http://news.cnet.com/8301-13846_3-10242526-62.html
Sony Pictures CEO hates the Internet
by Dave Rosenberg May 16, 2009 4:53 PM PDT
I wrote last week about Sony CEO Howard Stringer's comments suggesting Sony could have beaten Apple in digital music if only the had embraced open technology. While technology certainly could play a role in Sony's success, it's clear that the company needs a whole new way of thinking.
At a breakfast Thursday cohosted by the S.I. Newhouse School of Public Communications at Syracuse University and The New Yorker, Sony Pictures Entertainment CEO Michael Lynton told the audience his not-so-inner thoughts about the Internet.
"I'm a guy who doesn't see anything good having come from the Internet... (The Internet) created this notion that anyone can have whatever they want at any given time. It's as if the stores on Madison Avenue were open 24 hours a day. They feel entitled. They say, 'Give it to me now,' and if you don't give it to them for free, they'll steal it."
Know who beats know how? Geeks don't always make good policy, but then neither do politicians.
http://news.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=09/05/17/1141224&from=rss
Senate Sources Say CTO Confirmation a Done Deal
Posted by Soulskill on Sunday May 17, @09:30AM from the casting-a-critical-eye dept. Government Technology
theodp writes
"On Tuesday, the Senate Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation will examine the nomination of Aneesh Chopra as the first-ever federal Chief Technology Officer. Senate sources said they were not aware of any debate surrounding his nomination. You'd think the hack-for-$10-million-ransom of Virginia's Prescription Monitoring Program might be good for a question or two. Or the wisdom of appointing a CTO who's no technologist. It might also be worth bringing up Chopra's membership in TiE-DC, a group which promises 'exclusive peer networking events' with government officials and Federal contractors, including TiE-DC sponsor Microsoft. Are there any other issues that might make the Confirmation Hearing more than a rubber-stamping?"
[From the “no technologist” article:
Chopra studied health care policy at Johns Hopkins University and Harvard University
… Chopra concedes that he's not an expert on the inner workings of technical systems. "What I brought to the table was an understanding of the capabilities of new technologies and how they might advance a particular agenda," he said.
The best defense...
http://news.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=09/05/16/1345236&from=rss
Usenet Group Sues Dutch RIAA
Posted by Soulskill on Saturday May 16, @11:22AM from the best-defense dept. The Courts The Internet
eldavojohn writes
"With the Pirate Bay trial, it's been easy to overlook similar struggles in other nations. A Dutch Usenet community named FTD is going on the offensive and suing BREIN (Bescherming Rechten Entertainment Industrie Nederland). You may remember BREIN (along with the IFPI & BPI) as the people who raided and cut out the heart of eDonkey. This is turning into a pretty familiar scenario; the FTD group makes software that allows its 450k members to easily find copyrighted content for free on Usenet. The shocking part is that FTD isn't waiting for BREIN to sue them. FTD is refusing to take down their file location reports, and is actually suing BREIN. Why the preemptive attack? FTD wants the courts to show that the act of downloading is not illegal in the Netherlands. (Both articles have the five points in English that FTD wants the courts to settle.) OSNews has a few more details on the story."
Could be useful for my Data Analysis/e-Discover files (all huge) and it presents new questions for search warrants...
http://www.makeuseof.com/tag/zumodrive-cloud-storage-service-with-a-twist/
ZumoDrive – Cloud Storage Service With A Twist
May. 16th, 2009 By Damien Oh
By now, you should have heard of some of the popular cloud storage services such as Dropbox, Sugarsync, Box.net etc. Recently, there is another kid on the block and I think it is worth the mention at MakeUseOf.
ZumoDrive is an online storage service that everyone can use to store their files in the Cloud and access them from different computers. What makes it different from the rest of its competitors is the way it manages the data on your computer. Most storage services create a folder on your local hard drive and sync all of the data to/from that folder. This might be a good idea in order to keep the data in sync, but what if you are using a 4GB Netbook and you have 10GB of data in the cloud? Your Netbook won’t be able to hold all the data.
What ZumoDrive does is: mount itself as a drive on the computer and “tricks” the computer into thinking that the hosted data are local. When you click to open any file (or music) from ZumoDrive, it will stream those files from the cloud and open them with any local application. This way, even if you are running out of hard disk space, you can still access 10GB (or even 500GB) of data from your computer effortlessly.
… A free account comes with 1GB of storage space. Those who require more storage space may upgrade to a premium account at prices ranging between $2.99 (10GB) to $79.99 (500GB) per month.
Speaking of data analysis... (This is more soap opera than news, but probably worth reading.)
http://www.bespacific.com/mt/archives/021381.html
May 16, 2009
NYT: What Does Your Credit-Card Company Know About You?
New York Times Magazine: "Today companies are focusing on those customers most likely to honor their debts. And they are looking for ways to convince existing cardholders that if they only have enough money to pay one bill, it’s wiser to pay off their credit card than, say, the phone. Put another way, credit-card companies are becoming much more interested in understanding their customers’ lives and psyches, because, the theory goes, knowing what makes cardholders tick will help firms determine who is a good bet and who should be shown the door as quickly as possible."
Related postings on financial system
[From the article:
The exploration into cardholders’ minds hit a breakthrough in 2002, when J. P. Martin, a math-loving executive at Canadian Tire, decided to analyze almost every piece of information his company had collected from credit-card transactions the previous year. Canadian Tire’s stores sold electronics, sporting equipment, kitchen supplies and automotive goods and issued a credit card that could be used almost anywhere. Martin could often see precisely what cardholders were purchasing, and he discovered that the brands we buy are the windows into our souls — or at least into our willingness to make good on our debts. His data indicated, for instance, that people who bought cheap, generic automotive oil were much more likely to miss a credit-card payment than someone who got the expensive, name-brand stuff. People who bought carbon-monoxide monitors for their homes or those little felt pads that stop chair legs from scratching the floor almost never missed payments. Anyone who purchased a chrome-skull car accessory or a “Mega Thruster Exhaust System” was pretty likely to miss paying his bill eventually.
… “If you show us what you buy, we can tell you who you are, maybe even better than you know yourself,” said Martin, who now works for Wal-Mart Canada. “But everyone was scared that people will resent companies for knowing too much.”
Swiss Army file tool?
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Hacker file tool
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