Sunday, August 28, 2005

Tech Porn

Malaysia to crack down on porn stored in mobiles -- report

Agence France-Presse

KUALA LUMPUR -- Malaysia has launched a crackdown on porn stored on mobile phones, with police authorized to carry out random spot checks to catch culprits, a report said Monday.

Deputy Internal Security Minister Noh Omar said offenders could be charged with possession of pornographic materials.

"The same also goes for all telecommunications shop operators. If you are found to provide downloading services, action will be taken against you as well," Noh was quoted as saying by the New Straits Times.

He was responding to a report in a local tabloid saying that teenagers were abusing video recording features in mobile phones to capture images of mass sex parties before distributing them.

Prime Minister Abdullah Ahmad Badawi had asked police to take immediate action, Noh said.

While the government has moved to improve Internet access throughout the mainly Muslim nation, it is concerned that increasing numbers of Malaysians will be able to view pornography through computers and mobile devices.

Government computers have been blocked from accessing salacious websites, while school computers are to have porn filters installed.

Internet service providers have also been instructed to provide all their customers with low-cost software to bar access to Internet pornography.

Arab Bloggers

Egypt bloggers spearhead anti-Mubarak dissent

Agence France-Presse

CAIRO -- Baheyya is Egyptian, pillories President Hosni Mubarak and heaps scorn on his regime daily. But this fiery dissident who says aloud what others don't dare to think has no face: Baheyya is a blog.

In an Egyptian presidential campaign that has failed to generate much enthusiasm, one of the hottest debates is taking place in the country's burgeoning political blogosphere.

"In every normal election, people have their eyes trained on the result: who wins, who loses, and how things will change. In this election, however, we all know Hosni Mubarak is going to 'win' barring some miraculous deus ex machina," writes Baheyya ( http://baheyya.blogspot.com/).

She comments on a quaint picture of the "new Mubarak" sharing afternoon tea with a peasant woman in the Nile Delta during a carefully choreographed stop of his campaign last week.

"Mubarak and his handlers sordid efforts to negate 24 years of his well-known aloofness and indifference to ordinary Egyptians have surpassed all decency," she says.

Her identity is shrouded in mystery and the subject of much speculation among the blogging community but her diatribes have earned a cult albeit restricted following.

In a country where most major newspapers are state-owned or affiliated to a party, the Internet is offering an unprecedented freedom and platform for an increasingly bold opposition to the regime.

On a blog calling itself "The wordmonger", 36-year-old artist and blogger Abdo indulges in a satirical ode to "Mubarak, Prince of the believers", a title which usually refers to the Prophet Mohammed.

"God must love him so much: the more we curse him, the longer his reign lasts," he remarks.

Another Egyptian blogger explains he is posting his comments "so that future generations cannot accuse us of having remained silent when there was a need to speak out."

Accustomed to an autocratic regime that has severely restricted freedom of expression in the past, many Egyptians in the street are still keeping a lid on their exasperation, but bloggers are now letting off steam on the Internet.

"Wanderer of the big wide open" heckles his president directly: "Who are you Hosni? Are you not an Egyptian like all other Egyptians? Are you of holy ancestry?"

"What if he just vanished in the haze," he fantasizes. "Imagine if the same face you've seen for 24 years on television screens and newspaper front pages suddenly disappeared..."

"Manal and Alaa" is a more militant blog written in both Arabic and English which lashes out at the regime's repression of opposition demonstrations by what they brand the state's "terrorist karate units."

Manal Hassan and Alaa Abdel Fattah, both aged 23, are among the few bloggers who accept to reveal their identity.

"This corrupt regime has reached its sell-by date and its stench has become unbearable," says Alaa, a young activist with a thick mane of long curly black hair and whose blog serves a bulletin board for announcing rallies and protests.

The year 2005 has seen anti-Mubarak street protests which were unimaginable even a year ago, but most of the country's 300-odd political bloggers are anonymous.

"They disguise their identities and it gives them a platform to say things they can't say in public," explains Joshua Stacker, a Cairo-based American political researcher.

"If the state wanted to go after them they could, but it's only the elite who reads them," he adds.

Mohammed, who runs a blog entitled "From Cairo With Love," is equally realistic on the impact of Internet dissent.

"What I don't believe, is that blogs and the Internet will reform the Arab world and make the people rise up. I think it could be used as a tool for better connection and dissemination of information," he says.

Amid a climate of heavy suspicion over the transparency of the upcoming poll, many bloggers see themselves as election monitors. "We are not players, we are observers," says Alaa Abdel Fattah.

Thursday, August 25, 2005

Google Sued

Men's magazine sues Google over nude picture rights

Agence France-Presse

LOS ANGELES--The publisher of a US men's magazine has sued Google, alleging that the Internet search giant is infringing on copyright by displaying thousands of pictures of nude women.

Perfect 10 magazine said in a statement Wednesday that it was seeking a preliminary injunction against Google "to enjoin Google from copying, displaying and distributing Perfect 10 copyrighted images."

The magazine said it had already filed a complaint against Google in November 2004 claiming the Web giant "is displaying hundreds of thousands of adult images, from the most tame to the most exceedingly explicit, to draw massive traffic to its website, which it is converting into hundreds of millions of dollars of advertising revenue."

Much of Google's revenues come from so-called keyword searches that link advertisers to users by their search criteria.

Perfect 10 claims that "under the guise of being a 'search engine,' Google is displaying, free of charge, thousands of copies of the best images from Perfect 10, Playboy, nude scenes from major movies, nude images of supermodels, as well as extremely explicit images of all kinds."

Norm Zada, the founder of Perfect 10 magazine, claimed that most of the traffic to search engines is sex-related, and added: "Google's extraordinary gain in market cap from nothing a few years ago to close to 80 billion dollars is more due to their massive misappropriation of intellectual property than anything else."

Zada said the outcome of the Perfect 10 suit has implications for other media, which he said lose revenues to Google through these practices.

"If all an infringer needs to avoid liability is to provide some sort of a 'search function,' that will be the end of intellectual property in this country," Zada said.

Agence France-Presse has also sued Google for copyright infringement, claiming the search engine was displaying its news and photos without permission.

Net Titans

Battle among Internet portals seen as fight for profits

Agence France-Presse

SAN FRANCISCO -- Internet titans Google, Yahoo, Microsoft and America Online are locked in a fierce battle to win the fortune that comes with the loyalty of computer users, experts said Wednesday.

"There is kind of a land-grab going on," Roger Kay, president of Endpoint Technologies Associates, told Agence France-Presse. "There could be a natural monopoly that goes to the player who has the most muscle, delivers the best service."

US Internet giants are duking it out in four arenas: search, e-mail, instant messaging, and portal services such as mapping and computer telephone calling, according to Yankee Group analyst Su Li Walker.

"Everyone was somewhat in limbo, then Google came out with a search and everyone perked up to improve their offerings," Walker said.

Internet giants are offering disparate free services because once computer users step through a portal, they can be directed to features that produce revenue or be targeted for advertising, experts said.

"Ultimately, advertising business gravitates to the largest eyeball count," Kay said. "You want to be the portal of record so they come to you instead of the other guy."

There is a "head-to-head" between Microsoft and Google, said analyst Matt Rosoff of Directions on Microsoft, an independent research firm.

Google released Google Talk, a combination of instant messaging, computer telephone calling and e-mail, on Wednesday. Microsoft has long offered free e-mail and online talk, according to Rosoff.

Microsoft had its mapping program "sitting around for years," only to rush it online after Google debuted a mapping service, Rosoff noted.

Microsoft launched its MSN search engine in January after "Google showed the way to make money on search" with paid listings, Rosoff said.

"That is one area that Microsoft thinks is potentially very lucrative and fast growing,' Rosoff said.

In an odd reversal of images, Microsoft has become the "gentle giant" and Google the "hard guys" in the portal wars, Kay mused.

The stakes are high, according to Kay, since a portal with 100 percent of the market could could cripple competitors by directing online traffic elsewhere.

"I would say publishers should be concerned," Kay said. "It wouldn't surprise me to find Rupert Murdoch taking a big stake in a portal company."

There is speculation that Google plans a free wireless network covering the United States, according to Rosoff.

"That is crazy expensive," Rosoff said of what such a move. "But, once you've got users in your world, you can track them. There is sort of an Orwellian possibility to it.

A Microsoft executive predicted that annual Internet advertising expenditures worldwide will grow from 17 billion dollars this year to 30 billion dollars by mid 2008, Rosoff said.

There were 185 million Internet users in the United States and another 100 million in China at the end of 2004, said Egil Juliussen, president of eTForecasts research company.

Worldwide, the figure was 940 million and that number should surpass a billion this year, according to Juliussen.

"If a portal could make fifty cents a month from those users, it would add up real quickly," Juliussen said.

Each of the portals has different strengths, and their market shares could depend on how they tailor services to different countries, Juliussen said.

"I don't see any knockout punch by anyone," Juliussen said. "It will be an interesting battle."

Wednesday, August 24, 2005

Cheaper Calls

OECD foresees Internet telephony revolution

Agence France-Presse

PARIS--The telecommunications industry may be making profits again, but neither fixed-line nor mobile operators can afford to ignore the increasing number of consumers making calls over the Internet, the OECD warned in a report on Wednesday.

The research from the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, which groups 30 leading industrialized countries, identified new Internet technology known as Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP) as the latest innovation set to overhaul the industry.

VoIP allows consumers to make calls over their broadband internet connections at rates up to 80 percent lower than on a traditional fixed-line telephone, the OECD report claimed.

"The growing popularity of Internet telephony threatens the fixed-line revenues of traditional carriers, especially for international calls," the report said.

Underlining the rapidly-changing nature of the industry, the number of fixed line telephones fell in 2003 "for the first time ever" in OECD countries, the organization said.

And mobile operators, which have succeeded in many countries in gaining market share at the expense of fixed-line companies, are no longer alone at the forefront of technological innovation.

They, too, must adapt to changing consumer behavior.

"VoIP presents a challenge to mobile telephones, which in many countries are now more numerous than fixed connections," the OECD said.

Also, a new generation of mobile handsets enabling callers to link up to VoIP providers via the Internet risk circumventing mobile networks. This could be particularly useful for travelers, who currently pay high tarifs when using their mobile phones abroad.

The market for VoIP has been pioneered by Skype, one of the first companies in the sector. Skype services are most commonly used in the Netherlands, Poland and Denmark among the OECD countries.

According to data from investment bank Lehman Brothers and comScore Media Metrix, cited by the Financial Times, IP telephony revenues are forecast to nearly double to nearly eight billion dollars by 2007.

The latest product from Google, the internet giant known best for its search engine technology, is called Google Talk, an open-platform Internet-based instant message and voice service.

"We are going to try to be the first in the world to connect everyone to everyone," said Georges Harik, director of new products at the US company.

The OECD made a number of other predictions for changes in the telecommunications market.

The rise in popularity of the Internet for communications and as a source of media content will require "a new approach to industry regulation."

In particular, the requirement from national regulators that incumbent telecoms groups must provide a fixed-line telephone to every citizen, known as 'universal access.'

"Incumbents are getting their revenues eaten away by VoIP and they have more and more difficulties in supporting a universal service," said Dimitri Ypsilanti, head of the OECD's telecom unit.

The repercussions of faster, cheaper and more accessible Internet access will also be felt in the television industry, the OECD said.

"The growing popularity of downloading video from the Internet will reduce the time people spend watching free-to-air TV, driving down audience share and advertising revenue for broadcasts and making it harder for public-service broadcasters to meet their social policy objectives," the report said.

US DSL

Verizon, Yahoo team up on low-cost DSL in US

Agence France-Presse

WASHINGTON -- Verizon Communications and Yahoo said Tuesday they will offer a discounted high-speed Internet service in a bid to convert dial-up customers and, in Verizon's case, to counter cable-industry rivals.

Verizon and Yahoo said Tuesday they plan to sell DSL, or digital subscriber line service, at an introductory rate of 15 dollars a month with a one-year commitment in the Verizon region that includes in 28 states and the District of Columbia.

The plan from Verizon, one of the biggest US telecom providers, closely matches a DSL offer from SBC Communications which also has a partnership with Yahoo. SBC, the leading US supplier of high-speed service over phone lines, cut introductory rates to as low as 15 dollars before the summer began.

SBC's service, however, offers download speeds of 1.5 megabits, compared to just 768 kilobits for Verizon. Verizon offers higher speeds in plans costing from 20 to 35 dollars a month.

Bob Ingalls, president of Verizon's Retail Markets Group, said market research shows that 50 percent of Americans still use slow dialup access and that they are resistant to paying more than 15 dollars a month.

"Our goal is to give people a taste of it," Ingalls said in a conference call.

He predicted that many customers, once they get used to speedy Internet access, would eventually upgrade to faster, more expensive plans.

"Customers that come in at entry level ... we know they look at higher speeds," he said.

Verizon's move comes as cable and independent companies move to encroach on the traditional phone business by offering a full suite of phone services in addition to pay television and high-speed Internet access.

Phone companies lose as much as 70 dollars in monthly revenue each time a customer switches to a cable operator.

Verizon's about-face also reflects a growing awareness on the part of phone companies that DSL is replacing local-phone service as their most important product. Phone customers who also subscribe to high-speed service are least likely to leave, industry executives say.

"DSL is a huge contributor to reducing 'churn' across our entire business," Ingalls said. Churn refers to the percentage of customers who cancel service.

At 15 dollars, basic DSL service is roughly one-third the price of cable high-speed access, though cable companies also offer special introductory deals.

Verizon and Yahoo also plan to launch an additional co-branded service for customers of Verizon's new FiOS fiber-based Internet access service later this year that has among the highest speeds available.

House Backs NTC

House committees back NTC on VoIP

Erwin Lemuel Oliva eoliva@inq7.net
INQ7.net

THE COMMITTEES on Information and Communications Technology and on Trade jointly backed the National Telecommunications Commission (NTC) on Wednesday as they approved legislation supporting the deregulation of voice over Internet protocol (VoIP) services in the country.

Both committees approved the consolidated bill declaring VoIP as a value-added service, consistent with the new rules signed by the NTC on Tuesday, according to Representative Simeon Kintanar who also chairs the House ICT committee.

NTC signed the memorandum circular number 05-08-2005 on Tuesday.

This move opens up the Philippine VoIP market to value-added service providers, such as Internet service providers who can now begin offering VoIP without the need to apply for a congressional franchise.

"The VoIP bill has been approved although there are some amendments to be made in relation to interconnection and access issues. But in principle, this measure has been approved. It will now be referred to the House rules committee, which will schedule this bill for plenary discussions," Kintanar told INQ7.net in a telephone interview.

VoIP routes phone calls through the Internet instead of through traditional public switched telephone networks. Its lower cost has made it a popular alternative to traditional voice calls.

The latest NTC circular would identify parties allowed to offer VoIP services, as well as agreements between telecommunications carriers and Internet service providers (ISPs) regarding service performance standards, interconnection charges, access costs, and consumer security and privacy.

Kintanar said the timing of the approval of NTC's latest guidelines and Congress' further push of VoIP bills is was not a coincidence. "We've been closely working with the NTC," he said. "We wanted to make sure that we're not departing from the NTC guideline."

According to the proposed measure, VoIP will be declared as a value-added service, Kintanar noted.

Prior to the NTC ruling, VoIP was classified as a voice service, which meant that under Philippine law only telecommunications companies with a congressional franchise could offer VoIP services. The NTC ruling re-classified VoIP as a value-added service that could be offered by Internet Service Providers.

The local telephone companies have been at loggerheads with value-added service providers for months of heated public debate both at the NTC and Congress.

Meanwhile the Philippine Internet Commerce Society (PICS) on Wednesday commended the NTC for issuing new guidelines deregulating VoIP.

PICS is an industry association representing private companies and individuals.

"We are very pleased that the NTC has adopted our position. There is no question that the deregulation of VoIP by the NTC will significantly benefit electronic commerce and all of our constituents eventually," according to PICS President Mary Anne Tolentino in a statement to INQ7.net.

By facilitating greater access for the end user and enhancing competition for communications services, it is clear that the real winner here is the market and the Philippine economy, she added.

PICS noted that the NTC rules on VoIP reiterated its earlier position in its memorandum issued on March 29,2005, where it already declared VoIP a value-added service.

PICS filed a position paper with the NTC last year. Tolentino noted that deregulation of VoIP services in the country will create more opportunities, such as engaging in electronic commerce.

The local industry association said that it would turn its attention to Congress and lobby for quick passage of pending measures supporting the deregulation of VoIP services in the country.

In a separate interview, William Torres, president of the Philippine Internet Service Organization (PISO), also commended NTC and Congress for the recent developments. He reserved comments on the NTC guidelines until he gets a copy.

"We're waiting on the implementing rules and regulations since we want to know what will be the arrangement between local exchange carriers (LECs) and value-added services. The NTC draft rules indicated that LECs and VAS providers have to negotiate for the cost for transfer of calls to VAS providers but we hope that NTC sets a standard price," Torres said.

Officials of the Philippine Long Distance Telephone Co., Globe Telecom, and Bayantel were mum when asked to comment on recent developments.

Google Messaging

Google launches egalitarian instant messaging program

Agence France-Presse

SAN FRANCISCO -- Google really started talking Wednesday.

The Internet search titan unleashed Google Talk, an instant messaging (IM) program designed to unify the factionalized world of online chat, according Georges Harik, director of "Googlettes," or new products, at the US company.

"We are trying to create a giant IM web," Harik said. "We are going to try to be a rallying point so all people can connect.

Google Talk has the potential to make instant messaging similar to e-mail or telephone services, that allow anyone to reach out and contact anyone else with an account or a phone, Harik said.

"We are very excited to release this product," Harik said. "We are going to try to be the first in the world to connect everyone to everyone."

Along with the Google Talk, free accounts with the Silicon Valley company's formerly invitation-only email system, called "Gmail," will be available to anyone, Harik said.

Gmail for the masses will be introduced starting with Google Talk's launch from the company website at 12:01 am New York time in the United States (0400 GMT) and then "rolled out internationally later," Harik said.

"We think the right thing to do for the world is have one big instant-messaging network that is interoperable," Harik told Agence France-Presse.

The creators of Google Talk envision it breaking down the walls that exist between different instant messaging systems, which only let users chat with others in the same network.

"Google Talk is the first system that is open," he said. "We are trying to move people to a different world."

Google Talk will connect with Jabber and Trillian, software designed to act as a switchboard connecting users of different instant messaging services, according to Harik.

Google is working on alliances with Zip Phone and Internet service provider Earthlink, along with Yahoo, America OnLine and Skype.

"Our success depends on what the other networks do," Harik said of the Google quest for allies in the IM effort.

A test run of Google Talk revealed a simple, uncluttered pop-up box that easily initiated text exchanges as well as online telephone calls to other computers equipped with speakers and microphones.

People using Google Talk can conveniently chat or text message each other while engaged in online game playing or brainstorming, Harik said while touting Google Talk's features.

The software looks for messages while people are focused on other computer applications, according to Harik.

Tuesday, August 23, 2005

Google Software

Google releases free computer search software

Agence France-Presse

SAN FRANCISCO, California -- Free software that "learns" the habits and interests of computer users to customize online searches was released on Monday by Internet giant Google.

The software creates "intelligent sidebars" that tailor themselves to automatically seek information of appeal to whichever individual is at a keyboard, Google said in a press release.

"You can think of it as a personal web assistant that learns about your habits and interests to identify and present web pages, news stories, and photos that it thinks you will be interested in," said Marissa Mayer, a director of consumer products at Google.

The "sidebar" appears on the side of a computer screen as a small vertical window that offers a series of "live" content panels and simpler ways to make notes and access e-mail, according to Mayer.

A "quick find" function enables people to search their computer hard drives or launch applications "as fast as they can type," Google claimed.

The software, titled "Google Desktop 2," was released in English with a promise it would be available in other languages "shortly."

Google's software release came in the throes of an online battle for market share with rival technology powerhouses Yahoo and Microsoft.

It also follows a move by Google to fatten its war chest with billions of dollars via sale of new stock.

Friday, August 05, 2005

Dayon!

We stay on top of the ITC revolution.