Bigmouth Strikes Again: Carrie Marshall's blog

Carrie’s books | Carrie’s band

Category: Technology

Shiny gadgets and clever computers

  • Google + Twitter: good for them, bad for us

    Opinions? I gots ’em! Me on Techradar:

    The problem is that far too many online services haven’t a clue how they’re going to make money, and in many cases the business plan appears to be a single sentence: “Get bought by Google”.

    Twitter arguably falls into that category, because it’s yet to find a way of generating significant income. That’s not a big problem if, like Twitter, the sites are doing something new, but if they’re competing against existing businesses then it’s bad news for the wider economy.

  • Is MP3HD the future of digital music?

    Er, probably not.

    MP3HD is a lossless format, which means it delivers a perfect digital copy of the original audio – but it manages to do it more efficiently than WAV or AIFF files, which can be massive…

    We’ve been here before. Nearly eight years ago Thomson announced a new, higher quality kind of MP3 called MP3Pro.

    Like MP3HD, it was backwards compatible, so your files would play on any MP3-supporting program or device; like MP3HD, it offered better sound quality by combining a high quality and low quality version in the same file. If your device didn’t support MP3Pro you’d get the low quality one; if it did, you’d get the high quality one. It was very clever, and with the exception of MusicMatch Radio, hardly anybody used it.

  • Maybe it’s time for the public sector to run Linux

    Me, on Techradar: GhostNet is a wake-up call. Upgrade Windows or switch to Linux.

    Compromising old Windows boxes is like stealing candy from a baby. Compromising Linux boxes is more like stealing candy from a baby that’s locked away in a subterranean vault with armed robot guards, packs of savage Rottweilers and lots of Indiana Jones-style traps. On the moon.

  • Windows 7 Starter Edition: no, no, no

    Techradar:

    Starter Edition is essentially Windows 7 with a completely arbitrary three-application limit. This restriction is “designed to ensure that users get the best possible performance” from their netbook. That’s kind, isn’t it? Why not go the whole hog and slap the Windows 7 logo on MS-DOS? That’d go like lightning!

  • Worried about privacy? Forget about Street View

    Me, on Techradar:

    Before we pay too much attention to the headlines and the soundbytes, though, we should perhaps wonder if there are more sinister invasions of privacy than a Google car taking shots in the street.

    For example, we could start with newspapers.

  • Techradar: No news is bad news, more browser battling

    New stuff on Techradar: Local news is dying – and why you should care.

    It’s not an either/or thing: knowing about the latest tech from across the pond doesn’t mean you don’t care about what’s happening in your town. But you can only care about things you know about.

    Also, I’ve updated the browser battle piece to cover the new Chrome 2 beta and the final release of Internet Explorer 8. I still think Firefox is the best everyday browser (on PC) right now, but Chrome 2 is seriously bloody quick. On slower PCs or netbooks, that’s the one I’d go for.

  • Techradar: Chrome 2 and iPhone 3

    There’s a new beta of Chrome 2. It’s fast, but there are still a few things missing.

    Also: iPhone 3.0 – it’s all about the apps.

    It helps if you remember that the iPhone isn’t really a phone. It’s a portable computer that just happens to make phone calls, an operating system that’s going to be available on 30 million devices.

    What’s important isn’t what Apple is adding for end users, but what it’s giving developers. With version 3.0, they’ve just been given a whole bunch of new toys to play with

  • Techradar: who’s Google’s butler?

    It’s all going a bit Batman. Who’s going to keep Google on the straight and narrow?

    We’re not suggesting that Google’s founders dress up like animals and beat up bad guys in their spare time, although if they do then we’d love to see the evidence. But online, Google is developing superpowers – and sooner or later, those powers will turn Google to the dark side.

  • Techradar: Browsers, browsers, browsers

    A whole bunch of browser-related things up on Techradar today. First of all: Come in Internet Explorer, your time is up:

    Imagine if the browser wars were a horse race. Safari’s owner is a bit up himself, but the horse is young, sleek and hungry. Chrome is probably still a little bit too young, but he’s fast and full of potential. Firefox turns up late as always, but it’s the bookies’ and the public’s favourite. And Internet Explorer is a donkey.

    It’s the result of two lots of tests, one of which compared Safari, Firefox, Chrome and IE on a reasonably well-specced PC, and one which looked at Netbooks (sorry, I meant to update the link days ago). Internet Explorer did badly in both of them:

    If browsers were cars, it seems that Safari would be a Bugatti Veyron while Internet Explorer would be a knackered old Austin Allegro. Towing a caravan. On fire.

  • PRS versus YouTube: what PRS For Music is telling its members

    This was posted on Jockrock by Commander Keen. I haven’t seen the original.

    Dear Member

    You may have read the news stories this week about Google blocking access to ‘premium’ video content on YouTube in the UK as a result of their not agreeing a new licence with PRS for Music. Premium content appears to refer to music videos that are traditionally uploaded by record companies.

    You may also have read that Google took this decision unilaterally, without any request from us to do so. Their licence with us had expired at the end of December 2008 and we were negotiating their new one. We do not usually ask anyone to remove content as long as good faith negotiations are taking place.

    Immediately we heard news of Google’s decision to pull content from YouTube, and that they were talking to the press about it, we issued our own press statement. We expressed our outrage, shock and disappointment on behalf of UK consumers and on behalf of you, our members that Google should take this action.

    Google’s decision must be seen as an attempt to influence commercial negotiation and the focus on ‘premium’ content as an attempt to cause disruption within the music industry again. This content may account for about 1% of YouTube music streams.

    At the heart of Google’s precipitous action is the going rate for music. This is the rate set by the UK Copyright Tribunal in 2007. The Tribunal is the ultimate and independent arbiter of copyright dispute. Digital service providers pay a fraction of a penny per stream to the creator of the music.

    Most of the major digital service providers are licensed by PRS for Music. And just recently we have signed deals with Amazon, Beatport, Nokia Comes With Music and Qtrax.

    YouTube has signed-up to licences in very few countries around the world – we were one of the few. They have never before taken down content unless they have been forced to do so by copyright holders. Meanwhile, in the UK, consumer streams of YouTube ‘premium’ content have risen by almost 300% in the last year alone (up from 75m streams a quarter to nearly 300m streams a quarter). In total, Google want to pay 50% less than they paid before for that usage. Google think they paid too much last time. But their music usage, charged at the going rate, suggests they were significantly underpaying.

    A further delay to our negotiation has been that Google is, at present, not giving us the data we need to calculate correct royalty payments to you. We ask them to make returns on their music use in the same way that every other major licensee does in order that we can properly analyse it, charge the right fee and then pay the copyright owners we represent. If there’s a stream of a track we don’t control, Google won’t pay us for that stream. Google would like to see our database in order to match it against theirs so they can calculate how much they owe us.

    We look forward to continuing our negotiations with Google where we will be looking for them to pay an appropriate amount for the volume of music they use and the contribution that songwriters make to the success of their service.

    In the meantime, please help us to help you. There are numerous Internet blogs hosting discussions on songwriter royalties. All too often, the voice of the composer and songwriter is lost in the midst of issues relating to the freedom of the Internet. Many blog posters misunderstand how royalties work and how you get paid. We should not forget that more than 90% of PRS for Music members receive less than £5,000 per year in royalties.

    Wherever possible, please contribute fully to this online debate, putting the composer and songwriter point of view. Additionally, if you feel you could give your time, where needed, to talk or write to the media in support of PRS for Music and of the composer/songwriter community, please email us.

    With best wishes

    Steve Porter, Chief Executive, PRS for Music