With the release of court filings in the three-year old copyright infringement suit between Viacom and YouTube, we’ve seen the video share site argue that it is not liable for infringing videos uploaded to its site, as it claims protection under the safe harbor provision of the Digital Milennium Copyright Act (DMCA).

But in Viacom’s filing for a partial summary judgment, it makes the case that the site’s founders — and later executives of acquirer Google — turned a blind eye to copyrighted material in an effort to drastically grow the site’s user base. And since YouTube’s founders were aware of infringement and chose to do nothing about it, Viacom argues that the company is liable under the Supreme Court’s Grokster decision, which found that a site operating with the intent of infringing should not be protected by the DMCA.

Using internal emails that were passed between YouTube founders Chad Hurley, Steve Chen, and Jawed Karim, Viacom paints the picture of YouTube as a young company whose leaders were willing to grow its user base at any cost. For instance, the filing states that Chen urged his associates in one email to “concentrate all of our efforts in building up our numbers as aggressively as we can through whatever tactics, however evil.” The comment notably contrasts with future purchaser Google’s “don’t be evil” mantra — but more importantly, that attitude set the stage for a number of decisions that the YouTube founders made to grow at the expense of rights holders that it was infringing on.

YouTube didn’t always ignore the sensitive copyright issue. At one point during the summer of 2005, for instance, the site’s founders removed “some of the most obvious infringing video from YouTube to give the impression of copyright compliance,” the Viacom filing claims. However, they also chose to leave a good deal of infringing content up, believing that enabling users to search for less high-profile content was worth the risk. According to the filing, Chen wrote in an email, “That way, the perception is that we are concerned about this type of material and we’re actively monitoring it. [But the] actual removal of this content will be in varying degrees. That way . . . you can find truckloads of . . . copyrighted content . . . [if] you [are] actively searching for it.”

And at one point, YouTube founder Jawed Karim even uploaded infringing content to the site himself, which drew some criticism from Chen. In an email, Chen acknowledged, “We’re going to have a tough time defending the fact that we’re not liable for the copyrighted material on the site because we didn’t put it up when one of the co-founders is blatantly stealing content from other sites and trying to get everyone to see it.”

But for the most part, Viacom argues that the founders mainly did nothing about the copyright issue, even though internally they knew it was driving a large portion of their traffic. In an email exchange between the founders, Chen estimated that 80 percent of the site’s traffic was driven by pirated videos, and opposed taking them down proactively because, “if you remove the potential copyright infringements . . . site traffic and virality will drop to maybe 20% of what it is.”

While Viacom tries to make the case that YouTube’s founders knew the extent of the infringement taking place and chose to do nothing about it, it argues that Google was also well aware of the site’s infringement issues at purchase. As part of Google’s due diligence into YouTube, financial advisor Credit Suisse analyzed the site’s content and estimated that more than 60 percent of video views appeared on premium content, but YouTube only had a license for about 10 percent of those videos, according to Viacom.

Furthermore, Viacom claims that Google not only acquired YouTube despite those problems, but it chose initially to take the same approach as YouTube’s founders by ignoring copyright issues. Rather than screen videos prior to putting them on the site, as Google had done with its own video site, Google Video, it allowed YouTube to continue operating without any pre-emptive enforcement policies in place.

All this, Viacom argues, suggests that YouTube and Google should not be protected by the DMCA. Like Grokster, the company argues, “Google and YouTube were not just innocent and unwitting accomplices to infringement perpetrated by YouTube users. Defendants operated YouTube with the unlawful objective of using infringing material to explosively build their user base and become the dominant video website on the Internet.”

Cuadro 1.0Cuadro... Ever tried to grab a portion of the screen, only to find that you were off on one corner by a pixel or two? Ergo Cuadro, a desktop frame which allows you to precisely select an area of your screen to capture.

Cuadro is a Mac screenshot utility which embodies three principles: simplicity, precision, and elegance. All licenses will be entitled to lifetime updates as this tool matures into the best screenshot app in the world.
WHAT'S NEWVersion 1.0:

• Wood UI released
• Resizeable frame with transparent interior
• Copy
• Print

REQUIREMENTSMac OS X 10.4 or later.
PRICE$1.00
DEVELOPERhubapps.com
DOWNLOADS8
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More information

On 3/19/2010 1:45 AM, opticyclic wrote:

IDEA is aware that my class is referenced in Spring.

I can refactor a String out to a Constant so how about a new feature that refactors out one step further into a contructor injection argument?

 

Introduce field:

   select Initialize in constructor.

 

Introduce parameter.

 

 

Does IDEA handle the spring config portion of that refactoring? I don't

know, but it should.

 

With the release of court filings in the three-year old copyright infringement suit between Viacom and YouTube, we’ve seen the video share site argue that it is not liable for infringing videos uploaded to its site, as it claims protection under the safe harbor provision of the Digital Milennium Copyright Act (DMCA).

But in Viacom’s filing for a partial summary judgment, it makes the case that the site’s founders — and later executives of acquirer Google — turned a blind eye to copyrighted material in an effort to drastically grow the site’s user base. And since YouTube’s founders were aware of infringement and chose to do nothing about it, Viacom argues that the company is liable under the Supreme Court’s Grokster decision, which found that a site operating with the intent of infringing should not be protected by the DMCA.

Using internal emails that were passed between YouTube founders Chad Hurley, Steve Chen, and Jawed Karim, Viacom paints the picture of YouTube as a young company whose leaders were willing to grow its user base at any cost. For instance, the filing states that Chen urged his associates in one email to “concentrate all of our efforts in building up our numbers as aggressively as we can through whatever tactics, however evil.” The comment notably contrasts with future purchaser Google’s “don’t be evil” mantra — but more importantly, that attitude set the stage for a number of decisions that the YouTube founders made to grow at the expense of rights holders that it was infringing on.

YouTube didn’t always ignore the sensitive copyright issue. At one point during the summer of 2005, for instance, the site’s founders removed “some of the most obvious infringing video from YouTube to give the impression of copyright compliance,” the Viacom filing claims. However, they also chose to leave a good deal of infringing content up, believing that enabling users to search for less high-profile content was worth the risk. According to the filing, Chen wrote in an email, “That way, the perception is that we are concerned about this type of material and we’re actively monitoring it. [But the] actual removal of this content will be in varying degrees. That way . . . you can find truckloads of . . . copyrighted content . . . [if] you [are] actively searching for it.”

And at one point, YouTube founder Jawed Karim even uploaded infringing content to the site himself, which drew some criticism from Chen. In an email, Chen acknowledged, “We’re going to have a tough time defending the fact that we’re not liable for the copyrighted material on the site because we didn’t put it up when one of the co-founders is blatantly stealing content from other sites and trying to get everyone to see it.”

But for the most part, Viacom argues that the founders mainly did nothing about the copyright issue, even though internally they knew it was driving a large portion of their traffic. In an email exchange between the founders, Chen estimated that 80 percent of the site’s traffic was driven by pirated videos, and opposed taking them down proactively because, “if you remove the potential copyright infringements . . . site traffic and virality will drop to maybe 20% of what it is.”

While Viacom tries to make the case that YouTube’s founders knew the extent of the infringement taking place and chose to do nothing about it, it argues that Google was also well aware of the site’s infringement issues at purchase. As part of Google’s due diligence into YouTube, financial advisor Credit Suisse analyzed the site’s content and estimated that more than 60 percent of video views appeared on premium content, but YouTube only had a license for about 10 percent of those videos, according to Viacom.

Furthermore, Viacom claims that Google not only acquired YouTube despite those problems, but it chose initially to take the same approach as YouTube’s founders by ignoring copyright issues. Rather than screen videos prior to putting them on the site, as Google had done with its own video site, Google Video, it allowed YouTube to continue operating without any pre-emptive enforcement policies in place.

All this, Viacom argues, suggests that YouTube and Google should not be protected by the DMCA. Like Grokster, the company argues, “Google and YouTube were not just innocent and unwitting accomplices to infringement perpetrated by YouTube users. Defendants operated YouTube with the unlawful objective of using infringing material to explosively build their user base and become the dominant video website on the Internet.”

Nordic Game's 2010 event in Malmo, Sweden has revealed its keynotes, headlined by Playfish CEO Kristian Segerstrale. Segerstrale will open the event on April 28, and his talk is designed to frame Nordic Game's "Entrepreneurship"-themed portion. On the next day, co-CEO Guillaume de Fondaumiere will give a talk on media convergence. Third, Finnish Remedy art director Saku Lethinen, Art Director of Finnish Remedy, will discuss upcoming action-thriller Alan Wake. The event is organized by the ...

this_boat_is_real writes "Rather than project info onto a portion of the windshield, GM's latest experiment uses the entire windshield as a display. Small ultraviolet lasers project data gleaned from sensors and cameras onto the glass. General Motors geeks are working alongside researchers from several universities to develop a system that integrates night vision, navigation and on-board cameras to improve our ability to see — and avoid — problems, particularly in adverse conditions like fog."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

April 2010: The Perfect Pairings Menu Campaign brings together 50 of Los Angeles’ most talked about chefs and restaurants to raise funds for the nation's largest Meals on Wheels program. Throughout the month, participating restaurants will feature delicious food + beverage pairings on their menus tagged with the Perfect Pairings fork-and-bottle logo. When these exceptional items are ordered, a portion of proceeds is directly donated to Los Angeles' St. Vincent Meals on Wheels. (PRWeb Mar 18, 2010)

Read the full story at http://www.prweb.com/releases/perfectpairings/losangeles2010/prweb3715004.htm

Introduction

Offstumped’s post attempts to chart a course for the future of what he calls the “broad political space opposed to Left Liberalism.” As laudable and difficult the endeavour is, the ideas he espouses in the piece leave many gaps in clarity, ignores crucial areas, and casually dismisses many vital points that need to be accounted for.

A few words about some specific items on the recently-concluded online debate before getting into a detailed response of the post. I don’t really have any view on that debate except for what Offstumped says here:

Untamed Internet Activism remains a sore point [.] There is no clear intellectual leadership visible on the horizon for taming this Activism and for taking it beyond the Internet

I’m not sure I agree with the usage of “untamed Internet activism.” He probably means well, but to “tame” generally means “to control, to rein in.” Used in the context of the Internet, this lends itself to the conclusion that we need to come up with ways to control what he calls “Internet activism.” If this taming is what is called for, it’s self-defeating, and it directly contradicts his general principle of upholding the right to free speech. This is not to argue for having the freedom to abuse/insult somebody without provocation but it does smack of censorship. However, in the absence of more information/complete context, I’m not aware what the said activism implies.

I’m all for having clear leadership but everything has its own place. The idea of creating a common platform is good but “taming” something by trying to bring in some sort of standardization doesn’t bode well. It could eventually degenerate into toeing some line—however good or bad the line maybe.

The Future can’t be Separated from the Past

The section titled Its about the future stupid says:

First time voters in 2019 will be a generation born in 2001 around or after 9/11 who are right now studying in 4th grade

The past maybe an inspiration and a guide, the West maybe a case study, but end of the day this exercise has to be about the future. Standing where we are today, if we are not thinking ahead on the challenges, opportunities and the sense of history with which todays 4th grader and the many who probably are not even in school will be making political choices 9 years from now, then we will be irrelevant even before 2002 makes it to History text books [...] We must draw a line to

• #2 make this about the challenges and opportunities of the future and not about righting history’s wrongs

I broadly agree about the challenges etc that the future presents. However, the “past as an inspiration” and “sense of history” present some problems. If you want to look to the past for inspiration, you need to know it thoroughly. Also, a sense of history means that we know our history really well. What percentage of this broad political space know it, and more importantly, can understand its impact on the future? Apart from a vocal fringe, nobody really is interested to avenge (or “right”) historical wrongs. A sense of history therefore, also means understanding the past accurately so we can discard the wrongs and vow to never repeat it. Yet, what’s the kind of history that these 4th graders are being taught?

Also, framing this in terms of votes/voters is shortsighted. The idea is to create an intellectual climate where everybody is unafraid to openly debate everything without attaching labels and trying to figure out “which side somebody is on.” And this has to shorn of concerns such as getting votes. The Nehruvian Congress party—and later, the Left—created precisely this sort of “intellectual” climate with eyes always on the ballot box. I’m unsure if this is the approach Offstumped recommends.

Essentially, this approach—mindshare, 2014 generation, etc—falls in the realm of strategy, not ideology (a term I’m both queasy and careful to use) for want of a better word. This note about generational/age/franchise aspect makes eminent sense if Offstumped was talking about an electoral strategy. Unfortunately, he seems to mix this up with other things I’ve noted above.

Denouncing Hindutva without understanding it

After this, interestingly, Offstumped characterizes “political” Hindutva thus.

#1 at its core was the product of deep insecurity and victimhood

This is quite easy to say offhand but I’d rather Offstumped had given irrefutable evidence in support. Can he deny that the Indian state actively discriminated (and continues to do so) against Hindus for the better part of post-Independence India? Can he deny the fact that Hindu institutions and value systems were systematically derided by the state? Can he deny the fact that the Indian state spawned an education system that showed Hindu history in unflattering light? The said insecurity and victimhood are real. The words are not “insecurity” and “victimhood” but threat and discrimination. But for this kind of state-sponsored discrimination against Hindus, what was the need for a movement like “political” Hindutva, where Hindus felt they needed a political voice?

#2 has been tainted by Adharma committed in its name.

I’d be more careful before using words like “Adharma” without understanding its complete meaning. Adharma is not merely the English equivalent of “injustice” or “crime.” If you look at the history of violence perpetrated by Hindus, it has always been in retaliation to an attack/provocation. Plus, Hindus have taken to the streets because the Indian state has proved beyond doubt that it is incapable of both preventing original offenders from hurting Hindu sentiments, temples, etc as well as proved ineffective in punishing the original offenders. Characterizing this as Adharma shows an ignorance of the meaning of Adharma. This is not to defend violence committed in the name of Hindutva/Hinduism but there is such a thing as spontaneous, natural retaliation. A group of citizens picketing and stoning an MLA’s house for his misdeeds after it has tried all peaceful and legal methods is not Adharma.

#4 was intellectually hollow in its failure to evolve an Intellectual Political Tradition geared for the challenges of this Century drawing on the rich tradition of Kautilya’s Arthashastra and others who followed him

In a post that approvingly talks about drawing from Kautilya’s rich tradition, it is surprising that there’s not a single mention of what that tradition is. Supporting Kautilya is a double-edged sword for I can show a host of material in the Arthashastra that’d qualify Kautilya for the selfsame label of the “political” Hindutva brand that Offstumped asks us to abandon.

In essence, the “political” Hindutva of the 1990s didn’t arise from a vacuum. Hindutva as I suppose he’s aware, has a long history. Ignoring this history and coining a new term “political Hindutva” is not a good approach. However, because he has called upon us to abandon it, the burden of proof lies on Offstumped to show us—by tracing this history—why it makes sense to abandon Hindutva. Instances of demolishing buildings, disrupting lovers on Valentine’s Day, burning posters, etc don’t count. I shall respond to him where I stand on this once I get his response.  

And then in a most interesting (and startling) paragraph, Offstumped lays down this prescription:

Just as Rajadharma as articulated over the Centuries was the Constitution for the State,  the Indian Constitution is the Rajadharma in this day and age. The only “Warrior Spirit” to protect Dharma is that which the has Constitutional sanction. The only Right to bear Arms is that which is sanctioned by the Constitution. Even the Kshatriya of yesteryears had no blanket immunity to use their arms but for the protection of Dharma which in today’s context is the Indian Constitution.

For the record, Rajadharma was not the Constitution for the State. The Indian kingdoms of the time Offstumped speaks about had no Constitution in the sense we understand it today. The definition of a Raja is Ranjanaat iti Rajah (He is the king who entertains/keeps his subjects happy). The closest equivalent to the word “Constitution” is Smriti. Till date, we have 40 Smritis, the earliest dating some thousands of years ago. We can vaguely liken the Indian Constitution to the 41st Smriti but only after it passes some tests as we shall see.

Rajadharma is an entire subject in its own right and very simply, it involved the king to always uphold Dharma and ensure that his subjects were always happy and that his coffers were always full. In the times of the Ramayana, it was to uphold this Rajadharma that Rama had to forsake Sita. The King had sanction to employ any and every means to achieve these twin objectives and relied on the smritis and his council of ministers to guide him. The smritis in turn dealt with every conceivable aspect of Dharma in minute detail including giving us such things as the kind of bodily ailments caused by excessive gambling. Space doesn’t permit me to elaborate further but equating Rajadharma with the Constitution of the State is wholly incorrect.

Equally, the Indian Constitution is not the Rajadharma of today. It is one thing to say that the Constitution is a noble document and one of the pillars of our democracy and other nice things. However, superimposing Rajadharma upon it is misleading to say the least. One of the first tests of whether the Indian Constitution is indeed the Rajadharma of today is to find out whether the Constitution itself upholds Dharma.

A marked feature of a Smriti (I’m using the term very loosely here) is its fluidity, its adaptability to changing times because Dharma varies from age to age. There have been pitched battles to amend whole portions of the Indian Constitution to accommodate the changing needs, and aspirations but such portions have remained in a time warp. However, amendments that injure both the Constitution and Dharma are passed nonchalantly. The other test is how a Smriti treats other/minority groups/religions. The Indian Constitution places minority institutions almost beyond the scrutiny of law. A fourth test is how it treats the cultural icons, symbols, and literature of the nation. The Indian Constitution makes it illegal to kill the peacock and the tiger and also punishes an insult to the national flag. Yet, it doesn’t accord the same status to our epics, which are now reduced to literary lab pieces for anybody to maul at will. The Ramayana and the Mahabharata are not merely Hindu epics—they are Indian epics. They define the Indian way of life and continue to influence people of all major religions in the country. Neither can you argue that a secular/democratic nation has nothing to do with religion because as we see, there’s nothing secular about Indian democracy. Additionally, the word “secular” itself was an ugly aberration that Indira Gandhi introduced and hasn’t been erased till date. This is the nature of Adharma. I can cite several other instances but the point remains that the Indian Constitution doesn’t entirely adhere to Dharma. If Offstumped argues that this is the Rajadharma, we all need to follow, I have nothing further to say.

Besides, there’s another aspect to this. A king who fails to perform his Rajadharma properly faces the prospect of his own subjects rebelling against him—in other words, of taking the law into their own hands. Pretty much what’s happening today. Successive Indian governments have failed to carry out their Rajadharma properly, and worse, in many cases, actively encouraged Adharma—votebanks, subverting the Constitution, the Emergency, etc. If they had discharged their Rajadharma properly, we wouldn’t have had the “violence unleashed by the political Hindutva” people.

Offstumped leaves me with no choice except to say that equating Dharma and Rajadharma with the Indian Constitution stems from a deep ignorance of the concept of Dharma. As a friendly note, anybody who wishes to talk about Dharma and make sense needs to invest serious time and effort to understand its basics. Merely being well-intentioned and supportive of Dharma isn’t enough.

...Continued in Part 2...

Technorati Tags: Offstumped Rejoinder,We Must Draw a Line,Dharma,India,Indian Politics,Secularism,Democracy,Indian Democracy,Constitution,Indian Constitution,Rajadharma,Bloggers,Blogging,Hindutva,Political Hindutva

Posterous — the e-mail-to-blog-to-everywhere platform — has just introduced a new feature that will let users schedule posts to be published in the future via e-mail, web or bookmarklet.

The appeal of Posterous is that every blogging behavior can be completed via e-mail with little to no thinking involved; this feature is no different. To schedule posts, users simply need to add “delay” or “publish” commands to e-mail subject lines and specify time constraints.

To publish a post on a specific date add “((publish: on mo/day/year))” or to delay publishing add “((delay: in x minutes or hours))” after your post title in the subject line of the e-mail. The “schedule later” option is also available in the Advance Settings portion of the bookmarklet or the Manage Page section on the web (see below).

The new feature addition is a minor upgrade with bigger implications as Posterous continues to make its simple blogging platform more business-friendly. It also comes just a few days after the introduction of a page break element, and further exemplifies how such a simple platform can support complex functionality.

[img credit: dolphinsdock]

Tags: posterous, social media

By Scott M. Fulton, III, Betanews

Usually the purpose of a virtual private network is to establish a secure, tunneled route between two points in an IP network. Is the idea that such a network could be secured using two encryption layers rather than one, and without the need for a user to log in first, worthy of a patent? These were questions central to the latest Tyler, Texas patent infringement case for Microsoft to lose: VPN technology provider VirnetX was awarded $105.75 million yesterday, in a case closely followed by the Seattle P.I.'s Nick Eaton.

It's clear from a reading of VirnetX's key patent on VPN technology, issued in 2002, that it is an attempt to go one step further with the VPN concept. The firm calls its system Tunneled Agile Routing Protocol (TARP). Here, the communications between VPN hosts are encrypted at one level, but then the routing information is hidden behind a second level. The intent is to hide not only what's being talked about or shared over a VPN, but who is sharing it, and what route it's taking to get there.

"Each TARP packet's true destination is concealed behind a layer of encryption generated using a link key," reads a portion of the summary from US Patent #6,502,135. "The link key is the encryption key used for encrypted communication between the hops intervening between an originating TARP terminal and a destination TARP terminal. Each TARP router can remove the outer layer of encryption to reveal the destination router for each TARP packet. To identify the link key needed to decrypt the outer layer of encryption of a TARP packet, a receiving TARP or routing terminal may identify the transmitting terminal by the sender/receiver IP numbers in the cleartext IP header. Once the outer layer of encryption is removed, the TARP router determines the final destination."

Microsoft implemented its own interpretation of VPN technology for Office Communicator, the endpoint for the company's bold Unified Communications project -- its effort to render the phone networks, and PBXes that support them, obsolete. To make the Internet work more like a phone, people using a telephone console need to be able to pick up the receiver and dial. They shouldn't have to go to some dialog box and log in. Avoiding that option is what UC tries to do, and is one of the acts for which VirnetX cried foul.

In hearings last July (which Eaton also covered closely), Microsoft defended itself by asserting that the whole point of a VPN is to establish both secure and anonymous communications between points, so the idea that VirnetX was somehow inventing the addition of anonymity was absurd. If you doubt that a VPN is supposed to be anonymous, counsel argued, just look it up in a glossary. Which the judge did, and that got into a wholly separate argument over the quality of glossaries, resulting in the judge in the case issuing his own glossary for the jury to interpret as fact.

An excerpt from Judge Leonard Davis' opinion last July shows the extent of the argument over how deeply a glossary may define a concept, especially if that concept may be proof of "prior art" that could invalidate a patent (PDF available here, from SeattlePI.com): "Microsoft cites the portion of the 'FreeS/WAN' glossary definition for 'virtual private networks' that states, 'IPSEC [Internet Protocol Security] is not the only technique available for building VPNs, but it is the only method defined by RFCs [Request for Comments, Internet documents??"some of which are informative while others are standards] and supported by many vendors. VPNs [virtual private networks] are by no means the only thing you can do with IPSEC, but they may be the most important application for many users.'...Microsoft points out that IPSEC is the only method defined by RFCs and supported by many vendors. Microsoft argues that this narrow language shows that the 'FreeS/WAN' glossary does not identify Secure Sockets Layer ('SSL') or Transport Layer Security ('TLS') as methods for building 'virtual private networks.' Microsoft then argues that VirnetX's proposed construction is overly broad because it allows for a network using SSL and TLS. However, Microsoft's cited excerpt is an ancillary portion of the 'virtual private network' definition and is set apart in a different paragraph from the primary portion of the definition...Also, Microsoft selectively asserts that IPSEC is the only method defined by RFCs and supported by many vendors and ignores that its cited excerpt states that, 'IPSEC is not the only technique available for building VPNs.' Thus, Microsoft's cited excerpt does not support that the 'FreeS/WAN' glossary restricts 'virtual private network' to IPSEC."

If Microsoft could have proved that VirnetX's contribution to VPN architecture was so obvious that it would still be covered by a published glossary definition of the term, then it might have persuaded the jury that no patent should have been issued in the first place. But that assertive defense became problematic (at best) last summer when it was revealed that Microsoft itself attempted to patent the same technology, in an application that was denied by the US Patent Office. The basis of the denial was prior art -- specifically, the pre-existence of patents issued to VirnetX.

As the jury no doubt heard from plaintiff's counsel, if Microsoft didn't know about the existence of VirnetX's patents before, it did when it received its rejection notice. No haggling over glossary definitions could save the case at that point. In a statement, Microsoft continued to assert the invalidity of VirnetX's patents, and will begin the long and arduous process of appealing to overturn the verdict.

Copyright Betanews, Inc. 2010

Glyn Moody writes "Horacio Gutierrez, Microsoft's Corporate Vice President and Deputy General Counsel, has just published a piece called 'Apple v. HTC: A Step Along the Path of Addressing IP Rights in Smartphones.' In it, he notes that today's smartphones are all about the 'software stack,' not the 'radio stack,' and that 'as the IP situation settles in this space and licensing takes off, we will see the patent royalties applicable to the smartphone software stack settle at a level that reflects the increasing importance software has as a portion of the overall value of the device. In the interim, though, we should expect continued activity.' That 'activity' obviously means lawsuits against those producing those software stacks, and Gutierrez seems to be hinting strongly that Microsoft intends to join in. So where does that leave all the Linux-based stacks such as the increasingly-popular Android? Is this just a clever way for Microsoft to start a patent war on Linux without appearing to do so?"

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Wednesday, March 17, 2010

The United States Federal Communications Commission released a plan to provide broadband Internet access to at least 90% of the American population today, and sent a copy of the plan to Congress, which will consider whether to introduce legislation to enact portions of the proposal. Other parts will be decided on by various government agencies.

The plan is intended to spur adoption of broadband Internet in the US by extending broadband access to areas of the country, such as rural areas, that do not currently have such access, as well as substantially increasing the speed of existing broadband installations. Currently, only around 65% of American households have broadband connectivity; if approved, the new plan would increase that number to 90% by 2020. According to a statement from the FCC, the plan would provide a "foundation for economic growth, job creation, global competitiveness and a better way of life."

More...

Leor Galil reviews AOL’s recent experiment in covering the music portion of massive US festival and conference SXSW: AOL offered 2,000 $50-assignments to create coverage of the event for its music site Spinner. The freelancers were recruited via freelance content site Seed.com with the aim of covering all 2,000 bands appearing at the festival. There’s a [...]