p2pnet roundup: Oct 22, 2007
p2pnet headline roundups | Last of the day …
“Dashboard” for cellphone – Seattle Times
Ford Davidson left Microsoft about a year ago to tackle a huge problem that’s also very tiny â making small mobile-phone screens more useful to consumers. Davidson, 28, had worked in Microsoft’s Windows Mobile division, but in July 2006 he started Dashwire, a Seattle company working out of a small office in Fremont. Dashwire’s technology allows people to set up, organize and manage their cellphones over the Internet, a situation in which a person typically has access to a full screen, keyboard and mouse. In doing so, a user can sidestep the mobile phone’s limitations of small keypad and screen to easily add contacts, designate people for speed dialing and back up pictures and videos. “It’s a dashboard for a wireless phone,” he said. “We are taking the phone and mirroring it out to the Web.”
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Libraries Shun Deals to Place Books on Web – New York Times
Several major research libraries have rebuffed offers from Google and Microsoft to scan their books into computer databases, saying they are put off by restrictions these companies want to place on the new digital collections. The research libraries, including a large consortium in the Boston area, are instead signing on with the Open Content Alliance, a nonprofit effort aimed at making their materials broadly available. Libraries that agree to work with Google must agree to a set of terms, which include making the material unavailable to other commercial search services. Microsoft places a similar restriction on the books it converts to electronic form. The Open Content Alliance, by contrast, is making the material available to any search service.
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Microsoft blinks in European legal fight – Associated Press
Microsoft Corp. dropped a nearly decade-long legal battle with European regulators Monday, agreeing to key parts of an antitrust ruling that has already led to hundreds of millions in fines. The world’s largest software company will slash the royalty fees it charges rivals for critical interoperability information needed to make programs that work smoothly with Microsoft’s ubiquitous Windows. It will broaden access for open source developers that the EU said are now “virtually the only alternative for users.” Microsoft said it would not appeal a EU Court of First Instance decision on Sept. 17 that turned down its challenge to a 2004 European Commission order three years ago that found it guilty of monopoly abuse.
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Don’t have a cow if you can get the milk for free – Valleywag
Simon Dumenco at AdAge slams Arianna Huffington’s Huffington Post a second time for not paying their bloggers. But for most of Huffington Post’s celebrity contributors, a blogger’s paycheck wouldn’t be worth the time it would take to cash it. HuffPo seems to be doing all right, which means the real compensation for a post there is the kind of in-crowd recognition that can’t be bought.
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Police worker ran brothel from apartment – The Local
An IT expert who resigned last week from the Swedish Police Service is suspected of having used his home as a brothel. At least one prostitute is thought to have regularly received customers in the man’s Stockholm apartment, Metro reports. In addition to pimping, he his also under suspicion for breaches of child pornography laws.
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Abuse fight targets social sites – BBC
Social networking sites are being urged to do more to protect young people. The Child Exploitation and Online Protection centre (CEOP) wants the sites to install its “report abuse” button that connects people to police. CEOP research shows some sex offenders are starting to use social network sites, such as MySpace, Bebo and Facebook, to seek out victims.
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