Fergus Cassidy

MONDAY 27 OCTOBER 2003 23.40 (GMT)
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BROUGHT TO BOOK...
The Amazon.com home page last week had a message from chief executive Jeff Bezos:

"You can find books at Amazon.com based on every word inside them, not just on matches to author or title keywords. 'Search Inside the Book' searches the complete inside text of more than 120,000 books - all 33m pages of them."

This new search facility is a big plus for Amazon and could benefit it and publishers. The facility appears to be the result of an agreement between Amazon and publishing houses. It could be extremely useful when searching for references within books.

But last Friday the Authors' Guild of America posted an email to its members pointing out that sales of certain types of books could be undermined - cookery, travel, college reference etc.

The Guild also said: "We've reviewed the contracts of major trade publishers and concluded that these publishers do not have the right to participate in this program without their authors' permission".

It says much about the way authors are treated by the book 'industry' when the publishers can enter into agreements without consulting them.


THURSDAY 23 OCTOBER 2003 23.30 GMT+1
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TAKING IT TO THE STREET...
'State Meant' is an extallation by Mannix Flynn currently on display at the side of the road on Lower Leeson Street in Dublin.

It contains a statement to the Garda (police) by James X, who was brutally beaten and sexually abused while in the care of the State.

If you can't get to see it, it can be viewed online here.


SATURDAY 18 OCTOBER 2003 21.30 GMT+1
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HITCHHIKERS..
The Soyuz space craft launched today includes an Irish venture.

The Dublin Institute of Advanced Studies will be using detectors to measure the energy transfer from galactic and solar cosmic rays to a particular location on the space station.

It's the ninth venture for the DIAS, which included experiments on Apollo 16 in 1972.


WEDNESDAY 15 OCTOBER 2003 01.30 GMT+1
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MEET SPACE..
University College Dublin Netsoc is hosting a talk called 'Data Retention in Ireland' with Karlin Lillington as the speaker. It's on Tuesday 28 October. Check the Netsoc site for details of time and venue.


SUNDAY 12 OCTOBER 2003 21.55 GMT+1
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THE NEW SEEKERS...
The Associated Press had a ripping yarn recently on the emergence of what it describes as 'music speakeasies' in the US. The clampdown by the music business on file sharing has spurred the growth of better and better encryption technologies.

It's hard to know these days whether it's music that drives such enthusiasm or just wanting to give two fingers. Either way the music industry is not listening.


SATURDAY 29 NOVEMBER 2003 21.35 (GMT)
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SPAMSVILLE..
Many people have pointed the finger at developing countries when it comes to identifying where spam originates. But a recent report from the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development identifies the United States as the world's biggest spammer.

Origin figures for March 2003:
United States 58.4%
China 5.6%
United Kingdom 5.2%
Brazil 4.9%
Canada 4.1%
Others 21.8%


THURSDAY 27 NOVEMBER 2003 22.35 GMT
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LINK ROT..
Physician Robert Dellavalle was gathering references for a scientific paper. His report contained dozens of web links to source material.

Two years on Dellavalle noticed that many of the links were moved or had disappeared altogether.

"Every time we checked, some were gone and others had moved," he said. "We thought, 'This is an interesting phenomenon itself. We should look at this'."

A team then looked at footnotes from scientific articles in three major journals - the New England Journal of Medicine, Science and Nature - at three months, 15 months and 27 months after publication. Inactive links grew during those intervals from 3.8% to 10% to 13%.

Dellavalle said: "References are vital tools for the critical analysis of any argument. While paper journals printed hundreds of years ago can be readily obtained, references to internet information in the current issues of prominent journals are sometimes unavailable."

Brewster Kahle of the Internet Archive echoed Dellavalle: "It's a huge problem. The average lifespan of a web page today is 100 days. This is no way to run a culture."

MORE: AScribe.org


MONDAY 24 NOVEMBER 2003 01.15 GMT
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BLOGGING STATS...
The Observer columnist John Naughton provides a link to some quotes from Dave Sifry, who founded Technorati. The Technorati web site tracks web logs and what it calls "the blogosphere":

"Right now [Nov 16 03], we're adding 8,000-9,000 new weblogs every day, not counting the 1.2 million weblogs we already are tracking. That means that on average, a brand new weblog is created every 11 seconds. We're also seeing about 100,000 weblogs update every day as well, which means that on average, a weblog is updated every 0.86 seconds.


SUNDAY 16 NOVEMBER 2003 23.35 GMT
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GIVING AN INCH...
Writer Douglas Rushkoff posts an interesting article titled 'My Cell Phone Is Not a TV'. In making the point, he boils network devices down to three different types:

Inch (cell phones, pagers, and PDAs etc) are for one-person use. The screens are not for reading, but for eyeballing.

Foot (computers, TV sets, kiosks etc) permit just about as much data retrieval as data entry. For one to three people to collaborate.

Yard (large screen TVs, movie screens and white boards). They're more for presentation than collaboration.

He concludes that "no matter how much circuitry, RAM or bandwidth we can shove into our cell phones, they will remain inch devices and best suited for inch-appropriate media.

"The killer app for cell phones already exists: the voice phone call! And the misdirection of this entire industry's resources away from the voice call could cost us all, dearly."

Full article (800 words) can be read here


MONDAY 10 NOVEMBER 2003 23.50 GMT
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CONCERNED CITIZENS..
Irish Citizens for Trustworthy Evoting is the recently-adopted name for a campaigning group on electronic voting.


SATURDAY 8 NOVEMBER 2003 23.50 GMT
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FLAG OF CONVENIENCE..
The power and political muscle of the US television and entertainment industries was shown again last week when the communications regulator announced what it called "anti-piracy protection for digital TV".

From July 2005, all equipment fitted with digital tuners must be capable of recognising what's known as a broadcast flag. This is a piece of digital code embedded at the start of the televised output.

Digital tuners are not only found in television sets but are also in devices such as digital recorders and computers, and the new policy means it will be illegal for manufacturers not to comply. It will also be an offense to import non-compliant equipment into the US.

The Federal Communications Commission is pandering to the television companies and justifies its decision as "fostering the transition to digital TV and forestall potential harm to the viability of free, over-the-air broadcasting in the digital age". [1]

But the net is at the heart of this policy. The TV industry is scarred stiff by what's happening to the music (and now movie) industry and the FCC duly obliged: "the broadcast flag seeks only to prevent mass distribution over the Internet". [2]

As a nice bonus, the TV companies can decide for themselves what programmes to flag. News and current affairs are exempt, but definitions will no doubt prove tricky.

That ability will inevitably lead to the end of being able to record programmes as currently exists. And probably the emergence of pay-to-record fees.

The TV industry hated video recorders and did everything possible to block and stall their use. With this broadcast flag, the industry has surpassed itself by getting inside the hardware, a first for big entertainment.

SOURCES: [1] and [2] FCC press release, 4 November 2003.


TUESDAY 4 NOVEMBER 2003 00.40 GMT
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MORE ON ELECTRONIC VOTING...
The Labour Party has also (see 1 November below) called for "the suspension of plans to extend electronic voting until the e-voting system has been changed". At a press conference yesterday, the party issued details of a report [pdf 78k] on electronic voting it commissioned.

Among the major flaws mentioned in the report is: "No integrated end-to-end test of the entire system has been conducted to date. The testing of the 'Integrated Election Software' was carried out by the British Electoral Reform Society in 2002.

"However for this test the random mix feature of the IES was disabled. An integrated end-to-end test would generally be considered a key part of the implementation of any new technology".

In response, Martin Cullen, the minister responsible for the voting system, described the Labour Party claims as "irresponsible and unfounded".

SOURCES: Labour Party press release, 3 November 2003.
Martin Cullen's response, 3 November 2003.


MONDAY 3 NOVEMBER 2003 01.40 GMT
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THEY SAID IT WOULD NEVER HAPPEN...
"I make far more from a broadband customer than I ever did from a narrowband customer"
-- Ben Verwaayen, chief executive of British Telecom.

SOURCE: 'Broadband: a new world of riches', The Observer business section, 26 October 2003.


SATURDAY 1 NOVEMBER 2003 22.40 GMT
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ELECTRONIC VOTING TO BE INVESTIGATED..
Last Wednesday Fine Gael called for "a halt to the introduction of electronic voting, until such time as all parties involved in the elections are satisfied that the security of the electronic system is absolute".

The press release from party spokesman Bernard Allen also pointed to the lack of consultation with disability groups. He said he "received numerous reports from these groups, that the machines will not be accessible for people with disabilities".

I will NOT be voting in the local and European elections next year unless there is a lot more transparency and accountability in the systems being used. Verification by voters is an absolute.

Allen's statement had good news however when he revealed that the Oireachtas Committee on the Environment had decided "to proceed with hearings into the system being used".

SOURCE: Fine Gael press release, Weds 29 October 2003.

MORE INFO: Irish computer scientist Margaret McGaley produced a damning report last year into the voting system bought by the Irish government. Her website includes the report and details of a campaign on the issue.

MORE ON AMAZON...
Amazon.com seems to have changed one aspect of its newly-launched 'Search Inside the Book'facility.

According to last Friday's SFGate.com, excerpts from books cannot now be printed out, although Amazon refused to comment, citing security concerns.

I suspect Amazon made the changes to quell the growing concerns of authors and publishers. Although if people still want to use what they find, they can revert to pen and paper.