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The BBC News website asked for your queries about the way new technology is being used – and the eight sharpest and most pertinent questions were put to the virtual panel.

One question is interesting:

Why would I pay to go to a cinema with uncomfortable seating, high prices, even higher priced food, bratty kids and high gas prices when I can sit at home with my family and friends in front of a 60″ plasma screen eating my food on my comfortable couch and watch a brand new movie I just downloaded for $0?

No, not because of the question, but because of the answers. From an industry that wishes to have a future, you’d expect an answer like “gee, we need to find a way for you to watch that movie on your 60″ plasma screen and for us to get paid for that.” or, in shorter form “we need to make a product for you”, but alas… go read it. And read the other questions, and see if you can spot the outright lies in the answers.

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As I read reports tonight that France has advanced plans to legalize P2P, I was reminded that during the copyright reform process, groups such as CRIA are often heard to say that Canada needs to follow the lead of the rest of the world.  In light of recent events, I suspect that many user groups might be inclined to agree.  We could follow:

• the Australian lead of moving toward fair use
• the UK lead in holding hearings on the dangers associated with DRM
• the French lead of considering legalized P2P with a levy system to cover audio and video downloads
• the US lead on legislation that allows for increased of Internet materials in the classroom
• the South Korean lead of not prosecuting downloaders for personal purposes
• the majority of the world’s population which has not ratified the WIPO Internet treaties nor extended the term of copyright beyond life of the author plus 50 years

With a new Conservative cabinet set to be named on Monday, it will be important to remind officials that international standards means much more than just deciding what to do about the WIPO Internet treaties.

The EFF has jumped into the discussion:

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Remember the famous email rumor that made the rounds in the 1990s: “Congress is trying to tax your Internet connection, write in now!”

Well what wasn’t true in the 1990s is apparently coming true in 2006, only the beneficiaries won’t be Uncle Sam — it will be Yahoo, AOL, and a company ironically called Goodmail. Yahoo and AOL have announced that they will guarantee access to your email inbox for email senders who pay $.0025 per message. They will override their own spam filters and webbug-strippers, and deliver the mail directly with a “certified” notice. In the process, they will treat more of your email as spam, and email you’re expecting won’t be delivered.

The justification is that if people have to pay to send email, they won’t send junk email. Apparently AOL and Yahoo believe that if we “tax” speech then only desirable speech happens. We all know how well that works for postal mail — that’s why no one gets any “free” AOL starter disks, right?

[..]

Email being basically free isn’t a bug. It’s a feature that has driven the digital revolution. It allows groups to scale up from a dozen friends to a hundred people who love knitting to half-a-million concerned citizens without a major bankroll.

Email readers and senders will both lose, because the incentives for Yahoo, AOL, and Goodmail are all wrong. Their service is only valuable if it “saves” you from their spam filters. In turn, they have an incentive to treat more of your email as spam, and thereby “encouraging” people to sign up.

Even email senders who just want to reach Dad@aol.com may eventually be in trouble. Once a pay-to-speak system like this gets going, it will be increasingly difficult for people who don’t pay to get their mail through. The system has no way to distinguish between ordinary mail and bulk mail, spam and non-spam, personal and commercial mail. It just gives preference to people who pay.

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This is a group loan where 20 people get $70 loans and share the risk. One entrepreneur will be responsible for representing the group and delivering the repayments

In the photo Mme Khadyjatou Ndiaye, Women’s Group Treasurer, signs for the loan. The witnesses beside her are Boubacar Sarr, President of Ecovillage Carabane, Mbaye Thior, Administrative Officer and Urbain Diatta, environment Officer. Located in the mouth of the Casamance River, Carabane is an off-shore island village with 700 year-round inhabitants. As the entry point of French rule in the Casamance Region of Senegal, and a classic mangrove ecosystem, Carabane is a natural ecotourist destination. However, tourism alone, as currently practiced, is insufficient to provide all the needs of the villagers, who also fish, grow some millet and raise small pigs.

The beneficiaries of the loan are 20 members of the village women’s group, who each received $70 in July 2005 and will reimburse their loans by the end of April, 2006. The group will use the funds for their small business, processing and marketing fish and other seafoods.

I’ve written about Kiva before, but the success of microloans in the third world bears repeating… They’ve got everything from a Bulgarian chokeberry farmer to a Palestinian carpenter to a group of Senegalese women using solar cookers for seafood preparation (above).

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Stichting Brein heeft een brochure uitgebracht om bedrijven en instellingen te wijzen op de gevaren die kleven aan piraterij op de werkplek.

Brein verspreidt de brochure in een oplage van 7500 onder Nederlandse bedrijven en instellingen. Ook is het mogelijk om de 12 pagina’s tellende folder via de site van Brein te bekijken.

Volgens Brein vormt het illegaal uitwisselen van muziek, films en software op de werkplek een toenemend probleem. “De snelheid van corporate internetverbindingen ligt in de regel vele malen hoger dan thuisaansluitingen en de werkplek biedt daarom een ideale omgeving voor illegale uitwisseling”, stelt de organisatie. “Ook wordt regelmatig handel in gekopieerde cd’s en dvd’s onder personeel geconstateerd, waarvoor de faciliteiten en tijd van de werkgever worden misbruikt.”

Op blz 10 van de brochure: “Piraterij is zonder de toestemming van de maker verveelvoudigen (blabla) en openbaar maken (verspreiden, verhandelen, weggeven, ruilen, uploaden).”

Een gekochte DVD of CD weggeven of ruilen is illegaal? Zijn ze echt gek geworden?

Overigens, als je de folder exact volgt, mag je op je werkplek ook geen windows geinstalleerd hebben. Of eigengemaakte documenten opslaan.

Oh, en uiteraard geen woord over de risico’s die een rootkit met zich meebrengt.

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While touch sensing is commonplace for single points of contact, multi-touch sensing enables a user to interact with a system with more than one finger at a time, as in chording and bi-manual operations. Such sensing devices are inherently also able to accommodate multiple users simultaneously, which is especially useful for larger interaction scenarios such as interactive walls and tabletops.

I wonder when I’ll have one of these on my laptop. And will I be able to do pre-crime with them?

Mavericks Big Wave Surfing Contest 2006

More food as art

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Mexico issued a complaint Tuesday against an American-owned hotel that — under pressure from the U.S. government — expelled a group of Cuban businessmen meeting with U.S. energy executives, saying the company violated investment and trade protection laws.

The U.S. Treasury Department confirmed that the Hotel Maria Isabel Sheraton in Mexico City was told to expel the Cuban delegation in compliance with the U.S. embargo against business with Cuba or Cubans. The meeting was moved to a Mexican-owned hotel Saturday.

[..]

Mexican Foreign Relations Secretary Luis Ernesto Derbez said the Mexican government is considering a diplomatic complaint against the United States in the case.

He said his department had formally started a complaint process against the Sheraton for violating investment and trade protection laws, and that the hotel would have 15 days to respond. The hotel could face fines of nearly $500,000 (U.S.) or even be shut down, officials said.

“I think that there was evident contempt for Mexican law on the part of the Hotel Maria Isabel Sheraton … and it is going to be punished for discrimination, consumer fraud and, moreover, for applying laws that do not apply in Mexico,�? Mr. Derbez told reporters in London, where he is on an official visit.

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Indicted Rep. Tom DeLay, forced to step down as the No. 2 Republican in the House, scored a soft landing Wednesday as GOP leaders rewarded him with a coveted seat on the Appropriations Committee.

DeLay, R-Texas, also claimed a seat on the subcommittee overseeing the Justice Department, which is currently investigating an influence-peddling scandal involving disgraced lobbyist Jack Abramoff and his dealings with lawmakers. The subcommittee also has responsibility over NASA — a top priority for DeLay, since the Johnson Space Center is located in his Houston-area district.

“Allowing Tom DeLay to sit on a committee in charge of giving out money is like putting Michael Brown back in charge of FEMA — Republicans in Congress just can’t seem to resist standing by their man,” said Bill Burton, spokesman for the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee.

Like putting Rush Limbaugh in charge of the pharmacy. Aren’t we supposed to believe that Boehner represents a clean break from the corrupt DeLay regime?

Apparently not, take a look at this: Video-WMP Video-QT

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The central thrust of the administration’s argument for ignoring FISA is that the FISA application process is too slow. Yet, as anyone who read the text of the statute realizes, FISA allows for a search-first-apply-later option.  
First, let me point out that under Section 1802, the government can wiretap a foreign power for up to one year without a warrant. Not 72 hours. An entire year. This provision is applicable when the Attorney General can “certify” that the information is used only for foreign intelligence purpose. It requires certainty, but that provision is available to the administration.
So let’s say the government is less than certain, but has a hunch someone is a terrorist. We know that FISA is so flexible, it allows the government to wiretap for 3 days and then submit an application.  See Section 1805(f). At the Senate Judiciary Committee hearings, Gonzales described the emergency FISA process:

GONZALES: To be sure, FISA allows the government to begin electronic surveillance without a court order for up to 72 hours in emergency situations or circumstances.
But before that emergency provision can be used, the attorney general must make a determination that all of the requirements of the FISA statute are met in advance.
This requirement can be cumbersome and burdensome.
Intelligence officials at NSA first have to assess that they have identified a legitimate target. After that, lawyers at NSA have to review the request to make sure it meets all the requirements of the statute. And then lawyers at the Justice Department must also review the request and reach the same judgment or insist on additional information before processing the emergency application.
Finally I, as attorney general, must review the request and make the determination that all of the requirements of FISA are met.

But even this is not the end of the story.
Each emergency authorization must be followed by a detailed formal application to the FISA courts within three days. The government must prepare legal documents laying out all of the relevant facts and law and obtain the approval of a Cabinet-level officer as well as a certification from a senior official with mass security responsibility, such as the director of the FBI.
Finally, a judge must review, consider and approve the application.
All of these steps take time. Al Qaida, however, does not wait.

Phew! Sounds like a lot of hard work! Gonzales paints the emergency FISA process to be so grueling, so bureaucratic as to render the entire process almost useless in this post-9/11 word where we need to act swiftly. Well, if emergency FISA searches are so darn hard to execute, why then has the Bush administration’s use of emergency FISA risen exponentially since 9/11?  Take for example the one year period following the 9/11 attacks. From 2001 to 2002 , the Bush administration had exercised the emergency FISA option 113 times. To total number of emergency FISA wiretaps in the court’s 23-year history before Bush took office?

Forty-six.

Forty-six emergency FISA wiretaps in 23 years, and here we have 113 such warrantless wiretaps in a single year. By April 1, 2003, that number was 170. That’s more than three times the total number of emergency wiretaps before Bush took office. In case you’re wondering about the math, that’s about 9 warrantless, emergency FISA wiretaps per month since September 11th. About 2 per week.
FISA works, and the administration’s frequent, successful employment of FISA’s emergency provision proves that.  Again, the central issue: since the administration’s own records prove FISA is flexible enough to address immediate terrorist threats, why did the President ignore the law and wiretap Americans without a warrant? Why did he keep his program secret for over four years? And what does he have to hide?