Sunday, January 22, 2012


If you are lucky enough to have your privacy violated by actors involved in a major scandal, your compensation is many many times what you can expect if no one cares about any of the victims.
"Rupert Murdoch's media empire has made huge payouts to 37 phone-hacking victims, including actor Jude Law, singer Danii Minogue, and former British deputy prime minister John Prescott, their lawyers said. ... The company has set up a multi-million-pound compensation scheme for victims of phone hacking in a bid to avoid further costly civil lawsuits. ... It has also made a payout of 2 million pounds to the family of murdered British schoolgirl Milly Dowler, while Mr. Murdoch made a personal donation of 1 million pounds to charities chosen by her family.'"


Do we know enough to answer this question?
An anonymous reader sends in an article discussing whether other commonly used file storage sites are in danger of being shut down now that Megaupload has been closed. Quoting:
"In the wake of the crackdown on the file-sharing website Megaupload, sites offering free content-sharing, file linking and digital locker services, such as RapidShare, SoundCloud and Dropbox, could be next in the crosshair of anti-piracy authorities. ... RapidShare and MediaFire are two of the biggest services left after Megaupload's exit. However, these sites have undergone a revamp, and now ... no longer host pirated content that could lead to a permanent ban. Others in the line of fire are DropBox, iCloud and Amazon S3, which support hosting any file a user uploads. Though their intention of supporting open file-sharing is legitimate, there is really no control over the type of content being uploaded."
[From the article:
[The actual quote: However, these sites have undergone a revamp and now provide only links to pirated content. They no longer host pirated content that could lead to a permanent ban.
… It appears the trick is to maintain a low profile. Megaupload was the thirteenth most visited site on the internet.
MegaUpload's fall could prompt smaller sites like GrooveShack and SoundCloud to aim for bigger market shares. Bit Torrent capitalised on Napster's exit while PirateBay took over Supernova.org's spot after the latter shut down in 2004.

(Related?)
Steal This Book!
Nobody wants to be told that their business model is obsolete. Ask Kodak. Or Hollywood. And the publishing industry is slower on its feet than most.
… publishers cling to the model wherein readers purchase books individually, usually before they’ve been read: a model so entrenched that many seem to find it literally impossible to believe that alternatives might exist.
… But I’ve also been saying for five years that publishing’s business model will ultimately become even less restrictive than that. In the end, lo these many decades from now, most books–and all novels–will be free to read, and their readers will decide whether and how much to pay for them after reading them.
I know, big talk, no action, right? So:
The rights to my technothriller Invisible Armies finally reverted to me last month. It’s my personal favorite among my thrillers; it’s won acclaim from The Economist, Bruce Sterling, and a host of others — and now I’m releasing it and its sort-of-sequel Swarm1 online, for free, under a Creative Commons license.
Obviously I’m far from the first to free my books. The Baen Free Library has been around for years. … And Cory Doctorow, of course, has been doing it for his entire oeuvre from day one.


Trade privacy for useful data?
Quantifying our lives will be a top trend of 2012
As everything analog shifts to digital, we can collect a huge amount of data about ourselves. As I noted in our earlier story, the trend was spearheaded by researchers who wanted a “quantified self,” or self-knowledge through numbers that measure things such as how long we sleep or how many stairs we can climb in a day. Most people don’t have the patience to sift through all the data that they could collect about themselves. But a number of new devices are making it easier to do, bringing us the opportunity both to improve our lives, have more fun, and think more about privacy issues.


Setting constraints helps with brainstorming. Q: What if there was no film? A: Invent digital recording. Best scenario I ever herd, “Invent a new sin.”
"Y Combinator, a firm that invests in startups, has put out a call to kill Hollywood. In a post on their site, the firm said attempts at legislation similar to SOPA wouldn't stop until there is no industry left to protect. They now want to incubate ideas for new types of entertainment, so we can evolve the movie and television industries. Quoting: 'There will be several answers, ranging from new ways to produce and distribute shows, through new media (e.g. games) that look a lot like shows but are more interactive, to things (e.g. social sites and apps) that have little in common with movies and TV except competing with them for finite audience attention. Some of the best ideas may initially look like they're serving the movie and TV industries. Microsoft seemed like a technology supplier to IBM before eating their lunch, and Google did the same thing to Yahoo.'"


Oh the horror! Is Apple unique? Do any US companies want to compete in the area?
"Not long ago, Apple boasted that its products were made in America. Today, almost all of the 70 million iPhones, 30 million iPads and 59 million other products Apple sold last year are manufactured overseas. 'It isn't just that workers are cheaper abroad,' write Charles Duhig and Keith Bradsher. 'Rather, Apple's executives believe the vast scale of overseas factories as well as the flexibility, diligence and industrial skills of foreign workers have outpaced their American counterparts so much that "Made in the U.S.A." is no longer a viable option for most Apple products.' Apple executives say that going overseas, at this point, is their only option and recount the time Apple redesigned the iPhone's screen at the last minute, forcing an assembly line overhaul. A foreman immediately roused 8,000 workers inside the company's dormitories, and then each employee was given a biscuit and a cup of tea, guided to a workstation and within half an hour started a 12-hour shift fitting glass screens into beveled frames. [Are there any US plants with 8,000 workstations? Bob] Within 96 hours, the plant was producing over 10,000 iPhones a day. 'The speed and flexibility is breathtaking,' says one Apple executive. 'There's no American plant that can match that.' Apple's success has benefited the U.S. economy by empowering entrepreneurs and creating jobs at companies like cellular providers and businesses shipping Apple products. But ultimately, Apple executives say curing unemployment is not Apple's job. 'We don't have an obligation to solve America's problems. Our only obligation is making the best product possible.'"


Why I like teaching in a “Technical” university... (And remember students, when you become rich and famous: always hire your old professors...)
"A new report from the Georgetown Center on Education and the Workforce called 'Hard Times: College Majors, Unemployment and Earnings: Not All College Degrees Are Created Equal' analyzes unemployment by major. It shows that not enough students — and their families who are also taking on student loans — are asking what their college major is worth in the workforce. 'Too many students aren't sure what job they could get after four, five or even six years of studying a certain major and racking up education loans,' writes Singletary. 'Many aren't getting on-the-job training while they are in school or during their semester or summer breaks. As a result, questions about employment opportunities or what type of job they have the skills to attain are met with blank stares or the typical, "I don't know."' The reports found that the unemployment rate for recent graduates is highest in architecture (13.9 percent) because of the collapse of the construction and home-building industry and not surprisingly, unemployment rates are generally higher in non-technical majors (PDF), such as the arts (11.1 percent), humanities and liberal arts (9.4 percent), social science (8.9 percent) and law and public policy (8.1 percent)."


Keep ahead of those who merely stay current...

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