Role of games:
Wired 13.06: The Xbox Reloaded
Xbox sales : How the Xbox stacks up
Is Google a threat?
These guys seem to think so. Wired News: Beware the Google Threat
What’s the downside of this — Wired News: Hey Google, Map This! — service?
Take a look at:
* Google Watch
80’s song by The Jam of course.
Wired News: DAT’s Entertainment
A compendium of useful links from Wired
Digital film. Digital music. Market it, sell it, trade it, pirate it. Modern technology is making it easier to do all those things, and the jousting among the industries, artists, politicians and users stops just short of being a professional wrestling Battle Royale.
Cell Phones Face the Music
02:00 AM Jun. 17, 2005 PT Napster has big plans for digital music on cell phones. Is this the end for the iPod? By Katie Dean.
Batman Begins on the Right Foot
02:00 AM Jun. 15, 2005 PT The latest turn in the superhero saga does the caped crusader’s back story right, but things start to fray when the action starts. Jason Silverman reviews Batman Begins.
EBay Bans Live 8 Ticket Scalpers
04:00 PM Jun. 14, 2005 PT Music fans bid for tickets to next month’s London megaconcert, prompting some saboteurs — apparently offended by the money-grubbing sellers — to disrupt the auctions in the name of charity. By Ryan Singel.
Sagging Radio Plays Digital Card
02:00 AM Jun. 14, 2005 PT High-definition broadcasts let stations offer CD-quality sound and subchannels for the first time. But with stiff competition from satellite and internet radio, will the listening public tune in? By Randy Dotinga.
Come On Music Biz, Embrace P2P
02:00 AM Jun. 13, 2005 PT File sharing may play a key role in entertainment’s future — there’s no direct proof P2P is hurting the music industry, a major new report says. Bruce Gain reports from Paris.
Radio Sets Eyes on Podcast Profit
02:00 AM Jun. 11, 2005 PT Commercial and public stations scramble for ways to make money off your MP3 player. Now, listeners can pay to get their Rush Limbaugh fix. By Randy Dotinga.
Keeping Up With Uncle Sam
02:00 AM Jun. 10, 2005 PT Because the United States locks up creative works for 95 years, European music labels want to extend copyright terms in their neck of the woods. By Katie Dean.
Films Capture Iraq’s Brutal Truth
02:00 AM Jun. 07, 2005 PT Vivid documentaries like The Dreams of Sparrows challenge U.S. media portrayals of the Iraq war — and spark an unusual indie revolution. By Jason Silverman.
Music Muffled in Star Wars Game
02:00 AM Jun. 06, 2005 PT The online Star Wars Galaxies game lets people play Jedis, rebels and cantina musicians. But even though the fantasy world has few rules, playing original music is strictly verboten. By Katie Dean.
Radio Industry Hits Shuffle
02:00 AM Jun. 06, 2005 PT IPod-style stations are entering markets and replacing DJs from coast to coast. A flailing industry hopes the format can turn the tide against mounting competition. By Randy Dotinga.
Gadget Promos Creep Into TV Shows
02:00 AM Jun. 03, 2005 PT CSI and 24 are chock-full o’ gizmos, but it’s no accident — it’s the future of advertising. Soon, most marketing will be integrated into shows, and products will be ordered by remote. By Michael Grebb. June 3, 2005
Dinner Comes With a Side of Games
02:00 AM Jun. 03, 2005 PT A new eatery from Atari’s founder looks to lure customers with hot food and cool games. But some might not be ready to get frags with their fries. By Rachel Metz.
The Other Side of BitTorrent
02:00 AM Jun. 02, 2005 PT As Hollywood ramps up its fight against the film-swapping kingpin, some in the industry find a silver lining. By Patrick Gray. June 2, 2005
Swap DVDs Online for a Buck
02:00 AM Jun. 01, 2005 PT Peerflix is a movie-swapping service that allows users to trade DVDs through the mail. But is it any better than just renting? Katie Dean reviews Peerflix.
The Birth of the Synthesizer
02:00 AM Jun. 01, 2005 PT A new documentary that captures Bob Moog’s groundbreaking contributions to electronic music is long on interviews but a little short on performances. Jason Silverman reviews Moog.
Hamming It Up at Radio Meets
02:00 AM May. 25, 2005 PT When amateur radio operators, or hams, get together, the emphasis is on technology and gossip, not fashion. By Mark Baard.
IPod Plug-In Sets Music Free
02:00 AM May. 24, 2005 PT A handy plug-in for Winamp wins praise for allowing iPod users to move music off their iPods. By Katie Dean. May 24, 2005
Want the Sith DVD? Go to Usenet
02:00 AM May. 23, 2005 PT The great granddaddy of file-sharing networks has new traffic — scads of it — thanks to its relative anonymity and tools that make searching and downloading fast and easy. By David McCandless. May 23, 2005
Volez ce MP3!
02:00 AM May. 23, 2005 PT French courts are letting convicted fileswappers walk with suspended sentences, as a leading judge preaches the virtues of decriminalization. Record execs are not amused. Bruce Gain reports from Paris.
Give Your DVD Player the Finger
02:00 AM May. 19, 2005 PT An RFID-powered copy-protection scheme is in the works that would require a fingerprint scan or password just to screen a DVD in your home. It’s one of the most restrictive anti-piracy plans to date. By Katie Dean.
Narrowcasting Your Show
02:01 PM May. 15, 2005 PT Watch a whole-hog barbecue, fly casting in Kansas or movies by indie filmmakers. Niche TV programming is in the works. Small companies like DaveTV will soon use broadband to offer shows catering to special interests.
Music Mis-Match?
02:00 AM May. 12, 2005 PT Yahoo’s purchase of Musicmatch last fall means a plunge into the digital download market. So why is it introducing a new, separate digital music service? By Katie Dean.
Yahoo Readies Cheap Music Service
06:00 PM May. 10, 2005 PT The search stud debuts “Yahoo Music Unlimited” Wednesday, boasting a cheaper subscription service and lower-priced downloads.
DJ Spooky Raps About Remixing
02:00 AM May. 09, 2005 PT DJ Spooky shares his ideas about art, music and sampling in his new book, Rhythm Science, and CD. Spooky sat down with Katie Dean to answer questions about remixing and culture.
Bush OKs Smut-Stripping Tech
03:00 PM Apr. 27, 2005 PT The president signs off on the Family Entertainment and Copyright Act, which allows parents to use technology that removes objectionable content from commercial DVDs. Hollywood won’t be happy.
Podcasting Killed the Radio Star
02:00 AM Apr. 27, 2005 PT The popular audio distribution method is about to take to the airwaves. A failing talk-radio station in San Francisco will be converted to an all-podcast format. By Xeni Jardin.
ManiaTV: MTV for the Web?
05:06 PM Apr. 24, 2005 PT When he’s told old media is dead, entrepreneur Drew Massey dumps his magazine and launches an internet entertainment company for twenty-somethings that broadcasts film clips, music videos and chatter 24 hours a day.
Search Battle Heads to Video
02:00 AM Apr. 23, 2005 PT After competing for your search queries, e-mail patronage and browser homepage, the next internet portal war will likely be for your video viewing time. By Joanna Glasner.
Sony Gets Real on Virtual Goods
02:00 AM Apr. 20, 2005 PT The trade of virtual goods in massively multiplayer online games is becoming big, big business. Sony’s about to grab a piece of the action with the first official auction site for virtual gewgaws. By Daniel Terdiman.
House OKs Family Copyright Bill
02:10 PM Apr. 19, 2005 PT A bill targeting camcorders in theaters and letting home users edit objectionable scenes from movies passes the House. The president is expected to give it the green light. By Katie Dean.
Flexible Copyrights Hop the Pond
02:00 AM Apr. 18, 2005 PT The BBC and other media groups unveil new Creative Commons-inspired licenses that will allow the public to use footage from the archives as raw material for new creative works. By Katie Dean.
Music Biz Sues High-Speed Traders
11:00 AM Apr. 12, 2005 PT The blazing-fast Internet2 research network has been hijacked for illegal file sharing, according to the entertainment industry. The RIAA and MPAA launch another round of lawsuits against hundreds of students. By Katie Dean.
Cable and Tech Bigwigs Make Nice
02:00 AM Apr. 07, 2005 PT At the National Cable Show, the buzz is all about how the convergence of broadband and digital TV is generating a new series of products to boost the profits of cable, entertainment and tech companies. Michael Grebb reports from San Francisco.
Playing Games With Sony’s Player
10:52 AM Apr. 06, 2005 PT The PlayStation Portable is being adapted to myriad uses, many of which its manufacturer probably never intended. But you can’t keep a good hacker down.
Finding Gold in Found Video
02:00 AM Apr. 05, 2005 PT The Found Footage Festival celebrates snippets of home movies and bad instructional films. Strung together into a movie screening-cum-comedy show, the event may be heading to the West Coast. By Harmon Leon.
Students Use Next-Gen Downloads
01:29 PM Apr. 03, 2005 PT Dozens of colleges and universities are rolling out legal download services for students. Some of those services are underwritten by the entertainment industry — it’s called shaping habits of future customers.
Will Cable Quell the Competition?
02:00 AM Mar. 30, 2005 PT In a Supreme Court appeal, the cable industry teams with the FCC to argue that cable-modem broadband is distinctly different from similar telecommunications services. If the argument prevails, cable companies will be able to keep their data pipes to themselves. Michael Grebb reports from Washington.
File Sharing Has Supreme Moment
12:07 PM Mar. 29, 2005 PT The debate over file sharing reaches the Supreme Court, where the justices worry about finding a test to measure the infringement potential of new tech and ponder the effects on future inventions. Katie Dean reports from Washington.
Camping Out for the Grokster Case
12:07 PM Mar. 29, 2005 PT Cold and sometimes rainy weather didn’t deter some from waiting in line for the Grokster hearing. Pilgrims came from places like Canada and California to watch the historic file-sharing case unfold. Katie Dean reports from Washington.
Supreme Showdown for P2P’s Future
02:00 AM Mar. 28, 2005 PT The entertainment industry goes head to head against file-sharing services at the Supreme Court this week. Some fear the Grokster case could have a devastating effect on development of new technologies. By Katie Dean.
Brouhaha Over Kazaa Means Nada
02:00 AM Mar. 25, 2005 PT As the case against Sharman Networks, maker of the Kazaa peer-to-peer software, wraps up, P2P technology continues to flourish. What effect will the ruling in this case really have on the music industry? Commentary by Patrick Gray.
Now You, Too, Can Be a Comedian
02:00 AM Mar. 24, 2005 PT Taking a page from the popularity of karaoke, a group of performers is promoting Joke-e-oke, a platform that lets anyone mimic the routines of their favorite comedians. Harmon Leon reports from San Francisco.
Rockers Flex BitTorrent’s Muscle
02:00 AM Mar. 23, 2005 PT As MTV and VH1 drift away from full-length music videos, the Decemberists — an indie band looking for airplay — turns to a new tool to deliver a video to the masses. By Katie Dean.
P2P: Music’s Death Knell or Boon?
02:00 AM Mar. 22, 2005 PT Technology optimists and pessimists duke it out at the South by Southwest conference. While some music insiders have high hopes for new revenue streams, others say peer-to-peer song sharing continues to wreak havoc. Michael Grebb reports from Austin, Texas.
Blank Discs Not Created Equal
02:00 AM Mar. 18, 2005 PT The quest for cheap, high-quality blank CDs and DVDs spawns a vast community of enthusiasts, with aficionados swapping hot finds online. By Aaron Weiss.
Fiona Apple Is Cookin’ on the Net
02:00 AM Mar. 18, 2005 PT She’s one of the hottest singers in America, but her latest album was apparently shelved by her label. Now file-sharing fans can find it online. By Katie Dean.
Wired News: Rethinking the File-Swap Morass
Four years after it shuttered the original Napster with a legal
assault, the recording industry is taking a different approach to
online file-swapping: If you can’t beat ‘em, join ‘em.
Shirky: Ontology is Overrated — Categories, Links, and Tags
Quotable bits:
“My God. It’s full of links:
the URL gives us a way to create a globally unique ID for anything we need to point to”“Great Minds don’t think alike:
By forgoing formal classification, tags enable a huge amount of user-produced organizational value, at vanishingly small cost.”“Market Logic:
If you find a way to make it valuable to individuals to tag their stuff, you’ll generate a lot more data about any given object than if you pay a professional to tag it once and only once.”“Signal Loss from Expression:
With tagging, when there is signal loss, it comes from people not having any commonality in talking about things.
With a multiplicity of points of view the question isn’t “Is everyone tagging any given link ‘correctly’”, but rather “Is anyone tagging it the way I do?”
If there is no shelf, then even imagining that there is one right way to organize things is an error.”“Filtering done post hoc:
In a world where publishing is cheap, putting something out there says nothing about its quality. It’s what happens after it gets published that matters. If people don’t point to it, other people won’t read it.”
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