The Org Charts Of All The Major Tech Companies
08th Jul2011
0 Comm
27th Jun2011
U.S. official: Digital Music Lockers Could Reduce Online Music Piracy
Could digital music lockers in the cloud from the likes of Apple, Amazon and Google could be just the way to curb online music pirating? Some U.S. government officials certainly think so.
As reported by Reuters, Victoria Espinel, the coordinator of U.S. intellectual property enforcement, said that innovation and working with corporate partners is going to be a more successful route to cutting down on the amount of digital music piracy rather than just strict law enforcement here and there.
“If it is possible to construct it so that it cannot be compromised, it may have the effect of reducing piracy by giving value to consumers — the ability to own forever and access almost anywhere — that cannot be obtained with illegal copies,” Espinel said.
“The flexibility of the cloud may help spur the development of compelling legal alternatives.”
One of the most significant and talked-about features announced during Apple CEO Steve Jobs’ keynote at WWDC 2011 on Monday as (more…)
02nd Jun2011
Government Orders You Tube To Censor Protest Videos
In a frightening example of how the state is tightening its grip around the free Internet, it has emerged that You Tube is complying with thousands of requests from governments to censor and remove videos that show protests and other examples of citizens simply asserting their rights, while also deleting search terms by government mandate.
The latest example is You Tube’s compliance with a request from the British government to censor footage of the British Constitution Group’s Lawful Rebellion protest, during which they attempted to civilly arrest Judge Michael Peake at Birkenhead county court.
Peake was ruling on a case involving Roger Hayes, former member of UKIP, who has refused to pay council tax, both as a protest against the government’s treasonous activities in sacrificing Britain to globalist interests and as a result of Hayes clearly proving that council tax is illegal.
Hayes has embarked on an effort to legally prove that the enforced collection of council tax by government is unlawful because no contract has been agreed between the individual and the state. His argument is based on the sound legal principle that just like the council, Hayes can represent himself as a third party in court and that “Roger Hayes” is a corporation and must be treated as one in the eyes of the law.
The British government doesn’t want this kind of information going viral in the public domain because it is scared stiff (more…)
26th May2011
Apple Seals Streaming Music Deals With Sony and Warner
Fresh on the heels of a report that Apple has sealed a deal with EMI Music Group, Bloomberg reported Thursday night that the company has also inked an agreement with Sony Music and Warner Music.
Citing sources “with knowledge of the deals,” the report said that the agreements give Apple a green light to move forward with a music service that lets users store content on Apple’s servers and access it from the Web.
Unlike the music services from Google and Amazon, Apple customers won’t have to upload their music to the cloud.
The company is also said to be close to finishing a deal with the largest music label, Universal Music Group, and the report speculates Apple may be able to unveil the service at its Worldwide Developers Conference in June.
25th May2011
Did Amazon Overstep With Its 99-Cent Lady Gaga Album Promotion?
By designating Lady Gaga’s hotly anticipated album “Born This Way” as Monday’s “MP3 Daily Deal,” Amazon appears to be have gambled that the cost of selling the album at far below wholesale price will be worth the value of drawing additional customer traffic to promote its Cloud Drive and Cloud Player.
The promotion is sparking plenty of attention all right — but much of it for the wrong reasons, as customers vent their anger over difficulties in downloading the album.
As is the case with every purchase at its MP3 store, buyers of “Born This Way” were given the option of downloading the album to their Cloud Drive or to their computer.
And on its music home page, Amazon reminded customers that their purchase of the “Born This Way” album download would qualify them for a free upgrade to 20 mb of Cloud Drive storage, which normally costs $20 a year. The same offer applies to a customer’s first purchase of any Amazon MP3 album from March 28 to Dec. 31, 2011.
But heavy demand for “Born This Way” created congestion at the MP3 store, greatly slowing the downloading process for some customers. One Billboard staffer required about 80 minutes to download the entire album to his computer Monday morning Eastern time. However, another staffer who purchased the album in the early afternoon via the Amazon MP3 app on his Android handset experienced no delays downloading all the tracks to his Cloud Drive account and to his handset; several customers commented on Amazon.com that they’d had no problems downloading the (more…)
15th Apr2011
Music Industry Will Force Licenses on Amazon Cloud Player — or Else
Amazon’s decision to launch its new Cloud Player without securing additional music licenses has been described as a “bold move” by many observers. It takes serious guts for Amazon to simply declare that it doesn’t need licenses — especially when even casual observers know the music industry thinks otherwise.
Still, this isn’t a one-dimensional issue, and the law has yet to deal much with services like Amazon’s. Record companies fantasize about huge revenues from streaming services, and they fear digital lockers like the plague.
If the record labels don’t come to a licensing agreement with Amazon soon, they will either be forced to take legal action or implicitly allow other music companies to ditch cloud licenses too.
Amazon vs. the music industry
Amazon launched two new services, Cloud Drive and Cloud Player, earlier this week. U.S. Amazon customers can get free online storage from Amazon to use for whatever they please, but users are heavily encouraged to upload their local music libraries. All Amazon MP3 purchases are automatically synced to the user’s Cloud Drive without counting against the quota, too.
Once the music is copied to the remote drive, users can then use the Cloud Player Android or Web app to stream the music to any compatible device or browser, even if the files themselves had not been synced there.
Both Apple and Google are expected to launch very similar services in the future, but neither has made an (more…)
02nd Apr2011
Amazon’s Director Of Music Talks Cloud Drive: ‘We Don’t Believe We Need Licenses’
Amazon today launched a new music-locker service called Cloud Drive, sparking a new round of analysis over the potential impact of cloud music services and upsetting a number of major labels in the process.
Amazon’s director of music Craig Pape spoke with Billboard this morning to explain the service, addressing the motivation behind the new service, its plans for the future, and why labels should not be upset that it didn’t seek new music licenses.
Billboard.biz: How long have you been working on the cloud service?
Pape: As you can imagine, it took a while to build. It definitely took more than a couple of months.
Billboard.biz: What were your motivations in launching it this way?
Pape: We’re doing this in response to customer feedback. Ever since [Amazon Music] launched 3.5 years ago, generally, across all our digital businesses, customers responded well. But they express frustration at things like, “I don’t want to shop at work because I don’t want the files stranded on my work computer,” or “I love the mobile app but the files get orphaned on my phone.” So we really felt it was important to give customers a central place to store, and (more…)
28th Feb2011
JPMorgan Raises $1.2 Billion To Invest In Twitter And Facebook
Well, that didn’t take long. JP Morgan has officially raised $1.2 billion for a digital growth fund, which will invest in late-stage tech startups.
That’s about double the amount that the fund was previously reported to be raising. It’s not clear whether the previously reported amount was wrong or whether JP Morgan raised more than they’d previously intended. Also unclear is whether that fund will invest like a late-stage venture firm/private equity fund and directly invest and take board seats, or whether they’ll invest through secondary markets.
One thing is for sure: there’s an extra billion out there for hot big tech companies.
(Via WSJ)
26th Feb2011
YouTube Wants To Spend $100 Million To Stream Movies And Beat Netflix
YouTube wants to start a subscription service of streaming movies a la Netflix and Amazon‘s new streaming service for Prime customers, the Post reports.
They’re planning to launch it first in the UK and Europe where there’s less competition and they can test it, before rolling it out internationally. YouTube has been in talks with Hollywood executives over the plan for months, and plans to spend $100 million on content. In Europe the service would compete with Lovefilm, the Netflix-like service which Amazon recently acquired; Netflix is also planning to expand to Europe.
Of course, not all studios are on board and it’s not an easy road from here to there. One studio executive mentions that Google needs to take a stronger stance against piracy. But a subscription is a pretty big shift in strategy for YouTube, which so far has made everything free and tried to make money from advertising.
04th Oct2010
Banksters Inflate Speculative Food Bubble, U.N. Offers Global Governance Solution
Wheat Prices – Source: Commodity Charts
Never let a good crisis go to waste. The international bankers are taking advantage of the “food crisis” by driving up food prices in what is shaping up to be a classic case of a manufactured bubble. It is also looking like a clear model of Problem-Reaction-Solution methodology. Create the food inflation problem (of course profiting all the way up), force an enraged reaction among the public, and take more sovereignty away with the solution of global food regulation.
Take a look at the commodity price charts for wheat and corn above. (continued below) Pay particularly close attention to what has happened since July 1st:
Corn Prices – Source: Commodity Charts
21st Sep2010
::Drop Zone:: – Diddy’s Scenes From Get Him To The Greek (Video) (Updated)
Pre Order the DVD via: Amazon ..in stores Sept. 28
03rd Mar2010
Wal-Mart Purchases Vudu Online Video Service
Cable operators, you have been warned.
If anything underscores the long-term threat to cable companies’ video service from the Internet, it is Wal-Mart Stores’ purchase of Vudu — a video-on-demand (VOD) Web service. Investors in Time Warner Cable and Comcast must hope they pay attention.
The danger isn’t immediate. Vudu is one of several digital services, including Apple’s iTunes and Amazon.com, which sell or rent movies via the Web. Watching programs from these services on a TV, while easier than it once was, remains fiddly. Vudu users need certain TV sets or Blu-Ray players with built-in Web access. Amazon requires compatible devices. Watching iTunes-acquired films on a TV requires an Apple TV box or an iPod connected to a TV. Last year, less than 5% of high-definition TVs sold had Web access, according to Macquarie.
In contrast, some two-thirds of homes with TVs are connected to either cable or phone company-delivered video, according to Nielsen. These offer regular TV channels as well as VOD. Operators like Comcast enhance VOD with free movies. No surprise then that cable VOD has gained more traction than Web services, despite its clunky interface.
(more…)
02nd Mar2010
Microsoft, Amazon strike patent licensing deal,Amazon pays Linux Tax
Amazon.com has agreed to pay Microsoft an undisclosed sum as part of a patent cross-licensing deal between the companies announced on Monday.
The agreement gives each company access to the other’s patent portfolio and covers a wide range of products and technologies, Microsoft said in a statement.
Among them, the agreement will shield Amazon from patent litigation against its Kindle e-reader, which includes some open-source software components, and against its use of Linux-based servers, Microsoft said.
Microsoft has asserted in the past that Linux and other open-source software may violate hundreds of its technology patents. The assertion angered open-source advocates, in part because Microsoft did not disclose the patents it said were being infringed.
(more…)
17th Feb2010
Freeway & Jake One’s Stimulus Package NYC Album Release Party
Last night at the Highline Ballroom, Miss Info hosted Free/Jake One’s album release party with special guests Brother Ali & Joell Ortiz (although he’s not in this clip.) Props to Mikey Fresh for the footage.
Go cop the Stimulus Package (like right now) at iTunes, Amazon, or your favorite physical retailer.
17th Dec2009
Lil Wayne's 'Rebirth' Leaked… By Amazon!!!
UPDATE: BitTerrorists Hold Lil Wayne Hostage: ‘We will leak Rebirth at 9’
Mine was delivered yesterday by the post office, and is, indeed, a copy of Rebirth.
According to sources and an e-mail to Billboard from an Amazon customer, the online merchant sent copies of the album to some customers who pre-ordered “Rebirth.” The album began arriving in mailboxes on Monday, Dec. 14, despite a change in the street date from Dec. 21 to February 1.
The release date change – the sixth time “Rebirth” was pushed to a new date – was made last month by Universal Motown, the distributing label for Cash Money, and its distributor Universal Music Group Distribution. Universal Motown and UMGD recalled the album, but roughly one million units were manufactured and about one-third were shipped to accounts when the decision was made to pull “Rebirth” from the schedule, sources say.
Props: Daily Swarm
