Tendências emergentes, factos e dados reveladores da evolução dos media, cultura, economia e sociedade. Impacto social, económico e cultural da tecnologia.

Futuríveis

domingo, fevereiro 27, 2005

Progresso rápido nas desigualdades de acesso ás comunicações ?

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As some 1,700 international experts gathered in Geneva to prepare for the UN's World Summit on the Information Society (WSIS), the World Bank said in a report that telecommunications services to poor countries were growing at an explosive rate. "The digital divide is rapidly closing," the report said. "People in the developing world are getting more access at an incredible rate - far faster than they got access to new technologies in the past." Half the world's population now enjoys access to a fixed-line telephone, the report said, and 77 percent to a mobile network - surpassing a WSIS campaign goal that calls for 50 percent access by 2015. The report said there were 59 million fixed-line or mobile phones in Africa in 2002 - contradicting Senegalese President Abdoulaye Wade's claim at a UN news conference last year that there were more telephones in Manhattan than in all of Africa. "Unless New Yorkers and their commuter friends have 12 phones each, Africa now has many more telephones than Manhattan," the World Bank report said.
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World Bank

Mais um passo na previsivel generalização dos interfaces de voz

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IBM's ViaVoice technology is already widely used in corporate call centers and, more recently, for navigation systems in cars, where clicking buttons to scroll through complex menus would pose a safety hazard. Cox is confident that the technology will filter down to other devices, as advances in processing power make speech recognition feasible in small devices and proliferating information makes it necessary.
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Talking to your TV | CNET News.com

"Utilizações Ilegais" e Progresso Tecnológico

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Increasingly, that same tension surrounds a dazzling new generation of high-tech products and services that help people copy, customize and increase the portability of digital works, sparking a sharp legal debate: How should courts view technologies that have beneficial uses but also are heavily used for illegal acts?

Next month, the U.S. Supreme Court is scheduled to hear arguments on whether a file-sharing service named Grokster should be held liable for the millions of people around the world who use it to illegally trade music, movies and software.

The entertainment industry is asking the court to rule that even though Grokster itself does not engage in stealing files, the service is responsible because it is predominantly used for theft and has done nothing to try to stop that use.

The prospect that the court might adopt this legal reasoning is sending shudders through the technology and consumer electronics communities. Hundreds of existing products could be threatened, they say. And they fear that new products, and early funding, will die in the crib if the gear might be co-opted by people wishing to use it improperly.
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Device makers have fended off the entertainment industry before. In a case that set the legal standards that will be reviewed in the Grokster case, the movie industry sued Sony Corp. over its Betamax recorders, arguing that copying television programs violated copyright laws.

In 1984, the Supreme Court ruled that making a copy to view at another time -- or "time-shifting" -- was an acceptable personal use. More broadly, it determined that device makers could not be held responsible for illegal acts of users as long as the product was "merely capable" of substantial uses that were legal.

The decision did not stop the entertainment industry from targeting, sometimes successfully, other products, including digital audio tapes, an early MP3 player and ReplayTV, a digital television recorder that also allowed users to skip commercials and send program copies to a handful of others.

In ReplayTV's case, the company was forced to shut down rather than fight industry lawsuits, said Andrew Wolfe, who was the company's chief technology officer. He said that once the litigation started, the company could not raise additional money from venture capitalists or other investors.

"What would have happened if you applied these same standards [sought by the entertainment industry] when people were shown the first Xerox machine?" Wolfe asked.
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In one ongoing dispute, the movie industry is challenging Federal Communications Commission approval of a new feature from digital-recorder maker TiVo Inc. that allows its users to make copies of digitally enhanced television programs and transfer them to a limited number of other locations.

Attaway argues that product and service providers who base their businesses around piracy should not be able to hide behind the mantle of innovation.

"Why should device manufacturers be exempt from all possibility of litigation?" he asked.

Another source of tension will probably be copying of digital radio programs and other broadcast "streams" designed to be listened to but not downloaded.

Marks of the RIAA said his organization has told the FCC that users should be allowed to record only an entire program or stream, not cherry-pick individual songs to build their own music libraries.
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Some who are concerned about the Grokster case say no matter what the Supreme Court does, the movie studios and recording labels are ultimately fighting a losing battle by trying to bottle up new technologies.

"We are moving into a world where access to information is more democratized," said Brad Burnham, a New York venture capitalist who works with early-stage media companies. "It's too easy to move it around. Value is going to shift from the creation of content to the organization and customization of that content."


washingtonpost.com

Fascinante história sobre a génese de uma política (policy)

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Twenty-five years ago, Peter J. Ferrara was a Harvard Law School student with what he called "the craziest idea in the world." In a paper he wrote before graduating, he suggested converting the government-run Social Security program into a web of private investments.

The paper caught the eye of Edward H. Crane, a former head of the Libertarian Party who had recently started the Cato Institute, which has a stated mission of encouraging "limited government." To him, Ferrara's idea wasn't crazy at all, but a way to challenge Washington's largest and most revered social program.

With Crane's backing, the proposal by the 24-year-old Ferrara began an improbable journey from the fringes of public policy into the mainstream. Today, far from its origins in the political wilderness, the notion of creating Social Security personal accounts is at the top of President Bush's domestic agenda and stands to spark the year's biggest legislative battle.

None of this would have happened without the persistence of conservative operatives, the explosive growth of the stock market in the 1990s and the eventual adoption of the idea by big business.
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washingtonpost.com

TOP 10 'GREATEST GADGETS'

TOP 10 'GREATEST GADGETS'*

1. Apple Powerbook 100 (1991)
2. Zenith Space Command remote control (1956)
3. Sony Walkman (1979)
4. Motorola Startac (1996)
5. CDI mechanical mouse (1970)
6. Casio QV-10 digital camera (1996)
7. US Robotics Pilot 1000 (1996)
8. Diamond Multimedia Rio 300 (1998)
9. Atari 7600 (1977)
10. Tivo Series 1 (1999)
* According to Mobile PC magazine

BBC NEWS | Technology | Apple laptop is 'greatest gadget'

Onde está o crescimento - União Europeia

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The eight central European states which joined the EU last year will see 4.6% growth, the United Nations Economic Commission for Europe (UNECE) said.
In contrast, the 12 Euro zone countries will put in a "lacklustre" performance, generating growth of only 1.8%.
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BBC NEWS | Business | Newest EU members underpin growth

quinta-feira, fevereiro 24, 2005

SPIM

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A US teenager has become the first person to be arrested for the sending of unsolicited instant messages – or spim.

Anthony Greco, 18, was lured from New York to Los Angeles under the pretence of a business meeting. He was arrested upon arrival at LA airport last Wednesday.


It is alleged Greco sent 1.5 million messages advertising pornography and mortgages. According to US reports the recipients of the messages were all members of the MySpace.com online networking service.
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Silicon.com

quarta-feira, fevereiro 23, 2005

The Web Not the Death of Language

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Traditional linguists fear the internet damages our ability to articulate properly, infusing language with LOLs, dorky emoticons and the gauche sharing of personal information on blogs. But some researchers believe we have entered a new era of expression.

"Resources for the expression of informality in writing have hugely increased -- something not seen in English since the Middle Ages," said David Crystal, an author and linguistics professor at the University of Wales at Bangor. He presented at the American Academy for the Advancement of Science annual meeting in Washington, D.C., by recorded DVD when the live feed failed.

At first glance, you might not expect Crystal to get excited about IM utterances. But from behind a long silver beard and coke-bottle glasses, his excitement is clear. The internet is getting more people to write, he said, and that's a great thing.

Some believe the informality of internet-mediated communication is causing the language to deteriorate.

"The prophets of doom emerge every time a new technology influences language, of course -- they gathered when printing was introduced in the 15th century," Crystal said.

But linguists should be "exulting," he said, in the ability the internet gives us to "explore the power of the written language in a creative way."

During a seminar on language and the internet at the AAAS meeting Friday, researchers presented their findings on internet communication techniques.
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Wired News

terça-feira, fevereiro 22, 2005

O Futuro das Ideias

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France's national library has raised a "war cry" over plans by Google to put books from some of the world's great libraries on the Internet and wants to ensure the project does not lead to a domination of American ideas.

Jean-Noel Jeanneney, who heads France's national library and is a noted historian, says Google's choice of works is likely to favor Anglo-Saxon ideas and the English language.

He wants the European Union to balance this with its own program and its own Internet search engines.

"It is not a question of despising Anglo-Saxon views...It is just that in the simple act of making a choice, you impose a certain view of things," Jeanneney said Friday.

"I favor a multipolar view of the world in the 21st century," he said. "I don't want the French Revolution retold just by books chosen by the United States. The picture presented may not be less good or less bad, but it will not be ours."
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Google book plan sparks French war of words | CNET News.com

segunda-feira, fevereiro 21, 2005

The Long Tail

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All these issues were at the forefront at the recent Media Center Emerging Technology conference in Palo Alto, which really got me thinking. One concept that kept recurring was the "long tail" -- an idea that's been brewing out there for some time, and was notably explored by Wired editor-in-chief Chris Anderson back in October. The idea is that technology -- including XML feeds, recommendation engines, prospective search tools -- make it easier for consumers to find (and consume) niche content and products. So rather than a world of mass-market hits, we're living in a much broader universe in which each person's media and product consumption are tailored to his or her specific desires.

The technology "agents" making this possible are fueled by the incredible amount of data individuals generate online, whether deliberately or inadvertently. On flickr, 43Things (an Amazon.com investment) and del.icio.us, users create content and tag it with keywords. On Bloglines, people subscribe to feeds based on their interests. On Technorati, Feedster, PubSub, and more, people can create prospective searches (with keywords) that generate feed entries whenever related content pops up. There's also plenty of data generated by people's interactions with all of these tools. Needless to say, these data can be extremely valuable to advertisers who seek to reach audiences with particular interests.

I'm not advocating rummaging through the data willy-nilly, but so far all the above services are free to consumers. I think users understand the idea of trading off utility for advertising. If marketers also used the data to make ads especially relevant, that's all the better.

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ClickZ Experts on Interactive Marketing Strategies

Wired.com: Long Tail

As Montras, lugares de infecção...

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A version of the Cabir virus has turned up in two Nokia 6600s on display in a California cell phone store, in what is believed to be the first "on-the-ground" sighting of the virus in the United States.

Just how the phones were infected isn't known, but it would have been very easy, given that both were on public display in the Santa Monica, Calif., shop's window. Anyone walking past the store could have dosed the handsets via their built-in Bluetooth antennas. In announcing the infection, antivirus company F-Secure did not specify exactly when the infections were discovered.

Two sources familiar with the sighting said the phones in the window could have been spreading Cabir to passers-by; although additional instances haven't been reported.
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While instances of infected phones are still extremely rare, each serves as a warning of the day when the threat of downloading a virus on a phone is as great as it is now on personal computers, said David Sym-Smith, a senior vice president at Innopath, which recently began working to deliver a version of security specialist McAfee's software for handsets.
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Cabir mobile virus found in U.S. | CNET News.com

Radiodifusão Pessoal

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Since August, when Adam Curry, a former MTV video jockey, and David Winer, an early Web log writer, developed the podcasting technology, 3,075 podcasts have sprung up around the world, according to a Web site, Ipodder.org, that offers downloads of podcasting software.

From "Say Yum," a California couple's musings about food and music, to "Lifespring," a Christian show whose creator said he had a vision to podcast, to "Dutch Cheese and American Pie," by a Dutch citizen planning to move to the United States, these shows cover a broad variety of topics.

Podcasts are a little like reality television, a little like "Wayne's World," and are often likened to TiVo, which allows television watchers to download only the programs they want to watch and to skip advertising, for radio or blogs but spoken.

And as bloggers have influenced journalism, podcasters have the potential to transform radio. Already many radio stations, including National Public Radio and Air America, the liberal-oriented radio network, have put shows into a podcast format. And companies are seeing the possibilities for advertising; Heineken, for example, has produced a music podcast.

Inevitably, politicians are taking note, too. Donnie Fowler Jr. put out "FireWire Chats" by podcast in his bid to become chairman of the Democratic National Committee, saying Democrats had to embrace new technology if they wanted to reach a grass-roots audience.

Still, most podcasts are made by people like the two Brads, who record from basements, bedrooms or bathrooms, and devote their shows to personal passions.
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The New York Times > Technology > Tired of TiVo? Beyond Blogs? Podcasts Are Here

Tecnologia em Israel

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Israeli companies are queueing up to list in London. Today, 10 more will appear at an event in the City designed to introduce them to brokers and other advisers. They are all technology companies in areas such as software and telecommunications, and have annual sales ranging from $2m to $33m (£17.4m).
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FT.com

O Nó da Questão

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75% dos desempregados têm o ensino básico
Os indivíduos com o ensino básico representavam 75% do total de desempregados no ano de 2004, correspondente a um total de 275,1 mil pessoas e a um acréscimo de 7,7% face a 2003. Entre o último trimestre de 2003 e igual período de 2004, o número de desempregados com níveis mais baixos de educação disparou 14,5%. Os indivíduos com o ensino secundário e superior foram menos afectados, com aumentos anuais de 4,4% e 2,4%, respectivamente. O INE mostra ainda que a população empregada com o ensino básico (quase 3,75 milhões de pessoas) também foi penalizada, com uma contracção de 3,1% face a 2003. Os empregados com formação superior aumentaram 16,5% em 2004.
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Diário Económico

Erros, fugas de informação e utilização indevida

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How do they get this information? For the most part, we give it to them, though usually unwittingly, with almost every step we take. Over the past several years, with the help of increasingly sophisticated computing systems and advances in artificial intelligence, these institutions and organizations have accumulated billions of data points about American citizens, which they then share with or sell to one another and to the government. As O'Harrow notes, "personal data has become a commodity that is bought and sold essentially like sow bellies."

Why do these companies and agencies do this? For you, of course. By gathering and sharing such data, they protect you from identify theft and credit card fraud, enable marketers to offer you precisely the right products to satisfy your tastes and needs, ensure that your fellow passengers are not terrorists, locate missing children and deadbeat dads, help police catch smugglers and murderers, and generally provide a safer society. And, in fact, they really do these things.

So what's the problem? Should we care that there's no place to hide? What dangers are posed by this more convenient, more secure society? In this chilling narrative, O'Harrow identifies the risks and vividly illustrates them with powerful real-life stories.
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First, there is the simple risk of mistake
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Second, there is the risk of public disclosure.
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Third, there is the risk that government will use this information not only to ferret out terrorists, but also to suppress dissent and impose conformity.
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Finally, O'Harrow warns that such massive invasion of privacy and intrusion into our ordinary anonymity may well alter the very fabric of our society. Once we understand that our every move is being tracked, monitored, recorded and collated, will we retain our essential sense of individual autonomy and personal dignity? Can freedom flourish in such a society? Is this the long awaited coming of 1984, the Brave New World of the 21st century, or will we somehow continue business, and life, as usual?
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NO PLACE TO HIDE
Behind the Scenes of Our Emerging Surveillance Society
By Robert O' Harrow Jr. Free Press. 348 pp. $26

washingtonpost.com: They're Watching You . . .

quarta-feira, fevereiro 16, 2005

Motorola will make Skype mobile

"By making Voice over IP truly mobile and easily accessible, we can make
communications seamless for consumers as they travel throughout the
environments of their day - at work, at home, in the car, or out in the
world," said Liz Altman, vice president of business development, Motorola Mobile Devices.

"With over 68 million downloads of their client in the last 18 months, we believe Skype is a natural fit with our vision of simple and seamless connectivity for our consumer customers around the globe."


3 GSM : Motorola will make Skype mobile - UberGizmo - www.ubergizmo.com

segunda-feira, fevereiro 14, 2005

Un Grammy para un álbum distribuido exclusivamente a través de Internet

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La compositora de jazz Maria Schneider se ha llevado a su casa un Grammy por su álbum 'Concert in the Garden' sin haber vendido una sola copia en una tienda. Y es que ella lanzó su galardonado disco a través de un servicio de distribución de música 'on line' llamado ArtistShare. Ni las discográficas, ni las distribuidores, ni los minoristas tradicionales han participado en esta aventura: la grabación fue pagada mediante aportaciones voluntarias sus propios fans.

Schneider es, según cree ella misma, la primera artista que ha ganado un Grammy por un álbum distribuido sólo a través de Internet, y aseguró que otros músicos ya se habían puesto en contacto con ella para intentar experimentos similares por su cuenta.
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El Mundo

Bloggers as News Media Trophy Hunters

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With the resignation Friday of a top news executive from CNN, bloggers have laid claim to a prominent media career for the second time in five months.

In September, conservative bloggers exposed flaws in a report by Dan Rather; he subsequently announced that on March 9 he would step down as anchor of the "CBS Evening News." On Friday, after nearly two weeks of intensifying pressure on the Internet, Eason Jordan, the chief news executive at CNN, abruptly resigned after being besieged by the online community. Morever, last week liberal bloggers forced a sketchily credentialed White House reporter to quit his post.

For some bloggers - people who publish the sites known as Web logs - it was a declaration that this was just the beginning.
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The New York Times

domingo, fevereiro 13, 2005

Infecção Digital

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What's new:
A variety of consumer products--from smart phones to digital theater boxes, and from car navigation systems to home security gear--have gone digital.
Bottom line:
With that new technology comes exposure to a digital ill already the scourge of PC users: computer viruses
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[print version] Is your TV virus-proof? | CNET News.com

Parents fight school over mandatory RFID on kids

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A school in California has declared that chipping its young pupils is mandatory - and parents are furious about it.
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Michael Cantrall, parent of one of the children at Brittan Elementary, said: "Are we trying to bring them up with respect and trust, or tell them that you can't trust anyone, you are always going to be monitored and someone is always going to be watching you?", according to a report in the Associated Press.

Some parents have complained to the school authorities about the use of the tags and civil liberties groups, including the Electronic Frontier Foundation, have taken up the cause.
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Parents fight school over mandatory RFID on kids - silicon.com

Mobiles 'not media players yet'

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Mobiles are not yet ready to be all-singing, all-dancing multimedia devices which will replace portable media players, say two reports.
Despite moves to bring music download services to mobiles, people do not want to trade multimedia services with size and battery life, said Jupiter.
A separate study by Gartner has also said real-time TV broadcasts to mobiles is 'unlikely' in Europe until 2007.
Technical issues and standards must be resolved first, said the report.
Batteries already have to cope with other services that operators offer, like video playback, video messaging, megapixel cameras and games amongst others.
Bringing music download services based on the success of computer-based download services will put more demands on battery life.
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BBC NEWS | Technology | Mobiles 'not media players yet': "

sábado, fevereiro 12, 2005

You There, at the Computer: Pay Attention

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Humans specialize in distraction, especially when the task at hand requires intellectual heavy lifting. All the usual "Is it lunchtime yet?" inner voices, and external interruptions like incoming phone calls, are alive and well.

But in the era of e-mail, instant messaging, Googling, e-commerce and iTunes, potential distractions while seated at a computer are not only ever-present but very enticing. Distracting oneself used to consist of sharpening a half-dozen pencils or lighting a cigarette. Today, there is a universe of diversions to buy, hear, watch and forward, which makes focusing on a task all the more challenging.

"It's so hard, because of the incredible possibilities we have that we've never had before, such as the Internet," said John Ratey, an associate professor at Harvard Medical School who specializes in attention problems. Dr. Ratey said that in deference to those who live with clinically diagnosed attention deficit disorder, he calls this phenomenon pseudo-A.D.D.

A growing number of computer scientists and psychologists are studying the problem of diminished attention. And some are beginning to work on solutions.
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The New York Times > Technology > Circuits > You There, at the Computer: Pay Attention

Aumento da Largura de Banda SEM custos extras - compare-se com Portugal

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British Telecom has said it will double the broadband speeds of most of its home and business customers.
The increased speeds will come at no extra charge and follows a similar move by internet service provider AOL.

Many BT customers will now have download speeds of 2Mbps, although there are usage allowances of between one gigabyte and 30 gigabytes a month.

The new speeds start to come into effect on 17 February for home customers and 1 April for businesses.

"Britain is now broadband Britain," said Duncan Ingram, BT's managing director, broadband and internet services.

He added: "Ninety percent of our customers will see real increases in speed."

The changes affect home customers who use BT Broadband and BT Yahoo Broadband.

Users of BT Broadband Basic will have a speed boost to 1Mbps.
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BBC NEWS | Technology | BT boosts its broadband packages

sexta-feira, fevereiro 11, 2005

Privatização das Forças Militares Coloca Novas Questões

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With US forces increasingly overstretched, private companies are providing a record number of armed personnel in conflict zones around the world--part of a wider trend towards using private contractors to perform duties once carried out by official military units.

More than 20,000 armed personnel employed by private contractors are estimated to be operating in Iraq alone, making up the second largest foreign armed force in the country after the US.

These “private soldiers” have been operating in effect in a legal limbo, with precious few rules governing their activities. However, a handful of legal cases in the US are beginning to define the legal boundaries under which these companies can operate
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FT.com / News in depth / Iraq - US private armies march into a legal vacuum

Why Europe is ready to lift its weapon ban on China

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For the Americans, however, such a move is heresy. A China armed with weapons technologies from Europe facing American forces in the South China Sea, they argue, could forever change the post-cold war geopolitical order.
The UK plays down such fears. 'British soldiers are currently fighting side by side with their American allies,' says one Whitehall official. 'I would be astounded if that fact was brushed aside because of the replacement of an ineffective embargo by real restrictions on exports.'
Yet a recent Central Intelligence Agency assessment argues that growing links with China could eventually shift EU allegiance away from the 60-year-old transatlantic status quo: 'An EU-China alliance, though still unlikely, is no longer unthinkable.'
Despite the objections and alarm, the EU is expected to lift the embargo by midyear. Some in the Bush administration, particularly in the White House, have become resigned to the fact and have been working with the EU towards a face-saving solution.
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The EU wants to make relations with China less awkward by ending an arms embargo in place since 1989

• The EU rivals the US as China’s biggest trading partner, with two-way trade of E135bn in 2003

• The value of EU arms export licences to China was E416m in 2003, in spite of the embargo

• The EU insists lifting the arms embargo should not mean an increase of arms exports from EU member states to China

• The US worries that loopholes could allow China to obtain technology that could be used on the battlefield
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FT.com / Comment & analysis / Analysis - Why Europe is ready to lift its weapon ban on China:

PONDERING THE NEXT BIG INTERACTIVE MARKETING THING

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Blogs, social networking sites and handheld communications devices of all types are rapidly being adopted by major marketers, according to many who are gathered here for the four-day iMedia Summit.

iMedia attendees, who now consider the Internet to be a 'traditonal' interactive marketing venue, are struggling to identify emerging interactive venues that will matter in the near future.

Almost all of those here now consider the Internet a "traditional" interactive marketing medium and much of the debate in conference rooms and corridors is about what new nontraditional interactive channels will be the next big thing.

AD AGE

terça-feira, fevereiro 08, 2005

Privacy implications of the spread of digital rights management

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The working document adds that where information is exchanged over the Internet, more and more digital watermarks tags are being used to track people and their preferences--for example, when a music track is purchased online, the purchaser has to enter account information and a unique identifier. That information--identity and musical taste--is then used in some cases to target marketing campaigns.

"Electronic copyright management systems (ECMS) are being devised and offered which could lead to ubiquitous surveillance of users by digital works," according to the document. "Some ECMS are monitoring every single act of reading, listening and viewing on the Internet by individual users thereby collecting highly sensitive information about the data subject concerned."

One example of how data has been collected and then used to track individuals, the document states, relates to file swappers. File sharers have found their identities shared with record industry watchdogs as a result of information gathered by their Internet service providers.
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EU steps into digital rights debate | CNET News.com

A budget in Bush's own image

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What is striking about the five Bush budgets since he took office in 2001 is that they have fundamentally changed the way the US raises and spends money, in line with his own political philosophy.

The Bush budgets share four themes. First is the reliance on the military to solve problems, whether providing tsunami relief or fighting global terror.
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A second theme - centrepiece of the president's "management agenda" - is the increasing use of the private sector to perform government services.
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Third, the president's budgets continue to favour society's haves among older people and the middle classes rather than its have-nots.
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Fourth, the Bush budgets reflect the philosophy articulated by Dick Cheney, the vice-president, that deficits "don't matter".
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As the budget season rolls forward, the real challenge is not the detail of each line item. It is whether Americans are content with the shift towards a more indebted and militaristic society that favours the middle class and in which the levers of government are increasingly in private-sector hands.
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By Linda Bilmes
The writer, assistant secretary of commerce under Bill Clinton, teaches budgeting and public finance at the Kennedy School of Government at Harvard


FT.com

Universal and Apple sell Chinese pop online

Apple and Universal Music are expanding their range to online music consumers by selling Chinese-language pop music for the first time in North America and Europe.

More than 1,000 tracks by top Chinese artists on the books of Universal, the world's biggest record company, including Jacky Cheung, Kelly Chen, Hacken Lee and Alan Tam, will be available from Apple's iTunes stores in 15 countries, including the US, UK and Canada.
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FT.com / Industries / Media & internet - Universal and Apple sell Chinese pop online

segunda-feira, fevereiro 07, 2005

NOKIA LIFEBLOG

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Charlie Schick, directivo de Nokia, ha asegurado que "con 'Nokia Lifeblog', tu móvil recogerá y ordenará cronológicamente tus momentos mas inolvidables. Y una vez que tienes todo guardado, podrás compartir 'on line' vía 'blog' o 'e-mail' muchos de esos contenidos, ya sea desde tu ordenador o desde tu móvil", ha asegurado el directivo de Nokia.

Además, Schick ha afirmado que "todo lo que necesita un 'lifeblogger', es una cuenta de correo, con un proveedor compatible con Nokia Lifeblog", ha afirmado Schick.

El nuevo programa de Nokia no sólo organiza los elementos que almacenas en el móvil, sino que viene con una serie de funcionalidades adicionales; la posibilidad de pasar a CD o DVD un elemento y verlo en pantalla completa o el aumento de las posibilidades de compartir contenidos a través del móvil.
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el mundo.es

Vizinho Transgènico

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España se ha convertido en una potencia mundial en cultivo transgénico. En 2004 pasó a ser uno de los 14 países -la mayoría de ellos en vías de desarrollo- que en todo el mundo cuentan con más de 50.000 hectáreas dedicadas a este tipo de cultivos. Y es el único país de la Unión Europea con tierras sembradas con semillas modificadas genéticamente con fines comerciales (Alemania y Francia cuentan con hectáreas con cultivos biotecnológicos, a modo de experimento).

Sólo el año pasado el cultivo del maíz modificado genéticamente Bt creció en España un 80%, ocupando en total 58.000 hectáreas
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CincoDias.com -

quinta-feira, fevereiro 03, 2005

Esmagadora maioria dos novos empresários são mulheres

A "esmagadora maioria" dos novos empresários portugueses são mulheres, que beneficiam de algumas características pessoais que favorecem o empreendedorismo, defendeu hoje em Leiria o presidente da PME Portugal.

"Características de liderança ocupacional, motivação de equipas, objectividade ou direcção para resultados" são algumas das vantagens que as mulheres em geral têm sobre os homens, considerou Joaquim Cunha, que coordena a estratégia nacional de formação de novos empresários e de micro-empresas.

Salientando que as mulheres constituem a "grande maioria" dos candidatos à criação de novos projectos empresariais, Joaquim Cunha defende que a aposta em nichos de mercado ou capacidade de risco está a ter uma resposta surpreendente no sexo feminino.
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Diário Económico

quarta-feira, fevereiro 02, 2005

Interessante Sondagem Global - especialmente as noções de progresso

Voice of the People Survey 2004 - a unique insight into global public opinion

Gallup Voice of the People

Pirates won't stop film downloading being $977m industry

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While the MPAA announces its latest wave of action, a new report has claimed the film industry on the internet has a bright future, pirates or no pirates.

The report, Film on the Internet, from analyst house Informa Media and Telecoms has predicted the value of internet film revenues - both sales of hardcopy and digital - will increase fourfold from 2002 to 2010, reaching $3.6bn by the end of the decade.
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He added that an iTunes-style model could be a winner if translated to the online film world.

"Apple's iTunes music service is an excellent example for the film industry to follow. It is viewed as good value for money and allows users to burn content to disc. This is the type of service the public is willing to pay for and is a business model that we expect film download services to move towards, as confidence in the sector grows," he said.

The report predicts downloading will be the most successful soft format, with subscription services also making their mark, particularly in sectors such as art house and independent.
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Pirates won't stop film downloading being $977m industry - silicon.com

'Collapse', by Jared Diamond

terça-feira, fevereiro 01, 2005

Amazon's A9.com offers photographic Yellow Pages search

Tech guru pitches $100 PC

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Nicholas Negroponte, the technology guru from the MIT Media Laboratory, prowled the halls of the World Economic Forum holding the holy grail for crossing the digital divide: a mock-up of a $100 laptop computer.

The machine is intriguing because Negroponte has struck upon a remarkably simple solution for lowering the price of the most costly part of a laptop--the display--to $25 or less.

He has been a passionate advocate of using digital technology to improve the quality of life and erase economic barriers in the developing world since the early 1980s, when he took Apple II computers to Senegal with his colleague Seymour Papert.
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Tech guru pitches $100 PC | CNET News.com

Chamadas sem Operadoras ?

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Their P2P technology, which moves the intelligence from the centralized PBX down to end users' devices, eliminates the need for expensive telecoms infrastructure. The companies' roadmaps, though, take aim at mobile users, offering carriers a stark choice: ignore the technology and let it decimate their businesses, or acknowledge it and integrate it into their offerings.
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He argues that the economics of building a sustainable business case solely around voice are becoming increasingly untenable. "Already voice is becoming a weapon in the arsenal of global Internet brands. Whether it's Google or Microsoft, voice is going to become just another feature in applications aimed at some other ultimate objective, perhaps selling some premium services or generating advertising revenues -- in the same way that these same players have commoditized Webmail and storage to a certain extent."

Embed P2P in mobile phones, and the outcome could be profound -- if operators stand still. The technology will no doubt empower enterprise users and road warriors, and deliver them significant savings in roaming and long-distance charges. The choice for operators is to let any remaining revenues go to their competitors, or to adopt the services and apply them to their own networks and users.
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TheFeature :: Calling Without Cellcos