Culture and Society

Jamees Russell linked here yesterday to a story about Google seeking to adjust or even filter out blogs from its search results. This is certainly a concern, although I am not sure we will be classified as a blog under their valuation system – we are more of an online …

English band Hell Is For Heroes having success with interactive music video: [EMI] home to the likes of Robbie Williams, Coldplay, Blur and Radiohead, has already produced the world’s first fully interactive video and is so pleased with the results that it plans to repeat the trick with several of …

Gunnar Van Vliet compares the sound quality of the new Apple Music Store AAC codec vs. MP3: Being a Mac user and a music lover, when Apple announced the Apple Music Store for digital song downloads I was very excited. The store uses a new codec called AAC to deliver …

Chalabi says Saddam and his vile progeny remain alive and in Iraq: “Our sources confirm that he (Saddam) has actually not left Iraq,” Chalabi told the Arabic-language Asharq al-Awsat daily in an interview in Baghdad. “He is here with his sons but they don’t always travel together. “I can’t tell …

Rather scathing analysis of Microsoft’s PR for DRM (digital rights management) in the Register: Microsoft is putting a lot of money into Digital Rights Management, and expects to get a lot more money back out so long as it can persuade consumers that DRM is their fluffy friend, and most …

Using free to sell not-free via Altnet – the “first peer-to-peer network created to give consumers easy access to secure content that originates from content owners” – which piggybacks off of Kazaa: Altnet today announced that it has secured the exclusive distribution rights to artist and author Lee Jaffe’s never-been-seen-before …

Dan Bricklin addresses the central question underlying the copyright wars: how does the artist get paid: The USA was found upon the principles of the right of all to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. For the artist, that would be by letting them create their art and be …

TiVO inside: TiVo Inc., whose technology allows television viewers to pause and replay live shows, on Thursday said it will license a bare-bones version of its service primarily to makers of DVD players. In an effort to increase its subscriber base, TiVo will license consumer electronics makers to build devices …

New poll says teens cool with P2P: Only 27% of American teenagers believe that those who download or share digital music files without artist or label permission are breaking the law, according to just-released polling data. Legality aside, just 20% of teens think that such activity is ‘wrong.’ Asked the …

Live concert webcasts exemplify AOL’s big move into broadband: With the thunderous beat of the Foo Fighters shaking the bar stools at the Black Cat club in Washington, the band’s lead singer, Dave Grohl, told hundreds jamming the stage that their reach extended all the way through cyberspace. “Hey, man,” …