Every new technology adds risk...

http://yro.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=06/12/04/0456220&from=rss

How To Tell If Your Cell Phone Is Bugged

Posted by kdawson on Monday December 04, @05:03AM from the your-shoe-is-ringing dept.

Lauren Weinstein writes to point us to his essay on the realities of using an idle cell phone as a bug, as a recent story indicated the FBI may have done in a Mafia case.

From the essay: "There is no magic in cell phones. From a transmitting standpoint, they are either on or off... It is also true that some phones can be remotely programmed by the carrier to mask or otherwise change their display and other behaviors in ways that could be used to fool the unwary user. However, this level of remote programmability is another feature that is not universal... But remember — no magic! When cell phones are transmitting — even as bugs — certain things are going to happen every time that the alert phone user can often notice."

Every new technology offers risk mitigation... (Dennis uses this...)

http://www.pogowasright.org/article.php?story=20061203075200272

Dial up privacy with free online phone service

Sunday, December 03 2006 @ 08:07 AM CST - Contributed by: PrivacyNews - Internet & Computers

Now you can give out your phone number and still remain anonymous. A new, free service lets you take control of who you wish to talk to on the phone. And its creators believe it could become the next wave of virtual communication. PrivatePhone ( http://privatephone.com/ ) is a free phone-number and voice-mail service created by NetZeroVoice. All calls go straight to voice mail and you are alerted to the new message via e-mail or through a text message on your cell phone. Users can check the message over the phone or online.

Source - Boston Herald

Imagine every employee monitoring their stocks, sports news, music and the porn channel on their work PC.

http://news.com.com/2061-10802_3-6140322.html?part=rss&tag=2547-1_3-0-5&subj=news

CNBC retools Web site for video

December 3, 2006 10:38 PM PST

On Monday, CNBC is expected to launch a revamped Web site that will offer three to eight hours of daily live broadcasts and more than 13,000 hours of video from the station's library.

Subscribers to CNBC Plus, a premium service that allows people to watch the entire CNBC broadcast over the Net, will cost $9.95 monthly.

People at work can follow the market by placing CNBC's new video player in the corner of their PC screen and watch while they complete tasks. Some of the CNBC's new tools include a personalized ticker that will allow a user to follow the prices of their stocks in real time. The ticker can be cut and pasted onto a computer screen just like the video player.

CNBC sees the Internet video revolution as an opportunity to deliver more of the cable channel's business news over the Web. Technological improvements in online video, including fatter bandwidth and better compression of digital data, have done away with the stalling and grainy image quality associated with Web video. Live streaming looks as good in some cases as over-the-air television.

This has opened the door to the Web for broadcasters. Last month, NBC began streaming episodes of the soap opera "Passions." CBS recently announced that the video clips the network offers on video-sharing site YouTube have helped boost viewership. ABC has offered televisions shows , such as "Lost" and "Desperate Housewives" for a year.

Perhaps the RIAA strategy is doomed? Interesting business model in any case – if you knew the local music scene, this could become profitable fairly quickly!

http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601092&sid=a.STAmhpIusU&refer=italy

EMI to Try E-mail Service Offering Free Music Trials

By Aisha Phoenix

Dec. 4 (Bloomberg) -- EMI Group Plc, the world's third- largest music company, will pilot a new e-mail service offering free trial plays of music in an attempt to increase digital revenue as piracy erodes sales of compact discs. [No doubt they claimed piracy was responsible for the death of the player piano, too. Bob]

eListeningPost, which will start tomorrow, provides artists with a secure version of their track or video that can be e- mailed to fans, said eListeningPost co-founder Greg Holloway in a telephone interview. Fans can listen to a track as many as five times with the option of buying it if it appeals to them. They can also e-mail it to friends.

... “Our business is viral,'' Holloway said. ``We provide you with music in a way that you can share it with all your friends. The unsigned artists can benefit and the biggest band in the world can benefit as well.''

... After a one-time 35-pound or $45 set-up fee, artists can send unlimited video or audio ePreviews to their fans for 5 pounds or $9 a month, eListeningPost said. Artists then receive all the proceeds from download sales, the statement said.

... Artists can also benefit from combining the previews with relevant advertising, getting 60 percent of any ad revenue their previews generate, Holloway said.

This seems less facile than Youtube...

http://www.wired.com/news/technology/software/0,72223-0.html?tw=rss.index

Azureus' HD Vids Trump YouTube

By Michael Calore 02:00 AM Dec, 04, 2006

The file sharing company Azureus on Monday launched a new distribution platform for downloading high-quality video, which the company hopes will become the next YouTube -- but for high definition, DVD-quality video on the internet.

... In a demonstration last week, the company showed a crisp, clear, DVD-quality clip that began streaming only seconds after the download was started.

The highest-quality videos, tagged with an "HD tag," offer a noticeable step up from the quality seen on other video sharing sites.

... A new research study by Verdict Research predicts the market for legal video downloads will grow from its current $218.4 million to $975 million by 2011.

... Azureus users can access the service through the company's website, or they can download a new, web-enabled version of the Azureus BitTorrent client that has the service built in. The Azureus client is a Java application that runs on all of the major operating systems. The client is an open source application, and the company claims that the code will continue to be based on open standards.

... The videos are served in either the iPod-friendly H.264 format or VC-1, which is used for Windows media files. Once downloaded, users can transfer videos to a portable video player or a PC connected to a television.