January 31, 2005

Viral handheld gaming feature(?)

Jurie Horneman tells us about Infected, a PlayStation Portable game that uses the platform's multiplayer wireless mode with a very innovative feature. As Tom Bramwell notes:

As well as a single-player mode, Infected will also take advantage of the PSP's wireless multiplayer functionality, and should put an interesting spin on things as, in addition to just blasting each other, players will be able to create a unique avatar which then spreads like a virus through the handhelds of players who lose to them. You'll then be able to check your rankings and see how far your virus has spread amongst your victims.

One shudders to think of the possibilities....

Via Clippings.reblog

Posted by yatta at 11:55 PM | Comments (0)
Ivy - A software bus
Ivy is a software bus designed at the French Centre d'Etudes de la Navigation Aérienne (CENA) and developed since 1996.

Ivy was designed by a research group in Human-Computer Interaction, with the goals of connecting applications written on different toolkits/languages/platforms (such as an OpenGL application on a SGI connected to a PerlTk application on a Linux box), while keeping it simple: no server to be lauched and supervised, a simplistic API, and a communication model compatible with classical event-based GUI progamming. We think we have somewhat reached our goal...
Posted by yatta at 11:54 PM | Comments (0)
Look Under The Radar For Innovation
: The most important line in a Saul Hansell look at search-engine one-upmanship may well be the kicker from Seth Goldstein of Majestic Research: "A lot of the real innovation is happening under the radar." While the big dogs bark back and forth, scrappy pups keep popping up all over the world.

Of course, real success for many of them means being acquired by one of the majors. The question becomes how long an innovative service can last on its own -- or how long its founders and/or backers are willing to put off that payday on the chance that it can make more on its own.

One fear: that some start-ups are falling into the bubble mentality of believing all they need is a good enough idea and the business model will follow.

Via PaidContent.org

Posted by yatta at 05:01 PM | Comments (0)
Who Owns the Content?

InformationWeek: People are starting Weblogs in growing numbers, but the owner of the content isn't always clear.

Via Micro Persuasion

Posted by yatta at 05:01 PM | Comments (0)
Holy crap. Podcasters. Got $299? Peep THIS deal.
A big condenser mic, twin handheld condensers, cables, tripod, headphones and monitors (speakers)... Normally $632.99, now, $299. That's a good deal for getting a bunch of starter hardware for the second generation podcaster. Only thing missing is a mixer/connection kit, but it's a good start for multi-people shows... (watch that compression, yo!) Musician's Friend - Musician's Friend Studio Bonus Bundle C (248149)
Posted by yatta at 05:01 PM | Comments (0)
Mobile broadband the 3G way

IPWireless CEO Chris Gilbert explains why standard-based solutions will outgun proprietary technologies, why WiMAX won’t cut it and why wireless broadband players need a handset strategy…". Gilbert talks about wireless broadband over different technologies, all bundled together with IP. An interesting interview, with a few pearls of wisdom.

“China’s TD-SCDMA…is about 95% the same as TD-CDMA - it’s got an “S” in it, which changes a few things.”

Via MocoNews.net

Posted by yatta at 05:01 PM | Comments (0)
A nationwide free speech zone

On his blog, Larry Lessig writes about an astonishing display of democracy and free culture in Brazil, where an entire nation is a free speech zone.

Via New Media Musings

Posted by yatta at 05:01 PM | Comments (0)
89% of all handsets will come with a camera in 2009
InfoTrends: 860 million camera phones in 2009; 89% of handset market
Technology research company InfoTrends says more than 860 million camera phones will be sold in 2009, comprising 89 percent of all handsets shipped. This compares to 178 million camera phone shipments in 2004. InfoTrends predicts camera phones will account for 227 billion photos captured in 2009, more than the combined photos from digital and film cameras.
A quote from the original source: Mobile Imaging: Technology Trends, Consumer Behavior, and Business Strategies:
Society is moving into an era of ubiquitous imaging that offers the ability to capture, store, send, print, and view an image anywhere," commented Jeff Hayes, a Director at InfoTrends/CAP Ventures. "We believe mobile imaging will have the kind of impact that e-mail had on document communications in the 1990s. We project that the total number of images captured on camera phones will reach 227 billion by 2009, exceeding the number of photos taken on digital still cameras and film cameras combined!"

Via All about Mobile Life

Posted by yatta at 05:01 PM | Comments (0)
TiVo Home Media Engine SDK
TiVo's developer tools on SourceForge
HME is the code name for TiVo’s powerful new open platform for applications that are displayed and controlled by broadband-connected TiVo Series2 DVRs. HME applications are written using the Java programming language and can run on home PC’s or remote servers hosted by TiVo. At this time, HME applications can not control any of the TiVo DVR’s scheduling, recording, or video playback capabilities. Developers use the HME software developer kit (SDK) to create these applications. The SDK is released under the Common Public License (CPL).

(Also check out PVRBlog's summary of HME -kc.)

Posted by yatta at 05:01 PM | Comments (0)
Distributed Journalism: An Example

The Daily Kos is looking into a White House correspondent with questionable bona fides. People in various places are contributing some reporting, and the results promise to be worth seeing, one way or the other.

Via Dan Gillmor on Grassroots Journalism, Etc.

Posted by yatta at 05:01 PM | Comments (0)
The Horizon Report

horizonreport.gif

Six Big Trends

The Horizon Report from New Media Centers is a annual project identifying key technologies that will inform teaching and learning in the next years. This year's edition highlights six areas: 1. Extended Learning 2. Ubiquitous Wireless 3. Intelligent Searching 4. Educational Gaming 5. Social Networks and Knowledge Webs 6. Context-Aware Computing/Augmented Reality.

The report includes a thorough discussion of each, plus links and other resources. Just a great resource. Go for it in PDF. [blogged by John on ratchet up!]

Via networked_performance

Posted by yatta at 05:01 PM | Comments (0)
10 Years: Looking Back, Looking Forward
I'm at the Poynter Institute this week for a seminar called Web+10. It's an examination on what we've learned (and haven't) in the first 10 years of the Web, and an attempt to harness the brainpower of some 40 new-media leaders and pioneers to come up with a prescription for the media industry in the next 10 years.

I celebrated my 10-year anniversary working in the online world about a year ago, and many media companies this year are looking back a decade to the start of their online operations. The Age newspaper just yesterday sent out a press release (...)

Entry continued...
Posted by yatta at 05:01 PM | Comments (0)
[cs/0412098] Automatic Meaning Discovery Using Google
"We propose a new method to extract semantic knowledge from the world-wide-web for both supervised and unsupervised learning using the Google search engine in an unconventional manner. The approach is novel in its unrestricted problem domain, simplicity of implementation, and manifestly ontological underpinnings. We give evidence of elementary learning of the semantics of concepts, in contrast to most prior approaches. The method works as follows: The world-wide-web is the largest database on earth, and it induces a probability mass function, the Google distribution, via page counts for combinations of search queries. This distribution allows us to tap the latent semantic knowledge on the web. Shannon's coding theorem is used to establish a code-length associated with each search query. Viewing this mapping as a data compressor, we connect to earlier work on Normalized Compression Distance. We give applications in (i) unsupervised hierarchical clustering, demonstrating the ability to distinguish between colors and numbers, and to distinguish between 17th century Dutch painters; (ii) supervised concept-learning by example, using Support Vector Machines, demonstrating the ability to understand electrical terms, religious terms, emergency incidents, and by conducting a massive experiment in understanding WordNet categories; and (iii) matching of meaning, in an example of automatic English-Spanish translation."
Posted by yatta at 05:01 PM | Comments (0)
The Mac Media Center Project
"This projects plans to develop a free Media Center application for the Apple Macintosh, bringing togther the power and intuitiveness of the Macs' built in applications under a simple interface, for use as part of a Home Theatre system."



The Mini was not designed to be a Media Center, but the Mac community isn't going to wait around for Apple to see the light. I have to hand it to these folks for their ingenuity. Be sure to take a look at the GUI Gallery which showcases some very sleek navigation interface designs.

Via Digital Media Thoughts

Posted by yatta at 05:01 PM | Comments (0)
A9's Photos Violating People's Privacy?
While it looks like plenty of people are starting to have some fun with A9's new photo yellow pages feature, apparently not everyone thinks it's all that cool. A group of privacy advocates (including some of the same folks who objected to Gmail when it first launched) are apparently concerned that the site includes certain photos, including "abused women's shelters, abortion clinics and adult video stores." While the USA Today article suggests the problem is that the service makes them findable, that seems unlikely (if the place has an address, it was already quite findable -- and most of these places have no problem with being found). What could be a bigger concern is if the photos happen to clearly capture someone heading into one of these places who would prefer to keep that info private. On top of that, the article points to a variety mistakes, that suggest certain photos are of places they aren't. For the most part, it seems like the concerns are a bit misplaced -- but A9 may want to have a simple procedure to get a photo yanked -- especially since people are digging up amusing photos of people caught entirely unaware.

Via Techdirt

Posted by yatta at 05:01 PM | Comments (0)
Are Parents More Internet Savvy Than Teens?
The headline about a new study concerning how parents and teenagers do things on the web suggests that, contrary to popular belief, parents are more tech savvy than their teenaged children. The details, however, don't actually say that. What the study does show, is that teens tend to get bored and give up on poorly designed websites, while parents tend to take it slow and force themselves to go through the whole thing. That doesn't sound like internet-savvy -- that just sounds like teenagers have a shorter attention spam and that they've learned it's not worth wasting time on badly designed websites (which might actually suggest they're more internet savvy). That doesn't make for as good a headline though.

Via Techdirt

Posted by yatta at 05:01 PM | Comments (0)
Thai candidate says voters told to photograph their votes

A Thai political candidate says other candidates are buying voters and asking them to take camera phone photos of their ballots to prove they voted correctly, according to an article in MCOT 1.

The article says, "Mr. Aree Pholrattanasit said that the high-tech method of vote buying had already been piloted during advance election held during the last weekend in the province's Thung Yai district, where young people used the photographic evidence of their ballot choice to receive money from the candidates purchasing their votes.

Via Reiter's Camera Phone Report

Posted by yatta at 05:01 PM | Comments (0)
del.icio.us tag stemmer
This page uses Porter stemming to show where you've made different del.icio.us tags with the same English word stem. You can use it to help clean up your personal fauxonomy.
Posted by yatta at 05:01 PM | Comments (0)
Show Us the Numbers

Today brings yet another story about how Hollywood's finances are better than ever. Ross Johnson's story ("Video Sales Abroad Are Good News in Hollywood. Shhh.") in today's New York Times tells us that the studios are keeping their overseas DVD sales secret, so as not to interfere with the industry's tradition of lowballing its revenue.

"For a long time, the film business was a single-digit business on investment return," said Charles Roven, the producer of "Batman Begins" from Warner Brothers, a division of Time Warner. "Now, because of home video, it's a low double-digit business, and the studios want to make sure it doesn't go back into the single-digit business."

lowballing has enabled the industry to limit its payouts to stars whose contracts call for a share of the profits. As the story reports, that battle goes on.

These days, of course, surging profits would be inconvenient in another way. They would undercut the industry's rent-seeking in Washington, which relies on a narrative in which technology destroys the industry's revenue stream. If the technology problem is really as bad as the industry says, then it ought to show up in the sales numbers.

The music industry has opened its books, reporting sales and revenue numbers that fell for several years before rebounding slightly in 2004. By all reports, the movie industry is still more profitable than ever.

It may turn out that the net effect of technology on the industry is neutral, or even positive. If so, then no expansion of copyright law is needed, and a mild contraction may even be in order. Remember, the goal of copyright is not to maximize the profits of any one industry, but to foster creativity by regulating just enough to ensure an adequate incentive to create. If the industry wants to argue that incentives are inadequate now, or will be in the future, then it will have to show us the numbers.

The stars fight lowballing by demanding a detailed audit of industry revenue reports. We should demand no less.

Via Freedom to Tinker

Posted by yatta at 05:01 PM | Comments (0)
Comparing J2ME Multimedia Options
This article presents the latest developments in MMAPI: the new security considerations raised in MMAPI 1.1, the differences between MMAPI and the MIDP 2.0 Media API, J2ME Wireless Toolkit 2.2 support for MMAPI, and JSR 234, Advanced Multimedia Supplements.
Posted by yatta at 05:01 PM | Comments (0)
RSS For Australian TV.

eBroadcast Australia has a TV Guide syndication in Australia link on its new look site. It doesn’t link directly to the XML/RSS feed, but does have an interesting announcement.

Some of the entertainment content you see throughout the eBroadcast consumer network is available for licensing. Online portals, print publications, mobile networks, consumer devices, phone services, personal homepages and education organisations around the nation are just some of the mediums that have found our content useful, relevant and extremely cost effective (and in some cases, free).

All content available for syndication is produced in-house right here in Australia by our own expert team using technology developed over the past decade.

For more information regarding eBroadcast’s entertainment content, please make an enquiry.

It’s a shame that it’s not just available, but it’s a neat move in the right direction, and we’d be keen to know what uses would be free.

Via Clippings.reblog

Posted by yatta at 05:01 PM | Comments (0)
Vodafone and Toshiba's Motion Sensing (TV-receiving) Phone

tosh603-ov.jpg imageVodafone Japan is getting two new Toshiba handsets, the V603T and V603SH, both of which are clamshells. The V603SH has a motion sensor, allowing users to wave it around to perform basic commands (not unlike using mouse gestures)—neat, but ultimately pointless, I fear. At the very least, it's golden, which should be worth some price premium. Its companion V603T appears to be essentially the same phone minus the motion sensing—in its case, Toshiba is focusing on the ability to pick-up analog television broadcasts (something the V603SH can do, as well).

Both phone will be available in February in a Japan near you.

Vodafone K.K. launches motion, tv phones [MobileTracker]

Posted by yatta at 05:01 PM | Comments (0)
Media blogs are everywhere
I remember the good old days when just a few of us -- Romenesko, NewsBlues, TV Barn and Lost Remote -- would "blog" about the media. Now there are dozens and dozens of media blogs. And today, MediaBistro launches five more: FishBowlNY, FishBowlLA, FishBowlDC, MBToolBox and UnBeige.
  • Plus: Gawker Media launches two new blogs
  • Posted by yatta at 05:01 PM | Comments (0)
    Blog tool outsourcing questioned

    Henning Koch at Software will save us questions the outsourcing of feeds to Feedburner, and uses his own experience with MP3.com for comparison. A decent question that goes for any blog resource that is outsourced (ie not hosted yourself): there is never any guarantee that the service will always be there, and promoting, or even worse, investing content and money into these services comes with an inherent risk. Whilst the likelihood of bigger sites going under is unlikely, it’s still not impossible, and an important question to be asked when establishing and running a blog.

    And yes, this site is 100% self hosted and run: it’s a control thing. I never have to seriously concern myself with the ownership or reliability of the domain nor TOS with content (I have a very open host), only that I have reliable hosting.

    (via Scripting News)

    Via The Blog Herald: more blog news more often

    Posted by yatta at 10:01 AM | Comments (0)
    Hitachi brings IDE to 1.8in HDD line

    Hitachi's hard drive operation has added 40GB and 60GB models to its line of 1.8in hard drives, which it has refreshed with an IDE interface the better to broaden its appeal from MP3 player manufacturers and the like to notebook makers.

    The 20 and 30GB models launched last September had ZIF interfaces; the new models support Parallel ATA-100 at all drives capacities.

    Posted by yatta at 10:01 AM | Comments (0)

    January 30, 2005

    Firefox 1.1 arrival delayed
    If you've been eagerly awaiting the arrival of FireFox 1.1, you'll have to wait a little longer.

    "In a move that I would hope should surprise exactly nobody, we're pushing back 1.1 by a little bit because of the realities of the work remaining to be done (I have a lot of patches that need to be landed, tested, bugfixed, there are other patches from other people to which the same applies; also we need a reasonable stabilization period and a resurrection of the l10n infrastructure in order to do a release of similar quality and range to 1.0.)," says lead engineer Ben Goodger.
    Posted by yatta at 07:01 PM | Comments (0)
    Blogs covering Iraq election

    One of the best blogs covering the Iraq elections is Friends of Democracy, which is offering excellent "ground-level election news from the people of Iraq," including photos and even a Webcast.

    (Note: Check back as this post will be updated)

    CyberJournalist has a pretty comprehensive list of blogs covering the election. -kc.

    Via CyberJournalist.net

    Posted by yatta at 07:01 PM | Comments (0)
    Selling Blogvertising on eBay

    Blogger Russell Buckley of The Mobile Technology Weblog has taken blog advertising to its next logical step: selling blog ad placement on eBay.

    As an experiment, he is doing just that, offering a month of premium banner placement on the auction site.

    Advertising on blogs is going to be the next big thing, in my opinion. It offers very tight targeting, no wastage and offers the same accountability that has resulted in online advertising growing like crazy in the last few years. All that's needed is a way to connect the buyers and sellers and there you are.

    roblem to manage will be how a professional media buyer manages the millions of potential blogs in the inventory. This will require a whole new skill set that doesn't really exist right now.

    As of this writing, eleven bids has brought the price to $51.00.

    Good luck, Russell!

    Via Smart Mobs

    Posted by yatta at 07:01 PM | Comments (0)
    issues of culture in ethnoclassification/folksonomy

    I love the conversations that have emerged recently on folksonomy/ethnoclassification/tagging/ontology (see del.icio.us tag folksonomy for a good collection of them). Of course, i’m particularly a fan of skeptical posts that raise the social consequences flag (thank you Liz and Rebecca). I wanted to bring up a few things about culture that i feel haven’t been really addressed yet. (My apologies if i’ve missed them.)

    First, don’t forget Lakoff’s Women, Fire and Dangerous Things. Classification schemes are always culturally dependent based on how people organize information. There is nothing universal about the terms that we use, the relationship between those terms and the meanings behind them. Many terms are contested, used differently by different populations for different reasons and otherwise inconsistent. (Take a look at Raymond Williams’ Keywords if you want to see how different socio-cultural terms are employed over time in Western culture alone.)

    What makes the tagging phenomenon utterly fascinating is that there is a collective action component to it. We love to see how people will come to common consensus on relevant terms. But part of what makes it valuable is that, right now, most of the people tagging things have some form of shared cultural understandings. The “in the know” groups using these services are very homogenous and often have shared values and thus offers valuable related links. This helps explain why Rebecca Blood is concerned about the MLK tags - they signify a lack of shared common ground. In tagging, quality is not just about ‘accuracy’, but about what cultural assumptions dominate. This is also the problem that motivated my earlier post on digital xenophobia.

    The translation problem alone offers insight into the problems of collective action tagging (see Benjamin). There are tons of words that cannot be simply translated literally both for linguistic and cultural reasons (such as my colleague’s favorite - ohrwurm from German or any number of metaphors). And there are tons of words with multiple and conflicting meanings. This is why reading a translation of something is never the same - it’s not just a matter of linguistic translation, but cultural translation. That’s almost impossible.

    Flipped around, the culture of the people tagging says a lot about how they use language that is quite valuable. We might want to see everything with a particular tag using the sense that we mean.

    Posted by yatta at 07:01 PM | Comments (0)
    Citizens media platforms

    In a discussion on the online-news list about citizens media content management systems, several writers have nominated some open source systems worthy of consideration.

    Travis Smith points to Opensourcecms.com, which lets you try all the open source CMSs, front end and admin side, before you install.

    Also, Travis says, keep an eye on J-Learning, which will launch
    soon with helpful info about this and other aspects of hyperlocal
    community media. My company is building it as a partner site to the recently launched J-Newvoices.

    Timothy Brown says: Check out Mamboserver.

    Kpaul Mallasch recommends Scoop, which powers Kuro5hin, and CMSmatrix.

    And Adam Gaffin recommends Drupal — which we'll be using for Ourmedia.org.

    Posted by yatta at 07:01 PM | Comments (0)
    EdCone.com: Is Greensboro's blog revolution over-hyped?
    Is Greensboro's blog revolution over-hyped? In terms of dreams realized, sure. In terms of possibilities recognized, not at all.

    Certainly we've gotten a lot of attention for what's going on at the daily paper and within the independent blog community. My newspaper column tomorrow touches on that subject. Is Greensboro changing the face of journalism as we know it, and doing it yesterday? No. The real world doesn't work that way.

    But what's happening here is interesting precisely because it is happening in the real world, where change is more conditional and the circumstances that allow it can be fragile.
    Posted by yatta at 07:01 PM | Comments (0)
    Antenna Design Software

    RF Toolbox - Dipole, Yagi, Vertical, Cubic quad, Log periodic, J-pole, helix, helical,coil, and transmission line design package for the Macintosh
    From the site:
    RF Toolbox is an antenna design and electronics/electrical tool package

    Posted by yatta at 07:01 PM | Comments (0)
    Kill P2P to Save TV?

    That's what the National Association of Broadcasters (NAB) proposes, says Fred von Lohmann in a Deep Links post analyzing the organization's brief [PDF] in MGM v. Grokster:


    [NAB's] take on the case? P2P must be banned, lest it erode the profits of broadcasters. ...Funny, we recently heard the same thing from certain broadcasters in the fight over the "broadcast flag" regulations -- digital television technology must be locked down, all in the name of protecting ad-supported TV. In fact, they went so far as to threaten to stop broadcasting digital TV unless they got their way.

    roadcasters didn't make that puerile threat in their brief: "Unless you ban P2P, we'll stop broadcasting." Because if they had, then we could have called their bluff, taken away their free spectrum, and given it to someone who is willing to play. ...

    Oh, and did I mention that 85% of Americans now pay for their television programming? And that some of the most innovative programming to hit TV is produced by HBO, which manages without ads? Makes you wonder whether it's a good idea for the Supreme Court to start regulating Internet technologies to protect one, and only one, business model.

    Via Copyfight

    Posted by yatta at 07:01 PM | Comments (0)
    XML programming Java Tutorial

    XML programming in Java technology, Part 1

    Posted by yatta at 07:01 PM | Comments (0)
    Five Way$ to Make Money with Your Blog

    The Washington Post breaks out five ways to make money with a weblog: Google Adsense, BlogAds, affiliate programs, tip jars and selling schwag. Of course, regulars here know I feel there are other ways.

    Via Micro Persuasion

    Posted by yatta at 07:01 PM | Comments (0)
    Fake ads
    Polobutton
    The New York Times says that VW is upset about the fake ad showing a suicide bomber and a Polo. I'm sure everyone has seen a reference to this in their local papers. (In a Japanese newspaper, they had a hand-drawn story-board of the ad.)

    For your reference, Wizbang has links to the video.

    And just for old time's sake, here are the snopes.com pages for the Ford SportKa and the Nokia fake ads. (They have links to the videos.)

    People used a lot of flash and video during the elections to express their views online. With more bandwidth and easier and easier video editing, video as a form of expression will continue to grow. It's interesting how the TV ad as a form is perfect for twisted humor because it is designed to be short and strong and people are used to the format.

    Jeff Jarvis has blogged his thoughts on this.

    Comment - TrackBack

    Via Joi Ito's Web

    Posted by yatta at 07:01 PM | Comments (0)
    SXSW Interactive Sessions planned

    SXSW Interactive Conference is March 11-15

    Activist Technology: Political activists are beginning to depend on technology, especially email and web-based tools (weblogs, wikis, forums, etc.), and we're seeing a community of developers who are focused on building social and political technologies that activists can use. This panel is a discussion of available tools vs. activist requirements: what's there, and what's needed.

    • Kathy Mitchell, Consumer Union
    • Dan Robinson - E-Volve
    • Ren Bucholz - EFF
    • Shabbir Safdar - Mindshare Interactive Campaigns
    • Erin Rogers - Union of Concerned Scientists
    • Amalia Anderson - League of Rural Voters

    Deliberative Democracy and Interactive Technology: How can technology mediate discussions, and how do we avoid the "echo chamber" - how do we facilitate dialog between people with sometimes radically differing viewpoints? Can technology help overcome the current political polarization in the USA?

    • Jerry Michalski, Sociate
    • Kaliya, Identity Commons, Planetwork, and Integrative Activism
    • Tom Atlee, author of The Tao of Democracy
    • Lars Torres, AmericaSpeaks
    • Nancy White, Full Circle
    • Jed Miller, ACLU

    Are Political Parties Obsolete? If, using Internet applications, we can form and sustain coalitions in a more ad hoc, distributed way do we really need political parties? Do parties, with their top-down "command and control" structures and commitment to specific ideologies, constrain democratic process?

    • Dan Robinson, E-Volve
    • Glenn Smith, Drive Democracy
    • Jon Lebkowsky, Polycot
    • Andy Rappaport, August Capital
    • Christian Crumlish, author of The Power of Many

    How to think about democracy and technology. Direct or "pure" democracy is often considered unworkable. It doesn't scale well, and it's difficult for the general population to make decisions that require specialized study. Its opponents relate democracy to "mob rule" or "tyranny of the majority." Do pervasive Internet connectivity and technologies for discussion, debate, and advocacy make the concept of pure democracy more viable? Will emerging social technologies facilitate a more democratic system of government? What is the appropriate role of technology in political campaigns, issues advocacy, and the election process?

    • Jon Lebkowsky, Polycot
    • Aldon Hynes - Center for Investigative Online Research
    • Jerry Michalski - Sociate
    • Mitch Ratcliffe - Internet/Media Strategies Inc.
    • Rebecca MacKinnon - Blogger Corps
    • Ethan Zuckerman - Berkman Center for Internet and Society

    Via Clippings.reblog

    Posted by yatta at 07:01 PM | Comments (0)
    NY Times - Steal This Show

    The New York Times does a wide-ranging article on PVR technologies including profiles on the technologies and people behind BitTorrent, Videora, MythTV, and KnoppMyth.

    First popularized by TiVo and ReplayTV about five years ago, the DVR gave consumers a new degree of control: instead of being at the mercy of the broadcast schedule or VCR's, they could now be their own television programmers, scheduling shows at their convenience, pausing live television and skipping easily past commercials. Smith Barney estimates that though only a little more than 6 million Americans now use DVR's, by 2010 nearly half of American television households, or 58 million homes, will have them.

    The article also touches upon the Electronic Frontier Foundation's Television Liberation Digital Front which is working towards defeating the FCC's broadcast flag, which will restrict ways in which media content can be used.

    The article closes with some quotes from television company executives, who are planning for a pay-per-view future, think that people will pay $1 per TV show (without commercials) and $.50 per TV show (with commercials.) What do you think about the future of TV viewing and pay-per-view? Would you pay per show?

    The New York Times> Steal This Show

    Thanks to the New York Times Link Generator for a weblog-safe link.

    Via PVRblog

    Posted by yatta at 07:01 PM | Comments (0)
    Listening to podcasts in a car?

    Charlie Nesson writes: "Dave, I've started an audioblog, and want to persuade a friend of mine to do likewise. He asks what it takes to listen in a car. Can you help me on this?"

    Charlie, that's great news! I totally look forward to listening to your podcast. In the meantime, there are three ways to listen in your car.
    A picture named cassetteAdapter.jpg1. I use an inexpensive device made by Sony that connects into the cassette player in my car. On one end it's got a cassette, with no moving parts, and on the other, a mini jack that plugs into the MP3 player. Just plug it in and play. The sound is pretty good. They sell them at Target and Best Buy.
    2. Another choice is a low-power FM transmitter that connects into the player and broadcasts the signal at a fixed frequency. You then tune your radio to that frequency. The most popular seems to be made by Belkin, they're slightly more expensive than the cassette solution, but are supposed to be more durable, but I've not tried it so I don't know.
    3. The most expensive and most elegant (it might require buying a new car!) is to use your car's built-in iPod dock, which functions much like the desktop dock, but get this -- the car's audio controls work on the iPod. This has to be the safest way to listen while driving. However, this is not a standardized interface, and I'd guess Apple has a patent in there somewhere, so you're pretty much locked into Apple if you go this route. But hey -- people don't seem to mind, so go with the flow.
    As they say on the Inkernet -- your mileage may vary! ;->
    Posted by yatta at 07:01 PM | Comments (0)
    Rip. Sample. Mash. Countdown.

    Since we noticed sta(cc)ato another CC radio show has started: The Revolution. After three regular shows, the Revolution is already producing a special: Rip. Sample. Mash. Countdown. Each week until the Freestyle Mix and Militia Mix contests end (February 12), the Revolution will play new entries that have been rated four stars (of five) or higher by the CC Mixter community.

    Listen now.

    Via Creative Commons Blog - rss

    Posted by yatta at 07:01 PM | Comments (0)
    World's biggest search engine?

    WebProNews: Wiki-Based Search Engine Claims To Be Web's Biggest.

    Via Social Media

    Posted by yatta at 07:01 PM | Comments (0)
    A $100 People’s PC

    Red Herring (the new one) reports that Nicholas Negroponte, author of Being Digital and the Wiesner Professor of Media Technology at MIT, has roped in Advanced Micro Devices, Google, Motorola, Samsung, and News Corp. to build a $100 PC which will have a 14-inch color screen, AMD chips, and will run Linux software and will be sold in emerging markets. An engineering prototype is nearly ready, with alpha units expected by year’s end and real production around 18 months from now, Negroponte told RH and they will be shipped directly to education ministries, with China first on the list and the minimum order will be a million units. I think this will be subsidized product, because even the back of the envelope calculations show that this cannot be built for $100. I still like the vision behind it. For nearly a year, I have been harping on this stuff.

    Via Om Malik on Broadband

    Posted by yatta at 07:01 PM | Comments (0)
    Redefining the Language of Journalism
    The language of journalism is changing. The terms that define the components of the craft are in flux. The vocabulary of newspapers is under challenge by both critics of the industry’s rigidity and by evangelists for new forms of journalism. The result: A journalistic Babel where confusion reigns.

    I have been in a lot of newsrooms in the last year for Tomorrow’s Workforce, some as large as this one and some as small as this one. All desired to improve their journalism in some way, but, apart from their individual strengths or weaknesses, all struggled with two ingredients critical for change: A common definition for success and the institutional means to arrive at one.

    In other words, the editors and reporters working at these newspapers want to change their newspapers, but their vocabulary – words like “story” and “beat” and “reader” – refers to forms and conceptions that, while still valuable, are ridden with journalistic baggage and lack the flexibility to embrace new meanings.

    Specifically, faced with questions like “how should we ‘cover’ the city council?” or “what does the education ‘beat’ look like?’ or “what components should a news ‘story’ have?”, newspaper journalists have difficulty imagining non-traditional, even bold answers using these traditional terms.
    Posted by yatta at 07:01 PM | Comments (0)
    You'll need those Adidas sneakers to win the game


    Adidas and game developer Eidos have partnered together to promote adidas’ hyperride shoe. Eidos has apparently been working on a game based on the urban sport of free-running called … ‘Freerunning’! The game will be available for the PSP across Europe in March (and later also for the Playstation console).
    In case you didn’t know, and I didn’t, free-running is an “urban sport” that consists of jumping around from building to building … definitely more fun to do it on the PSP, as far as I am concerned. By using the hyperride shoe the player’s performance in the game will be enhanced; while the adidas brand has been seen in videogames before, this is the first time that a product directly affects the outcome of the game.
    BTW, Footlocker has the exclusive rights to sell the shoe.

    Seen on Brand Republic

    Via Popgadget: Personal Tech for Women

    Posted by yatta at 07:01 PM | Comments (0)
    Photobloggers Find Permanence in Pages of Full-Color Photography Magazine

    San Francisco couple Derek and Heather Powazek Champ have launched JPG Magazine, targeting photobloggers who also want to offer their work in print.

    The magazineis being published using Lulu, an on-demand publishing tool that offers full-color, print on demand paperbacks.

    Photographers can submit photos to the JPG Magazine web site for consideration. The Powazeks, then lay out the magazine and upload the files to Lulu, and set the price for each issue.

    “For us, Lulu was the perfect solution. They handle all the boring business parts (printing, shipping, billing), which frees up to concentrate on the fun part - making a magazine we love,” explains Derek Powazek. “The other thing we like about Lulu is that they share our interest in online communities, which is what the Internet is really about. We couldn’t be more pleased with the quality of the magazine and the feedback we’ve received.”

    The first edition of JPG Magazine showcases 31 photographers interpretations of the word ‘Origin,’ and each subsequent edition will also focus on a theme. One image in the first issue captures a newborn’s startled expression as he takes his first breath; another captures the crispness of the sky seconds before sunset. There is also an interview with Emilie Valentine, possibly the first photoblogger, as well as a special spread by featured photographer Noah Grey. Plans call for JPG Magazine to be printed quarterly through Lulu. The Powazeks are currently accepting submissions for the next edition under the theme ‘Lost.’

    Via The Blog Herald: more blog news more often

    Posted by yatta at 07:01 PM | Comments (0)
    A fatal infection

    I would urge readers to drop the baby, turn off the oven, sit down and read this MIT paper on viral networking.

    In a nutshell, it describes the future of mesh networks. There are two core results:

    • Throughput increases with node density. More nodes add to capacity, not divide it.
    • Latency is not a problem.
    This is the E=mc2 of communications. It means that fibre to the home and so on are just icing on the cake. The lower bound for the future of connectivity is going to be damned high wherever humans or their powered objects congregate.

    It means the end game is already pre-determined. Centralised telecom won’t exist in its current form. Don’t hold long-dated bonds in network operators or their equipment suppliers.

    The caveat? Getting this into reality is, as they say, non-trivial. You have to make it scale in a world where bad actors may be at play. You have to get all the non-functional stuff right, like battery life. We could be talking anything from years to decades. It’s as big a jump as E=mc2 to the atom bomb — the Manhattan Project of communications.

    But the theory is rock solid, and the future inevitable. You’ve been warned.

    Via Telepocalypse

    Posted by yatta at 07:01 PM | Comments (0)
    Verizon Chooses Microsoft TV
    Verizon plans to formally announce on Monday that it will use Microsoft's television technology in the launch of its FiOS TV service this year. The software maker's platform initially will be used to provide an interactive program guide, high-definition television, digital video recording and video-on-demand. Verizon is now the third major telephone company to help fulfill Microsoft's vision of climbing into the TV business. SBC signed a $400 million deal with Microsoft back in November while BellSouth has announced trials with the technology.

    Via Broadbandreports

    Posted by yatta at 07:01 PM | Comments (0)

    January 28, 2005

    Announcing Webjay version 1
    Congrats Lucas
    "I've been quiet for the past couple weeks because I have been working furiously to finish a major rewrite of the Webjay.org front page.

    You can now play items and playlists right off the browse listings; songs are listed along with the playlist; there are ratings for items according to how many playlisters have linked to them; there's a listing for most popular items in a playlist and for most recent; the look is a lot sexier; load time should be much better; you can now find out everybody who linked to an item, and the first person to playlist a hit gets credit for the discovery.

    I hope you'll dig it."
    Posted by yatta at 05:01 PM | Comments (0)
    Sony Realizes The PSP Should Be The New Walkman
    While Sony's new attempt at an MP3 Walkman has been a pretty obvious failure, it appears that a lightbulb has gone off with someone at the company -- recognizing that their new portable gaming platform, the PSP could be "the new walkman." It certainly fits with the idea that video games are the new radio as a way of promoting songs. So, now, it appears Sony's plan is to build a music download store specifically for the PSP, suggesting that you won't need an iPod at all, since the PSP is also a gaming machine. Of course, it sounds like Sony might not have really learned the lessons they claimed to have learned recently. From the article here, it sounds like the service is being designed to only work with the PSP. That is, it's not really a general downloadable music store, but a music store where all your music remains on that particular device. That's not going to set the world on fire any time soon.
    Posted by yatta at 05:01 PM | Comments (0)
    In Conversation

    brightonscreen2sm.gifFrom Street to Chatroom

    When live and located, In Conversation provided the means for individuals in the street and on the Internet to engage in a live dialogue with each other. This work by British artist Susan Collins aimed to examine the boundaries and social customs of distinctly different kinds of public spaces - the street and the Internet/chatroom-each with its own established rules of engagement.

    Passers-by encountered an animated mouth projected onto the pavement and, through loudspeakers, could hear voices triggered by internet users trying to strike up a conversation. When the pedestrians responded, a concealed microphone and surveillance camera transmitted the responses to the website via a live video stream (webcast). Through the website, online visitors could view the surveillance video and hear the people on the street. They could type messages and send them 'live' to the installation where they were converted into speech and broadcast to the street through loudspeakers.

    Via networked_performance

    Posted by yatta at 05:01 PM | Comments (0)
    The MPAA Releases Their Dream Tool


    Go to RespectCopyrights.org, where you can now download Parent FileScan

    Parent File Scan software helps consumers check whether their computers have peer-to-peer software and potentially infringing copies of motion pictures and other copyrighted material. Removing such material can help consumers avoid problems frequently caused by peer-to-peer software. The information generated by the software is made available only to the program’s user, and is not shared with or reported to the MPAA or any other body.

    Talk about cognitive dissonance. p2pnet reports that mostly it flags all media files as potentially infringing. And after all, aren’t most of the “problems frequently caused by peer-to-peer software” the lawsuits that one faces? Seems like there might be other ways to limit those pesky lawsuits.

    Oops - wait a minute – that’s only supposed to be alluded to in the press releases about lawsuits and public “education,” not in writeups about “helpful” software.

    Anyway, you might get that if you elected to read the EULA:

    (Continued at Furdlog)

    Posted by yatta at 05:01 PM | Comments (0)
    A Big Opportunity for the Smallest Screen

    Wireless review has a good article on mobile video which points out the irony of new dedicated video technologies designed to offload video content from 3G networks, when the main benefit of 3G was seen as its ability for video delivery. The article compares Qualcomm’s MediaFLO technology with the more widely used DVB-H technology, as well as MobiTV.

    And for anyone still doubting the commercial viability of mobile TV at its most basic level, look no farther than the next La-Z-Boy. America is a nation of couch potatoes, and if anyone can intuitively grasp the intrinsic value of making television mobile, it’s this country.

    nds back and considers media consumption more broadly, in the U.S. television sets are on an average of 4.5 hours a day,” Lorbeck said. “This is a behavior we don’t have to teach.” So there’s always the possibility mobile television will help by getting people out and walking while watching sitcoms…

    Via MocoNews.net

    Posted by yatta at 05:01 PM | Comments (0)
    No Ads for the Well-Heeled
    No one in my family watches TV commercials because there's been a TiVo in our house for several years. (The fast-forward button is worn way down.) Now, we're adding Sirius satellite radio service, so we'll be rid of radio commercials; Sirius offers 65 channels of commercial-free music.

    As digital video recorders and subscription satellite radio spread to more and more households in the years ahead, this is going to have a profound effect on broadcast advertising, of course. We often talk here about product placement as one alternative as people watch fewer TV commercials.

    But I wonder if (...)

    Entry continued...
    Posted by yatta at 05:01 PM | Comments (0)
    EFF Announces Endangered Gizmos List

    Here is one of the reasons I've been relatively scarce of late -- we at EFF have been working on a brand new campaign to demonstrate the many ways that the copyright cartel is spoiling the environment for innovation:

    FCC Chairman Michael Powell calls TiVo "God's machine," and its devotees have been known to declare, "You can take my TiVo when you pry it from my cold, dead fingers!" But suppose none of us had ever been given the opportunity to use or own a TiVo -- or, for that matter, an iPod? Suppose instead that Hollywood and the record companies hunted down, hobbled, or killed these innovative gizmos in infancy or adolescence, to ensure that they wouldn't grow up to threaten the status quo?

    gy the entertainment industry is using to control the next generation of TiVos and iPods. Its arsenal includes government-backed technology mandates, lawsuits, international treaties, and behind-the-scenes negotiations in seemingly obscure technology standards groups. The result is a world in which, increasingly, only industry-approved devices and technologies are "allowed" to survive in the marketplace.

    This is bad news for innovation and free competition, but it also threatens a wide range of activities the entertainment conglomerates have no use for -- everything from making educational "fair" use of TV or movie clips for a classroom presentation, to creating your own Daily Show-style video to make a political statement, to simply copying an MP3 file to a second device so you can take your music with you.

    Rather than sit back and watch as promising new technologies are picked off one-by-one, EFF has created the Endangered Gizmos List to help you defend fair use and preserve the environment for innovation.

    For more on precisely these themes, check out:

    Via Copyfight

    Posted by yatta at 05:01 PM | Comments (0)
    Sell Sell Sell

    The first-ever Advertising in Games Forum represents, I think, a sad trend. I'm not one of those anti-advertising purists. I enjoy many ads on TV, I think they have a place in our culture, and I think kids can be taught to be savvy about them.

    But I can't help comparing games to other media. Product placement is a big deal in film - there are people who get upset about it. And there was at least a stir in the publishing industry when it was reported that Fay Weldon was paid an undisclosed sum by the Italian jewelry company to write "The Bulgari Connection." I wonder, was that book cheaper for Weldon fans because they were essentially reading just one big ad? Are the games going to be cheaper for the consumers if they're sponsored by Coca-Cola? Somehow I doubt it.

    No one, however, bestirs herself for the cause of keeping videogames pure. I look forward, however, to the opportunity for devilish protest as we come up with clever hacks to either erase or transform brand logos. That could be fun. Virtual vandalism!

    Via game girl advance

    Posted by yatta at 05:01 PM | Comments (0)
    early adopters do not a market make

    Om Malik has a bunch of links to new survey data that supports information we have known for quite some time.

    A lot of people laughed at Steve Jobs when he introduced a hard-drive based music player nearly three years after the competitors introduced his. But his timing was right. It is the same issue at work here - TiVo and its ilk came out too soon. The Ipsos study finds that people would rather get a DVR from their cable or satellite (or soon telephone) company than buy a standalone product.

    Om Malik on Broadband » We Like TiVo, Just Don’t Want To Buy It

    Via PVRblog

    Posted by yatta at 05:01 PM | Comments (0)
    Being realistic about blogging

    Over at Slate, Jack Shafer put together a column this week about how blogging has had such an impact on the world of media in a short, short time - but that the people behind it and involved in it need to be more realistic about what the medium should - or can - be used / relied on for.  He penned this after his time at last week's "Blogging, Journalism & Credibility" conference, where he heard blogging pros Jeff Jarvis and Jay Rosen (to name a few) discuss the transformation of all things media and took into considering the requests that "new" media have for "old" media, much like some of the transparency suggestions I wrote about in an earlier Morph entry. 

    While all of the points were surely valid at the conference, it must be clear that blogging is not a) an overnight sensation or b) something that should be taken lightly - by people on either side of the tool.  The comparison Shafer makes to technology of a few decades ago with regard to the "self promotion" that bloggers perform is probably not so out of line as it might seem at first glance.  Unfortunately, the rest of the piece is under debate, as Rosen took Shafer's other characterizations and perceptions of what was going on - or said - at the conference to task this afternoon.  Rosen's post points out inconsistencies - or at the very least lack of clarity - as to statements he and other people at the event made.  It's almost like an article written by one source to goad another critical source into making comments on a whim, which is a frequently stated dig at bloggers.  (Also known as the "no editors" thing.)

    That being said, I wasn't at the event and didn't participate much in the online "festivities" so I can't counter or support the points made by Rosen or Shafer about it, specifically.  But while I might disagree with Shafer's thoughts on certain things, I can't say that the overpromotion or chin-uppedness of some bloggers or blog advocates isn't out of line occasionally.

    Via morph

    Posted by yatta at 05:01 PM | Comments (0)
    Site Update 2005.01.28: unmediated back up.

    So unmediated is back up after a weeklong server shift that coincided with a major flare up of yatta's repetitve stress injury. Thanks for being patient and thanks for sticking around. Fortunately about 25% of you are getting unmediated through RSS (Thank god Winer). We'll have to figure out a way to let the rest of you know we're back. We have a week's worth of aggregation to catch up on, so forgive us if we post something that's, like, sooooo four days ago.



    See you on the other side of twenty reblogged posts.

    Posted by yatta at 02:23 PM | Comments (1)
    Philips Semiconductors: Majority of its TV chips into cellular, not TVs

    Within ten years, the majority of Philips Semiconductors' television chips will be incorporated into cellular phones, not traditional television sets, says Leon Husson, executive vice president for the consumer businesses at Philips, in an article in The Register.

    Philips predicts that in 2013, half of cellular phones will offer TV capabilities. Out of 600 million cellular phones produced in 2013, 300 million will have TV.

    Via Reiter's Camera Phone Report

    Posted by yatta at 09:01 AM | Comments (0)
    Citizen, online journalism and media economics

    Poynter Online has two articles on the problems and potentials that newspapers face in making economics work in this new era of citizen journalism and online news.

    Posted by yatta at 09:01 AM | Comments (0)
    A map of the wireless world

    The mobile industry is growing fast, and there are just too many players in too many different sectors. Even guys like me who follow the business day in day out find it hard to figure out who’s doing what. Thankfully there is some help at hand. San Francisco based investment bank Rutberg & Company has come up with a map of the wireless world and breaks down nearly 2035 companies in 431 subsectors of wireless in an easy to use manner. Check it out here!

    Via Om Malik on Broadband

    Posted by yatta at 09:01 AM | Comments (0)
    Web things I could really use on my phone, part #47

    Amazon's A9 Yellow Pages search has been causing some buzz around the place, some of it from dear curmudgeonly friends suggesting it is nothing new and that there have been many projects like this over the last 6 or 7 years.

    I would suggest the difference is not that A9 have not just made the bear dance, but made it tango.

    The user-experience of this service is pretty fantastic compared to predecessors - easy-to-use and with plenty of opportunities for users to refine and feeback on the information.

    Inviting users to feedback on which is the most useful picture of a business or landmark is particularly clever, and could generate some fascinating insights for students of Kevin Lynch and other academics of urban persuasion!

    Also - the amazon feature of inviting customers to contribute images could lead to a mappr-like photographic annotation of the United States...

    I guess it goes without saying that this would become a must-have service if it could be ported sucessfully to the mobile phone, especially if you were trying to find places of high digital repute with pretty anonymous physical presences.

    Speaking of Prentis Hall...I tried this search, and wound up with the image above. It's lovely, but I'm not sure it would help anyone find the building. However, I now have concrete evidence that those urinals have been cleaned at least once since the early 1990s, since the paint is no longer on them. --dr

    Posted by yatta at 09:01 AM | Comments (0)
    DVFilm recommendations for working with HDR-FX1
    Marcus has posted a page on working with HDR-FX1.

    It addresses shooting modes, editing software, frame rates to shoot with, stuff like that.

    Via HD For Indies

    Posted by yatta at 09:01 AM | Comments (0)
    FCC abandons (relaxation of) media consolidation rules

    White House Drops Effort to Relax Media Ownership Rules

    This is great news. However, there's a cloud in this silver lining (see quote below). The FCC didn't want the SC to take the case because they want to keep hammering away at first amendment issues with the stringent indecency rules that Powell put into place. I'm sure there will be more to come.

    Officials said one reason the administration decided not to seek Supreme Court review is that some lawyers were concerned that the case could prompt the justices to review related First Amendment issues in a way that could undermine efforts by the commission to enforce indecency rules against television and radio broadcasters. Over the last year, the agency has issued a record number and size of fines, and has been pressed by some conservative and other advocacy groups to be more aggressive.

    Via Library Autonomous Zone

    Posted by yatta at 09:01 AM | Comments (0)
    Network in a Box
    Engadget has the scoop on Axentra’s Net-Box which is Windows, Mac and Linux compatible Internet gateway, firewall, 802.11g access point, and web/email/file server.

    It comes in two variations: 80GB for $499 and 160GB for $699, and it’s USB 2.0 compatible, so you can add external drives if that’s not enough storage for you. Engadget prediction: before you know it these combo boxes will be as common as WiFi routers.

    Features:
    • Set up your home network in just a few minutes with Net-Box's wizard driven setup
    • Easily manage your entire home network from one integrated web-based toolbox
    • Network all your computers together (Net-Box is Windows, Mac and Linux compatible)
    • Expand your network with built-in wireless (802.11g) access point features
    • Share your broadband connection among all your computers
    • Create and control your own email addresses
    • Keep hackers and spammers away from your network and your email
    • Host your website and publish your photos and videos to the world
    • Share your printers among all your computers
    • Backup and synchronize your desktop files with your Net-Box
    • Access your files from anywhere from any platform
    • Enjoy a fully integrated web-based productivity suite featuring email, contacts, calendar, file management, file sharing, photo publishing, notes and more!
    • Use any IMAP email clients and LDAP PIM applications such as MS-Outlook, MS-Entourage, Netscape, Eudora Mail, or Mozilla to connect to your Net-Box's email and address book server


    Perhaps a $500 community server with a $300 WiMax backbone could be a solution for schools, community centers, and other public or private community LANs, too.

    Via Daily Wireless

    Posted by yatta at 09:01 AM | Comments (0)
    Aggregation piracy and playlist artistry
    Another route, the one I'm interested in, is "stopping" piracy by better enabling these actions to be an integral part of the act of content creation itself.
    "So, I believe that creatively compiled aggregates of sites are on the verge of becoming interesting publications in their own right. I would point to Attention.xml, Kinja, and the new Technorati Tags all as examples indicating this trend, albeit each with different concepts about how to manage (centralized, decentralized, human or machine) the editorial and creative functions."
    Posted by yatta at 09:01 AM | Comments (0)
    Streaming goes mainstream
    New research reports huge growth in streaming media usage last year. Research and Markets says video streams rose by 80.7% in 2004. Internet radio use is up almost as much. The reasons are pretty obvious: more people have broadband at home as well as at work. Want to know the top ten sites? So did I, but they charge for that part of the report.

    Via Lost Remote

    Posted by yatta at 09:01 AM | Comments (0)
    Trends in newsrooms to be examined at World Editors Forum

    First there was the trend to compact newspapers, and then an explosion of new titles to compete with free papers and attract young readers. But what will be the defining newsroom trends in 2005? The answer is certain to emerge at the 12th World Editors Forum, to be held in Seoul, South Korea, from 29 May to 1 June.

    Among the topics to be examined at the Forum, the annual global meeting for senior newsroom executives, will be:
    - The rise of the "citizen journalist." Call it what you will -- participatory journalism, public journalism or open source journalism -- it is becoming a clear that more and more readers are becoming involved in the news gathering and debating process. Conference participants will be able to discuss the subject with keynote speaker Dan Gillmor, ex-columnist of the San Jose Mercury News, major blogger and author of "We the Media: Grassroots Journalism by the People, for the People."
    - The risks and challenges posed by RSS (Real Simple Syndication) and news aggregators such as Google News and Google Alerts, in which general and personalised news is provided by machines, not editors. "Personalised news" has moved from being a slogan to reality, but very few newspapers are ready for this revolution. The session will feature Rich Skrenta, CEO of Topix.net, Susan Mernit, a US-based consultant and former senior executive with AOL, and a representative from Google.
    - An audit of changing formats. The rush to compact newspapers is well documented, but what is less clear are the results of the latest format and design changes. The WEF conference will examine the innovations that have worked and those that have not in a session featuring newspaper designer Mario Garcia and Didier Pillet, Editor of France's largest circulation general interest newspaper, Ouest France.

    Hundreds of chief editors and other senior newsroom executives are expected to participate in the World Editors Forum, which runs concurrently with the 58th World Newspaper Congress and Info Services Expo 2005. The events are
    the global meetings of the world's press, drawing more than 1,000 newspaper executives to a unique annual gathering organised by the World Association of Newspapers.

    Via editorsweblog.org

    Posted by yatta at 09:01 AM | Comments (0)
    Community Technology Review

    The Winter 2005 edition of the Community Technology Review is now online. Titled “e-Liberation: Broadband, Wireless, Blogging, Podcasting, Open Source, Community eBay, Digital Divide Network," it includes dozens of articles on projects, advocacy and policy; updates and reviews of what's happening in community technology in the U.S., from San Diego to Champaign-Urbana to Philadelphia, as well as the Owerri Digital Village in Nigeria, the Ecuadorian rainforests, and teen mobile phone culture in Japan; and, a resource section with software and book reviews.

    (Posted by Emily Gertz in QuickChanges at 07:03 AM)

    Via WorldChanging: Another World Is Here

    Posted by yatta at 07:00 AM | Comments (0)
    Google to offer TV search

    Michael Bazeley in today's San Jose Mercury News: Google to offer TV search.

    Google is again expanding its technology to enable people to search for information beyond the Web, announcing a service Monday that hunts for content from television news, sports and entertainment shows.

    With Google Video (www.google.com/video), Google is indexing the closed-caption transcripts from PBS, C-SPAN, Fox News, the NBA and others. Closed captions, originally intended for people with hearing impairments, are the text translations of program that typically scroll across the bottom of TV screens.

    For now, the Mountain View search engine will not link directly to video content. Instead, when users click on a search result, they'll be taken to a ``preview page'' that will show excerpts of the closed-caption text alongside relevant still images from the video program. ...

    ting stuff.

    One thing that leaps to mind (from the POV of a content provider rather than a reader), which the story doesn't address, is this:

    There's only one (or perhaps two) closed-caption company doing this, right? How are they able to get away with this under their contracts with PBS, C-SPAN, Fox News, the NBA and the major networks?

    This is private, proprietary content. PBS, for instance, sells transcripts of the NewsHour, Frontline and other programs.

    And now users will be able to get the (admittedly unpolished) transcripts for free through Google? That will completely gut those services.

    What am I missing?

    Via New Media Musings

    Posted by yatta at 07:00 AM | Comments (0)
    TKPal TypeKey + PayPal for PHP
    TK Pal is a snippet of PHP code you can place in a PHP enabled page to restrict access to content to TypeKey users who have specifically paid to see that content.
    Posted by yatta at 07:00 AM | Comments (0)
    Xena: Warrior Princess - Edit Decision Lists
    Annotated EDLs, done by a fan?
    Posted by yatta at 07:00 AM | Comments (0)
    Supreme Court: MGM vs. Grokster

    Bookmark the EFF page on the building Supreme Court case about P2P companies; it links to every brief filed, and they are pouring in now. Neutral and supportive (of the petitioners, the content companies) briefs are coming in now; briefs supporting the P2P case are due on February 28. At stake: the landmark Betamax decision of 1984, which establishes the legitimacy of technology that allows both infringing and non-infringing uses. Read Fred von Lohmann’s statement of the importance of Betamax.

    Via The Peer-to-Peer Weblog

    Posted by yatta at 07:00 AM | Comments (0)
    Music's future
    It's a bit disorienting: slip on a set of headphones, turn up the volume and, while you move about the room, the music stays put -- as if coming out of five speakers stuck on a wall.

    Software engineers in Germany who developed the widely used MP3 audio file format have taken the technology to a higher level with a next-generation format that delivers cinema-like 5.1 multichannel audio.

    The headsets dazzled attendees at the Midem music conference in this French Riviera town, where goateed singers, sharply dressed executives and software designers in tennis shoes have been meeting this week to map out how music reaches ears in the future.

    The cutting-edge, but disorienting, Surround-sound headphones won't be commercially available for some time. But music fans can hear the new MP3 Surround technology, developed by Germany's Fraunhofer Institute, on personal computers provided they have special 5.1-channel sound cards and multiple speakers.
    Posted by yatta at 07:00 AM | Comments (0)
    Flickr coincidence

    Harajuku

    Meiji Shrine Bridge Performance

    Where to start? Well, while on a trip to Tokyo, Flickr user Matt took the picture to the left. It's a neat "meta" picture of an interesting looking phototgrapher taking a picture of an interesting bunch of teenagers in hip Harajuku putting on some sort of performance. A nice photograph. (Matt took a few more of these meta pictures while in Harajuku .)

    But then... He posted the photo to Flickr, where someone saw it and recognized the interesting looking photographer from her tattoo. He sent her a link to Matt's photo, she joined Flickr and posted the photo (below left) she was taking at the time Matt took his photo! (CherryVega posted a wonderful collection of photos, including this one, that she took in the Tokyo Streets.)

    Man do we love this stuff!

    Flickr user Brock maybe says it best:

    "Wait. Let me get this straight.

    A guy from Scotland goes 5490 miles to Tokyo and takes a picture of a girl taking a picture. She turns out to be from England, 413 miles away from him.

    Impressive, but not all that weird.

    UNTIL!

    He posts the picture he took on a Website (in Canada, irrelevantly) and within 6 weeks the girl in the photo finds it?

    That is truly amazing."

    More amazing Flickr coincidences can be found in the thread from which I stole this story.

    Posted by yatta at 07:00 AM | Comments (0)
    Finding Mavens in Usenet

    An answer person Yesterday I had a long chat with one of the humans at Microsoft, Marc Smith, who runs the Netscan project which provides analysis of Usenet. During our conversation he shared how they are using social network analysis to identify types of participants in threaded discussions.

    two dominant answer people with emerging 3rd APOne of these types is represented in these three graphs produced by Danyel Fisher, also of the Microsoft Research Community Technologies Group, is of Answer People. Marc described them simply as people who answer people who dont answer people. They are the central nodes with many uni-directional ties. APs are what Malcom Gladwell would call Mavens, their influence is through their expertise, which they share widely.

    two answer peopleAOL isn’t just handing over Usenet to Google, Netscan has a firmer grasp of this very long tail. It will be disconcerting for most to find data about you made explicit and visualized, especially when its personified, which raises real issues. At a certain point, being Profiled (RSS) as a Maven for Windows XP (RSS) who has bad Mondays may innundate you with pitches every other day of the week, so you might stop. The difference between explicit and implicit categorization and relationships is going to blur very quickly.

    UPDATE: Go see Danyel Fisher’s subsequent comment on AOL/Usenet and his comment below which implies Connectors in these images. Also take the Rorschach test for yourself.

    Posted by yatta at 07:00 AM | Comments (0)
    Curatorial Culture
    What's potentially revolutionary here is the ability to buy a compilation of music handpicked by another individual, as opposed to the official compilations released by record labels.
    Posted by yatta at 07:00 AM | Comments (0)
    Eyes on the Prize Hits P2P
    An activist group encourages people to download digitized copies of the landmark civil rights documentary, which is currently hamstrung by licensing fees. The effort could draw attention to problems in copyright law, but the production company is not pleased. By Katie Dean.
    Posted by yatta at 07:00 AM | Comments (0)
    Permaseeding Catching On

    Just today I've seen two examples, one from ibiblio, the other from hurricane electric, of dedicated torrent hosting. It seems like Prodigem is onto something here :). Now, how to stay ahead of the curve? The answer is for Prodigem to keep on the path of the groundbreaking, and I've got some ideas as good as the original...

    (Via Thomas Winningham and slashdot)

    Posted by yatta at 07:00 AM | Comments (0)
    Blogversation on creative aggregration
    A few days ago Jay Fienberg wrote an interesting essay called Aggregation piracy and playlist artistry:
    It's so easy to publish blogs that there are tons of them, and the effort to aggregate them is beginning to again attract editor-like and writer-like functions.
    Yesterday I paraphrased Jay's point as:
    ...the dividing lines between manually generated content, content generated by bots reaping the manual content, and insight generated as bots become refined enough to perform a curatorial role."
    Today Richard MacManus found an application of this idea in business:
    A good role model for this type of editorial functionality is Amazon. Ever since they opened for business in 1995 (10 years ago, seems like an eternity in Web time!), Amazon has provided interactive functionality on their site and they raise the bar every year. Although their core task is to aggregate information about their products - e.g. books - what makes Amazon stand out from its competitors is their ability to creatively mine that aggregated data and enable users to do all sorts of things with it. Including, most importantly, contributing to the data (user reviews, etc). Which of course leads to more content/data to aggregate!

    Via the weblog of Lucas Gonze

    Posted by yatta at 07:00 AM | Comments (0)
    A true convergence investigation
    This is incredible. FRONTLINE, the CBC, The New York Times, and U.C. Berkeley students (taught by FRONTLINE producer Lowell Bergman) are all working together on an investigative story about the war on terror in Europe. "It is a prime example of what many who touted 'convergence journalism' hoped might happen," writes Poynter's Al Tompkins. The online package is up and running, and FRONTLINE will air the story Friday. (Via NewsBlues)

    Via Lost Remote

    Posted by yatta at 07:00 AM | Comments (0)
    How about a #videoblogging?
    Go to freenode.net, where we were for vloggercon (#vloggercon), and join #videoblogging, so we can chill and lurk all day.
    Posted by yatta at 07:00 AM | Comments (0)

    January 24, 2005

    As Sites Add Tags, Tagtextual Advertising Will Follow

    Here's new evidence that 2005 will be the year of folksonomies - commonly known as tags. Metafilter, a popular community weblog that anyone can contribute to, has just incorporated tags. Metafilter's tags are simply free-form keywords people have used to describe their posts. They are launching tags to create "a great bottom-up way of organizing everything that has ever been posted to MetaFilter." The larger a word is, the more times it has been used to tag a MetaFilter thread. The site has also posted a page that breaks out the top 150 tags.

    This year many web sites will incorporate folksomic structures to make it easier for users to find and share information. Currently, tags can be found on Furl, Del.icio.us, Flickr, Technorati and now Metafilter. By the end of this quarter I bet that other social media sites like OhMyNews, Kuro5shin and even Slashdot will incorporate them as well. By mid year the bigs will join the fun. At least one major news outlet - perhaps CNET - will also start use tags to organize their stories and feedback. (John Roberts, you listening? I just gave you a free idea!)

    Tags are a natural complement to search because they empower users to create structures that organize unstructured consumer-generated media. Last week I wrote about the need for marketers and communicators to monitor folksonomies. However, the online marketing opportunity here is actually much greater. As tagging takes off, the next step will be for all of these sites to monetize this content by launching contextual advertising programs, perhaps powered by Google Adsense. This will give the marketer new ways to reach engaged consumers by sponsoring tags across one or more sites that carry folksonomies. I call this "Tagtextual Advertising" and it's a coming.

    Posted by yatta at 02:04 PM | Comments (1) | TrackBack
    Blizzard 05: Citizen Journos come of age
    This is the watershed moment for me. Our coverage of Blizzard 05 was viewer-driven. We had so many pictures from viewers that my inbox crashed. They sent us video. We took phone calls from viewers for an hour who went out with yardsticks to give us snowfall totals from all around New England. As I wrote below, our first pix of coastal flooding came from viewers. MSNBC also took advantage of the citizen journos and has a gallery posted. (Gralnick, again, thanks). I can't wait to see the ratings.
  • Steve Garfield's vlog from NYC Times Square.
    Posted by yatta at 02:03 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
  • The New Media Police: You and Me?
    On-air personalities at a NY hip-hop radio show joined the ranks of racist DJ s when they aired a musical parody that mocked South Asian tsunami victims, using racial slurs "chink" and "Chinamen," and calling drowned victims "bitches." Emmis Communications-owned WQHT/Hot 97 broadcast the song during the "Miss Jones in the Morning" show. Station Manager John Dimick has since issued an apology saying that the show's seven-person staff has agreed to contribute one-week's pay to the tsunami-relief efforts."



    But is that enough? asks Tom Biro:
    Sometimes I'm amazed (should I say frightened?) that incidents like this one continue to happen. This isn't about "pushing the envelope," which I'm pretty much all for. I'm a card-carrying member of the Jeff Jarvis "change the channel" club, and don't want any further restrictions and regulations put on various media outlets. At the same time, I think they have to think before they do something.
    WQHT's apology was late in coming and occurred only after angered listeners responded to a segment of the offending broadcast featured on its website.

    (Continued at MediaCitizen)
    Posted by yatta at 01:58 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
    Citizens' media, citizens' movement in Iraq
    Iraq the Model announces the start of the Friends of Democracy web site with reporting from citizen journalists in Iraq in English and Arabic (using the Arabic-language blogging tool underwritten, with your help, by Spirit of America). Go read reports from the street, from Iraqis.

    At the same time Spirit of America plans to highlight their coverage of the electino next Sunday with an event in Washington; details here. The event will be webcast for two hours starting at 2p ET on Sunday. I can't wait to compare the coverage we find there with the coverage we find on our media.

    Posted by yatta at 01:42 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
    P2P PSTN?
    The first time I ever spoke with Jeff Pulver was years back when he was trying to find volunteers for his "original" Free World Dialup idea. While it eventually became this free VoIP phone system where users could dial other FWD members for free, the original plan was much more interesting. The original idea was to get a bunch of users to connect their traditional phone service lines to a VoIP network, and create a "free" VoIP phone service that terminated calls via the nearest available volunteer's node. In other words, the system would be mostly VoIP, just like FWD is now. However, each user would also connect to their existing PSTN phone system, and basically let the phone calls that are ending within a local area code use your account to complete the call. Since almost every phone system has free local calling, there's no charges for users to worry about (phone companies, on the other hand...). Anyway, it appears that Pulver never really let this idea die, and he's now trying to do it again with a new offering called Bellster. Of course, it's still not simple to be a part of this network, which could be its downfall. It seemed like that's what slowed the original FWD. While it is easier than it was years ago, it still takes some work to get this set up. It's not Skype and it's not FWD. If anything, it's like Vonage, but free. Basically, it's leveraging VoIP for long distance and riding on the "free local calls" aspect of most local telephone offerings. Should be interesting to see what happens.
    Posted by yatta at 01:41 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
    1st Video Blog Festival
    The Video Blog Festival is dedicated to honoring videos that were shot for the purpose of showcasing it in blogs.

    The Video Blog Festival is devoted to the "art" of making videos for video blogging, and not to the politics of what is the best video blog website around.
    Posted by yatta at 01:40 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
    MoonEdit: multi-platform collaborative text editor and backchannel tool?
    MoonEdit: multi-platform collaborative text editor. Cooperative multi-user text editing over the internet. Every co-author can edit the shared document at any time, from any place, and at the same time! There's no need to send files via FTP or to compare documents when multiple users need to make changes to it independently.

    Posted by yatta at 01:11 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
    Searching For Download Profit
    Turns out 99-cent downloads are no way to make money, or so top music execs told the International Herald Tribune at Midem. Sony BMG's Thomas Hesse calls the quasi-standard fee "an introductory offer" -- "a fair way to begin the business" but, at 99 cents, it's difficult for all of us to make a decent living. ... In the longer term, we believe music is worth more. And we should resist the temptation to price music down to zero just because we're competing with free."

    From Christophe Cuvillier from French music retailer FNAC, "The way this business is structured at the moment there's no way today to make money."
    For Microsoft, music is another way to become part of the consumer's life. Mike Conte, GM of of MSN Marketplaces, says, "Music is not a big moneymaker for MSN. We cover our costs and little more."
    In the same article, Sony's Phil Wiser talks about the company's flawed digital music strategy. "In many ways, our position in the market was ours to lose, and to some extent we lost it because of a couple of bad decisions. One of them was, clearly, going with an internal, proprietary technology, causing more damage than it did good." Now, Wiser claims Sony is leading the charge for open standards. "We're going to transition over time to have multiple formats. If we're successful, consumers will never have to worry about that again."
    Posted by yatta at 01:08 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
    David Bollier on make-your-own culture

    David Bollier wonders when the phase transition from mass-manufactured to make-your-own culture will take place:

    Given the lamentable decline of the mainstream media, the appeal of the emerging make-your-own culture should be obvious. The new culture consists of blogging (amplified by blog syndication and news aggregators); collaborative websites and archives; social networking software; meta-tagging innovations like Flickr, the photo-sharing site, and Del.icio.us, the social bookmarking system; podcasting (syndication of iPod music playlists) and videocasting (uploading of indie video shorts), remix music, and more. This universe of rip-mix-burn creators is only going to grow as digital technologies become cheaper and more accessible.
    Posted by yatta at 01:05 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
    Some thoughts (Blogging, Journalism & Credibility Roundup)

    Lots to digest from the Blogging Journalism & Credibility conference.  Check out the Bloglines aggregator and Dave’s aggregator of people blogging it, a del.icio.us link feed, transcripts and audiofiles from the conference, and the IRC chat transcripts as well. Not everything’s posted yet, but will be soon. Audio coming Monday, hopefully. Note that Wikinews now has a page on our conference. (hat tip to Sandhill Trek)

    (continued at Blogging, Journalism & Credibility)

    Posted by yatta at 01:01 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
    Nokia & TI: Single Chip Phone
    Texas Instruments has sealed a deal with Nokia to incorporate TI's single-chip cellular phone technology into future handsets.

    In development since 2002, the DRP integrates the bulk of handset electronics on a single chip, including digital baseband, SRam, logic, RF, power management and analog functions.



    (Continued at Daily Wireless)

    Posted by yatta at 12:49 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
    ANT video aggregator Public Beta now available.
    Desktop video aggregator for OS X now open for public consumption. Go test it out and send feedback.

    Posted by yatta at 12:44 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
    A VC: Sell Side Advertising
    "There will come a time, and not so long from now, when advertisers will just post their ads, plus some data about them, and how they want them to perform, and how much they are willing to pay for leads generated by them, and the net will do the rest."
    Posted by yatta at 12:42 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
    Two-thirds of net users could walk away from search-engines

    "Pew has just released an amazing-looking study on Internet search behavior. Two factoids from the exec summary left my jaw hanging:

    Nearly half of searchers use a search engines no more than a few times a week, and two-thirds say they could walk away from search engines without upsetting their lives very much....

    Only 38% of users are aware of the distinction between paid or "sponsored" results and unpaid results. "
    Read original post here

    Posted by yatta at 12:41 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
    FCC Faces a New Set of Challenges After Powell.
    The departure of Michael K. Powell from the Federal Communications Commission in a few weeks will lead to profound and subtle policy and personality changes for the agency.
    Posted by yatta at 12:39 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
    Everything there is to know about Digital Video tape
    As part of the HDV workflow presentation, I learned more than I ever wanted to know about how digital tape is made. Digital Master Media is made by evaporating metal and getting it to adhere (in two layers) to the Mylar base. The particles are laid down in the direction of the heads. According to technical director Wayne Desmond, that means better carrier-to-noise ratio, reduced dropouts (when the head doesn't touch the tape) and fewer errors (misreading of the data). In HDV recording, 25 million bits of data are read per second. The high end tape has a 4dB greater carrier-to-noise ratio. I guess that explains why it costs four times as much. While it may seem costly, it's certainly worth it if you're mastering your film on DV.

    (Continued at Cinema Minima)
    Posted by yatta at 12:39 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
    HOWTO convert TiVo-to-go files to MPEG files
    TiVo's new DRM system allows you to move video from your TiVo to your PC, but not as a plain MPEG file that you can slice and dice and watch in the player of your choice. Here are step-by-step instructions for converting TiVo-to-Go video to MPEG files.

    Link

    (via Waxy)
    Posted by yatta at 12:36 PM | Comments (1) | TrackBack
    Bitman Video Bulb

    Video Bulb Web NewNo, it's not high tech chapstick or a mentholated nasal inhaler-- it's a Video Bulb.

    Ryota Kuwakubo is a device artist. His wearable LED animation Bitman, a cute little guy that dances around within the confines of the display edges, has gotten plenty of attention in the art-gadget scene. His latest evolution of Bitman is in the form of this RCA video plug. Just pop it in to the input socket on your TV and it will endlessly play a Bitman animation.

    $38 at Compact Impact

    Posted by yatta at 12:35 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

    January 23, 2005

    PLAN: locative & pervasive media event

    PLAN Pervasive and Locative Arts Network: A two day event bringing together leading international figures to review the emerging fields of locative and pervasive media...The event launches a new international network (PLAN), bringing together artists, activists, hardware hackers, bloggers, game programmers, free network builders, semantic web philosophers, cartographers, economists, architects, and university and industry researchers.

    ICA (Institute of Contemporary Arts) London UK

    Tuesday 1st and Wednesday 2nd February 2005

    10am-6pm (music 8pm-1am Tuesday only)

    PLAN website: http://www.open-plan.org

    Posted by Eli Chapman at 04:41 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

    January 22, 2005

    We're at Vloggercon today... where are you?

    It's Vloggercon Day at unmediated. Come on by the stream and IRC and check out the discussion.

    Posted by shawn at 10:06 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
    FeedBeep
    RSS to SMS (in beta). FeedBeep lets you customize SMS alerts for almost any RSS feed out there.
    (and is taking beta testers.) [MetaFilter]
    Posted by yatta at 01:30 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
    Survey shows frequent use of SMS abbreviations affects written language
    The frequent use of SMS abbreviations has affected the written language of Singapore youth, according to a study by second year Media and Communications students of the Singapore Polytechnic.
    Posted by yatta at 01:30 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
    GPS Digital Camera Knows Where Pictures Were Taken


    A new digital camera from Ricoh has a built-in GPS feature and encodes each photo with information on where in the world it was taken. Special software can then automatically use that information to enable, for example, special travel-photo blogs that bring up photos when you click on locations on a map.
    Posted by yatta at 01:24 AM | Comments (2) | TrackBack
    Voicemail software recognises callers' emotions

    A VOICEMAIL system that labels messages according to the caller's tone of voice could soon be helping people identify which messages are the most urgent. The software, called Emotive Alert, is designed by Zeynep Inanoglu and Ron Caneel of the Media Lab at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

    It might be installed at the phone exchange or in an intelligent answering machine, where it will listen to incoming messages and send the recipient a text message along with an emoticon indicating whether the message is urgent, happy, excited or formal.

    It works by extracting the distribution of volume, pitch and speech rate - the ratio of words to pauses - in the first 10 seconds of each message, and then comparing them with eight stored "acoustical fingerprints" that roughly represent eight emotional states: urgent or not urgent; formal or informal; happy or sad; excited or calm.

    The fingerprints were created by "learning" software, which was fed hundreds of snippets from old voicemail messages that had been assigned emotional labels by the researchers. In use, the software looks for the acoustical fingerprint that is closest to the characteristics of the voice message and sends the recipient the corresponding emoticon. It also sends a text message indicating the two best-matching emotional labels.

    (Continued at bTang ReBlog)

    Posted by yatta at 01:20 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
    how-to make a 'usb battery'
    usb battery

    found out yesterday that there’s a shuffle shortage and gadget battery life can only be expected to get worse.  bummer.  at least you can make the most of your waiting-for-shuffle blues and solder yourself a ‘usb battery’.  this little gizmo runs off a 9 volt battery and supplies your favorite little device with the proper 5 volts of mobile power.

    (Continued at hack a day)
    Posted by yatta at 01:08 AM | Comments (1) | TrackBack
    How Convergence Is Killed: No One Can Let Go Of Control
    We've been hearing about "convergence" for so long it's become something of a joke. It's even gone out of style and come back into style... and yet most of the "convergence" we see is still very simple basic convergence rather than anything serious. So, what's holding up convergence? Control. In almost every area where convergence efforts have stalled, it's because of some issue having to do with who "controls" what. How do companies "control" the content via copy protection? Who "controls" the patents that go into this particular standard? Who "controls" the rights to make this particular device work with that particular device. Standards get delayed, products don't get used, and nothing works with each other because someone, somewhere is always worried about control. The end result is that no one actually gets what they want. More open systems, more trusting of the users, more understanding of new business models could help to move convergence forward -- but it will never get anywhere as long as so many companies are so focused on who controls what.
    Posted by yatta at 12:57 AM | Comments (1) | TrackBack
    eXeem or eXeem Lite?
    eXeem, the joint venture between Swarm Systems and the late lamented SuprNova, is being promoted as the hottest download of the year and promises to bring all the benefits of BitTorrent swarming, but without the use of problematic Torrent websites, says Slyck s Michael Ingram.

    BUT there s a but: optional and compulsory adware installs.

    I made eXeem Lite because eXeem has Cydoor spyware that installs on your pc every time you start it up, Dan (who didn t want to reveal his full name) told Slyck.

    He believes Cydoor adware with a cookie tracker and a banner will be packed into the full version of eXeem and on top of that, The optional adware will pose a further threat to new users, who are unlikely to receive a clear warning about any dangers of the additional files, says Ingram.

    (Continued at p2pnet.net)
    Posted by yatta at 12:52 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

    January 21, 2005

    Camera phones in inaugural coverage
    "ABC News Now aired Sprint 'Video Mail' clips captured from the cell phones of nearly two dozen participants along the inaugural parade route. Some of the Sprint folks sent video clips from aboard parade floats and in marching units. Innovative, yet I'm curious to see how much the video clips will add to ABC News Now's coverage. UPDATE: Just watched a 30-second, edited clip narrated by someone who chronicled his early-morning journey to the parade route. Very poor quality, but it was watchable -- and the video did add a 'citizen journalism' flavor to the coverage. A good first step. We'll see a lot more of this as technology improves."
    Posted by yatta at 11:12 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
    Education in New Journalism

    There's plainly a need for greater education of what I've been calling the "former audience," the people who until recently have been nothing but consumers of news. They now have greater opportunity to put together news reports, from a variety of sources, replacing the static and linear products of a manufacturing age of news. More important, they can be part of the process: part of a conversation and a community. Many will be.

    Education and assistance to the former audience will be a piece of the enterprise I'm going to be creating, and I'm all ears on how to approach it.

    Much more on this in days ahead...

    Posted by yatta at 10:58 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
    Weblogs Inc. Sends VW Ad Packing

    Congrats to Jason Calacanis - our winner of the week. One of his blogs, autoblog, turned down the opportunity to run VW's suicide bomber ad. Increasingly I believe that the big blog networks - Corante, Nick Denton's Gawker Media and Calacanis' company - will begin to distance themselves from other bloggers. They will operate more like mainstream media outlets with profits (yes, that's right - profits) and reader/advertising franchises that they will do anything to protect. This will also mean they will take fewer big risks - both with their editorial and their advertising - at least until the laws give them the same protections that the mainstream press have had for years.

    Posted by yatta at 10:54 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
    The Project for Open Source Media
    The Project for Open Source Media is an independent research and development company doing business in three primary areas. The construction and distribution of the Open Media Platform, an open source platform for the development and distribution of next generation television technologies. Providing consulting services to entities wishing to develop next generation television content and applications either on the Open Media Platform or on proprietary platforms such as TiVo and Open TV. The development of next generation television content and applications either on the Open Media Platform or on proprietary platforms.
    Posted by yatta at 10:50 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
    Michael Powell out
    Michael Powell is resigning as FCC chairman.

    I fear that the future will be only worse. As critical as I have been -- justifiably -- of Powell, I know that that in his soul of souls, Powell understands the value of the First Amendment. His successor may not. I fear that the White House and Congress -- from, yes, both parties -- will only amplify the looney voice of a few who would continue to limit our free speech on our airwaves.

    Here's the Wall Street Journal's assessment of his tenure.

    : I just did a quickie interview on ABC Radio New on Powell.

    : Just got email from Jon Bonne at MSNBCi (four chairs to my left):
    isn't it amazing that the Powell news broke on the WSJ ed page? the WSJ ed page folks are certainly intrepid journalists in their own right, but i interpret this as a signal from the Bush corps that breaking news can easily be routed around the newsroom and straight to their fellow ideological counterparts. not quite as much as breaking it on a blog, but this has a very different (though not entirely so) resonance as the Juanita Broaddrick episode.

    Posted by yatta at 10:22 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
    Sony Opens Up UMD Format

    umd_disc.jpg imageSony has submitted the UMD optical disc as an official standard for movies and and software, allowing other companies to produce content that will play on the Sony PSP (as well as new devices that would support the format). The 1.8GB discs aren't a bad format, but it's impossible to say what desire other companies have to produce movie playback devices that use a rotating optical disc standard (especially after paying licensing fees to Sony). Nevertheless, MiniDisc was popular in Japan, and it is similar, and it does mean it's much more likely to see movies and other content from studios that aren't named "Sony *"

    Sony Considers Opening PSP [PCWorld via PSP411]

    Posted by yatta at 09:44 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
    Why Johnny must program (procedural literacy revisited)

    I recently wrote a paper (draft) that builds on previous posts on GTxA on procedural literacy (1 2). It argues that New Media scholars and practitioners must be procedurally literate (which includes knowing how to program), and that games (and game-like artifacts), because of their fundamentally procedural nature, can serve as ideal objects around which to organize a New Media-centric introduction to Computer Science. I welcome any comments on the draft.

    Posted by yatta at 09:36 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
    Life: a user's manual
    video that uses intercepted wireless cctv feeds to document an Amsterdam antiwar march
    Posted by yatta at 09:26 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
    One-click subscription: sometimes the solution is staring us in the face

    Literally, the XML chiclet. Get rid of it.

    Why do you have a link to a machine-only readable file on your web page? Hello, your users aren't machines.

    The machines, however, already have this information, it's encoded in machine-readable form in your web page. (If not, go read [insert auto-discovery tutorial here]).

    If you already have an aggregator, you already have one-click subscription. (If not, talk to your aggregator author, it's a common feature).

    Go read Dave Winer's The solution to the Yahoo problem again. Cut out the middleman, steps three and four.

    Keep steps one and two, but strip them bare.

    Posted by yatta at 09:26 PM | Comments (1) | TrackBack
    Sovereign Computing
    In the future we will tell our children how quaint and restrictive the 'net of today is ...
    "Neide is 14. After school and before going to work with her sister, she passes by the public Internet center in Vila Tiradentes, Brazil, and notices that 11 people have already accessed the sovereign services she set up the day before. She doesn't have a PC at home, let alone fast Internet access, nor does she have money for web hosting. This is why she had used a free host called Geocities before, which benefited by placing ads on her site. However she has a classmate, Pedro, whose father owns a shop where he has a PC and fast Internet. With Pedro and another 4 friends that she met on the net, she got 7MHz worth of processing power and some 20MB of HD space in all. In fact she got twice as much, but she let half of it to Gladson, Maicon and Carla, three other visitors of the Internet center. They are younger than Neide and she is teaching them the first steps in computers.

    Neide's story is only just beginning."
    Posted by yatta at 09:17 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
    Connectivism: A Learning Theory for the Digital Age

    Including technology and connection making as learning activities begins to move learning theories into a digital age. George Siemens advances a theory of learning that is consistent with the needs of the twenty first century. His theory takes into account trends in learning, the use of technology and networks, and the diminishing half-life of knowledge.

    We can no longer personally experience and acquire learning that we need to act. We derive our competence from forming connections. A network can simply be defined as connections between entities. Computer networks, power grids, and social networks all function on the simple principle that people, groups, systems, nodes, entities can be connected to create an integrated whole. Alterations within the network have ripple effects on the whole.

    Principles of connectivism:
    Learning and knowledge rests in diversity of opinions.
    Learning is a process of connecting specialized nodes or information sources.
    Learning may reside in non-human appliances.
    Capacity to know more is more critical than what is currently known
    Nurturing and maintaining connections is needed to facilitate continual learning.
    Ability to see connections between fields, ideas, and concepts is a core skill.
    Currency (accurate, up-to-date knowledge) is the intent of all connectivist learning activities.
    Decision-making is itself a learning process. Choosing what to learn and the meaning of incoming information is seen through the lens of a shifting reality. While there is a right answer now, it may be wrong tomorrow due to alterations in the information climate affecting the decision.

    read the full article in the International Journal of Instructional Technology & Distance Learning (January 2005, Vol 2. No. 1)

    Posted by yatta at 09:14 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
    Sundance non-digital
    Film — as opposed to digital formats like High Definition (HD) or mini-DV — remains the shooting format of choice at the Sundance Film Festival, according to the Hollywood Reporter. The article does not consider the implications: the 'independent' film movement has become a rich man's game — and therefore not really that independent. All of the film formats mentioned in the article — 35mm, 16mm, Super16 — are outrageously expensive for independent filmmakers in comparison to the newer digital formats (although certain forms of High Definition can still burn a hole in your pocket). It's therefore difficult to believe that what you're seeing at Sundance is really representative of the 'independent' filmmaking going on out there — as few people under thirty these days are choosing to shoot on film.
    Posted by yatta at 09:12 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
    Two Plead Guilty to Online File-Sharing
    Two Plead Guilty to Online File-Sharing

    Two men pleaded guilty to federal charges in what authorities said were the first convictions for online file-sharing of music, movies and software over peer-to-peer networks.
    Posted by yatta at 09:11 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
    VDSL2 Standard Solidifies
    Converge Digest takes a look at new developments in solidifying the VDSL2 (Very-High-Bit-Rate DSL) standard. VDSL2, which under ideal circumstances can offer symmetrical 100Mbps speeds, is a less expensive solution than running fiber straight to the home. While Verizon is exploring the latter option, companies like SBC are exploring ADSL2+ in trials. Since VDSL2 uses DMT (Discrete Multi-Tone), it should be an easy upgrade path for companies tinkering with fiber to the curb and ADSL2 to the home.
    Posted by yatta at 09:11 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
    DOMForm
    DOMForm is a Python module for web scraping and web testing. It knows how to evaluate embedded JavaScript code in response to appropriate events.
    Posted by yatta at 07:55 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
    Tarawa
    Tarawa is an Web server API, similar to Java's Servlet interface; it provides an abstraction of the Web server that allows you to easily write Web applications, without knowing the details of the HTTP protocol.
    Posted by yatta at 07:55 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

    January 19, 2005

    how to pimp ones torrent

    I've been trying to come up with a good general recommendation for how people should advertise their torrents on their blogs and webpages. The overall problem is overload. Per each entry item you start with at least the direct link to the content (.mp3, .avi, .etc). On top of this now you also want to direct people to the torrent for that item to try to save your bandwidth. Do you link to the .torrent itself or link to the details page for that torrent or link to your enclosure enabled torrent feed? It's a good thing to have these problems and all these choices, but a good web interface is both concise and consistent.

    Linking to the .torrent seems the best thing to do as this ultimately shortens the distance between your audience and your content which drives downloads. I've noticed at least on the Prodigem tracker that people that put direct links to .torrents do in fact get more activity. Over on one of In.the.Trenches, I posted a comment about this where I noticed a lack of a direct .torrent link was having a negative impact on use. Kevin brings up a point about the need for merging all these feeds that people keep aquiring for their content. This is an interesting idea ... the superfeed, which is created by melting all your feeds together into a multiple enclosure per entry format...

    (Continued at Torrentocracy Blog)

    Posted by yatta at 11:39 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
    Measuring Blog Marketing

    Zachary Rodgers with ClickZ just published the second part of his two part series on measuring blog marketing.

    Big brands are quickly adopting either official or C-level blogs. Google and Yahoo! maintain company blogs. Microsoft supports both official blogs and individual employee blogs. Executives at General Motors, Sun Microsystems and Jupitermedia all write blogs of their own. And smaller companies are using the medium to raise their profile; some even hope to generate sales. But are they working? How can one tell?

    Uber PR blogger Steve Rubel is quoted throughout.  An interesting read and something I'll be blogging more about in the days to come.

    Posted by yatta at 11:37 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
    How Blogging Software Reshaped the Online Community

    Rebecca Blood takes a thoughtful look at how software developments are driving the evolution of blogs into densely interconnected online communities:

    In early 2000, Blogger introduced an innovation that would forever change the face of weblogs: the permalink. From the start, webloggers had frequently referenced other blogs. It was awkward ("Scroll down to the third entry on September 12th") but this crossblog talk was so compelling it became a primary focus of entire weblog clusters. Permalinks gave each blog entry a permanent location at which it could be referenced--a distinct URL...[T]he feature was so useful that it became a canonical component of the standard weblog entry...

    To some extent, the permalink also elevated weblog commentary to a legitimate form of discourse. A link is, after all, a link. Whether it leads to a weblog entry or a syndicated column, each link on a page has equal weight. If the nature of weblogs is to democratize publishing, perhaps the nature of hypertext is to equalize influence, at least within the context of the page.

    Posted by yatta at 11:34 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
    WiMax Certification Delayed
    WiMAX Forum's plugfest -- scheduled for this month -- has been delayed for about 6 months, reports America's Network. Chipmakers like Intel and Fujitsu have yet to release the crucial silicon. Without silicon, there's not much to test.

    Plugfests for 802.16-2004, explains Telephony Magazine, have been rescheduled for June or July. Meanwhile, many vendors are opting to go ahead with their own interoperability testing separate from the WiMAX Forum's officially sanctioned event says American's Network.

    At last week's annual WCA Conference, many broadband wireless equipment vendors also announced "pre 802.16e", the mobility flavor of WiMax. That version of the standard is not expected to yield equipment until the second half of 2006.

    (Continued at Daily Wireless)
    Posted by yatta at 11:31 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
    Forbes names VideoBlogs as a Top Tech trend for 2005 (and why they are wrong)

    In a positive note of recognition for an emerging section of the blogosphere, Rich Karlgaard at Forbes has named video blogs as one of his three pics for tech trends in 2005, stating “this year video Weblogs are sure to be the “it” thing".

    In justifying the decision he sites a number of Tsunami video blogs and the clip of comedian Jon Stewart on CNN’s Crossfire in October as examples where Video Blogs are making an impact.

    Which is true, both examples demonstrate where blogs utilising video saw large amounts in traffic.

    However, two examples do not equal a tech trend.

    This is not to say that sometime in the near future (2-5 years) video blogs will be the “it” trend.

    There are three reasons:

    (Continued at The Blog Herald)

    Posted by yatta at 11:28 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
    the McLuhan Vortex

    What is The Message draws a clear picture of the Academic McLuhan. It points to The McLuhan Program home page, and the McLuhan Program Blog, called (appropriately) What's the Message? The site contains observations and papers and, most interestingly, a link to the Mind, Media and Society blog.

    For those who are interested in more traditional - that is P.O.B.-oriented - scholarship, you may be interested in a new paper by Mark Federman that discovers and offers a proof for The Fifth Law of Media [pdf].

    Thus the age of anxiety and of electric media is also the age of the unconscious and of apathy. But it is strikingly the age of consciousness of the unconscious, in addition. With our central nervous system strategically numbed, the tasks of conscious aware ness and order are transferred to the physical life of man, so that for the first time he has become aware of technology as an extension of his physical body. Apparently this could not have happened before the electric age gave us the means of instant, total field-awareness. With such awareness, the subliminal life, private and social, has been hoicked up into full view, with the result that we have "social consciousness" presented to us as a cause of guilt-feelings. Existentialism offers a philosophy of structures, rather than categories, and of total social involvement instead of the bourgeois spirit of individual separateness or points of view. In the electric age we wear all mankind as our skin. (Understanding Media, p. 47)

    via OLDaily - By Stephen Downes

    Posted by yatta at 11:26 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
    Usability Basics
    Usability is the measure of the quality of a user's experience when interacting with a product or system, whether a Web site, a software application, mobile technology, or any user-operated device.
    Posted by yatta at 11:12 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
    ElementTree
    The Element type is a simple but flexible container object, designed to store hierarchical data structures, such as simplified XML infosets, in memory. The element type can be described as a cross between a Python list and a Python dictionary.
    Posted by yatta at 11:11 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
    Will Citizen Journalists Want to Be Paid?
    In commenting on an item I wrote yesterday, Barb Iverson brought up an important issue: "When the citizen bloggers get over the initial excitement of seeing their work online, and begin to realize it takes time and that they are part of the audience draw, won't they think about getting paid for their work? Are you thinking about micropayments for the best as time goes on?"

    The idea of identifying your best citizen journalists and paying them as they continue contributing isn't a bad one. (Such good repeat performers become somewhere in between non-paid citizen reporters and professional staff.) (...)

    Entry continued...
    Posted by yatta at 11:09 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
    Megasources: Surfing for Information and Journalism Resources
    A list of sources for pretty much everything. Online since 1994.
    Posted by yatta at 11:06 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
    Copyright Kills Culture

    EyesprizeThe Globe and Mail: How copyright could be killing culture
    The high cost of getting permission to use archival footage and photos threatens to put makers of documentaries out of business

    I'll say it does. This article shows how the definitive documentary on the American civil rights struggle, Eyes on the Prize, may no longer be sold or broadcast because archival footage rights have expired. (See also Wired News article)

    A study from American University underscores the problem: Untold Stories: Creative Consequences of the Rights Clearance Culture for Documentary Filmmakers

    In it's current form, I could not afford to legally distribute or broadcast Blogumentary. I own most of the footage, and thank God for the Prelinger archive - but licensing some of the news footage would be prohibitively expensive for me alone. Some of the footage I'd argue is fair use, since the film is media criticism. But other clips are there to help tell the story. Either way, if I was legally challenged I can't afford a lawyer.

    (Continued at Blogumentary)

    Posted by yatta at 11:03 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
    Targeting Ain't Seen Nothing Yet
    A new study released by Deloitte's Media and Telecommunications division points to a future in which mass marketing shifts to micro targeting. While not surprising, the report speaks to the convergence of of media and the continual merging of electronic devices into one, through which all content will flow - likely the cell phone. Along with the merging of devices will be the transference off all media to digital form coupled with the rise in consumer conversation afforded by weblogs and wikis. This nichification of content will be fast followed by the nichification of advertising.
    Posted by yatta at 10:57 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
    CJR: Saving Journalism
    If we are to preserve journalism and its social-service functions, maybe we would be wise not to focus too much on traditional media. The death spiral might be irreversible. We should look for ways to keep the spirit and tradition of socially responsible journalism alive until it finds a home in some new media form whose nature we can only guess at today.
    Posted by yatta at 10:55 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
    New free video on clearance and copyright
    A video by Brigid Maher, "Stories Untold" is a crisp introduction to the issues of copyright and rights clearance. It combines clips of endangered or altered films, interviews with filmmakers, and animation illustrating the kinds of problems filmmakers have in clearing rights for documentaries. All quoted material in the film was used by invoking fair use. The 8-minute video is designed both for teaching and for discussions. "This is a terrific tool," said filmmaker Peter Wintonick. "I want every doc filmmaker to see it. We need to be able to tell more people why this matters to them, and this shows it to them." Stories Untold [Listen Up! Newsblog]
    Posted by yatta at 10:54 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
    Video on your nose with Icuiti's V920
    Icuiti has announced the North American introduction of its V920 Video Eyewear product, a binocular video display which offers semi-immersive viewing of both 2D and stereoscopic video. Offering VGA resolution, the V920 accepts several types of video in, and can be powered both by a pair of AA batteries or directly over USB when connected to a PC.

    Weighing in at a slinky 3.5 oz or 99 g, the V920 is to proffer an image equal to viewing a 42" display at a distance of 7 feet. Two LCD displays offer 24-bit colour depth at a resolution of 640 x 480 pixels, for which focal adjustment can be carried out independently. Worn as a pair of conventional glasses, the V920 also provides stereo audio through a pair of detachable, adjustable headphones.



    (Continued at infoSync World)
    Posted by yatta at 10:42 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
    Consumer Electronics Firms Give In To Hollywood
    Unfortunately, right now, this story is only appearing in the Wall Street Journal, so most people won't be able to read it. I'm assuming it'll get picked up elsewhere during the day, and will add an open link as soon as I can find one. However, the WSJ is reporting that most of the major consumer electronics firms have agreed to team up and develop a single copy protection standard. Sony, Samsung, Philips and Matsushita, along with copy protection company Intertrust, are joining together in what they call the "Marlin Joint Development Association." For a while, it had seemed like the consumer electronics industry was fighting the good fight for its customers, knowing that locked down equipment is much less valuable -- even if it costs more to build. However, they've apparently been misled into believing they need to do this. The end results will be the same as with all attempts at copy protection. The real "criminals" looking to make and sell counterfeit copies will get around it pretty quickly, and any content will end up being available online in record time -- where it will be accessible to anyone. The only people this will actually impact are those who legitimately bought content and are barred from doing something basic with it, such as making it accessible in the way they want to interact with the content. Even an analyst at Gartner is surprised at this move, noting: "If I'm a user, I'm wondering, is this going to make things more complicated for me?" In fact, if it gets complicated and doesn't work right, people are simply going to go online to download the same content that's there and available for free. You may also recall that many of these companies worked together in the past to let their various copy protection technologies work together well. That did wonders, didn't it? Update: Here's the press release about it.
    Posted by yatta at 09:48 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
    TI Imaging Processor Powers Samsung's World's First Camera Phone with HDD
    Texas Instruments today announced Samsung Electronics has selected TI's imaging processor technology for the world's first camera phone with a hard disk drive for storing images and video. Samsung, a global leader in telecommunication, semiconductor and digital handsets, has also selected TI imaging processor technology for three additional camera phones.Samsung has chosen TI s OMAP-DM270 processor, an extension to TI s widely adopted OMAP processor portfolio, to power its new camera phone model. The camera phone with hard-disk drive includes a video-on demand feature.
    Posted by yatta at 09:46 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
    Smart claims a first for text message response system to TV advertising
    DaimlerChrysler's Smart claims to be the first car manufacturer in the UK, and possibly the world, to use SMS responses in its TV advertising, allowing viewers to arrange test drives, request brochures or locate dealers by sending text messages from their mobile phones, reports Just-auto-com.

    (Continued at textually.org)
    Posted by yatta at 09:06 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
    MovieGallery: Organize, Watch & Share all your movies in a snap
    MovieGallery takes care of all your movies in a powerful and easy way. Just drag and drop to organize. Create playlists and watch movies in full-screen. Publish and share your movies on the web and on mobile phones with playlists, preview thumbnails, information and everything intact, in just a few simple steps. You can even work with multiple galleries simultaneously. In contradiction to almost all other shoe-box applications MovieGallery is designed as a document-based application.

    Posted by yatta at 08:50 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
    Riding the Media Bits: A practical guide to digital convergence.
    The target reader of these pages is non-technical, but this does not mean that technical people would not benefit from being exposed to the breadth of issues laid down in these pages. Non-technical people are warned that, since these pages deal with matters that are strongly influenced by very sophisticated technologies, some understanding of them will be required, if knowledge is not to be reduced to thin air and tool building to apodictic statements. In order not to scare these readers, I guarantee that efforts have been made to reduce technical explanations to the minimum necessary to provide baseline knowledge about the issues considered substantiating arguments.
    Posted by yatta at 08:47 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
    RatcliffeBlog: Mitch's Open Notebook: Interesting transparency experiment
    David Berlind at ZD Net is putting his interviews online in podcast form so that readers can check his reporting. See the special report, Media credibility: Where podcasting meets transparency.

    Imagine a time when you get The New York Times and listen to the reporters' research to get your own insight into the source material.

    Posted by yatta at 05:35 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
    Quicktime player next
    An XML Reading Quicktime Linker Movie is a Quicktime-based tool for reading XML playlists.
    Posted by yatta at 02:17 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
    Vloggercon is booked - solid.....

    As I understand it - Vloggercon is booked solid.

    That's a trick many NYers do - make something look so coolio and exclusive that EVERYONE wants to attend.

    :-)

    Anyway - for those of you who can't get in - feel free to come to Katz's Deli Friday night at 7. We'll be holding a "micro-content" dinner - to dicuss how video blogging is part of the future - and ourmedia.org - which will be live - by then.

    :-)

    Meanwhile I'm so dam busy making that all happen and then I go to Blog Business Summitt - that I haven't had time to blog recently.

    Sorry.

    Posted by yatta at 02:15 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
    California Senator Wants To Throw Ed Felten In Jail
    While the headline might seem a bit extreme, it seems accurate. A California state Senator with ties to Hollywood has introduced a law that could mean jailtime for any developer of a file sharing application. That's right -- it's not about anyone who actually used the app to do something illegal, but whoever develops an application. This, despite the fact that courts have found repeatedly that you can't blame the application for the fact that some people misuse it. So why is Professor Ed Felten at risk? Well, he recently wrote a file sharing application in all of 15 lines of code. The purpose, of course, was to show that the concept of regulating file sharing by banning the creation of such applications was ridiculous and anti-innovation. By the way, if you're wondering where you've heard of State Senator Kevin Murray before, he's the politician who also made it illegal to send any media file in California anonymously. Despite the questionable basis for such a law (and the fact that it probably violates other laws concerning privacy -- especially with respect to children), it appears that Murray doesn't really care about the facts of the situation, but just that folks in the entertainment industry are happy with all the laws he's passed in their favor. Anyway, based on my reading of the actual proposal, it would also threaten to put anyone who has written FTP software and possibly even web browsers in jail. Maybe his next law will simply outlaw the internet, and force us all to watch broadcast content instead. That would really help, wouldn't it?
    Posted by yatta at 02:09 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
    Web news startup to focus on local news, blogs

    Mark Potts , founder of WashingtonPost.com and Susan DeFife, founder of WomenConnect.com, are reported to be fundraising for a new startup with a March launch date to be based in Washington DC. The startup, Backfence.com, a network of blogs and news posts aimed at local news. The current goal is to have ten town sites up and running within 2 to 3 years.

    Posted by yatta at 02:05 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
    It's Official: Google moves to block Comment Spam

    A post to the Google Weblog has confirmed earlier rumours that it has adopted the rel="nofollow” tag that will see the effectiveness of comment spam diminish as it is adopted by major blogging tools. When Google sees the attribute (rel="nofollow") on links, in this case from the comment section of blogs, those links won’t get any credit when they rank websites in their search results, and the spammers will have lost their main incentive to spam blogs. On board include SixApart, SixApart LiveJournal, Blogger, WordPress, Flickr, Buzznet, Scripting News and Blosxom.

    (And add Yahoo and MSN to the list. -kc.)

    Posted by yatta at 01:58 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
    UK to Tax TV Phones?
    In UK, the TV licensing authority is looking to charge mobile handset owners if their phone can receive live TV broadcasts As the law stands the owner of any device which is capable of receiving live transmissions will need to purchase a licence for it. At present 3G networks like 3 only transmit video clips but there are moves towards launching handsets capable of receiving (and recording) live TV.
    Posted by yatta at 01:55 AM | Comments (1) | TrackBack
    Future of distributing 'citizen video'

    Mark Glazer says the Media Blogger's Association's Tsunami Video Hosting Initiative, which has already served more than 2 million videos, is "a tantalizing prospect for distributing future citizen video."

    Beyond the generous donations from hosting companies, the Tsunami Video Hosting Initiative also broke new ground by brokering a deal between washingtonpost.com and bloggers who needed bandwidth. Tom Kennedy, managing editor of multimedia at washingtonpost.com, told me the alliance makes sense for all involved.

    "I think it's important for mainstream media companies to figure out a way to work cooperatively with bloggers, and I think it's in our interests to do that," Kennedy said.


    (Continued at CyberJournalist.net)
    Posted by yatta at 01:54 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
    Blogging, Journalism and Credibility Webcast

    Jon Dube points to a group of bloggers and journalists who are gathering at Harvard on Jan. 21 and 22 for a conference on how journalism is being transformed by blogging, entitled "Blogging, Journalism and Credibility: Battleground and Common Ground." The invitation-only conference is being organized by the Berkman Center for Internet and Society at the Harvard Law School, the American Library Association's Office of Information Technology and the Shorenstein Center on the Press, Politics and Public Policy at Harvard's Kennedy School of Government. However there will be a webcast so that people can participate remotely in the discussion.

    Posted by yatta at 01:50 AM | Comments (1) | TrackBack
    Moto Acquires and Invests in Digital Home
    Motorola has made two deals focused on digital home, in the last two days:

    -- DVN Holdings: A subsidiary of Motorola has invested an additional $7.5m into DVN (Holdings), a media technology company in China. DVN specializes in the development of digital broadcast platforms for cable pay TV operators in China.

    -- Ucentric Systems: Moto has also acquired media networking software provider Ucentric Systems, for an undisclosed sum. The company raised more than $30 million in venture financing from Waltham-based Polaris Venture Partners and other firms in the last five years of its existence.

    InternetNews: Ucentric provides access to stored digital content -- such as high-definition video on a digital video recorder, music on a hard drive, or pictures on a laptop -- from any connected device in the home.
    Posted by yatta at 01:48 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
    Forbes.com: A Disaster Creates Mass News Agency
    Coverage of the tsunami - particularly the aftermath - served to illustrate that instantaneous opinion and reaction is part of the new landscape of information consumption.
    Posted by yatta at 01:39 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
    Software to remotely control PCs by cell phones
    You could soon be able to remotely control your PC using your mobile phone thanks to new software from Toshiba.Toshiba has developed software to remotely operate a PC using a mobile phone over a cellular network. The software, called Ubiquitous Viewer, is installed on the mobile phone and on a client computer running Windows and re-creates the desktop of a PC or notebook PC on the mobile phone's screen. That allows the user, for example, to read e-mails and edit documents held on computer.
    Posted by yatta at 01:32 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
    Samsung flexible LCD

    So Samsung has made a 5-inch flexible LCD panel out of plastic (most LCDs are made of glass) that weighs a scant 0.8 ounces and has a resolution of 400 x 300. Samsung is looking to roll out (pun intended) the first flexible displays by 2007, with the first applications expected to be for notebook computers and portable consumer electronics.

    Samsung Flexible LCD display 5-inch

    Posted by yatta at 01:28 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
    Video on the (major media) home page
    Fox.com joins ABC.com with promotional video clips that automatically play when you punch up the home page. A good use of video for network TV sites, but ABC.com's clip now starts with an ad. An ad before a promo?
    Posted by yatta at 01:25 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
    BitTorrent's still here.
    To nobody's surprise, Bit Torrent trading has rolled on despite the recent MPAA/RIAA crackdowns and the closure of several of the most popular Torrent sites. P2P site Slyck notes the closures simply shifted the Torrent piracy around a bit, to other websites. Of course the primary trading still goes on via IRC and Newsgroups, areas against which the entertainment industry has yet to launch serious offensives.
    Posted by yatta at 01:16 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
    eXeem public beta: Update

    It’s getting closer now:

    eXeem is going to be released THIS week (from 17th to 24th January)
    Posted by yatta at 01:14 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
    CBS: One dollar per show for on demand TV
    It's time to punch a hole in the belief that over-the-air television is free.

    The Los Angeles Times reports on how broadcasters are searching for ways to have the public pay for their so-called free television. In the wake of ad-skipping made possible through DVRs, the networks want to know whether viewers can be persuaded to help pay for programming that they're now getting free.

    (Continued at The Pomo Blog)

    (As mah pappy still sez, "It's hard for a dog to stop being a dog when all it knows how to be is a dog." -kc.)
    Posted by yatta at 01:13 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
    Future of News: A Distributed Look

    A Slashdot reader notes that the Net gives news consumers some advantages over traditional media, "as the user has more control over what to view and when to view it. But how does the future of this utopia look?"

    An engaging discussion, looking at matters such as the echo-chamber effect and Darwinistic traits in the news process, ensues. (Slashdot general advice: set your comment filter to 2 for mostly higher quality remarks).

    Note, this thread doesn't delve much into the citizen-created journalism I'm pushing here. Bur for most people, just being able to get a better report than they've been getting from traditional sources is an important step forward.

    Posted by yatta at 01:09 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
    (DVR) Recordings Made Way Too Hard
    The little secret of digital video recorders is that while they allow you to amass a large collection of movies and TV shows quickly, you still have to find time to watch the material you recorded so effortlessly. For all their merits, these things can't add an extra two hours to each day to help you catch up on this backlog of video.
    Posted by yatta at 01:06 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

    January 17, 2005

    Links for Aspiring 21st c. Media Moguls

    I met a Harvard Business School student this weekend who said he wants to be the next Rupert Murdoch.  But can there be another Murdoch in this age of disintermediation? 

    This student didn't know too much about blogs and the emergence of participatory media. You may be shocked, but actually most businesspeople out there don't know much about this stuff. Blogs and blogging (even from the marketing perspective) do not seem to be part of the HBS curriculum. I was going to email him some links. But I might as well make it an open blog post for anybody who is interested.

    So if  you're interested in trying to become a media moghul of the future, you better read this, this, and this (PDF). Just for starters. 

    Posted by yatta at 09:36 PM | Comments (1) | TrackBack
    Long Tail TV: Conclusion

    So far I've been pretty fully in armchair economist mode here (is there any better reason for a blog?), but it's time to go beyond the charts and trend stats and actually ask: What kind of TV are we talking about, anyway? Are there, for instance, any examples?

    There are. But first, let's crisp up what I mean by Long Tail TV. The definition of the Long Tail in this context is: "content that is not available through traditional distribution channels but could nevertheless find an audience." For the most part, that's niche content. It may not have been niche when it was made or niche everywhere but it counts as niche now where you live.

    (Continued at The Long Tail)

    Posted by yatta at 09:34 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
    Skype calls using regular phones
    Internet Phone Wizard - Actiontec Sometimes when Skype rings we scramble to find the headset in time to answer the call. This wouldn’t happen with Actiontec’s Internet Phone Wizard. It connects a regular phone to a computer for making, and receiving, calls using Skype. The box channels the sound through the phone instead of the computer speakers and mic. There’s also some echo-cancellation technology that enhances the quality of the call.
    Posted by yatta at 09:31 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
    Sony PSP 'update' adds office apps, browser, email

    Early build leaked onto the web: Sony may be preparing to release its first PlayStation Portable (PSP) update, if a file that briefly appeared on the web this weekend is what it purports to be: a leaked copy of an early version of the update code.

    Posted by yatta at 09:07 PM | Comments (3) | TrackBack
    TV On Your PC -- With an Antenna!


    A Japanese company called Canopus Inc. plans to start selling next month a new USB TV tuner card that lets you tune in TV on a PC. The coolest part is that it has a standard cable connector into which you can attach a included antenna that receives standard TV.

    Posted by yatta at 09:05 PM | Comments (1) | TrackBack
    How To Control Your RSS Feeds
    First step: Don't publish one. If you don't want your RSS feed to be read in every RSS reader and news aggregator, if you can't cope with the lack of control, skip it. By their nature, RSS feeds come without a lot of the baggage carried by a web site; that's why people trying to make a living or earn money from their blogs are looking for ways to incorporate advertising into their RSS feeds.

    Unhappy with the way a couple of hundred people were seeing his feed in Bloglines and dismayed by the possibility that Bloglines eventually might profit from being able to serve it, attorney Marty Schwimmer, author of the Trademark Blog, asked the service to drop access. They complied and Bloglines subs can no longer read or subscribe to Schwimmer's blog, which is published under a non-commercial Creative Commons license. Schwimmer's reasoning? "I create content in part to promote my law firm, which I cannot do effectively if my contact info is removed. I do not participate in targeted advertising programs because the majority of advertisers that target the keyword 'trademark' are competitors. I cannot prevent such advertising when my page is reproduced and 'framed' by a third party."

    (Continued at PaidContent.org)
    Posted by yatta at 09:03 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
    P2P Manifesto

    Marco Montemagno writes Smartmobs: P2P Manifesto is a P2P study that I've done and also a project, released under CC license.

    This study (30 pages, available on a dedicated blog, in pdf format or in .torrent/blogtorrent) explains why:

    - P2P is unstoppable
    - P2P is positive for companies
    - P2P is positive for the market
    - P2P is good for users

    All the readers can create their own P2P Manifesto, free to edit this original P2P manifesto.

    The idea is to then collect on the blog all the different P2P Manifesto's releases, to create a good knowledge base point about P2P issues.

    ps: Smart Mobs is one of the suggested link


    Thank you Marco !

    Posted by yatta at 09:00 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
    Broadcasters Want Digital Music Download Stores As Well
    Because there simply aren't enough different and incompatible music download stores out there already, a number of radio broadcasters are considering plans to enter the game as well. Of course, they hope to leverage their existing broadcasts by allowing users to immediately download a track they're listening to being broadcast. It's an interesting concept in theory, but considering the hodge-podge of different copy protection technologies, music download stores and devices, you have to wonder if people are going to simply declare that they've had enough. Who wants to worry that the CD they bought at Tower Records only works on Tower-certified CD players?
    Posted by yatta at 08:59 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
    Slashdot | On Finding Semantic Web Documents
    A research group at University of Maryland has published a blog describing the latest approach for finding and indexing Semantic Web Documents. They have published it in reaction to Peter Norvig's (director of search quality at Google) view on the Semantic Web (Semantic Web Ontologies: What Works and What Doesn't): 'A friend of mine [from UMBC] just asked can I send him all the URLs on the web that have dot-RDF, dot-OWL, and a couple other extensions on them; he couldn't find them all. I looked, and it turns out there's only around 200,000 of them. That's about 0.005% of the web. We've got a ways to go.'"
    Posted by yatta at 08:55 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
    TiVo walked away from Comcast

    This writeup from Engadget sums up my feelings about a story in the New York Times:

    Ok, now we understand why TiVo CEO Michael Ramsay was promoted out of his job last week. You know how people have been telling TiVo how the only way they're going to survive would be to convince some a cable company to license their digital video recorder software for use on set-top boxes? Yeah, well according to the New York Times last summer they were about to score a big deal with Comcast to do precisely this, that is until Ramsay pulled the plug at the last moment because he was convinced TiVo wasn't getting paid enough money or given enough control over the service.

    Remember how DirecTV accounts for 2,000,000 of TiVo's 3,000,000 customers and TiVo lost that relationship?  TiVo was negotiating with Comcast last summer and offered less than the $1/month that they get from DirecTV, so Michael Ramsay decided to walk away.

    Now it's easy to play Monday morning quarterback in situations like this, but hasn't a big cable company deal been the dream all along? And in spite of sub-dollar monthly fees, couldn't the Tahiti strategy be an alternate revenue source for those customers?

    To be fair, if the Comcast deal had been inked and then TiVo was prevented from introducing innovative products because of their threat to the cable companies we'd all be screaming bloody murder.  It's possible (note that word, this is pure speculation) that there was a non-negotiable clause that said something like "Non-Comcast video will not be available on the TiVo" which would have nixed any of the future plans like partnering with content providers.

    When the story of TiVo is written, this Comcast negotiation could be the point when the company's outcome was decided.

    Posted by yatta at 08:53 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
    Living in the age of EgoCasting

    The Me in Media started, not with TiVo or weblogs, but with the remote control, argues Christine Rosen in her fantastic essay, The Age of Egocasting.

    As consumers, we expect our television, our music, our movies, and our books “on demand.” We have created and embraced technologies that enable us to make a fetish of our preferences.
    Now as most of us who debate and deliberate about this customization, might think of it as empowerment of the individual, in reality, Rosen thinks we are losing some of the joys of consuming the very same media. The biggest one being, surprise.
    By giving us the illusion of perfect control, these technologies risk making us incapable of ever being surprised. They encourage not the cultivation of taste, but the numbing repetition of fetish. And they contribute to what might be called “egocasting,” the thoroughly personalized and extremely narrow pursuit of one’s personal taste.
    She points out very eloquently, like all the egocasting devices, the original purpose of the remote control was to tune out those annoying commercials. Ironic, isn’t it that the PVR was based on the same premise, and if TiVo’s commercial casting antics are any indication, then perhaps we will continue to grapple with the same problem. Rosen also points out that it was 1956 when the remote control was invented but it wasn’t till 1985 when it became a routine accessory for all televisions. 29 years.

    Now that’s a long time in Silicon Valley. It is also a cautionary stat, because it tells you how long big ideas, like remote, VCR or DVRs and in the future, the concept of exploding TV will take to proliferate and propagate amongst the masses.
    Only a small minority of homes currently own DVRs—about four percent, according to marketing research firm Knowledge Networks. As Advertising Age recently noted, this means that “more homes in the U.S. have outhouses” than these devices.
    She finds the same me-power the main reason behind the feverish devotion to IPod and what it has done to change our music listening patterns.
    TiVo, iPod, and other technologies of personalization are conditioning us to be the kind of consumers who are, as Joseph Wood Krutch warned long ago, “incapable of anything except habit and prejudice,” with our needs always preemptively satisfied.
    Read The Age of Ego Casting/ New Atlantic

    Posted by yatta at 08:51 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
    The Year in DRM & Content Technologies

    Bill Rosenblatt over at DRM Watch has compiled a very useful overview of the state of DRM (inlduing mobile DRM) and content technologies in 2004 and what to expect in 2005…a must read:
    2004 Year in Review: Online Content Services
    2004 Year In Review: DRM Standards
    2004 Year in Review: DRM Technologies
    2004 Year in Review: Legal Issues

    Posted by yatta at 08:49 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
    Gaming giant EA wants to be an entertainment giant too

    If EA has its way, it will soon become as much of a household name in entertainment as Disney. However, it plans to do so by dominating the videogame industry rather than branching out into film or music. In the short-term, it hopes to double its revenues from their US$3 billion level by 2009, primarily by making the games appeal to a wider audience than they currently do.

    In an update to our earlier version of this story, we have now learned that EA has signed a an exclusive deal with ESPN for ESPN-branded games. You may recall that EA stunned gamers last month when they locked up the rights to NFL-based games for five years, granting it exclusive rights to use NFL players, teams, and stadiums in its games. Now EA has scored another such deal that will grant the company a 15-year licenses to develop games based on ESPN's holdings. This comes as a serious blow to Sega Sammy Holdings and Take-Two Interactive Software, with whom ESPN previously dealt.

    (Continued at Ars Technica)

    Posted by yatta at 08:45 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
    New ($400) 16:9 Consumer Camcorders From Sony
    I4U has the lowdown on Sony's new line of consumer DV recorders with 16:9 ratio video. Lots of cool new camcorders, and the prices are very reasonable too, with one model (the DCR-HC21) starting at just $400.

    Posted by yatta at 08:41 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
    The Committee to Protect Bloggers
    Sadly, a Committee to Protect Bloggers is an idea whose time has come, given what is happening to our colleague bloggers in Iran, China, and elsewhere. Its goals:
    : We are concerned primarily, though not exclusively, with the well-being of the bloggers themselves. Press freedom is extremely valuable and will be agitated for, but our primary concern is keeping bloggers alive and free.

    : We are concerned for them as bloggers, even if some are also journalists or activists.

    : We are a group of bloggers, communicating via blogs, about other bloggers. We have some understanding of our fellows that other groups, no matter how well-meaning, cannot. We also have immediate access to the communications power of the blogosphere.
    I know nothing about who's behind this; heard about it on Global Voices; eager to hear more.

    Posted by yatta at 08:35 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
    Leaflets and flyers on the mobile phone
    High street shoppers are to face street marketing teams attempting to download promotional material to their mobile phones, warns The Guardian.

    Teams of promotional staff will be given special sashes containing microchips that beam information to the mobile phones of passers-by. The downloads could take the form of electronic money-off vouchers, competition entries or simply the phone number and website address of the company in question.

    Hypertag, the company behind the idea, said they have already signed up three clients who would be using the new wearable technology in the next month. One is a retail group and the other two will target crowds at sporting events, offering people a free ringtone for their phone or inviting them to take part in a competition.

    Ms Harker, one of three directors who co-founded Hypertag, insisted consumers would always have to give their consent to receive information from the promotional teams. "You have got to decided you want to interact. We did a lot of consumer research before we launched and we know that if they broadcast anything to their phone that they haven't asked for it will be a real turn-off." She predicted the technology could soon replace leaflets and flyers.

    Related entry:
    - Field marketers armed with electronic tags.

    Posted by yatta at 08:33 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
    Coming Soon to a Mob Near You
    Andy Carvin discusses mobcasting -- combining mobile phone-enabled podcasting with smart mob-like group action to cover events simultaneously and from a variety of perspectives. Mobcasting would also allow groups of citizens to distribute their coverage instantaneously to a centralized website via RSS. This leads to coverage by bloggers throughout the blogosphere, writes Carvin, which leads to coverage by the mainstream media, which leads to demands of accountability by the general public. That's mobcasting.
    Posted by yatta at 08:16 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
    The Depolarizing Power of the Blogosphere
    James D Miller believes that although the Blogosphere can politically polarize audiences, in the end it will reduce political differences among Americans. Why? Because the web is replete with blogs that bypass traditional ideological divides and, like the best Internet dating services, engage individuals who share opinions on certain issues but vary on others. This is the best way to open up more democratic discourse, Miller argues, and to test one's own political views. In doing so, blogs can begin to disassemble traditional media's bi-partisan divide, which often sees everyone as following one or the other party line.

    Miller's own line contradicts that of Cass R. Sunstein, who argues that the process of web "filtering" segregates people into more isolated niche communities -- where they're exposed to very few other opinions and become ever more entrenched with their narrow beliefs.
    Posted by yatta at 08:16 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
    Howard Dean Paid Bloggers

    More evidence we're living in a new media world with few rules. David Akin notes that The Wall Street Journal reported Friday that the Daily Kos and another blog received $3,000 a month for four months from the Howard Dean campaign.

    The story reports that the bloggers disclosed on their blogs that they received funds from the Dean campaign.

    UPDATED 1/16/05: Daily Kos yesterday posted the Dean campaign's side of the WSJ story.

    Posted by yatta at 08:16 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
    Freedom of the Press Belongs to Those Who Own Servers

    Over on PressThink, Jay Rosen tries to put another nail in the coffin of the ever-absurd debate of "bloggers vs. journalism" (Bloggers vs. Journalists is Over). Read the whole thing.

    (Continued at The Importance of...)

    Posted by yatta at 08:06 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
    RSS Aggravation

    Are feeds implied licenses, or can they alter express ones? I don't think there's an easy answer, but a court could be asked this question before long as businesses built on RSS continue to explore what they can and should be doing with the material they aggregate. Marty Schwimmer (Bloglines, no thanks), Dennis Kennedy (don't make me put ads in my feed), and Robert Scoble (people who live in full post houses shouldn't throw republication stones) have more. Mark Fletcher expands and contracts.

    Posted by yatta at 08:03 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
    Center for Community Journallism Home Page
    The mission of the Center for Community Journalism is to foster effective community journalism by training working journalists and forging a link between academia and the world of community journalism that strengthens both.
    Posted by yatta at 08:00 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
    Freeplay Lifeline Radio

    freeplay_lifeline.jpg imageFreeplay, the same eco-friendly company that makes the Jonta wind-up flashlight, has another human-powered invention, dubbed the Lifeline radio. But unlike other solar- and crank-driven products from Freeplay, you can't buy this one, at least not for yourself. Instead, each $55 purchase pays for one of the AM/FM/Shortwave receivers to be shipped to a developing nation, where communication with others in their country can open up opportunities for learning, better ways to deal with disasters, and a young sharecropper's first taste of The Stooges—can you put a price on the future of rock?

    Lifeline Product Page [Freeplay via TreeHugger]

    Posted by yatta at 07:56 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
    YADT - Yet another disruptive technology (Radio Feedback)
    Instant Radio Feedback From Your Cell Phone
    Nokia is set to introduce mobile phone technology that allows listeners to send instant feedback on songs to radio stations, as well as compete in contests. The new phones will have what is called "visual radio" capabilities, according to a Financial Times report. The new technology lets stations send information directly to listeners' mobile phone screens during a song, ranging from a picture of the artist to polls asking the listener to rate the song. Replies are instantaneously sent back to the station.

    (...)

    Nokia's Reidar Wasenius told Financial Times: "This is a potential disrupter to the music industry business model. Rather than radio stations being paid rates based on the estimated number of listeners, they could pay stations based on how many copies of a song they sold. Radio stations could become more like retailers."
    See also:
    Original Financial Times article: Radio stations dial into instant feedback

    Via Adverblog: Nokia introduces the "visual radio"
    Posted by yatta at 07:20 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
    TechnoratiTags

    Technorati announced their new tag search engine recently (more info on that), so I've written a Movable Type plugin that will take an entry's Keywords field and turn them into Technorati tags. If you want to see it in action, look at the sidebar on the top right of this entry.

    Download TechnoratiTags 0.2 (zip)

    Update: If you have the PerlScript plugin already installed you can achieve the same effect with these instructions.

    Posted by yatta at 07:20 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

    January 16, 2005

    DDN Communities: Citizen Journalist
    A movement is afoot for community members to become news producers -- citizen journalists -- and to interact more with members of the mainstream press, creating more of a dialogue then "lecture" format for the news.

    This (Digital Divide Network) community will share news and ideas about the citizen journalist movement.
    Posted by yatta at 12:53 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
    wwiTV: Watch Live TV stations broadcasting on the internet.
    wwiTV.com is an index to streaming media available on the web. We do not provide streaming content ourselves.
    Posted by yatta at 11:48 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
    Word to MediaWiki
    A Word macro to turn Word formatting into Wiki markup for the Wikipedia (works with Office X)
    Posted by yatta at 11:44 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

    January 15, 2005

    CBS Tries DRM to Block Criticism of Rathergate Report

    Last week the panel investigating CBS's botched reporting about President Bush's military service released its report. The report was offered on the net in PDF format by CBS and its law firm. CBS was rightly commended for its openness in facing up to its past misbehavior and publicizing the report. Many bloggers, in commenting on the report and events that led to it, included quotes from the report.

    Yesterday, Ernest Miller noticed that he could no longer copy and paste material from the report PDF into other documents. Seth Finkelstein confirmed that the version of the report on the CBS and law firm websites had been modified. The contents were the same but an Adobe DRM (Digital Restrictions Management) technology had been enabled, to prevent copying and pasting from the report. Apparently CBS (or its lawyers) wanted to make it harder for people to quote from the report.

    This is yet another use of DRM that has nothing to do with copyright infringement. Nobody who wanted to copy the report as a whole would do so by copying and pasting -- the report is enormous and the whole thing is available for free online anyway. The only plausible use of copy-and-paste is to quote from the report in order to comment, which is almost certainly fair use.

    (CBS might reasonably have wanted to prevent modifications to the report file itself. They could have done this, within Adobe's DRM system, without taking away the ability to copy-and-paste material from the file. But they chose instead to ban both modification and copy-and-paste.)

    This sort of thing should not be a public policy problem; but the DMCA makes it one. If the law were neutral about DRM, we could just let the technology take its course. Unfortunately, U.S. law favors the publishers of DRMed material over would-be users of that material. For example, circumventing the DRM on the CBS report, in order to engage in fair-use commentary, may well violate the DMCA. (The DMCA has no fair-use exception, and courts have ruled that a DMCA violation can occur even if there is no copyright infringement.)

    (Continud at Freedom to Tinker)

    Posted by yatta at 02:36 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
    Norvegian TV introduces mobile video interactivity to children's programming

    According to DM Europe (via picturephoning), Norwegian TV viewers can now send in video clips from their mobile phones and have them shown on the national TV programme Svisj, an entertainment for youngsters.

    NRK television is considering extending the technology to entertainment, sports and news programmes. When newsworthy events occur, any phone with a built-in camcorder can provide video coverage to the broadcaster.

    "This means that we have thousands of latent video reporters all over the world," said Gunnar Garfors, director of mobile services at NRK Division of Developments, "and Norwegians take up new technology very early, so mobile videos will be commonplace on TV in a few years' time."

    Posted by yatta at 01:59 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
    Technorati Takes Tags Global



    Technorati just launched Tag Search across blogs, Flickr, del.icio.us and Socialtext wikis. Here's a zeitgeist and a search for social software tags.

    (Continued at Many to Many)

    Posted by yatta at 01:58 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
    XM eyes TiVo, iTunes functions
    XM eyes TiVo, iTunes functions. New patent application filed by satellite radio leader details plans for recording and other capabilities.
    Posted by yatta at 01:33 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
    Minimalist Radio The Mouseradio from Germany is a ...


    How to design a radio without buttons.

    The Mouseradio from Germany is a fully functioning radio without buttons. The idea was to use the mouse navigation and to implement it in a radio. Moving the radio vertically changes the volume, moving the radio on the horizontal axis changes the frequency being tuned to. The radio is on, when the black speaker points up in the air.

    Here's the video.
    Take Back The News | A News Sharing Community
    Another citizen journalism project, where users send submit news to editors
    Posted by yatta at 12:11 PM | Comments (1) | TrackBack
    thoughts on video blogging

    I'm putting together some notes for my session on the Masses' Media at vloggercon next week and decided to aggregate some comments I'd left on blogs around the web. If there was a better tool for this than my blog, I would have used it. ;p

    From CamWorld. Original post- link.

    Mail for December 28, 2001

    From: Eli Chapman
    Subject: metadata

    Hello Cam. I see you're getting interested in metadata. I've been stopping by camworld (and reading the cms-list) for sometime now and have always enjoyed your thoughts and insights. I've been working with companies that do media asset management, and have seen the potential power of metadata. BBC and CNN (and the software vendors they work with) are some of the pioneers in this. There's an interesting project on sourceforge (aaf.sourceforge.net) that is moving towards an open format for media and metadata which would allow someone to see how an asset has been used and referenced throughout its entire life.

    On a sidenote, I believe there is an opportunity for a new media asset management product which I'd love to see if you were interested in. The goal is to utilize metadata and user-history/interactions thereby creating an intelligent search, retrieval, editing and publishing system for video. At the onset, the system would be made for newsrooms (like BBC and CNN), where I know there is a demand. Much of the system has been developed already. We are going to license SDKs, integrate them together, and then develop the core funcitonality we need. I'm working on the requirements doc right now.
    (Continued at ChapmanLogic)
    Posted by yatta at 12:10 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
    France Telecom's Livebox is a complete failure | noirExtreme
    Le Canard Encha n a satirical French newspaper ran an article on the spectacular failure of FT's Livebox a few days ago and I can't resist the pleasure to share the story with English speaking readers.
    France Telecom's miracle box supposed to deliver TV and Telephony over the Internet is a fiasco".

    (...)Well, the phone did ring: over a 4 months period Wanadoo's hotline has been swamped by 90,000 calls of irate customers. At the other end of the line, helpless CSRs exhausted by daily insults lost it in the end [and went on strike twice in December]. That's the Internet revolution!(...)

    While Inventel and Sagem, manufacturers of the Livebox, produced 3,000 pieces a week, FT sold 2,000 boxes a day. Customers had to wait up to 2 months for delivery but had to pay their monthly subscription already.

    And then the real troubles began. "I didn't understand the manual therefore I paid 48 for a technician to come on site. He didn't understand anything either and needed 4 hours to get the box to work". "Internet phone? At best cutoffs, at worse nothing!". "MaLigne TV? The image is shaky, disappears, comes back then feezes".(...) "It takes forever to change channel. And when you finally get TV to work, the phone line goes dead".(...) "And I can't even cancel my subscription!" (...) "When I download a large file, I lose the TV signal."(...)
    (Contined at noirExtreme)
    Posted by yatta at 12:08 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

    January 14, 2005

    coolest thing at MacWorld- LaCie hard drive plays back direct to TV


    A little birdie told me that the coolest thing at MacWorld was the LaCie - silverscreen - Multimedia Hard Drive. It's a USB powered hard drive, with a video out snake cable with RCAs, and other standard connectors for playing back video files (MPEG 1, 2, 4) on a TV. It has a remote control that you use to open, play, and browse the videos/files on your drive via the TV. I haven't seen it yet. But it's listing for $329 and is supposed to be available next month. The only negative I see is that it's USB powered- which means you still need a computer nearby when you're playing off the TV. Maybe the USB on the set-top will work. Hmmmm. LaCie! Send unmediated some demo units! We'll add video aggregation to it! Anyone know how they're doing this? Is it one of those multimedia playback browsers?

    Posted by Eli Chapman at 12:38 AM | Comments (2) | TrackBack

    January 13, 2005

    RSS ideas for news sites
    How about using RSS to deliver classified and calendar listings? Or even personalized news feeds based on keywords and favorite columnists?) Sites likes LISJobs.com, Pickajob.com and RSSJobs.com are already distributing job feeds via RSS....
    Posted by yatta at 11:33 PM | Comments (1) | TrackBack
    EyeToy

    eyetoy.gifAndrew Losowsky looked in an article in Guardian at the technology behind the success of Sony PlayStation2's EyeToy. Recently he followed this up in his weblog quoting Gonzalo Frasca, a researcher in computer games at the IT University of Copenhagen who emphasizes the impact of embodied interaction in games.

    "With these games, players can use their bodies to communicate, to express themselves," says Gonzalo Frasca, "In addition to your play style, you also have your body language style. For example, some EyeToy players will try to make minimal movements, while others enjoy doing more grotesque ones. Lots of people also enjoy doing movements that are not functional to the game itself, like spinning or jumping, just because it's a cool thing to do and they are aware that they have an audience."

    Posted by Gerrit Visser on Smartmobs, originally from OLDaily

    "There are two main reasons why it works so well," says Gonzalo Frasca, "The first and obvious reason is that it is extremely easy to learn and it involves a very natural interface: body movements. But the most important reason for its popularity is that it is also a fun game to watch. People make a lot of goofy movements while playing it, so it is very enjoyable for non-participants.

    The transformed game structure has some interesting aspects that the original game does not have. In the transformed game, the players have included an element of conscious choice in the rules by including an action where they have to choose whether it is profitable to do calculations to make a piece. Making the right choice depends on cooperation and interaction between group members in the physical space...

    The design of both hardware and software for a camera-based interface is a new challenge. Suddenly there is an importance not just on who is playing but exactly where they are doing it, and what the conditions are like in players' front rooms.

    Posted by yatta at 10:42 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
    When Demand Supplies Itself, Part N

    Mark Jones:

    Steve Rubel is right in that newspapers and magazines are no longer the only information gatekeepers. That's not been the case for a long time, at least in Internet time. The difference in my mind is that traditional media have been joined by bloggers, not overrun by them. The idea that traditional media must accept that they have been eternally backed into a corner by bloggers is, well, propaganda.

    Traditional media, like blogs, have their own set of values that determine how news or information is presented. Readers, for want of a better term, give their attention to information sources that either align with or challenge their views, depending on your perspective. My experience shows that people will read your stories if you've got their attention, and importantly if you manage to keep their attention. But does the traditional media have to change? You bet.

    Background link: This piece in The Age.

    Posted by yatta at 10:38 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
    Gestural UI
    Samsung has announced a new cell phone which interprets motions as commands, allowing the user to dial by writing numbers in the air, and delete unwanted mail by shaking them out. [warrenellis]
    Posted by yatta at 10:36 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
    Coral: The NYU Distribution Network
    Coral is peer-to-peer content distribution network. It allows a user to run a web site that offers high performance and meets huge demand, all for the price of a $50/month cable modem. Sites that volunteer to run Coral automatically replicate content as a side effect of users accessing it. Publishing through Coral is as simple as appending a short string to the hostname of objects' URLs; a peer-to-peer DNS layer transparently redirects browsers to participating cache nodes, which in turn cooperate to minimize load on the source web server. Using modern peer-to-peer indexing techniques, Coral will efficiently find a cached object if it exists anywhere in the network, requiring that it use the origin server only to initially fetch the object once.

    Posted by yatta at 10:35 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
    Sanyo Prototype TV Phone

    Sanyo was showing off this prototype phone at CES that has a built-in TV tuner. The clamshell screen can be flipped over so television can be watched while it's closed, as well. Don't ask me why, but something clicked inside my brain when I saw this prototype—broadcast TV on a phone could be really great. I might even accept streaming video via EV-DO (something this phone ostensibly supports), but it just doesn't have the same punch—probably because it wouldn't be free.

    sanyoces_proto.jpg image

    Posted by yatta at 10:33 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
    The - - AA's Next Move
    With their latest assault resulting in the closure of many Bit Torrent websites, the RIAA and MPAA now focus their efforts on original seeds. Via software they've dubbed "First Source" (see press release), BayTSP - an intelligence gathering company employed by the entertainment industry, hopes to better track the first users to upload pirated films, software and music via Bit Torrent and E-Donkey. Slyck has more detail; they also point to this useful analysis of how Bit Torrent operates.
    Posted by yatta at 10:32 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
    XSPF Web Music Player - Plays MP3 on your website
    "XSPF Web Music Player is a flash-based web application that uses xspf playlist format to play mp3 songs"
    Posted by yatta at 10:31 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
    Photospace
    Photospace is an open platform for searching, viewing and annotating digital media in time and space. It is built to handle a large set of media and to provide tools to easily find and use what you are looking for.
    Posted by yatta at 10:23 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
    RDF/A Syntax
    This proposal outlines a new XML syntax for RDF that relies only on XML attributes, and so can be easily imported into other markup languages allowing them to carry arbitrary RDF.
    Posted by yatta at 10:23 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
    TiVo Co-Founder Steps Down As CEO
    TiVo CEO and Co-Founder Mike Ramsay, 55, has announced he will step down as CEO, a position he held for eight years, after a successor is in place. TiVo has been under the gun from cable and satellite operators who have been building their own, non-TiVo technology into set top boxes. On a brighter note, TiVo recently launched TiVoToGo, a product that enables TiVo users to transfer recorded programming to their computers and portable media players. Ramsay says his move has been in the works for some time and is not in reaction to any particular event.
    Posted by yatta at 10:23 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
    Polished Media Hubs

    Mediahub_1

    The Philips Streamium SL300i and SL400i are polished wired and wireless digital media hubs capable of handling music, photos, video, and streaming Internet media. They are good (if a bit pricey) solutions that would be better with support for more media formats, album art, and more features on the remote.

    Posted by yatta at 10:22 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
    Tsunami Video Project nears 2 million views
    An update on the Tsunami Video Hosting Project: we're at more than 1,800,000 videos served in ten days. The work by Robert Cox, the Media Bloggers Association, Alex Yuriev at Zubr Communications, Mirror Image, The Internet Archive, and Washingtonpost.com continues to be astonishing and wonderful. Keep in mind: my original plea was posted on 12/31.
  • Earlier:OJR's Mark Glaser on the project.
    Posted by yatta at 10:06 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
  • January 12, 2005

    The Old Fourth Estate Crumbles
    Howard Fineman eulogizes mainstream media and the Fourth Estate, "which is being destroyed by the opposition (or worse, the casual disdain) of George Bush's Republican Party; by competition from other news outlets (led by the internet and Fox's canny Roger Ailes); and by its own fraying journalistic standards." Jeff Jarvis doesn't share Fineman's nostalgia. My concern: can Jarvis' emerging Fourth Estate (bloggers, citizen journalists and the like) legitimately challenge the powerful in the same way?

    (Also read @ BuzzMachine: The gradual end of TV as we know it)

    Posted by yatta at 01:33 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
    Mobile Media Company Partners with Rubberduck Media Lab to Provide Streaming TV to Wireless Devices

    Rubberduck Media Lab” and Mobile Media have teamed up to bring streaming TV to mobile phones, using technology already in the handsets.

    Posted by yatta at 01:23 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
    Banning City Clouds

    C/Net reports that Intel on Wednesday plans to provide a high-level perspective on the ongoing debate over the role of the public and private sectors in providing broadband services.

    In a speech at the Wireless Communications Association in San Jose, Calif., Intel Executive Vice President Sean Maloney is expected to encourage commercial service providers and public agencies such as city governments and municipalities to work together in building out new broadband infrastructure.

    (Continued at Daily Wireless)

    Posted by yatta at 01:20 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
    Does big news trump copyright?

    Fascinating discussion going on over at Don't Lose the Question: Can grassroots news sites ignore copyright during a big news story like the tsunami?

    Posted by yatta at 01:18 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
    LG Gaming Phone Slightly Less Weird

    lg_gamingphone.jpg imageQuite a few of you have written in to tell me that LG's weird 3d gaming phone isn't so weird after all, since it actually opens up to be used like a proper handheld console. That makes a lot more sense. I hereby rescind 'weird' to replace it with 'ugly.' Okay, actually it's not all that ugly, but I don't like the look of the D-Pad.

    LG Develops World's Fastest 3D Game-Phone [Chosun]

    Posted by yatta at 01:17 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
    Hackers Tune In to Windows Media Player
    Hackers are using the newest DRM technology in Microsoft's Windows Media Player to install spyware, adware, dialers and computer viruses on unsuspecting PC users.

    Security researchers have detected the appearance of two new Trojans, Trj/WmvDownloader.A and Trj/WmvDownloader.B, in video files circulating on P2P (peer-to-peer) networks.

    According to Panda Software, both Trojans take advantage of the new Windows anti-piracy technology to trick users into downloading spyware and adware applications.
    Posted by yatta at 01:14 PM | Comments (1) | TrackBack
    Embodied interaction (and seduction) in games

    Andrew Losowsky looked in an article in Guardian at the technology behind the success of Sony PlayStation2's EyeToy. Recently he followed this up in his weblog quoting Gonzalo Frasca, a researcher in computer games at the IT University of Copenhagen who emphasizes the impact of embodied interaction in games.

    "With these games, players can use their bodies to communicate, to express themselves," says Gonzalo Frasca, "In addition to your play style, you also have your body language style. For example, some EyeToy players will try to make minimal movements, while others enjoy doing more grotesque ones. Lots of people also enjoy doing movements that are not functional to the game itself, like spinning or jumping, just because it's a cool thing to do and they are aware that they have an audience."

    "There are two main reasons why it works so well," says Gonzalo Frasca, "The first and obvious reason is that it is extremely easy to learn and it involves a very natural interface: body movements. But the most important reason for its popularity is that it is also a fun game to watch. People make a lot of goofy movements while playing it, so it is very enjoyable for non-participants.

    The transformed game structure has some interesting aspects that the original game does not have. In the transformed game, the players have included an element of conscious choice in the rules by including an action where they have to choose whether it is profitable to do calculations to make a piece. Making the right choice depends on cooperation and interaction between group members in the physical space...

    The design of both hardware and software for a camera-based interface is a new challenge. Suddenly there is an importance not just on who is playing but exactly where they are doing it, and what the conditions are like in players' front rooms.


    via Stephen's OLDaily

    Posted by yatta at 12:09 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
    IBM Turning 500 Patents Over for Free Implementation

    IBM has announced that it will turn 500 of its software patents over to a "patent commons" that can be freely implemented by anyone. This is big news for free software authors, since it's often impossible for all-volunteer projects to defend themselves from patent infringement claims when there is a bogus software patent (like the thousands that IBM has accumulated) that overlaps with their work. Groklaw's got an excellent piece on this:

    IBM has more patents than any of them. And if they have decided to carve out a protected zone for free and open source software, then it will happen. If the proprietary software world is enamored of patents and wishes to continue that system, at least for now, while making an exception for GNU/Linux software, I call that a positive move.

    I know some would naturally argue that all software patents are bad. NoSoftwarePatents.org has taken that position and are critical of IBM's pledge.

    I think software and patents need to get a divorce myself, but I also see that we are in a period of transition. Old business models are dying, and new ones are coming into being. And if there is a way to allow everyone to make money the way they want to, that may be, for now, as good as it gets. This is a creative response to the particular issue that GNU/Linux faces with patents, and I applaud it.
    ...More

    Posted by yatta at 03:23 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
    Watch Out, Traditional Media!
    Always On: "The collective intelligence and power of the blogosphere are bringing accountability and competition to broadcast news and journalism."
    Posted by yatta at 03:19 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
    Real Time Media Prosumers
    Derrick Oien on User Generated Content reflects, through personal experience, on how we are clearly at the dawn of a period where media turns in on itself and we all become Real Time Media Producers and Consumers or Real Time Media Prosumers.
    Posted by yatta at 03:08 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
    NYT Analyzes Apple v. Bloggers

    The New York Times: Against the backdrop of the Macworld Exposition in San Francisco this week, a series of legal actions filed by Apple Computer over the last month highlights the difficulties of defining who is a journalist in the age of the Web log.

    Posted by yatta at 03:07 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack