unmediated

Over the past three years, Kevin Roderick's LA Observed has become the go-to source for links and insight about life in the Los Angeles, California not populated by stars, agents and studio executives... or wanna-be stars, agents and studio executives. Roderick, a native Angeleno, worked as a staff writer and editor at the Los Angeles Times for two decades and writes as for Los Angeles magazine in addition to publishing LA Observed, which he started in 2003.

This month, Roderick expanded his site, adding three additional blogs and a slew of contributors, shifting LA Observed from a one-man blog to an emerging community portal. Roderick answered questions about the changes in a telephone interview with OJR.

Josh Wolf, the videoblogging journalist who has been brought before the Grand Jury by the Feds in order to obtain raw footage of a protest he documented, has been charged with civil contempt. His hearing is today.

Ryan Hodson, on her new site, Ryan Is Hungry, posted an interview with Josh concerning the trial and the ramifications of forcing journalists to give up their rights.

It’s ten minutes of time well spent in order to understand what is at stake with this trial.

Josh needs donations in order to pay for this battle. So far, he’s raised two thousand dollars but may need much more if the trials continue.

Preserve your right to record.

- Anne

ASCII a people's communication lab in a squatted building in Amsterdam.using recycled old computers and using free software to bring broader access to technology for everybody. ASCII is a collective of free and autonomous thinkers, technically and politic

The Wi-Fi in Your Handset - New York Times

It's a pretty innocuous headline and photo, but make no mistake this is an early salvo in what looks to be a heated battle over the control of the wireless infrastructure. The cell phone service providers are on one side, the equipment makers and software companies on the other. Governments? They are both omnipresent yet conspicuously absent from the core of the debate, they seem to only have a clue as to what is happening at certain key junctures (ie when municipal WiFi discussions get serious like in SF or Philadelphia).

Originally posted by Abe from Abstract Dynamics, ReBlogged by migurski on Aug 1, 2006 at 12:38 PM

WITNESS is in the process of developing a participatory website - the Video Hub, where anyone with human rights related footage can upload video that can be used to create change.

A yearly unmediated open submission exhibition of creative and technological innovations relating to the ideas of "artificial intelligence in the arts" and "new human-machine interactions".

Last year on August 1, Current TV hit the airwaves. I've been lucky enough to have been a part of the network since January of '05 and wanted to use this space to share the top ten reasons why I continue to be inspired by our mission and vision. I'm going to count backwards now:

10. "The little network that could" literally has defied all odds and expectations gaining major distribution on ComCast's digital tier.

9. Current has pioneered viewer created advertising (V-CAMs) by giving our viewers the opportunity to create ads they want to watch. We have already aired a couple on the network, and awarded our first V-CAM producer $5K for having an ad used on another website!

8. In addition to winning numerous awards for our own programming and broadcast design, we have also had VC2 producers like Crystal Frambrini and Marco Franzoni win prestigious awards for their Current TV Pods.

7. Over the past year we have hired or done exclusive deals with VC2 producers Joe Hanson, Mark Rinehart, Adrian Baschuk and Roberto Grijalva.

6. When we launched with VC2, we thought maybe it would make up about 5-10 percent of the network. It has exploded to 30 percent and continues to grow.

5. The fact that we are reinventing journalism.

4. Expanding into other mediums to tell stories in ways that allow even more people to participate.

3. Pods like this uploaded to our Website.

2. Current folks meeting together offline.

1. Comments like these on our message boards.

As we've mentioned previously, Echostar and DirecTV have formed a group dedicated to snagging spectrum, and have collectively put down nearly a billion dollars in order to do so (the FCC list of companies, and how much they've paid, is here). That obviously already matches the amount Rupert Murdoch said he'd invest in order to get DirecTV into the broadband business (err - again).

However if the rumor of DirecTV buying or cooperating with Clearwire in order to offer nationwide Wimax is true, they wouldn't need that spectrum for broadband. Daily Wireless speculates that Murdoch wants the spectrum to help MVNO Helio, which he's tying to MySpace, to move from virtual mobile phone provider to the real deal.

Hollywood Reporter writes:

What's next for FIM is leveraging MySpace's online community and communication into a peer recommendations framework for leads on everything and anything: the best children's playgrounds in Los Angeles to the best concert seats in Madison Square Garden to the best steakhouse in Dallas. Such peer recommendations provide a gentle seaway into targeted, fine-tuned behavioral marketing for national and local advertisers wanting to reach MySpace's 15- to 34-year-old core user.

lenge is to utilize that viral marketing and communications to develop a host of next-generation media services in-house so as to keep the lion's share of the revenue they will generate. Most significantly, FIM is developing refined advertising tracking, pricing and sales tools that will cater to every new-media platform and device, and quantify the collective reach of content and services reaching consumers anywhere, anytime.

This RFID in Japan post says "Shelly is a card for protecting RFID cards from skimming attacks. You just cover your RFID train pass (e.g., SUICA) or payment card (e.g., Edy) with this Shelly card and it disables the RFID's wireless communication".

Hello Kitty Protects You from Skimming Attacks

(click for bigger, or see the original here)

The first thing that struck me was how well ToonTown is doing (it's not that far off Eve or SWG for user numbers)! Also, how badly Star Wars Galaxies is now doing, but that was less of a surprise.

Also, do you think there's room for more genres in the market.. or what?

(via sexingames)

pronounced 'tel-har-mon-i-um"

"Can't make it to Europe for the current tour by the Rolling Stones? No problem.

Dial a toll-free number and listen to them perform all down the line in real time for $1.99 per seven minutes.

The British rockers are the first to use a new technology called Listen Live Now, which is backed by Hollywood talent firm Creative Artists Agency, tour promoter Live Nation, and veteran artist manager Marty Erlichman.

The technology will debut Friday when the band takes the stage at the Stade de France in Paris from noon to 2:15 p.m. Pacific time.

According to a statement, U.S. fans can buy in by calling (877) 784-2777 from 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. Pacific time. At the six-minute mark, a voice will warn them that the time is almost up, which makes bootlegging the concerts a challenge. Additionally, the shows will not be taped, Erlichman told Reuters.

The Times of India
NEW DELHI: The HRD ministry has rejected the idea of 'one-laptop-per-child' (OLPC) being aggressively marketed by Nicholas Negroponte of MIT Media Laboratory. "India must not allow itself to be used for experimentation with children in this area," the ministry has said.

The ministry's detailed objection based on technical, social and financial grounds was sent to the Planning Commission two weeks ago.

Negroponte had made a presentation on OLPC at Yojna Bhavan on April 7 seeking to sell one million laptops at the rate of $100 per unit for children, the cost to be borne by the government.

In a historic moment, the US had agreed to hand over control of Net by releasing its stranglehold of the technical co-ordination and management of the Internet’s domain name system (DNS).

The announcement came last night at a meeting of Internet governance experts in Washington, and sees the US government return to its original stance over the Net, undoing some of the confusion caused by the announcement of a series of “principles” released by the Bush administration last year.

However there remains some debate over how and when the US government should relinquish control of the private, non-profit overseeing organization ICANN that is in effective charge of the DNS. Those in favor of completing a transition which began in 1998, said the political price of having the US involved in DNS management has become too high and holds back the international development of the Internet.

ICANN recently was a hotbed of controversy over the proposed .xxx domain with the US putting significant pressure on ICANN to deny that extension. The US commerce department, who has final approval on everything ICANN does, threatened to reject the .xxx domain if ICANN didn’t, allowing the US to flex it muscle when approving all TLD extensions.

With the privatization of ICANN, the US no longer will have veto power over any actions that ICANN takes which will be a major step to help foster the growth of the internet in a healthy manner.

Read More

Yesterday, the US House of Representatives unexpectedly moved forward in voting on the Deleting Online Predators Act, or DOPA. This legislation, proposed on May 9 of this year, would require all schools and libraries receiving federal Internet subsidies known as the E-Rate to filter out all interactive websites under the mere possibility that they may lead to contact with online predators.

The vote wasn't even close.

Friendster may finally have found an advantage in the increasingly competitive social media sector — the one dominated by other companies as pioneer Friendster flailed. Last month, the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office granted Friendster a patent on “a method and apparatus for calculating, displaying and acting upon relationships in a social network” and the company says it’s been told to expect a patent covering the uploading of content onto a friend’s page. Those two and a number of others pending could make Friendster worth more as a patent farm than a social network.
Friendster president Kent Lindstrom told the WSJ the company’s lawyers are encouraging him to consider “taking people out from a litigation standpoint.” He’s also considering asking patent-licensing fees — or could skip legal action altogether. (Can we start a pool on that last one?) While Lindstorm says he’s been assured the patent is strong, others are not so sure. EFF lawyer Jason Schultz is among the skeptics; then again, EFF is waging war against what it is sees as illegitimate patents.
– The best part of the piece is not about patents, though; it’s when Lindstrom calls the effort to sell Friendster last year “poorly timed.” That’s one way to describe it.
Related: Friendster’s Money Raise: $3.1 Million
– Friendster Was Its Own Worst Enemy; MySpace Faces External Threats
– Friendster Sales Saga Continues; Viacom Takes A Pass

Call for Submissions

Transubstantiate: a peer-reviewed, online journal for performance technologies praxis :: Call for submissions :: Deadline: November 1, 2006 :: Transubstantiate welcomes submissions for its inaugural issue on the theme of Disruptive Innovation. We seek examples of new thinking and practice that overturn and / or reassess existing performance technology praxis. Submissions may be presented as papers, reviews, audio, visuals (stills / video) and code. Authors may use multiple formats in a single submission.

Topics of interest include, but are not limited to: * Networked performance * Disruptive innovations & discourse * Pedagogy, ontologies and epistemologies * Choreography for iPod. Choreographies for iPod must be specifically devised works and may take the form of: * Video / stills * Audio description / instructions * Text description / instructions * Soundscore with text description / instructions.

Transubstantiate encourages submissions that take an alternative stance on established modes of mediated performance. Submissions should be equivalent to 3000 - 8000 words in .doc, mp3, .jpg or .mp4 (video) format.

The deadline for submissions is November 1, 2006. For more information or to submit please contact the editorial & curatorial board via curators [at] transubstantiate [dot] org.

The liminal is limited; transubstantiate.

Kevin Nalty of Cubebreak and Will Video For Food is an evangelist for Revver and their advertising model of video distribution. Both Revver and Kevin believe that video hosting sites should share advertising dollars with content makers by placing ads in videos that, when clicked on by viewers, turns into a small profit for both the hosting site and the videomaker.

Naturally, Kevin is interested in the money making prospects of viral video under this model and his blog/vlog Will Video For Food is rife with tips and tricks for producing potentially viral products.

This morning, he sent me this great video he made in which he plays the role of "Viral Video Broker" and shouts out  to multiple content makers who’s videos have hit the big time….without financial compensation. He’d like to see video makers from sites like YouTube migrate to sites like Revver to rectify what he sees as a financial injustice.

(It wouldn’t hurt  Revver affiliates either. Revver has an affiliate program which gives a 20% commission on all clicks for Revver videos shown on their sites. Cubebreak, I’m sure, is an affiliate.)

As an aside, advertisers are getting free ads, in my opinion, by using click-per-ad tactics. Their commercials are still being viewed (and, as any advertiser knows, internalized by the viewer) without the costs associated with every other advertising scheme. Magazine ads, televsion spots and even the guy on the corner holding up a pizza sign get money for providing visibility, not bringing customers in the door.

I wonder how long this model will continue before internet content providers get wise?

- Anne

Via a seekrit submittor, news that Microsoft Flight Sim and Navteq are teaming up for the next in the series of Flight Simulator. This is beyond awesome:

Microsoft is using data from NAVTEQ to create much of the world in "Flight Simulator X". NAVTEQ data such as road network information, ferry landings, railroads, detailed water information (e.g. oceans, rivers, lakes, harbors, etc.), parks, golf courses, and recreational areas, enhances the "Flight Simulator X" user experience.

...

Appropriate for a Superman game, perhaps? --MM

Originally posted by Alice from Wonderland, ReBlogged by migurski on Jul 27, 2006 at 11:15 AM

The fourth season of the animated series Odd Job Jack (featuring stars like Jason Alexander, John Goodman, Christian Slater, Molly Parker, and Jerry Stiller) began airing recently on Canada's Comedy Network. The show is a riot - each episode follows a temp worker through a different employment misadventure (i.e. mortuary worker, security guard, "rodent wrangler"). This week, we heard the supremely cool news that the show's creators are launching Free Jack, in which the master Flash files and bitmaps of every piece of art used in this season of the show are being released sunder the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike license. Share, use, and remix the files to your heart's content!

animation and we just know you do too. We're proud of Odd Job Jack and we've put lots of work into our show. Our art deserves to live beyond broadcast and who better to give a free gift to than the entire planet?

Hi everyone! I¹m Laura Ling of Current's Vanguard Journalism team and I will be blogging regularly to keep you informed about how you can participate in the Current Journalism (CJ) program along with other members of the Vanguard team. The hope is that, with your help, we¹ll be able to build a network of people who are reporting on situations and issues that are affecting our world.

Over the past couple of weeks, we¹ve received pod submissions covering what¹s going on in the Middle East. Just take a look at some of the pods we¹ve recently aired: Hezbollah Youth Leaders, Coming Home to Tel Aviv, Dodging Katyushas, Beirut 101. The range of access to different areas, unique perspectives and storytelling styles has been incredible.

Please keep your submissions coming. This is a situation with global implications that isn¹t going away anytime soon. Also, Current Correspondent Mariana van Zeller is on her way to Damascus, Syria, so keep an eye out for her reports in the coming weeks.

Current Journalism is an experiment and we need your help to make it a success. Let us know what issues are important to you or what stories aren¹t being covered by the mainstream news media on our message board. Better yet, make a pod yourself and become a part of the CJ community.

"Prodigio peruano en Nueva York". I met Gerardo a few weeks ago. He’s videoblogging for El Diario, a Spanish newspaper in New York. His videoblogs are fantastic, a great insight in daily life of Spanish New York.

He’s a pioneer. He must be one of the first paid videobloggers in the world.

Watch movie (Quicktime, 1.7 min, 13.7 MB)

Original post, from gerardo romo z.:

(Via Mefeedia)

Since Ryanne and I now live in San Francisco, we thought we'd make a community videoblog.
Introducing Ryanishungry.com.

(Yeah, the name is weird and that's how we like it. The fun is you making sense of it.)

We take our inspiration from Minnesota Stories by Chuck Olsen and his friends.
The idea is, of course, very simple. Post video about your city on a specific blog. Interview cool people. Attend events. Make announcements. In this way, your community videoblog could become a real source of info for people who live near you.

For our community videoblog, we plan to cover what is appropriate to San Francisco and our interests:
interview with tech geeks and green geeks, cool happenings, and more.
People can even "suggest a story".

You want to be locally famous? Post videos about other people. You know how excited people get when they are on the local news? (which usually only includes them when something bad happens)
You can do the same on a videoblog. Start documenting the people who are doing cool things. It makes people feel appreciated and important. You also begin to create an archive, a memory, of where you live which will be gold to the future.

So keep your own personal videoblog, but make one for your city. What balls you'll have. Maybe you'll even collaborate with others. Maybe you'll even get ocal advertising? But, in the end, don't stress about schedules and deadlines. Just record and post videos as they happen. Unlike ephemeral TV shows, these videoblogs are here to stay.

Bangladesh's top mobile phone operator GrameenPhone, and USA-based CellBazaar have introduced a service connecting buyers and sellers in an electronic marketplace over the mobile phone.

"It's like a more direct, more primitive e-Bay, a phone-based equivalent of newspaper classified advertisements. The concept was developed at the MIT Media Lab.

The service will enable sellers to list details of their products, produce or even services in a database while buyers can look for any of this information through SMS. It will not handle transactions, but will simply put buyers and sellers in contact with each other via mobile phone.

... For countries like bangladesh, where the transport infrastructure is often poor, electronic commerce could prove to have even greater appeal, than in developed ones. "

[via Rajputro, Reuters and digg]

Mary Hodder and CC Chapman invited me to try out Dabble.

So I did.

Here's my first playlist:
My Playlist 'Vlog Soup 16' | Dabble.

This is pretty sweet. It brings up a framed page that lets you watch each of videos I highlighted in yesterday's Vlog Soup.

Really sweet!

CNN.com - Send an I-Report:

"Is news happening in front of your eyes? Pull out your camera and I-Report it for CNN. Use the form on this page to send files from your computer."

via [ LP ]

AsiaMedia reports "Japan's No. 2 telecom operator KDDI Corp said yesterday that it had developed a server which keeps an electronic record of the smallest events in a person's life and lets others sift through them.The Lifelog Pod jots down every activity made through a cellphone or computer, including taking photographs, searching for a restaurant, listening to music and managing money.While some may loathe the thought of an omniscient network, the company said it could provide a way to make friends."Users can learn who else their friends chat with or delve through their companions" data -- minus areas protected by passwords -- to gauge their interests," a KDDI spokesman said."Your information is connected to that of your friend, and that of his friend, and so on."In this country of cellphone aficionados, cellphone users can also put their blogs on the common server. Only people who have a common connection -- such as a mutual friend -- will be able to access each other's data."This isn't a violation of privacy rights," the KDDI official said. "It is simply that everyone is connected."

Japan:A mobile network that keeps track of everything you do

If you believe the manufacturers, RFID is the technology that will make identity theft a thing of the past. Two hackers at the HOPE conference in New York this week have demonstrated that this may not be the case, by successfully cloning a VeriChip tag implanted in human flesh, live on stage in front of an audience. Back to the drawing board, perhaps?

SCANDAL! I have a hard time believing Digg manipulates the homepage because that would imply Digg's staff actually endorses all the stuff that makes it up. And some pretty stupid stuff makes it up.

Now I hate to say I told you, but the forces of greed and stupidity are winning at MySpace. It was only a matter of time.

Wanna watch them fuck totally up a good thing? Just watch...

This latest blockage is the latest in a series of moves to keep MySpace "to themselves".

Even the best intentions of Dan Gould and his Newroosters doens't seem to be giving these people a clue.

And just to show that stupidity is no solo act, YouTube is also starting to do stupid things saying they own end-user submitted content! Just as YouTibe has surpassed the 100M video a day mark. They're the fastest growing site on the web right now.

CNN’s citizen journalism project, I-Report, is being hosted by blip.tv. It’s a good gig for blip but I’m not so sure it’s a good deal for videobloggers.

I-Report is asking for photos, audio and video of newsworthy events and the good news is that your content may be featured on the television channel. The bad news is that any content you upload will forever belong to CNN and you won’t get a dime for your troubles.

By submitting your material, for good and valuable consideration, the sufficiency and receipt of which you hereby acknowledge, you hereby grant to CNN a non-exclusive, perpetual, worldwide  license to edit, telecast, rerun, reproduce, use, syndicate, license, print,  sublicense, distribute and otherwise exhibit the materials you submit, or any portion thereof, as incorporated in any of CNN’s  programming or the promotion thereof, in any manner and in any medium or forum, whether now known or hereafter devised, without payment to you or any third party. You represent and warrant to CNN that you have the full legal right, power and authority to grant to CNN the license provided for herein, that you own or control the complete exhibition and other rights to the materials you submitted for the purposes contemplated in this license and that neither the materials nor the exercise of the rights granted herein shall infringe upon or violate the right of privacy or right of publicity of, or constitute a libel or slander against, or violate any common law or any other right of, any person or entity. This license shall be governed by the laws of the State of Georgia.

to edit and/or alter any submission. CNN reserves the right not to use the material you submit at all and/or as little of the material as it chooses.

The terms of service on Blip’s own site is much more generous. I guess that’s the difference between networks and independent publishing. Of course, your chances of getting on tv are somewhat smaller when self-publishing so it’s a question of what is more important to you.

forget to read the fine print!

- Anne

Switch is a DIY show for teaching young women about electronics through fashion and design.

A Five day Flashmob programming party is underway in Portland in conjunction with OSCON.

When - Monday, July 24th to Friday, July 28th - Drop by anytime: 7AM until Midnight or later

Where - Equator Cafe, 510 SE Morrison, Portland OR (15 blocks south of OSCON 2006) (Google Maps directions from Convention Center)

What - Be a part of a programming flashmob experiment in conjunction with OSCON 2006. The Equator Cafe is hosting a five day open source programming flashmob and we have chosen the GPL'd Democracy TV (http://www.getdemocracy.org) as our project.

The event will be filmed and compiled into a short video to be broadcast on Democracy TV at the end of the week. Folks at the codejam and other Democracy developers will be on IRC at #dtv on irc.freenode.net

The source code, wiki, and bug tracker for Democracy can be found here. Democracy Player can be downloaded for Linux, Mac, and Windows here.

TechCrunch says Limelight Networks, the content delivery technology behind such Web 2.0 leaders as MySpace, Facebook and XBoxLive, has received a new round of funding. Limelight is also widely believed to be the content delivery provider for YouTube.

They are the number two content delivery network, behind Akamai, the service provider for Apple’s iTunes. Panther Express, another content delivery network, also received funding this week.

O'Reilly's Open Source Convention 2006 (OSCON) runs July 24-28, 2006, in Portland, Oregon. Hundreds of sessions, tutorials, activities, and events, are scheduled for this year's OSCON. The $1200 conference is throughly blogged. Here's the Schedule.

OSCAMP is a grassroots cooperative effort with O'Reilly. It seeks to organize the fringe of activity that has grown up around OSCON during the last several years and is incorporated into the main conference at the Oregon Convention Center.

FOSCON is the free and fun gathering of Ruby on Rails fans held in the evening and hosted by Portland-based Free Geek, about a mile away.

FOSCON is sponsored by CD Baby: a CD store with new independent music and Planet Argon, a Ruby on Rails Development firm. The speakers will be discussing a wide range of topics of interest to the Ruby community.

The Ruby programming language allows for extensive metaprogramming. This results in a syntax that many of its users find to be very readable. Rails is primarily distributed through RubyGems, which is the official packaging format and distribution channel for Ruby libraries and applications.

Ruby on Rails was extracted by David Hansson from his work on Basecamp for 37signals (podcast). It was first released to the public in July 2004.

Join hosts Chris DiBona (of Google) and Leo Laporte (This Week in Tech), as they talk with the most interesting and important people in the Open Source and Free Software community.

Their FLOSS Weekly Podcasts are all about Free Libre Open Source Software. Here's a podcast with Perl developer Randal Schwartz.

"In a matter of weeks, YouTube has become a video Dumpster for a global audience to share first-hand reports, military strategies, propaganda videos and personal commentary about a violent conflict as it unfolds....," the Washington Post reports.

"Dozens of TV news reports from the Middle East are offered alongside those from the BBC and CNN. Some of the commentary is serious but slightly detached from day-to-day events."

(Video "dumpster" he says. -kc.)

The entertainment industry legal campaign against broadband file-traders isn't designed to litigate every p2p user into the ground - it's designed to instill fear of p2p use in the general public via ample media coverage. What the press frequently forgets to mention is that not one of the thousands of defendants has actually been found guilty of a crime in a court of law, as the RIAA and MPAA frighten most individuals into settling out of court.

This sometimes (though not always) works well for the industry, as the recipients of the lawsuits frequently don't understand their legal rights, nor can they afford to fight the lawsuits. That's not the case with Shawn Hogan, CEO of Digital Point Solutions, who has decided to fight the MPAA (see Wired report).

"A lawyer representing Universal Pictures and the Motion Picture Association of America informed the 30-year-old software developer that they were suing him for downloading Meet the Fockers over BitTorrent. Hogan was baffled. Not only does he deny the accusation, he says he already owned the film on DVD. The attorney said they would settle for $2,500. Hogan declined."

Hogan expects to pay some $100,000 in legal costs but says he would spend "well into the millions on this," as he believes the entertainment industry is "abusing the system." Hogan also operates a blog here.

Good news from Brian Conley of the Alive in Baghdad video blog. His Baghdad team member has been released after being kidnapped three days ago. Brian writes:

It is with great happiness that I can tell you our correspondent was released this afternoon in Baghdad, after approximately 72 hours in detention.

We still cannot provide his name or any more specific information, as we have not been able to reach him for permission and the specific details baout his detention.

His brother contacted our correspondent, Omar Abdullah, to tell him the good news.

As soon as we have more information, we will update the site immediately.

I would like to thank all of you who made an effort to send the word out about our correspondent and for all the support we've been provided in the last 24 hours.

Alive in Baghdad will continue producing media from Iraq, despite these recent events, and we hope to say the same about our recently released colleague, but only time will tell.

f... -andy

The title says it all:

A high school in Nebraska, USA is suing over entries posted on Wikipedia - the website that “anyone can edit” that’s popular with teenagers and the unemployed. Wikipedia itself isn’t the target of the lawsuit from Skutt High School, nor are many of the sites that legally or illegally scrape Wikipedia’s content.

The school has filed a John and Joe Doe lawsuit to identify the perps behind edits which, AP reports, “… include sharp criticism of Skutt principal Patrick Slattery, obscene language and a note about drug use by students.”

“These particular edits were really harmful and mean-spirited,” said Patrick Flood, a lawyer for Skutt told AP.

Isn’t the Wikipedia very clear that their site should not be used as a point of reference, rather then a bunch of editorials?

Read More

Enterprise reporting goes pro-am. Assignments are open sourced. They begin online. Reporters working with smart users and blogging editors get the story the pack wouldn’t, couldn’t or didn’t. They raise the money too. Q and A explains. There's $10,000 to test it, courtesy of Craig Newmark.

(Continued at PressThink)

Socialtext just released their wiki code under the OSI-compliant Mozilla Public 1.1 license. You can downloaded it here. The package is called Socialtext Open, and according to the press release, it is "the first open source wiki with a commercial venture as its primary contributor. Over 2,000 businesses run Socialtext Wiki products today as a hosted service or appliance." I'm on the board of Socialtext and we've been talking about doing this for a long time. Socialtext has always been an open source contributor, but this is a fairly important step forward and a shift in the business model. I think this puts Socialtext solidly on the right side of the open source movement.

Congratulations Ross et all.

Steven Clift linked me to an article in the Gainesville Sun out of Florida on a community's failed attempts to get a public access channel on their local TV. The paper reported that Alachua County commissioners in June joined the Gainesville City Commission in declining to create a public station.

What is interesting / dangerous is the reasoning used by the Commissioners to deny the request. According to the article, several commissioners said they believe the growth of the Internet - particularly sites such as YouTube.com that allow people to post homemade movies - eliminates the need for public access television.

Sony’s PSP team used some of its face time at Comic-Con to remind people that UMDs are still for sale. The memory-stick format for PSP has had some rocky times since the launch rush as some studios and retailers pulled back but Sony says more than 350 UMD titles are available. Also, according to Ars Technica, both Sony and Fox have titles in the pipeline. But UMD isn't the real priority anymore as Sony Connect looks for secure online-to-PSP distribution options. Other PSP bits:
– Sony is working on a PSP-TV connection and next week plans to add support for video delivery via RSS.
– PSPs will be able to function as "remotes" for PlayStation 3, raising the potential of delivering Blu-Ray DVDs via PSP although not sure how this would work.
– IGN: Sony is negotiating with wireless providers to create more PSP hotspots.

For quite some time there have been rumors about Amazon's plans for video or audio downloads. Now, just a week after Apple's movie download plans are leaked, Amazon's own similar plans are leaked as well. Apparently, Amazon decided to skip completely by a music download store (something they've also talked about for years) since Apple remains so dominant in the space. So, it's unlikely they're thrilled about Apple's plans in the video space as well. However, again, it'll be interesting to see how the market shakes out. The article is a bit vague and still leaves a lot up in the air, while ignoring how things like BitTorrent or YouTube could end up competing in the market. Just because Amazon is entering the space, it doesn't mean it's a slam dunk that enough people will care.

The web service formerly known as Prodigem (previous SmartMobs post) is now known
as MoveDigital. http://www.movedigital.com

The focus of the service is centered on moving your digital data (hence the name). So beyond just publishing BitTorrents, the service also does direct download publishing as well as mobile phone video and audio publishing (just like our publishing of torrents, we convert your video and audio to mobile phone format for you, and then also take care of the streaming to your 3G cell phone).

All Prodigem user accounts and content have been transferred over. Your usernames are still the same, and all Prodigem users also get a free 1 year membership. We're pleased also to announce that Senator John Edwards is our first official customer, not only using MoveDigital to distribute his videos for the mobile phone, but also to be distributed for the first time via BitTorrent.

Chris Weagel's American King is now opened to the public!

It's a documentary of sorts posted twice a week over a period of weeks.
The true story of a young man who has a pretty interesting view on life.
Chris has told me to be as non-specific as possible so I dont taint anyone's expectations.

American King is also the first successfully funded project from HaveMoneyWillVlog.com.
In 4 days, The community raised $1000. This money gives Chris time to get a bunch of videos in the can so he can release videos in a timely fashion. It hopefully also gives Chris a show of support for his great work.

Let me tell you why I like American King:
Daily shows are becoming very popular in the Videoblogging world. I think the TV industry really gets into the idea of short, daily content. I'm personally not so interested because it reminds me of "distraction entertainment". It's the "i'm bored at work. Make me laugh."  There is certainly a place for this kind of video. Topical. Breezy. Light. Fun. It's here and then forgotten. Next thing.

Chris has made a name for himself creating the universe of Human Dog. Like an HBO series,  the story is told in parts. Each part informs the later videos. A rich, complex world is formed. The stortelling of Amercian King assumes that the viewer will follow along and learn the world. Like an HBO show, the story begins and will eventually end. Complexties and subtleties are the highlights.

In my mind, Chris is using videoblogging to create new archetypes. He's making examples of what this new generation believes. Garrett, the star of AK, is not a nice guy. He's likeable if you have a sick sense of humor...which more than a few of us do. We are not always pretty and PC. Will the future look to Dawson's Creek to see how the young kids relate? I hope not, but if we don't make our own visions...Dawson's Creek will be all they have to look at.

Chris Weagel is only 24. Like any young artist, he's just discovering his voice and refining his craft. As a community we can support people who are telling the stories we know to be true. (God knows he will have trouble getting support from traditional outlets.) And in this way, we can help record a different history for the future so they remember us for who we really are.

American King comes out every Tuesday. Subscribe with this RSS feed.

The Community Music Project is a community of songwriters, musicians, and recording engineers publishing local music with minimal amounts of money. Instead of complaining about, or attempting to change, the music recording industry, we offer an alternati

The New York Times looks at several journalists who are now running thriving blog/news sites and getting funding for them: Om Malik, a former writer for Business 2.0, has received backing for GigaOM.com, a technology news Web site that has broken a number of stories; Rafat Ali, the former managing editor of The Silicon Alley Reporter, recently received funding for his company, which publishes PaidContent.org, a site that covers digital media news; and Nina Munk, a former writer for Fortune, is now expanding her site urbanhound.com to San Francisco and Chicago.

Not surprisingly, the rollout of services over high-speed 3G High Speed Downlink Packet Access (HSDPA) and CDMA2000 1x Evolution-Data Only (EV-DO) infrastructure is driving wireless providers to upgrade the weak link in the chain: the backhaul. According to Light Reading, the industry's long term goal is to migrate all cellular transmissions to IP/Ethernet networks, but they must also "migrate more than a decade’s worth of installed time-division multiplexing (TDM) and Asynchronous Transfer Mode (ATM) infrastructure."

found on xeep:

Named after the sci-fi hero, Johnny Mnemonic, Guba's new copyright protector aims to block illegal uploads of movies and television shows on it's site.

The system, a joint project with the MPAA, works by generating unique fingerprints for content filtered through Johnny

“Johnny can identify a video, even if that video has been modified, cropped, reformatted, re-encoded or reposted,” said Thomas McInerney, CEO and founder of GUBA.

ious as to whether video from independent creators that have uploaded to the site will be protected by Johnny as well or if content producers will pay a fee in order to have their videos "fingerprinted".

Link to the PDF press release by the Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA)

- Anne

Although components may appear very complex, they are really just fancy movie clips.

Frame 1 contains a bounding box or any graphics that serve as placeholders for the final art. Frame 2 contains all other assets, including graphics and base classes, used by the component.

Members of the U.S. Senate Commerce, Science and Transportation Committee on June 28, rejected a network neutrality amendment to a wide-ranging broadband bill but it turns out that’s not the last they’re hearing of the issue, says CIO blog.

Since that vote, a group of organizations supporting a net neutrality law have cranked up a pressure campaign on the 11 Republican senators who voted against the net neutrality amendment, which sponsors wanted to add to the broadband bill.

Organizations including the liberal MoveOn.org and the conservative Christian Coalition of America and others involved in the SavetheInternet.com coalition have urged members to contact senators and express their displeasure over the net neutrality vote.

“Thousands” of people have contacted their senators, said Adam Green, a spokesman for MoveOn.org.

Nora Miller, a freelance writer and editor from Arizona, is one of them. Miller has contacted two Republican lawmakers, including Sen. John McCain of Arizona.

“My biggest concern is that this law … minus any protection of net neutrality, amounts to a giant giveaway to telecom companies that do not have my best interests at heart,” she said in an e-mail. “My federal dollars created the Internet specifically to provide free and equal access to all users.”

Opponents of a net neutrality law, including large broadband providers such as AT&T and Comcast, say a law isn’t needed because they do not plan to block or degrade Web content.

Chairman Ted Stevens could be right, the internet is a series of tubes. John Hodgman explains.

During the week which ended on July 16, YouTube, the popular online video-sharing site's unique audience soar by a whopping 75 percent to 12.8 million users, up from 7.3 million during the previous week, according to new data released by Nielsen//NetRatings.

That traffic jump follows a six-month period of exponential growth for the site, as its audience size skyrocketed by nearly 300 percent since the beginning of the year.

Broadband Reports points out that Former Congressman turned Verizon PR man Tom Tauke speaks to Business Week about Verizon's position on net-neutrality, municipal broadband, and other topics.

Tauke states: "We don't necessarily think it's a wise investment, but we aren't out fighting these things."

Note that Tauke was central in lobbying Pennsylvania and other state lawmakers into passing laws that make such projects either illegal, or considerably more difficult.

Skype and Kazaa creators Niklas Zennstrom and Janus Friis are developing new software to aid in the distribution of television shows and other video over the web. The "Venice Project", unlike the original Kazaa, seeks to gain approval from content producers to avoid costly legal conflict, Business Week scoops. This is also the direction being taken by Bit Torrent's Bram Cohen, who has been snuggling up to the entertainment industry in an effort to better monetize his creation. Whether any of them can compete with cable (or piracy) is yet to be seen.

The BBC has announced sweeping structural changes to meet its on-demand Creative Future vision, placing Future Media and Technology at the heart of its strategy. Old media words like television and radio are dropped, with all BBC content organised in three divisions: Journalism, BBC Vision, and Audio and Music.

A national phone survey of bloggers from the Pew Internet & American Life Project has found that most are focused on describing their personal experiences to a relatively small audience of readers and that only a small proportion focus their coverage on politics, media, government, or technology.

Perhaps more interestingly, one-third of bloggers see blogging as a form of journalism. Many say they check facts and cite original sources.

- 34% of bloggers consider their blog a form of journalism, and 65% of bloggers do not.
- 57% of bloggers include links to original sources either "sometimes" or "often."
- 56% of bloggers spend extra time trying to verify facts they want to include in a post either "sometimes" or "often."

More details:

Blogs, the survey finds, are as individual as the people who keep them. However, most bloggers are primarily interested in creative, personal expression – documenting individual experiences, sharing practical knowledge, or just keeping in touch with friends and family.

and...

Most bloggers say they cover a lot of different topics, but when asked to choose one main topic, 37% of bloggers cite "my life and experiences" as a primary topic of their blog. Politics and government ran a very distant second with 11% of bloggers citing those issues of public life as the main subject of their blog. Entertainment-related topics were the next most popular blog-type, with 7% of bloggers, followed by sports (6%), general news and current events (5%), business (5%), technology (4%), religion, spirituality or faith (2%), a specific hobby or a health problem or illness (each comprising 1% of bloggers). Other topics mentioned include opinions, volunteering, education, photography, causes and passions, and organizations.

Full report

I don't know about you, but I'm getting tired of waiting for my wearable cybertech enhancements. It looks like some other folk are getting twitchy too, to the extent of getting on with it themselves - some futurist with sharp eyes and steady hands cheerfully went and built his own head-up display into a pair of innocuously normal-looking sunglasses. I wonder if he does custom orders?

Something fishy is going on at Barnes and Nobles. I tell you, something fishy is going on there.

Archangel, but uses embedded RFIDs in the cards and a proprietary reader. Likely to fail, but dancing around the primary opp'ty.

Yahoo experimenting with non-DRMed music sales. If they do it their sales will skyrocket as the only other major label downloadable music store that works with iPods.

In what may be the company's first lawsuit, YouTube has been sued by Bob Tur, owner of the Los Angeles News Service. Tur is well known in media circles for, well, suing for just about everything when it comes to his precious video of the 1992 LA riots. In this case, the video of the beating of Reginald Denny was posted on YouTube and viewed (gasp!) 1,000 times. Tur alleges that works out to $150,000, and he's suing under the MGM vs. Grokster umbrella. (The page is loading very slowly, be patient, or see the details here on PaidContent.)

Starting in August, Logitech will include a link in its webcam software that will allow users to record video directly to Grouper.com. The move will eliminate the time-consuming step of saving and uploading video -- a feature that Grouper will promote as the easiest way to post video on the web.

Ars Virtua is a new media center and gallery located entirely in a synthetic world. It was created to provide a venue for new genres of work, and as a platform to highlight working artists creating sculpture, architecture, or applying scripts to extend these and explore the interaction of avatars with in 3-D space. Our purpose is to bring the museum into "new media" as opposed to vice versa and provide a platform for work that would otherwise not be accessible.

Where is it? Located at the border of Butler and Dowden in Second Life's virtual environment, Ars Virtua's 3000 square meter two story building is divided into a main gallery space, a lounge and shop and residency space. In order to visit Ars Virtua you will need to create a free account at Second Life (http://secondlife.com/join) and need to be running the current client. Once you have this properly installed you should be able to follow this link directly to Ars Virtua secondlife://Dowden/20/40

Why is it? Ars Virtua is a new type of space that leverages the tension between the 3-D rendered game space and the what is referred to as reality, between the simulated and the simulation. It is one of a series of projects that explore synthetic worlds as the new real.

To these ends Ars Virtua is instituting several programs: the first is the creation of an artist in residence program and providing 400 prims for the use of the selected artist. The second is to host an Ars Virtua New Media Conference early in 2006.

Ars Virtua is an unprofitable volunteer run organization for more information please contact gallery@ArsVirtua.com.

Ars Virtua Mission Statement: •To enhance understanding of constructed worlds, to develop the medium as a force for art production and provide a platform for transvergence with the intersecting media and knowledge fields. •To provide a venue for development of work that cannot exist anywhere else and create a focal point for media and media industry. •To promote the development of a commons in networked space, a place where ideas can be exchanged across physical borders. •To stimulate economic interest in virtual work and create a foundation for the exchange of goods in a new economy.

Originally posted by lauren_cornell from del.icio.us/lauren_cornell, ReBlogged by exiledsurfer on Jul 19, 2006 at 05:30 AM

Eyebeam is now accepting applications for Fall 2006-07 Residents and for 2006-06 Fellows in the Production, R&D and Education labs. The application deadline for Fellowships is Aug. 14 with Residents applications due Aug. 21, 2006. Apply now!

Cellular News reports that a new report from WDS Global has revealed that 63% of mobile devices returned as faulty are in perfect working order.

This 'No Fault Found' (NFF) returns rate exceeds the industry average for general consumer electronic devices by 13% and is costing the mobile industry US$4.5 billion globally.

Closer examination of the 'No Fault Found' returns calls revealed that 38% were from users abandoning devices after struggling to use a specific application".

"The industry needs to look at the causes behind this trend and take positive action to improve the general out of box experience for the mobile subscriber; a simple analysis of support call trends and records provides all the necessary intelligence to work upon", said Doug Overton, Head of Communications for WDS Global.

This article from TV Week talks about a bunch of mass-participation television shows that are coming out. They are essentially television shows that are distributed via broadband and include creative social networking features.

This article from the LA Times explains that broadband television programs (like the ones mentioned above) will be able to compete for Emmys directly against primetime and cable television shows starting next year.

In addition to putting audio and video files in your iTunes podcast feed, you can also feed an Adobe PDF file to your listeners.

>FullServ-ipsh! services include planning mobile media advertising opportunities; negotiating and buying; comprehensive measurement; optimising and reporting. The agency will also integrate mobile with all other media channels.

that Halter thought to check is another sign of how plugged in he is. THe Hezbollah-produced videogame was taken down, unless it's just that the servers are among the Lebanese circuits that are fried.

The Consumerist notes that when Comcast broadband TV re-broadcast a recent edition of the TV show Nightline, they conveniently edited out the portion of the program that mentioned one of their techs getting humiliated Web-wide for falling asleep at a residential broadband install.

I'm a huge fan of RSS feeds, in part because they're perfect for niche media. You don't have to publish every day to earn your way to my reading habits. Just make sure you've got a feed and if your focus intersects with my interests, I'll subscribe. When you publish I'll get it--no need for me to bookmark it and make a note to check it regularily. (I've written more about this here).

At this point virtually everything I read is via a feed, with one glaring exception--my Wikipedia watchlist. It's the only bookmark I still use. So I was delighted to discover this morning that finally Wikipedia has feeds! Thanks to Steve Rubel for the heads-up:

Wikipedia has added RSS feeds to the 1.25 million entries in the encyclopedia. This means you can now more easily track the revision history for important articles, such as those about people, brands or corporations. Simply click on the history link at the top of any entry page and you will see the RSS link on the left hand side

Who would have ever thought the networks would take sloppy seconds from cable? An interesting trend is emerging this summer in TV land. First-run cable shows are being immediately rerun on the networks. Project Runway we reair on Monday nights at 8pm on NBC after airing first on Bravo on Wednesday at 10pm. ABC has been rerunning ABC Family’s Kyle XY and Fox has rerun FX's It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia. To me this proves people watch shows, not networks. It’s basically low-tech TiVo.

Image by REGIERUNGonline Angela Merkel, Chancellor of Germany, has been videoblogging for more than a month.

German chancellor Angela Merkel probably was the first high-level politician to start her own video podcast over a month ago. It's perfect public relations, although the first issues were still stiff and more like TV presentations. Her first show was ridiculed on YouTube.

ommitment to blogging perhaps is more serious than anybody thought at first. The popular videoblog Xolo.tv was able to get a long interview with her about videoblogging. You can watch it on their site today. Don't expect any tough questions, however.

No question -- no German chancellor (or perhaps any national leader anywhere) has ever before granted an interview to a videoblogger. It's fantastic. I can understand that it must be overwhelming for a blogger to be admitted into the Bundeskanzleramt (Germany's federal chancellery) and to be shown around by the chancellor herself.

Isn't it astonishing that a chancellor would consent to be interviewed by a blogger -- maybe even in preference to an interview by a traditional journalist? Is it possible that the German government's PR officials calculated that such a move would probably generate positive feedback?

In some ways the Xylo-TV interview is the perfect follow-up to the World Cup craze we recently experienced here in Germany. It's a continuation of the theme: "We're all wonderful, our guests are wonderful, let's party and forget about misfortunes that might exist anywhere."

I'm sorry, I don't want to be a killjoy. But that's too much naive enthusiasm for me. I think that bloggers -- like journalists, like everybody -- should remember that there is no free lunch. No chancellor invites anyone on the spur of the moment.

Therefore, I think that in a democracy anybody who gets the chance to interview the highest representative of a government is obliged to ask questions that others don't have the opportunity to ask.

Am I old fashioned? Perhaps. All I can say is that we'll never know what would have happened if the first blogger who interviewed our chancellor had dared to ask one tough question. Perhaps another blogger will get a chance and we'll find out how that works.

(Manufacturing citizen content. -kc.)

If you haven't been following what's been going on in Lafayette Louisiana, they've been having quite a technology battle. The local telco and cable company (BellSouth and Cox) have been spending millions of dollars fighting a proposed muni-fiber offering that the residents of the city voted for. The people of the city voted for it, even after push polls (designed to influence the vote, not accurately predict it) and silly threats from the incumbents. Ever since it was approved, however, the incumbents have been able to hold up the deployment by fighting it in court. Cox and BellSouth, of course, claim that such a muni network would represent unfair competition -- something they should know an awful lot about, since Cox was recently accused of anti-competitive practices in blocking out competitors in certain new housing developments. Apparently, from their point of view, "unfair competition" is just about any competition. Competition, of course, might force them to do something like offer more competitive rates -- something studies have shown isn't really happening yet. With that in mind, is it really any surprise to hear that Cox is now raising their cable rates in the city, even as they try to convince the courts that the muni-fiber network would be bad for the people of the city?

Boardpusher is a site that is like Cafe Press, except you make skateboards. So, there’s a bit of fiddling going on with the Slackstreet Skateboard Store.

I learned about this from someone who sells virtual skateboards, and in her profile, links to her store on BP. And, if you want some good metaverse reading, check out this kick ass article (long) from the Boston Phoenix.

Which is not to imply that they've won any other cases, the rest have simply been settled.

Wow, it is hard to hate GSM when you read news like this. Vodaphone, a leading foreign GSM provider, just launched their HSDPA wireless network at burst speeds of 1.8Mbps. Although the data card launched is a standard PC card, they also plan to offer a USB HSDPA modem as well as an ExpressCard version.

The cost of the USB and Card version is estimated at $399, but in turn the device will have scalability to be flashed to take advantage of the future 3.6Mbps network upgrade.

1.8 and 3.6Mb wireless networks, that really shows that the US is in the stone age when it come to wireless data.

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USC’s Annenberg School for Communication — home of the Annenberg Studies on Computer Games team and the Center for Public Diplomacy (which we’ve blogged about before), as well as many other innovative programs — is “seeking to hire one or two scholars whose research illuminates the formation, functioning and impact of online communities.” More information after the jump.

New Position: Online Communities and Communication
USC Annenberg School for Communication

The USC Annenberg School for Communication is launching a major research and teaching initiative to study online communities. The initiative will investigate if and how communities that are supported by network technologies and the Internet are transforming our sense of community and our social, political and economic lives. It will explore how online communities are developed for and by diverse populations. It will teach students how to build and understand online communities. We are seeking to hire one or two scholars whose research illuminates the formation, functioning and impact of online communities. Candidates must have a Ph.D. in hand at time of application. Special consideration will be given to junior scholars with a track record of high quality published research on issues relevant to online communities and new technology. The appointment is tenure-track and open rank, although special consideration will be given to junior scholars. We encourage candidates who seek to work with colleagues from a broad range of specializations and methodological approaches. The School of Communication is a leader in the implementation of USC’s new strategic plan, which emphasizes innovation in interdisciplinary research that addresses societal needs, along with the Annenberg School’s particular emphasis on communication in the public interest, new communication technologies, globalization, and entertainment as communication and cultural content. Applicants should send their curriculum vita, three letters of recommendation, and samples of their work to Online Communities Search, Mr. Justin Acome, School of Communication, Annenberg School for Communication, University of Southern California, 3502 Watt Way, Los Angeles, CA 90089-0281, acome@usc.edu, (213) 740-0934. Inquiries can also be made to the Search Committee Chair, Professor Janet Fulk, fulk@usc.edu (213) 740-0941. Review of applications is continuing and we are targeting a December 2006 decision date for a July 1, 2007 start date. USC is an AA/EO employer and is seeking to create a diverse community.

education, games, governance, Politics, Social software

This is a cool idea: SL resident Spin Martin (aka media-maker Eric Rice) is starting a Second Life travel agency, tpTravel, and is seeking people to contribute content to its blog, for which they’ll be paid US$10 per (approved) post. VTOR linked the news, which came from the SLProfiles site.

We’ve created a new company called tpTravel, and it’s exactly what it sounds like… a travel agency within Second Life for Second Life, headquartered on the sim of Slackstreet. We are looking for well traveled residents to take snapshots, write descriptive posts, and create landmarks, SLurls, and machinima tours for posting on the blog that supports tpTravel.

As always, my question is: Will anyone actually use this? Could be. Especially if it were linked to a third-party portal to SL, it could be a great resource for new residents.

The other question it raises is paying for blog content. This is something I’ve been considering for 3pointD for a while now, though I’m not sure whether I have the budget for it at the moment. I’d love to hear from people with opinions on this. Is $10 a reasonable amount to pay for a post’s worth of content on a blog like tpTravel’s or 3pointD? How else could a blog like this (or like Spin’s) recruit authors? Ideas? And if you are interested in contributing to 3pointD, I’d love to hear from you. No guarantees that this kind of thing is going to start anytime soon, but I’d like to start talking to people, at any rate.

3pointD, blogging, Second Life, work

Some ten thousand Chinese game players stage an anti-Japanese protest inside an online game called The Fantasy of the Journey West, reports the