a Free Trial!

Note: I would pay the BBC iPlayer fee if it has a Roku Channel.

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02-08-2012 :: 10 Things in Tech You Need To Know

tech — Wed, 08 Feb 2012 15:01:13 +0000

Today’s News is brought to you by Business Insider

Demand to short Groupon is rumored to be high.

Apple says it’s time to rewrite European patent laws.

Amazon just made a deal with Viacom that could crush Netflix.

Unbelievably cheap Amazon cloud service just got cheaper.

Pinterest is the fastest growing site ever.

HP accidentally leaked details about a new product launch.

Here’s the strangest thing about Yahoo’s board member departure.

Google invited some big thinkers to a resort to talk about the future.

Path just made a huge privacy blunder.

Is health tracking the next big thing?

Bits and Bytes

A Colorado woman that was ordered by a federal judge to decrypt her laptop hard-drive for police last month, appears to have forgotten her password. If she does not remember the password by month’s end, as ordered, she could be held in contempt and jailed until she complies. It appears that bad memory is now a federal offense.” The article clarifies that her lawyer stated she may have forgotten the password; they haven’t offered that as a defense in court yet.

A French laptop buyer has won a refund from Lenovo after a four-year legal battle over the cost of a Windows license he didn’t want. The judgment could open the way for PC buyers elsewhere in Europe to obtain refunds for bundled software they don’t want, according to French campaign group No More Racketware.

Apple hasn’t released a Mac OS X device running on ARM yet, but a recently discovered thesis from a former Apple intern going by the name of Tristan Schapp details a 12-week project carried out in 2010 to port the OS to the ARMv5 architecture. The port got as far as booting to a multi-user prompt, but then hit hurdles to do with drivers and cache. The good news is that same intern now works for Apple as part of the CoreOS team. With rumors last year that a MacBook Air running on ARM could appear by 2013, could he be part of a team making that happen? If he is, I bet it will use the new ARMv8 architecture announced late last year.

An announcement on the Kubuntu-devel mailing list tells the sad story: Canonical is pulling funding for in-house developers to work on the KDE-based Kubuntu flavor. Canonical now seems committed to its single vision of a GNOME-based Unity as a desktop and other Ubuntu flavors will now have to rely on community support and some infrastructure from Canonical.

H.R. 3674, the Promoting and Enhancing Cybersecurity and Information Sharing Effectiveness Act (PRECISE Act), would allow the U.S. Department of Homeland Security to require improved security practices from those businesses managing systems whose disruption could prove detrimental to critical life-sustaining or national-security initiatives.” As the article points out, this is just “one of 30 or so such bills currently percolating on the Hill.

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European Outpace United States in Use of Technology

tech — Fri, 20 Jan 2012 13:54:01 +0000

A new breed of ‘Xtreme shoppers’ has been identified, amongst whom the European ones are outpacing their American counterparts when it comes to use of technology for shopping.

Over nine out of ten European Xtreme shoppers (95%) like to research products online, compared to just over six out of ten of the American Xtreme shoppers (66%). This is despite a higher percentage of the US shoppers agreeing that shopping online is more efficient (90% and 80% respectively). These are the findings of a recent study by GfK into the Future of Shopper Marketing, which was carried out across the France, Germany, Poland, Russia, Spain, the UK and the USA.

Alison Chaltas at GfK explains, “Xtreme shoppers are a new segment of consumers defined by their specific shopping attitudes and behaviours across all demographic groups. They are present across all seven of the countries in this study, accounting for over two out of five of the European consumers, and just under that in the US. More importantly, they appear to be a rapidly expanding segment that is largely made up of 25-44 year olds in full time employment – a prime target group for many retailers.”

Born out of the combination of a belt-tightening economy and readily available technology, Xtreme shoppers show increasing levels of value-oriented shopping behaviour. The European ones are currently leading the way in use of the internet for researching and buying products, with three-quarters saying they are using the internet more than before to research products (75%), compared to just over two-thirds of US Xtremes (68%).

Direct buying over the web is also increasing amongst this segment – with the European contingent leading the way here too, with seven out of ten using the internet more than before to shop for products (70%). In Poland and the UK, in particular, three quarters or more Xtremes are increasing their use of the internet to purchase products, while the US tails the chart alongside Spain at 62% – but well ahead of Germany at 52%.

Chaltas states, “There is clear indication that the trends we are seeing are set to rise, with the Xtreme shopper segment increasingly adopting their mobile phones and tablets to help them shop. This is especially strong in Russia and Spain, where a third of shoppers are using their mobiles more than ever to shop. Of course, the down side to all this internet shopping is that competition is extreme. Over three quarters of European Xtreme shoppers and two thirds of US ones say they are less loyal to any one retailer because they need to shop around for value. Retailers therefore need to find a way to reward loyal customers that will resonate with their current needs – a statement that nearly nine out of ten of all shoppers surveyed agreed with.”

Why is the United States Behind Technology?

Land Mass :: With a smaller land comes more opportunities; it will be cheaper to build a national internet in a country with 93,800 sq miles (United Kingdom) verses 3,717,813 sq miles (United States).
Selfish States :: The United States is almost nothing more than a bunch of little states who are dependent on the local/state bureaucracy who wants to rule themselves instead of “One Country, One Law”.
Corporate Demand Deregulation :: Without regulation there is no standard. Without standards there are inconsistencies that keep national technology stagnant.
Profit before People :: The failure of the US Federal Oligarchy is that profit is the sole promoter of any growth; to expect companies to make technology cheaper would take away from their profit share.
Nothing Made on US Soil :: With manufacturing being outside the United States border everyone has access to the same product at the same time. If, let’s say, the iPad was manufactured in Wisconsin, USA …. it would be an exported item to Europe. The back of the iPad 2 says, “Designed by Apple in California. Assembled in China” – which means it is an import to the United States, just like everyone else.
Federal Bureaucracy :: The elected officials are all dependent on the corporations and the lobby groups keep our representatives in line and make sure that profit always come before progress and the people.

In other words . . . the United States will always be lagging behind more progressive countries. The United States has allowed corporations to dictate policy, manufacturing growth and job development. It will not change until import tariffs are too high to outsource manufacturing to other countries.

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January 20, 2012 :: Tech News

tech — Fri, 20 Jan 2012 13:45:44 +0000

Today’s News is brought to you by Business Insider:

The FBI and Justice Department have seized filesharing site Megaupload.

Apple has announced a three-pronged plan to shake up education. Watch the full video ofyesterday’s Apple event here.

Google’s earnings numbers are out and it’s a surprising miss.

Google has doubled its display ad business to $5 billion per year, but search is still the prime moneymaker.

Google isn’t giving straight answers on Google+ engagement.

Microsoft has posted record sales and earnings.

Here’s who is selling all that Facebook and Twitter stock on the secondary markets.

Path is raising big funding to go with its new app.

Nike has introduced a new fitness gizmo that reminds us of the Jawbone UP.

AppNexus just hired a CFO to get it ready for an IPO.

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