BRUSSELS, Belgium - Microsoft Corp. dropped a nearly decade-long legal
battle with European regulators Monday, agreeing to key parts of an
antitrust ruling that has already led to hundreds of millions in fines.
The world's largest software company will slash the royalties it
charges rivals for interoperability information needed to make programs
that work smoothly with Microsoft's ubiquitous Windows operating
system. It will make access to the data easier for open source
developers who the EU said are now "virtually the only alternative for
users."
Microsoft said it would not appeal a EU Court of First Instance
decision on Sept. 17 that turned down its challenge to a 2004 European
Commission order that found it guilty of monopoly abuse.
"We will not appeal the Court of First Instance decision to the
European Court of Justice and will continue to work closely with the
Commission and the industry to ensure a flourishing and competitive
environment for information technology in Europe and around the world,"
the company said.
Daily phone calls between EU Competition Commissioner Neelie Kroes and
Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer over the past three weeks — and a dinner
near her Dutch hometown — culminated in a deal early Monday.
"I sincerely hope that we can just close this dark chapter," Kroes
said. "I feel a bit sad because it took so long, it took so many years,
and during those many years consumers suffered from the fact that
Microsoft didn't go along with what the Commission asked it to do."
She said the company could no longer use its leverage over the
computing market from supplying 95 percent share of all desktop
operating systems "to harm consumers by killing competition."
The major issues with Microsoft have been resolved, Kroes said,
cautioning that Microsoft could still face penalties for overcharging
royalties on interoperability information. Backdated daily fines would
stop as of Oct. 22. <
http://www.gmanews.tv/story/65528/Microsoft-blinks-in-European-legal-fight>
Hitachi pulls out of home computer business
10/23/2007 | 11:18 AM
TOKYO - Hitachi Ltd. is pulling out of the household computer business
in the latest shift among Japanese electronics makers to refocus their
sprawling operations.
Hitachi has stopped making PCs for individual consumers since this
year's summer models, although the Tokyo-based manufacturer will keep
making some kinds of computers for corporate clients, company spokesman
Keisaku Shibatani said Tuesday.
Hitachi's decision underlines increasing competition among global
electronics makers, and the need for Japanese companies to give up some
sectors to keep up with rivals.
Hitachi - whose businesses span nuclear power reactors, flat-panel TVs,
washing machines and electronic devices such as hard disk drives - has
been losing money, and is struggling to turn itself around.
Hitachi's home personal computers were sold only in Japan. Personal computers account for less than 1 percent of annual sales.
Hitachi outsources manufacturing of some of its business-use PCs to Hewlett-Packard Co. of the US, Shibatani said.
In personal computers, Dell Inc., Hewlett-Packard Co. and China's
Lenovo Group Ltd. have grown so dominant, it is harder for the smaller
players, including the Japanese, to compete.
Last week, Sony Corp. said it's selling its advanced computer chip
operations to Toshiba Corp. - a move that will allow both companies to
better focus their resources on profitable businesses.
The sale, set to be completed by March, includes the manufacturing
business for the ''Cell'' chip used in Sony's PlayStation 3 video game
console.
- AP <http://www.gmanews.tv/story/65553/Hitachi-pulls-out-of-home-computer-business>
11 Chinese food products contain formaldehyde - BFAD
10/23/2007 | 12:50 PM
The Bureau of Food and Drugs (BFAD) has tagged 11 food products from
China, including candy and luncheon meat products, as containing
formaldehyde. In an advisory dated October 18 but posted on the BFAD
website Monday, the BFAD ordered the recall and withdrawal of the products from store shelves.
"BFAD has already issued a directive to the concerned importer and/or
distributor of the said products as well as supermarkets to immediately
recall or withdraw the above products from the market," BFAD director
Leticia Barbara Gutierrez said in the advisory. <
http://www.gmanews.tv/story/65564/11-Chinese-food-products-contain-formaldehyde---BFAD>
What's in a Facebook name?
By Justine Parker
BBC News
When Australian graphic designer Beta Yee joined social-networking
website Facebook, she did not expect to be virtually snubbed before
sending her first "friend request".
But after she filled out the website's sign-up form she was told her name was "illegitimate", and she would not be able to join.
Facebook has banned a range of words from people's user names to
prevent abuse and profanity - and Beta is on the banned list. <
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/technology/7067150.stm>
The golden age of videogames
|
By Darren Waters
Technology editor, BBC News website
|
Bioshock is one of the most celebrated games of the year
Edge magazine is notoriously parsimonious when it comes to handing
out 10 out of 10 review scores for video games but in the past three
issues there have been three of them.
Halo 3, The Orange Box and Super Mario Galaxy have all
been awarded one of the highest accolades in gaming - a perfect score
from Edge. And plenty of other games have been given near perfect
scores also - from Bioshock to Crysis, Drake's Progress and Call of
Duty 4.
The Edge scores are just one of a number of signs that reinforce a growing feeling that videogames are enjoying a golden age.
It is not just that the interactive experiences are
getting ever more immersive, or the industry is being taken ever more
seriously, but hardware and software sales are up significantly on last
year - buoyed by a new generation of consoles and the work of
developers who are beginning to exploit the tools they have at their
disposal.
 |
A lot of the games are sequels and I would like to see more innovation
Margaret Robertson, games consultant
|
"You have to look at the maturity of platforms in part
to answer why there are currently so many good games out there," said
Tony Mott, editor of Edge magazine.
"It's difficult to say across the board that games are
getting better. But we are seeing publishers being more careful about
the quality of games that they release. <http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/technology/7107144.stm>
Deal signed for 'super-satellite'
The Alphasat I-XL spacecraft will probably fly in 2013
|
British engineers have been asked to build the payload for what will
become one of the biggest commercial telecoms satellites ever launched.
London-based Inmarsat has signed a contract with industrialists to construct the Alphasat I-XL mission.
The six-tonne satellite will deliver high-bandwidth
services, such as mobile internet, to Europe, the Middle East, Asia and
Africa.
It will have five times the capacity of current space platforms.
Inmarsat will use Alphasat I-XL to support its huge I-4 satellites, which deliver the company's global broadband network, BGan.
The spacecraft allow people to set up virtual offices
anywhere around the world - on land or at sea. Users get half-a-megabit
connections through small, laptop-sized terminals. Customers include
business travellers, disaster relief workers, journalists, and people
in the petrochemical and maritime industries. <http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/7109545.stm>
Bill Gates: The skills you need to succeed
|
By Bill Gates
Chairman, Microsoft
|
One of the most important changes of the last 30
years is that digital technology has transformed almost everyone into
an information worker.
|
A lot of people assume that creating software is purely a solitary activity. This isn't true at all.
|
In almost every job now, people use software and work
with information to enable their organisation to operate more
effectively.
That's true for everyone from the retail store worker
who uses a handheld scanner to track inventory to the chief executive
who uses business intelligence software to analyse critical market
trends.
So if you look at how progress is made and where
competitive advantage is created, there's no doubt that the ability to
use software tools effectively is critical to succeeding in today's
global knowledge economy.
A solid working knowledge of productivity software and
other IT tools has become a basic foundation for success in virtually
any career.
Beyond that, however, I don't think you can overemphasise the importance of having a good background in maths and science.
If you look at the most interesting things that have
emerged in the last decade - whether it is cool things like portable
music devices and video games or more practical things like smart
phones and medical technology - they all come from the realm of science
and engineering. <http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/business/7142073.stm>
Sinclair dreams of 'flying cars'
Personal flying machines will be a reality, home computer and electric car pioneer Sir Clive Sinclair has said.
He told BBC Radio 4's PM programme that soon it would be "economically
and technically possible" to create flying cars for individuals.
Sir Clive is best-known for the Spectrum computer and his failed electric car effort, the C5.
"I'm sure it will happen and I am sure it will change the world dramatically," he predicted.
Despite his pioneering work in the field of computers, Sir Clive told BBC Radio 4 he was not an internet user.
Clive Sinclair holding one of his firms products - a TV set which can
receive up to 13 channels on a two-inch screen. For a programme in the
BBC World Service series, 'The Young Idea', Gordon Snell (
Sir Clive pioneered many electronics fields - including portable TVs
"I don't use it myself directly," he said, explaining that as an
inventor he tried to avoid "mechanical and technical things around me
so they don't blur the mind".
He said the internet was "just wonderful and quite amazing" and its growth was not something he had predicted back in the 1980s.
"It has totally surprised me. I utterly failed to foresee that."
The celebrated inventor is not working on developing flying car
technology currently but said he would "love to be involved" with any
effort. <http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/technology/7481940.stm>
GMA:
Online video games meet social networking tools
11/23/2007 | 08:42 AM
DALLAS - Jo Ann Hicks doesn't identify with gamers, but she spends hours online every day playing ''Kaneva.''
The 41-year-old homemaker likes the shopping-and-partying game - where
she operates a virtual nightclub and hosts parties - because it helps
her interact with people, not provide escape from them as traditional
games often do.
Social and gaming networks, once considered polar opposites, are
cross-pollenating as online interactions replace prime-time TV and
other, more traditional media experiences. Games like ''Kaneva'' are
attracting players that games like ''Super Mario Brothers'' never did.
''I run around and act like a 40-year-old person. I have my little clan
we hang with. What people will say is more interesting to me,'' Hicks
said of her preferred game. ''As opposed to Mario, who's only going to
jump.''
Game developers say there's money for both sides in this convergence.
Social networks that incorporate more features of ''massively
multi-player online games'' could enhance their already-substantial
earning power. And gaming sites would benefit from increased membership
and broader acceptance. <
http://www.gmanews.tv/story/69824/Online-video-games-meet-social-networking-tools>
One Laptop Per Child extends promotion
11/25/2007 | 01:11 AM
CAMBRIDGE, Mass. - A promotion in which a customer buying a $188
computer in the US and Canada automatically donates a second one to a
child in a developing country was extended until year's end, organizers
said Thursday.
The "Give One, Get One" program will now run through Dec. 31, instead
of ending on Nov. 26, according to the One Laptop Per Child Program, a
nonprofit spinoff from Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
The program said customers in the US and Canada will pay $399 for two
laptops, with one going to the buyer and the other to a child in such
countries as Rwanda, Afghanistan, Cambodia, Haiti and Mongolia.
"In the past 10 days, we've experienced an outpouring of support from
the public that is truly gratifying and encouraging," said Nicholas
Negroponte, the program's founder.
Negroponte said they decided to extend the program because "so many
people have asked for more time to participate either individually or
in order to organize local and national groups to which they belong."
"We want as many people as possible to have the opportunity to act upon the giving spirit of the holiday season," he said.
The laptop has a homegrown user interface designed for children, boasts
built-in wireless networking, uses very little power and can be
recharged by hand with a pulley or a crank. - AP <
http://www.gmanews.tv/story/70005/One-Laptop-Per-Child-extends-promotion>
Microsoft Windows XP for the '$100 laptop' nears testing phase
12/07/2007 | 07:58 AM
SEATTLE - Microsoft Corp. will begin testing a version of Windows XP in
January on the ''$100 laptop'' from One Laptop Per Child.
It has taken nearly a year of engineering to get the bulky operating
system to run on the low-cost XO computer, Microsoft said. The XO uses
flash memory instead of a hard drive and offers less storage space than
most mainstream PCs.
In May, The Associated Press reported Microsoft's concern that the
memory issue and other technical hurdles would stymie efforts to port
Windows to the XO, which was originally designed to run a free
Linux-based operating system.
The software maker has released Windows XP for other flash-based,
low-cost computers, such as Intel Corp.'s Classmate PC, which has twice
as much storage space. For the XO, Microsoft said it has reworked the
operating system so it can start up and run from an extra memory card
that plugs into the laptop's guts.
James Utzschneider, a general manager in Microsoft's Unlimited
Potential group, said Windows XP for the XO won't be ready for
widespread use until at least the second half of 2008. And, he said,
technical hurdles were only part of the reason.
''It's been a fast-moving target for us to design towards,'' he said.
''We only had a handful of machines in the hands of our engineers in
the last year. That, and fact they were still making hardware changes
as recently as August, it slowed us down.''
- AP <http://www.gmanews.tv/story/71789/Microsoft-Windows-XP-for-the-100-laptop-nears-testing-phase>
Nine-year-old Rufus tries out the $100 XO laptop, designed to help children in the developing world.
12 Dec 2007
Click's Andrew Webb meets the developers of the laptop designed for children in developing countries.
28 Nov 2007
Rory Cellan-Jones visits a Nigerian school where children use laptops made for the developing world.
27 Nov 2007
The South American country has bought 100,000 of the machines for schoolchildren aged six to 12. OLPC aims to sell the laptop for $100 or less.
29 Oct 2007
He accused Intel of selling its own cut-price laptop - the Classmate - below cost to drive him out of markets. Mr Barrett has previously dismissed the $100 laptop as a "gadget".
21 May 2007
The evolution of a giant
Microsoft
is showing signs that it is willing to evolve but it needs to do much
more to survive in the networked age, argues Bill Thompson
Sales of the Vista operating system have been higher than expected
The long-delayed launch of Windows Vista and the associated Office 2007 seems to have been a success, at least financially.
In the last quarter Microsoft earned $14bn (£7bn) and the company
believes its sales for 2008 will be around $57bn (£28bn).
More people are buying Vista - or buying PCs that come with Vista
already installed on it - than anticipated, although like any sensible
company Microsoft will have pitched expectations at the low end of its
real internal projections.
In general, levels of consumer acceptance of the new software, both the
operating system and the new generation of office applications, have
been reasonably high.
The news that Dell has decided that it will once more sell PCs with
Window XP installed, instead of forcing new buyers to move to Vista, is
seen as evidence that the new operating system is not proving popular.
However, that could just as easily be a reflection of the reality that
in a two or three computer household most non-technical people would
rather have them all running the same operating system, even an older
one.
And despite the continued criticism of Microsoft in the technology
press and on blogs, chat rooms and discussion groups around the
internet, Vista seems to be bedding in well.
Some people find this surprising. Reporting the company's quarterly
results, John Naughton of the Observer wrote: "apparently there are
more masochists in the world than I thought."
The widely-regarded BoingBoing blog continues to point out the many
defects in Windows rights management and consistently calls Vista
"crippleware". <
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/technology/6616127.stm>
Give me rice, but give me a laptop too
The XO laptop is being field tested in Nigeria
|
Criticism of plans to get technology into the developing world is misplaced, says Bill Thompson.
One
of the best things about being on the World Service radio programme
Digital Planet each week is that I get to hear about interesting
technologies from many different countries and explore the impact that
computers and the internet are having in people's daily lives.
We often follow stories as they develop, coming back to
them from time to time to see if early promises have been kept or bold
predictions have been borne out.
It's been nearly three years since Nicholas Negroponte
came onto the show to talk about his plan for a low-cost laptop for the
developing world.
He wanted to build it for under $100 and sell millions to governments who would then give them away to schoolchildren.
Later he set up the One Laptop Per Child project to do
this, and we've come back to the $100 laptop many times, and in
December 2005 we saw the prototype launched at the World Summit on the
Information Society in Tunisia. <http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/technology/7138061.stm>
Computer knowledge 'undervalued'
The UK is looking to address a shortfall in workplace skills
|
Computer skills are still undervalued in the UK board room, according to software giant Microsoft.
It surveyed 500 UK business leaders and found that a
knowledge of information technology (IT) was seen as the seventh most
important workplace skill.
Instead, team working and interpersonal skills were seen as the core factors, followed by initiative.
Microsoft chairman Bill Gates said IT skills were needed from the shop floor to the chief executive. <http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/business/7143417.stm>
A little less censorship?
Internet
censorship is increasingly common, says technology commentator Bill
Thompson, but making small gains in freedom may be enough.
China is keen to promote the use of the net for business
|
We shouldn't be surprised to learn that the Chinese authorities have
finally turned their attention to weblogs and decided that they have to
be censored.
After all, a government that has put so much effort into
controlling the free flow of information was hardly going to ignore a
publishing tool that is easily accessible by 78 million net users.
Now anyone in China who wants to blog has until 30 June
to register or face criminal sanctions, and according to the ministry
of information a web-based crawler program will monitor all weblogs
within China and report unregistered sites.
Access to non-Chinese blogging sites has been blocked
for some time, and commercial websites already have to be registered
with the government.
Adding blog registration to this scheme will not be
difficult, so we can expect to see the country's 700,000 blogs fall
into line with the new rules.
As a result any pressure for change in the country will
be reduced, and the space for net users to share their experiences or
organise around calls for a democratic political system will vanish.
This is, of course, the point of the exercise, even if
the official announcement says it is being done to stop blogging about
"sex, violence and feudal superstitions". <http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/technology/4080886.stm>
Smoking increases 'baldness risk'
There is very little treatment for baldness
Scientists have discovered another downside to smoking: it may increase the risk of baldness for some men.
Male pattern baldness, or androgenetic alopecia, is hereditary and partly caused by male sex hormones.
Researchers found that Asian men - who are less likely to go bald than
their Western counterparts - were more likely to lose their hair if
they smoked.
The study, of 740 Taiwanese men with an average age of 65, is published
in Archives of Dermatology.
<
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/health/5413382.stm>
Yahoo to put adverts in PDF files
Adobe is one of the world's leading PDF software producers
|
Yahoo has reached a deal to start running advertisements in Adobe's popular PDF document-reading format.
The service will allow publishers to make money by
including adverts linked to the content of a PDF document in a panel at
the side of the page.
It is Yahoo's latest way of expanding the places it can
advertise online following deals with the auction site Ebay and the
cable TV group Comcast.
The advertisements will not appear if the PDF document is printed.
It is the first time that Adobe has allowed dynamic adverts into its PDF (Portable Document Format) files.
Dynamic adverts can be changed for particular audiences
or rotated to make sure that a particular user never sees the same
advertisement twice.
PDF files can be created by a range of software and can then be read by people who have a PDF reader, such as Adobe's Reader.
Video game giants in $18bn merger
By Rory Cellan-Jones
Technology correspondent, BBC News
World of Warcraft is played by more than nine million people
The companies behind Call of Duty and
World of Warcraft are merging in a deal which could shake up the global
video games industry.
Activision and Blizzard have said they will form "the world's most
profitable games business" in a deal worth $18.8bn (£9.15bn).
US-based Activision also makes hit console games such as the Tony Hawk series and Guitar Hero.
Nine million people pay a monthly subscription to play World of Warcraft. <
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/technology/7123582.stm>
Broadband digital divide looms
By Jane Wakefield
Technology reporter, BBC News
Will the broaderband road be closed in rural areas?
'Broaderband' school
People living in rural parts of the country have much less choice of
broadband providers, are likely to get slower speeds and pay a
different price.
And with super-fast broadband on the horizon, some commentators think things are set to get a lot worse.
If you live in a rural part of the country, you could be waiting
decades to get the same service that your friends and relatives in the
city enjoy.
"There is going to have to be an acceptance that broadband will be
faster in the cities. The model of equal access will have to be
adapted," said Ian Fogg, an analyst with Jupiter Research.
He added: "Fibre costs such a fortune to roll out that it may take decades to get to ubiquitous coverage in rural areas." <
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/technology/7115850.stm>
Compass points: Catholic and atheist
The film stars Dakota Blue Richards as Lyra Belacqua
Clips from the film
Fantasy film The Golden Compass, adapted from the first of Philip Pullman's His Dark Materials books, opens in the UK on Friday.
The novel, known as The Northern Lights in the UK, is in part a
critique of organised religion, featuring a corrupt and controlling
body known as the Magisterium.
The Catholic League in the US has advised families to stay away from
the film, and critics have accused the author of "candy-coated atheism."
Here, a Catholic and an atheist film reviewer give their views. <
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/entertainment/7128985.stm>
Facebook founder apology over ads
Facebook has 50 million users worldwide
The founder of social networking site
Facebook Mark Zuckerberg has apologised to users for the way it
launched a social advertising system.
Called Beacon, the system tracks web shopping on partner sites outside
Facebook and then sells adverts to the social network based on
purchases.
After complaints the site was invading privacy, Facebook changed Beacon from an opt-out system to opt in.
Mr Zuckerberg has said users can now switch off Beacon completely.
In a statement posted on the Facebook blog, Mr Zuckerberg said: "We've
made a lot of mistakes building this feature, but we've made even more
with how we've handled them.
"We simply did a bad job with this release, and I apologise for it."
He added: "I'm not proud of the way we've handled this situation and I know we can do better."
More than 50,000 Facebook users signed a petition complaining about
Beacon. Initially, Facebook said it would not offer users a universal
opt-out from Beacon.
Concerted pressure
The company relented after concerted pressure from privacy advocates and leading technology writers in the blogosphere.
But some writers have questioned whether the switch-off option goes far enough.
Om Malik has questioned if turning off Beacon merely prevents advertisers and Facebook "storing" purchase information.
If so, he wrote on his website, information from purchases could still be swapped in real time.
The Facebook apology highlights a growing debate surrounding privacy and advertising in the online space.
Many privacy advocates are concerned about the use of "web beacons" to
monitor the surfing habits of users and to what use that information is
put by websites and advertisers.
Facebook's system raised concern with some users because it meant
friends could see which websites and which products they were buying
online.
The adverts were presented as personal recommendations to users because
people in their friends' list were, in effect, endorsing brands and
products by purchasing items.
More than 40 companies, including Coca Cola, Blockbuster and Sony Pictures, signed up to Beacon when launched. <
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/technology/7130349.stm>
Airfix - Britain's Next Top Model?
By Maria David
The Money Programme
Craig Cash as Malcolm in Mrs Merton and Malcolm. Malcolm is shown painting an Airfix plane.
Will today's youth fall for Airfix's retro appeal?
One of the most famous names in toys is back, after going bust.
Airfix has been bought by model train giant Hornby, who plan to rebuild the brand.
But will today's Playstation generation even notice?
Generations of school children grew up in the 50s and 60s gluing and
painting Airfix model planes, from the iconic Spitfire and Lancaster to
the Messerschmitt and Fokker - then hanging them from their bedroom
ceilings to re-create the Battle of Britain.
Airfix was started in 1939 by Hungarian emigre Nicholas Kove.
It made air-filled toys, but really took off after the Second World War when it began manufacturing model kits of Spitfires.
"Children aspired to being fighter pilots," says toy historian Arthur
Ward. "But if they couldn't be fighter pilots, they would make an
Airfix kit of a Spitfire." <
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/7131848.stm>
The sat-nav vs cabbie challenge
By Spencer Kelly
Click presenter
Satellite navigation does exactly what its name suggests - it takes
readings from satellites orbiting the Earth and tells you exactly where
you are on the planet. Then it gives you directions to wherever you
want to go.
Taxi and sat-nav
Which has the best directions - taxi driver or satellite navigation?
But how does this technology compare to the most fearsome of all
navigators - the London cabbie? To find out, we pitched the wits of a
top of the range sat-nav - the Tom Tom GO 720 - against a black cab.
We really wanted to test how good sat-nav was at getting us to a series of waypoints in the quickest time.
The latest devices come with traffic avoidance, which means they
download traffic information and recalculate the route to avoid traffic
jams. They can also find a number of different types of locations,
including specific addresses, town centres, road junctions and points
of interest.
Andy, the cabbie, who accepted our challenge also comes fully loaded
with a near encyclopaedic understanding of London roads which is so
famous amongst black cab drivers it is just called "the Knowledge".
But in his organic brain he also had an extra compartment marked "common sense". <
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/programmes/click_online/7143897.stm>
Web ad spending should be higher - US Internet execs
12/15/2007 | 04:54 PM
NEW YORK - Online advertising jumped 25 percent this year, raking in a cool $20 billion, but
Internet executives say that figure could have been even higher if advertisers had reliable and
consistent ways to measure online audiences.
Unlike traditional media, where each format has one main ratings provider — The Nielsen Co.
for television, Arbitron Inc. for radio and so on — there are many sources of data on online
audiences. And they frequently conflict.
Disagreement also continues over which criteria best gauge users' potential interest in a
product or service. And the resulting data aren't easily comparable to ratings in other media
anyway.
It's a "problem of plenty," as Manish Bhatia, president of global services for Nielsen Online, a
unit of The Nielsen Co., told a recent conference on online audience measurement.
Web publishers are frustrated that the lack of cohesion is holding them back from capturing
more of the $250-billion-a-year US advertising pie, especially given the huge amount of time
people spend online.
"This industry looks like it can't get out of its own way," said Steve Wadsworth, president of
The Walt Disney Co.'s Internet group. "We need measurement of the audience and their use of
the system that's clear, simple and actionable for a marketer. You need comparability with
other media."
As Internet executives hash over clickstreams, page views and user panels, 2008 is sure to see
even more evolution of the way online audiences are measured. Other media — including TV,
radio and billboards — also are revamping the way they calculate ratings in response to
pressure from advertisers trying to measure how effective their ad dollars are.
David Hallerman, senior analyst at research company eMarketer Inc., said many large
advertisers remain shy of the Internet because of confusion over
audience measures. Some also want to stick with video ads, which are
still in their early stages on the Internet.
The Interactive Advertising Bureau, which represents more than 300 Web publishers, has called
for Nielsen Online and comScore Media Metrix to undergo audits by the Media Rating Council, a
process that is still under way. ComScore and Nielsen both still use panels, while Quantcast
Corp., a relatively new agency, combines panel and Web-based data to produce ratings.
Resolving what to measure is as complex as deciding how to measure it. Some sites produce
their own ratings based on internal server logs, on the theory that panel-based data understate
traffic. But comScore says internal logs can overstate traffic when users delete identifying files
called cookies from their browsers because servers think they're seeing a "unique visitor" each
time that user arrives.
Counting unique visitors can also be challenging — and lose meaning — when an individual logs
in to several different computers, or a family of six all use the same computer. "Page views,"
once a key indicator, haven't been since Ajax software let people view different elements on
one page instead of going to a new page for each one.
From any vantage point, there's still no clear equivalent for reaching a potential audience of 18
million people around the country at the same time with a single ad on "Desperate
Housewives."
"There aren't well-established, tried-and-true standards in the industry, which need to be
worked through," said Jeff Marshall, senior vice president of digital
marketing at Starcom USA, a major ad-buying agency. "The concerns are
escalating as more and more of our clients are
shifting significant amounts of money into the space."
Traditional measures may not even apply to the Web, some executives say, because the
benefits the Web offers — most notably, the opportunity for users to click right through and buy
the advertiser's product — aren't comparable to other media.
But Web publishers want to give advertisers some basis for comparison.
"Advertisers want to be able to understand that their online spend got this reach, and their
offline spend got that reach," says Jim Spanfeller, president and CEO of Forbes.com.
Or, as Randall Rothenberg, CEO of the Interactive Advertising Bureau, put it: "Marketers want
to know, If I take $10 out of TV and put it into online, am I getting $10-plus back?"
Peter Daboll, a research guru at Yahoo Inc. who holds the title Chief of Insights, acknowledges
that it's still a "challenge" to work through the various kinds of online data.
"We're not dealing with a perfect science here," said Daboll, formerly chief executive of
comScore. "What we're trying to do with our advertisers is take some of the mystery out of
this."
Indeed, advertisers are demanding just that.
Bob Liodice, CEO of the Association of National Advertisers, said corporate leaders have been
ratcheting up the pressure on marketing departments to justify their ad budgets with hard proof
they are generating business.
In response, TV broadcasters this fall started counting how many people watch commercials
during a show. Radio ratings company Arbitron Inc. is rolling out a new electronic measurement
system that uses a portable device to capture what stations people actually hear, instead of
what they recall hearing. The system is running in Philadelphia and Houston, with nine more
markets to be added in September.
And the outdoor advertising business will replace estimates of vehicle and pedestrian traffic in
front of billboards with a measure that takes into account how visible a certain billboard is. The
new measure will also include estimates of demographic data, something other media already
provide.
Advertisers seem fed up with the adage that half their ad spending seems to work, they just
can't tell which half.
"CEOs finally said, enough is enough," Liodice said. "We have to know with greater specificity
what comes out when something goes in."
- AP <http://www.gmanews.tv/story/73009/Web-ad-spending-should-be-higher---US-Internet-execs>
Should you get paid to Facebook?
Stephanie Busari
BBC News
More and more people are logging on to social networking sites
Social networking websites like Facebook and MySpace have been among the most successful business ventures of recent years.
Facebook alone has 50 million members worldwide and is now valued at £7.5bn.
Inevitably, imitators have sprung up with variations on the theme, eager to tap into this lucrative market.
One such company is American networking site Yuwie.com, whose unique
selling point is that it promises to "share wealth" with its members.
In what could be the first example of social networking meeting
e-commerce, Yuwie's founder Korry Rogers says he will give members more
than half of the site's advertising revenue - just for logging on and
inviting their friends.
"The whole goal of Yuwie is for people to get paid for what they're doing already," he told the BBC News website.
I want people to join because it's a good networking site not because I'm paying them
Korry Rogers
Yuwie founder
Mr Rogers, 33, says some of Yuwie's members are earning between
£200 and £250 a month, although payments "fluctuate".
"Yuwie users get paid every time they log on, send a message, upload a picture or invite someone to join."
"If someone only refers three of their friends, who refer three of
their friends through 10 levels, that one person will collect a
percentage of advertising revenues from about 88,000 end-users, which
could be about $8,800 [£4,427] per month for that person." <
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/technology/7153637.stm>
MIT spinoff's little green laptop computers a hit in remote Peruvian village
12/24/2007 | 10:10 PM
ARAHUAY, Peru – Doubts about whether poor, rural children really can
benefit from quirky little computers evaporate as quickly as the
morning dew in this hilltop Andean village, where 50 primary school
children got machines from the One Laptop Per Child project six months
ago.
These offspring of peasant families whose monthly earnings rarely
exceed the cost of one of the $188 (€130) laptops – people who can ill
afford pencil and paper much less books – can't get enough of their
"XO" laptops.
At breakfast, they're already powering up the combination
library/videocam/audio recorder/music maker/drawing kits. At night,
they're dozing off in front of them – if they've managed to keep older
siblings from waylaying the coveted machines.
"It's really the kind of conditions that we designed for," Walter
Bender, president of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology spinoff
program One Laptop Per Child, said of this agrarian backwater up a
precarious dirt road.
Founded in 2005 by former MIT Media Lab director Nicholas Negroponte,
One Laptop has retreated from early boasts that developing-world
governments would snap up millions of the pint-sized laptops at $100
(€70) each.
In a backhanded tribute, One Laptop now faces homegrown competitors
everywhere from Brazil to India – and a full-court press from Intel
Corp.'s more power-hungry Classmate.
But no competitor approaches the XO in innovation. It is hard
drive-free, runs on the Linux operating system, and stretches wireless
networks with "mesh" technology that lets each computer in a village
relay data to the others.
Mass production began last month and Negroponte says he expects at
least 1.5 million machines to be sold by next November. Even that would
be far less than Negroponte originally envisioned. The
higher-than-initially-advertised price and a lack of the Windows
operating system, still being tested for the XO, have dissuaded many
potential government buyers.
Peru made the single biggest order to date – more than 272,000 machines
– in its quest to turn around a primary education system that the World
Economic Forum recently ranked last among 131 countries surveyed.
Uruguay was the No. 2 buyer of the laptops, inking a contract for
100,000.
Negroponte said 150,000 more laptops will get shipped to countries
including Rwanda, Mongolia, Haiti, and Afghanistan in early 2008
through "Give One, Get One," a US-based promotion ending December 31 in
which you buy a pair of laptops for $399 (€277.50) and donate one or
both.
The children of Arahuay prove One Laptop's transformative conceit: that
you can revolutionize education and democratize the Internet by giving
a simple, durable, power-stingy but feature-packed laptop to the
worlds' poorest kids.
"Some tell me that they don't want to be like their parents, working in
the fields," first-grade teacher Erica Velasco says of her pupils. She
had just sent them to the Internet to seek out photos of invertebrates
– animals without backbones.
Antony, 12, wants to become an accountant.
Alex, 7, hopes to be a lawyer.
Kevin, 9, wants to play trumpet.
Saida, 10, is already a promising videographer, judging from her artful recording of the town's recent Fiesta de la Virgen.
"What they work with most is the (built-in) camera. They love to
record," says Maria Antonieta Mendoza, an Education Ministry
psychologist studying the Arahuay pilot project to devise strategies
for the big rollout when the new school year begins in March.
Before the laptops, the only cameras the kids at Santiago Apostol
school saw in this hamlet of 800 people were carried by tourists coming
for festivals or the local Inca ruins.
Arahuay's lone industry is agriculture. Surrounding fields yield
avocados, mangoes, potatoes, corn, alfalfa and an Andean fruit called
cherimoya.
Many adults share only weekends with their children, spending the work
week in fields many hours' walk from town and relying on charities to
help keep their families nourished.
When they finish school, young people tend to abandon the village.
Peru's head of educational technology, Oscar Becerra, is betting the
One Laptop program can reverse this rural exodus to the squalor of
Lima's shantytowns four hours away.
It's the best answer yet to "a global crisis of education" in which
curricula have no relevance, he said. "If we make education pertinent,
something the student enjoys, then it won't matter if the classroom's
walls are straw or the students are sitting on fruit boxes."
Indeed, Arahuay's elementary school population rose by 10 when families
learned the laptop pilot was coming, said Guillermo Lazo, the school's
director.
The XOs that Peru is buying will be distributed to pupils in 9,000
elementary schools from the Pacific to the Amazon basin where a single
teacher serves all grades, Becerra said.
Although Peru boasts thousands of rural satellite downlinks that
provide Internet access, only about 4,000 of the schools getting XOs
will be connected, said Becerra.
Negroponte says One Laptop is committed to helping Peru overcome that
hurdle. Without Internet access, he believes, the program is incomplete.
Teachers will get 2½ days of training, Becerra said. Each machine will
initially be loaded with about 100 copyright-free books. Where
applicable, texts in native languages including Quechua, Aymara and
Ashaninka will be included, he added. The machines will also have a
chat function that will let kids make faraway friends over the Internet. <
http://www.gmanews.tv/story/74058/MIT-spinoffs-little-green-laptop-computers-a-hit-in-remote-Peruvian-village>
Touch cube points to future toys
Andrew Fentem
Cube's designer
Thousands of people will be unwrapping their shiny new gadgets at
Christmas but one British artist and engineer is hoping his creation
will find its way under trees in time for the next festive period.
Andrew Fentem has worked on innovative human computer interfaces for
some time, after beginning his career in military research and
development, specifically missiles.
His work today is part-art, part hobby, part business venture.
His latest creation, the Fentix Cube, is generating a lot of interest
from toy manufacturers and buzz on the internet, based on a few clips
he put on YouTube.
"Because of absurd level of interest generated by YouTube everyone
wants the device," he says. "I'm being bombarded by toy firms from
Korea."
A small plastic cube with playful lights, it could be mistaken for a
mass market throwaway toy manufactured by the million in the Far East.
Fentix cube
Playing the cube
But the colourful exterior masks a combination of innovative
technologies that have propelled Apple's iPhone and Nintendo's Wii to
huge success this year.
The cube contains a large battery, an array of LEDs and crucially three
accelerometers which can detect the pitch and yaw of the device, and
sensors on the inside surface for touch control.
Mr Fentem says: "You instinctively know how to use it. The way you
understand the world as a young child is through physical and spatial
awareness, up or down. It's how you learn and communicate."
The accelerometers are essentially chips which can sense the direction
of gravity; once you know that, you can work out which way is up and
down.
"It took about a month to build; I thought it would be nice to do a
cube computer after I had seen an electronic Rubik's cube, which was
very poor."
Fentix Cube
The cube could have a commercial spin off
The cube has been programmed to play a handful of games, such as a
PacMan-inspired maze game. But the combination of touch, light and
three dimensions opens up a range of possibilities - from music games,
to puzzles and even a lifestyle device.
Mr Fentem said he was inspired to build the cube because he was dismayed by the quality of many of today's electronic toys.
"This was originally an artistic intervention into the gadget market.
If you really want to make something unusual, you really have to
understand the physics of how things work.
"Because most people don't know much about engineering, the ideas tend to be poor." <
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/technology/7156414.stm>
Scientists unveil 'supercarrot'
The new carrot could ward off osteoporosis
|
Scientists in the US say they have created a genetically-engineered carrot that provides extra calcium.
They hope that adding the vegetable to a normal diet
could help ward off conditions such as brittle bone disease and
osteoporosis.
Someone eating the new carrot absorbs 41% more calcium
than if they ate the old, the Proceedings of the National Academy of
Sciences study suggests.
The calcium-charged vegetable still needs to go through many safety trials.
"These carrots were grown in carefully monitored and
controlled environments," said Professor Kendal Hirschi, part of the
team at the Baylor College of Medicine in Texas.
"Much more research needs to be conducted before this would be available to consumers."
But the scientists nonetheless hope their carrot could
ultimately offer a healthier way of consuming sufficient quantities of
the mineral.
Dairy foods are the primary dietary source of calcium
but some are allergic to these while others are told to avoid consuming
too much due to their high fat content.
A gene has been altered in the carrot which allows the calcium within it to cross more easily over the plant membranes.
On its own, the carrot would not meet the daily
requirement of 1,000mg of calcium, but if other vegetables were
similarly engineered, intake could be increased dramatically.
Changing colour
It is not the first time the carrot has been tampered with.
The orange colour we know is the result of Dutch
cultivation in the 17th Century, when patriotic growers turned a
vegetable which was then purple into the colour of the national flag.
Nor is it the first vegetable to receive a healthy make-over.
Genetic engineering is being used to develop potatoes
with more starch and less water so that they absorb less oil when
fried, producing healthier chips or crisps.
Work is also being carried out on broccoli so that it
contains more sulforaphane, a chemical which may help people ward off
cancer.
Professor Susan Fairweather-Tait of the University of
East Anglia said genetically engineering foods to increase their
nutrient content was becoming an increasingly important avenue.
"People are being told to eat more modestly to prevent weight gain, and many diets now no longer contain everything we need.
"There has been great resistance to genetic engineering,
but gradually we are moving away from the spectre of 'Frankenstein
food' and starting to appreciate the health benefits it may bring." <http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/health/7188969.stm>
- Darren Waters
- 21 Jan 08, 10:52 GMT
Who are the 45 most important figures in technology over the last 100 years?
I ask because I'm going to be discussing that question tomorrow as
part of an Intel event marking the roll-out of its 45-nanometre chips.
It's a big question and a lot of names spring to mind. Handily,
Intel has sent participating journalists a suggested long-list, which
is designed to help us choose our final 45.
The list has a lot of the usual suspects: Bill Gates, Steve Jobs, Larry Page, William Hewlett and Dave Packard.
It also has some younger upstarts: Mark Zuckerberg (Facebook
founder), Shawn Fanning (Napster creator), Philip Rosedale (Second
Life) and Jonathan Ive (iPod, iMac designer).
But would you include Richard Branson, Charles Dunstone (Carphone
Warehouse chief executive), Nolan Bushnell (founder of Atari) or
Nikolas Zennstrom (founder of Skype)?
I'd love to hear your suggestions of who should or should not make the final list.
MySpace, BBC reach global video deal
01/24/2008 | 09:15 AM
NEW YORK - The online community MySpace is partnering with the BBC to
bring some of the British broadcaster's programs to a worldwide
audience in the site's first global content deal involving a major
network.
The move, to be announced Thursday, continues MySpace's push to become
a hub for video, music and other content and more similar to Internet
portals like Yahoo Inc.
By contrast, MySpace's chief rival, Facebook, has largely focused on messaging, networking and other social tools.
MySpace, owned by media conglomerate News Corp., will present selected
BBC programs through its video platform, MySpaceTV. The clips are to
include interviews with celebrities, comedy sketches and classic series
such as "Doctor Who" and "Robin Hood."
The BBC already has a deal with Google Inc.'s YouTube allowing the
popular video-sharing site to show excerpts of news and entertainment
programs.
Visitors to MySpace will be able to share clips with friends through
such means as embedding them into their personal profile pages.
"With the global nature of the deal, this is a great opportunity to put
the best shows from the BBC in front of new audiences," Simon Danker,
director of digital media for BBC Worldwide, said in a statement.
The British Broadcasting Corp. and MySpace will share advertising revenue under the deal.
Jeff Berman, MySpace's executive vice president for marketing and
content, said the deal "reflects a fast-approaching Internet future
defined by co-operation between corporations."
The BBC, funded with a fee paid by all TV users in Britain, tries to
generate additional revenue through such distribution deals around the
world. In the United States, it operates BBC America through cable and
satellite systems.
MySpace has localized versions of MySpaceTV in seven languages and 27 countries or regions.
- AP <http://www.gmanews.tv/story/77780/MySpace-BBC-reach-global-video-deal>
On the trail of Manhunt 2
By Darren WatersTechnology editor,
BBC News website
Manhunt 2 is the most
controversial video game in history. Banned last June by the British
Board of Film Classification, it is at the centre of a legal row that
is defining what is and what is not acceptable in video games. But what
makes this game so objectionable?
In the US adult gamers have been able to buy and play
Manhunt 2 since last year. But in the UK the game is not available for
sale and developers Rockstar are not even legally able to share the
game with journalists.
Copies of the game can be bought on eBay from US
sellers. But in order to play it I had to visit the developer's London
offices in person and be shown the US copy of the title.
The BBFC says its position is clear. When it was first
banned in June last year, David Cooke, director of the BBFC, said:
"Manhunt 2 is distinguishable from recent high-end video games by its
unremitting bleakness and callousness of tone.
"There is sustained and cumulative casual sadism in the
way in which these killings are committed, and encouraged, in the
game." <http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/technology/7233408.stm>
Xbox to deliver community games
|
By Darren Waters
Technology editor, BBC News website, in San Francisco
|
Little Gamers is one of the first community titles
|
Hobbyist game developers will be able to share their "home brew" titles over Microsoft's Xbox Live online service.
The company has launched a community driven service that will let amateur creators build and distribute games.
"Ten million people will be able to play your games,"
said Microsoft's Chris Satchell, at the Game Developers Conference in
San Francisco.
Microsoft also announced a sequel to its four and a half million-selling game Gears of War.
"I think of this as gaming created by the community and
managed by the community but enjoyed by everyone," said Mr Satchell of
the new game distribution system.
'Democratisation'
Microsoft freely distributes tools, called XNA,
which gives amateur developers the chance to build games for the Xbox
360 and for Windows.
But until now the games could not be shared. The tools
have been downloaded 800,000 times and more than 400 universities
worldwide are using the XNA package.
Mr Satchell said it was the democratisation of development and distribution.
"There are tens of thousands of developers out there
chomping at the bit; we need to unlock that potential," said John
Schappert, head of Live services.
Microsoft also announced that it was planning a revenue sharing model for the community games distributed over Xbox Live.
<http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/technology/7255866.stm>
Making games with Steven Spielberg
|
By Darren Waters
Technology editor, BBC News website, in San Francisco
|
Spielberg was inspired to make family games
|
When Steven Spielberg announced he was entering the video game business
many people assumed his first project would be a cinematic,
visual-effects laden epic.
But his first game, made under a multi-project
arrangement with Electronic Arts, called Boom Blox, is a
family-friendly puzzler for the Nintendo Wii.
"The first assumption is big, epic game... yadda yadda.
[It's] not the game," says Louis Castle, who has worked closely with
Spielberg to develop the title.
"But it's so not that product that the moment you see it, you know what you are in for.
"Steven has a multi-project deal with us and without
giving too much away, there are projects much more in line with
people's expectations, but those take a long time to make." <http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/technology/7260228.stm>
The garage where it all began
|
By Maggie Shiels
BBC News, San Francisco
|
Silicon Valley is pitted with sites of pilgrimage for geeks but, for
many, the lovingly restored garage at 367 Addison Avenue in Palo Alto
is a draw like no other.
In some senses this unassuming suburban street in Northern California
can be considered the birthplace of the world's first hi-tech region.
It is where the founders of Hewlett Packard got started.
The restoration effort means that the 12ft by 8ft wooden structure is
pretty much as it was during Bill and Dave's time - that's Bill Hewlett
and Dave Packard for the uninitiated.
A single lightbulb hangs from the ceiling, a copy of the original drill
press they used for 20 years bulks along one side and a lingering musty
oil smell evokes a lost era when hardware was bought by the yard.
Every year more than 40,000 people pay homage at this humble
location but the nearest they get is the iron gate at the end of the
drive.
The BBC won a rare guided tour around the fabled garage and
home and where Bill and Dave started the company that bears their name
to this day and must have exceeded their ambitions for how big it would
grow. <http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/technology/7341983.stm>
PlayStation 'will reclaim lead'
|
By Darren Waters
Technology editor, BBC News website
|
Sony Computer Entertainment President Kaz Hirai tells Darren Waters the PS3 will be the leading console.
PlayStation 3 will help Sony reclaim its position as the leading
games console maker, the head of the firm's console division has said.
Speaking to BBC News, Kaz Hirai said the machine would overhaul rivals Nintendo and Microsoft within its 10-year lifecycle.
PlayStation 3 sales have outstripped those of Microsoft Xbox 360 in Europe but it lags behind in North America.
Nintendo's Wii console is the number one next-generation machine globally.
Mr Hirai said Sony was engaged in a "marathon" race with Nintendo and Microsoft.
More than 10.5 million PlayStation 3s were sold worldwide by the end of
2007. To date, in Europe more than five million PS3s have been sold.
Nintendo had shipped more than 25 million Wiis worldwide by
April this year, while Microsoft reported 19 million 360s shipped by
the same period.
Both firms have reported production supply problems in the past year.
|
I
am very confident that after the 10-year lifecycle we will have the
install base that we are looking for and that is obviously to be in the
leadership position
|
Mr Hirai said: "We've only really begun to scratch the surface with
PlayStation 3 but I am confident that given the long life-cycle we have
planned for the machine we are going to have a very good install base
in all of the major territories.
"I am very confident that after the 10-year lifecycle we will
have the install base that we are looking for and that is obviously to
be in the leadership position." <http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/technology/7387628.stm>
GM food: Monster or saviour?
I have to confess, until now the whole debate about genetically-modified (GM) food has pretty much passed me by.
Most of my career has been spent as a foreign correspondent.
But last summer I returned to the UK to start a new job with the BBC. I now glory in the title Rural Affairs Correspondent.
A big part of my new brief is to report on farming. It is my (sometimes
painful) duty to attend agriculture conferences and seminars. I also
meet many farmers on their farms.
And over the months, time and time again the issue of GM has been raised.
I have been left in no doubt that many UK farmers - and others
in the food production industry - think that GM is an important tool
which can improve their efficiency, but which has been denied to them.
All of this, you could argue, counts for very little. Of
course, farmers want to increase yields, or get the same yield using
less land, lest sprays, less fertiliser.
And anyway, did not we as a nation make up our minds about GM almost a decade ago?
You remember: environmentalists successfully branded GM
"Frankenstein Food" - they warned us of the dangers of contaminating
our environment, and of unleashing powerful and unpredictable forces
into the British countryside.
As a nation we came down on their side of the argument. Although there
is no law against growing GM in the UK, the regulations mean it is a
hostile environment for the agri-business brigade. And so it remains.
So why go back to the debate? Well, two reasons strike me immediately.
The first is that - unlike 10 years ago - we are now
gripped in a global food crisis. Where there were once grain mountains
there are now shortages.
The second thing that has changed is the fact that in
other parts of the world GM is now being grown in massive amounts. It
is reckoned that an area twice the size of Britain is now under GM
crops.
And guess what? There have so far been no reports of the environmental or human health disasters which we were all warned about.
So with that in mind, I set out with a question: is it time to rethink GM? <http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/in_depth/7426054.stm>
Google's experimental Gmail toys
|
By Maggie Shiels
Technology reporter, BBC News, Silicon Valley
|
In a first, Google is opening up its testing process by calling on
tens of millions of Gmail users to put new features of the service
through their paces.
Gmail Labs has launched 13 settings for users to play around with and tell engineers directly what they think of them.
The most popular features will become part of the Gmail product
|
The new developments, which are only available in the UK and the US, show up
as a red tab at the top of the page.
Gmail product manager Keith Coleman says: "This marks a big change in the way the company does product development."
Generally speaking products are tested internally on Google staff for
weeks if not for months and then refined before being released to the
public.
Never before has the firm opened up the testing process and brought in
outsiders on such a large scale. Smaller scaled usability tests have
been done with invited visitors.
Mr Coleman says: "We want to take the next step and let Gmail users help us do that refinement." <http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/technology/7441132.stm>
Tuning out from content overload
Once upon a time, the web was a straightforward affair. Lots
of links - to lots and lots and lots of text. A decade on, it is
virtually unrecognisable - a multimedia extravaganza where text has to
compete with video, podcasts and animation.
The former Genesis frontman has backed "The Filter" since 2005
|
Enriching? Definitely. But daunting, and very, very noisy as well.
So how do you tune out that noise and tune in to stuff you do want?
Enter the concept of filtering - and enter alongside it, rock legend-turned-serial tech investor Peter Gabriel.
"It's one thing to have access to unlimited information," he says.
"But you feel like you're drowning sometimes - there's just too
much stuff, and you really want the good stuff, the stuff that's going
to excite and inspire you," he adds.
Three years ago the former Genesis frontman gave his backing
to an iTunes plug-in called "The Filter", which was designed to
automatically generate playlists from your music collection.
'Life-jockey'
Now it has relaunched as a website with the more ambitious goal
of being a "life jockey"; actually learning your taste in
entertainment, and delivering appropriate content to you.
The site uses artificial intelligence called Bayesian mathematics
|
It takes a mathematical approach to work out the probability that you will like something based on your designated preferences.
This analysis is then combined with other people's playlists and
purchases to produce - fingers crossed - a list of media suited to your
taste.
"It's trying to say actually how do we make good choices - and
that's partly through expert systems and algorithms," says Peter
Gabriel.
"It's also partly through people that we trust - friends,
experts - so we're trying to integrate a system which takes the best of
man and machine." <http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/programmes/click_online/7489345.stm>
Thrills, chills and battlefields
Marc Cieslak takes a look at some of the latest games around, from a chilling 18 rate to a gravity defying one. <http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/programmes/click_online/7954899.stm>
Giving up my iPod for a Walkman
When the Sony Walkman was launched, 30
years ago this week, it started a revolution in portable music. But how
does it compare with its digital successors? The Magazine invited
13-year-old Scott Campbell to swap his iPod for a Walkman for a week. <http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/magazine/8117619.stm>
The Buzz: How Swine Flu is infecting the web
Welcome to The Buzz, our weekly round up of how the stories we
report are being talked about in the blogosphere, twitterverse and
other social media.
SOCIAL MEDIA SWINE FLU OUTBREAK
It is clear that it swine flu is not just infecting people, but cyber space too.
For schools in California it is out with the traditional posters and
leaflets warning about the threat of swine flu and in with Twitter,
Facebook and MySpace as
health officials try to get the message out to students.
Twitter is well on its way to filling up with frenzied tweets about the virus - and #swine flu has, unsurprisingly, been a
trending topic
all week.
On Facebook, there are
hundreds of groups dedicated to swine flu.
I lost count after 482.
Nielsen Wire has
been monitoring how much social media discussion there is about swine flu.
It claims that the topic is thrashing discussion levels for the peanut
butter/salmonella scare earlier this year and is even surpassing recent
chatter about pop singing sensation Susan Boyle.
Some are asking how much this "viral outbreak" will contribute to
creating panic.
It seems that people who are selling or renting their houses are worried about visitors
entering their homes.
Parentdish wishes the experts would make their minds up when
dishing out advice to pregnant women.
Others are asking what happens if you are about to
fly off on holiday?
And what is the etiquette for churchgoers
when shaking hands in Mass?
And what do you think about buying
Tamiflu online?
Some are using Twitter to
advertise where to buy it.
Reports that the BBC
have stocked up on Tamiflu
have not gone down well.
Of
course all eyes are on a potential swine flu vaccine, but some have
been asking questions about whether the vaccine will be safe for young
children - questions which Newsnight's Susan Watts
has been getting answered.
.
But it's not all doom and gloom, at least the Jobbing Doctor is
managing to keep his chin up.
<http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/programmes/newsnight/8164056.stm>
Microsoft backs long life for IE6
|
By Maggie Shiels
Technology reporter, BBC News, Silicon Valley
|
IE6 is still used by nearly 20% of users
|
Microsoft has underlined support for its Internet Explorer 6 web browser, despite acknowledging its flaws.
The software giant said it would support IE6 until 2014 - four years beyond the original deadline.
Critics
- some of which have started an online campaign - want the
eight-year-old browser mothballed because they claim it slows the
online experience.
"Friends do not let friends use IE6," said Amy Barzdukas, Microsoft's general manager for Internet Explorer.
"If
you are in my social set and I have been to your house for dinner, you
are not using IE6," she said. "But it is much more complicated when you
move into a business setting."
"It's hard to be cavalier in
this economy and say 'oh it's been around for so long they need to
upgrade,'" Ms Barzdukas told journalists in San Francisco..
Web monitoring firms estimate that 15-20% of people still use IE6 to browse the web.
Enough is enough
Among
those speaking out against IE6 is a group of more than 70 developers
who have banded together to form a project called ie6nomore.
"Enough is enough," they implore on their website.
Justin.tv says its amazed at how the anti IE6 campaign has taken off
|
"Microsoft Internet Explorer 6 was released in late 2001. For its
time, it was a decent browser, but in 2009, it is still in use by a
significant portion of the web population, and its time is now up."
"Web developers hate IE6," said Evan Solomon of Justin.tv, one of the backers of the campaign.
"We
are passionate because we run a website and something like 10% of our
users use IE6, but our web designers and developers have to spend a lot
of time debugging for the platform.
"The other issue for us is
that we have launched an API to let people build applications and while
our goal is to make it as easy as possible for people to do this, IE6
is a barrier," Mr Solomon told BBC News.
In a blog post in
response to such campaigns, the software giant said that while this
issue is a simple one for technology enthusiasts, "the choice to
upgrade software on a PC belongs to the person responsible for the PC".
"Many PCs don't belong to individual enthusiasts, but to
organisations. The backdrop might be a factory floor or hospital ward
or school lab or government organisation, each with its own business
applications," wrote Dean Hachamovitch, general manager for the browser
group.
"Dropping support for IE6 is not an option because we
committed to supporting the IE included with Windows for the lifespan
of the product."
"Best experience"
Despite the
renewed commitment, Microsoft said it would prefer people to move to
IE8, which it says comes with improved functionality and security.
IE8 has been downloaded roughly 250,000 times since its March release
|
"We want people to have the best experience they can have on Microsoft software," said Ms Barzdukas.
"If
people get frustrated with that experience and they say 'Microsoft
stinks and IE stinks' and they're basing that on technology that was
designed nearly a decade ago, well yeah that is concerning."
Industry watchers believe, that despite Microsoft's backing, IE6's days are numbered.
"IE6 will just die away anyway," said Harry McCracken, editor and founder of tech news site Technologizer.
"I
only have around 7% of people who visit my site using IE6 and it will
just dwindle away no matter what anyone does," he said.
Threat
Microsoft's touting of IE8 comes as browser competition intensifies.
The most immediate threat to Microsoft's 68% market share comes in the shape of Mozilla's Firefox - used by 22% of browsers.
Firefox, introduced in 2004, recently claimed its one billionth download
|
"The competition Microsoft has to worry about right now is Firefox.
Not just from a market share perspective but from an innovation
perspective because their plug-ins work really well," Ronald Gruia, a
principal analyst with Frost & Sullivan told BBC News.
"In
the future they have to look out for Google with its Chrome browser,"
he said. "The main concern there for Microsoft is the rise in cloud
computing and software as a service. Google is becoming very effective
at delivering applications in the cloud and therefore poses a huge
threat to Microsoft."
"This is the best time to be a browser user because there is so much choice," agreed Mr McCracken.
"Almost
anyone on the planet who uses the web uses Google and that gives them a
powerful way to market Chrome. They started with the browser and now
they have the Chrome operating system as an even more direct attack on
Microsoft's core business.
"My guess is Mozilla is what it is
and that battle is, in some way, over. Chrome doesn't have a huge
market share at the moment, but if I was Microsoft I would be worried
about Google making Chrome really big." said Mr McCracken.
Such issues did not seem to trouble Ms Barzdukas.
"IE is still the most broadly used browser in the world. We are focused and we are here to play."
"Clearly
Google is a very strong technology company with a number of offerings
across the internet space but beyond that, I don't have a comment on
them as a browser vendor in particular," stated Ms Barzdukas. <http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/technology/8196242.stm>
Talking Shop: iTunes Europe director Oliver Schusser
La Roux's song In For The Kill topped iTunes' best single poll
|
iTunes has revealed its biggest selling singles and albums of 2009, with Black Eyed Peas and Kings of Leon topping the lists.
Lady Gaga also caps an amazing year, making the top three on both rundowns.
The
website has also named the debut album of south London trio The
Invisible as their best of 2009, with La Roux's In For The Kill deemed
best single.
With more than 8.5 billion downloads and counting,
senior director of iTunes Europe Oliver Schusser discusses the
challenges of the coming year.
What are the biggest successes that iTunes has had over the past 12 months?
I
think the launch of iTunes 9. And particularly in the UK, the iTunes
festival which ran through July at the Roundhouse in London, that was
really good with 20 million ticket requests. The apps have been a great
success as well since they were launched 18 months ago.
What are your biggest challenges for 2010?
|
To be honest, most people in the UK still buy CDs so in the overall music industry we're a relatively small part
|
Our number one challenge for the sixth year in a row is to continue
to convince people that it is better to get content in the legal way
that actually steal it from the internet. That's really what's driving
us to make iTunes better and to have more content and offer exclusive
content.
2010 unfortunately won't be different, we'll still be working with the record labels and service providers.
Recent
research suggests that the most prolific filesharers on average spend
more money on music. Looking at your figure of 8.5 billion downloads,
some would say you're doing okay.
I'm sure if you called the
IFPI (International Federation of the Phonographic Industry), they
would tell you that more than 90 percent of music downloaded in the UK
is stolen.
But it is amazing how much progress we've made in
the past five years. I think for all the people who are willing to pay,
and I believe there is a big portion of honest people, we and other
services have provided a great alternative for getting music.
What
do you think about the new website tunechecker.com that offers iPod
owners a price comparison site where they may find a cheaper
alternative to iTunes?
We've had price comparisons since we
launched, there are many of them. We believe in simple pricing, so we
don't have that many price points on the store.
iTunes offers films and TV programmes
|
We want to make it easy and simple to buy content and if you look at
the 11 million songs that we have in the store and hundreds and
thousand of albums, we think we have great value for customers.
We're
not the only place - some people go to other sites where if they can
find cheaper content that's fine. It all comes down to what kind of
products they like the most, and that's our focus.
The
flipside to success is that iTunes could be accused of having a
stranglehold on the industry, including now moving into live music. How
do you react to the suggestion?
To start with the live music
question, it was really a marketing tool and we're not in the ticketing
business. At all of our events, the tickets are free.
But we
believe in the value of music, we want to compensate artists and record
labels and I think our focus is just having a great product.
Unfortunately
a lot of people are still stealing music. And to be honest, most people
in the UK still buy CDs so in the overall music industry we're a
relatively small part.
Oliver Schusser was talking to BBC News entertainment reporter Kev Geoghegan.
<http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/entertainment/8402060.stm>
========================================================
The Academics:
Lev
Manovich
TATE lecture, September 8, 2007
abstract
How do designers of information technology
understand the interaction between the users and devices? How do they
design user interfaces? This question is important if we want to talk
about integration of architecture and information technology. I my talk
I will analyze the recent shift in information technology design. Contrary
to ten years ago, today the designers no longer try to make the interfaces
invisible. Instead, the interaction is treated as an event -
as opposed to "non-event", as in the previous "invisible
interface" paradigm. Put differently, using personal information
devices is now conceived as a carefully orchestrated experience,
rather than only a means to an end. I will discuss different aspects
of this new interface paradigm using the examples of OSX, LG Chocolate,
and iPhone. <http://72.14.205.104/search?q=cache:VP1rfXnNNegJ:www.manovich.net/DOCS/TATE_lecture.doc+%22Universal+Simulation+Machine%22&hl=en&ct=clnk&cd=8&client=mozilla>
J. Søraker, MA
|
|
Johnny Hartz Søraker
Department of Philosophy [Cubicus building, B207]
University of Twente
Postbox 217
7500 AE Enschede
Office phone: +31-53-4894639
Mobile: +31-64-7059544 (preferred)
Blog: http://soraker.blogspot.com
Email:
|
Background
Johnny
Hartz Søraker is a PhD research fellow at the Department of Philosophy,
University of Twente. He is a member of the VICI project on the
Evaluation of the Cultural Quality of New Media, working on the
sub-project “The Quality of Virtual Environments and Tools”.
Søraker
received his masters degree (Cand. Philol.) in Philosophy from the
Norwegian University of Science and Technology (NTNU). The masters
thesis, entitled “Man vs. Machine – an exploration of the concept
‘continuity’”, was an inquiry into claims about the uniqueness of man,
the prospects of artificial intelligence, the reducibility of conscious
experience and the adequacy of third-person perspectives when
explaining human behavior. Since then, Søraker has published papers and
given numerous lectures related to computer ethics – especially on
Internet regulation and the moral status of information technology. |
Research
Søraker’s
research in the VICI project focuses on implications of virtuality for
the good life and the good society. Central to the project are
metaphysical concerns (can VR influence our conception of reality),
epistemological concerns (what is the relation between actions, beliefs
and desires in VR) and ethical concerns (can VR change our sense of
duty and/or our moral sentiments). |
Publications
Søraker, J.H. (2008): “Global Freedom of Expression within Non-Textual Frameworks”. The Information Society, Vol 24, Issue 1 (forthcoming).
Søraker, J.H. (2007): “Real norms, Virtual Cases: A Rationalist, Casuistic Account of Virtual Rape”. In Hinman, L., Brey, P., Floridi, L., Grodzinsky, F. and Introna, L. (eds.), Proceedings of CEPE 2007 – The 7th International Conference of Computer Ethics: Philosophical Enquiry. Center for Telematics and Information Technology (CTIT): Enschede, pp. 340-347.
Søraker,
J.H. (2007): “The Moral Status of Information and Information
Technologies – a relational theory of moral status”, S. Hongladarom and
C. Ess (Eds.), Information Technology Ethics: Cultural Perspectives, Hershey, PA: Idea Group Publishing.
Reprinted in H. Nemati (ed.), Information Security and Ethics: Concepts, Methodologies, Tools, and Applications. Hershey, PA: IGI Global (forthcoming)
Søraker, J.H. (2006): “The Role of Pragmatic Arguments in Computer Ethics”, Ethics and Information Technology, 8(3):121-130
Søraker, J.H. (2005): Menneske vs. Maskin – en utforskning av begrepet ’kontinuitet’ [Man vs. Machine - an exploration of the concept 'continuity' (Masters Thesis)], i Filosofisk institutts publikasjonsserie nr. 47, Trondheim: NTNU University press |
Works in progress (in addition to dissertation)
“Ambient Intelligence – Changing Lives for the Better?”
Joint
paper with Philip Brey. Argues that the desire-fulfillment theory that
implicitly underpins ambient intelligence rests on an individualist,
behaviorist conception of human desires.
Extended abstract accepted and full paper currently under development.
“The Role of Moral Principles and Norms in Casuistic Reasoning”
Joint
paper with Kristian Skagen Ekeli. Argues that general moral principles
and norms can, and in some cases should, play an important role in
casuistic reasoning. .
“Did the Sage of Königsburg Never Try VR? – Some Reflections on Virtual Reality in Light of Kant’s Refutation of Idealism”
On
truth claims in virtual reality, especially in light of a Kantian
coherentist theory of truth and his use of congruence and
intersubjectivity criteria.
Presented at workshop on Kant and New Technology, NTNU, March 20, 2007 |
SONIA KATYAL
To: kuro@korakora.org
Cc: bukas@lists.ph.net
Reply-To: "Kamalayan-Usapin, Rebolusyon-Organisasyon" <kuro@korakora.org>
Subject: [Kuro] *Semiotic Disobedience*
Date: Sat, 1 Dec 2007 09:41:08 +0800 (PHT)
Sender: kuro-bounces@korakora.org
User-Agent: SquirrelMail/1.4.9a
*Semiotic Disobedience*** SONIA KATYAL
<http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/cf_dev/AbsByAuth.cfm?per_id=115375>
Fordham University School of Law
* Washington University Law Review, Vol. 84, No. 2, 2006*
* Fordham Law Legal Studies Research Paper No. 1015500*
*Abstract: *[download paper:http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=1015500]
Nearly twenty years ago, a prominent media studies professor, John Fiske,
coined the term "semiotic democracy" to describe a world where audiences
freely and widely engage in the use of cultural symbols in response to the
forces of media. Although Fiske originally referenced the audience's power
in viewing and interpreting television narratives, today, his vision of
semiotic democracy has become perhaps the single most important ideal cited
by scholars who imagine a utopian relationship between law, technology, and
democratic culture.
In this Article, I seek to introduce another framework to supplement Fiske's
important metaphor: the phenomenon of "semiotic disobedience." Three
contemporary cultural moments in the world - one corporate, one academic,
and one artistic - call for a new understanding of the limitations and
possibilities of semiotic democracy and underline the need for a
supplementary framework.
As public spaces have become converted into vehicles for corporate
advertising - ads painted onto sidewalks and into buildings, schools, and
other public spaces - product placement has soared to new heights of power
and subtlety. And throughout, the law has generously offered near-sovereign
protection to such symbolism through the ever-expanding vehicle of
intellectual property protection. Equations between real property and
intellectual property are ubiquitous. Underlying these themes is a powerful
linkage between intellectual and tangible property: as one expands, so does
the other.
Yet at the same time, there is another facet that is often left out of the
picture, involving the increasing response of artists who have chosen to
expand their activities past the boundaries of cultural dissent and into the
boundaries of asserted illegality. For every movement toward enclosure that
the law facilitates, there is an opposite, underappreciated movement toward
liberation from control - a moment where social activism exposes the need
for alternative political economies of information. And yet the difference
between these marketplaces of speech - one protected, one prohibited - both
captures and transcends the foundational differences between democracy and
disobedience itself.
Just as previous discussions of civil disobedience focused on the need to
challenge existing laws by using certain types of public and private
property for expressive freedoms, today's generation seeks to alter existing
intellectual property by interrupting, appropriating, and then replacing the
passage of information from creator to consumer. This Article suggests that
the phenomenon of semiotic disobedience offers a radically different vantage
point than Fiske's original vision, one that underlines the importance of
distributive justice in intellectual property. Thus, instead of
interrogating the limits of First Amendment freedoms, as many scholars have
already done, I argue that a study of semiotic disobedience reveals an even
greater need to study both the core boundaries between types of properties -
intellectual, real, personal - and how propertization offers a subsidy to
particular types of expression over others.
This paper won an honorable mention in the annual AALS Scholarly Papers
competition, and was profiled in the New York Times Magazine.
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