E-book prices to rise as Amazon, Sony adopt agency model
With the first shipments of iPads in transit, it's looking like Apple's impending entry into the e-book market has shaken up its pricing structure. Apple has offered book publishers what has been termed an "agency model" for pricing, in which they get to control the price of books offered for sale via the iPad's software. Amazon had bought e-books for the Kindle at wholesale prices, and then set the prices for retail purchases. After a series of public battles with Amazon, it's looking increasingly like Amazon is throwing in the towel and accepting the agency model. At the same time, and with little fuss, Sony has also adopted the agency model for pricing in its e-book store.
The Wall Street Journal is reporting that Simon & Schuster and i's Newscorp stablemate Harper Collins have both reached new pricing agreements with Amazon. The deals will see the publishers set the prices of best sellers, many of which will increase to the $13-15 range. Similar deals with Hachette and Penguin are said to be close.
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IBM and Simmtronics launch $190 Ubuntu netbook
IBM has announced the launch of a new Atom-based netbook from Simmtronics that will ship with Lotus collaboration software and the Ubuntu Netbook Remix. The device, which is largely aimed at small businesses in emerging markets, will sell for $190. It is currently available in South Africa and will be expanding to other regions in the future.
In an effort to erode Microsoft's dominance on the enterprise desktop, IBM began partnering with Linux distributors to offer integrated Lotus packages in 2008. Canonical, the company behind Ubuntu, has gradually become IBM's primary Linux partner on the desktop. Following the launch of Windows 7 last year, IBM touted the Ubuntu and Lotus combo as an alternative, claiming that companies could save money by adopting it instead of upgrading to the latest version of Microsoft's operating system.
The Ubuntu Netbook Remix has been gaining traction among hardware vendors including OEMs like Dell and ODMs like Pegatron. Simmtronics is the latest hardware company to adopt Canonical's Linux platform.
"Canonical has a great program for engaging with hardware manufacturers for getting Ubuntu certified and delivered across various platforms and we're happy to welcome Simmtronics to the program," said Ubuntu founder Mark Shuttleworth in a statement. "It's exciting to see how computing is changing the lives of people in Africa and the new Simmbook provides a real testament of how important it is to get low-cost computing into Africa's economy."
Shuttleworth, who is from South Africa, is a vocal advocate of open source software and its potential to help close the digital divide. In a video published on IBM's website, he discusses how lower-cost computing can help Africa realize its potential.
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Heavenly jukebox: cloud distribution and the future of film
Cloud services have been heralded as a way to give smaller voices the same access to a global audience as bigger voices. Anyone can start a blog that everyone in the world can read. Anyone can post a video to YouTube and generate millions of views in a matter of days. This same power is helping small film distributers that specialize in independent and foreign-language films reach wider audiences by way of streaming, on-demand video. We spoke with one such distributor, Music Box Films, about the recent deal it struck with Netflix to make its movies available via the Watch Instantly streaming service.
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New Zealand patent reform bill says no to software patents
New Zealand's parliament is preparing to vote on a major patent reform bill that will tighten the country's standards of patentability. One of the most significant changes in the proposed bill is a specific patentability exclusion for software. If the bill receives parliamentary approval in its current form, it will broadly eliminate conventional software patents in New Zealand.
The bill was drafted by the Select Commerce Committee, which decided to include the exclusion after reviewing feedback from the software industry. The bill's official summary acknowledges that software patents are detrimental to the open source software development model and have the potential to seriously stifle innovation.
"Protecting software by patenting is inconsistent with the open source model, and its proponents oppose it. A number of submitters argued that there is no 'inventive step' in software development, as 'new' software invariably builds on existing software," the bill summary says. "They felt that computer software should be excluded from patent protection as software patents can stifle innovation and competition, and can be granted for trivial or existing techniques. In general we accept this position."
The Commerce Committee says that the ban on software patents will not block companies from patenting hardware inventions that encompass embedded software. It will be up to the Intellectual Property Office of New Zealand to craft the specific rules for determining what kind of embedded software is patentable.
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feature: Tentacular, tentacular!
Who needs yet another predictably lame fake news story to brighten up their April 1st? Not Cthulhu, creature of primeval nightmare, who dropped by our offices in Chicago a few weeks back with a proposal we couldn't refuse.
"FAKE NEWS IS SO 2007," said his voice as it echoed around inside my brain pan. Cthulhu was lounging in a spare armchair that no one has since had the courage to sit in, a lit cigar brandished in one tentacle as he talked. "I'M THINKING: SOMETHING AWESOME, STARRING ME. WITH CHOICES. AND MULTIPLE ENDINGS."
"Like the sort of interactive text adventure we all read as kids?" I asked.
"YES, BUT ONE FOR GROWN-UP GEEKS THAT TAKES PLACE IN VEGAS AND FEATURES BOOTH BABES, MADNESS, AND THE PROSPECT OF CLEANING OUT MY TENTACLE JAM FOR ALL ETERNITY. ALSO, A SINGING DAVID POGUE. AND SERGEY BRIN WEARING A JETPACK."
"It, err, sounds like you have this all planned out."
Cthulhu plucked a manila folder from somewhere within the non-Euclidean geometry of his manbag and dropped it on my desk with a thud.
"20,000 WORDS OF AWESOME. YOU DON'T EVEN HAVE TO PAY ME. I JUST WANT THE EXPOSURE SO I CAN MEET CHICKS. HAVE YOU EVER BEEN TO R'YLEH? ONE WORD: BORING."
I flipped through the script—not half bad for something penned by a creature who spent, by all reliable accounts, most of its time dead but dreaming.
"Look, I can't make any promises. We were thinking about running Ben's epic faux review of Duke Nukem Forever again..."
"LAME." Cthulhu shifted in his armchair, leaving traces of slime on the seat. "THIS IS BETTER. ALSO, I WON'T FEAST ON YOUR BRAINS IF YOU RUN MINE INSTEAD."
And really—who could argue with that logic?
Tentacular, tentacular!
"What is it with geeks and bacon?" you ask yourself as you stand just outside the main exhibition hall of the Opulentium Royale, Vegas' newest monument to excess.
Built in the shape of a massive 1950's UFO, the hotel squats on its patch of desert like an otherworldly metal pimple, its revolving dome housing a surprisingly good steakhouse. The Opulentium has everything a discriminating alien abductee could want, except the anal probings—though you spent the predawn hours learning that a session at the baccarat tables could produce a similar feeling of total violation.
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MeeGo gets going: source code and developer builds available
In a statement today at the official MeeGo community Web site, Intel Open Source Technology Center director Imad Sousou announced that the MeeGo source code and first installable images are available for download. The platform itself is still incomplete and under heavy active development. The purpose of this release is to make it possible for third-party developers to begin participating in the project.
According to Sousou, this initial code drop includes the kernel and key parts of the operating system infrastructure, such as system libraries and communications frameworks. Installable images are available in several flavors, including one for Nokia's N900 smartphone and one for Atom-based netbooks. These do not include the MeeGo user interface layer or standard application stack, which means that they aren't yet suitable for adoption by regular users. A more complete release is expected to occur in May.
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Apple reportedly tweaked the iPhone to work better on AT&T
Since the original iPhone launch, AT&T has put in motion a number of upgrades to its wireless network to accommodate the pounding it received at the collective fists of millions of iPhone users. But according to AT&T CTO John Donovan, Apple has also done its part to adjust the iPhone to work better on AT&T's network.
Donovan told the Wall Street Journal that, even as the company worked to convince Apple that it was improving its network, AT&T engineers went to Apple to give Apple's engineers a "crash course" in wireless networking. Apple modified how the iPhone communicates with towers to reduce the overhead for making connections or sending texts.
"They're well past networking 101, 201 or 301," Donovan told WSJ. Apple is now "in a Master's class."
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feature: A fast guide to system rescue using open tools
Technology is wonderful, until it stops working as expected. Computers have a nasty habit of developing glitches or just going belly up altogether at the worst possible times. There's nothing that can prevent that, but a couple of open source tools can help mitigate disaster and maybe even save the day altogether. With Clonezilla you can create a perfect copy of your system. Using the System Rescue CD, you'll have all the tools you need to recover from many system crashes.
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Rumored iPhone OS multitasking would use Exposé-like feature
Details continue to emerge over supposed multitasking support in an upcoming major release of the iPhone OS. According to AppleInsider, sources “familiar with the situation” have allegedly confirmed that the change is coming in iPhone OS 4.0, allowing users to run multiple applications simultaneously and easily switch between them. The addition of multitasking support would put the iPhone even closer to feature parity with phones using Palm's webOS and Google's Android.
It has long been known that the iPhone OS has the capability of running multiple processes simultaneously, but Apple hasn’t yet allowed third-party developers to access the functionality. In the past, Apple has cited potentially poor battery life, memory errors, and the possibility of malware as reasons not to allow third parties to run software in the background. However, if the latest rumors are true, Apple seems to have changed its tune.
The mechanism for switching between apps will be somewhat of a lovechild between Mac OS X's Exposé and application switching features. According to the description, the switcher wouldn't deal with application windows like Exposé, but instead application icons. Icons will apparently respond similarly to the Exposé experience, fanning out in a grid that would allow a user to easily switch between running apps.
With Apple's current philosophy on the openness (or lack thereof) of the iPhone OS platform, it’s hard to imagine what safeguards Apple might employ that would allow the company to appease users while still controlling the security of its devices.
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Setting the record straight: no simple theory of everything
A bit over two years ago, news sources and science blogs lit up when a pre-print paper from Dr. A. Garrett Lisi came to light that proposed a novel theory of everything—one theory that accurately describes all four of the universes fundamental forces. Current theories have demonstrated that three of the four fundamental forces and their associated particles can all be obtained from different symmetry operations (think rotations and reflections) of an algebraic group called a Lie group The pre-print, hosted by the on-line repository arXiv, proposed that, within the complicated symmetry group E8, all four forces of nature could be described and united.
The hype that ensued ensured that a search for the term "surfer physicist" now leads to press stories about Lisi's ideas, and spawned an entire Wikipedia entry for the paper alone. As an engineer who specializes in theoretical work, it seemed to me to be a case of "give me enough parameters and I can fit a horse." Our in-Orbiting Headquarters physicist, Dr. Chris Lee, described it as solid, but noted it had some serious shortcomings.
In the intervening years, the paper—to the best of my knowledge and research ability—has not made it through peer-review to publication. A new paper, set to be published in an upcoming edition of Communications in Mathematical Physics, formally addresses the idea, and not only finds that Lisi's specific theory falls short, but that no theory based on the E8 symmetry group can possibly be a "Theory of Everything."
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Retro but approachable: Ars reviews Mega Man 10
When Mega Man 9 came out in 2008, it had the luxury of being the first game in the original series to be released in over a decade. Mega Man 10, released this week on Xbox Live Arcade (and already available on WiiWare and the Playstation Network) doesn't have that luxury. But instead of simply being a rehash of old ideas wrapped up in a nostalgia-driven package, the tenth entry in the venerable series ends up being a refreshing, and surprisingly approachable, outing for the Blue Bomber.
Mega Man's latest adventure sees him joining up with long time foe Dr. Wily in an attempt to find a cure for robotenza, a mysterious virus that's been plaguing the robot population. As you'd expect, finding the cure involves finding and defeating eight robot masters and, like every other game in the series, you can tackle these foes in any order you choose, and finding the correct sequence is the key to success. One of the more controversial additions to MM10 has been the inclusion of an easy mode. With the difficulty turned down, enemies become weaker and levels themselves are actually altered, with platforms placed over spikes and pitfalls. It also makes the boss battles significantly easier, and, in many cases, removes the need to use any special weapons. Instead, you can simply blast your way through most boss battles without relying on much strategy.
But with the difficulty set to normal, the game as just as fiendishly hard as you remember. The enemies are tough. The platforming requires precision. And the bosses force you into pattern memorization. In other words, classic Mega Man. But MM10 also introduces some new, and very impressive ideas, as well. There are giant blocks of ice that slowly crumble and giant sand storms that obscure the entire screen. Some enemies self-duplicate until destroyed while others are actually speeding robot buses. Arguably the most notable stage is Sheep Man's, which features conveyor belts that actually produce electricity, powering platforms for a limited time.
Really, Mega Man 10 is exactly what fans of the series are looking for. It features a great balance of classic gameplay and new ideas, and is packed with plenty of quirky personality—from robot snowmen and floating, electric tufts of wool to a totally rockin', old-school soundtrack—to satisfy the even the most die-hard fan. But, two decades after the original, it's also the most approachable game in the series to date, making it the perfect entry point to players who haven't yet been acquainted with the Blue Bomber.
Verdict: Buy
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Cell bio, automation merge to screen every human gene
Every now and then, there's a bit of science that's a combination of brute force and tour de force. Examples that spring to mind mostly come from the world of small, manageable experimental animals, like the mapping of every single cell division of the worm C. elegans, a feat that won John Sulston a Nobel Prize. A paper published in this week's Nature takes a method pioneered with C. elegans and extends it to the human genome: researchers have knocked down every single identified human gene, and used an automated imaging system to examine the impact on cell division. All of the 190,000 movies that resulted have been made publicly accessible.
The key to this work was the automation. Researchers have been developing some sophisticated control software that can take time-lapse images using an automated microscope that doubles as a temperature-controlled incubation chamber. The software can move the sample containers in order to image individual portions of them, allowing a plate containing dozens of samples to be imaged in a single experiment. It can also autofocus and track individual cells as they move so that it can adjust the imaging frame accordingly. These techniques can be combined with multiphoton microscopy, which allows fluorescent images to be obtained without damaging the cells via UV radiation.
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Journalists covering China say Yahoo e-mail accounts hacked
Three foreign journalists and one analyst, all of whom focus on China, have recently reported problems with Yahoo e-mail accounts, at least two of which were confirmed hacking attempts. The source of the problems isn't known, but all four report hearing of similar problems from colleagues that report primarily on China-related issues.
One of the journalists, Clifford Coonan, received a notice that there was an "issue" with his account when attempting to log in Tuesday, according to an Associated Press report. Yahoo confirmed there were suspicious login attempts on his account. Coonan serves as a China correspondent for both The Independent and the Irish Times.
Two other unnamed journalists told AP that they had received similar notices in January and February respectively. A financial analyst that focuses on China confirmed with Yahoo that his account had been hacked. For its part, Yahoo has said that it will "take appropriate action" for any confirmed hacking attempts.
Coonan speculated that he might merely be the target of broad hacking attempts, but worried of the implications if foreigners with ties to China were being specifically targeted. "It's obviously annoying, but if it's just journalists and academics, that's scary," he told AP.
The problems happened shortly after Google complained of hacking attempts originating from China and moved to end its practice of censoring search results in China.
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Feelin' like a panther: Splinter Cell Conviction preview
With Splinter Cell Conviction, Ubisoft wants to make you feel like a panther.
Ars recently had the opportunity to preview the co-op campaign for the oft-delayed stealth action game at Toronto Comic Con this past weekend, and the consensus amongst the developers on hand was that they want to turn players into predators. And while it's hard to tell if they've fully succeeded given the short amount of time I had with the game, it's clear that they're on the right track.
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Taking the bling out of diesel engines
While diesel engines are highly efficient, getting them cleaner and more environmentally friendly is currently pretty expensive. Most diesel aftertreatment systems currently require a platinum catalyst to eliminate nitrogen oxides, and that's one of the reasons these vehicles continue to be more expensive than their gasoline counterparts. However, scientists have found that varieties of a doped mineral called perovskite work just as well, and sometimes better, than platinum. Still, some palladium is required to keep the compound from mistakenly breaking down sulfur oxides instead.
Diesel engines can be more efficient if they are run "lean," with more air involved than needed to burn all of the fuel present. However, this results in an exhaust stream that contains a lot of oxygen, which combines with nitrogen to form nitric oxide and nitrogen dioxide, both of which are harmful to the environment.
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Microsoft cuts Zune HD prices, 64GB model hits on April 12
After a slip on the Zune webpage, Microsoft has finally stopped denying the existence of the 64GB Zune HD. It will be available for $349.99 at ZuneOriginals.com in Platinum, Black, Blue, Red, Green, Purple or Magenta. Microsoft estimates the 64GB device will be able to hold 16,000 songs, 25,000 pictures, or 20 hours of high definition video from Zune Marketplace (that works out to 128Kbps WMA files with length of 4 minutes each, pictures optimized for Zune screen size, and 500Kbps WMV files with 128 Kbps WMA audio tracks).
In addition to introducing the new 64GB capacity, Microsoft is also reducing the prices of the 16GB and 32GB devices from $220 and $290 to $200 and $270, respectively. These new prices were actually available since last month, but now Microsoft is making it official by bringing the estimated retail price (ERP) down. At the time, we speculated Microsoft had adjusted the prices in anticipation of a 64GB version, which has been rumored to be coming for many months, and we're happy to say we were right. In related news, Microsoft announced the Zune 4.5 firmware update yesterday and will announce a date of availability soon.
If the new prices or the 64GB version has you interested, make sure to read our Zune HD review before making a decision.
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When the Internet is dumb: bad antibiotic advice via Twitter
Have a question about symptoms or medication? Just ask the Internet! We all know we shouldn't do it, as the Internet is filled with misinformation and misguided advice, and yet most of us still do. Even worse than Googling about medication, though, is asking about taking your meds on Twitter. A new report published in the April issue of AJIC: American Journal of Infection Control has discovered that, like on most topics, Twitter can be a pretty effective tool for spreading misinformation about antibiotics.
Researchers from Columbia University and a company called MixedInk analyzed 52,153 tweets in order to see how Twitter users were disseminating information about antibiotics. The team extracted 1,000 relevant status updates and grouped them into 11 categories, which included (among other things) side effects, diagnosis, advice/information, misunderstanding/misuse, and animals.
The second most popular category, after general use updates ("I just took some antibiotics!"), was advice/information given to other Twitter users. This was followed by updates about side effects or negative reactions. "Negative reactions generally revolved around inconveniences, such as not being able to drink alcohol or sensitivity to the sun," reads the paper.
Many of the examples provided by the paper show that Twitter users tend to be as careless as the rest of us when it comes to antibiotics—they just do so in 140 characters or less. Some offer to share their medication with friends while others want to know how they can use up their leftovers, or how to stretch their medication for as long as possible due to insurance limitations.
The researchers are careful not to draw any conclusions about the behavior of Twitter users though. Instead, they take the data as evidence that Twitter can serve as a widespread medium to share health information and, as such, healthcare professionals should have a basic familiarity of how to use the service. This would help "identify potential misuse or misunderstanding of antibiotics, promote positive behavior change, and disseminate valid information" instead of what is typically offered by other Twitter users.
So... anyone want to tell me how to use these leftover antibiotics in my fridge?
American Journal of Infection Control, 2010. DOI: 10.1016/j.ajic.2009.11.004 (About DOIs).
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UK Parliament clears climatologists, calls for more openness
In the wake of the hacking event that resulted in the release of e-mails and code from the University of East Anglia's Climatic Research Unit, the UK Parliament began a series of investigations into what, precisely, their contents revealed. As Parliamentary elections will be taking place within the next several months, the Science and Technology Committee has decided to release its report on the matter (PDF) on an accelerated schedule. In general, the climate scientists come out well, but their institutional practices come in for a bit of criticism.
When it comes to CRU head Phil Jones, the report calls the focus on him "misplaced," and expresses sympathy for the level of scrutiny his work came under. The report concludes that phrases like "trick" and "hide the decline" were colloquialisms that weren't inappropriate for private e-mails, and they didn't represent an attempt to mislead anyone about the science—"In our view, it was shorthand for the practice of discarding data known to be erroneous."
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Microsoft: Google Chrome doesn't respect your privacy
Microsoft is going on the offensive against Google, accusing the search giant of creating a browser that does not respect user privacy. The company posted a video, embedded below, on TechNet Edge with the following description: "Watch a demo on how Google Chrome collects every keystroke you make and how Internet Explorer 8 keeps your information private through two address bars and In Private browsing."
Microsoft's first criticism is Chrome's combining the address bar and the search box into a single entry box; IE8 keeps those fields separate. "By keeping these boxes separate, your privacy is better protected and the addresses of the sites you're visiting aren't automatically shared with Microsoft, or anyone else," says IE product manager Pete LePage.
"As I start to type an address into the address bar, Fiddler [a Web debugging proxy] shows that for nearly every character I type, Chrome sends a request back to Google," LePage says. "I haven't even hit enter yet to load the website and Google is already getting information about the domain and sites I'm visiting." Right after that, he shows how typing something in the address bar in IE8 is very different—nothing is shared with the search provider, according to LePage.
In the second part of the video, LePage demonstrates how Internet Explorer 8 has a privacy feature called InPrivate, a privacy mode to allow browsing without leaving a trace. Unfortunately, he fails to acknowledge the existence of Google Chrome's Incognito, which disables history tracking, which undercuts his argument.
It's worth taking a closer look at LePage's first accusation. Even though he didn't really elaborate, the reason for the striking difference for IE8's and Chrome's behaviors is really that simple: IE8 has two boxes and Chrome has one. LePage makes an important mistake in his accusation against Google: his statement should not be "Chrome sends a request back to Google" but it should be "Chrome sends a request back to the search provider." He makes this distinction with IE8 but does not with Chrome. The information is being sent so that the search provider can help the user choose a query right in their browser.
We downloaded Fiddler to make some comparisons of our own. As we suspected, Chrome can be set to send information on every keystroke to Bing (or any other search engine that supports Search Suggestions) instead of Google. The same behavior occurs in IE8, but only in the search bar. LePage is only correct in his assertion that IE8 does not send information to anyone when the user types into the address bar.
See for yourself: download Fiddler and type something into the address bar on Chrome and watch how Fiddler reacts when you have Search Suggestions on and off. Then do the same in both IE8 fields.
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Shlockmeister Uwe Boll sues 2,000 "Far Cry" P2P downloaders
German director Uwe Boll has made something of of specialty out of producing terrible movies based on video games. Back in 2006, Ars Gaming Editor Ben Kuchera summed up Boll's problem: "After he watched the final cut of Alone in the Dark, he actually decided to release it. This guy is pure evil, distilled in an untalented director's body."
Boll went on to make such films as Postal and Far Cry, taking advantage of German film tax credits to obtain continued financing for his work, and he wasn't above actually punching out his critics in the ring. The man is... not universally loved.
This month, Boll found a new revenue source: mass lawsuits against P2P downloaders in US federal court. The first suit from Achte/Neunte Boll Kino Beteiligungs GmbH targets "Does 1-2,094" over their alleged sharing of Far Cry on BitTorrent networks.
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iPad EULA doesn't mandate paid OS upgrades
The iPad is set to launch this Saturday. In preparation for the launch, Apple has already posted two related files to its download servers: the final iPad firmware and its EULA. Based on some language in the EULA it has been widely reported that the iPad will require users to pay for OS upgrades like on the iPod touch. However, looking closely at the language reveals that paid upgrades aren't necessarily a foregone conclusion.
The relevant section from the iPad Software License Agreement is worth quoting in full:
Apple will provide you any iPad OS software updates that it may release from time to time, up to and including the next major iPad OS software release following the version of iPad OS software that originally shipped from Apple on your iPad, for free. For example, if your iPad originally shipped with iPad 3.x software, Apple would provide you with any iPad OS software updates it might release up to and including the iPad 4.x software release. Such updates and releases may not necessarily include all of the new software features that Apple releases for newer iPad models.
Here, Apple is making some specific promises. The company is promising free updates for all point releases of iPhone OS 3.x (the iPad will ship with iPhone OS 3.2). It's also promising a free update to iPhone OS 4.0—expected to ship this summer with the launch of the next iPhone iteration—as well as any subsequent point updates.
The license agreement also specifically does not promise a couple things. It doesn't promise that updates beyond 4.x will be free. It also doesn't promise that software updates will necessarily give the current iPad all the features that future iPad models might gain from that software, just as iPhone OS 3.0 didn't give the iPhone 3G all the features of the iPhone 3GS.
It's worth noting that this language in no way precludes iPhone OS 5.x or higher from being a free upgrade, only that Apple isn't promising that it will at this specific point in time. Apple puts a lot of work into the iPhone OS just as it does with Mac OS X (historically a $129 upgrade), and the language of the license agreement gives Apple the option to charge for future updates if that work needs to be funded by paid upgrades.
The truth is that we won't know anything for sure until at least a year from now—the absolute soonest we are likely to hear anything about iPhone OS 5.0. For now, we see no cause for alarm.
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IsoHunt told to pull .torrent files offline, likely to close
The founder of popular Bit Torrent site IsoHunt, Gary Fung, has been ordered to remove the .torrent files for all infringing content—an order that could result in the site shutting down. US District Judge Stephen Wilson issued the order last week after years of back-and-forths over the legality of IsoHunt and Fung's two other sites (Torrentbox and Podtropolis). Fung claims he's still hoping for a more agreeable resolution that won't result in IsoHunt closing its doors, but for now, things aren't looking good for the torrent site.
Judge Wilson's order follows a summary judgement against Fung in December 2009. At that time, Wilson said that Fung had completely failed to rebut the claims brought against him by the MPAA. The movie studios had brought in expert witnesses stating that a statistical sampling of the content and server logs showed that nearly all of the content infringed copyrights, and about half of the downloads were made within the US. Fung dismissed this as "junk science" but did not present any sort of evidence showing that this wasn't a valid approach.
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Google/Verizon want "minimal regulation" (just sometimes)
The Google/Verizon "can't we get along" roadshow on government oversight of the Internet went into high gear this week, with an editorial piece in the Wall Street Journal on areas where the Droid buddies agree about the FCCs National Broadband Plan. Frankly, the piece is a bit of a snoozer until the second to last paragraph.
"The Internet has thrived in an environment of minimal regulation," write Google's Eric Schmidt and Verizon's Ivan Seidenberg. "While our two companies don't agree on every issue, we do agree generally as a matter of policy that the framework of minimal government involvement should continue."
We were just about to dive into the FCC's database to retrieve various instances in which the companies have been asking for a tad bit more than that, but Josh Silver of Free Press beat us to it. Abhorring any wasteful duplication of effort, we'll pinch from his list and add a few items of our own.
Google strongly supports net neutrality rules, Silver notes. Indeed, the search engine giant backs the agency's proposal to add an enforcement mechanism to its four-part Internet policy statement, and it hopes the FCC will nix ISP plans for last mile priority charges on Web content.
Plus, the firm was and still is a huge booster of the FCC's decision to permit unlicensed "white space" broadband devices on the 700MHz band. And Google just asked the Commission for "a proposed rule generally requiring that all content offered via [any multichannel video provider] be made available through competitive navigation devices able to offer consumers innovative and advanced features."
Meanwhile, Verizon has petitioned for big changes in the government's Universal Service Fund system, wants the FCC to ban mobile transmissions in some bands close to its licenses, and "urges the Commission to undertake a targeted spectrum inventory that would examine all spectrum in the range of 400MHz to 5GHz that is not already allocated for exclusive use, and consider reallocating significant portions of these bands for future mobile broadband use."
This month Google and several other parties met with the agency and urged it to take the steps needed "to build a complete legal and evidentiary record to confirm the agency’s oversight authority" over ISPs, including under the common carrier provisions of the Communications Act if need be.
Actually, most of these proposals sound good, or at least reasonable. But taken as a whole (and there are lots more examples we could cite), they add up to something more than that "light regulatory touch" that the CEOs always say they want—at least on op-ed pages.
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