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(Credit:
CNET News.com)

We’re to the point that many commercial open-source companies are making it acceptable to integrate proprietary and open-source licensing into their business models. This means you can, too, without giving up your proprietary revenue stream. So why not engage?

Microsoft’s solo crusade against open source through patents baffles me. It also prevents me from working for them or with them. I’m not alone in this.

Several years ago while still working for Novell, I considered going to work for Microsoft in Europe. (Had I waited long enough, I could have worked for Microsoft while still at Novell, but that’s another story, albeit one that is paying off well for Novell.) I thought I could help the company figure out open source and navigate the thorny issues that prevent it from embracing open source.

All it takes is a softening of your stance on patent infringement. You’d give up nothing. You’d gain much.

I gave up on that quixotic quest, and in retrospect it was the right decision. Sam Ramji, Bill Hilf, and others are doing a far better job of nudging Microsoft toward open source than I would have. But the bigger reason is that Microsoft has placed an apparently insurmountable hurdle in its path to fully engaging the open-source community, and to my ability to fully support its embrace of open source:

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It’s unclear to me why Microsoft refuses to back off this issue. It stands alone in its dogmatic insistence on fouling the open-source downstream.

Why, Microsoft? Why not act like every other software company in the industry today and engage open source on fair and equal terms? Why not stop this silly attempt to box open source in rather than letting it help you build your business?

Notice how few open-source partnerships it has announced since its declaration that Linux violates its patents? It signs with also-ran Linux desktop vendors and skittish Asian OEMs, but not with the mainstream open-source startups that are taking open source into the enterprise. It used to sign these partners. Not anymore.

Patents.

I suspect that had Microsoft gone public with its patent crusade before it did deals with Zend, SugarCRM, MySQL, JBoss, etc., it might have netted fewer of these deals, too, because it pollutes the open-source partnerships it touches. It makes everything look like a patent pledge, rather than the interoperability agreements that these companies signed up to complete.

Better yet, Adobe is looking for Linux desktop users to serve as pre-beta testers of AIR on Linux.

I’ve been running a few AIR applications on my Macs and love the blend of fat client with cloud client. If we assume that this is the future of the desktop - a blend of fat and thin - then there’s no reason the Linux desktop can’t mount a serious competition to Mac OS X and Windows. Here’s your chance to help out. Inquire within.

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Adobe has traditionally been strong on Windows and the
Mac and turned a relatively deaf ear to Linux. That’s about to change, however, with Adobe AIR, a cross-platform runtime for delivering Rich Internet Applications to the desktop, set to move beyond its Windows and Mac OS X roots to Linux.

Disclaimer: I am not a lawyer. This is neither legal advice nor real legal analysis. Don’t make decisions based on my blog ramblings. However, this issue is essentially straight from the final exam in my copyright-law class from last year, so I’m fairly confident that I’m right.

So why am I making this blog post? Most people have no idea that DVD ripping is illegal. Most artists, mashup creators, and video-bloggers are in the dark about the potential crimes they may be committing. Furthermore, the RIAA and MPAA have a long history in going after the little guy.

Slate could not immediately be reached for comment.

That law, much hated in cyberrights and computer security circles, is a thorn in the side to many researchers. The interesting question that we must ask is: Will Hollywood let Slate’s probable violation slide, or will they lawyer up and go after the site owned by The Washington Post Co.?

Which brings me to my “favorite” law: the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA). This law, among its many horrible features, makes DVD copying a crime. DVD-ripping software is classed as a circumvention device, the use of which is a big no-no. Section 1201(a)(1)(A) of the U.S. code makes this pretty clear:

To invoke the fair use exception, an individual must possess an authorized copy of a literary work (Atari v. Nintendo 975 F.2d 832).

Also, a tip o’ the hat goes to Public Knowledge’s Alex Curtis, whose offer of a T-shirt inspired this blog post.

Slate (owned by The Washington Post Co.) has deep pockets. If the MPAA tries to make an issue out of this, it would create huge amounts of publicity, and perhaps lead to calls for an overhaul of the DMCA. (I can dream, right?) At the least, it would force the MPAA to burn through a few bucks.

“It quite literally fits [NBC Universal lawyer Rick Cotton's] idea of what wouldn’t be considered fair use under a redefinition. [Columbia Law Professor Tim Wu's ] definition, however, would permit this video under fair use because nothing about it is a substitute for the original ‘Election’ film. It also, I would argue, enhances the film’s value for those who have not seen it.”

Ok, so we’ve now established that if Slate used DVD footage in its video mashup, then it is almost certainly violating the DMCA. What does that have to do with any possible fair-use defense to a copyright infringement claim? It turns out that to make a successful fair-use claim, you need to have a legitimate, licensed copy of the original work. As the courts wrote:

While I’ve spent the majority of this blog post describing potential illegal acts by Slate, the real criminal here is the U.S. Congress for passing the DMCA, and in one single act, putting hundreds of computer security and cyberrights activists at risk. As a Ph.D. student, the DMCA is a complete pain in my ass and makes my research extremely difficult. As a result, I routinely have to submit my projects to Indiana University’s general counsel for a sign-off.

Cynthia Brumfield over at IP Democracy discusses the video mashup and briefly explores the issue of fair use:

The few clips of Election in the Slate video are very high quality. The video is crisp, the sound is clear. As a result, I’d be willing to bet a few bottles of La Fin Du Monde that Slate got the video clips from a DVD. It’s almost certainly not from a video cassette tape, and I highly doubt that the Slate team made a digital copy from cable TV.

If Slate used DVD-ripping software, its unencrypted, DRM-free copy of the work (which they would have needed to cut and paste bits into their mashup) is in no way authorized. This means, unfortunately for Slate, that it would have no fair-use defense, and could thus face a copyright infringement lawsuit.

While I think she brings up an interesting point, I’m fairly certain the issue of fair use, at least in this case, is going to be cut and dry: Slate is in the wrong, and is being pretty blatant in its open infringement of copyright.

Slate, a popular news site, seems to be openly violating the Digital Millennium Copyright Act.

DVD ripping software is widely available. Personally, I’m a big fan of Handbrake, but there are many other free software solutions out there. These software packages allow people to make a local video copy of a DVD movie. This is not as simple as it sounds, given that all Hollywood DVD discs are encrypted with a once-secret algorithm. The MPAA and others have vigorously gone after anyone who reverse engineered (or even published information on) the inner workings of the CSS algorithm used to encrypt DVDs.

A few days ago, Slate released a video mashup of footage of Hillary Clinton and a few scenes from the movie Election, starring Reese Witherspoon. The video is mildly amusing, and did at least remind me that Election is a funny film that I should probably watch again soon.

No person shall circumvent a technological measure that effectively controls access to a work protected under this title.

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Sony)

Sony STR-DA4400ES ($1,500, August 2008): The crown jewel in the new ES line is a 120 watt model that features six HDMI inputs, 3-zone audio, and HD video output to a second zone. It also will offer picture-in-picture functionality, so you can watch two video sources simultaneously.

Sony STR-DA2400ES ($800, July 2008): The entry-level ES receiver boasts 100 watts per channel, four HDMI inputs, and what Sony calls a “basic icon-driven graphical interface.”

Sony STR-DA3400ES ($1,000, August 2008): The middle model of the trio improves upon its little brother with a 12-volt trigger, IR repeater, and composite video output to a second zone. Sony’s info isn’t specific, but it appears that this model and its step-up (below) will both feature the more familiar Cross Media Bar-style (XMB) graphical interface similar to that found on the PSP,
PS3, and newer Sony TVs.

Sony has unveiled three new AV receivers in its flagship ES (”elevated standard”) lineup. While the company’s announcement is light on specifics, it looks as if some or all of the models will offer the lossless audio decoding for Blu-ray movies, graphical user interfaces, Sirius and XM satellite radio compatibility, automatic speaker calibration, and upscaling of analog video sources to 1080p HDMI output. Model-by-model details include:

Sony STR-DA4400ES: the flagship receiver in the company's 2008 lineup.

We gave last year’s top ES receiver, the STR-DA5300ES, extremely high marks (though users were less enthusiastic). It looks as if the 2008 models will be at least as full-featured, but competing models–from the sub-$500 Onkyo TX-SR606 to Sony’s own $600 STR-DG920–are offering many of the same key core features (plenty of HDMI inputs, lossless audio decoding, analog-to-HDMI video conversion) for hundreds less. Still, some of those extra bells and whistles–such as picture-in-picture and the impressive XMB graphical interface–may well make it worthwhile for some consumers to splurge.

That’s a wide net to cast, and I say it’s about time that those storing data in Microsoft’s HealthVault have online access to their own, well, vaults. For years people have been able to access e-mail, financial, and other accounts online, and even aggregate that data into single management centers; health data and management has been notoriously far behind.

As CNET’s Ina Fried reported two years ago, Microsoft launched HailStorm to manage consumers’ information online. The project eventually buckled under the weight of concerns over data security and privacy, not to mention difficulty in finding partnerships. HealthVault is off to a better start, with partners like the Social Security Administration already lined up. But competitors such as Google and the open-source Dossia will presumably keep MSN on its toes.

MSN describes My Health Info (requires Silverlight) as a feature designed for busy parents, adults managing aging parents, and anyone managing chronic conditions and multiple medications.

“People care deeply about credible, timely, and comprehensive information about health topics,” said Scott Moore, U.S. executive producer at MSN (who bounced back to Microsoft after a stint at Yahoo). “We are committed to delighting our customers with information, services, and tools that keep them informed and simplify their lives.”

My Health Info comes with some pretty handy tools, including personal page customization (i.e. allergy and blood pressure trackers, a lab results bank, BMI calculators, etc.); personal health devices (heart-rate monitors, pedometers, etc.); and access to multiple family member profiles.

My Health Info includes personal page customization, personal health devices, and access to multiple family member profiles.

In conjunction with My Health Info, MSN also launched a swine flu info center on its Health & Fitness home page this week, where it has joined with Harvard Medical School and the Mayo Clinic, among others, to track the latest news, assess risk factors, and search for nearby vaccination centers and availabilities.

MSN this week released its beta version of a new online health information management service, including widgets to upload and organize data stored in HealthVault accounts.

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MSN)

“Contrary to the basic assumptions of economics, several studies have provided behavioral evidence that marketing actions can successfully affect experienced pleasantness by manipulating nonintrinsic attributes of goods. For example, knowledge of a beer’s ingredients and brand can affect reported taste quality, and the reported enjoyment of a film is influenced by expectations about its quality,” the researchers said. “Even more intriguingly, changing the price at which an energy drink is purchased can influence the ability to solve puzzles.”

(Credit:
CalTech, Stanford)

Specifically, the researchers found that with the higher priced wines, more blood and oxygen is sent to a part of the brain called the medial orbitofrontal cortex, whose activity reflects pleasure. Brain scanning using a method called functional magnetic resonance imaging (FMRI) showed evidence for the researchers’ hypothesis that “changes in the
price of a product can influence neural computations associated with experienced pleasantness,” they said.

This graph shows the activity in the brain's pleasure center; there's more activity with wine subjects think costs $90 a bottle (top line) than the same wine priced at $10. The arrow shows the moment when the subjects started tasting the wine.

This chart shows that people ranked taste of a $45 wine higher than the same wine priced at $5, and the same for a different wine marked $90 and $10.

The study, by Hilke Plassmann, John O’Doherty, Baba Shiv, and Antonio Rangel, was published this week in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

The research, along with other studies the authors allude to, are putting a serious dent in economists’ notions that experienced pleasantness of a product is based on its intrinsic qualities.

Researchers from the California Institute of Technology and Stanford’s business school have directly seen that the sensation of pleasantness that people experience when tasting wine is linked directly to its price. And that’s true even when, unbeknownst to the test subjects, it’s exactly the same Cabernet Sauvignon with a dramatically different price tag.

In a study that could make marketing managers and salespeople rub their hands with glee, scientists have used brain-scanning technology to shed new light on the old adage, “You get what you pay for.”

(Credit:
CalTech, Stanford)

(Credit:
Rockstar Games)

Rockstar is curating the 150-plus songs bundled with the game, which will include oddities and a few exclusives, including one number from hip-hop artist Nas. Now imagine if Rockstar used the online capabilities of the game consoles to update the in-game radio playlists silently. That’s a new form of music distribution that might actually reach younger listeners.

When GTA IV comes out on April 29 and you are cruising around inside doing whatever evil deeds come to mind, you might like a particular song playing on one of the radio stations in the game. Well, you will be able dial a number on your in-game virtual cellphone and receive a text message with artist and title information. And if you’ve signed up to be part of Rockstar’s upcoming social network, you’ll get a real-world e-mail with a link to buy the song on Amazon.com. All songs are DRM-free MP3s, so you can play them on any device, including your
Xbox 360 or
PlayStation 3–outside the confines of the game.

May we suggest Texas apocalyptic-guitar instrumental band Explosions In The Sky for this scene?

Why didn’t anybody think of this before? Grand Theft Auto franchise developer Rockstar Games has teamed up with Amazon.com in an interesting joint promotion.

4. Dell XPS M1530

Sprint or Verizon–$150, but rebates are available.

Toshiba Portege R500

No built-in mobile broadband options offered.

1. HP 2133 Mini-Note

No built-in mobile broadband options offered.

More bad news–some of the most popular laptops around don’t offer mobile broadband options (we’re looking at you, Apple), so a USB dongle may be your only choice. Besides Apple’s MacBook and MacBook Pro lines, popular new laptops such as the Asus Eee PC and HP 2133 Mini-Note (both in the new netbook category), don’t offer built-in mobile broadband–even though it seems like a natural match for small, highly portable computers like that.

2. Asus Eee PC

No built-in mobile broadband options offered.

Panasonic Toughbook CF-W7

Sprint or Verizon–but only though resellers, for an exaggerated $235.

Sony Vaio TZ 2000

Sprint included in systems starting at $1,799. Some older Vaio models have AT&T antennas.

3. Lenovo ThinkPad X300

Verizon or AT&T–Verizon included in the preconfigured $3,300 model, extra $45 for AT&T.

We also looked past the current Top 5 and picked a few other popular ultraportable laptop models:

It hasn’t quite hit the mainstream sweet spot yet, but adding a mobile broadband connection to your laptop is easier than ever. Many PC makers offer built-in mobile broadband options in their laptop lineups, and aftermarket USB or Express Card solutions are available from your preferred service provider.

5. Dell Inspiron 1525

Sprint, AT&T, or Verizon–$150 ($170 for AT&T), but rebates are available.

Dell's Inspiron 1525.

Most service plans generally run from $59-to-$79 per month depending on bandwidth, and there are often partial rebates available to cover the cost of adding a mobile broadband modem to your laptop (usually a $150 option, if it’s not already included in the laptop’s price). Like a free shipping promotion from Dell, if you miss a rebate offer, wait a week, or two, there’s bound to be another one.

The Panasonic Toughbook CF-W7.

Now for the bad news. You’re still stuck with a choice of proprietary hardware for different service providers. Get your laptop built with a preinstalled Verizon mobile broadband modem, and if you switch to Sprint, you’re out of luck. That may be an argument for using an expansion card or USB modem instead, although they can be cumbersome and stick out from the laptop awkwardly.

We took a look at the most popular laptops on CNET right now to see what kind of mobile broadband options are available. We’ll kick it off by pointing out that the current top two laptops in terms of reader popularity right now are the Asus Eee PC and HP 2133 Mini-Note, so we’re off to kind of a slow start as it is.

Current rebate offers found on Dell’s Web site include a $100 rebate from Verizon Wireless, a $170 VISA card from AT&T, and a $100 rebate plus a free month of service from Sprint. All require a one or two-year service contract.

According to a man who checked all 188 Apple stores via the company’s iPhone Availability widget, the iPhone 3G is in very short supply, says Fortune’s Apple 2.0 blog. In total, it appears the device is sold out in 21 states.

The list of states fresh out of iPhones includes: Connecticut, Delaware, Hawaii, Indiana, Iowa, Kentucky, Louisiana, Maryland, Michigan, Minnesota, Missouri, Nebraska, New Hampshire, New Jersey, New Mexico, Oregon, Rhode Island, Tennessee, Utah, Washington, Wisconsin.

Though AT&T stores nationwide were also carrying the iPhone when it launched Friday, many of them are still sold out of the devices. All three AT&T stores in downtown San Francisco reported that they still don’t have any in stock as of 9:30 a.m. PDT Tuesday.

Updated at 10:04 a.m. PDT to correct the total number of Apple stores there were checked for
iPhone availability. The total is 188.

If you live in one of those states and are able to get a phone from an Apple store there Tuesday, let us know in the comments.

The widget is updated every day after 9 p.m. with the current stock of each store.

These days, Apple has enlisted a widget to deliver its bad news.

CNET’s Josh Lowensohn contributed to this report.

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Juliette Binoche

Yesterday when going through Passport Control to board the Eurostar, I bumped into Juliette Binoche (of Chocolat fame) (or someone who looks and speaks exactly like her).

But I bet she would have wanted to talk to me in line if I were a billionaire.

…where I could not go, as she was in First Class and I was in Unwashed Masses Class. I should have told her not to bother - I’m happily married.

(Credit:
Wikicommons)

I think I’ll just go to the executive lounge, instead.

Whatever my kids might think, having one’s picture on the Internet does not make someone famous. Not even their dad. Just ask Juliette.

I bumped into her when getting into the short line. She turned, looked at me, and then called to her friend in front of me in the line,