Clear Channel: Internet means we get to buy more radio stations
It's time once again for the Federal Communications Commission to consider its broadcast ownership rules. That means another huge petition from Clear Channel Communications calling for the elimination of any restrictions on the number of radio stations that the company can buy.
Why? The Internet.
"Today, terrestrial radio stations compete not only with their local peers but also with the growing panoply of regulated and unregulated competitors at the local, regional, and global levels," Clear Channel writes. "These competitors use new technologies and services to deliver music, entertainment, and news in formats and on platforms that today’s audiences demand. Many of these outlets did not exist in 1996, and several were in nascent stages in 2006; today, satellite radio and internet-based services are robust competitors to terrestrial radio stations."
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Liveblog: Apple iPhone 4 Press Conference
Apple has decided to hold a short-notice press conference to discuss the iPhone 4, which most people believe will address the uproar over iPhone 4 antenna issues. Whether that will actually be the case remains to be seen, but we will be there to find out. The event begins at 10am PDT/1pm EDT (see it in your own timezone).
Will Steve Jobs issue a recall, or merely teach the press how to hold the phone properly? Sign up below to receive an e-mail alert when we go live or simply bookmark this page and come back on Friday morning when the conference begins.
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HP's Android tablet "delayed," more likely DOA
It's no secret that HP wants to get into the tablet market with a slate-like product that will go head to head with Apple's iPad. Microsoft and HP announced a high-profile partnership to develop a Windows 7 slate, but the product never made it past the prototype stage and was quietly killed by HP. Now it looks like HP's plan B, an Android-based tablet that was expected to arrive by year-end, has also been put on hold and won't ship in that timeframe.The news was reported by the AllThingsD blog, which cites unnamed sources close to HP. The move comes as no surprise, because HP's recently completed acquisition of Palm furnishes the hardware giant with its very own Linux-based mobile operating system. Using Palm's webOS would allow HP to differentiate its slate products from the flurry of upcoming Android-based tablets that will soon flood the market.
HP has stated publicly that it plans to grow webOS beyond smartphones and bring the platform to other kinds of form factors. The rumors suggest an October launch date for a webOS slate. It would be a welcome contender in the tablet market and would give consumers some much-needed choice. If such a product is successful, it seems highly unlikely that an Android device from HP will ever materialize.
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PS3 first and only console to get Hulu Plus this year
Sony has announced that the PlayStation 3 will be the first of the game consoles to get a taste of Hulu Plus, Hulu's subscription service with more content on more devices, and select PlayStation Plus subscribers are already able to play around with the video streaming service.
To get on the list of invitees you simply need to download the Hulu app from the PlayStation Store and request an invitation. Doing so does require a subscription to both services, however, meaning you'll need to pay $9.99 per month for Hulu Plus in addition to the $50 per year that Sony charges for PS+. This is only the case for this first-look preview, though. Sony has said that eventually the service will be available to all PS3 owners in the US.
It looks like it could be a while before Xbox 360 and Wii owners get a taste of the service, as Sony's announcement explained that the PS3 will be "the first and only console with dedicated gaming functionality that will offer Hulu Plus this year." Check out our hands-on with Hulu Plus to get an idea of how the service fares on the iPhone and iPad.
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Users of location services worried about robberies, stalking
When location-based services started becoming popular in the mobile world, there was a contingency of jaded skeptics who joked about increased robberies and stalking incidents. It turns out that those concerns reflect what users are really thinking: more than half of people who use geolocation services on their mobile phones are worried about a loss of privacy, according to survey data from Webroot.Webroot's data shows that 39 percent of social network users who own geolocation-ready mobile devices use these services. Fifty-five percent of those people are concerned about a loss of privacy and 45 percent are worried about potential burglars knowing when they're away from home. Forty-nine percent of female users said they were "highly concerned" about letting a stalker know their whereabouts (32 percent of men echoed this), and those over 40 tended to be more worried about all of the above than those between 18 and 39.
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Engineer warned Jobs of potential iPhone 4 antenna issues
Apple initially claimed the iPhone 4 antenna flaw really isn't a flaw at all, but a software bug that misrepresents the number of bars of signal strength. It's now well-known that the iPhone 4 suffers from an antenna design flaw, and a new report by Bloomberg News reveals that Steve Jobs was warned early in the design phase by a top engineer that the antenna design could lead to dropped calls.Steve Jobs highlighted the iPhone 4 antenna design as "brilliant engineering" during his WWDC keynote. For many users it does offer better reception in areas that previous iPhones experienced problems, but it does have a reproducible issue that causes signal loss when a particular spot on the bottom left of the device is touched when a user holds the iPhone 4 in their left hand.
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Rockstar cleans house, Red Dead Redemption team axed
Red Dead Redemption is a great game, but it suffered through a troubled development cycle. Originally slated to be released last fall, the game was delayed and there were numerous reports that employees at Rockstar's San Diego studio were unhappy with the working conditions. Now it looks like many of those people won't have to worry about the conditions anymore.Rockstar has confirmed that, now that RDR is out, approximately 40 staff members are being cut from the San Diego team, which previously consisted of around 180 employees.
Miller went on to say that the staff remaining at the studio are currently working on downloadable content for the game, and that there are currently no announcements to make with regard to a sequel.
Originally founded in 1984 as Angel Studios, the San Diego branch of Rockstar has worked extensively on the Midnight Club street racing series, in addition to the Red Dead series. The studio also developed the surprise hit Rockstar Games Presents Table Tennis.
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Google to government: help us rule TV's vast wasteland
Almost 50 years ago a former Chair of the Federal Communications Commission famously called television a "vast wasteland." On Tuesday Google invoked the V-word again, but this time in a much more positive context.Google, the company promised the FCC, "seeks to achieve the vast pro-consumer potential of video convergence" via its new Google TV feature. But the Commission has to make its proposed "AllVid" video interface a reality, the search engine giant urges, and soon.
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Paragon of science or crackpot? Life after winning a Nobel
The public generally views winning the Nobel Prize as reaching the pinnacle of scientific achievement, which raises an awkward question: does that mean it's inevitably downhill from there? For many laureates, research careers continue on regardless of the level of public recognition. But others take the prestige afforded by the Prize and use it to advance issues that aren't directly related to their work. The two researchers who were honored for their role in the identification of HIV provide a glimpse into how this plays out in both good and bad ways. Winning the Nobel Prize affords about the closest thing to celebrity that's possible in a scientific career and, based on interviews with prize winners (who chose to remain anonymous), it comes with some of the same issues: everyone wants a piece of your time or an endorsement. And some of the laureates take advantage of their new platform, using it to promote things like science and health policies. Many of them stay in the lab, however, some continuing with the same work, others shifting to new projects.
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ACTA so transparent, the text still has to be leaked
At this point, one gets the sense that Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement (ACTA) negotiators are just yanking our collective chains with their talk of "transparency." After releasing a single version of the ACTA draft text back in April, the negotiations descended into their customary and unnecessary secrecy once more. After the most recent round of negotiations in Lucerne, the governments involved didn't even bother to release the new text. And when the European Commission briefed European members of parliament, the meeting was secret—so Pirate MEP Christian Engström left.It's hard to say why the negotiators still insist on such secrecy, especially when draft texts of the treaty keep leaking anyway. Another one appeared today (PDF), courtesy of someone in the European Parliament, and it incorporates all the most recent changes from the Lucerne round.
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Do you own the data on your onscreen TV programming guide?
When you fire up your home theater system and click the "guide" button on your remote, does your pay TV provider own the copyright to the listing of movies, sports games, and news/talk shows that you see?The Public Knowledge advocacy group says no. Electronic Programming Guide (EPG) data is "simply factual information describing programming, and thus not subject to copyright protection," the advocacy group told the Federal Communications Commission on Tuesday.
Why has this suddenly become an issue? The question surfaced after the FCC launched its "AllVid" adapter proposal in April. The concept is a replacement for the agency's failed CableCARD policy. The latter gadget—a little portable data wedge for your set-top box—was supposed to let consumers easily pick and choose which type of video navigation device they wanted. But for a variety of reasons it never really took off.
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Light makes potential nuclear fuel highly reactive
A lesser-known nuclear fuel may be more reactive than researchers thought, according to a study that breaks the fuel's molecule open using only light. The fuel, uranium nitride, has properties that make it ideal for use in a nuclear reactor, but so far its behavior hasn't been well characterized. Researchers have found a way to open up a complicated uranium nitride derivative with UV light and expose a core part that could be easy to generate and reprocess fuel.Uranium nitride, formed via a triple-bond between one atom of each constituent, is a ceramic compound that has a very high melting point and thermal conductivity. Its resilience is appealing to nuclear scientists, especially because it could allow reactors to run at cooler temperatures. But many of its specific properties, including how reactive it is, are unknown, because the molecule is hard to purify and work with.
Current methods of making uranium nitride place uranium and nitrogen at the center of a complicated molecule containing carbon, hydrogen, and other metals. A group of researchers realized that they could chop a branch of this molecule off and liberate a nitrogen atom adjacent to a uranium core, enabling the formation of a uranium-nitrogen triple bond. The uranium nitride would then be exposed, and researchers could experiment with it to figure out whether it might be a good reactor material.
To break off the necessary atoms, researchers found they only needed to stimulate the right part of the molecule with a certain frequency of light. Once the scientists were able to get the right bond, they found that the uranium nitride was surprisingly reactive. The compound was easily able to break carbon-hydrogen bonds present in the rest of the cage molecule, and appropriate the atoms for itself.
The authors note that the ability to form the uranium nitride using only light may ease the process of creating and reprocessing nuclear fuel. They hope to get more specifics of the uranium nitride's abilities in future studies.
Nature Chemistry, 2010. DOI: 10.1038/nchem.705 (About DOIs).
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Sexting and child porn: are they any different?
The difference between "sexting" and "child pornography" might seem obvious, but it's not. Take one common metric for labeling something "child porn"—was it produced voluntarily? That question has its limits.Adults can (and do) convince minors to take sexually explicit pictures by webcam, for instance. Or they acquire pictures of kids that were created voluntarily for a boyfriend or girlfriend but were later forwarded to others or posted on the 'Net (after a bad breakup, say). Though the image might look exactly like child pornography, asking "how was this produced?" might make it difficult to prosecute those who collect and view child porn.
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Apple boosting mapping mashup skills with Poly9 acquisition
Apple is continuing its recent acquisition spree, this time buying Québec-based mapping mashup firm Poly9. According to Le Soleil, Apple quietly acquired the company in recent weeks, and most of its employees have already moved into offices at Apple's Cupertino headquarters. The acquisition brings additional depth to Apple's talent pool of mapping- and location-savvy programmers after last year's purchase of Placebase.Both Apple and Poly9—which still maintains a small office in Québec—are being tight-lipped about details of the group's focus inside Apple (Le Soleil noted that Poly9 employees have signed nondisclosure agreements). However, Poly9 is probably best known for its "Poly9 Globe," a Flash-based clone of Google Earth. It was also behind the Santa Claus tracking site run by NORAD, and has been involved in the development of a number of Web-based mapping applications for Microsoft, Yahoo, and even Apple itself.
Speculation so far seems to suggest that Apple may still be planning its own service to rival Google Maps or Google Earth. However, Apple is most likely boosting its own mapping and location programming abilities rather than looking for a wholesale replacement for Google Maps. Many of Poly9's projects involve using mapping data from a variety of sources, including Google. Its FreeEarth API incorporates geo data from the Placebase-developed PushPin API, so the company is already familiar with the technology Apple acquired late last year.
Poly9 developers are seen as "virtuosos," with Baliz-Media.com editor Luc Vaillancourt describing them as "agile Web ninjas." Le Soleil also notes that Tim O'Reilly, who had invited Poly9 to show off its work at Where 2.0, has also praised its developers' talent. What Apple has planned for Poly9 remains a mystery for now.
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