Monday, December 13, 2004

"Freedom v. Control," Dec. 15 (Donna Wentworth). Wendy, JZ, Siva, and Hal will speak at MIT this Wednesday, December 15 at a conference called "Freedom v. Control: Rights Management in the Digital Age." [Copyfight] 9:11:25 PM    comment []

Toshiba puts quantum crypto into practice. Company is in talks to commercialize what it claims is a reliable, untappable way of sending data over networks. [CNET News.com] 9:11:00 PM    comment []

Tuesday Dec 14: Kerry 252, Bush 286. Today's map Slate has a good article about which pollsters did well and which didn't, and about where the conventional wisdom about polling missed the mark. They confirm my earlier observation that Scott Rasmussen did the best job, despite his use of robodialers and talking computers instead of people to conduct the polls. [Electoral Vote Predictor 2004] 9:10:52 PM    comment []

Meteor shower peaks Monday night. On CNN [NewsIsFree: Popular Items] 11:36:00 AM    comment []

Three from BNA News: CT. RULES NO ROYALTIES FOR ACCESS TO PUBLIC RECORDS A Florida appeals court has ruled that an online real estate company can continue to use property appraiser records for profit without paying royalties to the government that created them. The 2nd District Court of Appeal ruled Dec. 1 that the Collier County property appraiser cannot demand royalties from those seeking access to public records. Coverage at Decision at 2dca.org SPAM STILL REELING IN SHOPPERS A new Forrester Research survey shows that online shoppers are still willing to buy products advertised in spam, indicating that the problem is unlikely to desist anytime soon. According to the survey, a staggering 22 percent of UK online consumers have bought software through spam. AMERICAN CHEMICAL SOCIETY SUES GOOGLE OVER GOOGLE SCHOLAR The American Chemical Society has filed suit against Google, aruing that the search company's use of the trademark "Scholar" for its Google Scholar literature-search engine constitutes trademark infringement and unfair competition. The ACS complaint contends that Google's use of the word scholar infringes on ACS's SciFinder Scholar and Scholar trademarks and constitutes unfair competition. SciFinder Scholar, a desktop research tool designed for academic scientists, was launched six years ago. (urls HTMLized) 11:35:59 AM    comment []

Announcing Prodigem. Ending my radio silence here. I've been heads down working on Prodigem which is a new content hosting web-service I've created. It relies on bit torrent to share the costs of the distribution of large files and is revolutionary in that you need only to upload your file via the web, click a few buttons and not only will it create a torrent for your content, but it will begin seeding it also. This removes all complexity in the administration of bit torrent from start to finish and also enables you to take advantage of better initial download speeds since you aren't limited by your home DSL connection. You can read more about Prodigem here. Like I say there, if you are an artist, creator, author, blogger, podcaster, amateur mogul, lead guitarist, independent movie director or person, and you have material which has been licensed openly, such as with a Creative Commons license, the sky is now the limit. We're currently in a limited beta testing phase, so in the meantime you might consider checking out the main tracker and joining torrents for any content you'd like. Hopefully we'll open to wider availability soon and as membership is being handled in the new school style of invitation propagation, watch your inbox for Prodigem email. [unmediated] 7:19:47 AM    comment []

Netflix adds social networking. Tim Finin points to interesting news from Online DVD rental leader Netflix, which is looking for ways to keep ahead of its competators. [Smart Mobs] 7:17:30 AM    comment []

BlogTelevision.net. BlogTelevision.net mines over three million blogs daily to find videos for your entertainment. We find and highlight the videos that people are talking (read: blogging) about! Nothing is censored and we updated at least six times a day so check back frequently. Please note, because we are a 100% automated website we cannot guarantee all videos are safe for viewing at work. [unmediated] 7:17:05 AM    comment []

Are We Puppets or Free Agents?. Interpretations of the insanity plea have changed through the ages, but advances in neuroscience promise to redefine free will and personal responsibility, and change the way we think about punishment. By Rowan Hooper. [Wired News] 7:16:14 AM    comment []

Foxes in Iran's Henhouse. The key to the nuclear dispute in Iran will be exploiting the power struggle between the clerics and the military. By VALI NASR and ALI GHEISSARI. [NYT > Opinion] 7:16:14 AM    comment []