February 2011 – Page 2

Twitter dumps “social responsibility” threatens to move over local taxes

The San Francisco Bay Guardian (SFBG), a local newspaper, has published an editorial that recommends the city government not give tax breaks to Twitter.

The SFBG reports that Twitter “is threatening to leave San Francisco and take 350 employees to a new headquarters in Brisbane.”

The move might be avoided if city officials come up with a favorable tax plan:

“The latest plans call for a payroll tax exemption that would cap the company’s future tax bills at $250,000.”

The SFBG calls it “corporate blackmail.”

This is all a bit much.

When I went to see Ev Williams and Biz Stone at the Inforum Club in October, they spoke a lot about how social responsibility is very important to Twitter. It felt disingenuous, it felt as if it was “bolted on” for PR value.

It seems my instincts weren’t wrong.

How does Twitter square away its PR about it being a socially responsible company yet threaten to leave San Francisco unless it gets a tax break?

Those taxes are part of its social responsibility to the local community.

Clearly at Twitter, chatter about social responsibility is more important than actual social responsibility.

San Francisco should call Twitter’s bluff and let it move to Brisbane, to a site shared with Wal-Mart. It’ll have a huge problem trying to recruit engineers to work in Brisbane. And that will cost it far more than its savings on taxes.

Social responsibility can’t be tweeted. Let’s see it in action. Pay your local taxes Twitter.

First taste of Honeycomb: Android 3.0 user interface preview

Google has released an early preview of the Android 3.0 software development kit (SDK). Android 3.0—codenamed Honeycomb—introduces Android’s new tablet user interface, which is expected to officially debut next month on Motorola’s Xoom tablet. Developers will be able to use the SDK preview to get a head start on updating their applications to support the tablet form factor.

The SDK also offers Android enthusiasts an early look at the new tablet user interface. It includes a partial Android 3.0 environment that runs in the Android emulator. Due to the emulator’s glacially slow performance, however, we weren’t really able to get an accurate feel for the responsiveness of the interface. The following screenshots highlight some of the major characteristics that differentiate Honeycomb’s tablet interface from Android’s conventional smartphone interface, but keep in mind that it’s still just a preview build for developers and might not accurately represent what the platform will look like on an actual product.

The Honeycomb home screen comes with sophisticated scrolling widgets and can accommodate much more content than the conventional Android home screen. Like the traditional Android home screen, it still comes with multiple pages that the user can rotate through by swiping right and left.

MPAA sues Hotfile for “staggering” copyright infringement

File locker Hotfile.com has found itself the next target of the Motion Picture Association of America’s war on file sharing. The MPAA announced Tuesday that it had filed a lawsuit against Hotfile on behalf of 20th Century Fox, Universal Studios, Columbia Pictures, and Warner Bros. accusing the site of direct infringement, facilitating copyright infringement “on a staggering scale,” and raking in the cash while doing it.

The MPAA argues that Hotfile not only encourages its users to upload illegal content, but actively discourages them from uploading files for personal use, because the site offers incentives for users to upload the most popular files (which invariably end up being copyrighted movies). And because the site charges membership fees before people can download the content uploaded by others, the MPAA says Hotfile “profits richly while paying nothing to the studios” for the bootleg files.

“In less than two years Hotfile has become one of the 100 most trafficked sites in the world. That is a direct result of the massive digital theft that Hotfile promotes,” MPAA general counsel Daniel Mandil said in a statement. “The theft taking place on Hotfile is unmistakable. Their files are indeed ‘hot’ as in ‘stolen.’ It’s wrong and it must stop.”

The charges in the MPAA’s complaint include direct infringement (as Hotfile is the one distributing the works), inducement of infringement, contributory infringement, and vicarious infringement (for making a profit on infringing files). The DMCA’s Safe Harbor provisions should protect site operators from being held liable for content uploaded by users, but the MPAA claims that the site continues to compensate its users for uploading popular files even after having received takedown notices. If Hotfile admins had direct knowledge of infringement, but failed to do anything about it like the MPAA says, then Safe Harbor isn’t going to provide any protection.

The other catch is that Hotfile doesn’t provide any sort of index or listing of the files that have been uploaded by members. Instead, the site relies entirely on third-party sites to link to the files, and the MPAA argues in its complaint that “almost all of these link sites are blatant pirate sites.” In fact, the complaint alleges that Hotfile paid various sites to promote its links, knowing that most of the files being linked were illegal.

The lawsuit against Hotfile is hardly surprising; content creators are constantly fighting traditional torrent sites and other P2P offerings, and have increasingly gone after cyberlockers and cloud storage solutions for helping users trade copyrighted music, movies, and TV shows. The MPAA wants Hotfile to be shut down, of course, but would also like a cut of whatever juicy profits might be found.

‘Face to Facebook’ Is Part Art, Part Hack

Part art project, part dating site, and part ingenious hacking exercise, ‘Face to Facebook’ is the brain child of Paolo Cirio and Alessandro Ludovico. The digital artists stole (in their own words) one million Facebook profiles — everything from interests to photos — provided that data was public. With their massive collection of liberated data, Cirio and Ludovico began poring over the information when they struck upon an idea that seemed rather obvious in retrospect: that people are on Facebook to meet other people. The goal is to connect with others, potentially in a romantic way. So the duo decided to filter the accounts based on their profile photos. Images were fed through an algorithm that sorted accounts into certain personality types (such as “easy going” or “funny”) based on facial expressions. The pre-sorted accounts were then posted to a site called Lovely Faces.

As a companion piece to the site, Cirio and Ludovico collected more than 2,000 of the profile images, printed them out and mounted them at the Transmediale Festival in Berlin.

Mozilla Adopts Red Pandas, Broadcasts Their Adorable Antics on Webcam

Mozilla may have struck marketing gold by recently adopting a pair of red pandas. The adorable raccoon-like creatures (also known as fire foxes in Chinese) were adopted from the Knoxville Zoo and are now the central characters in a campaign to raise awareness about their vulnerable status in the ecosystem. As an added bonus, Mozilla picks up some good PR and publicity for its Firefox browser (which should be hitting version 4.0 soon) and we get to watch red pandas be freakin’ cute. That’s right, Mozilla is broadcasting the antics of the painfully delightful duo, 24/7 via webcam. Even better, you can help improve life for the pandas by simply downloading Firefox. As the browser meets certain download milestones, the Mozilla crew will donate new treats and equipment to the pandas. Users have already earned the pair a new jungle gym; up next are new grass flats for the two to scamper about.

You can check out the live stream at firefoxlive.org. Just make sure you don’t have anything important to do before you click that link. It’s a serious productivity-killer.

Cutting-Edge, Eco-Friendly LED TV for Less Than $2,200?

A reader writes: I need a good TV for my living room, and I’ve decided that LCD, particularly LED, is the way to go. I’ve heard that some plasmas can look better than LCDs, so I definitely want good video quality, but I heard they use up a lot of energy and I don’t want to break the bank if I can avoid it. Also, I’d like something that doesn’t use up too much power. Please… just tell me what to get!

What up, reader? Indeed, the Plasma vs. LCD conflict is a tough one, as plasma does traditionally provide better black levels, which can translate to superior contrast between dark and light onscreen, especially valuable when watching high-definition movies now in the Blu-ray era.

The good news is that LCDs are continuing to evolve, with the switch to energy-saving LEDs (light-emitting diodes) as their light source (versus more common cold cathode fluorescent lamps, if you want to get technical). The Next Big Thing in energy-efficient televisions is local dimming LED, which can make specific areas of the screen lighter or darker depending upon the picture being displayed. The improvement can be absolutely stunning, imparting more drastic blacks and a much-needed boost to the dynamic contrast ratio, rated at a mind-boggling 2,000,000:1. Unfortunately, a lot of these LED TVs are pricey, but we’ve found one from good ol’ bang-for-the-buck Vizio.

Anchors in the Drift fails to reach its Fig goal by nearly $400,000

If you want to shave a few bucks off your electric bill and save a couple trees, the most common methods involve buying all new appliances and just turning everything off all the time. But you can actually trim your bills and reduce your carbon footprint with a simple piece of software called Granola. This little applet sits in the system tray of your Linux or Windows PC, monitors how much energy your processor is using and scales back on the Mhz when not needed.

There really isn’t much to Granola; you download it, install it and run it. If you really deem it necessary, you change the default power settings (although we’ve found the standard settings strike the perfect balance between energy savings and performance). Choose between three different energy-saving profiles, essentially translating to low, middle and high power. The preferences menu has just a few other options, letting you customize how Granola reports your power savings. You can choose your currency (only American dollars, British pounds and Euros for now), set the cost per kWh in your area, choose between pounds and kilograms for CO2 measurements, and choose between cumulative or annual reporting.

LG Thinq Appliances Let You Remotely Burn Lasagna, Start the Dryer

Every year at CES, there are tons of companies pushing home automation and smart appliances, and, every year, these products fail to storm the marketplace. LG is hoping that 2011 will be different, and that the key to success will be the sudden proliferation of tablets and smartphones. LG’s new Thinq technology will let handheld devices “talk” to the company’s appliances, such as ovens, refrigerators and washing machines. The company is even launching HOM-BOT, a robotic vacuum cleaner that will not only start tidying up on demand but, thanks to its built-in camera, also let you take a peek around your home while you’re away. With Thinq-enabled appliances connected to the ‘Net via a smart meter, owners will be able to schedule cooking times, defrost their refrigerators and start different cycles on their washing machines from their tablets or phones — not just while they’re home, but while they’re out and about. Imagine prepping a nice lasagna, which you toss in the oven on your way out the door in the morning. As you leave work that evening, you remotely tell your oven to fire up, and you’ll have a nice hot meal waiting for you at home.

The smart appliances can also send out alerts for things like the ice maker turning on or off, or a load of laundry finishing a cycle. The refrigerator even has a tool for monitoring your food inventory, although it will have to be managed manually to be of any use. Perhaps most interesting is the diagnostic tool, which allows the appliance to play a series of tones that can be decoded over the phone by LG support technicians. And, for the eco-conscious, every Thinq-enabled appliance will track its energy usage. Check out the gallery below.

Sparrow email client for Mac reaches 1.0, lands in Mac App Store

Sparrow, the gorgeous Mac email client released late last year, is now at version 1.0 and up for sale in the Mac App Store. Previous versions weren’t stable enough to replace Mail.app entirely, but Sparrow has overcome its growing pains to become a solid Mail alternative. With support for multiple accounts, and UI design that borrows heavily from Twitter for Mac, it’s no surprise that Sparrow almost immediately hit the top of the Mac App Store’s bestseller list.

Sparrow 1.0 does have its drawbacks, though. It still only supports Gmail (and Google Apps email accounts), which might be a dealbreaker for some. Anyone who’s not using Gmail should wait for version 1.1, which will reportedly add support for all IMAP accounts. The $10 pricetag is reasonable for what you get, and anyone using a beta version will find it worth upgrading for the performance improvements and Gmail label support.

One little quirk to be aware of: if you have a beta version of Sparrow installed, you may need to delete it or move it out of your Applications folder before you can buy Sparrow 1.0 from the Mac App Store. Otherwise, the App Store will think you already have the app installed.

Bing caught copying search results from Google

In a case of Internet espionage that makes the antics of double agent Cold War operatives seem like frivolous child play, Bing has been caught stealing search results from Google with its Bing toolbar and IE8’s Suggested Sites feature.

Google first suspected foul play in May 2010. By October 2010, with Bing results beginning to look uncannily like Google’s, it knew something had to be done about it — and so, in true, nerdtastic style, Google set up a sting to prove that Microsoft was actually behind the wholesale mimicry of Google’s search results.

Google injected “synthetic” results into its search engine — fake queries and results that no real user or engine would ever generate. Then, on D-Day, December 17, about 20 Google engineers were asked to run the test queries with Internet Explorer 8, Bing Bar and Suggested Sites. By December 31, some of these fake results began appearing on Bing. See the examples after the break — it’s damning.

For a full discussion of Bing’s antics, and what repercussions Microsoft might have to face, read the original Search Engine Land post.