unmediated

Perhaps no person has ever been convicted of copyright infringement from mashups. From Mediatrips: I'll give $100 to EFF if anyone can prove to me that a masher/remixer has ever been arrested and/or convicted in the United States for copyright infringement. Specifically, I mean criminal prosecution (not civil litigation).

I want an answer to this question becasue I believe there is way too much fear and anxiety about using/remixing/mashing copyrighted content for personal and artistic expression.

I'm doing this becasue I want to try and counter some of the FUD effects that the MPAA, RIAA, and others have caused around this issue. I would love to absolutely prove that NEVER in the history of the United States has anyone ever been criminally charged for mashing copyrighted content.

Anyways, that my offer. Yes, I know its not much money. If you want to help out and add to the pot then please let me know.

David Goldschmidt

The vast majority of us is used to interact with 2D objects, such as a computer screen. But how do you deal with a volumetric display, such as a 3D collaborative medical model or an architectural model? In this short article, "Gestures control true 3D display," Technology Research News (TRN) writes that researchers from the University of Toronto have devised a method which involves a multi-finger gestural interaction with the 3D display. The users, who carry 'markers' on their fingers which are tracked by cameras, can work together to pick, manipulate or control objects existing in the 3D environment.

As the TRN article was only wetting my appetite, I've done my own research on the subject. And among other facts, I discovered that these computer scientists won the Best Paper Award at the 17th annual ACM symposium on User interface software and technology (UIST 2004). This review contains additional details and pictures.

Fans of the burgeoning technology, which lets users broadcast and download audio content feeds to MP3 players, say it represents audio broadcasting's future. But podcasting still has a long way to go. By Daniel Terdiman.

ALIVE@9th Street Presents "Storytelling and the Internet Age: New Media, Nonlinear Expanded Cinema, Flash Animation and Interactivity."

What do Java Script, Stock Market Ticker Tape Machines, Web Services and User driven interactive digital experiences have to do with storytelling? Find out the answer to this and more as storytellers and technoids who get your heart thumping and have you hanging onto the edge of your seat come together for the second program in the Ninth Street Independent Film Center's inaugural Forum Series ALIVE@9th Street.

Storytelling and the Internet Age takes a look into possibilities for the future of techno-storytelling. Join moderator Peter L. Stein (Executive Director, San Francisco Jewish Film Festival) for a evening with documentary filmmaker, writer and teacher Carroll Parrott Blue (recipient of the 2004 Sundance Film Festival Online Award); Flash technology pioneer Louis Fox (founding partner Free Range Graphics); animation whiz, entrepreneur and activist Brad deGraf (credits include Jetsons: The Movie, Robocop 2); and acclaimed video and digital artist, and pioneer in digital innovation, Lynn Hershman-Leeson (Technolust, Conceiving Ada).

When: Wednesday, January 12, 2005, 7 pm

Where: 145 Ninth Street, 1st Floor Screening Room, San Francisco (between Mission & Howard)

Cost: $10 advance, $5 students, call (415) 552-5950.

JD Lasica has announced that a start page is now available - as evidence that ourmedia.org does exist.

It's been a long hard road we've been tolling and our thanks go out to Boris Mann and Bryght - for helping us get there.

We aren't live yet - but we're working on it.

Here's JD's post...

I just posted a Welcome message to the Ourmedia.org site, since we're getting some traffic after the two writeups in this week's Business Week. So we've taken down the log-in module. [NewMediaMusings]

Wikipedia has started to hit the big time. Accordingly, several critical articles have come out, including "The Faith-Based Encyclopedia" by a former editor-in-chief of Britannica and a very widely-syndicated AP article that was given such titles as "When Information Access Is So Easy, Truth Can Be Elusive". These articles are written by people who appear not to appreciate the merits of Wikipedia fully. I do, however; I co-founded Wikipedia. (I have since left the project.) Wikipedia does have two big problems, and attention to them is long overdue. These problems could be eliminated by eliminating a single root problem. If the project's managers are not willing to solve it, I fear a fork (a new edition under new management, for the non-techies reading this) will probably be necessary.

(Continued at kuro5hin.org)

An idea that's been stewing around in our minds for a while was given a voice and a name last week with the publication of the awesome "Rebel Sell" piece that's been making the blogosphere rounds.

// Part I // Part II

(Hey, Jay. Just caught up with the Vlogging for Dollars thread on the videoblogging list. You guys should check out the This Magazine article. -kc.)

Heh. The irony.

If you work at a hosting company that hosts a blog, or at a streaming video provider, please hear our call. Bloggers are losing thousands of dollars doing the tremendous public service of providing video of the tsunami to the world. You don't need us to preach the importance of information during this terrible time. During 9/11, Akamai called us and said they would open their pipes for free. Our company, Mirror Image did the same. Lost Remote appeals to you: help these bloggers defray their expenses. Write off their video charges. Give them a discount. Do something. When you host a blog, you are in the news business. Bloggers who are taking a hit: write us, and if any company is kind enough to provide free mirrors or help with your hosting, we will tell you. And we'll give a big shoutout to those generous companies as well. Please help.

Details: These blogs right here are posting the most video.

(You can find most of these videos at The Internet Archive. -kc.)

Posted by yatta at 01:15 PM | Comments (2) | TrackBack

I wasn´t aware of this seminar which discussed different aspects of social software. Fortunately most of it is documented on video, which is accessible from the website.

As 2004 comes to a close, the world is at once very different and much the same for video enthusiasts wanting to take movies from the Internet, store them on their PCs and shoot them over to giant TV screens.

Studies are coming out left and right about "mobile Internet usage," but they're all talking about different things. It makes it too easy to hide bad news behind pretty pictures.

A system for capturing multi-thousand frame-per-second (fps) video using a dense array of cheap 30fps CMOS image sensors.

A benefit of using a camera array to capture high speed video is that we can scale to higher speeds by simply adding more cameras. Even at extremely high frame rates, our array architecture supports continuous streaming to disk from all of the cameras. This allows us to record unpredictable events, in which nothing occurs before the event of interest that could be used to trigger the beginning of recording.

AMC Technology Sub-committee Chair, Tim Halle, sent in this interesting article by Bob Lamm. .

Dave McCarn, WGBH's Chief Technologist, has a mission: He wants to come up with a permanent, universal digital file format for archived media. One that not only carries the original sound and image, but also transcriptions, production notes, authorship/copyright/royalty info, hypermedia links to other media files, etc. Once in this form, it would be free of the underlying tape technology it was originated on, permanently linked to the information that usually gets lost in paper files, and could be stored on the same general-purpose digital media we keep our e-mail and other computer-based files on.

Dave explained a little bit of this vision at our February 18 meeting at WGBH-TV. He pointed out that this was an issue of considerable importance to a station like WGBH: They have something like 150,000 reels/cassettes of one sort or another in their archives. Although WGBH takes great care to store these under optimal conditions, magnetic tape is inherently unstable, and the inevitable deterioration is starting to set in. In addition, WGBH also needs to keep a selection of old machines, also carefully preserved, in operational condition just to play back this media. These machines are starting to show their age and can't be expected to last indefinitely.

(Continued at EmmyAdvancedMedia)

At our Fusion Power conference, Mary Lou Fulton talked about the Northwest Voice, a participatory journalism newspaper project, and said if someone wants to submit a story about a little girl selling lemonade to fight MS, why not find a place for it to run. Here's her logic:

I think one of the things that unfortunately journalism has become really good at is making people feel unimportant, making people feel that what matters to them and the things that are meaningful in their life don't have any place at all in what we do. And so I want to take that whole thing away and say hey if you want to write it and you want to send it in, as long as it's local, we'll publish it. And we do...

The problem with being a great gatekeeper is that you're keeping people out instead of letting people in.

(Continued at PJNet Today)

In case you’re interested here’s an audio interview with Sloncek—the 18-year-old creator of Suprnova.org—happened after the site was taken down. I confess I was underwhelmed with what he had to say, as well as with the questions asked.

It was conducted by a streaming radio station called Novastream.

• Torrent
• MP3

Podcasting brings democracy and a personal touch to tradtional notio ns of broadcasting but with a price -- the continued fragmentation of what was once a national collective audience. If you like to think hyperlocal or niche, that's probably a good thing. But if you think sharing events, entertainment, news connects us in much-needed ways, it may be just another cause for concern. Media critic Dan Kennedy isn't quite sure what to make of podcasting or whether it's going to go the way of cable access channels but he does wonder about the effect.

-- "In a sense, podcasting is just the latest example of how the dot-com crash of 2000 liberated the Internet from the unrealistic expectation of instant wealth, fostering a new climate of grassroots innovation."

-- "The 20 million to 30 million people who still watch one of the three evening newscasts are old and getting older. The buzz is with Fox News, even though it reaches only a fraction of that number, and with Web sites, blogs, radio talk shows, and other media outlets that cater to niche audiences, confirming their beliefs and prejudices rather than challenging them by exposing them to a wide range of viewpoints."

-- "As promising as podcasting may be as a way of liberating us from the likes of Clear Channel and FCC chair Michael Powell, there s a danger that too many of us will be withdrawing from the national conversation still further. You can program your own head. But you ve got to know what your head needs."

ShareTV is going down.

All good things have to come to an end, and unfortunately, here is ours, says the site.

Legal issues get more and more problematic, we are not 16 anymore and with the latest developments we found the situation too unstable/unsafe to continue, so we decided it would be better to leave in dignity. The mainpage will be up until the end of the year, the forum will remain open for now. Yet, we will keep it clean, so no ed2k links, only regular chat.

After we closed the mainpage, we will offer the database as a download for a certain period of time. So please don't go crazy and try to download the page with some tool. This will only bring the server down.

This is a sad moment for us, we love what we do and we love our little community. Believe us - we will miss you just as much as you may miss us.

Bye bye, we hope you enjoyed the ride.

(Continued at p2pnet.net)

Hello Everybody!

Please go over to this web survey page to help us decide which sessions to have at vloggercon:

http://multivote.sparklit.com/web_poll.spark/3732

I've filled up the survey with recent popular topics from the videoblogging list, and suggested sessions that Jay received in email.

I'm going to be meeting with Jay and Ryan this weekend to help plan for vloggercon, and we'll be deciding on sessions.

I'f you've got an idea for a session, please email Jay, discuss it here, or leave it as a comment on the survey page.

Thanks for your support,
--Steve

This is what the survey looks like:

We're planning on having 5 sessions at vloggercon 2005.

Please check up to (5) sessions that you would most like to attend.

Video Playlists: Me-TV, ANT, ...
Videoblogging and Money: Can they coexist?
Video etiquette and law: Your rights when you shoot video?
Tools of the Trade: Cameras, Lighting, Audio
Distribution: BitTorrent/RSS/Hosting/Open Media/Creative Commons
Smart Mob Media Production: Exploring the realities of decentralized
collaborative storytelling, newsgathering, and dissemination.
Show and Tell: Videobloggers tell us about themselves and their videos
Video Blog Platforms: Blogger, TypePad, BlogWare, other. What we use
and why.
Videoblogging Today: Who are we and why are we doing this?
The Future: Where do we go from here?

The most constructive work we do in blogland isn't "delivering" the commodity we call "information," but rather exercizing the verbs from which the noun information is derived. We inform each other. As human beings, we are what we know, and we know more because we listen to and read and watch sources that enlarge our knowledge. We are therefore literally formed by those processes. (All of which, Steve Gillmor will hasten to point out, follow our attention.)

As either Tim O'Reilly or I said in a conversation we once had about this process, We are all authors of each other. (Apparently somebody else wrote this as well, but it costs $25 to read the text, so I guess the author won't be authoring too many of us.)

After I wrote that "blogging is about "making and changing minds", Jay Rosen and his commenters enlarged the idea, both informing and forming my own additional thinking about the subject.

Traditional big-J journalism is so much about delivering finished information, rather than thinking out loud about stuff we all need to know more about, I think we need a noun for the latter. That's what I'm vetting in the headline for this post.

(Continued at The Doc Searls Weblog)

Stanford Institute's Quantitative Study of Society: "The survey found that use of the Internet has displaced television watching and a range of other activities."

Marylaine Block, a very wired librarian, writes with a great example of the Long Tail at work. I'd asked her for some perspective on the ways in which libraries differ from bookstores. After all, on the face of it both suffer from similar scarcity problems: limited shelf space and budgets and the geographic limitations of depending largely on local demand.  Are libraries equally hit-driven as a result?

The answer is no, because libraries (especially university libraries) have changed a lot. They are increasingly connected through shared databases and interlibrary loan networks. Thus they are able to effectively extend their shelves manyfold, connecting their individual collections into a vast supercollection that can go far further down the Tail than any single institution could afford. In other words, networks are turning individual libraries into what amounts to one huge virtual Long Tail aggregator.

(Continued at The Long Tail)

Zack Rosen of Civic Space sits in at his uncle Jay's PressThink and offers some advice for news organizations in the age of citizens journalism.

Bloggers without borders has just launch. Here's the first post from Jonas.

Tsunami Outreach

Submitted by Jonas M Luster on Thu, 2004-12-30 05:23.

We have found our compassion in this one. Yet, one thing remains and is badly needed, says a friend of mine who just arrived in Sri Lanka and will be contributing what he learned in eight years in Uniform. People. Not the odd-job bystander, not the “activist”, and certainly not the journalist. What is needed most, today, are qualified specialists. Demolitions experts to safely destroy dangerous structures, Doctors, guys and gals who know how to handle a syringe or a gun. The latter is needed more and more as the looting increases and food and medical supplies are being raided by black marketers.

From IEEE Spectrum Online - Selling Music for a Song: Online music stores make at most a dime per track — where does the money go?

They start with a single stolen file and pump out pirated games and movies by the millions. Jeff Howe from Wired magazine looks at the 'topsites' that are terrorizing the entertainment business.

The whole shebang - the topsites, the pyramid, and the P2P networks girding it all together - is not about trading or sharing at all. It s a broadcast system. It takes a signal, the new U2 single, say, and broadcasts it around the world. The pirate pyramid is a perfect amplifier. The signal becomes more robust at every descending level, until it gets down to the P2P networks, by which time it can be received by anyone capable of typing U2″ into a search engine.

Work ongoing at HP Labs in Bristol UK, at their Semantic Web Research Group. where they have done some interesting work that uses the simplicity of blog posting to construct intelligent repositories of what they call 'knowledge snippets' ... information nuggets we would like to store, annnotate and share ... Steve Cayzer of the Labs, in a provocative recent article (link below) discusses the interaction of this simplicty with the ability to store and retrieve knowledge based on embedded intelligence. Any kind of knowledge management method presupposes you have some critical mass of knowledge to manage.

Without having content, no one will use the source. With a simple blog you can easily add and annotate such snippets, but the only way to retrieve is a search. Improvements like Google Desktop Search, make this easier, but it still suffers from the strength of its precision and recall. Blogs like the one you are reading also contain links, to augment the knowledge they contain by simple reference. This kind of knowledge loading can be improved by adding semantic metadata to the snippits and to their links. The querying and search can be aided by this knowledge. The result is a form of the Semantic Web, overlaid on a simple blog structure.

Of course, this does make the use of the blog structure more complex. It has to be loaded with the semantic knowledge, perhaps through the use of a pre-arranged ontology for classifying and sharing knowledge. This is important work .. with the potential of linking very simple knowledge storing ideas, like blogs, with more complex knowledge management classification and retrieval methods. Cayzer also usefully surveys other knowledge-loading mechanisms for blogs. For more detail, and updated research see Cayzer's Semantic Blogging site, which contains a demonstrator for a semantic blog. And the full December CACM article: Semantic Blogging and Decentralized Knowledge Management, an instructive read. (Full article regrettably only available to ACM subscribers)...

Both the NY Times and the Washington Post (use Bugmenot if you face registration) explore the FCC's somewhat quiet plan to replace cable boxes with Cablecards. They slide into the back of television sets, cost less to rent, and unlike boxes can be taken with you when you move. However there's a good chance you'll never see one.

Waxy.org has been collecting amateur video footage, here's a roundup post: Link. Punditguy has more: Link

Chris Holland says,

I've used prodigem to create torrents for the South Asia tsunami videos. The more people use this torrent, the faster everyone else will be able to download the videos. See also this page to make it easy for people to put an amazon donation badge on their sites.

Link

In case you missed it on my del.icio.us or Restoring the Balance or Waxy's Linkblog (which is where I got it, and run by the guy whose blog who put the Grey Album into the world's ears) the Grey Album is Entertainment Weekly's best album of 2004.

Briefly, US copyright exists because Article 1, Section 8, Clause 8 of the US Constitution provides for Congress to promote the Progress of Science and useful Arts, by securing for limited Times to Authors and Inventors the exclusive Right to their respective Writings and Discoveries.

Part of that has been challenged in Eldred vs. Ashcroft, where Lawrence Lessig argued that retroactive extensions to copyright didn't meet the "limited Times" clause. But let's look at the big picture.

Because of current copyright law, the Grey Album is illegal. The best album of the year is illegal because of copyright law. You are not allowed to buy a copy of the best album of the year because of copyright law. Is copyright law promoting art?

Check out my interview with James Enck on The Broadband Daily about Prodigem. James is a self-proclaimed "bungling Luddite idiot" when it comes to using new technologies and concludes that he is "truly impressed with how easy this was to do". Cool.

Holy crap. Just read this on Evenlyn's blog, where she's in Bangkok now:

I wonder if blogging really is merely journalism (obviously not for me), but just didn't feel right somehow taking pictures of a floating hospital (except for the Asian doctor on his diving holiday voluntarily assisting with minimal supplies on this rescue, there was no medical attention available until about 11 hours after the tsunami hit), the Phuket hospital scene, or the people in stretchers on the C-130. Although that didn't stop the press. They were even hogging the free email terminals for patients at the Phuket hospital so they could dispatch their stories.

I'm going to need a bit more perspective to adequately relate this as I'm still in the middle of this.

Crossroads Dispatches: Humbled by Stories of Tsunami Survivors

(Actually, I think it's good to repost the first sentence from the first paragraph she mentions this in:

Someone forwarded me the NY Times piece on the tsunami and blogging, but if you were really in thick in the middle of this life-altering, surreal experience I'm not sure you'd be up to reporting it as yet.

-kc.)

Heather Green at BusinessWeek reports on the grassroots movement to post video blogs. She contends that vlogs are compelling in the creativity they're unleashing and the changes they could bring to the media status quo.

Following in the footsteps of text blogs, video blogs are starting to take off on the Internet. This new form of grassroots digital media is being shepherded along by groups of film makers and video buffs who started pooling publishing tips and linking to each other in earnest this year.

Sirius Satellite Radio says holiday sales helped push its subscriber base over the 1 million mark, while rival XM Satellite Radio reports its customer numbers have topped 3.1 million.

New York-based Sirius and Washington, DC-based XM are the two main players in the emerging U.S. satellite radio business.

Sirius recently signed shock jock Howard Stern under a five-year, $500 million contract and hired Viacom Latest News about Viacom veteran Mel Karmazin as its chief executive.

An In-Depth, Detailed Look at your Favorite Public-Domain Movies. A Searchable DataBase of Public-Domain Movie Information, Episode Guides and More.

Created to assist people in their search for public domain movies and to develop a better understanding of the public domain laws, this database is intended to serve as a source for this need

Playing Net movies on your TV

As 2004 comes to a close, the world is at once very different and much the same for video enthusiasts wanting to take movies from the Internet, store them on their PCs and shoot them over to giant TV screens. What s new is the growing list of devices coming out that can connect the two worlds, either wirelessly or with cables. But one thing that hasn t changed, Cai said, is the dearth of high-quality legally available content that would justify the investment for most people. The idea of the digital-media adapter has been around for years through devices like Sony s RoomLink, but they never really took off, Cai explained. One problem has been a lack of consumer awareness. But the bigger problem is the lack of content not self-created content like home movies, but premium content, meaning first-run Hollywood movies.

Efforts to make more legal content available are underway, but it will be awhile before they catch up with the hardware.

Wired News has a lengthy exploration of Bit Torrent, which will have been downloaded 40 million times by 2006. It more specifically focuses on its creator Bram Cohen, and how he came to develop such a popular (and now controversial) bit of software. In April of 2001, Cohen quit his job to work on the software, which now accounts for nearly a third of all web traffic.

You've heard it before, of course, but analysts say that TV sports will change dramatically in the next 25 years. "The balance of power is shifting from providers to fans," ESPN's Len DeLuca tells the Baltimore Sun. Fans will be able to see and experience everything the players do, as they choose their own camera shots, graphics and instant replays. If this means I can lose that annoying, flashing Fox stripe atop my NFL games, I can hardly wait.

Following up on yesterday's post about finding photos and video and the tsunami, Brian TVNewser Stelter sends this good quote from David Carr's NY Times story:

Bob Calo, an associate professor at the graduate school of journalism at the University of California, Berkeley, said that there had been something of a reversal in the news-gathering process. "If you think back, news gatherers would get the story and then commission a photographer to go and get the pictures," he said. "Now we have flipped it around to where reporters are chasing the pictures, trying to create some context for what viewers are seeing."

We are all reporters. I've written often that I wonder what would have been different if I'd had a camera or cameraphone with me at the World Trade Center on 9/11: An event viewed from a rooftop three miles away would have been viewed from a human level instead.

Meanwhile, Punditguy sends a link to this dramatic tourist video of the wave engulfing a resort and these photos. Those photos are taken by an American in Thailand named Ernest and if you scroll down on his blog, you will read how he ended up in Phuket. This makes the news very human.

Technology which enables the merging of real and virtual elements - MixTV allows free camera movement and zooming and enables interaction with virtual elements in production.

"The risk is no longer of losing readers with an an insufficient volume of posts, but of annoying readers with insufficiently interesting posts" - is this the end of blogging about not blogging?

Consulting group Classified Intelligence said newspapers have lost between $50 and $65 million in employment ad revenue along with millions more in real estate and other classified categories. Together, online job boards bring in $217 million in recruitment revenue compared to newspaper's $1.1 billion. Classified Intelligence predicts online job board revenue will eventually surpass newspaper recruitment advertising revenue.

A BBC news post reports that in a recent project wireless technology has been adopted in the Huaral Valley, a farming community 80 km north of Lima, Peru. Built with open source software, the project, providing wireless to a community of 6000+ with $200,000 in donations from an NGO, has also set up 14 telecenters that will set out to provide "...training on computers and internet skills for both operators and users of the system," with a goal of helping rural people share information with each other in new ways.

This is an interesting project that sets the stage for a large community of people, many diving into technology for the first time, to experiment with how networks can help them do what they do. Even if in the long run funding dies out, the classes stop, and it just ends up being a bunch of loosely connected internet cafes in the middle of North Peru - it still provides access, maybe not to everyone, but to those in the community who are interested in working with the technology -- and that is what matters.

A group of volunteers set up a blog to coordinate information about resources, aid, donations and volunteer efforts in response to the devastating Southeast Asian earthquake and tsunami. [Link]

(We're getting a large amount of traffic to this post in searches for 'tsunami aid'. If you're looking for tsunami aid resources, please visit ReliefWeb, WorldChanging, and the Tsunamihelp Blog -kc.)

China says it s achieved a world-first with its next generation Internet network CERNET2, the largest Internet Protocol Version 6 network anywhere.

Compared with the current IP Version 4, the new version is capable of allocating endless IP addresses, and features a transportation speed of 10G per second, 1,000 times faster than the current speed, says state news agency Xinhuanet.

By creating a digital network in their own homes, in the near future Chinese people could use it to enjoy video and audio communications, information resources, and the benefits of far-away education and health care services, it says.

CERNET2 links up 25 universities in 20 cities, says China Daily

(Continued at p2pnet.net)

ClickZ expert and Jupiter Research analyst Gary Stein takes a look back at 2004. His favorite topic? You guessed it:

The ability to tap into consumer conversations is fantastic and powerful. Companies are falling all over themselves trying to figure out how to use the blog phenomenon to their advantage. All too often, they conclude they should use blogs to talk. Please. Brands do enough talking as it is. Use the blog space to listen.

I read (on a blog, of course) Microsoft is doing just that: It uses tools such as PubSub and Bloglines to capture consumer feedback on its products. From that insight, it culls the most appropriate and appealing bits, which go directly into the next development meeting.

Interesting quote from Amazon's Jeff Bezos in January's Wired Magazine:

"About three months ago, we stopped doing TV advertising. We did a 15-month-long test of TV advertising in two markets -- Portland, OR and Minneapolis -- to see how much it drove our sales. And it worked, but not as much as the kind of price elasticity we knew we could get from taking those ad dollars and giving them back to consumers."

Bezos said they used the money to lower prices and offer free shipping -- a move that "significantly accelerated" the growth of Amazon.com. He says the balance is shifting toward spending more money on the customer experience and less on advertising -- then depending on word of mouth to generate sales.

The Problem:
Ever since Michael Verdi's daughter, Dylan, posted her first video blog and had 1600 downloads in 24 hours....Ive been thinking a lot about bandwidth issues.
In the near future, watching video on the internet will be part of our daily web process.
I see no reason why 10,000 people won't watch a simple video post.
But there is NO way current bandwidth allotments can handle this traffic.
Even 50 gigs of bandwidth is not enough...and that's the max bandwidth that most servers allow.

Solution #1:
One solution is using the Internet Archive.
Started by Brewster Kahle, this service has been around since 1995 mainly for archiving web pages...so we could have a record of what the web looked like in the past.
But now they are opening it up for video and audio.
Brewster Kahle, who got rich off the web in the 90's, says he wants to have all human knowledge on the internet.
This is the motive behind giving us free bandwidth and storage for our videos.
Ourmedia.org, the Creative Commons, and the Archive.org are teaming up to create a network for original content.
So you can upload your video to the Archive, slap a Creative Commons license on it, and use Ourmedia.org to join a community of other people who are sharing their videos.
The project officially starts in mid-January.
(though you can use the CC Publisher to upload video to the Archive now and have them store/serve your video for free)

Solution #2:
But is the Archive the solution?
Can any place serve up thousands of videos being downloaded thousands of times?
Maybe Bit Torrent is the answer.
Bit Torrent is a file sharing system...kind of like Napster or Kazaa...but perfected for large video files.
How does it work?
Many computers are "always-on"...using cable modems/DSL to connect to the internet.
Why not make each of our computers servers?
(You'd have to be serving A LOT of video before your ISP started complaining.)

Though Bit Torrent is easy to download, it's been difficult to serve...though some people are making heroic efforts to make it easy.
One of these people is Gary Lerhaupt of Torrentocracy who I met at BloggrCon3.
He created a new service called "Prodigem".

If you haven't already heard of Prodigem, it's a new peer to
peer hosting service and content management system.  It makes
use of bit torrent to enable you to distribute your content
regardless of how large your content is.  It removes all
complexity of distributing via bit torrent by automating the
entire process from uploading your content to actually having
the Prodigem servers seed your torrent so that it can be
distributed.

To make a Torrent:
Gary invited me to test his service a couple weeks ago...but i hesitated....until today.
Gary's sevice will host the file and makes the torrent for you.
I just followed the empty boxes he gave me.



In 10 minutes, I uploaded the video about me-tv to Prodigem, which is now seeding the torrent file...ready for anyone to download.

How to download a Torrent:
Go here and get the torrent file.
There will now be a torrent file on your desktop.
This is a simple file that tells your computer where the real video is. (on Prodigem right now)

You must have a Bit Torrent application to download the real video...just like you needed the Napster/Kazaa/Limewire application to download music.
Download Blog Torrent...its easy to use.

Open Blog Torrent.
You just drag the torrent file into Blog Torrent and it starts downloading the video.
The video will download directly from someone's computer...so no server bandwidth is used.
Once you download the video, you start seeding it automatically...meaning that the next person to download the video will get it even faster....etc.

This stuff is really easy...it's just new.
I could sit down with anyone and walk them through it.
But the goal is to make bit torrent should be completely invisible.
We're getting there. It can be even easier.
It's going to work.
We should be able to post a video and never worry about too many people watching it.
In fact, with Bit Torrent... the more people who download it, the faster the download is.
Think of it like Napster...but better...and it's all about distributing original content.

These are my top ten ideas for the year 2004. The year in press think, as it were. I chose not the "best" ideas, but the ones most useful to me in figuring out what's going on. They weren't necessarily born in '04, either. But they emerged this year. Some have authors; usually it is many authors. Ready?

Here they are:

1. The Legacy Media. 2. He said, she said, we said. 3. What the printing press did to the Catholic Church the blogging press does to the media church. 4. Open Source Journalism, or: "My readers know more than I do." 5. News turns from a lecture to a conversation. 6. "Content will be more important than its container." 7. 'What once was good--or good enough--no longer is." 8. "The victory of affinity over geography." 9. The Pajamahadeen. 10. The Reality-Based Community.

Now if I were Time magazine, this post would be called Idea of the Year, and I would unveil one as the "winner" right now. There is a certain temptation in that. But somehow I feel a top ten list is an established gimmick, "okay" if you do it well. Picking Person of the Year is an extreme gimmick. It falls into this dead zone between journalism, and hype. (See Time's managing editor James Kelly try to manuever in the zone: "I think it's very problematic to do God. Partly because I suppose you could do God every year.")

This post is about ideas 1-3 on my list. In future posts I will unfold the others. Discussion of all ten can begin in comments now. (Particularly if you have ideal quotes and links for numbers 4-8. Help me out and post them, please.)

(Continued at PressThink)

"Video mining" is an emerging field in marketing research that is enabled by technology that analyzes video images without relying on human eyes.
[Here is an example of what are doing 'video miners' such as ShopperTrak.]

Using proprietary software to gauge the size of the images of people, a ShopperTrak computer determined that Ms. Munro was an adult, not a child, and thus a bona fide shopper. Weeding out youngsters is critical in accurately calculating one of the valuable bits of data ShopperTrak sells -- the percentage of shoppers that buys and the percentage that only browses. It arrives at this data, including the so-called conversion rate, by comparing the number of people taped entering the store with the number of transactions.

Source: Joseph Pereira, The Wall Street Journal, via the Portsmouth Herald, December 21, 2004 (no registration needed)

KnoppMyth is an attempt at making the Linux and MythTV installation as trivial as possible. The current release is Release 4 and runs directly form the CD!

UPDATE 12/31/2004: Vloggercon now has a process blog at http://vloggercon.blogspot.com/

Registration, schedule, and logistical info coming soon.

Hey guys--

what started as an offhanded comment by Shannon is now a reality.

Vloggercon 2005.

Shannon from LA is coming to NYC the 3rd week of january to do some work. so we said we'll have Vloggercon 2005 on saturday, January 22nd. whoever wants to come is now officially invited.

Andrew Barron of Rocketboom teaches at Parsons School of Design in Manhattan...and says we can get a room with a projector and wi-fi for the day. I imagined we'd organize some discussion sessions from 10am-4pm. Then, just eat and party the rest of the evening.

what i need to know is...who interested in coming? we can find you a free place to stay no problem.

Also, we need some discussion leaders. I imagine hour long sessions where we talk about the work we've been doing this year...showing videos...and figuring out what we can do next.

If you have an idea you want to lead us through, email me and we'll see if we can set it up. Everything is up for grabs. I just think it'd be a good time to come together and see what we've accomplished so far.

I look forward to meeting all of you who can make it.

Jay

The Coalition of Journalists for Open Government is a new organization. From their website:

Our goal is to provide timely information on freedom of information issues and on what journalism organizations are doing to foster greater transparency in government. We d like to make this your front page when you need information on open government issues and FOI efforts.

Have I mentioned lately that Anne Davis is an amazingly inspiring teacher when it comes to blogs, both to her students and to me. It's rare to find someone who can make it all seem as fun as she does, and you just know her students are going to fall in love with writing because of it. Her kids have published a whole page of Blog Art to inspire me and, hopefully, some others as well. Very cool!

A followup to this earlier posting: Unauthorized Campaigns Used by Unauthorized Creators Become a Trend [pdf]

Coca-Cola is not the only marketer dealing with marketing it did not ask for. New ads and ideas for campaigns are increasingly popping up without client or agency involvement, whether online, on television or metaphorically nailed to boardroom doors.

Various people with diverse motives are behind the proliferation of vigilante marketing. They are freelancers and fans - even agencies - looking for accounts, and they have shown up this year to advertise or try to advertise products as they see fit.

(Continued at Furdlog)

While everyone is anxiously waiting to find out more details about Exeem we found on Slyck forum (which seems to be down today) a list of 10 alternatives to Suprnova.

#10 Bt.etree.org No Registration Required

One of the top torrent links is even 100% legal. This is a music only site that allows fans to trade recordings of live concerts from certain bands. All the bands you will find here actually allow their fans to record and trade these shows. Very neat if you’re a fan of any of the included bands. Ben Harper, Blues Traveler, Dave Matthews Band, Greatful Dead, Guster, and Phish are a few of the many bands you will find there.

#9 Torrentreactor.net No Registration Required

This site has something for everyone, no matter what country you maybe from. It lacks the depth of content that some of the larger communities do, but has been around for a long time as far as torrent sites go. It is open to just about ever kind of file. Worth checking out for sure.

#8 Torrentbits.org Registration Required

This site is great, and could very easy be listed much higher. It’s a great source for 0 day stuff. You will find just about everything here. The reason for its low listing is the fact it requires registration, and limits the amount of registered users. Not visiting the site for a period of time will usually result in your account being dropped, and you having to sign up again, and with the limiting of the number of registered users allowed this can take awhile of refreshing to get a spot.

#7 Torrent.youceff.com No Registration Required

Cool site with its content broke into nice categories. A must have on almost anyone’s torrent bookmarks.

#6 Code9-group.org Registration Required

A great source for movies, while they to also have music, and TV shows. This is home of “Code9-Group” While not a “true” group they do really good recodes of released stuff. It’s the best place to get “screeners” since they shrink them down to fit onto 1 CD with no real quality loss, and they can still play on most DVD players.

#5 Registration Required

Another great source for torrents of every kind. Files of any kind can be found here, and being one of the more elite torrent sites speeds tend to be great. Any torrent fans list of B.T. bookmarks would not be complete without a link to lokitorrents.com

#4 P2PForums.com

#BT-GM Mirror. P2PForums.com hosts a semi official mirror of the downloads provide by the great IRC channel #BT-GM on EFnet. Right now these releases of 0 Day DVD Rips and Games are only available on their official IRC channel, besides this thread. Always know that these files will be of the best quality and in demand.

#3 TvTorrents.net

One of the top torrent sites on the net. These guys pump out all the newest TV Shows each night in high quality with in hours of them airing. The only reason they loose out to their EFnet rivals #BT is because they tend to be a few minutes behind them on releases. Official webhome of #tvotorrents on EFnet

#2 BTefnet.com

The best place for TV show torrents bar none. This site has torrents of all the newest releases in high quality format before anyone else. Have been doing there thing for some time and are damn good at it. The official net home for the IRC channel #bt on EFnet

#1 Torrent.hackz.nl

This site doesn’t actually offer any torrents, but it’s a great collection of all the best torrent links out there. This is a great starting point, and maybe even home page for all torrent fans out there.

Sony plans to release in May a new digital video camera that burns directly to DVD-R, DVD-RW, and DVD+RW. Called the Sony DCR-DVD7E, it features a cool, round-body design.

Communication Grill Chang-tei, by Japanese artists Kou Sueda and Kouji Ishii, is an electric cooker controlled by a chat software for making Yakiniku (Japanese-style barbecue).



The conversation exchanged on a network powers the electric heater.
In order to roast meat, you have to continue carrying out a chat with the person that shares your table.

Once you stop chatting, the fire of the electric heater goes out. But beware, if the conversation gets too lively, the meat could burn.

Movies.

Next month, Adultinternet.TV officially launches with a lineup that includes reality shows, news, sitcoms and cartoons -- all with an adult twist. That doesn't mean that every host or actress is going to take her clothes off, but it does mean that adult pioneers are once again developing technologies that will change the landscape of entertainment as we know it.

"Nobody has done a real adult TV station, that's like real TV, supported by advertisers and free to viewers," says co-founder Mark Newman. "This isn't just streaming porn. We're trying to run exactly like a TV station."

(Continued at Wired News)

The latest FCC report on broadband usage shows an increase of 15 percent in high-speed lines to home and business for a total of 32.5 million lines through June 2004. Perhaps most important, 23.2 million of those lines provide advanced speed, two-way access.

-- High-speed lines increased by 38 percent for the full 12 months ending June 30, 2004.

-- Of the 32.5 million high-speed lines in service, 30.1 million served residential and small business subscribers, up 16 percent from the previous six months.
tIn the previous 12 months, high-speed subscription increased by 46 percent.
-- ADSL increased by 20 percent during the first half of 2004 ro 11.4 million lines compared to a 24 percent increase during the preceding six months. For the full 12 months, ADSL was up 49 percent/
-- Cable modem lines were up 13 percent to 18.6 million lines compared to a 20 percent increase the previous six months. For the full 12 months, cable modem connections increased by 36 percent.

The Nielsen//Netratings organization says broadband is now ahead of dialup access in U.S. homes, and that opens the door to all sorts of innovation. Howard Owens of VenturaCountyStar.com wrote about one big leap, TVIP, on his personal weblog the other day and made a dismissive reference to broadband providers restricting that functionality. "I just can't see that happening," he wrote. But maybe it's not so easy to dismiss. The many revolutions brought to us by the Internet are as much about power struggles as they are about technology and new possibilities. Just look at the battles over (...)

Entry continued...

I wanted to let you know that Chris Weagal(Human Dog) and I had a successful experiment tonight.

You may know that on Thursday nights at 11:30pm, I do a a live TV show in Manhattan. But tonight Im in Indiana visiting my little sister and yet the show still happened. The show went live from Chris's basement studio in Michigan. Anyone in manhattan watching channel 56 saw the Human Dog Players do a christmas special.

this is huge for our community station as a proof of concept. now, we can go live from anywhere in the world, free.

while i was in Indiana, i simply had a coworker log into my iChatAV account in the studio. he invited Chris to a video Chat. Chris's image appeared on the screen. My co-worker routed the computer source and audio to air on TV. Done.

Chris is now doing a live tv show for manhattan out of his basement...1000 miles away. the image was clear and sound was sharp. Networks do this same thing using satellite trucks.

anyway, i was pumped. especially since chris stepped up and did a very cool tight production. he's built a whole community of poeple around him in MI. What we did tonight is differnet from videoblogging, but it is about us using our brains to make the connections.

Ward, the inventor of the wiki, talks about the evolution of wiki, copyright and wikipedia.

Been away, working on a bunch of things including, most speculatively, a proposal for a book with the working title Organization in the Age of Social Devices, where devices refers both to our tools and to the things people do with those tools when left to their own devices. The collected themes of the book will be no surprise to readers here.

All that is so 2006, however, and this is still 2004, so I want to try to capture some of what I’ve been seeing this semester at ITP. Unlike last year, where the fall semester largely resolved itself for me into a single big surprise (the pattern I’m calling Situated Software,) this year I’m seeing lots of distributed effects, with no one common thread, so I’m going to do a series of posts of things I’ve seen.

So, first of all, ITP is Flickr-obsessed. The community is either in the grip of a fast-moving addiction, or we’re an epicenter of a pandemic; time will tell.

I’ll start with two quick Flickr stories…

First, one of our students, after working on the floor late one night, headed home, and in the time it took to walk the 4 blocks between ITP and his apartment, another group whiteboarded a goodnight message to him, snapped a photo of it, and uploaded it, knowing that he would check Flickr the minute he got home, and that their photo would show up in his stream.

Flickr is nominally asynchronous, but has achieved, at least at ITP, a kind of social near-synchrony. Everyone who’s used email for longer than a month knows the mental calculation of ‘email vs phone’, as in “I need to reschedule a meeting happening N hours from now. Will they check their email, or should I call?” The more email-driven a person is, the lower N can be before email won’t work. This group is so camera-centric and Flickr-obsessed that that N for Flickr is sub 1 hour.

(Continued at Many-to-Many)

I notice that Boing Boing is in the preliminary stages of podcasting. This is the torrent file. I couldn't find a boing boing link that was to just the mp3 file, so here is a link to just the mp3 file. This should be okay according to the creative commons license bundled in the torrent. Its tagged as Boing Boing podcast #001 (inferring that there is potential for only 999 (save fractions)). Cool stuff. The best thing about pod casting is all of the valuable content being created beyond just music.

Enter a URL to retrieve information about people who delicious'ed it.

Consumers Union has released a new telecommunications and media online resource called Hearusnow.org. The site offers in-depth reading on over 60 consumer related telecom issues, including consumer tips on what to do before you buy and making companies listen when you're dissatisfied (from phone service to copyright rules on digital content). There are also 7 different ways to make a difference in less then 2 minutes (see "Get Heard" on the left bar and click the red link).

A group of automakers has won a grant from the German government to help develop a standard for car-to-car data networking. The planned standard will essentially create a mobile Internet, allowing vehicles and drivers to communicate with each other instantly. (There are already ad hoc systems that allow sharing of data especially music on the road, but they don't have this level of industry backing.) While the automakers, who include big names Daimler Chrysler, BMW and Audi, envision the standard leading to a system for traffic, weather and other vital information to be distributed efficiently to drivers, we know what s really going on. This is going to be the ultimate system for inter-vehicle gaming and sending inflammatory IMs to the guy who just cut you off.

"Apple Computer is eyeing a technology that could make the iPod more likely to survive a fall. The company has applied for a patent on technology that would allow a portable media player to detect when it is falling and then stop reading or writing to the hard drive. Such technology would work by detecting the acceleration that accompanies a drop. "The portable-computing device protects its disk drive by monitoring for such accelerations and operating to avoid usage of the disk drive during periods of acceleration," Apple said in the patent application, which was published Dec. 16. "Through such protection, the likelihood of damage to the disk drive or loss of data stored on the disk drive is able to be substantially reduced."

Danny Schechter, editor of Mediachannel.org sent me this article two days ago as a global comment on 2004. His thoughts can be compared with Mark Glaser views (see former posting today). They seem belonging to two different planets. Schechter writes that "It has not been a good year for journalists and journalism... The big fear, as journalists die, is that journalism itself may soon follow. Some years back, I read a book about the emergence of the "post journalism era" cataloging the abandonment of a commitment to real news in the news business. It spoke of how packaging and "mechanics" and compression and infotainment defines the new uber-merged corporate media order. At the time, that indictment seemed alarmist, and premature. Not any more..."

"The Committee's State of the Media report showed a system that is devolving and losing credibility. Here were a few of the main findings:

1. A growing number of news outlets are chasing relatively static or even shrinking audiences for news. That audience decline, in turn, is putting pressures on revenues and profits.

2. Much of the new investment in journalism today is in disseminating the news, not in collecting it. Most sectors of the media are cutting back in the newsroom. While there are exceptions, in general journalists face real pressures trying to maintain quality.

3. In the 24-hour cable and online news format, there is a tendency toward a jumbled, chaotic, repetitive and partial quality in some reports, without much synthesis or even the ordering of the information.

4. Journalistic standards now vary even inside a single news organization. Companies are trying to reassemble and deliver to advertisers a mass audience for news not in one place, but across different programs, products and platforms. To do so, some are varying their news agenda, their rules on separating advertising from news and even their ethical standards.

The last item makes projecting a consistent sense of identity and brand more difficult for news organizations, reinforcing a public perception that the news media lack professionalism and a sense of any duty to the public interest."

Not at all the atmosphere of self-congratulations that I denounced in the Mark Glaser article.

Source: Mediachannel.org

Live Cut is a tool for editing multi camera shots (up to 4 cameras). Editing can be done in realtime, by simply switching between four synchronized sources. Live Cut is used as a preprocessor for Apple's Final Cut Pro.

Avid is offering an "HD Handbook" for free download as a pdf file. Only a small amount of it is specific to their products. They include a long glossary with diagrams and easy to understand definitions.

I was amazingly interested by the report about GeoNotes usage: P.Persson and P.Fagerberg (2002). Geonotes: a real-use study of a public location-aware community system (.pdf). Technical Report SICS-T2002/27-SE, SICS, University of Goteborg, Sweden. This is going to be the next issue with locative media: how people will cheat and how designers will take this into account!

Although not confirmed, 2 labels appeared to be faked ("England” and “centralen” [normally designating a metro station far from Kista]).

This is big.

Python for Series 60 allows developers to execute Python commands and run Python scripts and applications in devices based on Series 60 Platform. In addition, developers can execute Python commands and scripts in the emulators of Series 60 Developer Platform SDK\'s. Development starts with an interactive console in a Series 60 compatible device where Python commands can be executed. Alternatively, a developer can write Python scripts, install them to a device executing scripts and applications from the Python Environment.

John Yunker's Unwired Blog has a very interesting interview with Dave Mock, a wireless consultant and analyst with currentofferings.com and author of the forthcoming book The Qualcomm Equation.

He asks some good questions and gets thoughful answers. Check it out.

Here's an interview with Podcaster Adam Curry today on The World, too.

Roland Piquepaille's Technology Trends points to an article that asserts in 10 to 15 years, three disruptive technologies will converge and deeply change our lives: nanotechnology, sensors and wireless technology. Future advances in robotics will make skycars practical...

Thanks in large part to the help and feedback from Professional Network members, we've just released Movable Type 3.14. This release addresses the performance issues detailed last week, and we'll be providing additional guidance and information to ProNet members later this week once this release is deployed. Thank you to all who contributed and tested this version over the weekend.

Reason magazine interviews FCC chief Michael Powell, who defends his positions on indecency, media consolidation, and telco deregulation. In it, Powell calls the Brand X decision (which could open cable networks to competitors) "the scariest and worst decision that exists on the books today for the future of the Internet." Powell also repeats his opinion that media indecency complaints have "skyrocketed" despite recent revelations that 99.8% of complaints come from one organization.

(links to streaming Flash) A flexible LED display developed to be embedded on a dress for the Milan Triennial 2005. Via metafilter

For the last few weeks, I've been pondering putting together a blog "un" conference in New Jersey or New York - most likely the former, due to cost concerns, though. Obviously BloggerCon has been the "big" event for the last couple times around the block, and this isn't meant to be of that scale - though I wouldn't mind a few hundred people, of course.

At this point, I'm looking at late January/early-mid February, based on availability of locations, mostly. So far, I have received costs for holding such an event at my alma mater, Monmouth University in West Long Branch, NJ. It's easily accessible by car from the Garden State Parkway (exit 105, because you'll ask), and is a short trip from a fairly busy NJ Transit train station as well. This is in no way definitive, though. I'm also looking into some northern-NJ locations, and a few others here and there that have been suggested to me.

I'll be working on an "agenda" of sorts in the next week or two, and will gladly take suggestions on topics to cover and possible locations (especially if you have an "in") either in the comments or via email. Some ideas I'm tossing around are around blog ethics such as use of photographs and "fair use," hyperlocal blogging, PR and blogs, and more. I'd also like to hear from people who think they'd be interested in coming along, or helping out with some of the responsibilities. At this point, it looks like there will be some costs to hold an event, but I haven't ironed out how much they'd be exactly - it'll depend on sizing and location.

I have a few ideas on some people I'd like to participate and be session facilitators - some of you I've already chatted with about this, others may just end up with a note in your inbox one day soon. Just a warning =)

(Continued at The Media Drop)

Disclaimer: These are my thoughts, not spec text.

This question comes up from time to time, and I've resisted answering it directly, thinking that anyone who really read the spec would come to the conclusion that RSS allows zero or one enclosures per item, and no more. The same is true for all other sub-elements of item, except category, where multiple elements are explicitly allowed. The spec refers to "the enclosure" in the singular. Regardless, some people persist in thinking that you may have more than one enclosure per item.

Okay, let's play it out. So if I have more than one enclosure per item, how do I specify the publication date for each enclosure? How do I specify the title, author, a link to comments, a description perhaps, or a guid? The people who want multiple enclosures suggest schemes that are so complicated that they're reduced to hand-waving before they get to the spec, which I would love to read, if it could be written. Some times some things are just too hard to do. This is one of them.

And there's a reason why it's too hard. Because you're throwing out the value of RSS and then trying to figure out how to bring it back. There's no need for items any more, so you might as well get rid of them. At the top level of channel would be a series of enclosures, and then underneath each enclosure, all the meta-data. Voila, problem solved. Only what have you actually solved? You've just re-created RSS, but instead of calling the main elements "item" we now call them "enclosure".

Sometimes linear thinking leads you to a dead-end, and this is one of those times, imho. You end up in a torus, there's no wall that says "you may go no further" but somehow you keep going in circles, chasing your tail, re-inventing RSS, when there's absolutely no need to.

So people ask how will we fit show notes into RSS? Maybe we won't. When you get into show notes, think outlines, and think about linking MP3s into outline structures. I think this has more potential. I could be wrong of course (not joking).

Comment here.

Timecode Calculator 1.0 is a fast and easy way to perform basic operations on video timings in two formats: 30 Drop Frame and 30 Non-Drop Frame.

Key features include: adding and subtracting video timings; change of formats (drop and non-drop frames); checking timecode validity; and record of calculations.

BoingBoing reader Adam Fields says, "I wrote a piece somewhat in response to Mark Pesce's bit about trackerless torrents (Link to previous BoingBoing post). I think P2P is the content industry's worse nightmare... to date. But there's other stuff coming. What happens when the entire music library of the human race fits on a card that's cheap and small enough to hand out with a cup of coffee?" Link

Technology reporter Simon Avery wrote in Globetechnology that the TTC plans to be the first public transit system in North America to bring television and digital advertising onto its underground platforms and into its subway trains.

The Internet-based wireless network, which relies on the same Wi-Fi technology used to create ''hot spots'' for surfing the Web in cafes and airport lounges, will be deployed on a test basis this spring. Eventually, it could allow riders to use their own laptops or handheld computers on the subway.

Smartmobs reader Phillip Jeffrey of UBC adds to this: "This reminds me of that scene from Minority Report when USA today updates Tom Cruise being wanted while on the train".

Thank you Phillip !

Santa Delivers New Forms of Media Delivery:

Nice summation of some of the interesting going-on's over the past year. Podcasting, iPods, Digital Media Servers/Centers, Juice boxes and more.. It has definitely been an interesting one.

From Nipplegate to the steady rise of DVRs and iPod, 2004 has been quite a year. Copyright protection and inventing new business models are the media's biggest challenges moving into 2005, says analyst Blair Levin. (Via IWantMedia)

"Ovideon, an Illinois-based manufacturer of flat-panel LCDs, announced their new portable media player with an OLED screen. Wow, who knew there were companies like this in Illinois? First, let's talk about OLED. It stands for Organic Light Emitting Diode, and we can summarize by saying it's about the best way a manufacturer can make a small screen look really bright and beautiful. Some cell phones and car stereos are using OLED technologies to create nice-looking displays, but this is definitely a vision of the future. Dan Zubic, Executive Vice President of Ovideon says you will never want to watch video on an LCD player ever again!""

Watch as The Long Tail, probably the best article I've read in Wired, is turned into a book

Everybody is starting to smell money. The conferences, newsletters, analysts, PR flacks, marketing folks and everything that comes with a new fad - are here in force.



So here's a new conference called Syndicate - which I'm advising on - in NYC in May 17-18. If I have anything to do with it - it'll be coolio.



Can't guarentee that though. Since it's at the Time Square Marriot - perhaps we can tie in MTV and TRL - which is next door.

:-)

Mark Glaser from Online Journalism Review has written a terrific story on the year that bloggers made a difference. Mark polled colleagues to find out what they thought were the important events, people and media outlets of the past year, while also nudging them for predictions of the coming year.

Actually, BlingTones, the hip-hop ringtones division of Lagardere Active, announced it was forming the "first wireless record label"M but I'm having trouble wrapping my mind around the idea of a wireless record. Time to leave the old terminology behind.
The label has signed some high-profile hip-hop producer/artists to create 30-second pieces of new music that will be available only theough BlingTones. Among those who've signed on: Q-Tip, Rockwilder (Missy Elliot, Jay-Z, DMX), Denuan Porter (50 Cent, Eminem), Salaam Remi (Nas), Hi-Tek (Talib Kweli, Snoop Dogg).
BlingTones has carriage deals with Sprint, Cingular/ATTW, Nextel, and Boost Mobile.
BlingTones is also launching BlingPix -- exclusive screen savers/wallpaper with urban themes.: next up: signing comedians to create original content for ringtones and ringbacks.(You wouldn't be able to play the Chris Rock version in public.)

Vidget 3.5 is an experimental interactive audiovisual performance device which allows the user to manipulate video in real time online. As well as mixing a number of video clips together, the user may search for still images from the Flickr photo sharing site and mix them together. For a instructions on usage see previous versions above.

The general consensus concering the MPAA's recent Bit Torrent assault (regardless of your thoughts on piracy) is that they'll simply create something less centralized and more difficult to stop. Mark Pesce, the man behind VRML, chimes in: "Today's suppression of the leading BitTorrent sites bears an uncanny resemblance to an event which took place in July of 2000" (the clamp down on Napster). The suppression of which, he suggests, simply resulted in Gnutella, Kazaa, and BitTorrent.

LittleLostRobot demos a Panasonic P2 camera for a day and writes about it.

While SmarTone has launched its 3G service touting “exciting video calling” with “animation characters", competitor CSL doesn’t believe the Hong Kong market is ready for video calls and launched its 3G service without them. This situation is symptomatic of the ambivalent attitude towards video calls.

On the one hand, video calls have not really taken off anywhere as consumers see nothing compelling about holding their phone in an awkward way and having to look at their screen while talking - certainly nothing worth paying extra for. On the other hand, video calls have come to define a 3G service, which is considered to be one that is capable of managing a live two-way video call. In the end I suspect everyone phone and network will be able to handle video calls, but won’t be called on to do so on as much as normal voice calls. Of course, an accessory to make the calls easier (for example glasses with a tiny screen) might help matters.

SmarTone is also offering live AV on demand, which “gives customers a real-time view of their homes, offices or anywhere with video streaming".

In a letter to the editor of the Mercury News, Fanning responds to a recent column by Mike Langberg, who predicted a poor future for download services.

Here's a taste of what Langberg had to say: "People like to get things for free that would otherwise cost them money. And they won't stop taking them for free just because there's a convenient legal alternative, if that alternative requires opening their wallets."

Fanning responds: "... I disagree with his belief that paid content can't compete with free. Video and audio are available at no cost through network television and FM/AM radio. But thriving and profitable cable networks and satellite radio companies show that fans are willing to pay for better, more comprehensive content. ... There will always be free content available to those who want to spend the time to find it, but there are many more people who want authorized access to a broad and competitive marketplace offering the largest possible catalog of music without the stigma and risk of using unauthorized file-sharing services."

paidContent's take? Fanning comes closest to being right but either he or a PR person can't help over-focussing on being legal as the reason for downloads.

(Continued at PaidContent.org)

This lets you receive a podcast from any page that has MP3s on it (or .movs, .torrents, etc). For example, you can "subscribe" to a band's MP3 page or to a radio station's archive. When they post new stuff you'll get it automatically.

mfeeds works by scanning the link, description, and content:encoded portions of the RSS searching for links to media files. Any links found are then added as enclosures for that item. Currently, mfeeds supports RSS versions 0.91, 0.92, 2.0, and 1.0. The Atom format is not supported because it does not have official support for enclosures yet. mfeeds is written in Perl and uses LWP::UserAgent, XML::Twig, and HTML::PullParser for fetching feeds and parsing the RSS and HTML.

Want to see a timeline of new media from 1969 to 2004? Poynter's David Shedden has it. Thanks to Mike Manuel of the Media Guerrilla Blog for the pointer.

With this past weekend's demise of SuprNova.org and Torrentbits.org, the MPAA's recent assault on Bit Torrent trading has had a significant impact on Torrent related webmasters. Many users of popular television show torrent site TVTorrents assumed that site had made a similar decision, but Slyck reports they simply ran into some domain issues, and have re-emerged, sporting a new .tv domain name.

Introducing instructions for SkypeCasting. The front-end solution for podcasters to create great sounding audio recordings from interviews and conference calls using Skype. For the last few days I've been recording podcasts using Skype. As the call ends with a couple of clicks it is converted to mp3 and uploaded to a blog. This is a real bloggers solution providing podcasting in almost real-time without resorting to studios, or fancy gear. Let the New Year ring in with new voices, and new conversations. Audio and podcasting will make a difference. Let's get the thoughts out into the world. Innovate in 2005 --- start podcasting. This post contains my first podcast and the instruction on how (links at the end).

The SkypeCasters' recipe is simple and we have written it up in detail. Add together Skype, Virtual Audio Cables, Windows Sound Recorder, a simple Wav to mp3 converter MT_Enclosures and iPodder and you can be Podcasting later today! The solution will cost you $40.



(Continued at Unbound Spiral)

My hats off to Dylan, the youngest videoblogger on the planet earth.
She is the daughter of Michael Verdi, one of the members of our group.
She qualifies with this videoblog.
Welcome Dylan.
Be yourself.
You are awesome.



She very unselfconciously disucsses her braces, her cello, her online groups, her clothes, her love of pop music (even though it's not real rock)...
She gets it.
and it tells me two things.
One: the female species seems to get videoblogging much more intuitvely. (mica. charlene. ryanne.)
Two: Once young people figure this stuff out, videoblogging is going to be the best.
Big up to Dylan's father, Michael, for showing her the way.
Will she post more...and teach her friends to post video?
We are building the second world one person at a time.

Korean electronics manufacturer Samsung unveiled a gigantolicious plasma screen display today -- ">it measures 102 inches diagonally, making it the largest commercially-available display in the world.

There's an interesting thread over in the podcasting group about "Butt-kissing in Podcastland" where some folks feel alienated about the notion of 'Podsquads', a sort of in-crowd or posse for a podcaster.

I only bring it up here as more of n FYI, since many of us have been around for quite awhile, and well, alienation (accidental or otherwise) can be counter-productive.

Cheers!

Eric
PS. I don't think anyone is doing it here, but just being aware that the conversations are happening might be useful. That's all. :-)

Today s guest on Inside Digital Media is Scott Rafer, CEO of Feedster, which is a leader in RSS (Really Simple Syndication) search capabilities.

Today host Phil Leigh has put together a PowerPoint slide show presentation with synchronized voice-over of the 47-minute interview. Just go to the main page and click on the Dec. 20 Feedster interview.

Last week, in response to the MPAA lawsuits against BitTorrent trackers, I wrote that it's impossible to sue BitTorrent itself, because it is nothing but a communications protocol. Michael Madison was skeptical, which was a fair response given what little I had written on the subject. Let me say a bit more, to clarify.

Opponents of P2P technologies often make the rhetorical move of calling the thing they oppose a "network." The word carries connotations -- especially for nonexperts -- of a physical contrivance that is operated by some organization. Think of the old phone system, or the electrical power grid. Somebody has to build and manage all that equipment. The implication is that there is somebody in charge who can supervise the use of the network. Read the plaintiffs' briefs in the Grokster case and you'll see many references to a "network" that is "operated" by the defendants.

Computer scientists sometimes use the word "network" to refer to something more virtual. Others are now using "network" in this sense, as when people talk about the social network of friendships among the residents of a small town. Nobody owns and operates the social network. There is nobody you can sue to shut it down, because it's not a network in the same sense the power grid is.

A communications protocol is an agreement or convention about how computer systems can cooperate to accomplish some task. It isn't owned or operated by anybody. (People might own copyrights or patents relating to a protocol, but let's set aside that possibility for now.) There's a sense in which English or any other human language is a kind of protocol that people use to cooperate with each other. Again: nobody owns, operates or controls the English language, and there is nobody you can sue to shut it down. This isn't to say that you can't punish misuses of English, such as fraud or criminal conspiracies that use the language; but punishing misuse is not the same as attacking the language itself.

Given a lawsuit about a particular technology, how can we tell whether that network is more like the power grid or more like a social network? Here I think the Grokster courts have gotten it right. Rather than arguing over what is a "network," or what "network" means anyway, they looked at the nature of the technology and the defendant's control or influence over it. That is, as lawyers say, a fact-intensive inquiry.

The MPAA, in suing the operators of BitTorrent trackers rather than trying to attack the BitTorrent protocol itself, seems to be recognizing this distinction. That in itself good news.

Dig this concept map of Smart Mobs.

(Thanks, Bryan!)

Year in Review: Dawning of the broadband age. In 2004, the number of broadband subscriptions in the U.S. surpassed the number of dial-up accounts--and the gap will only increase. [CNET News.com]

: An interesting read from John Blossom at Shore Communications on the meaning of copyright when archives go digital -- and global. His kickoff point is Google's project to digitize some university and public library archives. (I have to agree with Blossom when he says this one was overblown by the media.)

-- "In the long run ... it's a huge warning sign to publishers and aggregators that have relied on the time-tested tool of copyright law as the basis for their profitability - not so much because of any direct threat to their domain but by highlighting the changing fortunes of a domain of content value whose time may have come and gone."
-- "Put simply the models for success in premium content are moving on, not waiting for those who'd rather salt away another round of quarterly or semi-annual returns on copyrighted chestnuts before breaking the bad news to their boards that they've been shaking the wrong branch of the money tree way too long."
-- "When copyright becomes viewed as a right to discuss a relationship on one's own terms rather than a demand to avoid relationships, copyrighted content will find its way into more useful venues more quickly - with monetization to follow."

p2pnet.net News :- "Since my last Slashdot entry, I've been discussing various copyright issues with the ever-interesting Peter Fader," posts linuxizer on /.

"Out of those conversations came sniu.info, an attempt to document the various forms of substantial, non-infringing use over peer-to-peer networks before MGM v Grokster goes to the Supreme Court. So far I have about 50 entries, but more suggestions would be much appreciated. Some fellow /. readers might also be interested in my fairly regular posts on copyright/IP issues, which are mostly links to interesting articles with occasional commentary."

Interesting indeed.

By way of taster, and since Bram Cohen's masterpiece is so much in the news, of late, here are the entries so far for BitTorrent Substantial Non-Infringing Uses:

(Continued at p2pnet.net)

To make it easier for state legislatures to pass anti-municipal broadband laws, the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC) has a piece of anti-municipal broadband model legislation entitled the "Municipal Telecommunications Private Industry Safeguards Act". You can view the document here (Word format).

(Continued at Muniwireless)

In this must-read article, MIS, from Australia, asserts than in 10 to 15 years, we'll be unable to use today's technologies to build electronic devices always smaller and more powerful. Instead, three disruptive technologies will converge and deeply change our lives: nanotechnology, sensors and wireless technology.

The author explains how this will influence molecular computing or quantum information processing. She also describes future advances in robotics, including nanobots. And the transportation industry will welcome the arrival of skycars, which are under development today. But will we travel anymore when holographic videoconferencing tools are available?

Please take a moment to check this fascinating article or read this summary for selected excerpts and to discover where you can buy a skycar today.

eBay is "outraged" by the arrest of Avnish Bajaj, CEO of its Baazee.com subsidiary in India and it's hard not to agree or to wonder about the signal Indian authorities are sending to online operators. This time, it's about e-commerce but it might just as easily be about an editorial site that offers classifieds or allows comments.

In this case, which has gained a certain amount of noteriety in India, a Bazee.com user offered a pornographic video clip for sale. The clip wasn't posted; it was to be sent to buyers via email. As eBay explains it, the posting violated Baazee's policies and was removed from the site upon being discovered.

The attention to the case stems primarily from the clip's origin and the seller -- it's a video of the seller, a 17-year-old male student -- and a girl, also a minor, engaged in oral sex. It was transmitted by camera phone. He is in detention.
But Bajaj's arrest is unfathomable. According to eBay, the executive traveled to New Delhi voluntarily to help with inquiries and was then arrested and detained without bail until Dec. 24.

Labor unrest is increasingly hitting the economy as migrant workers would rather stay at home and work in the booming agriculture. Especially southern China has been hit by a shortage of labor that has made it easier for disgruntled workers to get into action. Ten days ago the 12, 000 workers of a Wal-Mart supplier, a sino-Japanese joint venture walked out. Interesting detail of the story, writen by Howard French of the New York Times, was that the workers, banned from organizing themselves, used SMS-messages to stay in touch with each other.

Now also (...)

Entry continued...

I am co-chairing this workshop and would love to see your submission. . .

Emerging Display Technologies - New Systems and Applications:
From Images to Sensing, Interaction and Enhancement
13 March 2005 (Bonn, Germany)

The recent flurry of display technology development has produced families of technologies that make fixed and projected pixels cheaper, faster, more flexible, and of higher quality. These advances enable smart pixels and enable a number of burgeoning applications ranging from displays being used for better and more flexible images, to user interaction, scene sensing, and environment enhancement.

Boeing is adding a video service to its Connexion in-flight broadband service. "You'll be able to view up to four channels of live TV over your laptop," promises Connexion VP Stan Deal, though the article fails to provide any technical specifics on the product, which should launch sometime in 2005.

XboxMediaCenter is a free open source (GPL) multimedia player for the Xbox from Microsoft. Currently XboxMediaCenter can be used to play/view most popular video/audio/picture formats such as MPEG-1/2/4, DivX, XviD, MP3, AAC, JPG, GIF plus many more less known formats directly from a CD/DVD in Xbox DVD-ROM drive or of the Xbox harddrive, XBMC can also play files from a PC over a local network and even stream media streams directly from the internet. XBMC has playlist and slideshow functions, a weather forecast and many audio visualizations. All these features enable the Xbox running XboxMediaCenter to fully function as a multimedia jukebox. XBMC is easy to use, it's convenient, flexible and offers great price/performance ratio. (This, The XboxMediaCenter Project is also known as "Xbox Media Center" or simply "XBMC"). Note! XBMC is a hobby project that is only developed by volunteers in their spare-time for free. (Remember that XboxMediaCenter does require a modded Xbox to run on or it will not function)

Not only is this going to happen, but the ground floor is already being built. Here's an excellent article from Editor and Publisher . Here's a taste:

Online editors at newspapers across the country are looking to add video clips, video reports, and even online TV newscasts to their sites, taking advantage of the recently exploding popularity of broadband Internet access.

Kinsey Wilson, editor in chief of USAToday.com, calls "continued, expanded use of video, and real experimentation around how video is best deployed on the Internet" the top trend to watch on newspaper Web sites in 2005.

The threat to local TV stations is very real and obvious. There's no sitting still anymore. 2005 is going to be the shake out year for local TV and the Internet, and time is now THE critical factor in responding to disruptive innovations.



(Continued at The Pomo Blog)

LG Plans for 6 to 7 Megapixel Camera Phones

With the digital camera megapixel race heating up fast, camera phones are destined to follow the same path. Telecoms Korea is reporting that LG Electronics has plans to bring the first 6-megapixel camera phone to market in Japan.

In a country where nearly every facet of society is controlled, North Korean authorities are encountering a new foe: the cellphone. A fascinating article from the The Christian Science Monitor via Telecoms Korea.

"Mobile phones, which are ubiquitous in China and South Korea, are now infiltrating North Korea and are allowing information into - and out of - the "hermit kingdom."

Douglas Shin, a Korean-American minister who has been campaigning for human rights in North Korea, sees the emerging cellphone "revolution" as paralleling, if not abetting, budding dissent against the government.

"At first cellphones worked on a narrow band of land along the Chinese border," says Mr. Shin. "Now they can penetrate a great distance.

Often, he says, cellphone users must climb a hill or mountain to use them, but still he says it's possible to convey messages that previously would never have penetrated the barriers of a state that bars normal international mail and ordinary telephone calls for all but a privileged few.

Many observers say the fact that anyone can hold such long-distance conversations in North Korea could spell trouble for the country's leader, Kim Jong Il.

Shin predicts the US government may even use the spread of cellphones to help bring about regime transformation, if not change in North Korea. He predicts that the US in the next two or three years will begin sending cellphones into North Korea, just as it now plans to penetrate the North by smuggling in small radios capable of receiving Voice of America and Radio Free Asia, both official US stations.

Fascinating discussion going on at Weblogs Inc.'s Nanopublishing weblog: Fair use of photos on blogs the photographers speak out.

Jason Calacanis writes:

I had dinner with two big name photographers in L.A. recently. These are folks who s name you might recognize even if you are not in the photography industry. I asked them both under what circumstances could use their images without paying them, they both immediately responded emphatically under no circumstances!

Interesting. I asked them if they had heard of the term fair use, and they said they had heard of it but their photo agencies had told them that no one can use their images ever without their permission. This, of course, is not true. There is fair use ...

Jason's right. I supervised a newspaper's photo department years ago, so I'm sympathetic to my photojournalist friends. The question is, should bloggers just grab others' images and repost them on their blogs without permission (but with credit)?

Unfortunately, it depends. It depends on whether it's a newsworthy event worthy of wider dissemination, or just a really cool, artistic photo of a nature scene, a sunset or the night sky (I cringe when I see these reproduced on blogs rather than offer a pointer to the photographer's site). It depends on how the blogger is reproducing the photos. A small reproduction is OK in my book -- a full-scale photo may or may not be. That's just the digital world we live in today.

Photographers don't enjoy any special rights not accorded to other creative individuals such as journalists and authors, whose works are snipped and reproduced every day, on blogs and websites around the world, millions of times. But check out the photographers' take on all this at Jason's site.

With the local blogging scene rapidy coalescing on its own, the local newspaper, led by a blogging boss, decides to act. He wants to remake the site as "an online community or public square." E-mail from the Greensboro newsroom "...in many ways we've waited 10 years to do this and aren't going to wait any longer. My report is due next Friday."

If you care about such things, there's a recognition moment underway right now among the bloggers in Greensboro, North Carolina, and the strange thing is we can follow it, even though it's a very local thing-- meaning bound to a particular plot of earth, which is also a place in the American South.

One of their own, Ed Cone, in whose nature it is to push things, pushed things when he asked: what are the defining traits of Greensboro's blog culture? Great question. First, check in with the direct answers to Cone at his blog. There's also Greensboro101, the local aggregator site, and Greensboro Is Talking, which gives you a flavor of the "scene." I found effective GSO Live with up to the minute feeds.

(Continued at PressThink)

Apparently a lot of bargain shoppers, according to USA Today (Hot off the shelf: DVDs for a dollar):

According to Videoscan, the national point-of-sale tracking service, last week, 19 of the 50 top-selling DVDs were dollar DVDs from Genius Products, a leading supplier of budget videos. Compilation discs of Popeye cartoons and The Lucy Show episodes came in at No. 17 and No. 18, right below the Star Wars Trilogy and Dawn of the Dead [I suppose they mean the recent remake, not the original, which is also in the public domain].

And trip on this:

"We get letters all the time from people, thanking us for making this great stuff available at such a low price," says Howard Balaban of Genius Products. "It's mind-boggling."

Gosh, I wonder if there would be a market to have these works delivered straight to your TiVo via a BitTorrent hybrid?

(Continued at The Importance of...)

Friendster rolled out a new internet search service powered by Eurekster tapping into online social networks to personalize and enhance search results. The Eurekster technology uses the Yahoo web index and also includes Overture sponsored listings.

The new service takes advantages of the preferences and interests of Friendster members and their friends to filter search results to more closely match personal interests than general web search engines.

The search service is intriguing and potentially useful for users who already have an active Friendster network, or those who are willing to spend the time to build a new one.

The mantra is: Syndicate everything that matters and aggregate everything that matters. And soon most organizations will be doing this with RSS. So anybody who provides products and services that enable this will win big.

From GlobeLogger Vendors: Paddling Out to Catch the Enterprise Wave.:

QUOTE

Form the shore, they look like tiny dots slowly making their way out past the breakers. They're the software vendors positioning themselves to catch the Enterprise RSS wave. My, that's a lot of tiny dots.

In the past week, I've gotten emails from executives at two more compaines with designs on RSS in the enterprise and plan on hearing their approaches and checking out their products after the holidays. The interesting, if unsuprising, thing to me is that the companies maneuvering for position in this space are relative unknowns outside the blog world. They're startups. The big vendors, who will ultimately bring something to market, are going to be late getting out, and once a wave has passed you by there's no catching it. OK, enough with the surfing metaphor.

There's only one question for those of us looking to bet big on one vendor: Which one will Win Big? In my experience it comes down to this. To win big, you have to bet big. You have to passionately believe in what you're doing. You have to surround yourself with the most effective people on the planet. And you have to never take your eye off the prize.

UNQUOTE

The global TV-Anytime Forum is an association of organizations which seeks to develop specifications to enable audio-visual and other services based on mass-market high volume digital storage in consumer platforms - simply referred to as local storage.

The TV-Anytime Forum was formed at an inaugural meeting held in Newport Beach, California, USA, on 27-29 September 1999. It has started work to develop open specifications designed to allow Consumer Electronics Manufacturers, Content Creators, Telcos, Broadcasters and Service Providers to exploit local storage.

A discussion has started on where the telecommunications industry is going, and where it will take us (humans). An interesting topic, one which I think will be played out between various forces: consumer, technology and industry. By industry I mean companies such as large movie studios, which will probably attempt legal restrictions on technology - or at least usage of it.

From the discussion: Today the revenue for value-added-services gets shared between the content provider and the service provider such that the proportion of content provider is less. But in the times of our scenario, the user will be able to access a sea of content directly from the Web. So I foresee that the future of Content generation is doubtful. On the other hand this will open opportunities for those who would adapt the content for easy-viewing on a PDA / Mobile phone.

cobravenum2 writes "Boeing is planning to add live television to its Connexion by Boeing service during 2005, The television programs will be delivered across the Connexion network, which uses satellites to provide high-speed data connections between aircraft in-flight and ground stations linked to the Internet. The service entered commercial use earlier this year and provides a 5 megabits per second shared downstream and 1 mbps shared upstream connection to suitably equipped aircraft. You'll be able to view up to four channels of live TV over your laptop."...

Free Press is a national nonpartisan organization working to increase informed public participation in crucial media policy debates, and to generate policies that will produce a more competitive and public interest-oriented media system with a strong nonprofit and noncommercial sector.

Why does a lot public participation fail? Doodling with some mindmapping software the other day brought home to me - again - that it may be because, for most people most of the time, that sort of exercise is literally off their mental map. Public participation, community consultation and stakeholder engagement are the stuff of programmes to develop social capital and community cohesion. Facilitators try and wow their public sector clients with their latest workshop techniques, and researchers gather them up into toolkits. I know, I've done it - but I'm increasingly uncomfortable with the business for reasons discussed in items here....

Two stun gun manufacturers, Stinger Systems and Taser International, will soon be adding video recording capabilities to their guns, which ll let law enforcement officers capture incidents much like they do with dashboard cameras. C mon, this is so just a Fox TV show waiting to happen.

Suprnova.org has closed up shop (not to be confused with supeRnova.org the domain spammer). Recently mentioned in the popular press as the most well known "torrent archive" for movies, games and apps, frequent users probably thought that it would remain immune from MPAA and RIAA pressure for a while yet, however the owner unexpectedly pulled the plug and has so far provided few details.

Presumably Suprnova.org, as the most accessible and comprehensive torrent archive, was going to be public enemy number 1 for international legal pressure and the owner, "Sloncek", must have decided that dodging challenges just wasn't worth it. Torrent indexing sites have bandwidth costs as well (some torrents are quite large) and their revenue model is merely the seamier side of banner advertising.

If the MPAA and RIAA legal teams want to open new legal territory by challenging hosting of checksum data and file names, they will now have to find a more esoteric torrent search engine to focus on.

"Designing products in order to minimise their impact on the environment is becoming increasingly important. Many designers are beginning to recognise this fact and are therefore demanding tools and techniques which enable them to design more responsibly.

This one-day workshop will be held at the Urban Grind coffee shop in Portland, and will involve the participants in a process of design and appropriation, as a tool for reflection.

Focus will be placed on openness, transparency and adaptability. The day will be constructed as a series of design exercises intended to engage people in sharing and creating together. We invite participation from designers, technologists, sociologists, theoreticians, policy-makers, community builders; anyone concerned with the design and use of technologies in community settings.

Themes:

- designing for new and unexpected interactions in ubiquitous computing

- the role of users as collective re-designers

- open systems and adaptable products

- designing for appropriation or hackability

- designing the immaterial, particularly energy

The videobloggers discuss blog sponsorship and sustainability:

advertisements and sponsorships are something I've been thinking about a lot... and have not reached any conclusions.

in some ways I'm very opposed to it, because of issues of content control and ownership.

other ways, I think, if it was the right sponsor, it could let me do this for a living.

I don't know what to think.

Chris

Force-sensing fabric company Eleksen will show a fabric keyboard and joystick at the beginning of next year.

The Bluetooth-enabled keyboard is aimed at mobile phones, PDAs and laptops, while the joystick is targeted at games players on the same devices.



The keyboard is compatible with as many types of handheld devices as possible, can be reconfigured and will also act as a writing pad.

Via ElectronicsWeekly < Blueserker
See also Sensory fabrics and Soft Concepts.

The OSCE presented a new publication by the the Representative on Freedom of the Media, Miklos Haraszti, which "voices concern over limitations of access to the Internet and offers "recipes" on how to preserve the freedom of the Net. [...] The Media Freedom Internet Cookbook, further attempts to help users and governments fight "bad content", for example hate speech, without jeopardising freedom. "Regulatory activism can lead to suppression of freedom regardless of whether [the] censorship was intended or came as a consequence of ignorance. I intend to warn about the dangers over the Internet just as I do in the case of 'classic' censorship in the print press or the broadcast media" Haraszti added.

Source: OSCE website through the EJC newsletter

My good pal Jay Dedman of thought it might be funny to do a live call-in show on Ch. 56 in Manhattan like he always does, except this time, he patches in six people over iChat AV.

If you apply any aspect of my mantra of "Lead, follow, or head for cover", this experiment is a head-for-cover one.

And the human dog guy has got to be the funniest mofo I've seen in a long time. It's like watching a hybrid of Gilbert Gottfried and Adam Carolla Jason Lee.

Momentshowing: VIDEO: Videobloggers invade the TV box

EPCglobal released a standard for the next generation of radio frequency identification (RFID) and the electronic product code (EPC). The protocol is the technical framework on which all future products can be built, including tags, readers and other technology.

The RFID industry suffered from a proliferation of standards, according to Sue Hutchinson, director of product management for EPCglobal. EPCglobal had two GEN-1 standards, while ISO had two UHF air interface standards.

In addition to improvements in security of the data on the tag, the standard includes the ability to lock the identification fields in the tag, so that they can't be spoofed or changed without a password. It also includes a strong kill mechanism, so retailers and others have the option of automatically erasing all data from the tag as it passes through a reader.

An Atlanta spin-off from GlobeTel called Sanswire Networks will be launching a giant, solar-powered airship next month that will be able to provide wireless data and voice access to areas of earth as large as Texas. While access to the 'stratellite' (for 'airship satellite') will necessitate a special antenna to transmit to the ship 13 miles above the earth, the speeds are being reported as 'DSL alternative' at least. Even if the lag is bad, it sounds as if the bandwidth might be faster than the generally anemic satellite connections (then again, it could be bouncing to another satellite, although that seems unlikely).

Guess we'll find out next month. Too cool.

Broadcast industry leaders from Bonneville, Clear Channel, Cox, Entercom and Radio One will disclose nationwide HD Radio conversion plans during a press conference at CES. HD Radio technology transmits digital audio and data alongside existing AM and FM analog signals, allowing listeners with HD Radio-compatible receivers - currently available from Kenwood, Panasonic and JVC - to enjoy CD-quality sound while virtually eliminating the static, hiss and pops associated with analog radio. The technology also provides a platform for advanced digital services that will deliver listeners a variety of coveted information such as song titles, artist names, traffic updates, weather forecasts, sports scores and more.

Building tools to connect people, media and politics through the web

Video Dump is a blog which is focused exclusively on cool video clips ... like this one of Natalie Portman stripping. [SilverSow ..:streaming videos, online movies, funny clips and live web cams:..]

200 stations!

MediaWeek UK reports that BBC Radio is apparently seeing big interest in its podcasting service. They had 70,000 downloads of Radio 4 s In Our Time program in November alone.

I've been writing lately about some new "citizen-journalism" ventures popping up -- which prompted Ari Soglin, managing editor of GetLocalNews, to remind me that his company has been plying those waters for nearly five years now (perhaps ahead of its time).

GetLocalNews has established a large network of local websites in the U.S. designed around the contributions of citizen journalists, though initially the model was for each site to have an editor and reporter as well and sweep up local ad dollars -- an idea that proved untenable.

"What we learned," says Soglin, "was that people are addicted to interactivity, (...)

Entry continued...

Today we launched a new site, and a new contest. Check out CC Mixter to win a chance to be on the next Fine Arts Militia album featuring Chuck D, or a chance to be featured on the Creative Commons release, THE WIRED CD: Ripped. Sampled. Mashed. Shared. Sample The Beastie Boys, David Byrne, DJ Danger Mouse, and many others to win!

The Fine Art of Sampling Contest, builds off November's release of the THE WIRED CD: Rip. Sample. Mash. Share., which contains sixteen tracks licensed under Creative Commons Sampling licenses. The licenses allow you to sample the tracks into your own musical creations, without legal hassle.

To demonstrate how easily songs can be sampled, mashed, and shared, we built a new site/application called CC Mixter, thanks in part to the work of veteran music mixer, Victor Stone, and WebJay creator, Lucas Gonze. CC Mixter has all the WIRED CD tracks plus loops from each song. And when you upload your own mashup, the site is able to track connections between songs, so you can quickly see everyone that used that same sample in their own work, and everyone that cut up one of the WIRED CD songs.

The site also lets you connect to other people -- say for example, find me all the musicians who like jazz music, you can review tracks, and there's a forum to post questions and comments. We're also happy to announce we're getting the CC Mixter software ready to release as open source software, so that anyone can build their own related community around any kind of content, be that video, fan fiction, educational materials, or whatever you want.

Terry Heaton: A Broadcaster's Christmas Carol. A sample:

Ebenezer stared into the black emptiness of the Phantom's hooded face and said, "They're talking about me. Is it not so?"

Suddenly, they were above Broadcaster's old television station. It was a shadow of its former self, its windows broken and its walls covered with the utterings of vandals armed with spray paint. Equipment racks had been ransacked and anything of value removed. The parking lot stood empty. The tower was broken in half, and its transmitter was covered in overgrowth and wires. The cold wind whistled through the buildings of Broadcaster's once proud station.

"This, this cannot be," Ebenezer cried.

Over the city they flew, and joy and merriment was all the Ghost could reveal. Life went on. The people were entertained. The people were informed. Gone was any trace of a TV antenna. Inside the homes, the people entertained themselves with a variety of gadgetry. Elaborate menus of content drifted before his eyes, along with acronyms he didn't recognize. VOD, DVR, and PSP. There were no television sets, only flat screens, laptops and handheld units — some connected by wires,others not.

Broadcaster's thoughts turned to his own sense of worthlessness. All this time, he had believed the people of the town couldn't live without him. Yet, here they were doing just fine despite the loss of the TV station.

Once again, he found himself inside the dwelling of Bob Gadget. The family home had been transformed into a sprawling mansion, the splendor of which overwhelmed Ebenezer.

Read the whole thing.

Open Source Cinema is a film project dedicated to creating movies in ways inspired by the free software and free culture movements. The goal is for filmmakers to be able to collaboratively create film works.

RAW is an audiovisual recording device, developed by MIT Media Lab Europe researchers Joelle Bitton, Stefan Agamanolis and Matthew Karau, that combines a digital camera and an audio recorder. Taking a picture triggers the recording of the sound a minute before and a minute after it.



Audio is recorded binaurally by tiny microphones placed in the user's ears. These previously uncaptured moments can be kept as personal recordings or/and be explored within public interactive installations, enabling the later audience to immerse themselves "into the shoes" of the person who took the picture.

Quicktime video made during a workshop in Mali.

Japanese omnidirectional video technology company Eizoh has developed a head-mounted display system that senses face motion and displays real-world images for any direction in which the user wants to see.

For example, you can have a look at the interior of a house for sale not just in one direction, but all directions by turning the head. The system is expected to hit the Japanese market next month.

Via Nikkei.

Unmediated? Nope. It’s just that anyone can become a mediator, now. Today two stories juxtaposed themselves just so in my newsreader. First Lucas Gonze on the perils of selling out:

Now that I’ve been doing this a few weeks I strongly agree that paying people to talk about you is a good idea. The tricky part is being a paid talker, because the money breaks the conversational flow and makes it hard to not be creepy or annoying.

The near future will bring all sorts of new social etiquette questions. “How much advertising should I splice into my wedding video?”

Michael Grebbs reports for Wired News:
-- "You have had a great deal of deliberate, deceptive and misleading information. The parents and grandparents who run the companies in P2P United are not Darth Vader." -- P2P United Executive Director Adam Eisgrau to FTC staffers. P2P United includes BearShare, Blubster, eDonkey, Grokster and Morpheus.
-- "These purveyors have consciously not done anything to stop rampant infringement on their networks. ... Until courts properly provide recourse against illicit P2P services ... consumers will continue to find themselves liable.... Few appreciate how great the consequences can be." -- Stanley Pierre-Louis, SVP-litigation, RIAA.
-- "What's being communicated to (consumers) is that it's OK to download files, download copyrighted files," he said. "That's just outright deception." -- James Miller, chairman of CapAnalysis Group, an outside lobbyist for the RIAA.
-- P2P United plans to clarify for consumers that buying premium versions of P2P software (in order to avoid adware and spyware) doesn't provide an automatic license to download copyright works.
-- The commission also heard about file-sharing of child p*rn.

Spike TV’s annual game awards were pretty amusing to watch, if you like to see celebrities act silly. Which we do. There were certainly a lot of great games in the running this year, but one stood out. Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas wowed the hell out of crowd with four awards, including Game of the Year, best male performer for Samuel L. Jackson, best action game and best gaming soundtrack. The eternal attempt to make gaming sexy continued, of course — to sad results. A “Hot Girls Read Cheat Codes” segment? Oy.

If Skype doesn't turn out to be the Google of VoIP, then somebody else will and I predict that at least one major telco will per country will go out of business in the process.

From IT Observer - Skype - The Google of VoIP?.:

People really love something free on the Internet, and the fact that telephone companies have acted as - and been perceived as - utility services for years gives them zero brand equity in fighting off this challenge, in fact it works against them. There is an appeal surrounding Skype that harkens back to the early days of the Internet, a time of technology revolution where traditional services and business models were turned on their heads by 'disruptive' technologies.

The Early Adopter base of Skype were those techies who instinctively understood and grasped the value of breakthrough technologies, they didn't need to be convinced about Skype through marketing pitches, they just tried it and it worked.

Add to this the following. The company has received funding from Draper Fisher Jurveston, a powerhouse venture capital firm here in Silicon Valley; the software is being enhanced to work on multiple platforms including wireless and PDA technologies; equipment vendors are rushing to introduce telephone handsets that integrate with Skype.

But does Skype have the ability to break through into a market leadership position? After all it's going up against some very substantial competition in the form of the telcos and cable companies.

Well, yes. Rule One of launching a successful new technology is "Execute, Then Improve". It worked for Microsoft and Bill Gates, and it's working here. We could be seeing another Google in the making.

Just came across this press release announcing the beta launch of Blinkx.tv, a search engine that scans video clips from ABC, CBS, NBC, CNN, Fox News, MSNBC, BBC News and more. "Ground breaking automatic transcription technology, which transcribes content straight from the cable box on the fly or from video already stored on the web, together with advanced phonetic matching speech recognition technology, automate the process of searching TV clips for the first time," said Blinkx founder Suranga Chandratillake. I gave it try, and it's far from perfect, but the technology is very promising. Some networks (like CNN and ESPN) require you to subscribe to their pay services first. And other clips are preceded by a :15 promo.

Making it online, when no other format will work – and getting together with a clever business manager (you really need to read the whole article): A Comic Strip Takes Video Games Seriously (Almost)

They have built their (quite modest) fortune at a Web site, www.penny-arcade.com, which, though they would not provide specific figures, has earned enough to support them, their families, two mortgages and a business manager.

The site is attracting several million views a month. With ad rates strong and contracts for creative services coming in, Mr. Krahulik and Mr. Holkins, both 27 and now living in Seattle, have become tastemakers for consumers and moguls in the video game industry.

The site displays a fresh three- or four-panel comic strip three times a week. […]

[…] “Doing comics for such a niche market was not possible before the Internet,” Mr. Krahulik said.

On the Web, he said, word can spread through e-mail, and the curious can simply click on a link.

“Once the ad model took off, we focused more on creative services,” Mr. Khoo said. He saw an opportunity to parlay a recognizable product and style, pushing Mr. Krahulik and Mr. Holkins to develop ads and marketing materials for the same gaming companies they often savage in their strip and the regular editorials they write for the Web site.

(Continued at Furdlog)

Howard Rheingold in TheFeature on research at the University of Toronto's NetLab, where Barry Wellman and colleagues say:

If your rely on GPS to get you to work, out of the bush, back to shore, or anywhere else, it's time to stop. The Bush administration is paving the way to shutting down GPS in the event of an "emergency" so that "terrorists won't be able to navigate." Nice one, George: why not shut down the fire-departments, too, so that "terrorists won't be able to survive fires started by careless smoking?"

The president also instructed the Defense Department to develop plans to disable, in certain areas, an enemy's access to the U.S. navigational satellites and to similar systems operated by others. The European Union is developing a $4.8 billion program, called Galileo.

Interesting New York Times article on bloggers crossing over into book authorship.

"Bloggers should break news"

Media RSS Syndication FAQ
This, along with their new video search engine shows that Yahoo is hoping on board. Things are definitely taking off.
From the Yahoo page:
"Media RSS" is a new RSS module that supplements the enclosure capabilties of RSS 2.0 (FAQ). Enclosures in RSS are already being used to syndicate audio files (Podcasting) and images. Media RSS extends enclosures to handle other media types, such as short films or TV, in addition to providing additional metadata with the media. Media RSS enables content publishers and bloggers to broadly distribute descriptions of and links to multimedia content.

(Looks like Ryan beat me to this one already.. Oh well, double posts show how important this probably is. -shawn)

Here comes yet another Flickr API app. From Stamen Design. God - I just love this shit.

[via V2 organisation]

(Stamen are also the fine folks behind the new ReBlog. -kc.)

Media Bloggers Association (MBA) is a non-partisan organization dedicated to promoting MBA members and their blogs, encouraging the continued education of members, and supporting the emerging citizen journalism movement.

TribeTV is an extension of the Tribe Web site, which features ratings and reviews of local hot spots, eateries and bands, as well as classified ads and networking groups. TribeTV's focus is on local musicians that have been highly rated by Tribe members, performing at businesses favored by the Tribe.

"We may be the only truly Internet-edited TV show," says Wade Lagrone, Tribe's VP of marketing and executive producer. "We look at how many votes a band got, and we go straight from the votes."

For now, the low-budget program can be seen on cable access TV in San Francisco (Comcast Ch. 29) or on the Web, though Lagrone would like to broaden the distribution.

"This thing's on a shoestring for sure," Lagrone said. "It's not polished. It's raw. It's our community."

H-Alpha Solar, a research by a pool of European scientists, is investigating how flexible solar panels can be sewn into textiles so electrical equipment can be recharged without being connected to a mains supply.

Bendy solar panels little thicker than photographic film could be bonded to fabrics and be on the market in three years.



Possible application could be a tent whose flysheet charges batteries all day so campers can have light all night, or a roll-out plastic sheet which powers cells to operate a DVD player.

The solar panels will also be cheap because they can be mass produced in rolls which can be cut as required and wrapped around clothes, fabrics, furniture or even rooftops. For example, an A4 sized panel sewn into the back of a jacket would cost less than 7 and charge a mobile phone during a summer stroll in the countryside.

Via Scotsman.
PDF presentation of the project.

Media RSS extends enclosures to handle other media types, such as short films or TV, as well as provide additional metadata with the media.

"Media RSS" is a new RSS module that supplements the enclosure capabilties of RSS 2.0. RSS enclosures are already being used to syndicate audio files and images. Media RSS extends enclosures to handle other media types, such as short films or TV, as well as provide additional metadata with the media. Media RSS enables content publishers and bloggers to syndicate multimedia content such as TV and video clips, movies, images, and audio.

The Firefox ad paid for by contributors to the "spread Firefox" campaign ran in today's New York Times, featuring the names of all 10,000 contributors, with the Firefox logo superimposed over the top (ad in pdf format). 11 million users have downloaded the browser since the Mozilla foundation launched the campaign, Broadband Reports is the third largest affiliate.

Phone posting for Indymedia Australia:

The PIMP allows anyone with access to a telephone to submit reports to indymedia. It was originally developed to allow up-to-the-minute reports to be made from actions such as Mayday and Woomera, where computers are in short supply, or not easily accessible to the 'people on the ground.' Reports are submitted to indymedia as audio files, and indymedia followers not physically involved in the action are encouraged to transcribe these.

Under Mars: An online archive of soldiers' photos taken by soldiers serving in active duty. This site aims only to visually document their experiences and is not a political site. I have no idea if the captions are the original captions, but they're amazing. Well worth parsing through all 60+ galleries.

Go ahead and give it a try: Yahoo! Video Search. Read more about it over at the Yahoo Search blog where Jeremy Zawodny gives us the lowdown and solicits our participation.

So you heard the big news about Google digitizing the stacks at Harvard and the University of Michigan and want to do a story on it? Guess what, you have b-roll for the story already.

The Internet Archive has 10 minutes of footage of a book scanning robot that would make a perfect backdrop for your story.

Licensing? For some crazy reason they're offering it for free and have released the footage to the public domain! Maybe when you're done with the Google story you should look into why someone would give up their copyright like that...

(chuckle. ;) -kc.)

The entire University of Oslo's "Designing Design Interface and interaction: Social software" seminar is online as a bunch of mp4 files.

Want to start making actual products, without a factory? We've mentioned eMachineShop.com before as a good personal-fab resource for the artist or the engineer doing a one-off prototype, but what if your needs are more sophisticated (you use your own CAD software, you need more than just machining, you want a few hundred units made, etc.)? Then the place to go is MFGquote.com, a sort of a Ebay for fabbing-- you post your drawings, fabbers bid on them, you choose who you like. Besides just machining, you can get layup, extrusions, casting, welding, electronics, textile, just about any method you could want to make something; and not just individual parts, but assembly of units. Everyhing you'd need to make a real product and sell it, without having your own factory. It even has an automatic setup for making NDA's between fabber and client, which is of obvious importance. And while it's aimed largely at companies who want to outsource short runs of product, an individual can use it just as well for one-off prototypes or art.

Justin Chapweske is the creator of Swarmcast, the first-ever "swarming" download technology -- the grandaddy of technologies like Bittorrent. He's just released "Swarmstreaming" -- a technology to make streaming go better if more people use it at once:

I'm proud to finally unveil swarmstreaming our third generation of swarming algorithms that are designed for the fastest downloads of web content and multimedia without any special server software or silly .swarm files. This is probably our most exciting advancement since the original invention of swarming.

The technology improves swarming by ensuring that the bytes that the user wants next are scheduled to be received next. So if they're playing back a video file, the bytes from the front of the file will be received first. If the user (or application) skips forward to the middle of the file, the bytes at the middle of the file will be prioritized. Thus, unlike first generation swarming systems like Swarmcast or Bittorrent, you don't have to wait for the entire file to download to do something useful with it!.

Research paper about the fragility of opinions and the importance of highly connected individuals in opinion formation.

\"We present a dynamical theory of opinion formation that takes explicitly into account the structure of the social network in which in- dividuals are embedded. The theory predicts the evolution of a set of opinions through the social network and establishes the existence of a martingale property, i.e. that the expected weighted fraction of the population that holds a given opinion is constant in time. Most importantly, this weighted fraction is not either zero or one, but corresponds to a non-trivial distribution of opinions in the long time limit. This co-existence of opinions within a social network is in agreement with the often observed locality effect, in which an opinion or a fad is localized to given groups without infecting the whole society. We verified these predictions, as well as those concerning the fragility of opinions and the importance of highly connected individuals in opinion formation, by performing computer experiments on a number of social networks.

This is the first survey I've seen saying that the majority of bloggers are now women: 56 percent, in fact.

TinyP2P is a functional peer-to-peer file sharing application, written in fifteen lines of code, in the Python programming language. I wrote TinyP2P to illustrate the difficulty of regulating peer-to-peer applications. Peer-to-peer apps can be very simple, and any moderately skilled programmer can write one, so attempts to ban their creation would be fruitless.

For more information about TinyP2P, see http://www.freedom-to-tinker.com/tinyp2p.html.

Vin Crosbie paints his vision of the 2010 newspaper, seeing a portable, wireless and flexible electronic paper devices that streams enhanced RSS feeds...

These wouldn't be today's plain-text, graphically empty RSS feeds. Instead, this future form of RSS would encapsulate publisher's or broadcaster's entire daily report in full graphical, interactive layout. This would include all hyperlinks to video or other multimedia. Imagine a hybrid of digital edition and website; all the graphical capabilities and layouts of the former, plus the interactivity and multimedia of the latter. Click the photo, see the video, etc. Click the links embedded in texts and related stories appear, etc.

If RSS can be adapted to encapsulate radio or video programming into Apple iPods (as is now beginning to be done), then future versions of it should be capable of encapsulating entire, hybrid 'converged' editions.

Those are the four key action areas in online publishing in 2004, according to the Online Publishers Association. From the OPA Year In Review:
-- "The pervasiveness of Web access and the ability of the Internet to provide what consumers want when they want it have made the Web the first place to turn for news, information and entertainment. ... for the first time ever, Content surpassed Communications as the leading Internet activity as measured by share of time spent online."
-- "Broadband growth established itself as the key driver of content usage on the Web."
-- "Rampant broadband proliferation" led to the embrace of rich media and video advertising.
Yes, it's a tad boosterish in tone but at least they have something to cheerlead about this year.

Flash memory Game Boy cartridges are always welcome around here, so seeing this MPEG4/MP3 player with a built-in SD slot was notable enough—then I realized it was from Nintendo themselves, which is even more surprising. Obviously, it's not designed to play games, but the unit can play back movies for up to 4 hours at the Game Boy Advance SP's native resolution (352 by 288 pixels) as well as play back MP3s with the screen off for up to 15 hours on a charge. I have no idea if Nintendo plans to bring the unit out to the United States, but since it should work with the DS just fine, there's no reason they couldn't (like taking away from the DS's momentum, I'm saying).

For gamers I still think flash linkers that let you copy ROMs over are a lot more convenient (and you can get ones that use SD and MMC cards, I know), but since Nintendo has quietly been selling a ton of video content on GBA carts, I wonder if they're thinking about moving over to an SD-based content distribution system.

Tokyo University researchers have developed a scanner embedded in a flexible sheet of plastic that will allow archivers to get into the cracks of old and fragile books without cutting apart the spine. Plus the scanner uses a set of organic diodes to register the image using reflected light, meaning just a good, bright fluorescent should get the job done.

Say, I'm thinking about adding a bulletin board/forum on Lost Remote exclusively for TV web producers. Sort of a Slashdot for TV web dev. (We used to run an email discussion group, but there's just too much email and spam to manage.) Your thoughts? Would you use the online forum?

(Go leave your thoughts over at this LostRemote post)

OpenVIP is a flexible video-processing tool for Unix and Windows.

Investigating the possibilities of SMIL 2.0 for professional multimedia content authoring.

It's all happening.

Everythuing we knew that was gonna happen, is happening, it just took longer than we thought.

Peter Caputa sent me a link to Me-TV.

Looks coolio.

If you're looking for a media-centric internship, then you might want to check out what Elizabeth Spiers is looking for to assist with "relaunch projects" at mediabistro.

Toshiba says it has the world's first hard drives based on perpendicular recording, a breakthrough technology that sets new benchmarks for data density, boosting the capacity of a single 1.8-inch hard-disk platter to 40 gigabytes.

The new technology is featured on the MK4007GAL HDD, a 40gb into a drive only five millimeters thick, and the MK8007GAH, with 80gb, the largest capacity yet achieved in the 1.8-inch form factor, boasts Toshiba.

It says it plans to start mass production of the 40- and 80gb drives in the first and second quarters of next year.

This is an invitation/request to help test and shape a cool new approach to "activist e-commerce". It's in beta and they need forgiving early users. I know the people behind it, and endorse them without reservation. This is truly a worthwhile experiment in "sharing economy."

It's called BOOKS WE LIKE, initiated by Media Venture Collective with support from Alternet. It's a way for progressives to "vote with their book purchases" by aggregating their Amazon (or other online booksellers) purchases, thereby maximizing the resulting commissions, and pooling those to fund progressive independent media.

Every book bought there captures about a dollar that would otherwise go uncollected. That's potentially millions per year of free money!

(Continued at Smart Mobs)

(Also: Marc Canter's mention of Books We Like earlier this week. -kc.)

Just from Lost Remote's press releases today: MTV to launch MTV Desi, MTV China and MTV Korea; American Desi is unveiled today; and Detroit is the first market to carry Bridges TV, the American Muslim TV Network.

Another update to Celtx 0.8 (beta), the free open-source pre-production client/web browser application for film and TV. New features include: Firefox 1.0 web browser components integrated into Celtx. Media management: Celtx now supports image, video, and audio files for Windows, Mac and Linux. Server-side generation of PDF script. More breakdown reports. Ability to delete projects in script editor. Collaboration/Publishing Shared User PickList. Downloadable versions in French, Spanish and Slovenian!

Three new Grass Valley TV-station-in-a-kit packages. The new, lower prices of the TV Station in a Kit Series are being driven by the rapid integration of low-cost video processing, IP networking, and off-the-shelf IT technologies.

The TV Station in a Box Kit combines an intelligent video digital recorder (iVDR) and the powerful Final Cut Pro HD application. It has everything necessary to broadcast a program and share media and includes an M-Series iVDR with four channels of simultaneous record and playout capabilities, Final Cut Pro HD, and a PowerMac G5. The News Production Kit provides an easy entry into digital newsgathering and streamlines the operations of regional TV stations and institutional video departments. The Post-Production Kit greatly improves post-production workflows. Thomson Grass Valley. SYPHA [Final Cut Pro News (Phila FCP Users Group)]

21st Century 3D s 3DVX comprises, at its core, two AG-DVX100As with electronically synchronized shutters. These camcorders have had critical body parts and other controls adapted to synchronize their imagers. The twin camcorders have been integrated in a side-by-side fashion, with the viewfinders adjacent to each other to allow for stereoscopic viewing of the captured video. (The camcorder also offers a three-inch LCD screen that displays the image being captured by the leftmost camcorder lens.) According to 21st Century 3D, the company behind the 3DVX, this is the key to the system.

This solution stands as a response to other 3D systems, particularly that of the stereoscopic XL1 lens. The XL1, no longer in production, integrated data from two lenses onto a single tape, with each lens providing data alternating fields within the video signal.

(Does The Creature From The Black Lagoon count as participatory media? -kc.)

Following up on yesterday's BoingBoing scoop:

On today's edition of NPR's "Day to Day", I speak with host Alex Chadwick about today's announcements by the MPAA of new legal actions against P2P networks including BitTorrent, eDonkey, and DirectConnect.

Link to archived audio for this program, Link to NPR Day to Day home.

I also filed a report on the MPAA's new legal assault for today's Wired News:

In the United States and the United Kingdom, the Motion Picture Association of America, the main lobbying arm of American film studios, filed civil lawsuits today against more than 100 operators of BitTorrent tracker servers which point to locations where downloadable files can be found. The MPAA also targeted operators of servers for the eDonkey and DirectConnect networks. The group's actions include criminal complaints and cease and desist orders issued to ISPs on 4 continents. Acting in cooperation with the MPAA, French law enforcement authorities took related action yesterday, and actions by authorities in Finland and the Netherlands followed today.

BitTorrent, eDonkey, and DirectConnect allow millions of internet users to share copies of movies, music, software and games. Because of its particular efficiency in helping users handle very large files -- such as digital copies of feature-length films -- BitTorrent has attracted the enmity of Hollywood. (....)[MPAA antipiracy chief John] Malcolm described the operators of the targeted servers as "Traffic cops connecting those who wish to steal a movie with those who have a copy of it."

"These people are parasites leeching off the creativity of others," said Malcolm. "They generate ad revenues by way of popup ads, banner ads... and they solicit online donations."

Previously, the MPAA has filed hundreds of suits against individual downloaders. The new actions against server operators come just days after the Supreme Court agreed to take up the landmark MGM v. Grokster filesharing case. MPAA representatives denied that the timing of today's news was related.

Link to Wired News story.

Update: Petri Lyytinen says,

2039 is reporting about recent bust of finnish BitTorrent network, Finreactor, for distributing copyrighted material worth millions of euros. Allegedly they gathered evidence for court using special backdoor software written by finnish company Hitback Oy, that was lured to 26 illegal products which were downloadable from the network.

Link to Finnish news stories and police reports.

Link to yesterday's BoingBoing post -- New MPAA lawsuits against BitTorrent, eDonkey expected: Link

MediaFrame is an Open Source streaming media platform in Java which provides a fast, easy to implement and extremely small applet that enables over 97% of web users to view audio/video content without having to rely on external player applications or bulky plug-ins. MediaFrame does not require special servers, software or programming knowledge.

MediaFrame for Mpeg-4 has been in development for several years and was released today for the first time as public preview. The preview provides a full version of the software along with sample video and implementation files.

Mpeg-4 compatibility brings a wealth of new feature to the fore such as time based tracking, which allows users to track playback through a fully integrated JavaScript API and video smoothing which acts to remove artefacts from the video stream.

The technologies video scaling algorithm is also much improved, allowing a user to increase the size of the viewable screen by up to 500% that of the original movie file without a significant loss in quality.

Like the Mpeg-1 version before it, MediaFrame for Mpeg-4 is extremely light weight at only 56kb making it faster to initialise than both Real player and Windows Media Player. And unlike its competitors, MediaFrame does not require a plugin on the client machine.

MediaFrame for Mpeg-4 is available now.

School teacher George Masters has the marketing world abuzz with a homemade ad for Apple Computer's iPod that is rapidly "going viral."

To some experts, Masters' ad heralds the future of advertising. Homemade ads will play a big part in marketing, just like blogging is shaking up the news.

Masters quietly posted the spot to his site a few weeks ago. It received moderate traffic until it was picked up by several blogs last week. In a matter of days, the ad has been watched more than 37,000 times, and is making the rounds on blogs and e-mail.

The ad has caught the attention of marketers, who praise its professional production values and say it's one of the first "pure" advertisements seen on the internet. Though homemade ads are nothing new, most are parodies, protests or political commentaries.

Gary Stein, an online advertising analyst with Jupiter Research, said he was struck by the quality of Masters' ad and its marketing savvy.

"It shows great advertising principles," Stein said. "He's computer-literate, but he's also literate in the language of advertising.... You could take this thing and put it on MTV this afternoon. It's not only good, it's good advertising. People go to college to learn this. He just gets it."

Watch George Masters' iPod ad (WIRED)

Via I love Radio comes the information that in September 2004, as measured by this study, Canadian teens spent more time listening to new media (which are MP3s, internet radio, podcasts and that sort of thing) than broadcast radio. Full article here.

Samsung has shipped their new RS-MMC flash memory format, in sizes up to 128MB. It's even smaller than miniSD, if that were necessary. Remember when CompactFlash seemed like such a wonder?

The San Mateo County Court is reportedly investigating whether KCRA violated any rules by instant messaging from the Scott Peterson courtroom during the sentencing. Ridiculous. KCRA did the same thing during the verdict weeks ago, and the court didn't raise a finger. Case closed.

Boston Globe: Verdict is in on the Peterson media circus

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So, you remember when I said yesterday that ASX3 was deprecated in favor of SMIL in Windows Media Player? I was wrong. Totally and completely wrong.

The documentation I was reading was for the server component of Windows Media, which has always been SMIL-oriented. I didn't realize that it was the server documentation.

Update: as an experiment, Ryan Shaw tried to get WMP 10, the client side of things, to recognize a .WSX/SMIL playlist, but no luck.

Today, it is expected that Google will announce an agreement to scan and create databases of works from five major libraries. According to news reports, Google will digitize all volumes in the University of Michigan and Stanford University library systems along with parts of research libraries at Harvard, the New York Public Library, and Oxford University in England. More information on the scope of projects at the individual institutions can be found at news.com. The project looks to be an extension of Google Print and Google Scholar, while reaching all the way back to the Stanford library digitization project where Google originated.

BendBroadband of central Oregon is deploying the Motorola Broadband Media Center.

The boxes feature high-definition with dual-tuner digital video recording capabilities. They use the Digeo "Moxi" navigation and application platform for a PVR capability.

BendBroadband is the fifth U.S. MSO to deploy the Motorola-Digeo combo. Others include Adelphia, Comcast, Sunflower Broadband and Digeo corporate cousin Charter Communications.

Digeo, the Kirkland, Wash.-based developer of interactive set-top box hardware and software claims to have "the lowest-cost multi-room solution for cable television."

Digeo's Moxi Media Center provides digital video recording (DVR); video-on-demand (VOD); pay-per-view (PPV); and playback of DVDs, various digital music files and digital photos on a second TV in the home.

(Continued at DailyWireless)

(I remember reading about Moxi years ago when it was just a prototype. I didn't realize they had such widespread deployment. -kc.)

ICANN gave the preliminary green light today (Detroit Free Press) to two new top-level domain names. ".Mobi" will be used for less bandwidth intensive sites catering to mobile devices, while ".jobs" will be largely used by corporate career sites. Also under consideration for early approval are .xxx and .asia, though there's no timetable for approval.

The Federal Trade Commission's holding a no-charge, public two-day workshop Dec. 15-16 in Washington D.C. Here's the agenda (pdf). No word yet on a webcast. According to InfoAnarchy (via Broadband Reports), a new study about BitTorrent will be released.
The FTC is also taking public comments on P2P/file-sharing through Jan. 18, 2005, as it formulates policy.
If you're going to the conference and want to guest blog, drop me a line at staci@paidcontent.org

Or so the The Wall Street Journal suggests in its latest magazine-like special section on technology. Some 19 million listeners tune in to Internet radio weekly compared to roughly 3.4 million satellite listeners; traditional radio swamps them both with an estimated weekly audience of 277 million.

The article suggests the lines "may soon blur." Actually, they've been blurring for quite some time. Hundreds of traditional radio stations are streamed online while Sirius satellite radio provides subscribers with streams of its commercial-free channels. One possible difference could be the creation of Internet-only "stations" by traditional radio owners like Clear Channel.

I listen to regular radio doing errands, Sirius on the road and various Internet options while online. Next step, activating the no-extra-charge Sirius streaming option.

Frank Barnako has more on Internet radio.

Great quote from a Miami Herald article about newspapers and the 21st century:

Now many in the industry say they've come to realize it's not the content that's the problem, it's the form of the newspaper itself.

How true, and it applies to local television news as well. The Herald editor notes that the newspaper of tomorrow will be delivered via new "gizmos," and I have to concur. The only problem, however, is this. Do/will media executives understand and act upon the reality that not only is the "form" of distribution the problem but also its dependence on mass marketing?

This is the real issue confronting media in the 21st century, and if it's not adequately addressed, all the gizmos in the world won't help the bottom line. Life in a bottom-up marketing world is the question. "Form" is only part of the answer.

Military forces are increasingly relying on wearable computers and other gadgetries designed by commercial companies, only slightly more ruggedized because of mission critical requirements. In this long article, Military & Aerospace Electronics gives various examples of how these wearable technologies are networking soldiers.

For instance, the military version of Microvision's Nomad helmet-mounted display delivers a virtual cockpit interface to commanders in the field. Or take Xybernaut, which is developing belt-mounted mobile and wearable computers with integrated satellite communications units allowing soldiers to export wirelessly and continuously their location. In the mean time, General Dynamics C4 Systems is building GoBook tablet computers powered by direct-liquid fuel cells which could become potential replacements for current ground air-traffic-control computers.

The original article describes other wearable technologies as well, so be sure to read it. In this column, I'm just focusing on the Microvision's Nomad helmet-mounted display.

Tim Finin points to interesting news from Online DVD rental leader Netflix, which is looking for ways to keep ahead of its competators.

In its latest move to fend off competitive threats, Netflix will let subscribers invite friends to peek at DVDs they've watched and read their opinions of the movies. If the invitation is accepted, the sender automatically gets reciprocal rights to read the friend's lists and reviews.

Netflix, facing competition from Blockbuster Entertainment Inc. and Wal-Mart Stores Inc. (WMT), began testing its networking system last week and plans to expand it to all 2.3 million subscribers next month.

The company has long encouraged subscribers to post DVD reviews openly but those capsules appear in a scattershot manner and generally don't provide much information about the writer. Under the new system, people can focus on the picks and pans of those whose opinions they value.

Hacking NetFlix describes how the NetFlix Friends List Feature works.

Brian Flemming has two rules for your film. One: you can t spend any money making it. Two: you have to let everybody copy and make new things from it. Else, you have no part in his experiment. Or the future of film. Flemming is the filmmaker and mad scientist creator of Free Cinema, a film activism experiment inspired by the free culture and open source software movement. Essentially, the project's aim is to introduce independent filmmakers to the free culture business model (make it free > give it away) and observe the results.

Flemming is becoming notorious in Hollywood for this brand of salt. In 2002 he released Nothing So Strange, an uncomfortably realistic mockumentary on the assassination of Bill Gates, and made the 80-90 hours of footage open source. He recently kick-started the hype machine for his newest film, The Beast, which is also expected to be open source. The first official project of Free Cinema will be a film centered around a high-speed car chase on a San Diego highway. For most of the chase scenes Flemming is using free public-domain footage of high-speed chases shot by local police departments.

Free footage will naturally be a critical part of making free cinema. Consequently, the Prellinger Archives just became your new best friend. The archives host a collection of more than 48,000 “ephemeral” films (advertising, educational, industrial, and amateur) collected over a twenty year period that are available under a Creative Commons license. The material has already been successfully used in a number of films. Soul in Code briefly describes how The Corporation, a recently released film by directors Mark Achbar and Jennifer Abbott, based on a book by Joel Bakan, intersplice footage from the archives to turn a critical eye on the corporate man. Another resource worth taking a look at is Common Content, which collects contributions of free content in all types of media. Also look out for the much hyped Open Media, which should be launching soon.

(Continued at octomoto)

The Australian Interactive Media Industry Association (AIMIA) has launched a program to promote the creation of innovative mobile content, condemning a lot of current mobile content as “pedestrian". Work created through this program will be showcased online at www.mobilejourneys.com and through a WAP site specifically designed for the Mobile Journeys program. There are also plans for real world exhibitions later 2005.

Sheldon Ramption from the PR critics at the Center for Media and Democracy has made some edits to the citizen journalism article on  Wikipedia and is welcoming others to add their input.

SorobanGeeks has a picture of a new prototype electronic paper from Hitachi, which according to a story on the subscription-required Nikkei Net, is just 3 millimeters thick. It also appears to be in color, presuming that this picture is an actual device and not just a mockup. Hitachi plans to release a product using the ePaper in 2006—I can't wait.

genesis is open-source software (LGPL) and its main objective is to allow you to build powerful, scalable applications in a simple, productive and testable way. Although its long term goals are much more ambitious, right now it focuses on two main areas:

• UI programming: your form is just an annotated POJO and... that is it; no further requirements. Annotations will allow you to automatically populate comboboxes and tables, to enable/disable widgets, make them visible or not, clear fields based on conditions etc., in a declarative way. Programming a complex UI becomes a very simple task, which is one of the main reasons some people still avoid using Java on the desktop. The current implementation uses Thinlet as the view technology, but other APIs, such as Swing, will be supported soon.
• Business components: many "modern" frameworks support a POJO model for business components, but there are still several limitations - a business object cannot be directly instantiated, but rather injected or looked up using a factory, for example, or you have to expose your POJO using an interface or otherwise you won't be able to take advantage of most facilities offered by these frameworks. genesis takes a different road: you can use new to instantiate your components and they don't have to implement or be exposed by any interface in order to take advantage of genesis' facilities. In runtime, depending on your configuration, genesis may use EJB technology to execute your POJOs as if they were Stateless Session Beans or you can work in local mode (which is cool for some desktop applications). You don't have to change a single line of code to switch execution modes, but just use a different target to build your application. Current genesis features include transparent remoting, transactional support and DI (dependency injection) for Hibernate. General DI will be supported soon.

genesis does not try to reinvent the wheel, but rather builds on top of several other open-source projects to deliver its functionalities. Besides Thinlet, this release relies heavily on AspectWerkz and AOP to implement a flexible core so that new ways to do remoting or to configure a form - using xml, for example - are easy to write and don't require any changes to existent genesis code. So, if you are looking for practical ways of using AOP, check out genesis sources.

When someone asked me to define podcasting (out of frustration for the existing definitions, I came up with the following two paragraphs:

What's a podcast?
Podcast is a term used to describe an audio or video program which can be automatically downloaded to anyone who subscribes to it. These programs can be played on a computer, burned to CD, or transferred to a portable music or video player. A 'podcaster' is anyone who creates a podcast.

Origins of the word 'podcast'
The word 'podcast' is a play on the word 'broadcast' and the popular digital music player, the iPod. While the name might cause a bit of confusion, its association with the iPod does not do any harm--in fact, it has helped the podcasting effort. Podcasts can be played on a wide variety of digital music and video players.

Light bulbs went on all over the place. Partially because I'm working with people that don't even know what a blog is, and I'm expected to talk about RSS and enclosures and syndicastratedfeedition?

Uh, no.

Bottom line. I'm going to be writing this stuff down anyway. I've got a blog. The text can evolve. Why not make a lightweight book project out of it? I'm game.

So, the Podcast Notebook project is born.

Media ecology looks into the matter of how media of communication affect human perception, understanding, feeling, and value; and how our interaction with media facilitates or impedes our chances of survival.

6-part taxonomy of mobile picture taking uses

Abstract: This paper presents an in-depth study into how people use their camera phones. Using a combined method of interviews and grounded discussions around a sample of actual photos, the study examined people's intentions at the time of capture and subsequent patterns of use. The result is a 6-part taxonomy describing the way images are used both for sharing and personal use, and for affective and functional use. The implications of these findings for future products and services are discussed. Notes: Rowanne Fleck, University of Sussex, Sussex, UK Abigail Sellen, Microsoft Research, 7 JJ Thomson Ave, Cambridge CB2 0DF, UK

Our own Jason Schultz has a terrific op-ed in Salon today. The gist: when a patent portfolio is more valuable as a weapon for a patent "vulture" firm than necessary protection for a live company, it's (yet another) signal that the patent system is seriously broken:

Many have compared these new patent licensing firms to terrorists, and in some ways, the analogy is apt. When the Soviet Union collapsed, one of the biggest worries was that rogue military personnel might sell off one or more of the USSR's nuclear missiles to a terrorist group. Securing those weapons became a top priority. The reason was fear -- fear that the terrorists, who had little to nothing at stake in terms of world peace and national stability, would use the missiles to extort or manipulate the world political climate.

[...]

With the patents of bankrupt dot-coms, the dynamics are similar. Rogue licensing firms buy up these patents and then threaten legitimate innovators and producers. They have no products on which a countersuit can be based and no interest in stable marketplaces, competition or consumer benefit. Their only interest is in the bottom line.

While profit itself is often a worthy objective, it is not always synonymous with innovation. Every dollar a tech company pays to patent lawyers or licensing firms is one less dollar available for R&D or new hires. Thus, many companies that offer new products end up paying a "tax" on innovation instead of receiving a reward. When this happens, it's a signal that the patent system is broken. Forcing companies to pay lawyers instead of creating jobs and new products is the wrong direction for our economy to be headed and not the result our patent system should be promoting.

For those of you who missed it, here's a piece of "prior art" by Ben Adida of Creative Commons -- a post comparing software patents to WMD.

PubSub is launching a new tool called LinkRank that tracks the popularity of blogs based on the strength, persistence, and vitality of links appearing in those blogs. Steve Rubel from PubSub says:

Here's how this works. Here's the chart for BoingBoing (link), which right now is the leading blog among all of the sites that PubSub tracks. You can view the Top 100 list here (link). If you look at the BoingBoing chart, you will notice that over the last 30 days you ranged from as low as the 21st most linked to site to 17th most link to site. The lower the number the better since the actual figure is a site's ranking. Two examples of comparison searches you could run with the tool might be Gizmodo vs. Engadget, or Apple vs. Microsoft. This tool will be particularly valuable for people to size up which blogs are consistently influential and which are just flashes in the pan.

Link to a more comprehensive explanation of PubSub LinkRanks works (includes intimidating mathematical equations that look like they came out of the geometry class I failed in high school).

Korean open source news innovators OhMyNews interview Dan Gillmor about his latest leap. Obviously I don't have the name recognition (or savings account) of Gillmor, but I'm sure inspired and comforted knowing I'm not alone:

Dan Gillmor's announcement that he will leave the San Jose Mercury News next month in order to start a citizen-journalism venture has left many insiders scratching their heads. Why is the much respected tech writer leaving what he described as "greatest gig in the world" for the perilous journey of developing an entrepreneurial idea in citizen-journalism?

It is, in part, because it is there. Gillmor, a well-respected veteran journalist of 25 years, wrote in his blog on Dec. 10: "I hate the idea of leaving. But I'd hate not trying this even more."

High Court to Hear File - Sharing Dispute [pdf]

The Supreme Court agreed Friday to consider whether two Internet file-sharing services may be held responsible for their customers’ online swapping of copyrighted songs and movies.

Justices will review a lower ruling in favor of Grokster Ltd. and StreamCast Networks Inc., which came as a blow to recording companies and movie studios seeking to stop the illegal distribution of their works.

Also CNet’s Supreme Court to hear P2P case; Washington Post’s also got an AP regurgitation: Supreme Court to Look at File Sharing; ditto Wired News’ File Sharing Goes to High Court

Later: NYTimes’ Justices to Hear Case on Sharing of Music Files; WashPost’s High Court To Weigh File Sharing [pdf]; Slashdot: High Court Agrees to Hear File-Sharing Dispute

The 10 ten words of the year according to Merriam-Webster, based on lookups: with del.icio.us and Flickr tags.  Also links to currently blank wiki pages and Wikipedia articles.

1. blog: del, flickr, wiki, pedia

2. incumbent: del, flickr, wiki, pedia

3. electoral: del, flickr, wiki, pedia

4. insurgent: del, flickr, wiki, pedia

5. hurricane: del, flickr, wiki, pedia

6. cicada: del, flickr, wiki, pedia

7. peloton: del, flickr, wiki, pedia

8. partisan: del, flickr, wiki, pedia

9. sovereignty: del, flickr, wiki, pedia

10. defenestration: del, flickr, wiki, pedia

These are, of course, very different from the most popular tags.  I would love to see a visualization of the relative weight of these words.

Sorry I haven't been posting much. I'll get back into more analysis in a bit.

Meanwhile, I wanted to throw this out there: Mobdex. It's a demo service I was showing around during my stint when I was looking for funding. It's not a business, just a concept to show that you can actually serve Real Content to mobile phones. What I did was import 600+ Public Domain eBooks from Project Gutenberg and I'm dynamically reformatting the plain text to be readable on the web and modern mobiles with WAP2 minibrowsers.

I was planning to do more with it, but as soon as it got to a demoable state I dropped it. But just tonight I decided to add one more bit and announce it. I had showed the service to Cory Doctorow back a couple months ago and we talked about ways to enhance this service and a new CC licensed book he's publishing in January. One of the ideas I liked was per paragraph permalinks so that people can discuss books and sections in their weblogs. So I added that in tonight by ripping off some JavaScript from Simon Willison and there you have it. Books online with permalinks.

Here's some good examples:

Wuthering Heights
Great Expectations
Around the World in 80 Days
The Time Machine
Howard's End

So check it out, both on the web and on your phone. It's totally Alpha quality, and lots of stuff dies horribly, pages aren't formatted well, and it's inefficient as hell, but I figured I'd get it out there before I move on to my next shiny thing: Mobile Multimedia baby. I want to Fill The Pipe of my new UMTS Series 60 phone!

Enjoy!

-Russ

Ending my radio silence here. I've been heads down working on Prodigem which is a new content hosting web-service I've created. It relies on bit torrent to share the costs of the distribution of large files and is revolutionary in that you need only to upload your file via the web, click a few buttons and not only will it create a torrent for your content, but it will begin seeding it also.

This removes all complexity in the administration of bit torrent from start to finish and also enables you to take advantage of better initial download speeds since you aren't limited by your home DSL connection. You can read more about Prodigem here. Like I say there, if you are an artist, creator, author, blogger, podcaster, amateur mogul, lead guitarist, independent movie director or person, and you have material which has been licensed openly, such as with a Creative Commons license, the sky is now the limit.

We're currently in a limited beta testing phase, so in the meantime you might consider checking out the main tracker and joining torrents for any content you'd like. Hopefully we'll open to wider availability soon and as membership is being handled in the new school style of invitation propagation, watch your inbox for Prodigem email.

The objectives of this material are to give you exposure to:

1. Basic lighting concepts

2. Affordable and/or critical lighting equipment

3. Basic lighting techniques

4. Hard to get information

5. References to more information

"BlogTelevision.net mines over three million blogs daily to find videos for your entertainment. We find and highlight the videos that people are talking (read: blogging) about! Nothing is censored and we updated at least six times a day so check back frequently.

Please note, because we are a 100% automated website we cannot guarantee all videos are safe for viewing at work."

For making a pirated film available on the internet, a businessman has been sentenced to one year in jail in Japan. [BBC News]

"It seems pretty clear that a lot of people are actively interested in engaging in wanton piracy," says Bram Cohen, the creator of Bit Torrent to the Associated Press. "As far as I'm concerned, they're just pushing around bits, and what bits it is they're pushing around is not really a concern of mine. There's not much I can do about it."

Bill Moyers -- to my mind the greatest light of broadcast journalism over the past two decades -- is retiring.

(Not exactly unmediating but definitely tangentally relevant. -kc.)

LA Times - In an apparent reversal of decades of U.S. practice, recent federal Office of Foreign Assets Control regulations bar American firms from publishing works by dissident writers in countries under sanction unless they first get U.S. government approval.

The restriction, condemned by critics as a violation of the 1st Amendment, means that books and other works banned by some totalitarian regimes cannot be published freely in the United States, a country that prides itself as the international beacon of free expression.

Guido Ciburski, a television software engineer, wants to launch Cybersky, a Web service that aims to do for TV what already applies to music and video, which can be downloaded free from the internet.

At the end of January, his company, TC Unterhaltungselektronic, will unveil its Cybersky TV web service which will enable broadband users to distribute video programmes free, and exchange them with others.



Viewers will need a television connected to a computer set up to upload a chosen television programme on to the internet, where other viewers will be able to download and broadcast it on their own sets almost instantaneously.

As soon as one subscriber uploads a programme on site, it becomes immediately available to other participants. So, the more subscribers, the greater the choice of programmes.

The concept has alarmed Germany's established TV companies, and is likely to concern other broadcasters around the world.

Cybersky's response to charges that it will be illegally broadcasting copyrighted programmes without permission is that its peer-to-peer system does not technically amount to distribution.

His company is used to going to court to defend its innovations. Six years ago, they developed a device called the TeleFairy which enabled viewers to skip TV advertising. Germany's broadcasters sued but a five-year legal battle ended in victory for the inventors last summer.

This is almost certain, according to Ian Pearson, a futurologist working for British Telecom. In fifteen years, local area networks will be replaced by body area networks. As writes BBC News Online, "when technology gets personal," you can expect a "pervasive ambient world" where "chips are everywhere."

Not only we'll be surrounded by intelligent objects in the streets, but we'll wear clothes made of nano-engineered smart fabrics or we'll carry implants. Pearson thinks that we'll use wearable technology that runs on body heat such as intelligent electronic contact lenses functioning as TV screens when we are in the subway for instance.

Of course, this raises interesting questions about our privacy. Pearson adds that security should be integrated into the design of these future devices. He's obviously right, but as usually, making money will always have a higher priority than protecting privacy. This overview contains more details and references.

Per Windows Media SDK documentation at Microsoft, the proprietary ASX3 playlist format is now deprecated in favor of SMIL 2.0. Given that ASX3 is the worst of all the stinkers in the land of playlist formats, this is a good thing.

It's not surprising that they would figure this out. The Windows Media group is Microsoft at its best. The company is willing to compete on quality to capture the high ground in internet media, and the robustness of their MP3 player smokes the competition.

Networks, flows, and fluids - reimagining spatial analysis? by Kirsten Simonsen, 2004

"In a very complex field spanning diverse subjects such as social theory, cultural studies, sociology, economics, geography, and planning, these spatial concepts - networks, flows, and fluids - are used as building blocks of a new orthodoxy of the theorization of social life; a theorization that is argued to favour a focus on process, connectivity, and mobility at the expense of an alleged former focus on boundedness, hierarchy, and form ...

[T]hree strands of work (more or less interwoven) are contributing to this theoretical development. These are the identification and celebration of network organization as a superior form in several fields, the import of new sociotechnical hybrid ontologies, first and foremost from French poststructuralist philosophy, and the development of relational urban and global theories often incorporating elements from both of the other strands ...

[But researchers need to] go beyond the moment of fascination, reflect on their theoretical and political implications, and reconsider the proper domain for their application."

BBC News: Lifestyle 'governs mobile choice'

For example, Ericsson's research says that when people want to capture a significant event in their lives, they use a digital camera; if they want to capture a moment in everyday life, they use a camera phone.

I'd like to understand more about how that works. Especially how events differ from moments, and how technology plays a part in those differences. I'd also like to see if and how Ericsson turns this knowledge into marketing strategies, and how that plays out in terms of consumption and identity.

I mentioned recently that the National Civic Review devoted its fall, 2004 issue to public journalism. My contribution, Is Public Journalism Morphing into the Public's Journalism?, is now a PDF file in the PJNet Academy.

An earlier draft of the article was given as a panel presentation at the mid-winter conference of the AEJMC at Rutgers in February, 2004.

mozilla is planning to release a version of Minimo (Mini-Mozilla browser for portable devices) for mobile phones.

"Due out in January of 2005, the 0.3 version of Minimo is already in use by two mobile phone companies, however they cannot release their names due to an embargo.

Mozilla Firefox has been taking over the share of Internet Explorer users very quickly, Minimo on the other hand, will be much harder to bring to market since manufacturers make the choice as to which browser to use, rather than consumers."

[MobileMag]

I have heard it said that there are four sides to podcasting:

1. Content tools.
2. Readers and aggregators, iPods and iPod-alikes.
3. Content.
4. Bandwidth.

These are good things, however they are not the main thing. There is a fifth side, and it is also the only side.

The fifth side is links.

The web is made up of bags of links, documents containing barely-structured lists of pointers to other documents. Something about link bags is an uncanny mathematical description of knowledge, self and community. It is this something that allows the oracle at Google to know without thinking.

Podcasting is in a primordial stage as far as links go. It has two pieces: files containing audio of talk, and RSS feeds by the talker that contain pointers to their own audio files. The audio links are from and to the same person. There is a blog entry in text ("I love ice cream sandwiches"), and a blog entry in audio (http://example.com/I_love_ice_cream_sandwiches.mp3). Enclosure URLs are for self-links, and self-links do not have the something that makes hypertext go.

The really thorny problem with audio and video on the internet is not bandwidth, though bandwidth surely hurts, nor is it finding people willing to commit the sin of onan into a microphone connected to a computer. The really thorny problem is that the nature of audio and video files is to be linkless, and what they need to ascend to the internet is linkosity.

From the latest edition of Edge:

INDIRECT RECIPROCITY, ASSESSMENT HARDWIRING, AND REPUTATION: A Talk with Karl Sigmund

These ideas fed into our work on indirect reciprocity, a concept that was first introduced by Robert Trivers in a famous paper in the 1970s. I recall that he mentioned this idea obliquely when he wrote about something he called "general altruism". Here you give something back not to the person to whom you owe something, but to somebody else in society. He pointed out that this also works with regard to cooperation at a high level. Trivers didn't go into details, because at the time it was not really at the center of his thinking. He was mostly interested in animal behavior, and so far indirect reciprocity has not been proven to exist in animal behavior. It might exist in some cases, but ethologists are still debating the pros and cons.

In human societies, however, indirect reciprocity has a very striking effect. There is a famous anecdote about the American baseball player Yogi Berra, who said something to the effect of, "I make a point of going to other people's funerals because otherwise they won't come to mine." This is not as nonsensical as it seems. If a colleague of the university, for instance, goes faithfully to every faculty member's funeral, then the faculty will turn out strongly at his. Others reciprocate. It works. We think instinctively in terms of direct reciprocation when I do something for you, you do something for me but the same principle can apply in situations of indirect reciprocity. I do something for you and somebody else helps me in return.

Could the world someday just share one distributed OS?

Croquet is a combination of computer software and network architecture that supports deep collaboration and resource sharing among large numbers of users within the context of a large-scale distributed information system. Along with its ability to deliver compelling 3D visualization and simulations, the Croquet system's components are designed with a focus on enabling massively multi-user peer-to-peer collaboration and communication.

and from the FAQ:

The Croquet project is an effort to develop a new open source computer operating system built from the ground up to enable deep collaboration between teams of users. To do this, the project seeks to define and develop a system is focused on the simulation and communication of complex ideas. We call this "communication enhancement" - the direct extension of the abilities of humans to develop, understand, and describe even the most complex simulations. Croquet enables this communication by acting as the equivalent of a broadband conferencing system built on top of a 3D user interface and a peer-to-peer network architecture.

The site includes whitepapers by David Reed, Alan Kay, David Smith, and Andreas Raab

We live in the age of the digital packet. Documents, images, music, phone calls - all get chopped up, propelled through networks, and reassembled at the other end according to Internet protocol. So why not TV?

That's the question cable giants like Comcast and Time Warner and Baby Bells like SBC and Verizon have been asking. The concept has profound implications for television and the Internet. TV over Internet protocol - IPTV - will transform couch-cruising into an on-demand experience. For the Internet, it will mean broadband at speeds 10, 100, or even 1,000 times faster than today's DSL or cable. Online games would be startlingly realistic; the idea of channels would seem hopelessly archaic. Why not indeed?

So far, the answer has been inertia. But competition is a powerful stimulus. For years, DirecTV and EchoStar have been adding subscribers far faster than cable, so cable companies want something satellite can't match. At the same time, voice over IP is enabling cable operators to poach phone customers from telcos. Combine VoIP, truly high-speed broadband, and totally on-demand TV - and you've got such a compelling proposition that the Bell companies figure the only way to survive is to do likewise.

(Continued at Wired News)

Just received this press release:

Today, iUpload, a leading content management solution provider that develops corporate blogging software, announced that iUpload s Personal Publishing platform is being used by Spirit of America. The non-profit organization is funding the development of an Arabic blogging tool, that will make Internet publishing and free expression in the Middle East easier and more accessible than ever before.

Spirit of America, with the assistance of organizations, will make the Arabic blogging tool available at no cost and will host Arabic blogs for free for those working to advance freedom and democracy in the Arab world. [Ontario-based] iUpload s blogging software, which is an integral part of Personal Publisher, is being used in this important effort. ...

An eminently praiseworthy effort. This could do more to engender democratic values in the Arabic world than all of the Western world's military might combined.

The USC Annenberg Online Journalism Review discusses a new publication by Massachusetts Institute of Technology assistant professor Pablo J. Boczkowski on the development of the media over the past decades. OJR remarks, "Boczkowski's new book --"Digitizing the News: Innovation in Online Newspapers"--examines how newsroom culture, technology and other factors affected the choices made by the New York Times technology section, HoustonChronicle.com's Virtual Voyager and New Jersey Online's Community Connection. [...] "Instead of being primarily journalist-centered, the news online appears increasingly to be also user-centered," writes Boczkowski. "In the online environment, users have a much greater direct effect on the news."

Here are some of the lessons Boczkowski draws from his thorough analysis of contemporary media landscape:

-- Micro-local content may gain prominence in online news as larger segments of the population have access to online technologies and become familiarized with a media culture of content coproduction.

-- Print newspapers' pursuit of nonprint delivery options has not been simply a technical change to the people involved, but a fundamental cultural transformation.

--The increasing relevance of cross-boundary coordination also presents an analytical challenge to the traditional way of understanding news production, which has usually looked within the newsroom and studied the work relationships of members of the journalism occupation.

-- A trend toward more user-centered online news could de facto deepen the "civic" or "public" journalism movement, which has sought a greater involvement of the citizenry in the editorial process and the publication of "all the news that citizens want to know" (Arthur Charity, "Doing Public Journalism,"??1995).

-- The news as conversation may be partly due to journalists' increased awareness of their audience's viewpoints. It may also be partly the result of the growing authorship of new media content by members of the public, housed both within traditional news sources such as online papers and nontraditional ones such as personal Weblogs.

-- In addition, at the geographic level, this micro-localization of the online news would expand the trend toward what is called "zoning," or the creation of specialized editions by area of distribution that many metropolitan dailies have implemented in response to the suburbanization of their readership since the 1970s.?

-- These transformations in material and communication culture have been tied to changes in the nature of work, such as challenges to the very identities of the occupations and organizations that constitute the newspaper industry.

Source: USC Annenberg Online Journalism Review

Peter Caputa points at a new Corante Blog - Eventlab - with nobody less than our good friend - Eric Rice (and Alex Williams as well.)

Maybe these marketing dweebs can hang out with the technical wonks - and get something done in the area of OpenEvents?

:-)

News orgs and entrepreneurs alike see potential in meshing citizen journalism and hyperlocal coverage with the bottom line. Leslie Walker rounds up the usual suspects and adds a few you may not know as she look at the big idea "that citizen-generated content lowers costs and creates more loyal audiences." Jeff Jarvis said Advance Net is planning citizen-journalist blogs/sites in six towns in Oregon, New Jersey and Massachusetts. "

Jarvis wants to create a network of online journals so local businesses can negotiate one deal and have their advertisements appear on several sites simultaneously. "It is not easy now to go out and buy ads to appear on the top 10 blogs in New Jersey or Washington," Jarvis told Walker. "Somebody needs to create that ad model."

This is a screenshot of Guimp, the worlds smallest website. At 18x18pixels, the claim is fair based on how developed the content is - real-time news, a blog, a cam, links, games and it even comes in flash and html. A+ for interface.

re-narrating cities via nomadic technologies

"Multiuser environments in cyberspace have frequently been regarded as utopian spaces in which users could project their imagination. When communities are shaped in a hybrid space, mobile phones become new media tools for creating novel and unpredictable imaginary spaces, re-narrating cities. Fixed Internet users do not have the ability to move through physical space. But the emergence of nomadic interfaces represents a chance for such imaginary spaces to be enacted and constructed in physical space.

Nomadic technologies have a twofold role in the construction of playful/narrative spaces. First, they allow virtual spaces to be mobile, bringing them into the physical world. Second, when used to play games, they free the game from the game board or the computer screen, making it possible to use the city space as the game domain." from Are cell phones new media? by Adriana de Souza e Silva [Related]

UPDATED

I'll be leaving the San Jose Mercury Newsnext month to work on a citizen-journalism project.

I hope to pull together something useful that helps enable -- and demonstrates -- the emerging grassroots journalism that I wrote about in my recent book. Something powerful is happening, it's in the early stages and I have a chance to help figure this out.

I'm not ready to discuss the specifics yet, mainly because I have many more ideas than I could possibly try to put into practice at this point -- and we're early in the process of working out the venture's actual form.

Keep in mind that this project is now in what's known as the seed stage. It's not an operating entity yet, though I expect it will be. But we're some time away from that, with many issues to resolve in the meantime.

A friend who knew about this ahead of time asked the question I'm sure some others will ask: "Are you nuts?" I hope not. Of course, I amleaving one of the best gigs in journalism. The Merc has been incredibly good to me. There are so many talented and good-hearted folks here.

I hate the idea of leaving. But I'd hate not trying this even more.

Obviously, there will be much more to say in the days and weeks ahead...

(Continued at Dan Gillmor's eJournal)

(This seems like great news for us all. -kc.)

The Future Content Group researches imaging, machine vision, content classification and management, structured metadata, content delivery networks, content mediation, asset management, content coding and compression.

This document outlines how mash-ups can be made.

FeedSpeaker translates text RSS Feeds into badly spoken MP3 files.

Jinzora is a Web-based media streamer and local Media Jukebox, primarily designed to stream MP3s (but can be used for any media file that can stream from HTTP). Jinzora can be integrated into many CMSes, or run as a standalone application.

Some of the major features of Jinzora are:
- Streaming of media files using HTTP - generally MP3s
- Highly intuitive and visually appealing interface
- Dynamic creation or editing of MP3 ID3 tags
- On-the-fly creation of playlist from any level of the application - including random playlist generation
- Very Simple web-based installation - no database or external applications required - Fully Multi-lingual
- Released under GNU General Public License

The ACM Computers in Entertainment online magazine (http://www.acmcie.org) covers a wide range of theoretical and practical computer applications in the field of entertainment. It features video interviews of leading professionals. It publishes high-quality papers on the latest development in software, hardware, and business policies that improve existing mainstream entertainment and that create new genres of entertainment. The ACM magazine is seeking articles and research papers for an upcoming special issue on Interactive TV.  Deadline: December 31, 2004.

This past summer, I was building some new website interfaces (it's part of my day job) and thinking about TiVo's combination of power and simplicity in their interface and I got to thinking about all the things I wished I could ask someone about the TiVo UI but was afraid to ask. Then I realized I could track down someone at TiVo HQ and corner them for an interview. Thanks to a few designer friends in the Bay Area, I ended up speaking directly to the top, the head honcho of all that is TiVo User Experience, Margret Schmidt.

Margret was kind enough to answer ten questions about how TiVo's UI was originally developed, how new features are added, and how the sound UI came to be, among others. I'm grateful for TiVo and Margret taking the time to do this, so without further adieu, here's the interview:

(Continued at PVRBlog)

Fraunhofer Institute eggheads have invented a projector small enough to fit into a cell phone. The project uses a laser to zap your PowerPoint presentation one line at a time (but at very high speed). They're working on a version that's built on a chip the size of a sugar cube.

From Russell Beattie's always useful computer/communications Weblog I learned about Charlie Schick of Nokia who wrote about how he transferred content from his Nokia Lifeblog on a Windows XP computer to his Apple iPod (see below).



(Continued at Reiter's Camera Phone Report)

I know that people have done this in various capacities before, but I've not seen an updated list of late, so I'm going to put one together. This post will hereby be known as the "Newspapers with RSS" repository here at TMD. I'm going to list each newspaper and hyperlink to the page with the RSS feeds - or note how to find the feeds. At this point, the list is set up alphabetically.

As always, any suggestions are greatly appreciated in the comments section or via email.

[In Progress - 64 papers so far, currently through Kentucky]

(Continued at The Media Drop)

December 08, 2004

December 07, 2004

December 06, 2004