Disney Wins, Eldred (and everyone else) Loses [Slashdot]. News.com's brief take and more from AP. On Lessig's own blog: "The Supreme Court rejected our challenge to the Sonny Bono law." Doc Searls is angry. Halley empathises with a Right On Alpha Male. Megnut growls: "Just another example of government of the corporations, by the corporations, and for the corporations." The Shifted Librarian is unimpressed: "What I'd like to know is if the Bono Extension doesn't exceed constitutional limits, what does?" Dave says, "Donna Wentworth is gathering links on the Eldred case." I'm worried.
6:25:37 PM  #   your two cents []

Bruce Schneier was asked by an Iranian newspaper if the Pentagon has a secret weapon that could disable the whole internet. He told them he didn't know, but he could certainly speculate.
6:24:26 PM  #   your two cents []

Thanks to all those who have emailed to express interest in the relaunch of an Irish branch of the Electronic Frontier Foundation. I've been too busy on deadlines this week (and updating this blog!) to start putting you in touch with each other, but hope to do that in the next day. The offer of a website is now there too, and the kind people at Boards.ie will set up a discussion board for the group, once the organisation gels. If you are interested -- and people from any background can be involved, at any level -- do email me (little yellow envelope in left-hand column). The Data Privacy Commissioner's report on Irish attitudes to privacy today should ensure you that such a group is timely and needed. And rest assured the group will fit right into a support network across Europe and the US of similarly-minded privacy advocate/watchdog groups.
5:29:24 PM  #   your two cents []

The Osmani browser: I spoke today to one of the UCD computer scientists who was asked to evaluate Adnan Osmani's browser for the Young Scientist competition. He provided some new insights into what it does and also, why it has so many lines of code. The faculty member is a published researcher.

He says he and a couple of other comp sci people sat down and talked to Adnan for about two hours about the browser while at the show, and Adnan demonstrated it on a laptop.

"We talked to the student and got a much better feeling for what he'd done and the level of his knowledge. The student certainly displayed enough knowledge to prove he'd written it himself, which was my first concern. It certainly is a very impressive piece of technology, a very feature-rich browser. It's an important piece of technology, particularly for someone of his age."

The researcher said the browser uses Microsoft Libraries and Borland C++, one of the reasons there are so many lines of code. He pointed out that using these would produce many more lines of code than an individual would actually have written, accounting for the claims of 7.5k to 1.5m lines of code.

He says he cannot substantiate the speed increase of the browser as he did not run it to benchmark it himself and he wasn't aware that UCD had run the browser, though my colleague at the Times, Dick Ahlstrom, was told by someone else at UCD that they did run it over two days and it performed as claimed. The person I spoke to said that as he understands it, the browser gets the claimed speed efficiencies by starting to download info to one socket. Adnan's browser then "short-circuits" the socket or breaks that connection and starts downloading other bits of a page, "using fast servers." It does a number of things at the same time, which makes a page load faster. This is what Dick told me Adnan had said as well.

The UCD researcher said "It would be my opinion that you'd need some kind of cooperation with an ISP" for this system to work -- in other words, an ISP's servers would need to be geared to handle traffic in a way optimal for the browser. But he also noted that the browser does definitely work faster in general -- "it certainly uses the channel better" is how he put it. He said it was particularly impressive in the way it worked with the various search engines, media players and DVD player, although he added that "you'd wonder if you'd really want some of those features, like watching a DVD while surfing the net!"

NB: I told the researcher I'd keep him anonymous to preserve his privacy for the time being -- he doesn't want to be swamped with phonecalls. But he does exist :^)

3:48:33 PM  #   your two cents []

The Irish Data Protection Commissioner, Joe Meade, has published the results of a survey on Irish attitudes toward privacy today. The independent survey of 1203 people shows that Irish people are growing increasingly concerned about the erosion of their personal privacy. He says intrusive business practices, fears about internet privacy, and a lack of information about Government initiatives have contributed to a “trust deficit” that could undermine Ireland’s progress towards e-commerce.  From the press release:

Key Findings – Privacy a High Priority, Fears on the Increase

 

The key findings of the survey, which was conducted by Millward Brown IMS Ltd, are as follows:

• Irish people value their privacy highly, ranking it higher even than issues such as consumer protection, ethics in public office, and equality in the workplace.  Only crime prevention was given a similarly high priority by the public.
• Financial records have a higher privacy value than medical records
• Three out of four Irish adults believe that businesses regularly encroach on our privacy
• Irish people share a similar mistrust of Government agencies – just over half of adults trust Government agencies to deal with personal details in a fair and proper manner, with one in four expressing distrust
• People feel more insecure about the Internet than in the past.  Most people (56%) agree that ‘if you use the internet, your privacy is threatened’, compared with 37% in a 1997 survey.  The proportion who ‘strongly agree’ with this statement has doubled from 14% to 28%. 
• Most people prefer not to receive unsolicited direct marketing.  While many people tend to be somewhat indifferent to direct mailings to the home, people are more firmly opposed to receiving unsolicited phone calls at home, and to receiving unsolicited e-mails and SMS messages.
• Comparing these results with a similar 1997 survey, people’s anxieties about intrusions into their privacy have increased.  Expressions of unease about business practices and about internet use have all increased significantly over the period.  

Irish People Value their Privacy

 

The survey shows that Irish people place a high value on their right to privacy.  “Privacy of personal information” ranks higher even than the “protection of consumer rights,” or “ethics in public office”.  81% of adults thought that personal privacy was “very important”, with a further 17% rating it “important” – making a 98% positive rating in total.  Consumer protection was rated “very important” by 76% of people (and as “important” by a further 20%), whereas “ethics in public office” garnered a 71% “very important” rating (with a further 22% rating it as “important”).  Only “crime prevention” received a similarly high rating by the public, with a “very important” rating of 84%, and an “important” rating of 15%.  “Equality in the workplace” received a 75% “very important” rating with a further 19% rating it as “important”).

Financial Records More Sensitive Than Medical Records

Perhaps surprisingly, the survey showed that Irish people place a higher privacy value on their personal financial records than on their medical records.  77% of adults rated their “financial history” as “very important” (with a further 18% rating it as “important”), compared with a 72% “very important” rating for “medical records” (with a further 21% “important” rating).  Other items of personal information with strong privacy ratings were credit card details (70% very important, 14% important), and the PPS Number (60% very important, 25% important).  The personal telephone number was rated “very important” by 51% of adults, and as “important” by a further 28%. 

12:38:38 PM  #   your two cents []

 Cool: my space tourism story runs today on Wired.com! The picture above is from Astrium, an artist's conception of their proposed Space Coaster vehicle.  Space: Final Vacation Frontier?. Both the European Space Agency and NASA have plans to make outer space a major destination for adventure travelers. It won't happen this year, but it will happen, they say. Karlin Lillington reports from Dublin. [Wired News]
10:09:36 AM  #   your two cents []

Several of the biggest Irish technology firms are benefiting from the US preparations for war, according to Jamie's front page story in today's Irish Times:

The disclosure comes as the Government released new figures yesterday which show it issued 64 military export licences last year to firms that sold military products made in the State. Export licences were issued to companies exporting to the US and a host of other states, including the Lebanon, Nigeria, Yugoslavia and Iran.

How the State reconciles issuing such licenses with Ireland's wishy-washy "neutrality" is beyond me. Actually, it's not beyond me: it just points out the State's hypocrisy. The country needs to have a serious debate about what neutrality means and if it has any real relevance here any longer.

9:56:48 AM  #   your two cents []

Dublin stumbles as e-commerce centre: The Dublin Chamber of Commerce has released its latest version of its informative "E-City" report, which benchmarks Dublin against 13 other international cities that might be said to be vying for an e-city title. Last year, the first year in which it was done, Dublin fell somewhere in the middle of the pack. This year, the report says that Dublin has fallen to second to last place and both Ireland and Dublin are rapidly losing ground to competitors as a leading location for e-commerce.

According to the report, this is primarily due to the lack of  broad, coherent and specific government vision and planning in the whole area of a national e-infrastructure. The report acknowledges "modest" gains -- such as the appointment of an e-minister, Mary Hanafin -- but is fairly scathing overall. Iona co-founder and chairman Dr Chris Horn chaired the working group and, I suspect, wrote the majority of the report. This is relevant not just to Dublin but also any city with similar interests and is very detailed. Comparison cities included Prague, Tel Aviv, Dubai, Washington, San Jose, Singapore, Helsinki, and a few more. The report is supposed to be donloadable from www.dubchamber.ie but doesn't seem to be up yet -- which doesn't say a lot for the Chamber's e-readiness either...!! Update: the report is finally up; it's a long PDF.

9:50:49 AM  #   your two cents []

The other Irish Wired.com writer! Daithi's stuff is always good: Net Captures Lost World of Shtetl. In a race against time, the Witness to a Jewish Century archive is documenting everyday life in the shtetl, the Eastern European Jewish villages destroyed during the holocaust. By Daithí Ó hAnluain. [Wired News]
9:35:55 AM  #   your two cents []

Joan Rivers. "A man can sleep around, no questions asked, but if a woman makes nineteen or twenty mistakes she's a tramp." [Quotes of the Day]
9:34:31 AM  #   your two cents []

Maybe they're saying, "Paul is dead"...: Will Hodgkinson joins London's strangest radio statio, Resonance FM. New radio station has shows which are broadcast in reverse and take their cues from supermarket announcements. [Guardian Unlimited]
9:31:06 AM  #   your two cents []

From Boing Boing Blog: Vintage topo maps online. Paul sez, "Major fun for map geeks and anybody else who appreciates beautiful printed work: a collection of over 2000 USGS topographic maps dating from the 1880s to the 1950s. The collection was started by a railroad and map nut from New Hampshire who traveled from library to library with a scanner and a laptop; later, the University of New Hampshire and other kindred spirits helped expand the collection ..." Link
9:30:02 AM  #   your two cents []

British film industry on a roll.  "The sheer amount of special effects now used on the big blockbusters may also be giving studios like Pinewood an edge, he said. 'They need controlled environments. I know you would never think it, looking at the film, but 70% to 80% of the Bond film Die Another Day was shot at Pinewood.'"  [Guardian Unlimited]
9:24:29 AM  #   your two cents []

The hacks get it wrong, wrong, wrong -- from Doc Searls: Tom Yager in Infoworld: Journalism 101: You had to be there. The gist...

"By the opening day of Macworld, one day before Steve Jobs' keynote address, the show and Apple had been written off. The crowning touch came from Merrill-Lynch. On Jan. 7, it downgraded Apple's stock rating to "sell," explaining that "the new product pipeline looks skimpy."

By now you've seen the news about Apple's announcements. There is no point in being kind about it: Every source that claimed to know what Apple had planned got it completely wrong. What makes this stand out from other milestones of unsubstantiated reporting is that the media gave the rumors the force of fact. The public went along, assuming that in the age of the Internet, Apple couldn't keep big secrets. Among Apple's thousands of employees, hundreds of beta testers, and the staff at countless retailers worldwide, surely someone would break nondisclosure. Somebody had to send an anonymous e-mail containing the slide deck for Jobs' keynote. You just can't control information.

Yes, you can -- and Apple did. Not one outlet predicted the 17-inch PowerBook, the 12-inch PowerBook, or the Keynote presentation software. No one called Apple's release of an accelerated X Window server in advance. Integrated Bluetooth? We were assured it wouldn't happen this year. We had no notice that the PowerBook would have 333MHz DDR (Double Data Rate) memory or that the $99 Keynote could do smooth compositing and 3-D effects in real time. Instead, we were treated to wild guesses about video-enabled iPods and Mac tablets.

Now that we know the reality of Macworld, we know something else: Not one writer who claimed to have reliable inside sources at Apple was on the level. Apple's people kept their mouths shut and every nondisclosure agreement was honored..."

I suppose, in its own way, that's an achievement as notable as any of the new products.

But I've also never seen more concern, by Apple employees on the floor of the show, about speaking on behalf of the company -- even when they weren't being asked to speak, or to do anything more than answer questions about stuff on display. A number of them wanted me to "clear" this or that (e.g. taking a picture inside the booth) with "Media Relations." [The Doc Searls Weblog]

9:23:51 AM  #   your two cents []

 ZDNet: Mozilla hurt by Apple blast. [Hack the Planet]
9:21:10 AM  #   your two cents []

Honeymoon Over For Google? [Slashdot]
9:20:22 AM  #   your two cents []

W3C finalizes graphics standard. The Web's leading standards group puts its seal of approval on a new specification for graphics technology tailored for use by cell phones and other small networked devices. [CNET News.com]
9:19:50 AM  #   your two cents []

The Salon Interview: John Edwards. The 2004 hopeful tells Salon why he thinks he should be president -- and how George W. Bush is "the opposite of me." [Salon.com]
9:19:20 AM  #   your two cents []

Microsoft to Give Governments Access to Code. To try to slow the acceptance of the Linux operating system, Microsoft will allow most governments to study the programming code of its Windows systems. [New York Times: Technology]
9:17:58 AM  #   your two cents []

Now that's gotta boost the economy: Homeland security IT cost $2.9 billion. The U.S. government spent at least $2.9 billion in 2002 on information technology related to homeland security and is expected to spend at least that amount again this year. [CNET News.com]
9:17:22 AM  #   your two cents []

Music Industry Won't Seek Government Aid on Piracy. The major recording companies said on Tuesday that they would not seek government intervention to prevent digital piracy.  [New York Times: Technology]
9:16:16 AM  #   your two cents []

Wired News: 'Landmark' Accord on Copyrights. The leading trade associations for the music and technology industries, which have been at loggerheads over consumers downloading songs on the Internet, have negotiated a compromise they contend will protect copyrights on movies and music without new government involvement. [Tomalak's Realm]
9:15:13 AM  #   your two cents []