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Sprint
had promised a first-quarter
update for its Touch Pro2 way back in
January, and sure enough, it's delivered the Windows Mobile 6.5 boost right on time. It might
not have as much punch now that we know everything there is to know about Windows Phone 7 Series,
of course, but it's still a pretty big deal -- the Touch Pro2 remains one of the best
Microsoft-powered phones you can buy in the States, and unlike AT&T's Tilt2, it launched with that grubby old WinMo 6.1. It's
available now, complete with Sense "enhancements" and a variety of bug fixes -- so if you've got
one of these bad boys in your pocket, it seems like a must-grab.
Software giant is teaming with Citrix in an ambitious virtualization endeavor, seeking to grab
market share away from VMware with new enterprise-friendly licensing terms.
Grab your binoculars. The crescent Moon and the Pleiades star cluster are gathering for a close
encounter on the first night of Spring. It's the best Moon-Pleiades meeting over the United States
until the year 2023.
Sebastian
is out stomping the fjords in Norway -- true story! -- so I'll be your humble replacement columnist
this week. Fortunately, I 'm inheriting a pretty easy job, because there's plenty of interesting
Firefox news to discuss today.Just pretend I'm writing all of this in my poor approximation of a
British accent, and Seb will be back before you know it.
Okay, here goes ...
1. The Contacts Add-on
I wrote about this on Download Squad
earlier in the week, but it's worth mentioning here, too. Mozilla has a created a browser-wide
contacts extension that syncs with your address books and social sites. Why is it cool? Well, how
does having access to your contacts on any website grab you? How about browser-wide email
autocomplete? Mozilla's new Contacts add-on is a pretty sweet deal, and you can grab a preliminary version
now.
2. Mozilla escalates the HTML5 open video battle
As you may know, Mozilla has taken Firefox down the path of open HTML5 video, but in a different
direction than Webkit browsers like Safari and Chrome are headed. Instead of the H.264 video
format, Mozilla is backing OGG Theora. This is both more open (because H.264 is proprietary, and
Theora's open source) and cheaper for Mozilla (because it avoids H.264 licensing fees).
Who the heck uses Theora for HTML5 video, though? Well, starting this week, Wikipedia
does. It's not exactly YouTube, but it's good news for Firefox fans that one of the most
popular (and most democratic) sites on the web has endorsed Mozilla's video format of
choice. Share3. The End of Firefox
3.0!
It's been a good run, Firefox 3.0, but it's time to let go. The final security and stability update
ever for FF3.0, version 3.0.19, will come out on March 30. Considering how long 3.5 has
been stable, and how much progress 3.6 and even 4.0 have made, it's about time everybody moved on
up from 3.0. This quick update cycle is why we love Firefox, though! Look how long it took
Microsoft to stop supporting IE6. Feel free to point, laugh and gloat.
4. Mozilla testing awesome Account Manager
Last week, Lee checked out an experimental
login manager add-on for Firefox that makes logging in and out of websites a snap. It's not
quite ready yet -- it worked for Lee on Facebook, but not Google -- but when this thing gets up to
speed, it'll be a big boost to both security and user experience. Knowing at a glance whether
you're logged in to the webpage you're visiting? Yes, please!
5. Hey, remember those Firefox icons?
Last time I wrote this column, I put out a call for your Firefox icons, and you came through!
Sebastian never got around to posting them, though, so I'm taking this opportunity to present some
of the coolest submissions here. Thanks to everyone who left a comment.
And, to the guy who sent in the Opera icon, ha ha, very funny.
That's the Five for this week, foxy boys and girls! Have a good weekend, and look forward
to the return of everybody's favorite sassy Brit, Sebastian, either next week or the week
after.
What the crap? A French comic? Are the French even allowed to make comics? Aren't they too busy
being snooty and smoking Gauloises and wearing inappropriate swimwear? Where do they find the
time to make comics, anyway?*
Well, the French can do all those things as long as they keep making comics this good, I tell ya.
West Coast Blues is a cracking good crime comic, not really noir but definitely a tale
of bad people doing bad things to each other. It's also, oddly enough, very wryly humorous, in a
way we don't often see in crime comics here in the States. It was a novel by Jean-Patrick
Manchette in 1976, and in 2005, Manchette's old collaborator, Jacques Tardi, finally adapted it
to comics (and then Kim Thompson translated it into English). Presumably, had DC's association
with Humanoids continued, this would have been a DC book. As it is, Fantagraphics has published it in the States. Good for them!
The plot is deceptively simple, as for most of the book, we have no idea what's going and
Manchette simply follows his main character around. We begin in the present with George Gerfaut, cruising around in his Mercedes in
the middle of the night listening to West Coast style jazz (hence the name of the book - George
digs the jazz!). After a few pages, we're introduced to another man, Alonso Emerich y Emerich, a
Dominican of German descent who used to be in military intelligence. We have, initially, no idea
what his purpose is, because we quickly get back to George, who is passed by two cars, one
chasing the other. The first car crashes, the second car takes off, and George helps the first
driver to the hospital. Then he returns to his house. A few days later, his family heads out on
vacation. It takes us a few pages to realize that this is happening in time well before the
opening scene, because Manchette doesn't give us any indication that we've flashbacked. That's
okay, though - the transition between the "present" and the "past" is interesting because
Manchette links them through George driving late at night. While we may be a bit lost initially,
we quickly regain our footing.
George doesn't realize he's being tailed by two hitmen in the employ of Alonso, who goes by Mr.
Taylor. Again, we don't know why they want to kill George (we can figure out it has something to
do with the driver of the car, but we don't know what), but that's part of the fun. Because as
the follow George to the seaside, the plot kicks into high gear. It's rather humorous - the
hitmen can't kill George. Through, really, very little effort on his part, he manages to elude
them. In their first attempt, he manages to grab one of the killer's balls, which of course tends
to put him off. This attempt switches something on in George, and he abandons his wife and
returns to Paris. The killers can never quite catch up with him, and when they do, he escapes
again, killing one of them almost accidentally. Then he flees into the forest and ends up in the
foothills of the Alps, where he's found by a slightly eccentric woodsman. And he simply stays
there. He becomes someone else completely, learning how to be self-sufficient, hooking up with a
woman, and changing his appearance by growing a beard. But the second killer tracks him down, and George ends up back in the world, ready
to find out exactly why these two men were sent to kill him.
The fascinating thing about this story is the character of George. Actually, Carlo and Bastien,
the two hitmen, are pretty interesting as well, but George is the central character, so he ought
to be fascinating. As I pointed out, he doesn't escape from the killers because he's tougher than
they are; he might be a bit smarter, but he's also really lucky. Manchette doesn't make it a
ridiculous, corny kind of luck, but he does show that George happens to do things that throw them
off the track without knowing he's doing it. This makes the pursuit rather odd and darkly
humorous. The book is full of violent death, and it's definitely not a comedy, but just the fact
that these two professional killers have such a tough time blowing away this rather inept sales
manager makes it border on the surreal. Then, we think the book will be about George becoming
more of an independent dude and less of a simpering whiner, as he's forced to live in the wild
for so many months. But Manchette doesn't quite give us that, either. George is a complicated guy
who realizes certain things about the way society is structured but still yearns for other
things. By the end of the book, we're back on the freeway, but Manchette has made us see that
George has changed, just maybe not enough that we would expect. West Coast
Blues is, in my mind, very "European" in that regard - this is a broad generalization, but
Europeans are more bound by history, both societal and personal, than Americans, so if this book
had been written by a Yankee, it probably would have ended much, much differently. That it
doesn't is a testament, I think, to Manchette's storytelling - he never takes the easy way out,
even if George's fate might seem like he does. George has been affected by what happens to him,
but in not so overt (American?) way.
Tardi's art is quite stellar, as well. He's amazingly detailed, but he doesn't pull any tricks on
the reader - his work is very straight forward. He relies on very strong storytelling skills, as he simply takes us through
George's story. We get a great sense of place from Tardi, either in the urban settings or, even
more impressively, in the rural interlude George experiences. Tardi does masterful work with the
characters, too - they look and move like people, stumbling when you might expect it, breaking
bones when you'd expect it, acting like human beings. His best work might be with Carlo and
Bastien, as George remains very low-key throughout (except for one brief scene). Carlo and
Bastien, however, have a fun relationship, and Tardi helps with it. Manchette gives them good
banter, but Tardi manages to portray their care for each other even as he keeps their faces
impassive. It's a very verbose comic, but Tardi matches Manchette with panels that demand a great
deal of attention - this is a visual feast as well as a literary one.
I suppose the only problem one might have with the book is its somewhat excessive narration,
because often Manchette simply tells us what the pictures already do (and Tardi adapted it to
comics, so why he didn't cut some more of it is beyond me). Occasionally, the narration is
absurdly excellent - when Manchette lists all the weapons Carlo and Bastien have in their car,
for instance, it's a comic mini-masterpiece - but occasionally, we can tell exactly what's going
on and don't need to be told. Again, this is a comic adapted from a book into French and then
translated into English, so there are many filters for it to go through. I don't have too big an
issue with the words, but I should caution you that it feels bloated every once in a while.
Other than that, West Coast Blues is a very good crime comic. The fact that it has a
slightly different sensibility than most American crime fiction makes it refreshing, and the fact
that Manchette has a wry sense of humor about the material works well, too. And it looks great.
And Ed Brubaker thinks Tardi is great. Dare you go against Ed Brubaker????
* Before you jump my shit, I'm joking. I am well aware of the long French tradition of comics,
and cut my teeth on Asterix and Obelix before I had even heard of the X-Men when I was
but a lad. Chillax, people!
Next: Can it be more Tardi? Well, of course it can!
We have a hard time watching films where people get caught being in places they
totally shouldn't be. We get no enjoyment from watching a Misery or a Rear
Window, for example. That kind of scenario is the bread and butter of Heavy Rain's first downloadable chapter,
"The Taxidermist," which pre-orderers of
the game have already gotten their hands on. The rest of us will have our chance to
grab the suspenseful scene on April 1, when it hits the PSN storefront for $4.99.
Check out the video above for a brief teaser of the chapter's events. Actually, it doesn't look
that scary to us. Madison climbs in a window, walks up some stairs, and accidentally intrudes on a
woman taking a bath. What's that? The woman is dead? Yes, well, that is significantly more
upsetting.
We have a hard time watching films where people get caught being in places they
totally shouldn't be. We get no enjoyment from watching a Misery or a Rear
Window, for example. That kind of scenario is the bread and butter of Heavy Rain's first downloadable chapter,
"The Taxidermist," which pre-orderers of
the game have already gotten their hands on. The rest of us will have our chance to
grab the suspenseful scene on April 1, when it hits the PSN storefront for $4.99.
Check out the video above for a brief teaser of the chapter's events. Actually, it doesn't look
that scary to us. Madison climbs in a window, walks up some stairs, and accidentally intrudes on a
woman taking a bath. What's that? The woman is dead? Yes, well, that is significantly more
upsetting.
I managed to grab a few minutes with both the Knight Center’s Dan Gillmor and BBC technology
correspondent Rory Cellan-Jones at yesterday’s Guardian Changing Media Summit 2010 to talk
about the future of community generated journalism. Rory Cellan-Jones thinks that “the place
where citizen journalism is actually triumphing is Wikipedia”. “It is becoming an
instant news agency [...]
First Canadian to be sentenced under country’s new anti-CAM law.
If you’ve been a member of the P2P world for at least a few years then you’re well
aware of the illustrious body of work compiled by the infamous Canadian Gérémi
Adam, 28yo, better known as maVen. He was well known for producing some of the highest quality
CAMs around.
A few days ago Adam was sentenced to nine weeks behind bars plus 100 hours of community service.
He’s also prohibited from entering any movie theatre for two years.
It’s the first of its kind sentence under a revision to the country’s Copyright Act
that introduced tougher anti-camcording laws back in 2007.
The new law makes recording a movie without permission a crime punishable by two years in jail,
and taping a film for future sale or rental now carries a maximum five-year jail term.
He pleaded guilty to two counts, under the Copyright Act, for distributing copies of the
Hollywood films “Invincible” and “How to Eat Fried Worms” on the Internet
under the alias maVen in 2006.
He was nabbed again in 2008 while recording the movie “Street Kings” at another movie
theatre, and was charged a third time, this time under the Criminal Code.
Adam’s attorney, Richard Brouillard, told the court his client had a difficult past and
noted several times during the trial that Adam made virtually no profit from his illicit
activities. Instead, he devoted himself to pirating only because he wanted to become an Internet
celebrity.
“(The FBI) knew the movies were coming from Montreal. That’s why they worked hard to
grab him,” he
added.
Canadian prosecutors were happy with the ruling.
“I think it’s a strong message that if you try to do something like Geremi Adam did,
you will face the consequences. You could go to jail,” said crown prosecutor Josee
Belanger.
Microsoft made a slew of virtualization announcements today, affecting both current and future
products. Arguably the most important tidbit is that the company has removed the virtualization
layer's hardware requirements for the XP Mode available in
Windows 7. Those already running XP Mode don't need to bother updating since they already have it
working, but users who were unsure of their PC hardware can grab the update and try out XP Mode
on Windows 7 Professional, Windows 7 Enterprise, or Windows 7 Ultimate. The update is available
for
Windows 7 32-bit (3.7MB) and
Windows 7 64-bit (4.1MB).
Microsoft
has been criticized for complicating things by having XP Mode only work on processors that
supported either Intel's VT or AMD's AMD-V. This requirement was troublesome and confusing, as
many PC owners weren't sure if their CPU supported hardware virtualization, and if it did,
whether it was turned on in the BIOS. Now that problem has been eliminated, removing a barrier to
the adoption of Windows 7 among small and mid-size businesses that still cling to Windows XP.
I've spent the last few hours going through the motions for summary judgment from both Google and
Viacom in the YouTube case. If you'd like to kill a few hours yourself:
There are few surprises made in the basic arguments by both parties. Viacom claims that
YouTube knew about infringing content and should have taken it down (and that Google knew about
this and then continued with that policy). Google claims that it's clearly protected by the DMCA's
safe harbors. There are some interesting things raised in the filings however:
Viacom claims that YouTube employees uploaded infringing content themselves, and discussed
this over email -- though, the filings carefully provide only fragments of the emails, which
could easily have been taken out of context. And, even on top of that nowhere does Viacom explain
how YouTube employees could distinguish which content was actually infringing and which was put
up for promotional purposes or what was fair use. This is a major weakness in Viacom's motion.
Viacom's secondary arguments get weaker as you go down the list. It argues that because
YouTube uses advertising to make money, that shows the company directly profits from
infringement. That argument makes no sense -- because it would effectively wipe out any safe
harbors for any commercial operation, which clearly was not the intent of Congress. Based on
this argument, any ISP that hosts content from a paying customer loses its safe harbors. That's
ridiculous on its face.
Viacom argues that Google could have blocked uploads with fingerprinting technology it had
licensed, but fails to note the massive weaknesses in those fingerprinting technologies (which we
still see thanks to Google's bad automated takedowns). It tries to bolster this argument by
saying that Google refused to use the fingerprinting on Viacom content unless Viacom
agreed to license its content to YouTube. Perhaps there's more to it than this, but I think
that's also taking Google statements out of context. The way the fingerprinting works is that
Google would need copies of the content to be able to recognize them -- and the only way to do
that is if Viacom licensed works to them.
Then the arguments get really weak. Viacom says that Google isn't just a secondary infringer,
but a direct infringer, due to the terms of service that say you're granting a license to
YouTube, and because to work, YouTube converts uploaded video to Flash. This is a weird legal
argument that has been rejected before.
The crux of Viacom's argument rests on trying to break the DMCA safe harbors because Google
and YouTube execs knew that there was a lot of infringing content on the site. But Viacom's
argument breaks down entirely when you realize it doesn't explain how Google could ever make the
actual determination of which videos are infringing. Viacom tries to get around this with some
legal tap dancing, basically saying that it doesn't matter and Google just should have known what
was infringing and what was not. But that makes no sense. Viacom is basically saying Google
should have had a magic wand to figure out what's infringing and make it disappear. That's
impossible. No law could possibly require Google to do the impossible. The fact that some of the
videos Viacom sued over were uploaded by Viacom itself proves this point clearly.
Viacom argues that because YouTube "licensed" its videos to Apple and Verizon Wireless
phones, it shows that it's more than just a passive service provider. Again, this seems like a
weak overall argument, as what YouTube was doing was licensing access to the videos in a more
convenient format, not claiming control over the videos themselves.
Viacom's lawyers also have a bit of fun at the fact that some old emails relevant to the case
were deleted, even though it's not that ridiculous that not everyone keeps all their emails. The
motion also mocks Google and YouTube execs for developing "serial amnesia" when presented with
"evidence." But, again, Viacom was asking people to remember specific sentence fragments
(potentially taken out of context) from years-old emails.
The "big surprise" in the Google motion is that Viacom apparently tried to buy YouTube
itself. While interesting as a historical nugget, I'm not really sure that really helps the case
one way or the other. It doesn't change how Viacom may have viewed YouTube as a platform. The
attempted purchase may just have been a way to try to co-opt it into a limited platform, like
what happened with Napster.
Google argues that it has gone above and beyond the DMCA's requirements in providing tools to
help copyright holders. Viacom's counter argument, of course, is that those changes are more
recent.
For every claim made by Viacom that Google/YouTube execs made damning statements, it looks
like Viacom's statements were even worse. For example: During these negotiations [to license
content] Viacom deliberately allowed its content to remain on YouTube, in part because it thought
that "having the content there was valuable in terms of helping the rating of our shows."
Google effectively makes the case that Viacom knew the benefits of having its clips on YouTube,
tried to negotiate with YouTube for a deal, and when Google came into the picture, basically
Viacom just saw it as an easy money grab and massively upped its demands before suing. Google
argues that the mass takedown and subsequent lawsuit was really just a negotiating ploy by Viacom
to get an upper hand in the negotiations to squeeze more money out of Google.
Amusingly, Viacom notes repeatedly in its own filings that YouTube didn't want to take down
its videos because traffic to YouTube would suffer -- but Google counters by pointing out that it
did take down all of Viacom's 100,000 takedown requests within hours and
traffic to the site did not suffer and, despite Viacom's expectations to the
contrary, traffic to Viacom's own sites did not soar. In other words, despite Viacom's
over-inflated sense of how important Viacom's videos were to YouTube, the actual evidence
suggests that Viacom was very, very wrong.
Viacom tries to brush off the fact that it uploaded many videos itself, by saying (in a
footnote) that most of those videos were clearly designated as being from Viacom. Google counters
by pointing out that (a) this is not true and (b) Viacom repeatedly disguised who uploaded those
videos on purpose -- even quoting Paramount's SVP of marketing saying that the clips "should
definitely not be associated with the studio -- should appear as if a fan created and posted it."
Among the users who uploaded Viacom clips on behalf of Viacom itself? MMysticalGirl8,
Demansr, tesderiw, GossipGirl40, Snackboard and Keithhn On top of that, they registered with
non Viacom email addresses, and even went to the local Kinkos to avoid uploading from Viacom
directly. How Google was supposed to distinguish those clips from those uploaded by random users
is not explained anywhere by Viacom, which is a hugely damning point against Viacom's case.
Further damning to Viacom's case -- the fact that Viacom regularly had to backdown on its
takedown notices after it was realized that the takedowns were incorrect. This is a point that
we've made before and is driven home repeatedly in Google's filing. If Viacom itself can't get it
right -- when it holds the copyrights and some of the videos were uploaded by itself -- how the
hell is Google supposed to know which videos are legit and which are not?
Even more amusing is the part that details how Viacom had incredibly complex and detailed
rules with BayTSP (who monitored YouTube and sent the takedowns) over what should be taken down
and what should be left up. Apparently, those rules changed every few days and the folks
at BayTSP compared them to Crime and Punishment. Again, if Viacom required such a
complex list of rules for its own partner, how could it expect Google to know what to do without
knowing any of that information?
Google also points out that many of the clips in question have serious questions over whether
or not they could be considered fair use -- and those are questions for a court to determine. It
is both unfair and outside the scope of the law to expect a third party like Google to be able to
make that kind of decision on the fly.
In the end, it will surprise no one that I find Google's arguments significantly more
compelling than Viacom's. The one point on which Viacom is strongest is the emails from the very
early days of YouTube, where the founders and some employees admit that they know there's a fair
amount of infringement on the site, and they debate what to do about it, before taking a fairly
liberal approach -- though, never an approach that removes their safe harbors (Viacom disagrees on
that point). In fact, the weaknesses of Viacom's argument are driven home in that nowhere was it
able to produce a single bit of evidence of YouTube founders/execs being aware of a
specific infringing video. All of the quotes are about general infringement. The lack of a
smoking gun email to the contrary really weakens Viacom's case -- and is a glaring absence in the
motion.
What this comes down to in the end is a basic interpretation of what the DMCA really says and means
with its safe harbor provisions. Viacom's interpretation would effectively gut the entire purpose
of the safe harbor provisions, disqualifying pretty much any commercial entity that allows user
created content from gaining safe harbor protections. Such a reading makes no sense as it would
make the DMCA safe harbors effectively meaningless.
Google's motion, on the other hand, is quite compelling and highlights how even if execs are aware
of general infringement across the site, it was impossible for them to distinguish what was
authorized and what was not, as well as what was fair use and what was not. To require a third
party like Google to make such determinations would effectively gut the ability of pretty much any
user-generated content site to exist -- which, again, would clearly go against Congress'
intentions.
Still, with these sorts of lawsuits, you really never know how things will play out -- and judges
often get blinded by "infringement bad, must punish!" type arguments. Hopefully, in this case,
reason prevails.
How much will Nvidia charge for its first DirectX 11 graphics processors? Few people will know for
sure until the actual launch, and Nvidia recently shot down some leaked numbers. Nevertheless,
VR-Zone now claims to have the real scoop. According to that site, you'll be able to grab...
LONDON (Reuters) - Sony is teaming up with European movie-rental firm Lovefilm to offer TV viewers
in Britain instant access to films from the Web, as a land grab for space on Internet-connected
televisions gets under way.
Last night, Google has updated its Google Maps Mobile client for
Android and the new Google Maps for
mobile 4.1 client sports a few features that make sorting through search results or quickly
seeing Maps info a bit easier. With the newly reimagined Google Maps for mobile search results
page, Google has thrown away the tabs to give you all the info you want on one page. Tap the new
buttons to see the place on the map, get directions, call it, or see it with Street View. The
extra space let us bring details and reviews right up front. Furthermore grab the page with your
finger and swipe it away to the left or right to see the next or last result.
A website that sorts everyday the most relevant information to you.
Vote for the news and Matoumba will learn your tastes and the information that you like the most.
It is all FREE!
Find here the history of the stories you found interesting.
Show this to people who share the same interests as you,
and if they use Matoumba, their own votes will fine recommandations to you.
Sebastian
is out stomping the fjords in Norway -- true story! -- so I'll be your humble replacement columnist
this week. Fortunately, I 'm inheriting a pretty easy job, because there's plenty of interesting
Firefox news to discuss today.Just pretend I'm writing all of this in my poor approximation of a
British accent, and Seb will be back before you know it.
Last night, 
Recommandations
)
and reject those that you are not interested in
(
)
