The website MegaUpload has been yanked from the fabric of cyberspace and its owners have been arrested on a raft of charges, including copyright infringement, racketeering and money laundering.
How coincidental that this all happens at a time when the MPAA, RIAA and other "parties" are pushing so hard to have the SOPA and PIPA bills passed into law.
It's almost an "I told you so" move on their part -- isn't it?
Spokespersons for the MPAA and RIAA claim that MegaUpload was making around US$175 million per year from this site, while costing their members around $500m in lost revenues.
Hmmm... a stupid person would probably say "oh dear, how terrible!"
A smart person would probably say "clearly, given the financial success of MegaUpload, the MPAA/RIAA are simply pricing themselves out of the market".
Obviously, since MegaUpload's subscription revenues were significant, it's clear that people are willing to pay for the material they were accessing there. Given that, it's not so much about downloading stuff for free as it is about getting value for your money.
If the RIAA/MPAA really wanted to kill MegaUpload -- and any others that might seek to take their place, all they have to do is simply sell their members' products at a price the market finds acceptable -- rather than a price the studio execs would rather charge.
Obviously the studios presently have a huge disconnect from their consumers. They don't realise that digital technology and the internet have changed forever the premiums that could be charged for movies and music. No amount of legislation will change this.
The sooner the studios and publishers wake up to the fact that subscription is the revenue stream of the future the better for all concerned.
I suspect they will eventually wise-up, just as they eventually wised-up to the wonders of selling product via legal downloads.
But don't hold your breath -- they're not the sharpest knives in the drawer -- as the events of today clearly showed.
Friday, January 20, 2012
Monday, January 9, 2012
Is the media suppressing SOPA reports?
SOPA is a nasty piece of legislation designed to empower the US government and those who support it in a way that could see any website or service struck from the face of the internet by little more than an accusation of copyright infringement.
Details of what SOPA proposes and how "the powers that be" plan to implement it are widespread on the Net so I won't repeat them here but I strongly recommend that readers do familiarize themselves with the subject -- it may be rather eye-opening.
So just why is it that such an important piece of legislation that potentially constitutes a major constraint on the freedom of online speech has not been widely reported by the mainstream media?
In fact, if you search the mainstream news sources such as ABC, CBS, NBC, CNN, Fox and the like, you'll find very little coverage of this proposed legislation, despite the fact that it is the kind of "big government" that many such news services love to sensationalize.
The answer can be found in the list of corporations and companies which are actively sponsoring and supporting the SOPA bill -- here are just a few:
My oh my, isn't that revealing?
It seems that editorial independence for our major news broadcasters and publishers may be in very short supply when it comes to this proposed draconian law. Their sponsorship of the SOPA bill would appear to be significantly compromising their willingness to alert the public to its presence and its effect. Because these corporations deal in the kind of copyrighted material that SOPA protects, they are naturally very keen for it to be passed into law and that means they do not want the public alerted to the darker side of this draconian legislation.
We can only hope that, through blogs, social networking and other more direct routes, the public of the USA (and the world at large) are educated as to exactly what's being proposed here and what the repercussions to free speech may well be.
I urge you to do your best to spread word of SOPA and its nasty "presumption of guilt" premise to all your friends, families and associates.
If we don't educate "the great unwashed", the first thing they know about SOPA may be when their favorite websites start disappearing without trace for no apparent reason.
Details of what SOPA proposes and how "the powers that be" plan to implement it are widespread on the Net so I won't repeat them here but I strongly recommend that readers do familiarize themselves with the subject -- it may be rather eye-opening.
So just why is it that such an important piece of legislation that potentially constitutes a major constraint on the freedom of online speech has not been widely reported by the mainstream media?
In fact, if you search the mainstream news sources such as ABC, CBS, NBC, CNN, Fox and the like, you'll find very little coverage of this proposed legislation, despite the fact that it is the kind of "big government" that many such news services love to sensationalize.
The answer can be found in the list of corporations and companies which are actively sponsoring and supporting the SOPA bill -- here are just a few:
- News Corporation (also own Fox News)
- CBS
- Comcast/NBC Universal (owners of NBC and MSNBC)
- Time Warner (owns CNN)
- Disney Publishing Worldwide, Inc. (owns ABC News)
My oh my, isn't that revealing?
It seems that editorial independence for our major news broadcasters and publishers may be in very short supply when it comes to this proposed draconian law. Their sponsorship of the SOPA bill would appear to be significantly compromising their willingness to alert the public to its presence and its effect. Because these corporations deal in the kind of copyrighted material that SOPA protects, they are naturally very keen for it to be passed into law and that means they do not want the public alerted to the darker side of this draconian legislation.
We can only hope that, through blogs, social networking and other more direct routes, the public of the USA (and the world at large) are educated as to exactly what's being proposed here and what the repercussions to free speech may well be.
I urge you to do your best to spread word of SOPA and its nasty "presumption of guilt" premise to all your friends, families and associates.
If we don't educate "the great unwashed", the first thing they know about SOPA may be when their favorite websites start disappearing without trace for no apparent reason.
Monday, December 19, 2011
Two sets of rules in the internet age?
Copyright remains a big bone of contention on the internet.
While we tend to think of copyright as being an issue mainly for music and movie studios, it's also a problem for the news publishing industry.
Recently, Rupert Murdoch had a hissy-fit over Google's use of headlines from his online publications in its Google News service although he eventually saw the light and backed down from a threat to take action against the search giant.
However, there are still a good number of organisations within the news industry who are highly protective of their content and regularly threaten bloggers and others who reproduce their copy without permission (such permission almost always requiring payment).
With this in mind, I was gobsmacked to see a judgment made by The Australian Communications and Media Authority (ACMA) in which it ruled that it was now okay for the news media to publish images it had snatched from FaceBook - without the permission of the original poster.
It seems that the ACMA believes that such content, if it's made publicly available by the FaceBook account owner, can be republished without infringing copyright.
With this in mind, I'm certain that the ACMA will be standing behind any blogger or other Net user who chooses to republish (without permission) any of the work the news media -- so long as that work has been made "publicly available" by being first published by the news-organisation concerned, via its own website.
I will contact the ACMA to get their position on this but I think we all know what it will be.
Does this sound fair to you?
While we tend to think of copyright as being an issue mainly for music and movie studios, it's also a problem for the news publishing industry.
Recently, Rupert Murdoch had a hissy-fit over Google's use of headlines from his online publications in its Google News service although he eventually saw the light and backed down from a threat to take action against the search giant.
However, there are still a good number of organisations within the news industry who are highly protective of their content and regularly threaten bloggers and others who reproduce their copy without permission (such permission almost always requiring payment).
With this in mind, I was gobsmacked to see a judgment made by The Australian Communications and Media Authority (ACMA) in which it ruled that it was now okay for the news media to publish images it had snatched from FaceBook - without the permission of the original poster.
It seems that the ACMA believes that such content, if it's made publicly available by the FaceBook account owner, can be republished without infringing copyright.
With this in mind, I'm certain that the ACMA will be standing behind any blogger or other Net user who chooses to republish (without permission) any of the work the news media -- so long as that work has been made "publicly available" by being first published by the news-organisation concerned, via its own website.
I will contact the ACMA to get their position on this but I think we all know what it will be.
Does this sound fair to you?
Monday, December 12, 2011
A solution in search of a problem
The quantum world is fascinating...
So much uncertainty and so very different to the Newtonian world we're all familiar with.
When we measure the position of a quantum object, we can't be sure of its speed and if we measure its speed, we're no longer sure exactly where it is.
Totally fascinating.
As we continue forward into the second decade of the 21st century, we are still gifted with only the slightest understanding of the quantum world but already, we've done something very, very clever.
A group of scientists at Bristol University have created the first programmable quantum photonics chip.
Woohoo...
It won't really do anything you can show your mother -- but never the less, it's a gigantic step forward in our attempts to harness quantum effects.
Of course it's pretty much useless as anything other than a proof of concept and, as a practical device, it's even less useful than the very first integrated circuit - but oh the potential!
Unfortunately, we're just not sure what that potential can be used for.
In theory, the quantum computers that may eventually evolve from devices like this one, will be immensely useful for such complex tasks as data encryption and complex mathematics but, as of now, it's all theory.
However, just as the CPU in the computer you're using right now, with its millions or billions of individual silicon junctions grew from those very first transistors created over half a century ago by Bell Labs -- the computer of the future may be filled with devices that owe their very existence to this quantum photonic device.
The future will be a great place and fortunately, that's where we'll all be spending the rest of our lives. Enjoy.
So much uncertainty and so very different to the Newtonian world we're all familiar with.
When we measure the position of a quantum object, we can't be sure of its speed and if we measure its speed, we're no longer sure exactly where it is.
Totally fascinating.
As we continue forward into the second decade of the 21st century, we are still gifted with only the slightest understanding of the quantum world but already, we've done something very, very clever.
A group of scientists at Bristol University have created the first programmable quantum photonics chip.
Woohoo...
It won't really do anything you can show your mother -- but never the less, it's a gigantic step forward in our attempts to harness quantum effects.
Of course it's pretty much useless as anything other than a proof of concept and, as a practical device, it's even less useful than the very first integrated circuit - but oh the potential!
Unfortunately, we're just not sure what that potential can be used for.
In theory, the quantum computers that may eventually evolve from devices like this one, will be immensely useful for such complex tasks as data encryption and complex mathematics but, as of now, it's all theory.
However, just as the CPU in the computer you're using right now, with its millions or billions of individual silicon junctions grew from those very first transistors created over half a century ago by Bell Labs -- the computer of the future may be filled with devices that owe their very existence to this quantum photonic device.
The future will be a great place and fortunately, that's where we'll all be spending the rest of our lives. Enjoy.
Monday, December 5, 2011
YouTube's new look, not a good look according to many
Regular readers will recall that just a few short weeks ago, I wrote a column titled Stop messing with my user-interface in which I criticised Firefox for stuffing up what was a perfectly good user-interface.
Well it seems that nobody is listening when users vent their dislike of user-interfaces or websites that are arbitrarily "updated" and "improved" without warning or consultation.
On several occasions, Facebook has angered tens of millions of users when they decided to implement changes to the world's largest social networking site and now, it would appear, Google has made the same error of judgment in updating YouTube's look and feel.
If the comments posted in the Youtube feedback forum are anything to go by, the new look is roundly disliked by YouTube users.
Key functionality, such as the ability to see who is subscribed to what channels, is now missing and there are many other niggles that seem to be upsetting the very core of YouTube's lifeblood -- those who contribute and watch the videos around which it is built.
It's becoming pretty clear that Google's stated intention to convert YouTube from a "community" to something more like a regular TV system may lie at the heart of the changes.
Google no longer wants a collection of eclectic videos that people have to subscribe to in order to receive regular updates -- they want to turn the site into a huge video resource that automatically offers-up video content to its viewers. This will make it a far more practical source of content for an IPTV service -- because TV users just want to watch, not go searching for their viewing.
As a result, the emphasis seems to have gone out of building a one-to-one relationship between the content producer and the viewer -- to the extent that now, YouTube content creators don't actually know who has subscribed to them -- they simply get a head-count.
It will be very interesting to see what happens next.
It's been my experience that most people are averse to change. Like a comfortable pair of slippers, they like what they know and are familiar with. Unexpected and unsolicited change can often create feelings of dissatisfaction but, eventually that passes and users just forget about it.
On the other hand, the internet is a fickle place and, as some have found out to their cost, upsetting the great unwashed masses can turn a popular hangout into a ghost-town almost overnight -- so long as they have somewhere else to go.
In YouTube's favour, there aren't a lot of other places to go and certainly none of the alternatives are nearly as convenient as Google's flavour of user-generated video content.
So I suspect that the wailing and gnashing of teeth will continue for a little longer -- but eventually it will subside and, in a month or two, it will be as if nothing had ever happened.
However, wouldn't it be nice if, just every now and then, companies actually consulted the people who use their products and services -- before they decided to make major changes.
Well it seems that nobody is listening when users vent their dislike of user-interfaces or websites that are arbitrarily "updated" and "improved" without warning or consultation.
On several occasions, Facebook has angered tens of millions of users when they decided to implement changes to the world's largest social networking site and now, it would appear, Google has made the same error of judgment in updating YouTube's look and feel.
If the comments posted in the Youtube feedback forum are anything to go by, the new look is roundly disliked by YouTube users.
Key functionality, such as the ability to see who is subscribed to what channels, is now missing and there are many other niggles that seem to be upsetting the very core of YouTube's lifeblood -- those who contribute and watch the videos around which it is built.
It's becoming pretty clear that Google's stated intention to convert YouTube from a "community" to something more like a regular TV system may lie at the heart of the changes.
Google no longer wants a collection of eclectic videos that people have to subscribe to in order to receive regular updates -- they want to turn the site into a huge video resource that automatically offers-up video content to its viewers. This will make it a far more practical source of content for an IPTV service -- because TV users just want to watch, not go searching for their viewing.
As a result, the emphasis seems to have gone out of building a one-to-one relationship between the content producer and the viewer -- to the extent that now, YouTube content creators don't actually know who has subscribed to them -- they simply get a head-count.
It will be very interesting to see what happens next.
It's been my experience that most people are averse to change. Like a comfortable pair of slippers, they like what they know and are familiar with. Unexpected and unsolicited change can often create feelings of dissatisfaction but, eventually that passes and users just forget about it.
On the other hand, the internet is a fickle place and, as some have found out to their cost, upsetting the great unwashed masses can turn a popular hangout into a ghost-town almost overnight -- so long as they have somewhere else to go.
In YouTube's favour, there aren't a lot of other places to go and certainly none of the alternatives are nearly as convenient as Google's flavour of user-generated video content.
So I suspect that the wailing and gnashing of teeth will continue for a little longer -- but eventually it will subside and, in a month or two, it will be as if nothing had ever happened.
However, wouldn't it be nice if, just every now and then, companies actually consulted the people who use their products and services -- before they decided to make major changes.
Monday, November 28, 2011
How to say "I don't care" this Christmas
Christmas is less than a month away and, no doubt, many folk are now considering what gifts to buy friends and family.
If you were hoping to post a gift to Aunt Agatha in the UK or your old friend Eustace in the USA then chances are you've already left it a bit late -- but fear not, the Internet will save you!
Online shopping is a great way to save money and ensure that last-minute gift is delivered on time to those people in far-away lands - what's more, it's almost certainly cheaper than buying locally and then spending a small fortune on postage.
Unfortunately there are often a few hiccups in the process.
Some online retailers won't ship to a country other than that in which your credit card is registered. That makes a lot of sense -- since the trade in stolen/cloned cards is rife and the savvy fraudster will always try to use a card from a foreign country when buying online.
However, if you can find an online store in the UK that will accept payment from NZ for delivery to a UK address then you'll save a bomb (on the postage at least) when buying for Aunt Agatha and the time from clicking "buy now" to actually having the item in her wrinkly little hands will be greatly reduced.
So cyber-savvy makes good sense when buying gifts -- but there are instances when you really ought to give the Net a very wide berth at Christmas.
Please, please please -- do not send e-cards to people you care about.
It reeks of "I'm so cheap I couldn't afford a stamp" or "you're so unimportant I just figured I'd spend 2 seconds sending you an e-card instead of a real one".
Not only do these e-cards make you look like a cheap, insensitive clod, they also make it much easier for malware producers to sneak nasty payloads onto the PCs of unsuspecting victims.
For every genuine e-card that arrives there are goodness knows how many unsolicited malware-versions that are sent out by those seeking to build or grow their botnets -- and collect credit card details from the unsuspecting, in order to fund their own fraudulent online purchases.
So there you have it -- my Christmas tip -- don't send *anyone* an e-card and be very, very wary of opening any that might arrive in your own inbox.
In fact, why not send an email to all your "friends" and family right now, advising them that you won't be accepting e-cards this year for security reasons. That'll mean that those cards which do arrive in your inbox will almost certainly be bogus and it'll also remind those cheapskates who were planning to save themselves a stamp that they really need to think again.
If you were hoping to post a gift to Aunt Agatha in the UK or your old friend Eustace in the USA then chances are you've already left it a bit late -- but fear not, the Internet will save you!
Online shopping is a great way to save money and ensure that last-minute gift is delivered on time to those people in far-away lands - what's more, it's almost certainly cheaper than buying locally and then spending a small fortune on postage.
Unfortunately there are often a few hiccups in the process.
Some online retailers won't ship to a country other than that in which your credit card is registered. That makes a lot of sense -- since the trade in stolen/cloned cards is rife and the savvy fraudster will always try to use a card from a foreign country when buying online.
However, if you can find an online store in the UK that will accept payment from NZ for delivery to a UK address then you'll save a bomb (on the postage at least) when buying for Aunt Agatha and the time from clicking "buy now" to actually having the item in her wrinkly little hands will be greatly reduced.
So cyber-savvy makes good sense when buying gifts -- but there are instances when you really ought to give the Net a very wide berth at Christmas.
Please, please please -- do not send e-cards to people you care about.
It reeks of "I'm so cheap I couldn't afford a stamp" or "you're so unimportant I just figured I'd spend 2 seconds sending you an e-card instead of a real one".
Not only do these e-cards make you look like a cheap, insensitive clod, they also make it much easier for malware producers to sneak nasty payloads onto the PCs of unsuspecting victims.
For every genuine e-card that arrives there are goodness knows how many unsolicited malware-versions that are sent out by those seeking to build or grow their botnets -- and collect credit card details from the unsuspecting, in order to fund their own fraudulent online purchases.
So there you have it -- my Christmas tip -- don't send *anyone* an e-card and be very, very wary of opening any that might arrive in your own inbox.
In fact, why not send an email to all your "friends" and family right now, advising them that you won't be accepting e-cards this year for security reasons. That'll mean that those cards which do arrive in your inbox will almost certainly be bogus and it'll also remind those cheapskates who were planning to save themselves a stamp that they really need to think again.
Monday, November 21, 2011
Interesting times in the world of science
A couple of interesting reports caught my eye on the science wires today.
The first was the result of further experiments designed to try and prove or disprove recent observations which hinted that neutrinos may have been observed traveling faster than the speed of light.
Back in September, scientists working in Italy as part of the OPERA collaboration announced the results of an experiment that shook the very foundations of modern physics. They produced data that was at odds with the predictions of Einstein's theory of general relativity.
Numerous peer reviews of the experiments failed to turn up any explanations for the data which suggested that neutrinos had been observed traveling at faster-than-light speed -- but the underlying belief was that it was the experiment at fault, not Einstein's theories.
In an attempt to solve the mystery, another experiment was performed last week -- yet the results are consistent with the first and still indicate that a stream of neutrinos released from CERN arrived in Italy faster than it would take a beam of light to traverse the same distance.
The importance of these findings is so great that the scientists involved are still focused on searching for any possible alternative explanation for what they've observed. Stay tuned, this will be a very interesting outcome -- either way.
Another exciting report was practical proof of theoretical predictions relating to the Casimir Effect.
In theory, the Casimir Effect would allow energy to be extracted from a vacuum, simply by positioning two plates a microscopically close distance apart.
Quantum physics predicts that if the plates were close enough, a force would appear that tried to push them together. This is because, subatomic particles are supposedly constantly popping in and out of existence and if the plates are close enough, there is insufficient room for many to "pop into existence" between the plates but plenty of room for them to do so on the other side of those plates.
The net result would be a pressure that worked to push the plates together -- at least that is the theory.
As part of this theory, the Casimer Dynamical Effect says that a mirror traveling at near light-speed through a vacuum will itself produce light, as it encounters the transient photons that "pop in" ahead of it.
Scientists have been unable to test this theory due to the difficulty in accelerating object with the mass of a mirror to a sufficiently high speed. However, by using a piece of quantum equipment called a SQUID (a superconducting quantum interference device), they have produced the same effect using microwave signals.
What does this mean?
Well it proves that even the most absolute vacuum does contain energy and perhaps one day we will be able to extract that energy.
If ground-breaking scientific discoveries in the field of physics are like most other things, big news will probably come in threes.
I wonder what's next?
The first was the result of further experiments designed to try and prove or disprove recent observations which hinted that neutrinos may have been observed traveling faster than the speed of light.
Back in September, scientists working in Italy as part of the OPERA collaboration announced the results of an experiment that shook the very foundations of modern physics. They produced data that was at odds with the predictions of Einstein's theory of general relativity.
Numerous peer reviews of the experiments failed to turn up any explanations for the data which suggested that neutrinos had been observed traveling at faster-than-light speed -- but the underlying belief was that it was the experiment at fault, not Einstein's theories.
In an attempt to solve the mystery, another experiment was performed last week -- yet the results are consistent with the first and still indicate that a stream of neutrinos released from CERN arrived in Italy faster than it would take a beam of light to traverse the same distance.
The importance of these findings is so great that the scientists involved are still focused on searching for any possible alternative explanation for what they've observed. Stay tuned, this will be a very interesting outcome -- either way.
Another exciting report was practical proof of theoretical predictions relating to the Casimir Effect.
In theory, the Casimir Effect would allow energy to be extracted from a vacuum, simply by positioning two plates a microscopically close distance apart.
Quantum physics predicts that if the plates were close enough, a force would appear that tried to push them together. This is because, subatomic particles are supposedly constantly popping in and out of existence and if the plates are close enough, there is insufficient room for many to "pop into existence" between the plates but plenty of room for them to do so on the other side of those plates.
The net result would be a pressure that worked to push the plates together -- at least that is the theory.
As part of this theory, the Casimer Dynamical Effect says that a mirror traveling at near light-speed through a vacuum will itself produce light, as it encounters the transient photons that "pop in" ahead of it.
Scientists have been unable to test this theory due to the difficulty in accelerating object with the mass of a mirror to a sufficiently high speed. However, by using a piece of quantum equipment called a SQUID (a superconducting quantum interference device), they have produced the same effect using microwave signals.
What does this mean?
Well it proves that even the most absolute vacuum does contain energy and perhaps one day we will be able to extract that energy.
If ground-breaking scientific discoveries in the field of physics are like most other things, big news will probably come in threes.
I wonder what's next?
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)