May 05, 2003
Net radio, Google and more
New in the San Jose Mercury News:
• Dan Gillmor: Chairman leads surprisingly vigilant FTC.
• Mike Langberg: Net Radio Poses Threat to Local Broadcasters. Mike's take on commercial-free Internet radio.
• Two-part series on Google. Today, Google: An engine of change. By the way, just how lame is the Mercury News' website? There is no link to part 1 of the two-part series. No mention of part 1 in the Business section. And a search for Google on the site's search engine turns up this result:
No results were found for the query "Google". Please try another search.
Later: Tripped across a link to part 1, Inside Google, on another site.
Riordan delays tabloid's debut
LA Times: The debut of the new L.A. Examiner weekly tabloid, which I understand erstwhile bloggers Matt Welch and Ken Layne have been laboring over for months now, has been delayed until at least September by former Los Angeles Mayor Richard Riordan. Will it launch at all?
Here's the LA Examiner's own website on the latest developments.
Media muscle mutes other voices
More on the threat of media consolidation:
• Variety: A "brilliant strategy" by the Republican right is moving media toward consolidation, with the help of News Corp.'s Rupert Murdoch and Clear Channel's Lowry Mays, says one TV producer.
• MoveOn.org: Media mergers are decreasing coverage of local politics, local business and local events, making it harder and harder for Americans to find out what's going on in their own back yards, writes Eli Pariser.
Also check out IWantMedia, which provided those pointers.
Protecting anonymity online
Here's a timely and good idea to protect users' online rights. The EFF reports:
Tomorrow Assemblymember Joe Simitian (D - Palo Alto) will present to the California Assembly's Judiciary Committee a bill designed to protect the privacy of anonymous Internet speakers.A broad coalition of organizations -- including the Electronic Frontier Foundation, the California Anti-SLAPP Project, the Northern California chapter of the ACLU, and the Privacy Rights Clearinghouse -- support the bill. The bill was drafted by the Samuelson Law, Technology & Public Policy Clinic at Boalt Hall School of Law at the University of California at Berkeley.
Assembly Bill 1143 would require that ISPs notify a consumer of any request to divulge the consumer's identity when that consumer's personally identifying information is sought in a civil suit. The bill passed out of the Assembly Arts, Entertainment, Sports, Tourism and Internet Media Committee on April 29, 2003.
The law would provide time and the necessary information for the consumer to object to the disclosure to the court. The legislation would not lessen the accountability of Internet users who are subject to valid legal claims, but it would ensure that individuals have the necessary time and information needed to protect their own privacy, as well as limit the growing problem of frivolous claims filed for the sole purpose of discovering the identity of an otherwise anonymous Internet user.
People speaking online have a wide variety of reasons for remaining anonymous, ranging from inappropriate or untimely disclosure of a medical condition, sexual orientation, or gender identity to the potential for retaliatory job loss, harassment, or violence.
Doctored image in British tabloid
The London Evening Standard ran a doctored news photo on its front page last month showing a throng of Iraqis supposedly celebrating the downfall of Saddam Hussein. This is perhaps more amusing than a cause for journalistic outrage, given how clumsily it was executed.
Thanks to Hylton for the pointer.
And speaking of Hylton, Corante now offers RSS for all its blogs. Terrific news, as I've been using RSS feeds more and more to stay on top of the best of the blogosphere.
Barlow's underappreciation of weblogs
It surprises me when I run across ruminations like this (on Dave Winer's Scripting News site) from people like John Perry Barlow, who ought to know better. (He also said in an interview earlier this year that the Internet seemed to be counterproductive to the peace movement.) Barlow still criss-crosses the globe, making the lecture/conference circuit for those who can cough up thousands of dollars in registration fees, but I haven't seen him writing much in the past five years. He'd make a fantastic -- and widely read -- blogger.
Understanding the accelerating rate of change
The scholar and author Ray Kurzweil gave a fascinating presentation last fall about society's accelerating rate of change. Now he and Chris Meyer have put together a short Q&A on the subject on the KurzweilAI site.
Warning to inkjet printer shoppers
If you're in the market for an inkjet printer, I have two words of warning about the Epson Stylus C80, which we bought early last year:
The C80 balks mightily if you try to use any refilled or discounted cartridges that come from a manufacturer other than Epson (thus, it costs about $28 per black ink cartridge). Twice I tried buying cartridges that cost one half to one third that amount, and both times the printer would not accept them.
Second, be prepared for a flashing green warning light for weeks on end. When the ink levels are running low, the C80 lets you know with a vengeance. The C80's light has blinked approximately 1,632,960 times since it determined that I was running low about three weeks ago. OK, OK, I get it. Perhaps there's a way to disable this annoying feature, but I haven't discovered the secret passageway.
Bill Hobbs said:
I've got the Epson CX3200 and learned the other day that unless you have a color ink cartridge in it that has some ink left, you can not even print in black and white.
So I had to go buy a $28 color cartridge just to be able to print a simple letter in black and white.
This strikes me as wrong. I shouldn't have to pay Epson $28 for color ink in order to use the b/w printing capability of my printer.
I haven't tried aftermarket or remanufactured ink cartridges, and will be insensed if the printer won't accept them.
Lodewijk said:
I tried using non-Epson catridges in my C80. The first time I did not succeed because the printer would not recognise the cartridge, so in the end I had to replace it with an original Epson cartridge. At least this got the printer working again. The next time I tried to use a non-Epson cartrige, my printer came up with the message that this was a non-Epson cartridge and that I was likely to get poor printing results using it. When I pressed OK, the printer started working correctly. Encoraged by this result, I tried to use another non-Epson cartridge the next time I ran out of ink. This time, again I got the message that the cartridge was not being recognised by the printer. No matter what I tried, the message was always the same and I could not use the printer. Does anyone have a solution to this recurring problem other than to keep buying the (3 times more expensive) original Epson cartridges?
A web antidote for political apathy
Wired News: In October, the BBC will launch a radical experiment in online democracy -- a website for turning ordinary citizens into grassroots political activists
Everybody gets a cut
From the NY Times Sunday Magazine: DVDs give viewers dozens of choices -- and that's the problem.
Clear Channel sells concert CDs on the spot
NY Times: Clear Channel Communications, the radio broadcasting and concert promotion giant, plans to introduce a venture today that will sell live recordings on compact disc within five minutes of a show's conclusion. The venture, Instant Live, will enable a band's still-sweating fans to leave with a musical souvenir instead of say, a pricey T-shirt or a glossy program.
Children at the technology helm
Commentary in the NY Times: Much is made of the technological prowess of the younger generation. But a little-noticed side effect is the ineptitude that afflicts parents who cede the role of the household's chief technology officer to their offspring.
