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Wednesday, June 19, 2002 |
Collaborative Communications for Bluetooth PDAs
"Inventop (www.proximitymail.com), a Bluetooth solutions developer, last week announced the availability of ProximityMail 1.0, a collaborative communications application for Bluetooth PDAs that is designed to enhance the way localized communities of people network, communicate, and collaborate.
It is built on a technology platform called BluePing Network, which turns groups of Bluetooth PDAs into a spontaneous "random area network" without any additional infrastructure -and extends the effective range of Bluetooth.
Users can create and subscribe to groups, broadcast, or send private messages and initiate contacts with other people in the same geographical proximity. Unlike other point-to-point networking or messaging products, such as SMS, IM, or email, ProximityMail allows users to communicate anonymously to groups of users, without knowing a specific user's PDA ID, phone number, or email address....
'Proximity Mail demonstrates how an application can be used to create a small local community of Bluetooth wireless technology users without compromising user privacy. Socket continues to work with Inventop to advocate the use of Proximity Mail which can speed the adoption of Bluetooth technology.'
Business travelers, business development managers and sales professionals could use ProximityMail at networking events like conferences and trade shows. Trade show organizers and exhibitors could potentially use ProximityMail to carry out their proximity promotional campaigns. At wireless "hot spots", such as your local mall or airport, ProximityMail can provide a link to coupons and other promotional information." [allNetDevices Wireless News]
11:57:09 PM Permanent link here
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"Free Literary Map Literary Landmark Locator. Sure, all those public restroom databases are great, but wouldn't a map like this be cool on your PDA? Maybe add library locations?" [Library Techlog]
Especially if you had a GPS-enabled PDA....
11:50:38 PM Permanent link here
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"GameGoat is the internet's best wireless trivia game. Play trivia from any email address -- including 2-way pagers, internet-enabled cell phones, PDAs or ANY device that can send and receive email. Earn points while playing and see how you stack up against other GameGoat players!! GameGoat trivia is now available through AOL Instant Messenger!" (Thanks, Mark!)
Short bet: Kate will have added GameGoat to Trillian by noon on Thursday. ;-)
Ethical dilemna: is it fair to have one chat window open for GameGoat and another one open for Google?
10:55:07 PM Permanent link here
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New on the Cable Dial: Interactive Games
"Susquehanna's 16,500 digital subscribers in York, Pa., are now able to tune to channel 998 on their cable boxes and play any one of six trivia games provided by Buzztime Entertainment, an interactive game provider that has until recently focused on restaurants and bars.
Viewers in York can compete against their neighbors in real time for prizes. Buzztime, a unit of NTN Communications, is seeking to add other cable operators to its trivia train, allowing viewers to race nationwide to their buzzers (which, in this case, are simply buttons on their remote controls). Playing the games is free with a digital cable subscription, but Buzztime hopes to offer other content for which it would charge." [New York Times, via Chris Van Buskirk's ITV Weblog]
This would give a whole new meaning to game night at our house! This is a smart move on the part of Susquehanna and Buzztime, because they obviously realize the built-in audience of librarians they're wrapping up.
10:46:59 PM Permanent link here
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Airport Kiosks to Offer Movie Downloads
"Air travellers will be able to download feature films and computer games to a handheld computer using a service to be launched first at US airports this summer.
Customers will be able to insert their computer's removable memory card or chip into slots in the kiosks, to download films, music, games, electronic books and newspapers....
The service will be available for handheld computers running Microsoft Pocket PC or Palm operating systems. A range of memory cards and chips, including Flash memory cards, Sony's Memory Stick and IBM's Microdrive, could be used in the kiosks....
A typical feature film will take less than three minutes to download, and one megabyte of memory will store a minute of film, says Pocket PC Films, the company that will supply the movies in a compressed format. Games and books will have a much quicker download time.
Pocket PC Films currently sells feature films and other video content on CD-ROMs. These cost between $9.99 and $49.99, but movies will cost slightly less through the new kiosks, nREACH says. Similar kiosks will also be installed in shopping malls and other retail outlets." [New Scientist]
My first thought was to ask who on earth would want to watch a movie on a screen that small. Then I realized what a godsend this would be at the doctor's office with the kids, when I'm stuck at the airport, or even just in meetings. ;-)
So I guess I'm geeky enough to look forward to this. I wonder if libraries can use something similar to circulate digital videos from within the building (over the net or via wireless would be a whole other ballgame).
9:50:56 PM Permanent link here
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"No turning back for Japan: The number of mobile phone subscriptions has eclipsed fixed-line phones, including lines used for integrated services digital network (ISDN), for the first time in Japan, the government said." [Wired News]
I could have sworn that I read somewhere this had already happened, but I guess it's official either way now. No wonder kids there are known as the "thumb generation."
9:42:46 PM Permanent link here
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Larry Lessig on Copy-protecting Aristotle:
" 'I have bought a number of eBooks, including Aristotle’s Politics. Aristotle’s Politics, of course, was never copyrighted, but the Adobe eBook reader forbids me from printing any pages of the book because the permissions have been set to disable any printing. If I try to interfere with those permissions .. if I write a bit of code to disable the limitations that forbid me from printing Aristotle’s Politics from my Adobe eBook .. that would be circumventing an access technology, which under the Digital Millennium Copyright Act is a crime.' - Creative Commons founder Lawrence Lessig, as quoted in the Reason (found via Pocket PC eBooks Watch)." [TeleRead]
Combined with the ridiculous case of the license for the ebook Alice in Wonderland that makes it a crime for parents to read the text out loud to their children, and you can see why librarians are worried about being able to circulate digital files in the future.
Here's an example of the dilemna in which we find ourselves right now. I heard back from Salon that libraries can indeed purchase John Dean's ebook Unmasking Deep Throat and circulate it to their patrons as long as they take reasonable steps to prevent it from being copied.
I was thrilled by this news, but now I'm scratching my head trying to figure out how a library would circulate it without paying $5000 for the Adobe Content Server. How is a library supposed to check the title in and out, get it to the person, get it back, and make sure the person doesn't keep a copy. I haven't been able to think of a way yet because Rocketbooks and Franklin eBookmans don't handle PDF files. There's no way to load it onto a patron's PDA, and we certainly wouldn't email it to or burn it on a CD for someone.
Does anybody have a solution to this problem?
9:34:48 PM Permanent link here
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Village Hangs Up on AT&T
"Wanting to send a message to cable provider AT&T Broadband, Alsip officials refused to transfer franchise rights to the soon-to-be-formed AT&T Comcast.
'Every year or so these cable companies come to us with these mergers promising us better service, and all you end up with is higher cable fees and poorer service,' Alsip Mayor Arnold Andrews said during a village board meeting Monday.
As AT&T Broadband and Comcast prepare to merge, municipalities are being asked to approve transfers of franchise rights to the new company. It is a way for villages and cities to weigh in on the merger, but federal law gives them little power to influence the $45 billion deal.
Officials can only reject the transfer if they have evidence the new company is somehow unfit to run cable service.
The Alsip Village Board unanimously rejected the transfer request.
'Legally our action tonight really does nothing because no matter what, this merger will occur,' village attorney Peter Loutos said. 'But I think that we are trying to send a message that these mergers never amount to much for the customers.'
AT&T spokeswoman Pat Keenan said the company welcomes the feedback." [Daily Southtown]
I used to live in Alsip, so I'm particularly heartened to see it, of all villages, standing up to a BigCo.
3:12:22 PM Permanent link here
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Marlene Coleman of the Ela Area Public Library District (hi, George!) posted the following message to the ILA-RTSF mailing list today. I'm making a mental note to try and visit them (Chicago's northern suburbs) later this year.
"I’m a new member of the group and Lori Bell thought you’d be interested in learning about our Checkpoint RFID system.
We moved into a new building in Feb., and had Checkpoint’s Intelligent Library System built into it. We started preparing for the system last July, as all items in the collection had to have a tag put in them. The tag has a barcode 'in it' and it can transmit that number to a RFID station (pad), which substitutes for a scanner. It reads through space, corian and anything not metal. So no more finding the barcode and scanning the number. We still put a label over the tag for protection, which has our library address on it, and can print a visual representation of the barcode for new items (as we’re in a consortium and other libraries can’t read the tag). There is a program that will take a barcode already on an item, and create a tag with that number in it, so you don’t have to re-barcode your older items (although you do have to put the RFID tag in them). Other parts to the system are: self check machines that work for any material AV included, return that automatically check in items, and security gates that alert if an item is not checked out. There is also an inventory wand that we’re still learning how to use.
Once circulation got used to it, it’s really saved on repetitive tasks, and they like it. There are some 'bugs' we’re still working out, because it has to coordinate with our online vendor (SIRSI, we migrated to this in December), using SIP2, which needs to be modified somewhat. I think we’re the first library in Illinois to get it “working”, although Algonquin PL and Skokie PL are in the process.
Lots of excitement around here!"
2:57:59 PM Permanent link here
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'Ranger' Vs. the Movie Pirates
"Ranger is burrowing through the public parts of your computer, sniffing around, turning over bits of data, trying to find out if you've stolen a movie over the Internet.
Ranger is scouring the globe -- Web sites, chat rooms, newsgroups and peer-to-peer file-sharing sites -- spanning 60 countries, searching in English, Chinese and Korean. Ranger's work is helping to bust illegal movie sites in Iran, Taiwan and Hong Kong. Ranger is 24-7. Ranger is relentless.
Ranger is a piece of software that acts like an Internet search engine. It is the latest, most far-reaching weapon in the movie industry's constant and escalating battle against movie piracy....
The movie studios provide Ranger Online with a constantly updated list of 100 to 150 movie titles, typically those about to be released or just released. In other words, the ones that the industry stands the most to lose from if they're stolen....
Ranger takes the titles and, 'like a bloodhound,' Valenti said, sets out on the Internet, looking for those films on Web sites, in chat rooms, on peer-to-peer sites. It is an automated software, speeding across the Internet. When it finds a movie title, it marks the location, decides whether the movie is being used in a way that infringes on its copyright, then moves on. Jeremy Rasmussen, Ranger Online's chief technology executive and founder, won't disclose exactly how his software manages this, except to say: 'The challenge is 'How do you cover a lot of area without having to visit every page?' That's part of the intelligent way we scan.'
Ranger Online provides the data to the MPAA and prepares cease-and-desist letters. The MPAA reviews the data and decides which letters to send. Last year, the group sent 54,000 letters; this year, it is on pace to send 80,000 to 100,000. Typically, the letters are sent to the Internet service provider hosting a site or user that the MPAA has deemed to possess ill-gotten films. The ISPs take down the offending site 85 to 90 percent of the time, Valenti said. Ranger then checks back periodically on the offending site to make sure it hasn't begun pirating again....
Ranger sells itself to the MPAA and other clients based on its global scope, speed and thorough analysis. But a recent suit questions Ranger's precision.
In April of last year, Internetmovies.com's Rossi got an e-mail from the MPAA and its 14 big studios accusing his site of illegally posting copyrighted material: "We have notified your ISP of the unlawful nature of this web site and have asked for its immediate removal," the e-mail read. The MPAA followed up with a certified letter and a phone call to the ISP. Rossi said his ISP dropped him. He was down for about three days, searching for a new provider.
From New Zealand, where he is attending a film festival, Rossi said he did nothing wrong. All he did, he said, was post links to film trailers already distributed by the studios. He said he never distributed copyrighted material. Rossi filed suit against the MPAA on April 25 of this year, seeking minimal damages....
The MPAA stands by its actions, saying Rossi was "at the time, offering for distribution for members [of his Web site] copyrighted films," said Mark Litvack, the MPAA's director of worldwide legal affairs for anti-piracy." [Washington Post]
2:41:47 PM Permanent link here
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Wi-Fi -- Cleaning Up the Kitchen?
"Analysts at Instat/MDR believe that by 2005, there will be more than 55 million of these wireless networks in homes and offices.
'Some people told us they'd like to see it load and unload the dishwasher, but that's still a ways off,' said Tony Barra, president of the nonprofit Internet Home Alliance (IHA).
IHA has been operating at least four pilot projects using Wi-Fi. In one trial under way in Michigan, called 'OnStar@Home,' wireless networking plays an integral role. The four-month project, which will let a car pulling into the driveway automatically arm or disarm a home's security system, turn on or off lights in the home, or adjust the home's thermostat. IHA, General Motors, security firm ADT, Panasonic and a handful of other companies are participating.
In 150 Houston homes, the refrigerator billboard is going wireless. Wi-Fi-powered devices similar to Web tablets have replaced the scribbled notes stuck under refrigerator magnets holding reminders about late soccer practices. Barra said these systems can use Wi-Fi to shuttle a short message to children's cell phones if their ride home is going to be late or automatically reconfigure an entire schedule based on a parent's sudden late meeting at work....
Another IHA pilot project uses Wi-Fi to help cook a meal. The idea, Barra said, is to couple wireless networking with new devices from the likes of Whirlpool, which can act as both a refrigerator and an oven. A few clicks from another device operated remotely, and you've got dinner....
Air Canada has also been using Wi-Fi networks to find people online about to miss their flights, then process their tickets and give them seat assignments on the fly, she said Tuesday. 'We need to have these new applications,' she said. " [ZDNet]
9:49:51 AM Permanent link here
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Copyright Rows Ring Down the Centuries
"Just as every generation thinks it is the first to discover sex, so every generation thinks it is the first to suffer problems with copyright and piracy.
The ubiquity of the net has lent greater urgency to the copyright debate but the basic problem of controlling what happens to creative works has not changed in more than 200 years.
The debates today are about recorded music and movies but a similar debate was being had before the first voice was recorded or first movie premiered.
In 1842 Charles Dickens was on a tour of America reading excerpts from his works to audiences eager to hear the young author.
But Dickens did not limit himself to repeating his own words, he also he used his time behind a lectern to berate audiences for pirating his books.
During one lecture he even accused American publishers of helping to drive Sir Walter Scott to bankruptcy and an early grave because their rampant bootlegging had vastly reduced the royalties he received from US editions of his works.
Despite his attempts to lighten his criticism by saying that American literature would never develop if publishers were free to bootleg the best works from overseas, Dickens was savaged in the US press for his attack....
Dr Catherine Seville, an expert on copyright history from the University of Cambridge, says the most modern aspect of the Victorian wrangles over copyright was that it was driven by technology.
"When they started producing The Times newspaper by steam it was said that printers were going to go bust and die of starvation...."
But, she points out, what has changed is who reaps the benefits of better protection for an artist's works and who is pushing for changes.
This time it is not just the artists struggling for due credit. Changes to copyright laws or the use of technology to stop copying are not going to benefit musicians or struggling movie makers.
Instead it's the big guns - the music publishers and record companies - who most fear the menace of the CD burner, says Dr Seville. And it is they that stand to reap the biggest rewards from new copyright legislation." [BBC Sci/Tech]
9:15:59 AM Permanent link here
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Music Piracy Not Hurting Recording Industry After All
"You’d think by now the recording industry would have at least bought a clue, but you’d be wrong. If it’s not the pirates that are the problem, and if it’s not that damned Internet file sharing that’s the problem, it must be the businesses that sell used CDs. Yeah, that’s it; it’s the businesses that sell used CDs that are the problem. In the never-ending quest to find an enemy that doesn’t live in the mirror, the recording industry is now setting out to extract royalty payments from the sale of used CDs.
This is a good one; stay with me here. The recording industry claims that the growing market for used CDs is cannibalizing sales of new CDs and “promoting piracy by allowing customers to buy, record and sell back discs while retaining their own digitally pristine copies.” So the recording industry says that it wants a 6% flat royalty on all used CD sales.
There’s only one problem in this most recent recording industry foundering: it’s a violation of the doctrine of first sale....
The short-term solution for the recording industry is simple: continue to sell your units of atoms in the form of CDs at about one-half the current prices and sell all-you-can-eat subscriptions to the component bits—the real, complete, open, non-DRM, and non-protected bits—on the net at, say, US$30 per month. Oh, and realize that your days are numbered in any case. The smartest artists and fans have already realized that they don’t need you." [Arts & Farces, via John Robb's Radio Weblog]
Another excellent overview by Michael Fraase in which he pulls together many of the recent stories about the recording industries attempt to find a scapegoat to blame for falling sales of CDs (not plummeting, mind you, just falling). Another handout for my presentations....
8:32:40 AM Permanent link here
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Schools' Tech Support: Students
"Teachers attending the National Educational Computing Conference weren't surprised that, according to a study, students are used to provide technical support in more than half the school districts in the country.
The National School Boards Foundation surveyed technology decision-makers for 811 public school districts, including 90 out of the top 100 largest districts, and found that students provide technical support in 54 percent of the districts.
"I'm surprised it's not higher than that," said Martha Cochenour, a teacher in the Mountainburg School District in Arkansas. "The teachers are of the older generation and we're just learning, whereas the kids have grown up with technology....
Students troubleshoot hardware, software and infrastructure problems in 43 percent of districts. They set up wiring and equipment in 39 percent and perform technical maintenance in 36 percent of districts....
The survey -- titled "Are We There Yet?" -- also reported that 71 percent of districts credit the e-rate as the most influential outside initiative to bringing technology into the schools.
About 30 percent of technology leaders believe that one in five students will receive a significant part of their education (one-third or more) online over the next three years." [Wired News]
In his book Next: The Future Just Happened, Michael Lewis describes a family in which the parents are completely reliant on their son, the computer whiz, this way: "Technology had made them a family of immigrants." In other words, he's their translator for the online and computer world, and without him they would be completely lost. I love that quote.
In regards to the above article, I would add that e-rate has been very effective in helping libraries provide internet access, too, so it's a good thing CIPA was struck down (even though it will rear its ugly head again). Online education is going to shift learning in our society, and libraries need to adapt to that in order to serve the needs of those patrons. We don't give a second thought to supporting home schoolers, and this is no different.
8:15:11 AM Permanent link here
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Another Interview with Morbus Iff
"I've really tried to make AmphetaDesk easy all-around. There's no install program... when you extract it from the download, it's installed and raring to go. I try not to mention RSS anywhere, or force the user to understand what XML is. I try to include documentation right on-screen, so that users don't have to run scurrying for a manual. I try not to use terms I can't easily define, again, on-screen. I've also tried to make it easy to get in touch with me - there's an 'Email Support' link on every page you'll see.
It's imperative to me that users aren't confused or feel like they have to learn something new. There are other programs that are specifically tailored to the web-browsing elite, those who live and breathe this stuff, and they have immense learning curves for people who haven't been around the block. I hate knowing that all this wonderful technology is being lost to the normal crowd.
All of my work in any project is catered to 'everything for everyone'. If I'm worried that one person is going to miss out on something, it has to change - it's rather hard for me to justify losing someone because I don't want to take the effort to make things easier. The 'Email Support' is there as a lifeline, I want you to 'phone a friend' and get the answers you need when you're stuck." [WebWord, via Library Stuff]
This is exactly the kind of thoughtful attention to interface design, usability, and de-jargoning software that RSS news aggregators will need to move into the mainstream. It's great to hear that Morbus is putting so much energy into this, as well as the next evolution of aggregating feeds to let the user take more control of the flow:
"The amount of work still left to do doesn't surprise me in the least - relatively, RSS is an emerging technology that's just beginning to catch on. It's been around for a decent amount of time, but using RSS and manipulating the data in various ways is still in its infancy. RSS needs to become a lot more personal - the user needs to say "hey, I like cats" and the reader needs to say "well, hey, I know you're not reading this feed right now, but they've been talking about cats lately.
Motivation comes from within - I'm a news junkie and I love knowing everything I can about anything. Jack of all trades, master of none, and all that hoohaw. I created AmphetaDesk to save time from visiting hundreds of sites a day. Instead, I find that the time I saved is now filled reading even more sites than I had before. There needs to be another evolution - AmphetaDesk needs to start showing me news I'm more interested in, while pushing the garbage toward the bottom. It really needs to become my Personal Shopper and Librarian."
12:46:33 AM Permanent link here
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AOL Fills Online Bargain Bin with New Music
"AOL Time Warner has begun selling songs encoded in the unprotected MP3 format as a way to promote unreleased tracks from some of its most popular artists.
America Online, Warner Music Group's corporate cousin, last week began offering 99 cent downloads of music from artists such as the Red Hot Chili Peppers, Alanis Morissette, Missy Elliott, Jewel and Brandy. In all, AOL plans to offer 15 songs at that price....
Other companies are looking for a balance between enforcing their copyrights and giving tech-savvy consumers what they want. Vivendi Universal, for example, last month put a 99 cent price tag on an unprotected MP3 version of a new single. Since then, the media conglomerate's Universal Music Group has said it plans to slash prices on numerous downloads of singles and albums, albeit with digital rights management technology provided by Liquid Audio. Sony Music Entertainment is also cutting prices and adding features to its downloads.
Regardless of such efforts, the market for charging people any amount for music files remains uncertain, given the popularity of file-swapping services such as Morpheus, Kazaa and Grokster that offer a wider selection of songs that can be downloaded for free. The recording industry's legal battles have lead to the closure of file-swapping pioneer Napster; the labels now are suing other services including Morpheus and Grokster.
Warner Music's Tanous said the promotion is one test of whether the label can use AOL and MP3 technology to generate hype for a new album. Since the files being sold online are unreleased tracks, the MP3s will not cut into CD sales, he said. Rather, they will give listeners the flavor of new albums." [CNET News.com]
I'm tired of these articles that don't point to the damn site. "Begun selling songs" where? I can't find a link off-hand; does anyone else have it? Can the songs be previewed before purchasing them? It's still not an optimal situation (just make your catalog available already!), but it's a baby step.
More to the point, does anyone know of a site that is collecting URLs for legal, unencrypted MP3s from the record labels (or should we start one)?
12:24:04 AM Permanent link here
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© Copyright 2004 Jenny Levine.
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