Latest news

The EU has extended the copyright terms for music to 70 years from the current 50 years, just months before the first Beatles albums would have entered the public domain.

Critics, most notably the Open Rights Group (via TF) were majorly disappointed by the decision:

Research showed that around 90% of the cash windfall from copyright levies will fall into the hands of record labels. Despite the rhetoric, small artists will gain very little from this, while our cultural heritage takes a massive blow by denying us full access to these recordings for another generation.

There were some notable voters against the plan, including the Belgian, Czech, Dutch, Luxembourg, Romanian, Slovak, Slovenian and Swedish delegations.

Earlier this year, following a year-long investigation, the U.S. DEA arrested and indicted 46-year-old rap music manager James Rosemond on 18 felony charges of leading a narcotics rings that smuggled cocaine across the U.S. in musician's "road cases."

Today, the Smoking Gun is reporting that members of the ring arranged pickups and deliveries at the offices of Interscope Records, a noted RIAA label.

Prosecutors have provided shipping records for deliveries made at Interscope Record's LA office from a cargo company that transported music cases that had their contents replaced with cocaine and up to $1 million in cash.

Additionally, there were pickups and deliveries at a recording studio on Manhattan’s Upper West Side.

Intel CTO Justin Rattner demonstrated an experimental ultra low power processor which is so efficient it can be powered by a solar cell the size of a postage stamp under a light workload.

The CPU, which they are calling a Near-Threshold Voltage Processor, consumes less power by drastically reducing the voltages used to represent a 0 or 1. The name refers to the threshold at which a transistor begins conducting current.

The voltage representing a 1 on the chip is extremely close to that threshold.

Intel's core business revolves primarily around chips built for speed, rather than energy efficiency. But like all processor vendors they are having to adapt to a new world where smartphones, tablet computers and other mobile devices will be the dominant hardware for every day computing.

Nowhere is this more apparent than their recent work with Google to ensure Android will support Intel processors.

The Near-Threshold Voltage Processor is purely a research unit, but they hope the technology could eventually help them reduce power consumption by 80% in future products. In the long term their goal is a reduction to as low as 0.001% of current levels.

Seven states have joined the Department Of Justice antitrust lawsuit opposing the purchase of T-Mobile USA by AT&T.

Citing concerns over a lack of competition, the attorneys general of California, Illinois, Massachusetts, New York, Ohio, Pennsylvania, and Washington threw their support behind the suit.

New York Attorney General Eric Schneiderman said:

We must do everything we can to encourage innovation and job creation. In vulnerable upstate communities, where concentration in some markets is already very high, and in New York City’s information-intensive economy, the impact this merger would have on wireless competition, economic growth, and technological innovation would be enormous.

Shneiderman's office was involved in the Justice Department investigation of the AT&T / T-Mobile deal, and was also instrumental in a parallel review conducted by various states. Five New York cities, including New York City, Rochester & Syracuse, are among dozens specifically listed in the lawsuit as areas where the reduced competition is likely to affect prices.

This follows a letter by 15 US Representatives yesterday urging President Obama to halt the DOJ's efforts to block the deal.

The US Federal Trade Commission (FTC) has proposed changes to the rules governing Internet privacy for children under the age of 13.

Among other things, the existing rules, which went into effect in 2000 after the passage of COPPA, the Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act, require online service operators to obtain parental consent before collecting, using, or disclosing personal information from children under 13 years of age.

A review of COPPA provisions is required by law every 5 years. The previous review, in 2005, resulted in no proposed changes.

This time around the FTC is recommending several changes, such as expanding the definition of "personal information" to include geolocation data and tracking cookies. They also want to reduce restrictions on certain types of data collection to make it easier for children to use services like social networks.

The commission also proposes the adoption of electronic scans of signed consent forms, video-conferencing, and use of government-issued identification for obtaining parental consent to collect information.

This would be offset by eliminating the option for consent via email, which is available to operators when collecting information only for internal use.

A plan by a company called LightSquared to offer wholesale mobile phone service throughout the US appears to be stalled indefinitely due to technical and political problems.

Extensive testing by various government agencies, in cooperation with LightSquared, has shown their signal to interfere with GPS reception.

Although LightSquared statements in recent months have claimed the problems are solved, testimony in front of a US House Of Representatives sub-committee yesterday painted a different picture.

The problem stems from the location of the frequencies licensed by LightSquared. They are in an area of the spectrum normally reserved for Mobile Satellite Service.

In fact until last year, when the company (known at the time as SkyTerra) changed ownership, that was exactly what they did. The original business involved selling satellite based data services.

Low power terrestrial transceivers operating on the same frequencies as their satellite service were used to supplement the signal.

Under such a system, a dual mode device is used which can switch to a terrestrial connection when satellite service is not available. As required by law, this was authorized by the FCC.

Changsha, a city in China's Hunan province, has opened up an Angry Birds-based theme park, but it appears they did so without proper licenses.

CBS says the park allows visitors to shoot stuffed birds with giant slingshots to knock down items and pig balloons.

Rovio, the developer of the game says it would love to partner with the park but has not been contacted.

Says a Chinese park official:

This [Angry Birds attraction] serves as a method for people to purge themselves and to gain happiness.

Theme park creates real-life Angry Birds game by Zoomin_UK

Sony has posted a quick video showing off the remote play feature of the upcoming PSVita.

Remote Play on the handheld allows for gamers to play their PS3 games on the go.

Sony's Shuhei Yoshida shows off the feature, playing Killzone 3 in the clip and using the Vita's rear touch panel and dual analog sticks:

Next week, France's Archos will begin taking pre-orders for new line of low priced Android tablets with prices from $299 to $469.

The new tablets will run Android 3.2 (Honeycomb). The Archos 80 G9 features an 8" screen, while the screen on the 101 G9 measures 10".

The entry level Archos 80 G9 8GB will be the first model available, with a dual core 1GHz TI OMAP processor and 8GB of flash storage. They will begin taking orders on September 20.

Other models will have 2.5GHz dual core OMAP CPUs with either 16GB of flash storage or a 250GB Seagate Momentus hard drive. All models will include a USB port.

Unlike other tablets, like the iPad, the new Archos tablets will be upgradable to use 3G data connections with the purchase of a USB adapter. They will also have built-in Wi-Fi and also Bluetooth.

Archos G9 tablets will be in stores some time in October.

Perhaps the most interesting feature of the G9 series is the included suite of multimedia apps. Archos was known for their portable media players long before they began making Android devices.

Although the screen resolution will only be 1024x768 for the 8" models or 1280x800 for the 10" version, both will be able to play 1080p video and include HDMI output. Video standards supported include MPEG-4 AVC (H.264) up to High Profile@L4.2.

A group of 15 members of the US House Of Representatives sent a letter to President Obama yesterday asking him to support AT&T's purchase of T-Mobile USA.

In their letter, they parrot AT&T's claims that the deal will result in thousands of jobs being created and increased investment in high speed data networks across the country. Those would be excellent reasons to approve the buyout.

But do they have any basis in reality? If you believe AT&T's promises to investors the answer would be no.

The letter claims:

the merger will engender new private investment to deploy wireless high speed Internet access services to 97% of the U.S. population. Coverage of this magnitude will necessitate an additional $8 billion investment from AT&T over and above its current industry leading capital investments.

But that's not what AT&T is promising investors. In fact they are promising $10 billion in infrastructure savings over the next four years and another $10 billion in "Avoided purchases and investments."

Video sharing giant YouTube has announced the addition of in-video editing tools.

The new tools will allow users to edit their clips without needing third-party software or ever having to leave the site.

YouTube says the new tools will allow for cutting of frames, changes the in the soundtrack music, stabilization or rotation of the video, modification of contrast and colors and the ability to add new effects.

When edited, the video remains at the same URL with the same ID, so you don't lose any views/favorites, etc.

From Google:

Asus has announced the Eee Pad Slider will finally hit the U.S. this month.

The much-hyped and long-awaited tablet will be available by the end of the month, in two models.

For $475 you can get the 16GB model and for an extra $100 you can jump up to 32GB.

The Slider runs on a Nvidia Tegra 2 dual-core processor, has a 10.1-inch (1280 x 800) LED-backlit touchscreen, a full QWERTY keypad, 1GB RAM, dual cameras (5MP and 1.2MP), GPS, a G-sensor, an e-compass, an ambient light sensor, a microSD card slot, an USB 2.0 port, and a mini HDMI output.

Finally, the tablets run on Android 3.2 Honeycomb and will be upgradeable to Ice Cream Sandwich in the future.

RIM reports terrible earnings.

The makers of the BlackBerry line of smartphones are seeing their stock down 18 percent today, following another quarter of weak sales.

Income fell to $414 million USD from $904 million last quarter and revenue fell to $4.2 billion, at the very bottom of where the company guided down to just 3 months ago.

Shipments of new BlackBerrys were down to 10.6 million, well below the 12 million expected, thanks to "lower than expected demand for older models," said RIM co-chief executive Jim Balsillie.

Sales of the PlayBook tablet were down to 200,000 for the quarter from a strong 500,000 in the first quarter of availability, mainly thanks to missing features promised at launch, like a native email client.

RIM just released the latest BlackBerry 7 phones, the last of the line before the company moves to the better QNX platform seen on the PlayBook.

In-line with other estimates for the device.

Today, the CEO of France Telecom Stéphane Richard has let slip that the iPhone 5 is coming on October 15th.

While Apple has not even yet confirmed its existence, the upcoming iPhone is expected by the entire world sometime in the next 45 days.

Says the CEO:

If we believe what we have been told, the iPhone 5 will be released on 15 October

The executive is given weight in his opinion due to his position and the fact that he accurately announced in May that Apple was considering moving to a new, smaller SIM card standard before Apple announced it.

Google is continuing their patent buying spree, acquiring more than 1,000 patents from IBM.

This is the second such deal between the two companies this year. Google bought 1,029 patents from IBM in July.

A partial list compiled by SEO by the Sea, includes patents related to scripting, phones, wireless, and web search.

You can find all the patents using the US Patent and Trademark Office's search page.

In recent months Google has spent billions of dollars buying patents in response to attacks on Android around the world by companies like Apple and Microsoft. They have gone so far as to buy Motorola Mobility primarily to acquire their patent portfolio.

As Android has become a serious threat to the iPhone's dominance in the smartphone market, Apple has engaged in a campaign to remove competing devices. Samsung's phones and tablets, in particular, have been targeted by Apple in countries including the US, Germany, Australia, and Japan.