p2pnet World Headlines: Nov 20, 2009, #1
Howdy, everyone:
As I posted yesterday, I have a lot of stuff happening in the background (as well as being hit by this bug that`s going around) so from today until next week, sometime, I`ll mainly be posting headline roundups, although they`ll be interspersed with stories, if and when I can manage it.
But normal service WILL be resumed, and as soon as possible. 
If you want to help out in the meanwhile, please send submissions (anonymous or named) to p2pnet @ shaw dot ca.
Cheers! And thanks
Jon
____________
Sony Unveils Its Answer to Apple’s iTunes BusinessWeek
Sony is taking a page from Apple’s playbook (AAPL). On Nov. 19, Sony said it plans to launch an online store selling music, movies, and books as well as other downloadable applications for mobile products. Sony’s top executives didn’t specify when the Internet store, tentatively called Sony Online Service, would go live or what it would look like. But the online storefront, announced at a management strategy meeting in Tokyo, is likely to bear some similarities to Apple’s iTunes store and would be Sony’s most ambitious attempt to link its products to its own vast library of digital content. Coming up with a software strategy for Sony has been Chairman and CEO Howard Stringer’s mission since taking over in mid-2006. The adjustment hasn’t been easy. Long known for the world-class designs of its flat-screen Bravia TVs, Walkman music players, and Cybershot cameras, Sony has struggled to use software to its advantage.
Google Says It Doesn’t Want to Be a Utility New York Times
Ed Lu, the former astronaut and now program manager for advanced products at Google, wants to be clear: Google is not interested in competing with utilities. ‘We are not in the business of providing electric power,’ Mr. Lu said in a discussion this morning at the GreenBeat 2009 conference in San Mateo, Calif. The assertion came in response to a line of questioning by the conference organizer, Matt Marshall of VentureBeat, who ticked off Google’s dominance in search, online advertising, and other Internet markets â and its more recent foray into cellphone operating systems.
Depressed woman loses benefits over Facebook photos CBC
A Quebec woman on long-term sick leave is fighting to have her benefits reinstated after her employer’s insurance company cut them, she says, because of photos posted on Facebook. Nathalie Blanchard, 29, has been on leave from her job at IBM in Bromont, Que., for the last year and a half after she was diagnosed with major depression. The Eastern Townships woman was receiving monthly sick-leave benefits from Manulife, her insurance company, but the payments dried up this fall. When Blanchard called Manulife, the company said that “I’m available to work, because of Facebook,” she told CBC News this week. She said her insurance agent described several pictures Blanchard posted on the popular social networking site, including ones showing her having a good time at a Chippendales bar show, at her birthday party and on a sun holiday â evidence that she is no longer depressed, Manulife said. Blanchard said she notified Manulife that she was taking a trip, and she’s shocked the company would investigate her in such a manner and interpret her photos that way. [Cheers, Marc]
Power-guzzling TVs to be banned BBC
Energy-hungry television sets will soon be banned across California in a landmark move by state legislators to reduce energy consumption. The state will be the first in the US to impose a mandatory energy curb on TVs, an often-overlooked power drain. Supporters say the move will help save California residents more than $8bn over 10 years in energy costs. But some 25% of TVs currently on sale would not meet the minimum standards, an industry group in Virginia said.
Prince of Persia: Original Source Code Documentation [PDF] – Reddit
First they ignore you, then they laugh at you, then they fight you, then you win ~ Mahatma Gandhi
November, 2009
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http://www.businessweek.com/globalbiz/content/nov2009/gb20091119_588376.htm
Sony is taking a page from Apple’s playbook (AAPL). On Nov. 19, Sony said it plans to launch an online store selling music, movies, and books as well as other downloadable applications for mobile products. Sony’s top executives didn’t specify when the Internet store, tentatively called Sony Online Service, would go live or what it would look like. But the online storefront, announced at a management strategy meeting in Tokyo, is likely to bear some similarities to Apple’s iTunes store and would be Sony’s most ambitious attempt to link its products to its own vast library of digital content. Coming up with a software strategy for Sony has been Chairman and CEO Howard Stringer’s mission since taking over in mid-2006. The adjustment hasn’t been easy. Long known for the world-class designs of its flat-screen Bravia TVs, Walkman music players, and Cybershot cameras, Sony has struggled to use software to its advantage.
Google Says It Doesn’t Want to Be a Utility New York Times
http://bits.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/11/19/google-we-dont-want-to-be-a-utility/?partner=rss&emc=rss
Ed Lu, the former astronaut and now program manager for advanced products at Google, wants to be clear: Google is not interested in competing with utilities. ‘We are not in the business of providing electric power,’ Mr. Lu said in a discussion this morning at the GreenBeat 2009 conference in San Mateo, Calif. The assertion came in response to a line of questioning by the conference organizer, Matt Marshall of VentureBeat, who ticked off Google’s dominance in search, online advertising, and other Internet markets â and its more recent foray into cellphone operating systems.
Depressed woman loses benefits over Facebook photos CBC
http://www.cbc.ca/canada/montreal/story/2009/11/19/quebec-facebook-sick-leave-benefits.html
A Quebec woman on long-term sick leave is fighting to have her benefits reinstated after her employer’s insurance company cut them, she says, because of photos posted on Facebook. Nathalie Blanchard, 29, has been on leave from her job at IBM in Bromont, Que., for the last year and a half after she was diagnosed with major depression. The Eastern Townships woman was receiving monthly sick-leave benefits from Manulife, her insurance company, but the payments dried up this fall. When Blanchard called Manulife, the company said that “I’m available to work, because of Facebook,” she told CBC News this week. She said her insurance agent described several pictures Blanchard posted on the popular social networking site, including ones showing her having a good time at a Chippendales bar show, at her birthday party and on a sun holiday â evidence that she is no longer depressed, Manulife said. Blanchard said she notified Manulife that she was taking a trip, and she’s shocked the company would investigate her in such a manner and interpret her photos that way. [Cheers, Marc]
Power-guzzling TVs to be banned BBC
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/8367545.stm
Energy-hungry television sets will soon be banned across California in a landmark move by state legislators to reduce energy consumption. The state will be the first in the US to impose a mandatory energy curb on TVs, an often-overlooked power drain. Supporters say the move will help save California residents more than $8bn over 10 years in energy costs. But some 25% of TVs currently on sale would not meet the minimum standards, an industry group in Virginia said.
Prince of Persia: Original Source Code Documentation [PDF] – Reddit
http://jordanmechner.com/wp-content/uploads/1989/10/popsource009.pdf
November 20th, 2009 at 12:49 pm
Jon,
Are those ban proposing guys in the ‘Free America’ or are they wannabees to join our Bureaucratic ban-loving EU?
Either way,
Governor Schwarzenegger is shooting himself in the foot!
1. Taxation is better for everyone, if politicians really believe that targeting these products gives any worthwhile energy savings.
TV set taxation based on energy efficiency – unlike bans – gives Governor Schwarzenegger’s impoverished California Government income on the reduced sales, while consumers keep choice.
This also applies generally,
to CARS (with emission tax or gas tax), BUILDINGS, DISHWASHERS, LIGHT BULBS etc,
where politicians instead keep trying to define what people can or can’t use.
Politicians can use the tax money raised to fund home insulation schemes, renewable projects etc that lower energy use and emissions more than remaining product use raises them.
Also, the energy efficient products can have their sales taxes lowered.
2. Product regulation, bans or taxation, are however unwarranted:
Where there is a problem – deal with the problem!
Energy: there is no energy shortage
(given renewable/nuclear development possibilities, with set emission limits)
and consumers – not politicians – pay for energy and how they wish to use it.
It might sound great to
“Let everyone save money by only allowing energy efficient products”
However:
Inefficient products that use more energy can have performance, appearance and construction advantages
Examples (using cars, buildings, dishwashers, TV sets, light bulbs etc):
http://ceolas.net/#cc211x
For example, big plasma TV screens have image contrast and other advantages along with the bigger image sizes.
Products using more energy usually cost less, or they’d be more energy efficient already.
Depending on how much they are used, there might therefore not be any running cost savings either.
Other factors contribute to a lack of savings:
If households use less energy,
then utility companies make less money,
and will just raise electricity prices to cover their costs.
So people don’t save as much money as they thought.
Conversely,
energy efficiency in effect means cheaper energy,
so people just leave TV sets etc on more, knowing that energy bills are lower,
as also shown by Scottish and Cambridge research
http://ceolas.net/#cc214x
Either way, supposed energy – or money – savings aren’t there.
———————-
Why energy efficiency regulations are wrong,
whether you are for or against energy and emission conservation
http://ceolas.net/#cc2x
Summary
Politicians don’t object to energy efficiency as it sounds too good to be true. It is.
–The Consumer Side
Product Performance — Construction and Appearance
Price Increase — Lack of Actual Savings: Money, Energy or Emissions. Choice and Quality affected
– The Manufacturer Side
Meeting Consumer Demand — Green Technology — Green Marketing
–The Energy Side
Energy Supply — Energy Security — Cars and Oil Dependence
–The Emission Side
Buildings — Industry — Power Stations — Light Bulbs