News written by Rich Fiscus (March, 2010)

After nearly two years of excuses for the secrecy of negotiations over ACTA, the Anti Counterfeiting Trade Agreement, a full draft of the proposed treaty has been leaked online and it looks just as bad as critics have suggested.

Among the worst provisions of the proposal is the requirement that third party service providers must implement measures to proactively identify and elminate access to content that's in violation of copyright law.

Failure to do so would make them liable for such infringement. Even worse, according to a note from New Zealand's negotiators this would even include search engines.

Assuming some service finds a way to implement this sort of proactive system, their ability to safeguard the privacy of users would be severely diminished.

Under current laws, when content owners identify content they believe infringes on their copyrights they can notify the service provider, such as YouTube, and demand that the content be removed. This is known as notice and takedown.

Under the ACTA proposal content owners would also be entitled to any information the service provider has which could identify the user responsible for the content without any judicial oversight.

Google has just introduced a new version of their Nexus One smartphone which supports 3G data speeds for AT&T customers in the US and Rogers customers in Canada.

The initial version of the phone offered by Google was already compatible with AT&T's network. However, data speed was limited because the frequency used for 3G data transmission by AT&T and Rogers wasn't supported.

So far the new model is available only through Google's web store. No plans have been announced to offer a subsidized version.

A CDMA version of the Nexus One, designed to work on Verizon's network, is expected very soon.

Earlier this week David Rivas, VP of Technology Management at Nokia, showed off a demo of the interface for the Symbian^3 (S^3) smartphone OS at a demo in San Francisco. The first Nokia phones running the now completely open source platform will be available later this year.

During the presentation, which primarily demonstrated customizing the interface, Rivas talked about the features that will set it apart in the smartphone market. Of particular note were his comments about multitasking.

He pointed out that Nokia has had multitasking on their smartphones for several years, and indicated it will be "coming much more front and center."

You can see the demo in this video posted by PhoneDog.com's Noah Kravitz.

Members of European Parliament are united in opposing the European Commission's secret negotiation of the highly controversial ACTA (Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement) treaty. They voted 663 to 13 in favor of a resolution requiring the Commission, the European Union's representative in ACTA negotiations, to share all information about the talks with them.

Besides the lack of transparency in the negotiations, MEPs have concerns about provisions which would dictate how intellectual property protection in EU member states would work.

This would include what's covered, for how long, and even the definition of fair use and types of penalties for infringement. In other words it could require a substantial rewrite of most European IP law.

They are also concerned about language that could be at odds with EU privacy rights. They are demanding that the European Commission provide proof that no fundamental rights would be impacted.

The resolution "Calls on the Commission to conduct an impact assessment of the implementation of ACTA with regard to fundamental rights and data protection," and "consult with Parliament in a timely manner about the results of the assessment."

Skype for the Symbian smartphone OS will not be available to North American visitors through Nokia's app store. The decision not to distribute the app through the Ovi Store was apparently made to help market Skype's partnership with Verizon.

Last month the two companies announced a deal to offer Skype on a number of smartphones, including a Blackberry and several Android phones.

Sravanthi Agrawal of Skpye’s corporate communications team said, “Skype has made a decision in the United States to not promote the Skype for Symbian app through the Ovi Store. We did this so that we could drive more attention to the recently announced Skype and Verizon Wireless agreement. This was a marketing decision — plain and simple."

Skype's decision came as a surprise to Nokia, who reportedly wasn't told of the plan ahead of time. Like everyone else, they found out when the app was released to users outside the US last week.

Today Western Digital announced a line of solid state 2.5 inch SATA hard drives called SiliconEdge Blue. The new drives include 64GB, 128GB & 256GB models.

The drives are intended to "accelerate SSD technology adoption by OEMs, technology enthusiasts, gamers and road warriors," said Michael Hajeck, senior vice president and general manager of WD's solid state storage business unit.

Traditional hard drives are arguably the weakest point in most computers. Reliance on mechanical parts makes them somewhat fragile and also limits performance.

The SiliconEdge Blue drives boast a sustained read speed of 250MB per second, compared to 100MB per second for Western Digital's fastest disk-based 2.5 inch drives in the Scorpio Black line. It's also a significant upgrade from 138MB per second for their best high performance desktop drive, the Caviar Black.

Sustained write speed isn't as good, which is normal for solid state storage. At 140MB per second it edges out the Caviar Black and handily beats the Scorpio Black.

Of course that performance comes at a steep price. The 64GB model has a suggested retail price of $279 USD. The 128GB model is priced at $529 and 256GB will cost you $999.

Microsoft is working on a mobile version of their Surface touchscreen interface. Called Mobile Surface, it uses a projector and camera to create an interface that reacts to movement in 3 dimensions, rather than the 2 like a touchscreen.

On Monday Seattle, Washington's TechFlash posted a video of a Microsoft researcher demonstrating the technology.



Don't expect to see this in any devices in the near future. At this point Microsoft is still figuring out what sorts of applications might be built around this type of 3D interface.

And of course, being designed with mobile phones in mind, it will require a smartphone designed to take advantage of it.

The first phones running the new generation of the Windows Mobile OS, Windows Phone Series 7, won't even go on sale until late this year. Mobile Surface is certainly much further away than that.

The Associated Press plans to release an app for the Apple iPad. It will be an extension of their new AP Gateway service which is intended to be a clearing house for licensing content from AP and any member companies that choose to participate.

Although short on specifics about the app, last week's announcement did mention that it "incorporates a paid subscription model and offers AP members the opportunity to participate."

Their may be a market for paid news subscriptions if it can deliver an experience superior to existing internet sources. Unfortunately that's not what AP seems to be focusing on.

The key pieces of AP's plan will be "using some [content] to attract a broad audience while saving other content for custom experiences," and allowing AP members to "set the rights" for content they contribute.

Both of these propositions are problematic. Let's start with "saving content." What they're really talking about is limiting consumer access to certain news items unless they pay.

That may seem appealing if you're a newspaper editor, but unless there's no alternate source for a story it's also impossible. It's also a good way to send readers to a competitor.