media

Pirates nab Michael Moore's yet-to-be released doc

From all that we've heard about Michael Moore's soon-to-be released documentary indictment of the U.S. health care system, he clearly supports universal health care.

But does he support universal Web access to his film two weeks before its official release? Probably not, or at least his studio doesn't.

Advertising Age reported Friday that Moore's new film, Sicko, has been pirated and is widely available for free download on the Web at BitTorrent and peer-to-peer sites. Advertising Age reporter Claude Brodesser-Akner wrote that he easily downloaded a copy and watched it late Thursday night.

The breach … Read more

Lies we tell ourselves about IP infringement

Glyn Moody has a disturbing post on the latest attempt to stave off the IP hemorrhaging the industry apparently suffers. Quoting from Glyn's post:

"Our law enforcement resources are seriously misaligned," NBC/Universal general counsel Rick Cotton said. "If you add up all the various kinds of property crimes in this country, everything from theft, to fraud, to burglary, bank-robbing, all of it, it costs the country $16 billion a year. But intellectual property crime runs to hundreds of billions [of dollars] a year."...

This is clearly total poppycock: the figures for the supposed losses … Read more

New Archos media players: Look out, iPhone?

Archos announced its 2007 lineup of media player/recorders today at press events in both Europe and New York, introducing four new portable models as well as the company's first set-top DVR.

The big news--as reported earlier--is that the new Wi-Fi-enabled portables include direct access to an online "Content Portal" and offer a Flash-supported Web browser option. The portal offers pay-per-download CinemaNow movies--just use the touchscreen to pick the movie you want to buy and download it to the internal hard drive, no PC required. The Opera browser--a $30 option on Wi-Fi models--includes a Flash plug-in. … Read more

Welcome To Media Sphere

After Matt Smith at the SF Weeklyfirst reported on this project last week, a broad swath of engaging questions about this endeavor began to spring up. While I don?t have all the answers quite just yet, I think this would be a good opportunity to disavow those merit-less suspicions that festered after I tried to talk about this blog without revealing anything prematurely. So here goes:

… Read more

YouTube, CNN aim to 'revolutionize' presidential debate process

In a joint announcement on Thursday, YouTube and CNN unveiled their plans for co-sponsored Democratic and Republican presidential debates that aim to bring the standard televised events into the digital age of mashups, remixes and viral buzz. Not only will video content from the events (as well as other CNN debates) be made available for sharing and distribution online, but the debate questions themselves will come in the form of videos sent in by YouTube users.

(Video: YouTube's call for submissions)

In a dial-in press conference, representatives from both companies explained the new process and answered questions from reporters--on hand were Jon Klein, president of CNN U.S.; David Bohrman, CNN's senior vice president and Washington, D.C. bureau chief; Chad Hurley, YouTube's CEO and co-founder; and Steve Grove, YouTube's news and politics editor.

All four projected eager enthusiasm that this new debate format would bring a more democratic angle to the way campaign dialogue is conducted. "This is how debates would have been done since the beginning of time, had the technology been available," Klein extolled. "It's really powerful, and it really brings the country to the presidential candidates in a very visual and contextual way," added Grove.

… Read more

CNN, YouTube to unveil presidential debate details Thursday

In a press call on Thursday morning, CNN and YouTube will unveil the details for the cable news channel's upcoming presidential debate coverage, claiming that the two are "teaming up to provide an unprecedented debate format offering voters a larger role than ever before in debate history."

The press event will feature Jon Klein, president of CNN U.S.; David Bohrman, CNN's senior vice president and Washington, D.C. bureau chief; Chad Hurley, YouTube's CEO and co-founder; and Steve Grove, YouTube's news and politics editor.

The traditional ownership format of televised presidential debate content, … Read more

Ancient Rome rebuilt, virtually

Not only was Rome not built in a day, but a digital model took 10 years to construct. A team of archaeologists, architects and computer specialists from Italy, the United States, Britain and Germany has just unveiled a sprawling 3D digital simulation of the ancient city as it appeared at the height of its development as the capital of the Roman Empire.

They are calling it the largest, most comprehensive simulation of a historic city ever created.

"Rome Reborn 1.0," based at the University of Virginia, shows almost the entire city within the 13-mile-long Aurelian Walls in … Read more

Did Facebook underestimate the Platform's success?

SECOND UPDATE: Check the end of this post for some more information from Facebook and ViddYou.

I think most of the Web has reached the consensus that Facebook Platform, the social networking site's new initiative to open up its service to third-party companies' specially-designed applications, has been a resounding success. Anecdotally, I can say that "techy" people I know, who had originally dismissed Facebook as a glorified address book, are now starting to think that it has a whole lot more street cred. And I know some people who are more or less addicted to some of the new features (throw a sheep at me, will ya?)

But whispers have been spreading that perhaps Facebook--generally known for being methodical and well-organized, choosing to roll out features incrementally rather than going for huge revamps--might not have predicted just how popular the new Platform would be, and wasn't ready for the onslaught of bandwidth activity. Yesterday, there were some rumors going around that Facebook had had to sell a full 10 percent of its shares in order to purchase enough hardware to handle its rapid user increase. Looks like the original story was reported on the Web site of the U.K. newspaper The Times and was then pulled. (Conspiracy theorists may point out the fact that The Times is owned by Rupert Murdoch's News Corporation, which also owns Facebook's chief rival MySpace. Personally, I think it's more likely just a case of some reporting that turned out to be based on unsubstantiated rumor.)

If true, basically, it would indicate that Facebook, often singled out as a red-hot potential acquisition target, wasn't as financially stable as the tech community would have thought. Tough to believe, since we've had every indication that the company is extremely well-funded, financially efficient, and has pulled in adequate advertising revenues. So, like most others following the social networking scene, I dismissed it as speculative gossip.

And I still think the original claims in The Times were untrue, but some more concrete signs have indeed indicated that Facebook wasn't fully ready for the whirlwind success of the Platform. While logged onto Facebook this morning in an attempt to engage in a SuperPoke war with one of my friends, I saw this:… Read more

Rumor: Gawker Media to launch science fiction blog

The New York-based blog network Gawker Media--parent company of blogs like Wonkette, Valleywag, and Defamer--is better known for salacious gossip and snarky social commentary than geek fandom (even its gadget blog Gizmodo and gaming hub Kotaku aren't the nerdiest titles in their genres). But the company, according to rumors overheard by the Huffington Post on Tuesday, may be very close to launching a science fiction blog.

The Huffington Post suggested that Gawker Media may have nabbed (or be in the process of nabbing) a Wired writer to helm the new blog, but it's unclear whether this means … Read more