News written by Rich Fiscus (November, 2008)

Last year a Minnesota woman became the first person ever to lose a P2P copyright infringement case to the RIAA. It was initially heralded as a victory for the RIAA's argument that simply offering files for download violated copyright holders' exclusive rights. But after Thomas appealed the decision she was granted a new trial based on the judge's determination that the RIAA's legal theory was directly contradicted by everything from legislative intent to prior caselaw. But instead of getting her day in court she's once again fighting for her new trial as the RIAA looks to appeal her appeal.

Confused yet? Well that's probably the point. In fact, like much of what RIAA lawyers claim, their justification for appealing the decision doesn't seem to have much in common with the facts. It goes something like this.

The entire "making available" claim is based on a number of cases involving secondary infringement. In each of those cases the defendant was a third party who contributed to someone else's copyright infringement. In setting aside the original judgement and ordering a new trial Judge Michael J. Davis said as much.

Sandisk has added a new model to their Sansa Clip line of MP3 players. This new addition features 8GB of storage and will have a MSRP of $99.99. It joins existing models with 2GB and 4GB capacity which retail for $39.99 and $59.99 respectively.

The Sansa Clip is a line of small flash-based music portable music players. It's small enough to fit in the palm of your hand. It weights less than an ounce and is designed to be clipped to clothing, a backpack, or a purse.

Audio formats supported include MP3, WMA, and WAV. They also feature a built in voice recorder and FM tuner.

Nokia Vietnam is being sued by that country's equivalent of the RIAA, the Recording Industry Assotiation of Vietnam (RIAV) over downloads they're offering to mobile phone owners as part of a promotion.

The case is somewhat strange since the songs in question are being provided to Nokia by another company, FPT Telecom. What makes it odd is that the RIAV doesn't seem to be going after FPT Telecom for selling the music to Nokia.

“We want to directly solve the case with Nokia. As a matter of fact, we will independently work with FPT Online about another matter,” said RIAV’s Vice Chairwoman, Truong Thi Thu Dung.

Perhaps it's simply a question of going after the company with the deepest pockets. Or maybe it's because they're already suing FPT Telecom over content on their IPTV service and want to maximize the damages for each.

And maybe they just don't expect to get their money from FPT, who Dung has described as “uncooperative.”

The results of a study from ABI Research on the affects of age on technology use show an interesting, and perhaps somewhat unexpected trend. It's no shock to find that people age 65 and older are less likely to use things like Video on Demand (VOD) or game consoles than those between 18 and 25. What may surprise you is that people in the older demographic may be just as likely to adopt new technology once they try it out.

For example, the study found that although only 35% of people age 65 or higher have used VOD, compared to double that number between the ages of 25 and 29, in both cases those who use it once typically continue to use it at least once a month afterward.

The results for console use were even more surprising. While market penetration in the 18-25 demographic saw no growth over the last year, for those 65 and older there was a 200% increase. This may explain the trend toward increased gaming related sales offsetting falling home video revenue.

But there are still some technologies that don't show any signs of appealing to the older crowd. Video downloads, while popular with very young people, isn't showing any signs of popularity with even middle aged consumers.

Perhaps the biggest loss in the transition from physical media to downloaded music is the extras packaged with CDs. Just as the transition from records to cassette tapes and CDs meant the end of some types of content that didn't work in the smaller medium, the movement to CD means the elimination of much of it entirely. Some people who miss this extra content would like to see someone find a replacement.

The band Fall Out Boy and their label, Island Records, think they've come up with something that fits the bill. They've updated the idea of liner notes and produced an iPhone application that will be offered through the iTunes App Store prior to the release of their new album, "Folie a Deux," due to be available on December 16.

The application will include a web-like interface that provides interactive liner notes including photos and lyrics from the upcoming album as well as past releases. And of course there will also be links to buy their music from iTunes. The band will also be able to provide future updates like social networking features to keep fans in touch with the band and even help them find each other via the iPhone 3G's built in GPS.

As popular as the iPhone has been, one important feature that has been missing is the ability to share its mobile internet connection with a computer. Reports from the Web 2.0 Summit seem to indicate that's about to change. Several sources are reporting that AT&T Mobility CEO Ralph De La Vega told tech columnist Michael Arrington an official method for tethering the iPhone to a computer to act as a modem is on the way.

In July an application called NetShare was added to the iTunes App Store for tethering an iPhone to a computer via a wireless network connection. Within hours it mysteriously disappeared. Although there was no official explanation from Apple, it was most likely removed to keep AT&T customers from using it. Although there are other phones that can already be tethered to use as modems, doing so without a separate data plan for your computer violates AT&T's Terms of Service.

Specifically, the TOS state "plans(unless specifically designated for tethering usage) cannot be used for any applications that tether the device (through use of, including without limitation, connection kits, other phone/PDA-to computer accessories, Bluetooth or any other wireless technology) to Personal Computers (including without limitation, laptops), or other equipment for any purpose."

The Xiph.Org Foundation has just announced the release of Theora 1.0. Theora is an open source video codec designed to be a royalty free alternative to high compression formats like MPEG-4.

Theora is based on the proprietary VP3 codec developed by On2 Technologies, but is licensed under a BSD-style license. This means it doesn't have any of the common open source restrictions on commercial software like forcing derivative works to also be released under as open source.

Even though the format itself has been unchanged since 2004, as the first official stable release Theora 1.0 is still a major milestone. In order to attract the interest of commercial software and especially hardware developers stability, or at least the perception of stability, is an important consideration.

Another aspect of Theora its developers hope will be significant is its relatively low CPU footprint. That makes it particularly suitable for mobile devices like smartphones and portable media players.

If the state of the economy isn't keeping you from making consumer electronics purchases you may want to find out if there's a Circuit City closing nearby. On Wednesday the company announced store closing sales at 154 locations.

“Merchandise will be marked down to sell fast. Everything must go,” said Stephen Miller, Principal and Managing Director, Gordon Brothers Group. “The timing couldn’t be better for consumers. We don’t expect this sale to last very long.”

Michael Keefe, President and CEO, Hilco Merchant Resources, said, “This sale comes at a perfect time for everyone to enjoy large savings on many of their holiday gift purchases. Consumers who arrive at the start of the sale will certainly have the best selection of products from which to choose and will find great values on everything in the store.” Both Gordon Brothers and Hilco were brought in to help oversee the store closings.

All sales at the 154 stores being closed are final on items purchased during the store closing event, but normal refund policies will apply to merchandise purchased prior to the sale commencement date. Circuit City gift cards purchased prior to the sale commencement date will be honored, but no gift cards will be sold at the 154 closing stores. Cash and all major credit cards will be accepted but not checks.

One of the big advantages to IPTV is the capability to use what are traditionally thought of as computer applications. AT&T has added a new service to their U-verse IPTV offering that does just that. It's called Weather On Demand and gives U-verse subscribers access to customized information from AccuWeather.com.

“Weather On Demand is another great example of the benefits of U-verse TV and our Internet Protocol (IP) platform,” said G.W. Shaw, AT&T executive director of U-verse marketing. “We’re making it easy for customers to check weather conditions and forecasts in their hometown or across the country, whenever they want. We know that AccuWeather.com’s content will be a great resource for our U-verse TV customers who want up-to-date and accurate weather information.”

Weather On Demand is accessed by tuning to a channel that has features similar to weather-related web pages. You can select a city and find out the current conditions, get a short or long term forecast, and even watch radar maps.

It's currently only being offered to subscribers in Atlanta, Austin, Dallas-Fort Worth, Indianapolis and San Diego, but will eventually become a standard feature for all U-verse customers.

Sonos, maker of networked music players, has introduced a free iPhone application for controlling their multiroom audio system. It allows the iPhone to emulate a proprietary remote, the Sonos CR100 Controller, which sells for $399.

The Sonos MultiRoom Music System can be used to play music from any networked computer in your house. It also interfaces directly with several music download and subscription services, as well as recently introduced support for free internet radio services.

Even though it seems you no longer need the remote, it appears that you'll still have to buy one with each ZonePlayer. Both the ZonePlayer90, which outputs a line level signal to feed other audio equipment, and the ZonePlayer120, outputting directly to speakers, are only sold with the controller. They cost $349 and $499 respectively.

Perhaps more interesting than the ability to control Sonos systems is the idea of programming smartphones to be advanced remotes. Arguably one of the biggest problems various mobile computing products, from PDAs to ultra mobile PCs, have had is their inability to perform tasks normally associated with desktops or laptops.