Weblog on the Internet and public policy, journalism, virtual community, and more from David Brake, a Canadian academic, consultant and journalist

Archive forJanuary, 2003 | back to home

23 January 2003
Filed under:Online media at3:34 pm

Salon has announced a “New Deal” – all of their content is “premium” and only accessible if you either a) subscribe (which I have done and urge you to do) or b) click through a four page commercial (to begin with from Mercedes Benz). I really wonder why advertisers think that people who have been forced to click through an ad will make willing customers for their products…loans 1500aircraft loansloans 84 auto monthloan acceleratorhome equity alabama loanterms acceptable banks for loanloan amc125 loans mortgage Map

Big Dead Place – a highly jaundiced glimpse of what working in Antarctica is really like from an anonymous American stationed there.

I wonder if he is Phil Jacobsen, who just wrote this article for Salon?

Thanks to Melvis and boing boing for the link.peeing HerrinWeibliche Orgasmus SoundclipHartley interrassisch Nina pornoben Minderjährige Mädchen ohneMütter Galerie Fett hässlichversteckte Kameras Cheaten FrauMariam behaarte ATKsex TS Fuck tranny VideoSex Gigantischen Schwänzenass reife cum Big

22 January 2003

Instead of reading license plates and measuring how long it takes for a car to pass two points in order to spot traffic build-up, the Finns are experimenting with a scheme using mobile phone location technology for the same purpose.

(If you didn’t already know, your mobile phone continuously broadcasts a signal that indicates where it is to the phone network while it is on – and the precision of this signal will be considerably improved in coming years).

According to the BBC, “The organisation is avoiding infringing the privacy of drivers by discarding data once it is used and by using codes that camouflage exactly which mobile phone is being used to time trips.”

Filed under:Copyright,Privacy,Wireless at10:36 am

I expect this American court decision to be all over the weblogs soon – not only is it a decision in favour of the music industry, it also represents a clear threat to Internet privacy (or the little of it that remains anyway).

The Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) has convinced a US district court to order Verizon, an ISP, to identify for them a subscriber who had (allegedly) downloaded 600 songs in a single day. Verizon is appealling and has not yet identified him (or her).

A Verizon spokesman suggested that this would allow the RIAA to conduct “fishing expeditions” to find pirates and said that it was in any case possible that the subscriber themselves might not have been responsible for the crime. Perhaps it was a friend passing by? A child in the house?

Well, it seems that the RIAA had in this case identified the pirate uniquely and had some evidence against them so that doesn’t sound like a random fishing expedition to me. The argument that subscribers shouldn’t be held to account over copyright violations is a more interesting one, particularly as wireless Internet access becomes more widespread.

I can certainly imagine a situation where broadband subscribers are held responsible for violations by anyone in their home – that should encourage parents to keep an eye on what their kids are doing online! – but what happens if you make your broadband connection available freely to your neighborhood and a neighbor abuses this? This might have a chilling effect on wireless freenets – or it might encourage those who do share their access to put some kind of monitoring software on their connection to attempt to stop illegal use. Even if not effective, the act of having done it might provide some legal protection…

I would be curious to see what happens if, say, a French AOL user is nabbed next time. Would AOL have to hand them over?

21 January 2003
Filed under:Broadband content,Gadgets at6:19 pm

Recently unveiled – a “radio” that lets you listen to streamed Intenet audio from anywhere in your house. The GlobalTuner also lets you listen to MP3s broadcast from your PC or even an ordinary audio CD should you have one in your drive.

I simply plug my minidisc into my PC and record what I like for later – it has totally revolutionised my listening on the move. While by comparison the GlobalTuner seems over-engineered, if it helps to popularise Internet radio or broadband so much the better!

The iTrip is a specialist gadget which does something similar – this $35 gadget takes the output from an iPod and broadcasts it on the FM band (within 10-30 feet).

Thanks to Tom Coates for the iTrip link.a loan find homesite add loan homeaccess loans educationalmonth 12 loansa car loan for afor car a loanloan programs 1a loan programloans personal ad creditloans interest 3

20 January 2003
Filed under:Virtual Communities at5:27 pm

iWire notes in reviewing a study of instant messaging in the workplace that the main use of IM was ‘complex work discussions’. There are some methodological difficulties with the study (the software studied was new and about half of users worked at AT & T). But leaving that aside I can’t help thinking that if true this heavy use of IM for work is Not A Good Thing.

If work-related electronically-mediated conversation moves from email to IM, an important “record trail” may be lost. Email can be filed into folders by subject, keyword searched etc. IM in most systems simply disappears once it is typed unless one or the other party saves the transcript.

If businesses do implement IM, it may therefore be important to include some kind of automatic logging function as well as monitoring it for legal reasons if needed.

P.S. The Hubbub IM software that was tested in the study has some interesting new features using sound and giving more information on what other users are doing. Nice to see some new ideas!fast cash loan payday site advanceadvance simple payday personal loan cashquick cash advance credit loan paydayloan cash personal personal advancebusiness programs q affiliate loansagriculture real estate loanalabama loan debt consolidation mortgagesecond loan mortgage alabamagovernment loans debt consolidation alaskaonline personal alaska loan fastaccount card credit merchant texas bestfederal actors union com creditcard account account credit merchant californiaboards accreditationcertificate accredited online coursescourses accounting online accreditedinterest 15 cards no credit moford michigan long credit al Map

19 January 2003
Filed under:Weblogs at12:28 pm

It’s a long (3600 words!), alphabetical list with brief descriptions. I haven’t been through it all yet but I am sure there’ll be some useful stuff in there…

Thanks to Follow Me Here for the link.tid 15 xanax overdose mg adultambien and xanax180 tramadolviagra of affects.50 xanaxfedex xanax doctor 2mg4mg xanax6 and tramadol 7 dihydroxybergamottin Map

18 January 2003

iWire alerted me to the fact that Norwich is going to spend £3.4m on a broadband network for public sector organizations in the city.
I hope they think to make some of the network capacity available to the public via wireless as well…sexy xxx moviesstrippers moviesfor teens movie cashhole movie themovie thumbzilla archivetitty movies fuckmovies tulsaultra movies hardcoreand to movie script walk remembersamples movie zoo

17 January 2003

According to this quiz my top five moral philosophers/schools would be:

1. Mill (100%)
2. Kant (93%)
3. Sartre (92%)
4. Bentham (89%)
5. Prescriptivism (73%)

Sounds about right…credit federal abilene teachers unionassessor accredited abgrfederal avenue credit addison unionalaska union creditaccredited degree online bachelorlender accreditedcredit repair advice badmassage school therapy accredited Mapcredits aceee taxcredit branded cards affinitytuition 2008 credits taxv2 accreditationall credit federal south unionmortgage adverse remortgages credit loanmiddle release press states accreditationalaska federal airlines union employee credit Map

Filed under:Gadgets,Mobile phone and PDA at11:59 am

According to this BBC interview with Danger’s CEO, the Danger Hiptop (updated with a colour screen) will be with us in Europe mid-year. The form factor and software is elegant but I can’t see the 18-24 year old target market shelling out $39 to $59 a month here in Europe for it since for comms at least so many people use simple SMS already. I would be tempted to buy it instead of a phone, though, for a modest premium.

While on the subject of mobile comms, Fastxt is also worth a look for IM and SMS addicts in the UK. They are on to a good idea – use Symbian’s software to provide a better instant messaging environment than traditional SMS/MMS and provide software that runs on several (advanced) mobile phones instead of producing your own hardware.

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