p2pnet World Headlines â Sept 22, 2009
Republicans to Push Against Net Neutrality; FCC Says Start of Process Washington Post
Senate Republicans moved Monday afternoon to prevent the FCC’s proposed rules on net neutrality with an amendment to the Interior Appropriations bill that would tie up funding at the agency for new regulatory mandates. Observers said, however, that the move was unlikely to be approved in the Democrat-majority Congress. Senator Kay Bailey Hutchison (R-Texas), ranking member of Senate Commerce, Science, and Transportation Committee, said in a release: “We must tread lightly when it comes to new regulations. Where there have been a handful of questionable actions in the past on the part of a few companies, the Commission and the marketplace have responded swiftly,” Hutchison said in the release.
Intel antitrust case: European regulators disclose confidential notes Mercury News
In the most detailed revelation yet of Intel’s alleged efforts to monopolize the microprocessor market, European regulators Monday disclosed previously confidential notes from computer company executives that suggest Intel heavily pressured them not to buy chips from its competitor, Advanced Micro Devices. The European Commission, which fined Intel $1.45 billion in May for anti-competitive practices, said the computer company documents reveal how Santa Clara-based Intel provided companies full rebates only if they avoided using chips from AMD of Sunnyvale, “as well as how Intel sought to conceal its practices.” It cited comments from a Hewlett-Packard executive’s 2004 internal e-mail warning that “you can NOT use the commercial AMD line. The risk is too high.”
AT&T and the GOP: More than $400K donated to anti-net-neutrality senators Daily Finance
Six Republican senators co-sponsoring an amendment to prevent the U.S. from enacting new broadband rules have received more than $400,000 in campaign and political-action contributions from AT&T, the telecom giant that has criticized the new FCC rules, as well as other large telecoms and cable companies. Campaign finance records compiled by the Center for Responsive Politics show that AT&T-related entities have donated some $67,300 to the campaign and political action committees of Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison, the Texas Republican and lead sponsor of the amendment to an unrelated Interior Department appropriations bill that would bar the FCC from spending money “to develop and implement new regulatory mandates.”
Cartel probe into division of Sweden’s 4G network The Local
The Swedish Competition Authority (Konkurrensverket) is looking into whether the division of the Sweden’s new 4G network by the country’s five big mobile operators may have been an attempt to exclude other players from entering the market. The partition of the network took place in November 2008 through an agreement generally referred to as a “frequency pact”. At that time, the five mobile giants involved, TeliaSonera, Telenor, Tele 2, Swefour and Three, presented an agreement regarding how Sweden’s 900 Mhz bandwidth would be divided. However, the so-called “frequency pact” has been called questionIn by operator Ventelo, which reported the arrangement made through the Swedish Post and Telecom Agency (PTS) to the EU commission in the spring of 2009. The move provoked a succession of critical questions from Brussels, leading the Swedish government to order an investigation of the pact by the Competition Authority.
Crackdown on fake software Australian IT
Microsoft has cracked down on Australians who sell counterfeit software on internet auction sites, and the investigations have resulted in settlements with 10 local sellers for copyright infringement. Earlier this year, Microsoft investigators posed as buyers interested in “high-quality counterfeit software” — including versions of Windows XP, Microsoft Office 2003 and Microsoft Office 2007 — from 10 suspected sellers on internet auction websites such as eBay and Oztion. Microsoft said the sellers were Jordan Andrews, who trades on eBay as “thebigcoos”; Nicholas Todd Courter, who trades on eBay as “hardpunter”; Rania Elbadar, who trades on Oztion as “bargain-buys4u”; Jack Koncewiczw, who trades on Oztion as “big-mucho” and “matt-coins”; Nessreen Omar, who traded on eBay as “amelia007″; Kelly Gilham, who traded as “Kellymgsheba”; Timothy Inman, who trades on eBay as “in.dvd” and “red.tech”; Matthew Stephen Anderson, who trades on eBay as “quickseller1982″; Nilesh Patel, who traded on eBay as “nileshapatel143″; and Norizan Mohamd, who trades on eBay as “unistore08″. Microsoft’s outside counsel sent a letter of demand to each of the sellers, outlining the right to claim for copyright infringement.
Seagate claims first 6Gbit/sec, 2TB SATA hard drive Computerworld
Seagate Technology LLC today started shipping a 6Gbit/sec. Serial ATA hard disk drive that offers double the throughput of Seagate’s previous high-end SATA drive. The new 2TB Barracuda XT is the first drive that meets the Serial ATA International Organization’s SATA 3.0 specifications, Seagate said. The Barracuda XT (model ST32000641AS) is a 3.5-in, 7,200-rpm desktop drive with 64MB of cache. It carries a manufacturer’s suggested retail price of $299. Initially, Seagate sees only a niche market for the drive, but it said that by 2011, it expects that SATA 3.0 motherboards will be ubiquitous and that applications will require 6Gbit/sec. bandwidth.
Age-old kids’ query in a text message: Wuz4dina? Associated Press
Teens and texting is a subject that’s often discussed in pathological terms. They’re texting in class! They’re sexting! They’re running up $5,000 bills! They need thumb therapy! But texting isn’t always bad. In some families, it’s become a primary form of communication between parents and children. In fact, one of my favorite texts from kids is the earth-shattering query “Wuz4dina? Yes, the finest technology offered by the 21st century is being used to pose the question hungry children have been asking since cavemen roasted mammoth bones over a fire: “What’s for dinner?” Psychologist Thomas W. Phelan, author of “Surviving Your Adolescents: How to Manage and Let Go of Your 13-18 Year Olds,” says one of the biggest problems with teens is getting them to communicate at all, so if they’re willing to text their parents, we should embrace the trend. “Instead of seeing the whole text thing as an enemy, see it as an ally,” Phelan said. “I’ve had parents say to me, `I can’t talk to my son very well face to face.’” But if the kid is willing to use texts as a medium, go for it. “My philosophy is, `Stay in touch.’ E-mail, cell phone or text â it makes no difference to me,” Phelan said.
Yahoo to spend $100M in bid for more brand buzz Associated Press
Yahoo will spend more than $100 million in its latest attempt to rejuvenate one of the Internet’s best-known brands. The money will be poured into a 15-month marketing campaign to begin next week. Yahoo provided a peek Tuesday at the Advertising Week blitz in New York. The ads are to run on television, online and elsewhere in the United States and nine other countries.
Beer for brain injury? Maybe Reuters
People who suffer a traumatic brain injury from a car crash or other mishap are more apt to survive if they had been drinking at the time of the injury, according to a study published Monday. The finding “raises the intriguing possibility” that giving alcohol to brain injured patients may improve outcome, the study team suggests in the Archives of Surgery. Alcohol and driving “is and will always continue to be bad — it contributes to over 40 percent of traffic-related fatalities,” first author Dr. Ali Salim of Cedars-Sinai Medical Center, Los Angeles emphasized in an email to Reuters Health. “However, of those patients with moderate to severe traumatic brain injury who survive their initial insult, those with alcohol in their system seem to have a slight survival advantage compared to those without alcohol in their system,” Salim noted.
September, 2009
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September 22nd, 2009 at 3:47 pm
“The Swedish Competition Authority (Konkurrensverket) is looking into whether the division of the Swedenâs new 4G network by the countryâs five big mobile operators may have been an attempt to exclude other players from entering the market.”
and CRTC won’t lift a finger and Competition Bureau is busy with gasoline and oil.
Time for a change.
http://www.dissolvethecrtc.ca/
September 22nd, 2009 at 6:01 pm
http://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2009/09/online-trackers-and-social-networks
This post is Part 2 of a series on user tracking on the web today. You can read Part 1 here.
3rd party advertising and tracking firms are ubiquitous on the modern web. When you visit a webpage, there’s a good chance that it contains tiny images or invisible JavaScript that exists for the sole purpose of tracking and recording your browsing habits. This sort of tracking is performed by many dozens of different firms. In this post, we’re going to look at how this tracking occurs, and how it is being combined with data from accounts on social networking sites to build extensive, identified profiles of your online activity.
How 3rd parties get to see what you do on the web.
Let’s start with an example of 3rd party tracking: