Rob Beschizza

Google removes Pirate Bay from index

The irony being that searching for "Pirate Bay" now brings up the infinitely shiftier piratebay.com. From the Google results:

In response to a complaint we received under the US Digital Millennium Copyright Act, we have removed 4 result(s) from this page. If you wish, you may read the DMCA complaint that caused the removal(s) at ChillingEffects.org.

The DMCA complaint isn't yet available at Chilling Effects. But plenty of real piratebay.org pages still show up; presumably the DMCA claim wasn't well-formed enough to actually accomplish its objective.

Rob Beschizza

AT&T complains about Google Voice

AT&T claims that because Google blocks certain numbers from association with its Google Voice service, it violates net neutrality principles. [NYT] It's all about fees at the back end: poky local telcos scam the big carriers on connection charges. But whereas big carriers are forced to allow the connections, Google Voice is not.

The flaw in the argument is, of course, that Google Voice isn't a telco. It's a new application of existing technology that supercedes the business model that telcos rely on. Among other things, Google Voice makes it obvious that the services carriers charge for are worthless, and that bandwidth is their only real product.

Rob Beschizza

Would you be happy with metered internet in return for enforced net neutrality?

Dylan Tweney looks at the consequences of regulatory mandates on net neutrality: if the ISPs can't hit up content and bandwidth providers, they'll hit up consumers.

It seems the most reasonable outcome: the consumer pays, the consumer gets. As the simplest and least obscure business model to run the tubes on, isn't it worth rationalizing prices to guarantee open access? Tweney, however, points out that the additional bureacracy being layered atop the market could stifle innovation:

Net neutrality regulations make sense in closed, monopolistic situations. But outside of small, rural markets, most of the U.S. offers a high level of competitive choice. Don't like Comcast cable internet? Switch to SpeakEasy, Astound or SBC, or look into satellite internet. Don't care for AT&T's spotty 3G wireless network? Try T-Mobile or Verizon. Need help finding an alternative? Check Broadband Reports' interactive ISP finder.

That's why the FCC should take a very cautious, careful approach to implementing its brave, new principles.

FCC Position May Spell the End of Unlimited Internet [Tweney Report]

Steven Leckart

Apple iPod Announcement: Sept 9th

Apple's set to show off its latest iPod on September 9th @ 10am PST/1PM Eastern.

So what's up Jobs' sleeve?

[via Gizmodo]

Rob Beschizza

Jobs micromanaging Tablet marketing

The WSJ has noticed that Steve Jobs concerns himself with "even the smallest details" of new Apple products. This latest retread is flavored with tablets.

Rob Beschizza

Why giving court powers to the music industry won't work

Nicholas Deleon serves up some sanity in the whole "extrajudicial ISP executions" concept so beloved of the music industry: what exactly will it do if it gets its way? It will have to either enforce very selectively indeed, or go after millions of people. This is no different to the status quo; it just streamlines the existing process of making examples of a few offenders and being despised by everyone else. [CrunchGear]

These guys are the dumbest venture capitalists on Earth. They've made terrible business decisions, and as a result have lost their market to technological innovation, lost their back catalog to pirates, and lost their investment model to consumers who no longer need an unnatural selector to choose acts for them.

The music industry is a joke that gets funnier every time it spends millions marketing and autotuning some talentless model, then wonders why it needs to beg for legislation to protect it from change.

Rob Beschizza

Verizon doesn't see a problem with bilking customers on pointless info messages

David Pogue started a campaign to get rid of the ridiculously long informational messages that cellular carriers force people to listen to when they hit a voicemail box. The purpose of these messages is to increase call charges.

Most carriers have made at least token movements to respond to the campaign.

Except Verizon. Verizon spokesperson Tom Pica said that Verizon lets customers turn off these messages.

Pogue, in response, said that Pica was lying.

Pica then claimed he was misquoted, and that he's right because you don't get the message if you completely disable your voicemail box.

What he said was that you can turn off *voicemail altogether* if you don't like the 15-second instructions.

Well, O.K., but...huh?
Isn't that like saying, "My son bites his nails, so let's chop off his hands"?

It's just amazing how awful U.S. cellular companies are. Meanwhile, domestic cellular tech lags way behind other developed nations', but we're charged more for service.

'Take Back the Beep' Campaign: An Update [Pogue's Posts]

Photo: FutureOfTheBook

Rob Beschizza

Amazon refuses to say when it will delete customers' books from Kindles

Even the Wall Street Journal can't get a straight answer from the company, whose deletion policy remains a secret. Peter Kafka writes:

I've repeatedly asked Amazon PR folks to mollify me, or at least spell out the circumstances in which they would delete a book again, and I haven't gotten any response. So I'm fearing the worst: Amazon reserves the right to yank books out of your Kindle, but won't tell you why or when until it happens.

This month, Wired magazine ran an article telling people to pirate stuff, as a transgressive act to destroy the content cartel. This morning, The Consumerist offered nudge-nudge-wink-wink advice on "doing something illegal" should Amazon screw you again.

Perhaps you're the sort of person who despairs at what seems to be the normalization of theft. If so, you have to look no further than Amazon's destruction of its own customers' property to see why the public doesn't give a damn about your opinion.

What Book Will Amazon Delete Next? [WSJ]

Rob Beschizza

New source claims $55 iPhone tethering plan (Update: Denied again!)

Appmodo says a source tells it that rumors of a high price on AT&T's forthcoming iPhone tethering plans are true.

The controversy over tethering pricing remains the same. Tethering for iPhone will cost $55 on top of the current iPhone data plans.

MMS will be included with the current text messaging plans.

There you have it folks.

If it pans out, hats off to Appmodo. But AT&T specifically denies this: "rumors of $55 tethering plan on top of an unlimited data plan are false."

I know what you're thinking: that AT&T might be stupid enough to do it, but not stupid enough to lie about it.

Update: AT&T re-issues its denial: "an AT&T spokesman said the company will charge for a tethering plan but still has not determined how much it will cost or when it will become available." [Gadget Lab]

Apple iPhone MMS Delayed, Coming Sept, Tethering $55 Extra [Appmodo]

Joel Johnson

Albert Hofmann's letter to Steve Jobs

Ryan Grim hangs a short overview of psychedelic use among computing luminaries around a letter from LSD-discoverer Albert Hofmann's letter to Steve Jobs, asking for the Apple founder's support of Dr. Peter Gasser's MAPS study project:

Hello from Albert Hofmann. I understand from media accounts that you feel LSD helped you creatively in your development of Apple computers and your personal spiritual quest. I'm interested in learning more about how LSD was useful to you.

Image: Dylan Roscover

Steven Leckart

Prediction of the Automotive Future [UPDATE] [UPDATED]

The cover of the May 1956 issue of Chilton's Motor Age touted its "prediction of the automotive future." What could it have been? I went ahead and bought a copy.

In short, they were both right and wrong.

Based on a variety of factors, including the rise of multiple car ownership, the car replacement market, and the population boom (especially in surburbia), the magazine's engineering editor suggested, rather optimistically, that by 1975 annual automobile production [note: in the U.S.] would perhaps reach 8,330,000 cars (10 million, including commercial vehicles).

In fact, 6,717,000 automobiles were produced in the U.S. in 1975 (8,987,000, including commercial), according to the American Automobile Manufacturers Association.

More interesting, at least to me, is the fact we didn't come close to reaching Chilton's forecasted figure until 1985, when the U.S. produced 8,185,000 cars. Furthermore, this actually represented the peak of passenger automobile production in the U.S. By 1995, the number had dropped back down to 6,350,000.*

Update: I missed the AAMA's data from 1965, which shows Chilton's prediction coming true a full decade earlier: 9,335,000 passenger, 1,803,000 commercial vehicles. By 1970, though, the figure had dropped dramatically &mdash i.e. the numbers in 1975 aren't close to what Chilton forecasted they'd be. For the next 20 years, too, production stayed below Chilton's prediction, apart from 1985.

What to make of all this: 1) forecasting should always be taken with a grain of salt (duh), and 2) the 1950s were the dawn of nuclear power, plastics, vaccines and antibiotics, and the space program. It must have been difficult not to get swept away by the sentiment that we'd be producing more of everything, and that that everything would only get better, more efficient and cheaper. Truth be told, I do agree with the last part.

*It's worth noting production of commercial vehicles increased more or less steadily year over year from 1980 to 1995.

Rob Beschizza

Sony, Lenovo and Acer sued after shipping pirated software

The manufacturers included software at the the Chinese government's behest, but the software in question was plagiarized. And now the pain begins, as the swiped software's creator, Solid Oak, now files suit here in the U.S. The clone software even tries to access Solid Oak's server for updates.

Rob Beschizza

Shooting at Arlington Apple store

Witnesses heard shots fired in the back room of an Apple store in Arlington, Va., at about 10 a.m. this morning. One person was shot, and the shooter escaped on foot, and was reported to be wearing a fake beard. The extent of the victim's injuries are unclear. [Fox]

Cult of Mac Updates: "Police have confirmed that a 26-year-old, female Apple employee was shot in the upper body and injured at the Apple Store Clarendon in Arlington, Virginia, during a "violent armed robbery."

Joel Johnson

Howard Stringer's last chance to save Sony

Richard Siklos:

The culprit in nearly every case has been Sony's tradition-bound mentality, one that remained too focused on building excellent analog machines in an increasingly digital world. And though Stringer has been pushing for transformation since his first days in the top job, by his own admission he has been hamstrung by the management culture in Sony's home market and the repercussions of bad decisions made years ago that still haunt the company.

Xeni Jardin

The Great Leap Backward: will computer makers kowtow to Beijing's censorware demands?

"Green Dam-Youth Escort" will block political and religious websites and kill apps when users input "sensitive terms. The tool will also monitor personal communications, and track where users go online.

As noted in a previous BB post, the app has a secondary effect of exposing users to serious security vulnerabilities.

Snip from Crovitz' piece in the Journal:

In essence, bureaucrats in China want the world's computer makers to make it easier for their Thought Police to block access to news and information from the outside world, and to punish citizens for the sites they visit and the views they express online.

The pressure is on companies such as Dell, Hewlett-Packard and Apple, plus Lenovo, which bought IBM's PC business and whose largest shareholder is the Chinese government. The computer companies have kept a low profile, relying on trade associations to lobby Beijing to reconsider the regulations. Technologists would prefer just to be in the business of business, but politics is a fact of business life in China. (And even Chinese people who don't care about blocked information about Tiananmen or anonymity online will object if their new computers have kludgy software that is prone to crashing operating systems.)

Yet when the interests of foreign businesses coincide with the interests of the Chinese people, the kowtow may not be the only corporate option.

Xeni Jardin

BB Video: Day in the Cloud - Google + Virgin America + Boing Boing + netbooks + mile-high networked fragging

(Download MP4 / YouTube)

Google Apps and Virgin America are teaming up for a day of cloud computing in the clouds: "Day in the Cloud," Wednesday, June 24.

Boing Boing will be on board -- me (Xeni), Rob Beschizza from Boing Boing Gadgets, and our friend Jane McGonigal, of Avantgame and Institute for the Future.

In this Boing Boing Video episode, I speak with Porter Gale of Virgin America, and Jen Mazzon, a "digital mom" from Google, about the in-flight game smackdown planned (one plane competes against the other to win a litter of brand-new netbooks), and about how always-connected data experience could change our lives.

Folks at home are also invited to play:

All you'll need is a net connection, a Google Account, and the warm, comforting glow of your computer screen. Become one of the top scorers and we'll set you up with your own personal "Year in the Cloud," complete with a brand-new HP netbook and 1 terabyte of Google Account storage for your photos and mail--all of which will come in handy when you fly free for a year on Virgin America with complimentary WiFi.

Virgin produced a short, funny promotional video for Day in the Cloud which is also worth a watch, below.

Sponsor shout-out

Rob Beschizza

Unsourced stories on Jobs' health: do you approve?

People are wondering why the Wall Street Journal is able to run a completely unsourced story about Steve Jobs' liver transplant. It's because the WSJ is confident in its source but doesn't want to indicate anything about the nature of that source. As ballsy as it seems, the reason big newspapers do this now and again is because the risk to their own credibility is minimized by adopting strict policies toward anonymous sources.

Gruber analyses the WSJ story at length today, and comes to a convincing conclusion:

That a member of Apple's board of directors leaked the information to the Journal without Jobs's permission or knowledge, or perhaps, if the matter of public disclosure had been posed to and dismissed by Jobs at a board meeting, expressly against Jobs's wishes. The scenario I am imagining here is that Jobs does not wish to reveal anything regarding his medical situation, but that a member (or contingent) of Apple's board believes it is in the company's interest to release the basic gist of the story, regardless of Jobs's wishes.

The risk to such a source would be immense: not just personal and immediate, but potentially career-destroying, with lawsuits at hand. We know it's true not just because the WSJ is credible, but because we know that WSJ doesn't habitually launder nonsense into news: it will have made clear to its source that deception will result in exposure.

A good reporter protects whistleblowers and leakers to the point of unreason. But liars will always be burned by credible media, and the WSJ's sources know it. You only have to look at the thoroughness of Gruber's deconstruction -- already homing in on a handful of suspects -- to see why it's keeping its mouth shut about its source.

Either that, or HIPAA laws were broken somewhere to get this story, and sourcing it could imply that a crime occurred.

Rob Beschizza

WSJ: Jobs had a liver transplant

From the Wall Street Journal:

Steve Jobs, who has been on medical leave from Apple Inc. since January to treat an undisclosed medical condition, received a liver transplant in Tennessee about two months ago. The chief executive has been recovering well and is expected to return to work on schedule later this month, though he may work part-time initially.

Jobs Had Liver Transplant [WSJ]

Joel Johnson

Verizon and AT&T defend thuggish text messaging prices

No collusion here, claim Verizon and AT&T, even though both carriers (as well as Sprint and T-Mobile) doubled the price to send a text message from 10 cents in 2006 to 20 cents in 2008.

Reuters:

But the general counsels of both Verizon and AT&T argued that the price increases affected 1 percent of text messages sent because most consumers bought volume plans that lowered the per-message cost.

So it's okay to double an already ridiculous price because any practical consumer that uses text messages has been forced into paying for an additional text messaging plan?

"We're not extorting this man, your honor. It's just cheaper to pay us not to break his legs than it is to pay for a doctor."

Joel Johnson

Senators wonder aloud if only AT&T should be able to sell the iPhone

Four senators have sent a letter to Michael Copps asking the FCC Commissioner to decide if wireless carriers having exclusive partnerships with phone companies is fair to the consumer, in anticipation of a Commerce Committee meeting this week.

Translation: Should AT&T be the only carrier that gets to sell the iPhone?

The notion is actually the byproduct of a petition from the Rural Cellular Association, a group of small carriers that service the parts of the country the Big Four wireless companies do not. By not being able to offer customers the phones of their choice, they argue, it makes it difficult for them to compete with larger carriers when their markets overlap.

It's certainly fair to consumers to have the most choice, especially when carriers have created a false economy to force customers into long-term contracts through the sale of "subsidized" phones. But it might be a sticky for the manufacturers of the phones—would Apple, for instance, be forced to make different models of iPhone that worked with other wireless standards like Verizon's CDMA?

There's much going on here, and I've been trying to research a similar vein ever since the iPhone 3G S was announced last week. (I even have been in touch with the office of Senator Amy Klobuchar, one of the signers of this letter to the FCC, but getting an answer back from an official's office when you write for "Boing Boing" is sometimes tricky.)

Not sure this was prompted by the announcement of the new iPhone on AT&T? Check out this section of the letter:

Whether exclusivity agreements place limitations on a consumer's ability to take full advantage of handset technologies, such as the ability to send multimedia messages or the ability to "tether" a device to a computer for internet use;

Xeni Jardin

BB Video: Maker Faire Selects - CandyFab, DIY Screen Printing, Electric Music.

(Download / YouTube) In today's edition of Boing Boing Video, Mark Frauenfelder and Boing Boing Gadgets editor Lisa Katayama profile three cool things found at the recent Bay Area Maker Faire: The Yudu personal screen printer, an interactive, collaborative, musical Tesla Coil, and a candy-fabbing device from Evil Mad Scientist Laboratories.

Below, one of the freaky, free-form sugar creations produced (photo courtesy Windell of Evil Mad Scientist Laboratories)

Where to Find Boing Boing Video: RSS feed for new episodes here, YouTube channel here, subscribe on iTunes here. Get Twitter updates every time there's a new ep by following @boingboingvideo, and here are blog post archives for Boing Boing Video. (Special thanks to Boing Boing's video hosting partner Episodic, and to Wayneco Heavy Industries!).

Sponsor shout-out

Rob Beschizza

Report: Sony working on Android-based gadgets

Sony's talked a lot about abandoning its proprietary ways, but the company's DRM shenanigans and format wars always sprung to mind. This is something of a surprise! [CrunchGear]

Photo: Moff

Joel Johnson

Number-two MP3 player maker declares, "You can't out-iPod the iPod"

Fortune:

So is SanDisk sitting pretty? Not really. While Harari's flash evangelism has yielded some impressive results, it hasn't addressed his main challenge: SanDisk's core flash memory business is dizzyingly volatile. Because so many companies manufacture flash storage chips, and because the fast-evolving technology has a brief shelf life, the flash market lately has suffered gut-wrenching price swings and whipsawed SanDisk's stock price in its wake.

Rob Beschizza

iRex: "Magazine Quality" color e-readers by 2011

In a PDF press release (PDF Warning: PDF) posted to the MobileRead forums by user HarryT, iRex lays out plans to issue color e-Readers within the next couple of years.

"The ultimate goal of an electronic paper display is to mimic the appearance of pigment on paper. This means more than just bright color, the reflection also has to be diffuse," explained Henzen. "iRex's subtractive color mixing technology will allow us to produce a wide range of colors in high resolution to deliver magazine‐quality color to our e‐reader customers.

Holy grail of digital publishing ahoy! But will it fold? Or, for that matter, stop the vinegar leaking out? [via Slashgear]

Joel Johnson

Video: Microsoft Project Natal for Xbox 360

I don't care how well the games work—I'll buy this for the media player controls alone.

The face recognition is cool, but who leaves their Xbox on all the time? It sounds like an asthmatic dump truck. Matter of fact, the horrible racket the Xbox 360 makes when it's on is the what makes it feel less like a real set-top box solution and more like a slapdash hack.

Project Natal dev kits are just hitting the offices of developers this week, so don't expect to actually be using this until sometime well into next year.

Joel Johnson

E Ink acquisition sets stage for color epaper by 2010

Reuters:

Prime View said on Monday it would pay about $215 million for E Ink, whose flexible digital displays are used in Amazon's Kindle and the Sony Reader. ... E Ink Vice President Sriram Peruvemba said the deal would provide the financing and manpower needed to fuel development of color displays, slated for mass production at the end of 2010.

Rob Beschizza

Comcast: Most Pittsburghers to get double internet speed at no extra cost

I got a phone call from Comcast last night. A recorded message told me that the service would be briefly down for upgrades in the early hours, and that the result would be double internet speeds for "most" customers at no extra cost.

My speed seems to have got a nice bump: throughput from about 15 mbps to 28 mbps. (Update: just checked to see what I'm paying for: 16mbps.) However, it's not consistent

I'm on the northside, near the Heinz Lofts and the Penn Brewery. I tested with Comcast's own test applet.

Do tell us if Comcast doesn't double your internet speed for free, Pittsburgh.

Joel Johnson

Time Warner Cable asks customers for "loyalty" ideas but doesn't actually want to improve service

J. Christenbury blogs this hilarious exchange that occurred on Twitter between a Time Warner Cable marketing stooge and a customer who had real ideas:

@jeffTWC: Please RT: working on customer loyalty programs and would love your ideas/input - raffling an iTouch on Thurs to constructive suggestions

jchristenbury @jeffTWC I have a whole handful, where do I send them?

jchristenbury @jeffTWC I want to choose and pay for the channels I want. (I know this is not a TWC decision but TWC has the clout to push it)

jchristenbury @jeffTWC I want the CS reps to listen when I tell them I have already rebooted my computer and its not on my end. #customerloyalty

jchristenbury @jeffTWC I want a bill that I can understand that doesn't have cryptic misc. charges. I want to know what the charges are #customerloyalty

jchristenbury @jeffTWC I want Higher internet speeds. the US has the lowest speeds of all.

jeffTWC @jchristenbury Thanks for your tips here -- but we're not really addressing industry problems with this, just creating a marketing tool

jchristenbury @jeffTWC These ARE things that will increase customer loyalty.

Joel Johnson

Mad Money: Is Elevation Partners' Roger McNamee batshit crazy...like a fox?

Elevation Partners' Roger McNamee, on stage at the D7 conference along with Palm's Jon Rubinstein, as transcribed by Joshua Topolsky:

⌦ "This product has the best alien technology."

⌦ "And it eats iPhones for breakfast!"

⌦ "It'll be at precisely 4:20." McNamee was responding to Walt Mossberg's question about an earlier boast about when iPhone users would switch to Pre.

Later, in another non sequitur: "4:20 in the afternoon."

⌦ "It has a mirror on the back... there's never been a phone like this for women before."

⌦ "Show of hands in here, was anyone offended by me talking about a mirror?"

⌦ On an "express line" for iPhone customers: "Yeah, outside the rings of Saturn."

⌦ "If I were RIM or Apple, I wouldn't worry about it. In America you're not going to pay so much of a premium to get a smartphone that you can justify not getting one."

An executive in charge of millions of dollars in venture capital likes to make marijuana jokes. I can't tell if I love him or simply think he's fantastic. If anything, it gives me hope that I will be able to become a powerful Valley exec and still do boatloads of drugs, even while I'm on stage.

Rob Beschizza

How TechCrunch turns the screw

Photo: Joi Ito.

TechCrunch's strategy is brilliant: Publicly accuse a company of misbehavior knowing that the claim is possibly false, hoping to reveal a larger truth through controversy. When this happens, run a followup admitting the earlier mistake as part of an aggressive move to shift focus to the bigger picture.

This weekend offers the perfect example. Last.fm tracks the music listened to by its users, and the RIAA sues people who listen to it. A few weeks ago, on the slimmest evidence, TechCrunch accused Last.fm of revealing user data to the RIAA. The claim was false. Now, however, it reports that Last.fm's parent company, CBS, did in fact make the RIAA disclosure, having gained the data itself by lying to staff at its last.fm subsidiary.

Here's what we believe happened: CBS requested user data from Last.fm, including user name and IP address. CBS wanted the data to comply with a RIAA request but told Last.fm the data was going to be used for "internal use only." It was only after the data was sent to CBS that Last.fm discovered the real reason for the request. Last.fm staffers were outraged, say our sources, but the data had already been sent to the RIAA.

Techcrunch's fresh attack on Last.fm is utterly ruthless: in the headline, it demands that Last.fm deny this, knowing full well that Last.fm cannot speak for CBS, the real villain of the piece. Forcing last.fm to bear the brunt lets TechCrunch portray its earlier mistake as reflecting an "underlying truth," which Last.fm omitted, rather than Techcruch's own propensity for premature accusation. But it also puts the pressure on last.fm to do something--anything--to burn its parent company in efforts to exculpate itself.

While everyone else enjoyed a holiday weekend, Last.fm kept its cool and TechCrunch kept hounding it.

What's interesting is how it circumvents expectations of journalistic proprietry to get to stories that others can't. People don't seem to understand that Doing Good Work isn't necessarily the arbiter of success. TechCrunch didn't even bother to contact Last.fm before the latest piece. But why would it?

This is what its critics think: "Techcrunch will eventually go too far and get sued for libel. Ha! And that will be the end of TechCrunch."

No, it won't. The part that critics miss is that many publications have paid their dues under relentless legal fire. Britain's Private Eye, for example, is a scurrilous satirical mag that has been sued for libel more times than I've had hot dinners. Florida tabloids have budgets to settle their errors: eventually, it results in spectacular success. If John Edwards were president, the Enquirer could have sent him into abdication faster than a dozen Deep Throats. This is why tabloid journalism is worth it.

Mike Arrington isn't afraid of lawsuits. What could energize him more than being attacked? With every carefully-measured payload of pious abuse, he practically begs his targets to sue him or fuck off. And there's nothing anyone--least of all CBS's rattled and wheedling lawyers--can do about it.

But it'll be fun to see them try.