Nokia has launched a whole bunch of lawsuits against HTC, RIM and Viewsonic, claiming that they violate (collectively) 45 of Nokia’s patents. It has not revealed what patents each case entails, but all the cases are either in the US or in Germany.

It has filed its US cases against HTC with the International Trade Commission, and HTC and Viewsonic in the Federal District Court in Delaware. In Germany, it has filed cases against HTC and RIM in Dusseldorf’s Regional Court and against all three companies in the most-popular court in patent law – the Mannheim Regional Court, in addition to another three cases in Munich.

In all, it has filed a total of 11 lawsuits against the three companies – all launched in one day. Pretty big effort on Nokia’s part.

The full press statement is below:

Nokia takes new steps to protect its innovations and intellectual property

Patent suits filed against HTC, RIM and Viewsonic in the US and Germany

Espoo, Finland – Nokia has filed claims in the United States and Germany alleging that products from HTC, RIM and Viewsonic infringe a number of Nokia patents.

“Nokia is a leader in many technologies needed for great mobile products,” said Louise Pentland, chief legal officer at Nokia. “We have already licensed our standards essential patents to more than 40 companies.  Though we’d prefer to avoid litigation, Nokia had to file these actions to end the unauthorized use of our proprietary innovations and technologies, which have not been widely licensed.”

Nokia’s actions include a complaint to the US International Trade Commission (ITC) against HTC, suits against HTC and Viewsonic in the Federal District Court of Delaware, US, against HTC and RIM in the Regional Court in Dusseldorf, Germany and against all three companies in the Regional Courts in Mannheim and Munich, Germany. In total, 45 Nokia patents are in suit in one or more of the actions.

Nokia proprietary innovations protected by these patents are being used by the companies to enable hardware capabilities such as dual function antennas, power management and multimode radios, as well as to enhance software features including application stores, multitasking, navigation, conversational message display, dynamic menus, data encryption and retrieval of email attachments on a mobile device.

“Many of these inventions are fundamental to Nokia products,” Pentland concluded. “We’d rather that other companies respect our intellectual property and compete using their own innovations, but as these actions show, we will not tolerate the unauthorized use of our inventions.”

Image: steakpinball/Flickr (Creative Commons)

If you were like many, you would have signed up to Google when you were a ‘minor’, you were until recently breaking the terms of service (and yes, who knew). Well, you are no longer a criminal because a US court has ruled that lying on social media websites isn’t an offence under the law. So, all those profiles with fake ages and birthdays won’t send you to jail.

Well, until it gets overturned in appeal. The Ninth Circuit Federal Court of Appeals ruled:

Basing criminal liability on violations of private computer use polices can transform whole categories of otherwise innocuous behavior into federal crimes simply because a computer is involved. Employees who call family members from their work phones will become criminals if they send an email instead. Employees can sneak in the sports section of the New York Times to read at work, but they’d better not visit ESPN.com. And sudoku enthusiasts should stick to the printed puzzles, because visiting www.dailysudoku.com from their work computers might give them more than enough time to hone their sudoku skills behind bars.

In layman’s terms, the court basically said that if you broke a condition in a social media website’s terms of service, such as some offences noted by the blog The Awl:

That’s not crazy: up until quite recently, the court points out, minors couldn’t even “legally” use any Google product. On Facebook, it would have been “illegal” for any user to give another his password.

… it does not mean you will go to jail – if you live in America – under some federal computer crimes law. It should also be noted that minor lies such as a false birthdate are not worth the time for the US prosecutors, so you’re pretty much safe.

Does that mean you can stop reading the terms of service? Well, no. While it is no longer a reason for a criminal suit, it is for a civil suit since it is a legal contract. So sadly, you should (but realistically you won’t) be reading the terms of service agreements.

Especially your mobile carrier – because it might be handy when you want to leave.

Image: Skye Suicide/Flickr (Creative Commons)

The controversial Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA) and Protect IP Act could find themselves back in the spotlight again, with the chief of the Motion Picture Association of America hinting at a possible revival of the bills.

In an interview with The Hollywood Reporter, MPAA chief Christopher Dodd told the magazine that he was “confident” that President Obama’s relationship with Silicon Valley and Hollywood would be used to advance the bill.

What’s the fuss over SOPA? Read our in-depth analysis of the SOPA/PIPA bills.

“I’ll only say to you that I’m confident he’s using his good relationships in both communities to do exactly what you and I have been talking about,” he said.

“There are not a huge number of people who understand that content and technology absolutely need each other, so I’m counting on the fact that there are people like Jeff [Skoll, founded eBay and now founder of his own film company Participant Media] and others who are smart and highly respected in both communities”

He also suggested that Steve Jobs would be a supporter of SOPA.

On negotiations, Dodd told the interviewer: “I’m confident that’s the case, but I’m not going to go into more detail because obviously if I do, it becomes counterproductive.”

The controversy stems over the overreaching powers that copyright owners would have to protect their assets – including having banned the use of filtering circumvention technologies. It even lost the support of President Obama, who threatened to veto the law. However, he has been carefully choosing his words since it is a presidential year and he needs Hollywood money to support him – especially since the rules have pretty much changed.

Image: bfishadow/Flickr (Creative Commons)

A online hacktivist group has taken down the website of the NASDAQ stock exchange – and at the time of writing, the site remains down. However, the group has said that their servers were not hacked and that trading systems were not affected.

“The website wasn’t hacked, nobody got any information. What they did was try to block access for our users,” a spokesperson told Reuters. “We experienced intermittent service disruptions on our corporate website and we are working to resolve the issues.”

This isn’t the first time the NASDAQ had security issues, with hackers successfully installing malicious software in 2010 that allowed them to spy on directors of publicly held companies because of lax security practices. That story was broken by Reuters last year.

Russia Today is claiming that a group known as L0NGwave99 is responsible for the attack, quoting from an operative, “This DDoS Operation over NASDAQ is done in support of the great and rooted 99% movement, whom the L0NGwave99 Group has decided to give a present.” It is likely, but not confirmed to, be aligned with Anonymous.

Both the European Commission and the Department of Justice in the United States have cleared a deal that will see Google and Motorola finally tie the knot, after the US$12.5 billion deal was announced last August.

In Europe, the European Commission approved the deal with no conditions after evaluating that the deal will not “significantly impede effective competition” in the Eurozone. . However, it will continue to monitor the situation because of the highly competitive nature of the mobile industry.

“We have approved the acquisition of Motorola Mobility by Google because, upon careful examination, this transaction does not itself raise competition issues,” Joaquin Almunia, Commission Vice President of Competition Policy for the European Commission, said in a statement.

“Of course, the Commission will continue to keep a close eye on the behaviour of all market players in the sector, particularly the increasingly strategic use of patents.”

The deal was approved in the US with the closing of another investigation into Apple and Microsoft having ownership of Nortel’s patents – which is rumoured to be the cause of why Google decided to by Motorola in the first place. The DoJ said in its investigation that, essentially, Microsoft has little market share to use these patents as weapons against Google:

With respect to RIM’s and Microsoft’s acquisition of Nortel patents, their low market shares in mobile platforms would likely make a strategy to harm rivals either through injunctions or supracompetitive royalties based on the acquired Nortel SEPs unprofitable.  Because of their low market shares, they are unlikely to attract a sufficient number of new customers to their mobile platforms to compensate for the lost patent royalty revenues.  Moreover, Microsoft has cross-license agreements in place with the majority of its Android-based OEM competitors, making such a strategy even less plausible for it.

It also has come out and said that all patent owners must play fair with each other, giving fair or equal terms to each other to use another’s patents.

Apparently, according to Android Central, the last country to approve is China – but again, if Europe and the United States say yes, then China’s approval looks set.

If you were like me, you were pretty upset when ABC had to pull The Daily Show and the Colbert Report from air after Foxtel acquired exclusivity of the two. And in Australia, the only way to watch them was via Foxtel or acquire it via different means. But, their geoblock is not like the ones you see on Hulu. It has a weak spot, which we have found.

The message, even if you were watching a clip from 2007, if you were in Australia without the technique.

And it works. I’ve been enjoying it for most of the year – and was pondering whether or not to post this (because I wasn’t sure of its legality). But hey, you watch it with ads provided by Viacom, so it’s like a win-win situation (except for Foxtel).

Plus, it’s the US Election season. So, why not get a fix of some ‘alternative’ commentary about the frontrunners.

How to do it?

First, what you need is to get Firefox and install a plugin called Modify Headers – yes, and the name suggests what we are doing. We are going to slightly alter the headers whenever we connect to a page – like The Daily Show or the Colbert Report.

After installing it, you should see a new menu on the Navigation Toolbar with the logo similar to where you see above “Start” in the image on top. Click the button and find the option “Open Modify Headers”. If you don’t have the button, then you have to right click the toolbar, select “Customize” and drag and drop the “Modify Headers” button.

The idea is that we want to add something to our headers to tell the servers that we’re coming from America via a HTTP proxy (which many workplaces use). So, under “Select Action”, choose “Add”. Now, under “Header name”, type in X-Forwarded-For. Now, for a value, we want something that looks like an American IP address. I personally chose 12.13.14.15 – but feel free to be a bit creative (just make sure it works). You can also put in a comment – though it’s not necessary; and when finished, press Add. It should be added to the list.

Afterwards, we want to make sure it’s enabled – you’ll see in the last column that there should be a green or red indicator. Click the “Enable/Disable” button the right hand side of the dialog box, and the light should be green if it’s not enabled. If it’s already green, don’t worry.

And you are done. Now all you have to do is simply go back to the Modify Headers button and click on “Start”. The logo should now be red. To test it out, go to The Daily Show’s website and watch a clip from the show. It should now play.

As well from playing clips, you can now play full episodes of the show. Though, for both watching clips and full episodes, you’ll see ads in between. However, for some unknown reason, many of the ads I’ve encountered are for Australian companies. But hey, all we care about is you and I, watching The Daily Show and not buying Foxtel just to see it.

Are there any more sites that I could do this to?

Well, there is one more notable site that falls victim from this little trickery. And that’s VEVO. Remember that site? For those not in the know, VEVO is a music video site launched by YouTube and Universal Music. While many of us were stuck using YouTube as a way to watch videos, the US had access to VEVO and more artists because of rights restrictions. So using this technique, you can now see what VEVO is all about.

I can personally tell you, it’s not much you’re missing.

Also, for some unknown reason, I found ABC’s own iView having problems loading with this on. What does that say? Maybe nothing, or maybe a way for those in the United States and anyone else in the world to watch stuff from the ABC outside of Australia?

Kodak has announced that it and all of its subsidies have filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection, in a move to restructure the company “to focus on its most valuable business lines” after years of ignoring the rise of digital cameras.

“Kodak is taking a significant step toward enabling our enterprise to complete its transformation,” Antonio M. Perez, CEO of Kodak, said in a statement.

“After considering the advantages of chapter 11 at this time, the Board of Directors and the entire senior management team unanimously believe that this is a necessary step and the right thing to do for the future of Kodak.”

The company has received a $950 million credit fund from Citibank in order to restructure the company, and hopes to continue to pay for wages and their benefits. However, how many jobs will be axed is another question – and could be large in number.

Kodak’s bankruptcy hasn’t come as a shock to many. The company ignored the trend of digital cameras, selling sub-par cameras in the highly competitive market. In comparison, companies like Sony, Canon, Samsung and Nikon made improvements in digital camera technology. Now, we have a camera on our phones, tablets and in slim form factors. In addition, the last year it had a profit was in 2007, and has now relied on its patents for some profits.

A question we should now look at is who will buy Kodak’s patents. Nortel’s patent portfolio was up for sale once it went bankrupt – and that got $4.5 billion from a consortium of companies that include Microsoft and Apple. A Bloomberg report hints at that Kodak’s patents are already worth $3 billion.

But who will buy them?

The very same Bloomberg report list Microsoft and Samsung as potential buyers. While a Microsoft seems weird (but hey, Google bought Motorola); a Samsung buyout does not. Just yesterday, Kodak accused Samsung for patent infringement, listing five patents. In addition, these patents could be handy in its global war against Apple, since Kodak is also accusing Apple (as well as RIM and HTC) for patent infringement.

Samsung could also be part of a consortium of other camera manufacturers to acquire these patents – especially since Kodak in recent years have become more aggressive on its patents.

While all this may be speculation, technology patents are highly critical now. So, whoever buys Kodak’s patents could become rich very quickly if they adopt a much more aggressive strategy.

Wikipedia and Reddit are not the only sites to black-out their website in protest of the PROTECT IP and Stop Online Piracy Acts that are running through the US Congress. Many other sites, including Destructoid, and Imgur will also participate.

These sites will be participating in the black-out:

• Destructoid
• Major League Gaming (MLG)
• Identi.ca
• Red 5 Studios – shutting down Firefall beta.
• Every site under the “I Can Haz Cheezburger” network (announcement)
• WordPress
• Imgur
• XDA-Developers
• Mojang/Minecraft
• Tucows
• Anonymous (via Twitter “no tweets… between 8a and 8p EST”)
• Boing Boing
• Raspberry Pi
• Good.is
• Namecheap

A full directory can be found here via Reddit, or through the official site.

Have you heard about the Stop Online Piracy Act, or the PROTECT IP Act? The tech industry is talking about it. And that could be because it hasn’t gotten any mainstream media attention until the White House publicly said it would not let it through if Congress passed it in its current form. But what is it? Why are Google and Facebook against it?

Let’s get the background on what it is, and what are the rationale of both sides of the argument.

What does SOPA/PIPA do?

Both the Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA) and the PROTECT IP Act (PIPA) aim to stop copyright infringement – especially on digital content and pharmaceuticals that are outside the US borders. The only main difference between the two acts is that SOPA is the House of Representatives’ version, while PIPA is the Senate equivalent.

However, while everyone would support stopping copyright infringement – the main issue is how SOPA and PIPA ‘prevent’ copyright infringement.

But what does SOPA do? Well, it forces service providers to “take feasible and reasonable measures” to prevent US citizens getting access to the infringing site once they get an order by a court. These measures include “prevent[ing] the domain name… from resolving to that domain name’s Internet Protocol address”. It also includes provisions for forcing search engines to not list the infringing site.

Then we get to some of the more interesting stuff in this act. There is also a part of the legislation that will make it a federal offense to get around the ban. Anyone that “fails to comply” or “willfully provides or offers to provide a product… designed or marketed for the circumvention or bypassing” of the ban will find themselves in court.

I should also point out that the author of the SOPA Bill – Lamar Smith – has now decided to remove the part where ISPs will have to block sites. However, making ISPs and search engines responsible will most likely still be in the amended copy.

In addition, Section 103 gives powers to corporations to cut the supply of advertising and payment services to websites that are deemed (by them, I should add) to be infringing on copyright. This means that News Corporation could in effect cut off this very site’s supply of ad revenue from Google because they can claim, without any due process, that I have stole their content. And they have to do this within 5 days – unless the person accused “onsents to the jurisdiction of the courts of the United States, and will accept service of process from the person who provided notification” of theft. In other words, you ignore your own domestic law (e.g. Australian law) for US law.

As The Verge’s Nilay Patel – also a legal expert on technology issues – points out: while the law is designed to attack foreign sites, realistically domestic sites are also implicated. “Because US copyright holders generally can’t drag a foreign web site into US courts to get them to stop stealing and distributing their work, SOPA allows them to go after the ISPs, ad networks, and payment processors that are in the United States,” he writes.

Who supports what?

Obviously, those supporting the bill are Hollywood and media companies – including News Corporation and NBCUniversal. In addition, there are pharmaceutical companies, manufacturers, and the US Chamber of Commerce. GoDaddy was a former supporter, before the company retracted their support after some heavy criticism from its users.

Opposing, however, are Google, Facebook, Yahoo, the Consumer Electronics Association (the guys who run CES) and many other websites. In addition, Reddit and Wikipedia will block out their websites in protest; and there has been a movement to stop buying those who support the legislation.

But why each side is against it, or for it?

Well, the US Chamber of Commerce noted in a letter to the New York Times that these “rouge websites” steal jobs from the industry. “Rogue sites are often located outside the United States, beyond the reach of our enforcement agencies. Proposed legislation authorizes a federal court to direct the suspension of services (payment processing, advertisements and linking) to rogue sites,” Mark Elliot, Executive Vice President, wrote.

The Entertainment Software Association – which represents the gaming industry – also said, “Rogue websites – those singularly devoted to profiting from their blatant illegal piracy – restrict demand for legitimate video game products and services, thereby costing jobs. Our industry needs effective remedies to address this specific problem, and we support the House and Senate proposals to achieve this objective.”

Those opposing, however, note that the law will have an impact to economic growth and job creation as the Internet has made a significant contribution to the country’s GDP; undermine their ‘safe habour’ protection that lets them avoid prosecution by removing content when asked under the DMCA; and that the laws “would expose [them]… to new and uncertain liabilities, private rights of action and technology mandates that would require monitoring of websites.”

They, however, agree that action needs to be done on rouge sites, but how SOPA and PIPA is written, it is not the right course.

“While we work together to find additional ways to target foreign ‘rouge’ sites, we should not jeopadize a foundational structure that has worked for content owners and Internet companies alike and provides certainty to innovators with new ideas for how people create, find, discuss and share information lawfully online,” the consortium comprised of Facebook, Google and Yahoo said.

Then we have internet engineers who say that SOPA and PIPA could become a security risk. “Both bills will risk fragmenting the Internet’s global domain name system (DNS) and have other capricious technical consequences,” the engineers wrote.

Again, reiterating, the writer of SOPA has decided to remove the ISP blocking provisions of the bill.

In addition, conservative think tank, the Heritage Foundation – and if you have no idea of American politics, this bit is huge – has also noted its opposition. They state that the issue “does not align neatly along party lines” and that SOPA/PIPA could have “unintended negative consequences for the operation of the Internet and free speech.”

You can find a list of supporting SOPA here, while those against here.

… and about the Congress?

Funny thing about that. Many of the supporters got paid lobbying money by the entertainment industry during the 2010 election campaign. Yes, you got that right. They were in effect bought to get them to vote on SOPA and PIPA. Lemar Smith (author of SOPA) got over $150,000 from the Entertainment industry, while Patrick Leahy (author of PIPA) got more than $350,000.

Then you have people like Harry Reid – who is the Majority Leader of the Senate, and Democrat – getting $500,000 to secure his support. In fact; out of the top 10 of sponsors being paid by the Entertainment industry, the Democrats hold eight.

On the other side, we have Republican presidential candidate Ron Paul and Nancy Pelosi (Minority Leader in the House, Democrat). Then we get an interesting sort of characters listed as those opposing – we have Michelle Bachmann and Will Ryan. And if you haven’t been following American politics, then you should read Wikipedia about them – after the blackout, of course.

If we ever needed an example on buying votes, this is it.

All the data can be found here, at ProPublica.

What is happening now?

Well, after the comments by the White House, the House has dropped SOPA (for now), but it appears Lemar will be trying again to revive it. PIPA, however, isn’t dead. Harry Reid – remember him – is pushing for the vote to happen on January 24, despite six Republicans asking him to delay it so the Senate could debate it more. So, the threat of SOPA and PIPA is still around.

Corporate support, however, is slowly dropping like flies. EA, Nintendo and Sony all quietly removed their support (technically, their lobby group still supports it however); in addition to the more famous backflip from GoDaddy. And you’ve got to thank Reddit – where the GoDaddy protest started.

Is there an alternative?

Yes, there is an alternative. Opponents of SOPA have put their support for the OPEN Act, or the Online Protection and Enforcement of Digital Trade Act. The OPEN Act includes Safe Habour protections, and promises that any cases are resolved by experts, not by cutting off money and just making it ‘disappear’.

And you can obviously tell, the Entertainment industry doesn’t like it. The MPAA has labelled the OPEN Act as “fail[ing] to provide an effective way to target foreign rogue websites and goes easy on online piracy and counterfeiting.”

“By changing the venue from our federal courts to the U.S. International Trade Commission, it places copyright holders at a disadvantage and allows companies profiting from online piracy to advocate for foreign rogue websites against rightful American copyright holders,” spokesperson Michael O’Leary wrote.

Eric Goldman, from Santa Clara University School of Law, is also somewhat unimpressed by the law. He claims that the law still suffers from the assumption that “there is a problem with foreign rogue websites that needs to be solved.”

“I’m not saying there isn’t, but the policy discussions have been startlingly devoid of reliable and credible facts demonstrating the nature and scope of the problem,” he writes.

But there is also another non-legislative alternative – make your damn content available online. Piracy exists because people, who want information now (and if you haven’t realised that, then I’m surprised that you still exist), get access to the shows, movies and music easily. Take for instance in Sweden, where music piracy has fallen 25 percent. Why? Because, thanks to Spotify, they can find their content and play it on many devices and in different locations.

Maybe it’s time to start shifting your digital strategy to be more fitting against piracy, rather than locking them down and asking governments to legitimise your failings.

The year 2011 was one year that we will all never forget. Even though they were all in the beginning of the year, the floods in Queensland and Brazil, the earthquakes in Christchurch and the tsunami in the north of Japan are still present in all of our minds. We also saw the death of a tech luminary, Steve Jobs; and the powerful News Corporation losing its influence over politicians in the UK after the phone hacking scandal took a drastic turn from celebrities to victims of crime.

This year, we’ve decided to recap the top 11 tech stories of the year – from security problems to business failures, and even the growing popularity of Windows Phone 7.

You can explore the choices below.

• The Revolutions Heard Around The Globe
• The Catastrophic Disaster of the PSN
• Steve Jobs: 1955 – 2011
• The Phone Hacking that killed the News
• A Global War – Apple v Samsung
• A 50 Day Hacking Campaign, for the lulz
• The Rise of Windows Phone 7
• An annus horribilis for RIM and Netflix
• Palm is dead, WebOS lives on
• Social: Google enters, LinkedIn goes IPO and Timeline
• Gone Viral: Friday – an instant success amongst the haters
• Credits

Image Credits: Al Jazeera English (Left) and David Shankbone (Right). All are licensed under Creative Commons.

Wikipedia could have a total “blackout” – by blanking out every single page in the online encyclopedia, even the 1 million pages in the English version – as a protest to the controversial Stop Online Piracy Act, which is heading to the US Senate.

The bill, which is designed to safeguard intellectual property through controversial means needs to pass the Senate Judiciary Committee before it will head to the full Senate for passage. It is controversial because of how it will safeguard these: making content providers responsible for the content uploaded, and DNS blocking and filtering.

Yes, the very two provisions have large ramifications. The Electronics Frontier Foundation believe it could kill open source. As well, realistically, there is no way to have content providers like YouTube to make sure that all videos are not copyright infringing – and it could impact sites internationally like Dailymotion from France as ISPs will be breaking the law if they do not block the site.

Yes, the land of internet freedoms is turning to Chinese and Iranian tactics of internet censorship in order to protect the rights of Hollywood, who are so stubborn that they can’t seem to embrace the internet.

Jimmy Wales, the founder, wrote on Wikipedia that he is pondering the idea of a total blackout, based on the Italian Wikipedia’s own blackout on a similar law in Italy that could infringe on its “editorial independence”. It was successful in getting the law dropped by the Italian Parliament.

He has asked the community for either a simple objection or approval of the idea before going ahead.

“My own view is that a community strike was very powerful and successful in Italy and could be even more powerful in this case,” he wrote. “It’s of course a very very big deal to do something like this, it is unprecedented for English Wikipedia.”

He also hints a global blackout, which could mean that everyone’s affected.

“One possible view is that because the law would seriously impact the functioning of Wikipedia for everyone, a global strike of at least the English Wikipedia would put the maximum pressure on the US government.”

Responses have been largely supportive, but those opposing highlighting it could breach Wikipedia’s self-imposed neutrality, especially on political issues. Some have also offered alternative solutions to a protest against the bill as a blackout isn’t ideal.

Wales updated users on the progress, saying that he sees the OPEN Act – backed by Google and Facebook – is a viable alternative to the controversial SOPA. However…

“Apparently the supporters of SOPA are going to try to ram it quickly through the House Judiciary Committee on Thursday, and that will make it harder to stop and/or significantly improve the bill before it goes to a full vote,” he wrote in his update.

“Time is not on our side here.”

Image: Tom Solari/TECHGEEK.com.au

Social networking giant Facebook could launch its initial public offering of its stock somewhere between April and June of next year. This is according to a new report by the Wall Street Journal, who cites “people familiar with the matter” as their source.

The paper notes that the company is seeking to raise US$10 billion in the IPO. In doing that, it could raise its market value to more than US$100 billion. However, as noted by the article, the value very much depends on “the market and the European economy”.

It is currently in internal discussions on when it will launch the IPO, but CEO Mark Zuckerberg has not made any decisions on an exact date. However, it has written up a prospectus and that is ready to be made public at any time. In addition, it has not made any decisions on which banks it will involve in its IPO.

Facebook would join a long list of tech companies that have started selling their stock recent years like rival business-orientated social networking site LinkedIn, and deals site Groupon. However, based on recent performances, they are facing some difficulties in maintaining shareholder confidence. Facebook, however, might overcome that since they have a somewhat clearer business model as compared to Groupon and LinkedIn.

Though, I should point out that I am not a financial expert.

Image: Miel Van Opstal/Flickr (Creative Commons)

Animal rights activists People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals might have gone a bit crazy. The group has announced plans to launch a porn site that hopes to raise awareness of veganism.

It definitely would raise something, but not awareness.

According to Reuters, the company plans to launch a .xxx domain that will also include graphic footage of animal suffering with the hardcore pornography. Yes, because PETA thinks you’ll turn vegan if you see animals being tortured while seeing porn.

I personally think that that PETA are just actively encouraging bestiality.

“We’re hoping to reach a whole new audience of people, some of whom will be shocked by graphic images that maybe they didn’t anticipate seeing when they went to the PETA triple-X site,” said Lindsay Rajit, who is PETA’s associate director of campaigns, to Reuters.

“We try to use every outlet that we can to speak up for animals. We anticipated that this new triple-X domain name would be a hot topic and we immediately decided to use it and take advantage of it to try to promote the animal rights message.”

No, Lindsay. You’re going to attract psychos with animal cruelty porn.

PETA is known for not shying away from nudity, such as its non-fur campaigns. However, those campaigns didn’t leave bile in my mouth. This new campaign does.

Image: Tobias Vemmenby/Flickr (Creative Commons)

Wikileaks has recently published more cables from the US embassy in Canberra. One such cable has revealed that there could have been American involvement in the trial against ISP iiNet and AFACT over copyright infringement.

The cable was created by the then-ambassador for the United States Robert McCallum and was published on November 30, 2008.

The cable, as seen by TECHGEEK.com.au, says that the United States’ Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA) was the driving force behind AFACT’s case and that the participation of Village Roadshow and the Seven Network, two Australian companies, were just to make sure it wasn’t just “Hollywood ‘bullying some poor little Australian ISP.’”

The cable also reveals the reluctance to go for BigPond/Telstra, as they wish to not to “begin by tangling with Telstra… a company with the financial resources and demonstrated willingness to fight hard and dirty, in court and out.”

The source also claims that their case was “very strong” and delivered iiNet every week for five weeks a “‘telephone-directory’-sized list of violations complete with a DVD with ‘gigabytes’ of data on infringers using iiNet’s network… [and] iiNet did nothing against any of its users.” Also revealed was that the Communications Minister Senator Stephen Conroy was consulted about the case, but he appeared to have “other priorities” such as the NBN.

However, despite its claims that it was strong, the court has ruled against AFACT twice.

Delimiter’s Renai Le May has written a full analysis on the revelations of the cable in terms of the lawsuit:

I would bet that the publication of this cable will not aid the case of AFACT and the MPAA in wooing that public opinion. As the cable notes, one of the underlying issues beneath copyright infringement in Australia remains the reluctance by some parties to release their content locally at the same time as the US. I suspect that if that issue was resolved, and online distribution centres such as Hulu extended to Australia, much of the online copyright infringement problem would disappear.

The timing of the cable’s release appears to be coincidental, as AFACT are again looking to appeal the decision and could even go all the way to the High Court. Most likely, this will not affect the court’s decision. The public’s opinion, however, is a whole different mindset.

Editor’s Note: we will not publish the link in this article due to the sensitive nature of the very issue, and will delete ANY attempts of people trying to publish the link. It is already on the web, use Google.

Image: Los Angeles Times

The largest domain registrar and web hosting company GoDaddy has been bought for a hefty $2.25 billion to private equity firms KKR, Silver Lake Partners and Technology Crossover Ventures. The buyout comes after the announcement by ICANN to reduce restrictions on domain names a few weeks ago.

“I’ve always said we would make a move like this when the right deal with the right partners could help us do the right thing for our customers and our employees,” CEO and founder Bob Parsons said in a statement.

“This is it! We are partnering with KKR, Silver Lake and TCV because of their technology expertise, their understanding of Web based businesses and because their values align with ours. We believe, together, we will take the company to the next level, especially when it comes to accelerating international growth.”

The company is seeing massive growth, with sales growing by 25% to US$947 million between 2009 and 2010, according to the Los Angeles Times. It’s position is thanks to heavy advertising with bikini-clad women – dubbed the “GoDaddy Girls” airing during the Super Bowl.

GoDaddy’s new owners aren’t strangers to the technology field, with Silver Lake’s former property Skype was sold to Microsoft for a big US$8.5 billion. Maybe GoDaddy is trying to find a way to be bought by another company within a few years – or even possibly attempt to start an IPO (it was going to do so in 2006 – but never eventuated).

You must think we must be pulling your leg, but sadly (or not) it is true. Perfume maker Fargginay has created the bacon-smelling perfume, so those addicted to the sizzling smell can now wear it every day.

According to the maker, each bottle has a slight smell of bacon with 11 popular essential oils. It will come in two smells – Classic (spicy maple) and Gold (citrus), both at US$36. And the perfumes can be used by both men, women and vegans. Apparently, it was created accidentally by John Fargginay, a Parisian butcher, and was used to elevate his customer’s mood with a secret recipie. However, a fire in 1924 destroyed his business and the formula.

You can get the perfume from its website.

The PlayBook, the tablet that RIM is hoping to stand a chance against the iPad, has now revealed the prices that the tablet will be sold at, as well as the stores in both the United States and Canada who will be offering the PlayBook.

The tablet will be sold for $499 for the 16GB model, while the 32GB and 64GB models will be sold for $599 and $699 respectively. The price points match the iPad. However, with that, do the features justify the cost, especially when the iPad has a much larger screen than the PlayBook, but the PlayBook supports Flash – something the device lacks.

These price points are expected to be the Wi-Fi only version, and the 4G versions of the tablet – one for each of the three standards deemed to be “4G” – will have a higher price point.

As usual, stores such as Best Buy and the carriers supporting one of four different versions of the tablet will be included, but also smaller mobile phone networks and retailers. Best Buy is starting pre-orders right now.

Image by: Tom Solari/TECHGEEK.com.au

OPINION: The Internet is a marvellous place where we can all communicate instantly without waiting several weeks to communicate internationally, or when we need something instant. But the true power of the internet is always in a major breaking story – such as a natural disaster.

This year, we have seen three: the Floods in Queensland, the Earthquake in New Zealand and the powerful tsunami-and-earthquake combo in Japan. And the Internet has made it easy to communicate necessary information.

While Twitter was used for the floods in order to disprove myths and even send out necessary information (we did our part as well on our Twitter feed); in Japan, the Internet was used to not only disseminate information via Twitter, but due to the geographical landscape of Japan, also broadcast NHK and two other television stations via the Ustream and other platforms in order to keep them up to date. Google also helped by making it easier to help find people – such as they did with the earthquake in Christchurch.

In addition with information, everyone on Twitter send their prayers with the hashtag #prayforjapan.

But, like everything, there is a downside with every disaster.

Of course, we will keep seeing those who exploit the disaster for their own interests: such as those conspiracy nuts spewing that the end of the world is nigh, or that this is the start of the Second Coming of Jesus Christ as spelt out in the Bible. I’m sorry, but if I’m going to believe you, you’ll need credible and scientific evidence for me to believe that – not some religious text which could be fictional.

However, I was stunned to read this:

Watching the news about the #tsunami in Japan and smiling, thinking of it as pay back for Pearl Harbor. Karma always finds a way.

March 12, 2011 9:46 AM via webReplyRetweetFavorite

@TroyHoban

Troy Hoban

… or read these, provided to you via the marvellous OpenBook (which brings to another unrelated point, FIX YOUR SECURITY SETTINGS ON FACEBOOK!!):

Of course, while I don’t usually publically shame people (on TECHGEEK.com.au), I do find it horrendous that people would think that this is simply karma for bombing Pearl Harbour. A natural disaster compared to something in World War II, something obviously man-made. Really? What about the fact that you bombed them twice with nuclear weaponry? Or even better, what about the fact that you helped their economy and then crashed the entire world’s economy? But no, a natural disaster that costs over 1,000 lives and that could rise exponentially is simply karma?

The fact these comments were made were obviously signs that they forgot that these are in the public arena. But still, these are horrendous comments. If every natural disaster occurred because we have done something bad to the United States, then was the New Zealand earthquake was karma for New Zealand for implementing a nuclear-free zone, affecting the United States’ nuclear program in the 1980s? Well, no. Unless you are really an idiot to believe that.

I have two words to say to you, and I am very sorry to other readers who find this out of character: f**k you!

These people (though it is very questionable), however, detract us from the main story. That Japan faces several problems – first with the nuclear reactors in its country, and the fact that it has a large budget deficit and braces for the worst, both in the disaster and economically. And with heartbreaking footage that has been screened on news bulletin after news bulletin – all sourced from NHK, the Japanese public broadcaster – the devastation is simply to hard to watch.

So while we understand the economic climate and donations to both Christchurch and Brisbane, we urge everyone to simply find some cash they have, such as some spare change, to help Japan in their hour of need.

Judge Theresa Buchanan, also denied a request to unseal the order, saying that the Twitter order “does not demand the contents of any communication… and thus constitutes only a request for records under [the law].” The order requested details of three known Wikileaks supporters, including Jonsdottir – a member of the Icelandic Parliament.

The request, unsealed at Twitter’s request, sought full contact details for the accounts of known Wikileaks associates – including Julian Assange and Bradley Manning – and their IP addresses. It also requested data transfer information and connection records. The move was in response to the Collateral Murder video showing the US military forces shooting at civilians and killing two Reuters journalists.

Buchanan’s ruling said that the information of the account holder’s First Amendment rights due to the nature of the order focusing on information rather than speech, or the Fourth Amendment, as users did not have a reasonable expectation of privacy over the information they give to Twitter freely.

Jonsdottir, with the assistance of the EFF and ACLU, are seeking an appeal, according to Wired. Full judgement is below.

Oh noes, the apocalypse is nigh! And if you happen to not read into the sarcasm, then you really need to go back to school. Anonymous’ latest targets – the controversial Westboro Baptist Church (of which I should mention not related to any other Baptist Church) – has now told them to bring their raft in a new statement.

As you can see at the top, and we refuse to link to its article for many reasons including our morality, is in response to an ultimatum that Anonymous delivered over the weekend, saying their reason to attack them was: “Rather than allowing the deceased some degree of peace and respect, you (WBC) instead choose to torment, harass, and assault those who grieve.”

“Should you ignore this warning, you will meet with the vicious retaliatory arm of ANONYMOUS: We will target your public Websites, and the propaganda & detestable doctrine that you promote will be eradicated; the damage incurred will be irreversible, and neither your institution nor your congregation will ever be able to fully recover.”

“It is in your best interest to comply now, while the option to do so is still being offered, because we will not relent until you cease the conduction & promotion of all your bigoted operations & doctrines,” the letter finishes.

The church is known for protesting in front of US soldiers’ funerals and has mainly spoken out in against homosexuality. Its outright-hatred with homosexuality has been used to claim that God hates the US, Sweden, Canada, and us – Australia. And now we can be on their list. I should be proud.

Sony has announced the expansion of its online music streaming service, Music Unlimited powered by Qriocity, to Australia, the United States and New Zealand, joining users in the United Kingdom, France, Germany, Italy and Span.

The service, which allows users on Internet-connected Sony devices, such as its line of BRAVIA televisions, Blu-Ray players and PlayStation computers, will stream music from all four major labels – Sony Music Entertainment, Universal Music, Warner Music and EMI, in addition with independent labels. It currently has 6 million songs, but that is expected to expand. Third-party Android phones will also be able to access the service.

The service comes with two plans – Basic ($4.99 AUD) and Premium ($12.99 AUD) – both monthly subscription. The Basic plan offers users access to the service, but a-la radio stations – where songs will be chosen by Sony, but you can choose channels customised by genre, era and mood. The Premium plan will allow access songs and play them on demand, create personal playlists and gain access to more channels with latest hits.

Music can also be synchronised with their existing library – with the exception of files laced with DRM – meaning users can stream their own music on the go in addition to Sony’s offering.

Full press release is below.

“Music Unlimited powered by Qriocity™” Available Today in United States, Australia and New Zealand

Sydney – 18 February 2011 – Sony Corporation (“Sony”) announces that “Music Unlimited powered by Qriocity™,” will be available today in the U.S., Australia and New Zealand – https://music.qriocity.com

“Music Unlimited powered by Qriocity™” is a new, cloud-based, digital music service which gives music lovers access at any time to a constantly growing catalogue of millions of songs from major labels including Universal Music Group, Sony Music Entertainment, Warner Music Group and EMI Music as well as leading independent labels and major publishers worldwide. The “Music Unlimited powered by Qriocity” catalogue will initially offer about six million songs and will continue to expand over time.

The service debuted in the U.K. and Ireland in December 2010 and became available in France, Germany, Italy and Spain in January 2011, representing one of the fastest global roll-outs ever seen for a digital music service.

Users can play music any time through “Music Unlimited powered by Qriocity” on a wide variety of Internet-connected Sony devices including Sony’s 2010 and 2011 models of network-enabled BRAVIA® TV, Blu-ray Disc™ player, Blu-ray Disc Home Theatre system, PlayStation®3 computer entertainment system as well as VAIO and other personal computers.   All existing PlayStation 3 computer entertainment systems in these countries will have access to the service.  It will also become available on a wide range of Sony’s portable devices, as well as on Sony and third-party Android-based mobile devices and other portable devices.

“As we expand ‘Music Unlimited powered by Qriocity’ around the globe, it signifies a paradigm shift which redefines the existing music listening experience by revolutionising music access, discovery, integration and personalisation,” said Kazuo Hirai, President of Networked Products & Services Group, Sony Corporation. “Through Sony’s high quality network-enabled devices, we are focused on delivering dynamic services ‘powered by Qriocity’ to offer global customers with compelling digital entertainment propositions.”

“By combining real choice and convenience, a fully integrated entertainment experience and global reach, Music Unlimited powered by Qriocity provides a compelling new way for fans to connect with Universal Music’s market leading roster of artists and their music,” stated Rob Wells, President of Global Digital Business at Universal Music Group.

“We are very supportive of a cloud‑based music service such as Music Unlimited powered by Qriocity – it’s about consumer convenience and access to all the music you want from all the devices you have,” said Thomas Hesse, President of Global Digital Business, U.S. Sales and Corporate Strategy at Sony Music Entertainment.  “It starts with the living room, which has really been underserved in terms of digital music. There has not been much innovation in the living room, yet that’s where more than 70 percent of consumers say they listen to music.  Sony has a unique position in the living room, with its PlayStation 3 computer entertainment system, for example, connected to the Internet, televisions, and surround sound systems in millions of living rooms around the globe.”

“When we look at U.S. consumers, we see a large segment that we characterise as ‘lean back’ who are frequent listeners to terrestrial radio and listen to more than 20 hours of music a week. This is a very committed and engaged segment that loves music. They will be reached in the digital living room before they would be reached through the current digital music offerings,” said Michael Nash, Executive Vice President of Digital Strategy and Business Development at Warner Music Group. “Sony has listened to the consumer and has devised a service that is very well targeted to this marketplace opportunity.”

“The expansion of Music Unlimited powered by Qriocity into the US and Australasia provides a great opportunity to grow the digital music market further in both regions,” said Mark Piibe, Executive Vice President - Global Business Development at EMI Music. “Sony Network Entertainment, together with their partners Omnifone and Gracenote, possess tremendous reach and a compelling new platform for consumers to discover and enjoy the music they love. This is a welcome addition to the digital music market, and we are happy to support it.”

“Music Unlimited powered by Qriocity” Features

With Basic (US$3.99, AU$4.99, NZ$5.99) and Premium (US$9.99, AU$12.99, NZ$13.99) monthly subscription plans, “Music Unlimited powered by Qriocity” offers breadth of content and easy music discovery features cited as most important by music enthusiasts.

The Basic plan works as an infinite ad-free radio station and subscribers can listen to dozens of personalised channels – categorised by genre, era as well as mood through SensMe™ – without the requirement to download or manage their music files. Additionally, the Premium subscription plan offers a one-time 30 day Premium free trial enabling users to listen in full to every song on demand, create personal playlists of favourites, and gain access to premium Top 100 channels which are regularly updated with the latest hits.

By studying users’ listening habits, incorporating their ‘like/dislike’ song ratings, analysing their existing music collections and more, “Music Unlimited powered by Qriocity” adapts to users’ music preferences and constantly tailors music channels to offer the most compatible and enjoyable list of songs. Therefore, the more you listen, the more uniquely personalised your music channels become.

Furthermore, users can also synchronise their existing music files and playlists from other media players including iTunes® into “Music Unlimited powered by Qriocity,” and enjoy their existing music at any time across all compatible devices.

Powering the back-end of “Music Unlimited powered by Qriocity” are Omnifone™ and Gracenote®.  Omnifone provided its award-winning platform services to develop and deliver the service across a range of device platforms as well as licensed the service with rights holders around the world to provide a global catalogue of more than six million tracks, while Gracenote’s music identification and discovery technologies and Global Media Database create a rich experience for subscribers, letting them enjoy their existing digital music collection and discover new artists and albums within the service.

Sony also debuted “Video On Demand powered by Qriocity™,” the first service ‘powered by Qriocity,’ in April 2010 in the U.S. Currently, “Video On Demand powered by Qriocity” is also available in Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, Spain and the U.K. Through the same log-in ID & wallet, users can access both “Video On Demand powered by Qriocity” and “Music Unlimited powered by Qriocity” across their compatible devices.

International fans of The Daily Show and The Colbert Report are no longer able to see videos from the show – including the archival videos from both show’s history – after Comedy Central upgraded its video player and blocked international visitors.

Previously, both sites allowed international visitors to watch clips of the show, including the latest episodes. The only parts that were geoblocked were full episodes. Now, you must be in the United States to see the clips, something that would most undoubtedly anger international fans – such as myself.

There are ways to circumvent the geoblock, and if you watch shows from Hulu, then that loophole will work.

But, let’s just hope Comedy Central/Viacom reconsiders this move.

The new gaming console has been priced at $249.99 in North America, and this could mean that the console could be between the $250 – $350 price range when it hits Australia. As well, expect the console to be released in Australia between March 25 and before the start of E3, as that is when Nintendo calls it its “launch window”, but expect it nearer to the launch dates of the two continents.

The portable gaming console will be able to replicate 3D graphics without the need of glasses, and at the press event held earlier in the morning (Sydney time) at Amsterdam, the company revealed a new feature called “AR Cards” that will read content on specially-made cards and produce an animation, a la a barcode reader.

At launch, the console will feature 30 new titles, including nintendogs + cats and Steel Driver.

David Pitchford, a Florida native, is suing Wikileaks for “treason” – which I thought was only limited to crimes against the state and not a man – and is also claiming the release has put emotional distress on him.

He claims that the release of the diplomatic cables has caused “hyper tention” (I think he meant hypertension), “depression”, “stress”, “living in constant fear of being striken by another heart attack and or stroke” and, which is most likely his main point, “in fear of being on the brink of Nucliar WAR”.

Yes, because playing the nuclear card, or in his case “Nucliar” card, will win you the case. And yes, his case is riddled with more spelling errors, such as citizen (spelling it as “citezin”) and journalism (“jourlism”).

And you can obviously tell I am using the utmost restraint in not using other language, as I find the case totally stupid.

Pitchford is asking the court to give him US$150 million in damages, and is also seeking an injunction that would prevent Wikileaks releasing any more “United States dockuments” that would harm him – despite the fact that Wikileaks is not a US entity.

In an interview with a blogger named superkuh, he claims that the internet could not be a “real member of the press” and is actually considering also suing The Guardian newspaper in the UK and also the AP – citing the so-called stress about the leaks. (Under that logic, that would mean every single member of the press and every tech blog… like us).

The filing is below (thanks to Cryptome/Geekosystem)