[via Digg]

I desperately hope this becomes a series.

Comedy troupe The Vacationeers has a new video parodying Google Maps and its Street View feature. Shortly after the introduction of Street View, privacy concerns were raised by several groups regarding the amount of zooming and the capturing of license plate numbers, but nobody’s come close to comparing it to a formidable and mysterious opponent the likes of the smoke monster on J.J. Abrams’ Lost.

(Credit:
ZDNet)

It’s a grand idea, but it’s hard to see Microsoft or Yahoo or the combined companies pulling it off in the near term. All the mobile device companies are learning from the iPhone, and will eventually come up with similar functionality. But duplicating the fit and finish of a Steve Jobs device will take way more than combining a reinvented Windows Mobile-Silverlight software, a redefined
Zune, and Yahoo and Microsoft services.

Jason posits that a Y!Phone priced at less than $300 with carrier incentives “could be the device that everyone truly wants.” However, he also points out that a winning product would need more “sex appeal” than the current 3G Windows Mobile phones. Most importantly, the Windows Mobile interface needs to be completely revamped to take on the iPhone and whatever the Google/open-source Android sect develops.

Jason Perlow has come up with a suggestion for Microhoo–a Windows Mobile-based “Y!Phone” mated with a Wi-Fi-enabled Zune and some combination of Yahoo and MSN online services. Of course, it would also include a camera, a 3G wireless service and, as a differentiator from the
iPhone, an integrated slide-out keyboard and support for Microsoft applications.

The SpursEngine can deliver up to 48 GFlops (billion Floating point operations per second) or 12GFlops per processing element. Every element has 256KB of integrated memory, according to Toshiba. And the processor excels at high-definition video encoding and decoding of MPEG-2 and H.264 (MPEG-4) streams.

The four processing elements inside the chip have a clock frequency of 1.5GHz, while boasting a relatively low power envelope of 10 to 20 watts. Typical mobile Intel processors have a power envelope of 35 watts.

The “Quad-Core HD Processor” used in the Qosmio G55–due mid-July–is based on the SpursEngine which is derived from the Cell Broadband Engine, a multicore chip architecture jointly developed by IBM, Sony, and Toshiba. The Cell architecture, in turn, is derived from IBM’s Power Architecture. Today, IBM uses the Cell processor in a line of blade servers.

Toshiba’s 18.4-inch Qosmio G55 laptop uses a quad-core processor–but not the Intel or AMD variety.

(Update: the Qosmio G55’s main processor is an Intel Core 2 Duo–it will be offered with a “Montevina” Centrino 2 processor
–while the graphics chip is an Nvidia GeForce 9600M GT. The SpursEngine is a co-processor that accelerates certain multimedia tasks.)

And this is what Toshiba says about a “Face Navigation” feature. “Find that face–or that unforgettable scene in home movies and Hollywood films…The new Toshiba Face Navigation feature captures facial expressions so you can quickly locate the part of the video you want to see.”

Toshiba SpursEngine processor is offered with the Qosmio G55 laptop

(Credit:
Toshiba)

Click photo for gallery on Toshiba's new notebook lineup.

Toshiba is touting other uses too. The processor allows the user to pause, fast-forward, and rewind a movie “just by moving your hands.” Toshiba calls it “gesture control.”

(Credit:
Toshiba)

As discussed in an earlier CNET Crave post, Toshiba is touting the Cell processor’s special features. The Japanese company says that the processor achieves what many high-end graphics processing units (GPUs) from the likes of Nvidia and AMD now feature: transcoding acceleration. Transcoding, or converting–movies, for example–from one format to another, can be extremely time consuming, sometimes taking hours.

Nikon has released a firmware update to its D40 6MP DSLR. The firmware update, v1.11, is a minor update that corrects an issue where shooting times were not always accurately recorded within the image data for images captured in bursts of continuous shooting.

We generally recommend installing the latest firmware updates for your camera, so you can get the most out of your gear. For more information on firmware updates for a specific camera, visit the manufacturer’s Web site. Before installing any firmware upgrade, always take the time to read through all of the documentation and follow the manufacturer’s instructions carefully.

Facebook is not included in the lawsuit.

A Blockbuster representative told MediaPost that adequate privacy protections are in place and that Blockbuster’s legal team will “vigorously defend the company in this litigation.”

Don't want anyone to know you rented this cinematic gem? One lawsuit in Texas says it feels your pain.

In the suit, Harris claims that Blockbuster’s sharing of her movie rental history through Beacon is in direct conflict with the Videotape Privacy Protection Act. The law was passed during the viciously contested nomination of judge Robert Bork to the U.S. Supreme Court in 1987, in the midst of which writer Michael Dolan went to a video store that Bork frequented and obtained a list of 146 videotapes his family had checked out.

Correction, Sept. 23, 2009:
Michael Dolan has clarified that while he obtained and reported on Robert Bork’s household’s video rental history, he did not actually publish the list.

Cathryn Elaine Harris, a Texas resident, filed a complaint in the U.S. District Court for eastern Texas on April 9, claiming that it’s a violation of a federal statute for Blockbuster to participate in Beacon, which shares rental history on Facebook members’ “news feeds” unless they manually opt out. She is seeking class-action status, hoping to eventually net $2,500 for each infringement.

(Credit:
New Line Cinema)

As if troubled movie rental company Blockbuster didn’t have enough to deal with already: an angry Facebook user has taken issue with its participation in the social network’s controversial Beacon advertising program, and is pursuing legal action.

Now, the Bork-era law has taken on a digital dimension: Harris vs. Blockbuster, addressing Facebook’s “social advertising” program. The social network unveiled the Beacon ads in November, drawing criticism from activist groups like MoveOn.org for privacy violations until it modified the interface to allow for more user control.

We spend way too much time inside our small Silicon Valley worlds. It often feels as if I constantly see the 400 or so people that run this place, and that drive the main conversations here, it is like a high school cafeteria.

commentary

Ah, a breath of fresh air from a former Financial Times reporter:

Having said that, I agree with others that it’s easier to see what has been done and what needs to be done in the valley, where people eat/drink/sleep technology. But often this translates into Yet Another Social Network or some other me-too incremental change to another’s promising business model.

Take a field trip outside the valley. There are real people out there. They have money to spend. But they’re not going to spend it on “technology.” They, instead, simply want to solve business and personal problems. Things that technology qua technology won’t fix for them.

I loved living in the Valley. But it was a revelation to leave it and discover that technology need not be all-consuming to be profitable and fun. It’s refreshing to have neighbors bring their computer problems to me (Me!? I’m not an IT administrator by any stretch). It’s good to get a feel for lowest-common denominator technology issues. Like finding the “on” button. And learning how to use a photo sharing application.

I liked it a lot last year, I still like the life here, but increasingly I think the best advice is to get out into the real world occasionally. Yet I know plenty of people that hardly ever, except for family occasions, spend any time outside of the closeted worlds of Silicon Valley.

What do you discover outside the valley and the technology world it venerates?

That Twitter is silly and no one uses it. That the “hottest social networking sites!!!” are…not so hot. That life really doesn’t revolve around technology, which is why Microsoft, Google, and Apple are popular among the masses (because each delivers technology that doesn’t fetish itself and is instead easy to use–read: nontechnical).

Not so fast.

But according to an institutional investor advisory services source, Icahn would still likely stand a better chance just running a partial slate of dissident directors for minority representation on the board–even if Microsoft makes a public statement of a sweetened offer to buy only Yahoo’s search business.

After the Microsoft negotiations collapsed, Yahoo struck a search advertising outsourcing deal with Google. But that hasn’t impressed shareholders. Shares of Yahoo, which traded at $23.52 the day of the Google announcement, closed at $21.45 on Monday.

Meanwhile, the future of Yahoo’s CEO and co-founder, Jerry Yang, as well as a number of the company’s other directors, remains undecided. Yahoo has been stunned by a run of high-profile resignations in the last couple of weeks. And while reports surfaced about the degree of Yang’s involvement in the pending re-organization of Yahoo, the CEO has been busy making the rounds on Capitol Hill to discuss the Google agreement, as well as talking about the big G to Yahoo teams from Sunnyvale to New York about the announcement. These moves come as the company’s annual shareholders meeting on August 1 draws near.

After the termination of discussions with Microsoft less than two weeks ago, Yahoo’s board said in a statement that a sale leaving the company without an independent search business “would not be in the best interests of Yahoo stockholders.”

(Credit:
Dan Farber/CNET News.com)

“If Microsoft would make a public statement, it would make a difference to a certain extent,” said the institutional investor advisory services source. “But, unless it was official like a tender offer, or unless shareholders could see the details and specific terms of the partial offer, it’s hard for shareholders to know how it will benefit them.”

And you thought a deal between Microsoft and Yahoo was over and done with?

This source noted that a mere press release saying the offer has been increased to a certain level will have even less effect, or meaning to shareholders: “I don’t think Microsoft publicly announcing even the terms of a sweetened bid would be enough for Carl Icahn to run a full slate, or motivate shareholders to replace the whole board.”

Meanwhile, rumors of an impending Yahoo reorganization–a big one that could come as early as this week–continue to swirl.

Yahoo's Yang: On the hot seat

“When Microsoft made its offer to acquire Yahoo’s search business, Yahoo rejected the offer outright. There was no negotiating beyond the ($9 billion offer) Microsoft was offering,” the source said.

Update 10:33 a.m. PDT Tuesday: Adds details of Jerry Yang’s activities over the past week

Investors clamoring for change have pointed to the approximately 35 percent decline in Yahoo’s share price since Microsoft’s $33 per share offer to acquire all of Yahoo. Microsoft withdrew that offer in May after failing to get a “yes” from Yahoo. Shares of Yahoo are now within hailing distance of the $19 per share trading level they hovered at prior to Microsoft’s unsolicited bid in February.

(Credit:
Dan Farber/CNET News.com)

But the source noted that several of Yahoo’s nine board members, including its chairman, Roy Bostock, have since indicated a willingness to hold further discussions with Microsoft on a possible deal to sell the search operations.

The source questioned whether unrest about the stock price would force a change at the top as well. “A lot of Yahoo directors are fed up with the process of what’s been happening,” the source said.

Should Microsoft increase its buyout bid for just Yahoo’s search assets, and if the company’s investors find it appealing enough–even if Yahoo’s board does not–investor activist Carl Icahn may consider keeping with his initial game plan of running a dissident slate to win control of the board.

Microsoft has signaled that it is willing to sweeten its previous offer for a partial buyout of Yahoo’s search business, according to one major investor who has been in contact with both parties.

Neither Microsoft nor Yahoo had immediate comment.

This is by no means Google’s first effort to reach out to nonprofits. Last year, for example, Google launched an outreach program to help nonprofits take advantage of Google Earth. And Google runs a nonprofit of its own: the high-profile Google.org, which has in recent months earmarked $10 million for “sustainable transportation” development and launched a program that aims to use social-media tools for disaster relief.

(Credit:
Google)

Google for Nonprofits, a site designed to educate charities about the search giant’s suite of Web-based tools, debuted Tuesday.

But the Google for Nonprofits page also highlights special initiatives for nonprofits, like free advertising through the Google Grants program and transaction fee waivers on the Google Checkout service, along with success stories and testimonials for each Google application.

Essentially, it’s a lineup of links to Google’s various applications and tutorials for using them, but with a charitable spin. A link to YouTube is accompanied with “broadcast your cause to the world’s largest online video community.” Google Groups come with a suggestion of “communicate easily to staff or volunteers and encourage discussions among supporters.”

Over time, I suspect we’ll see established vendors creep closer to open source as a way to stave off competition. Microsoft and Oracle have already done this, to a small degree, but releasing stripped-down versions of their software for free (or cheap). Eventually they’ll realize that open source achieves wide distribution due to its permissive licensing as much as its price tag, and they’ll start to release some products (low end, most likely) as open source to hold off open-source competitors.

There’s significant strategic value in open source and weak copyright and patents, but it is almost certainly the case that the amount of benefit derives from your company’s market position. If you’re new/disruptive or old/established, you may benefit from open source. Those in the middle? It’s not as clear.

Intriguingly, open source tends to work very well for vendors at two ends of the spectrum: Disruptive newbies trying to break into a big market and established incumbents trying to hold off newbies.

On the incumbent side, however, we’ve seen a bit less of this. Martin Fink talked about open source as a way to pillage competitor’s profit margin, but this strategy is more like the disruptive newbie model than the established incumbent model.

Down in the Slashdot commentary on an excellent New Yorker article called “The Permission Problem” was this interesting comment, one that resonates with me.

The idea in the New Yorker article is that intellectual property (IP) law perhaps creates more inefficiencies than it resolves by making it too expensive to bother creating around existing IP and by making it apparently too expensive to round up IP owners to get the proper permissions. Against this argument was “Shados’” suggestion that what people really want is weak IP, not no IP:

Give your songs for free! The money is on the tour… Of course, as long as another band doesn’t do -exactly- the same songs with a bigger marketing budget (and if everyone does it, ONE of the bands who copy you will most likely be better). Also, that’s as long as the video of your show isn’t in hi definition 7.1 surround blu ray the day after it for free (or even worse, SOLD by someone else). With absolutely -zero- copyright, its a lot less powerful as a promotion tool. (Now it works because you’re only letting indiviuals step in… once corporations can rape your copyright too, things get a little grim). Oh, and without IP laws, people can rip off your name, your logo, everything, and not only sell it as free promotion to you… but make it -theirs- and use it for -themselves-.

This reminds me of Radiohead’s Thom Yorke, who commented to David Byrne that Radiohead’s decision to give away In Rainbows could only work because Radiohead has an established brand, one for which people are willing to pay:

commentary

On the “newbie” front, I see this every day. Open source provides an amazingly efficient way to reach new customers and new markets that proprietary software struggles to achieve. When I can close six-figure deals in 60 days without boarding a plane and with a relatively junior sales staff, I’m going to prove a significant burr in the side of my established competitors.

The only reason we could even get away with this, the only reason anyone even gives a xxxx, is the fact that we’ve gone through the whole mill of the business in the first place.

(Credit:
YouTube)

“The second (big media companies) say yes to profiting from those clips this way, it will make it hard for them to argue that ISPs should be forced to screen for unauthorized material. It’s hard to make that argument when you’re re being compensated.”

Google has always said that most of the smart media companies choose not to war with YouTube. They are clasping hands with the Web’s No.1 video-sharing site and using it to promote shows and generate ad revenue.

“It’s clear to our (more than 300) Video ID partners that our technology has created a framework that allows copyright holders to sanction the creativity of their biggest fans,” Google said. “These partners now have a new way to successfully distribute and market their content online.”

I just got off the phone with Fred von Lohmann at the Electronic Frontier Foundation, who chuckled when he heard about the debate.

Instead of just pulling down pirated clips, copyright owners are choosing to use YouTube’s copyright filters to generate advertising revenue, Google said Wednesday.

But here’s the juiciest part of this story. Profiting from pirated videos can shove copyright owners smack into a moral dilemma. A source at a large media company told me recently that executives there were debating that exact question. Several start-ups are working on technology that will track unauthorized videos wherever they exist on the Web and then insert an advertisement into the clips.

Google said on its blog Wednesday that copyright owners were choosing to turn a buck from unauthorized clips 90 percent of the time.

These statistics can obviously be used to counter arguments that YouTube costs copyright owners money. Viacom filed a $1 billion lawsuit against Google and YouTube for allegedly encouraging users to commit copyright infringement.

The EFF’s von Lohman also brought up another interesting scenario. If someone uses, say for example, a piece of Prince’s music to criticize the musician–which would fall under fair use–von Lohmann wonders whether Prince would be paid for such a use?

“There would be a question about whether that would be appropriate,” von Lohmann said.