2004¦~11¤ë5¤é

P2P for cell phones: Reach out and share something Published: November 3, 2004, 4:10 PM PST By Ben Charny Staff Writer, CNET News.com            Cell phones are learning to share files, but the earliest efforts don't nearly resemble the peer-to-peer renegades like Napster and Kazaa that the designers have in mind. FoneShare, an application introduced two weeks ago by NewBay Software, does let people share their collections of ring tones, graphics, games, songs, movie trailers and other wireless extras with strangers. FoneShare will debut next year as a subscription service, running over privately owned and operated cellular networks, and the sharing will be done via Web sites controlled by a wireless operator, said NewBay Chief Executive Paddy Holahan. That's a far cry from Napster, which was free, let people choose from digital music libraries stored on untold millions of personal computers, and relied heavily upon the anonymity of the public Internet. When it became possible five years ago to freely swap copyrighted material over the Internet, the entertainment industry began a battle that still rages today. But, as file-sharing now finds its way from PCs to cell phones, there is very little resistance; in fact, those same fierce opponents of file-swapping are among the technology's biggest cheerleaders. "All the labels are very focused on the mobile space," said Scott Hochgesang, the executive vice president of the Universal Music Group. "We may have been a bit slow to things happening on the Internet, but we won't do that again." The reasons go beyond FoneShare's draconian control over the intellectual property that's being shared. Because their networks are private, wireless operators can easily identify which files are being shared and even shut down handsets that are doing a suspicious amount of file trading. Also, wireless operators have microbilling systems to track millions of subscribers at a time and ensure everyone gets their fair share of the revenue. By comparison, Internet service providers' networks are just barely smart enough to sell movies on demand. Five years ago, when Napster, Morpheus and Kazaa debuted, networks didn't stand a chance, catching record companies off-guard as hundreds of millions of songs were shared for free. "If there's any piracy going on, anywhere, the wireless operator can track you down," Holahan said. "It's like the Internet, without all the crazy stuff." 9:20:56 AM

KM Blogs. Nice list of KM blogs from the wiki supporting KM World 04 Good KM Blogs Lilia Efimova's Mathemagenic Blog Denham Grey's Knowledge-at-Work (and his KMwiki) Stuart Henshall's Unbound Spiral Jim McGee's Musings Judith Meskill's Knowledge Notes George Siemen's elearnspace Jack Vinson's Knowledge Jolt with Jack David Weinberger's Journal of Hyperlinked Organization and JOHO Blog Ton Zylstra's Interdependent Thoughts [Internet Time Blog] 8:34:15 AM

PalmOne Blows Off Windows Treo Rumors Palm Info Center has chatted up a PalmOne spokesthing, who pooh-poohs the rumor that PalmOne is considering using Windows Mobile operating systems in upcoming Treo products. Of course, they don't quite deny the possibility that they might be researching the option for the future, either. In fact, we're sort of back where we started, with PalmOne probably always holding some alternate-OS products in the R&D wings, but publicly putting their weight behind PalmSource. palmOne Responds to the Pocket PC Rumor [PalmInfoCenter] Related Rumor: PalmOne Building Windows Treo [Gizmodo] Update: CNet is now saying that PalmOne is testing not only Windows-based devices, but Linux-based ones, as well. PalmOne ponders OS options [CNet] - lev (joeljohnson@gmail.com) [Gizmodo] 8:32:31 AM

Apple Rating: WTF is This? This is so stupid. Apple has added a product rating to their online store, letting users submit reviews of products and give them a one- to five-star rating¡Xunless those products happen to be Apple branded. If it's an Apple-made product, like an iPod Dock, for instance, it automatically gets a 'five Apple' rating, "because we think they¡¦re great." It gets worse. In the little pop-up FAQ box it reads: Why can¡¦t customers rate Apple products? Would you trust us to display less than perfect ratings on our own products? We didn¡¦t think so! What does that even mean? We wouldn't trust you to... be honest? To take a few lumps if your product is less-than-perfect? What a cop out. If they weren't going to let Apple products be rated and reviewed, they shouldn't have added the feature at all. (Thanks, gruverja!) Front Store Page [Store.Apple] - lev (joeljohnson@gmail.com) [Gizmodo] 8:31:09 AM

Learning Object Metadata (The Buntine Oration - Reflection 3). This is the third post in a series of reflections triggered by Stephen Downes's Buntine Oration. The initiating one reflected on the background of my being here today. The first real reflection was on federated search. The second is on learning object. This post is on metadata. As I have previously disclosed, I was lucky enough to have exposure to IEEE LOM at its early stages, having spent By noemail@noemail.org (Albert Ip). [Random Walk in E-Learning] 8:27:51 AM