Secret EU Open Source Migration Study Leaked Slashdot
“For 4 years MEP Marco Cappato tried to get access to the EU Council’s 2005 open source migration study because he is a member of a responsible IT oversight committee in the European Parliament. His repeated requests for access were denied. Now they have finally been answered because the Council’s study has escaped into the wild (PDF in French and English). Here is a quick look. It is embarrassing!

Content Industry Still Seeks Digital Model As Enforcement Focus Persists ip-watch
In the continued absence of a new model that adequately includes them, major global media groups remain concerned over revenues lost to unauthorised file-sharing decades after the arrival of the internet, and their focus is still on enforcement and extension of their rights…. There likely will be a significant increase in public funding in the United States for IP enforcement, a content industry source told a recent gathering of US and European rights holders, academics, governmental and intergovernmental officials, adding that industry is helping to draft legislation to increase enforcement in border agreements.

Hulu Questions Count of Its Audience New York Times
Does Hulu, the Web`s most popular place for TV viewing, reach nine million people a month or 42 million? Millions of dollars in advertising revenue may hinge on the answer. But no one seems to know for sure how big the site`s audience is. Any way the streams of shows like Fringe and 30 Rock are counted, it is clear that Hulu`s growth has been explosive, up 490 percent year over year, according to Nielsen Online. Hulu executives, however, are fretting that the company, one of the leading purveyors of ratings data, is undercounting the site`s visitors. They say Nielsen`s numbers hurt Hulu`s perception among advertisers and the press. While Nielsen reported 8.9 million visitors to Hulu in March, another measurement firm, comScore, counted 42 million. Exacerbating the confusion, Nielsen`s numbers for April show Hulu losing audience while still managing to add video views, also known as streams. The wildly divergent numbers demonstrate the nascency of the market for online video measurement. It`s still the wild wild West, said Rob Davis, a leader of the interactive video practice at OgilvyInteractive.

Obama opposes release of torture photos Reporters Without Borders
In April, the Obama administration told a judge it would not oppose an order to release the photos in response to the ACLU`s lawsuit. However, President Obama took back his promise on Wednesday and claimed that publication of these photos would not add any additional benefit to the public`s understanding of the story. [Comment: additional related news:] President Barack Obama will restart Bush-era military tribunals for a small number of Guantanamo detainees. http://www.thestar.com/news/world/article/634674

HP Recalls 70,000 Batteries . Apparently Too Hot To Handle The IT Nerd
HP has recalled 70,000 notebook batteries after two caught fire recently. So if you own a HP Pavilion, Compaq Presario, HP or HP/Compaq notebook, you may want to visit the Consumer Product Saftey Comission website to see if your model is affected by this recall.

Rogers Screws High Speed Internet Customers By Charging For Flickr Pro . WTF? [UPDATED x2] The IT Nerd
If you`re on Rogers High Speed Internet and you like to use the free Flickr Pro service that they provide, you can expect an e-mail like this one in your inbox shortly …

Movie Screening Phone Bans Reach Ridiculous Levels TechDirt
Valleywag points out that Time Warner entertainment critic was stopped from watching a Warner Bros. (yes, owned by Time Warner…) screening, because he refused to give up his iPhone. Yes, the same iPhone that does not have a video recording function.

T-Mobile Germany Tries The Jedi Mind Trick With Mobile Skype TechDirt
… It also says it’s not actively blocking any voice apps, although when it begins selling the Nokia N97 smartphone later this year, the Skype application that’s normally pre-installed on the device will be stripped out. T-Mobile’s justification for removing the app is great: it’s not because they don’t want people undermining voice revenues by using Skype, but because “by not putting Skype on, subscribers could choose from a number of VoIP apps, and not be limited to just one.”

Angry Canadians can give Fox the heave ho Quebecor
Some Canadian viewers still steamed over the Canadian military being trashed on a Fox News show two months ago will be able to exact a little revenge. Shaw is allowing customers to get rid of Fox News and opt for another cable channel.

Getting iPhone Slingbox App To Work Over 3G dslreports
By late in the week AT&T was facing network neutrality attacks from all fronts, though users appear to have already found a way around crippled 3G functionality in both the Slingbox and Skype applications. Of course it requires a jailbreak, something less technologically sophisticated users aren’t going to be willing to do. Gosh, if only AT&T was cooking up their own place shifting iPhone technology that required users to sign up for their U-Verse service…[Comment: Note Jailbreaking was an offense in the Canadian conservative bill c-61 copyright reform. Telco-influence.]

(Thanks, Marc)

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May, 2009