News written by Rich Fiscus (August, 2008)

If you're in the US it's hopefully no surprise to you that most analog TV signals will be turned off on February 17, 2009. Unfortunately the government has done a particularly poor job of educating the public about what (if anything) needs to be done to prepare.

Fortunately the information you need is easier to understand than you might expect. Our new guide, Preparing for the US DTV Transition, should answer most of them. It will walk you through everything you need to know to determine whether you're ready or not. If there are steps you need to take it will also explain them to you.

Whatever you do, don't wait until the last minute to prepare. If you wait too long you may suddenly find that you need a converter box or antenna that isn't in stock at your local retailer. In order to make sure you can watch TV with no interruption you should act as soon as possible. There are fewer than 200 days left.

Ray Beckerman, the high profile defense attorney who has spent countless hours battling RIAA lawyers in New York, has recently posted some advice to other defense attorneys on his blog, Recording Industry vs. The People. In light of the recent trend of judicial skepticism about RIAA claims he suggests that a good offense may be the best defense right now.

In particular the RIAA has been spending a lot of time defending their "making available" argument, where they claim that simply sharing files is enough to qualify as copyright infringement. MediaSentry, the firm that finds alleged copyright infringers for them and gathers the information used to get initial subpoenas is also under fire.

With all that in mind Mr. Beckerman is doing his best to help put together an effective strategy against the RIAA. In his August 12 blog post he said "this would be an excellent time to take MediaSentry's deposition, and find out where the truth lies."

Lite-On Technology Corporation, makers of numberous products both for their own Lite-On brand and various OEMs, is working on developing new networked audio products. The new audio products will use technology from BridgeCo, a company that specializes in products to connect consumer electronics to computer networks.

"BridgeCo's deep market knowledge and their extensive product testing, combined with the most extensive feature set available and the ease of enhancement, is allowing Lite-On Tech to confidently develop multiple and differentiated products for customers using JukeBlox," said Frank Lee, Vice President of Network Access Business Unit at Lite-On Tech.

JukeBlox is Linux-based, and includes standard functionality like an AM/FM tuner and alarm clock. It also supports both Pandora and Rhapsody. It features Ethernet, Wi-Fi, USB, and UPnP support for connections to individual computers or entire home networks.

CEA, the Consumer Electronics Association, is putting together a group to consider establishing industry standards for portable devices ranging from MP3 players to GPS units. The group will be leading a discussion at the CEA Industry Forum in October.

The primary purpose of such standards would be to ensure products from cars to home stereos could be have support for a variety of devices without the manufacturer needing to work individually with vendors of different gadgets.

Brian Markwalter, CEA vice president, Technology and Standards said "In many cases consumers would like to attach these devices to other CE products to enhance their experiences. CEA wants to explore whether industry technical standards might enable more robust connectivity between portable devices and other products, and whether such connectivity might help to grow consumers' interest in such products."

One potential problem for such a plan would be the dominance of the Portable Media Player (PMP) market by Apple's iPod. Apple has traditionally resisted the idea of using any standards besides their own, which enables them more control over third party support for their hardware. As the industry leader they're not likely to see open standards as an advantage.

Cable television providers and consumer electronics companies have been busy planning for a future where TVs and DVRs can not only decrypt cable signals using CableCARD, but also use Tru2Way to add support for features like Video On Demand (VOD). Meanwhile other companies whose interests lie in alternate transmission formats like IPTV are working behind the scenes to get regulations that would require an IP (Internet Protocol) interface as a mandatory feature for cable boxes.

Unlike much of the world, where cable television just uses another variant of the DVB standard, digital cable in the US is based on a standard called QAM, which is unrelated to either ATSC Over The Air (OTA) or DVB-S satellite formats. The interest by companies like Sony and Panasonic in making all-in-one devices that don't require a cable box has made both Intel and Verizon nervous enough to ask the FCC to look into regulations that would require some type of ethernet interface in the cable system.

Whitney Harper has already admitted to sharing files illegally on a P2P network when she was 16, just as the RIAA claims. But that didn't stop US District Court Judge Xavier Rodriguez from ruling in her favor last Thursday. You see even though she was clearly infringing on copyrights she says she didn't realize it at the time, and according to Judge Rodriguez that means she can only be penalized for "Innocent Infringement."

Despite what the record labels would like you to believe copyright law isn't written with a one-size-fits-all approach in mind. To rule in favor of their lawyers in this case he would have had to agreed that any 16 year old understands copyright law simply because there are cryptic warnings on commercial CDs.

Clearly he didn't buy that argument though. In his ruling he said “Plaintiffs have not introduced any evidence to contradict that Defendant did not have an understanding of the nature of file-sharing programs and copyright sophisticated enough to have reason to know that her actions infringed Plaintiffs’ copyrights.”

If you have an iPod Touch and want to take advantage of the new iTunes App Store you have to upgrade to the new v2 software (firmware 2.0). Unfortunately if you had jailbroken your iPod to load software you'll lose this functionality with the new software.

With WinPwn, a Windows port of Pwnage Tool from the iPhone Dev Team, you can create customer firmware from Apple's official updates and load it on your iPod to jailbreak it again. This will once again give you access to programs created by the independent development community that's grown around the iPhone and iPod Touch while allowing you to continue using the iTunes App Store and all the software found there.

Our new guide, Jailbreak an iPod Touch with v2 Software walks you step by step through the process of creating the new firmware and restoring it to your iPod using WinPwn and iTunes.

If you are one of the millions of Americans who have received a voucher for a government subsidized DTV converter you may be thinking you can just drive down to the store and pick up the unit you want. As I've recently found out first hand it's not quite that easy. The availability and selection of converters isn't nearly as good as the public service announcements make it seem. In fact you might not be able to find what you need locally at all.

Let's start with supply problems. After spending the better part of an afternoon tracking down a store near me that actually had them in stock, I've been calling various local retailers weekly to find out if this was simply a fluke. It's not.

In fact when I've inquired at various Walmart, Target, and Kmart locations the answer has been that they're out of stock most of the time. In just a couple of cases they indicated that the units come in at least once a week. At the majority of these national chain stores they apparently only receive them sporadically, and most of the time they fly off the shelves, often in less than a single day.

MediaSentry is coming under more fire. This time it's Michigan Central University going on the offensive with a complaint to the state government. They're asking that the RIAA investigators be forced halt investigative activities until they obtain the proper licensing.

MediaSentry has insisted that they're actually exempt from the licensing requirement under Michigan law because they're only paid for their technical expertise. Despite backing this claim up, RIAA lawyers have also gone on the record characterizing MediaSentry as "not offering any expert opinions." Michigan officials have already sent a letter to MediaSentry suggesting they may need a license.

In the complaint, MCU's Assistant General Counsel asked that the Michigan Dept of Labor & Economic Growth "take immediate steps to issue a cease and desist letter to Media Sentry Demanding that they cease their ongoing investigations of Michigan residents until such time as they are properly licensed by the state."