sweden

Scandinavian post offices are using mobile phones to lick the problem of buying stamps. Denmark and Sweden are introducing a system of paying the postman via text.

Danish service Post Danmark and Swedish postal service Posten AB are adopting the high-tech system to make it easier to post letters, packages, and cards.

The system will work by sending you a code to write on your letter. Danes simply stick the letter, card, or parcel--up to 4.4 pounds--in an envelope, as normal, then text-message the word "porto" to the number 1900. Then they receive a unique code to write where the stamp previously would have gone and pop their goods in a mailbox as usual.

Read more of "Text messages replacing stamps for Scandinavian posties" at Crave UK.… Read more

Faced with mounting legal bills, Julian Assange has agreed to a $1.5 million deal to write his autobiography.

"I don't want to write this book, but I have to," the controversial WikiLeaks founder told Britain's Sunday Times yesterday. "I have already spent 200,000 pounds ($307,400) for legal costs and I need to defend myself and to keep WikiLeaks afloat."

Assange told the Times that he would receive $796,654 from Alfred A Knopf, his U.S. publisher. A deal with British publisher Canongate would bring in around 325,000 pounds ($501,… Read more

An attorney for the two Swedish women who accuse WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange of sexual assault rejected any "conspiracy theories" surrounding the allegations, lodged a month after the embattled Web site began publishing thousands of classified U.S. government documents.

In an interview with CNET, attorney Claes Borgström said, "I'm getting e-mails where people ask me how much the U.S. administration pays me to pursue this case."

He denies any connection, emphasizing that his clients are two ordinary Swedish women who have no motive to interfere with WikiLeaks document-sharing activities, which have … Read more

The Swedish government said today it would issue an international arrest warrant for WikiLeaks spokesman Julian Assange on rape charges.

A Stockholm district court ruled that Assange will be "detained in his absence" on charges of rape, sexual molestation, and unlawful coercion. The decision came at a hearing where Sweden's director of prosecution, Marianne Ny presented evidence related to the allegations.

"I requested his arrest so we could carry out an interrogation with Assange," Ny told the Agence France-Presse news agency. "That is the reason."

The rape allegations--which Assange strenuously denies and says … Read more

Facebook just launched a new suite of features for Facebook Places that might be the beginning of the end for Web privacy as we know it. Luckily Natali Del Conte is around to calm us down and explain what's really going on with the new location-based deals.

Facebook Places is a service that lets users share their location directly on their mobile phones, but the latest product is called Deals, and it allows businesses to advertise to target customers by offering a special discount for those who "check in" at a location.

Once users activate it, Facebook will share the deal on their walls so others can cash in as well, and business can even offer "loyalty" discounts for members that return to a venue. The FourSquare and Loopt offices must be getting pretty hot right now.

If mobile tracking weren't enough, soon you won't even be able to watch a movie without being watched yourself! In an effort to combat Web piracy, some movie theaters are installing video cameras in front of the movie screens, designed to also monitor crowd reactions to trailers for market research on what audiences prefer to watch.

Even worse, the same company, Aralia Systems, is also planning to roll out infrared scanning systems at the ticket-purchasing stations that scan for recording devices and will sound an alarm to alert management if an illegal instrument is detected. It sounds similar to the TSA's "enhanced" security screenings we've been hearing about recently!

Internet "Captchas" have been around for a while--they're tests placed on some Web sites to determine whether the user is human, and they usually come in the form of a randomly generated word or phrase that you have to copy into a field to gain access.

They're only slightly irritating and require little participation to enter, but a software firm called NuCaptcha is hoping that video advertisement captchas will be the online ads of the future.

Instead of traditional squiggly words, the new system forces users to watch a video advertisement with a short message scrolling across it. After it's done, it'll ask you to identify and retype a part of the message to continue toward your destination, and although it sounds like an annoying process, companies like EA, Wrigley, and Disney have already signed up with hopes that people will actually pay attention to the ads instead of just clicking through. Soon we'll be reminiscing about a time when all you needed was a pop-up blocker to surf under the radar!

Thanks to Natali Del Conte for joining us on this rainy Thursday, and be sure to check us out tomorrow morning with Steve Guttenberg, aka The Audiophiliac!

In the more dog-eating-dog quarters of the world, Sweden is sometimes mocked for being a namby-pamby welfare state.

Sometimes, though, caring for one's fellow man is beautiful just for its own sake.

So please may we rejoice at the tale of an anonymous Swedish professor who had his laptop stolen.

How can having one's laptop stolen possibly bring us to a happy conclusion? Did someone find his laptop and return it to him? No. Did someone catch the thief and, in a fit of justice, remove all the Pirate Bay stickers from his laptop? Again, no.

However as Swedish news source The Local would have it, … Read more

Three of the four Scandinavian men convicted for operating The Pirate Bay--perhaps the best-known file-sharing tool in the world--were in a Swedish court today to begin their appeals court trial.

In April 2009, co-founders Peter Sunde, Fredrik Neij, Gottfrid Svartholm Warg, and Carl Lundstrom were found guilty of copyright violations, sentenced to a year in prison, and ordered to pay the equivalent of $3.6 million. They are now trying to get their convictions overturned.

According to the Web site of Swedish publication Svenska Dagbladet, prosecutors produced e-mails allegedly written by some of the founders and used them to try … Read more

In Sweden, musicians, actors, and other artists get revenue from blank CDs via a copy fee built in to the price consumers pay. This is a fee supported by the Swedish copyright authority, Copyswede, to ensure that home recording doesn't destroy the music industry there, as it contends home recording would.

But as more people stop purchasing discs in favor of online storage and iPods, these artists are seeing income from the discs shrinking. That's why Copyswede is pushing for legislation to extend the reach of its copyright claims to thumbdrives, external hard drives, and even cell phones, … Read more

General Electric has plans to install four 4-megawatt wind turbines off the coast of Norway, and one in Sweden.

In March GE said it would invest $450 million over the next 10 years to expand its European wind turbine business. At that time the company said its investment would include plans to install its largest megawatt offshore wind turbines to date, but few details were released.

On Tuesday, GE announced that four 4-megawatt wind turbines will be installed in Rogaland County, on the southwest coast of Norway, in conjunction with the Norwegian energy companies Statoil and Lyse. Assuming that environmental … Read more