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The Clicker: Living on the Grid
Stephen Speicher contributes The Clicker, an opinion column on entertainment and technology:Riddle me this -- what do you get when you cross the cost savings of a peer-to-peer network with the stability, reliability, and security of a traditional CDN (Content Delivery Network)? The answer, if one Seattle startup has its way, might just be on-demand DVD-quality video at a fraction of the current cost.Sitting atop Seattle's famed FX McRory's building in the picturesque Pioneer Square, a group of 15 dedicated employees at GridNetworks is attempting to go where many have ventured but few have succeeded; they're attempting to morph the concept of peer-to-peer into a business.Last week I sat down with GridNetworks CEO, Jeff Payne, and VP of Sales and Marketing, Bo Wandell, to get the lowdown on their new service. Click on to find out what I gleaned from their vision for Grid.
TABLETmedia's iTalkie P2P walkie-talkie for Windows Mobile
The folks at TABLETmedia are trying to get you to toss your antiquated walkie-talkie in favor of something a little more au courant, recently releasing its "groundbreaking" iTalkie P2P software for Windows Mobile devices. Aimed squarely at vertical market customers (though nothing's stopping the rest of us), it'll allow for both one-to-one calling and paging over a PA system -- the latter requiring a PC gateway with its sound card plugged into the system itself. It also one-ups the old-school walkie-talkie in one area, with presence indication so you can see when your fellow co-workers are available to chat with/distract from work. If you want to give it a test run, you can snag an extremely time-limited trial version (five minutes of use), or just grab the full version for $29.95. That's for a single device license -- a two-license pack's also available for $39.95, with a 5-license pack including the Windows PC gateway software running you $299.95.[Via Pocket PC Thoughts]
Weird Al: "Don't Download This Song"
Love or hate him, Weird Al has unquestionably cranked out some of the most notable humor and satire of the late 20th - and now 21st - centuries. The Digital Music Weblog (a sister site) has discovered Mr. Weird is at it again with "Don't Download This Song," a tongue-in-cheek anthem about the dark road of lying, cheating and stealing that file sharing can lead down. Weird Al is using a small marketing site to pimp the song, complete with a music video and a download link (yes, of course it's free), as well as the upcoming album the song is featured on.Grant at TDMW cites a favorite line of Christopher Springman at Public Knowledge: "Cause you start out stealing songs/then you're robbing liquor stores/and selling crack/and running over schoolkids with your car." Personally, I don't think the record labels care where you're getting your cash, just as long as you use it to pay their outlandish monopoly prices.Feel free to grab the song, as the RIAA can't nail you for downloading this one. At least, I think.
PeerBox brings "legal" P2P to the phone
With the proliferation of 3G bandwidth, mobile P2P (at least on the downstream) becomes an interesting proposal -- especially if you can make it happen without all manner of lawyer types using LBS to track you down. Nareos' PeerBox client, available in Java and S60 flavors, looks to keep you legal by using m2any's audio ID tech to detect copyrighted material while browsing open P2P networks (fairly robustly, we're guessing) and do the quick bait-and-switch, offering you the licensed equivalent for a fee. At the start, the service will be pay-as-you-go, but a subscription model of some sort is promised down the road. Now if we can only overcome our instinctual fear of black helicopters, men in dark suits, and courtrooms whenever we hear "P2P," this might just find its way onto our CU500.
College students shunning free music subscription services
It's the rare college student who will turn down free anything -- free food, free booze, and free love are all top priorities for the modern scholar -- so we were more than a little surprised to learn that those online music subscriptions being offered gratis by a number of colleges haven't really taken off like one would assume. In fact, according to the Wall Street Journal, the services from Napster and company have proven so unpopular that many schools are dropping the program altogether after only a year or two, although the RIAA claims that the number of participating campuses will actually increase "pretty significantly" this fall. Even if that's true, it's not clear why students at newly-subscribed schools would behave any differently than ones who already have access to the free tunes and still choose alternative distribution methods -- most notably the iTunes music store and the still-popular P2P networks. Ultimately it seems to be the services' many restrictions that are turning off the college crowd -- tracks can't always be burned to disc or transferred to a DAP, and they also disappear after four years -- and the fact that students today treasure their iPods even more than their precious cans of beer only makes non-FairPlay content that much more undesirable.[Via TechDirt]
Swedish site offering insurance to content pirates
Here's an innovative business plan for you: start up an insurance company whose sole purpose is to cover your customers' fines should they get busted for illegal file sharing, thereby creating a clientele that by default is composed completely of criminals. Well believe it or not, a Swedish "entrepreneur" has begun to offer this very service to his fellow citizens -- for only $19 per year, Magnus Braath's company Tankafritt promises to pay any penalties incurred from crackdowns on your rampant piracy, and he'll even throw in a free T-shirt to help you glorify your outlaw status. (Yes, you guessed it, the shirt actually does read "I got convicted for file-sharing and all I got was this lousy T-shirt"). Braath claims that he started the business as a statement against recent changes in Swedish law that had the nerve to criminalize illegal downloading, and that low conviction rates and relatively minor fines will allow him to keep the venture financially solvent. Hey Magnus, if you're looking to expand your operation, we hear that Spain's just passed some legislation that will probably create quite the demand for your unique little service -- who knows, with some hard work and a bit of luck, you could end up becoming the Geico of software and content piracy.[Via Techdirt and Slashdot]
Spain cracks down on file sharing
It's a sad day for Spanish content pirates, as formerly lax laws allowing P2P file sharing for personal use have just been overturned in favor of strict new rules that make file swappers financially liable for any unauthorized downloading they partake in. Furthermore, the new regulations -- which, unsurprisingly, have been blessed with the MPAA's seal of approval -- also hold ISPs accountable for the P2P activity of their customers, which could be seen as an incentive for service providers to block what they consider suspicious traffic. Even regular law-abiding citizens will be affected by the recent crackdown, as a small tax will now be levied on all blank media to reimburse copyright holders for earnings lost to piracy. While we're totally in support of intellectual property owners getting paid for their content, we worry that these tough new rules will discourage and even prohibit the many legitimate uses of P2P networks that have nothing to do with stealing movies and music -- as usual, a few bad apples (well, maybe more than a few) have caused everyone else to suffer.[Via Slashdot]
Skype w/video leaked, will destroy your Mac
According to a Skype developer, an old and unstable version of Skype for Mac has been leaked onto file sharing networks across the globe. If you spot this file, do not download it! "It is an internal unstable development version, and thus it is extremely buggy" and "it will destroy your contacts and other data". We wouldn't want that now would we?Since the Windows version of Skype gained video conferencing support in March, many Mac user have felt left behind and stuck with the non-video capable version of Skype. Fortunately, this warning also comes with some good news; Skype version 2.0 for the Mac is nearly ready for primetime. The screenshot of a video capable of Skype on the left of this post is the tantalizing proof.So, try and resist the temptation to go searching for a pre-release version that could potentially destroy your Mac, and wait a little longer for the official version. Remember what happened the last time someone bit the Apple?
Patoh's external P2P client / NAS
What do you get when you cross a 250GB Buffalo LinkStation network attached storage (NAS) device with some custom home-server software, a multi-protocol peer-to-peer client that supports FTP, Kad, BitTorrent, Overnet, FastTrack, and eDonkey? Well, for one you get a small device -- not unlike the LamaBox -- that can continuously download and seed your torrent data after you've shut down for the night, thereby keeping that ratio up and preventing you from getting booted from your fav invite-only tracker into the cold, harsh world of Scandieland downloads from less reliable anonymous sources. Do we sound like we know way too much about this stuff? Maybe so, which probably has something to do with the fact that we're a little stoked for Patoh's external RochiP2P 250, which should supposedly set you back €299 ($380 US) for the above features in that same familiar looking old Buffalo box shown here. Unfortunately it appears the Patoh uses desktop software to control all those torrents instead of a nice web interface, but we, um, never get our media online or do any torrenting ourselves, so what Patoh does or doesn't do with their products is really none of our concern. Ahem.
Seven major studios line up to sell movies online
We have no idea why they chose today to do it, but today seven major movie studios announced they'll be selling movies online through Movielink and CinemaNow. Warner Bros, Universal, Sony, Paramount, Fox, and MGM will all be distributing first-run titles online -- definitely something they've never done before -- through Movielink for between 20 and 30 bones (way, way too much if you ask us), with older movies going for between $10 and $20. Lionsgate (and Sony) also announced distribution through CinemaNow. Really this was only a matter of time -- for these guys it was either sell these things online DRMed all to hell for way too much money (see above), go the subscription route (like Vongo, for example -- not likely) or continue whining without any justification whatsoever about pirates stealing movies in the Internet. At least now they can say they've legitimately offered their digital content up online (hey, you can even make a DVD backup for use only on Movielink-authorized computers), even though they still can't account for the artificial demand they try to create by releasing movies for purchase months after the films have gone out of theater.[Thanks, Phil]
Long-time holdouts Red Hot Chili Peppers in the iTunes Music Store
Do you remember when Napster was huge (about ten years ago), and digital file sharing was on everyone's minds? Metallica and The Red Hot Chili Peppers were sort of leading the anti-p2p charge. Several years later, when the iTunes Music Store demonstrated that the online distribution of music could be accomplished successfully, the Peppers refused to participate, stating that (among other things), they didn't like that customers were able to purchase individual tracks, as it interrupted the flow of the album, or some other artsy thing like that.Anyway, this is why I was very surprised to find nine Peppers albums in the iTMS this morning [iTunes link], including some exclusive stuff and videos. I'm glad you guys have come around.
P2POD pimps P2P HD content
We're thinking that companies are just starting to mash-up popular buzzwords just for now. Take the P2POD from AHT International, play a little "Wheel of Fortune", buy a vowel and combine "P2P" with "iPod" and whaddya get: we're not sure other than a mash-up name. The P2POD is touted as an HDTV device, but we don't think you'll be watching any broadcast, cable or satellite on this. No, the P2POD looks like a peer-to-peer vessel to get high-def and other audio or video content from the Internet. There's no display, just a box with 64MB of RAM, an HDMI port, and a video decoder. There are more hardware buzzwords on the product page, but even more interesting is the MyMo Media service that provides an interface and content database. It also provides a nominal subscription fee, so we'll likely pass.[via Engadget]
