The RIAA Casts Gloomy Web

The Copyright Royalty Board (CRB) has announced its decision on Internet radio royalty rates. Bottom line - Webcasters will now have to pay $500 per station annually, and about 1.28 cents per listener hour, retroactively to the beginning of 2006.

For Live365.com, a service that allows individuals to legally run small Internet radio stations, the decision could be a backbreaker. In the Internet business, it's hard enough to predict the future, but when you also have to predict the past, it can feel like a real rift in the space-time continuum. "Live365's royalty obligation for 2006 is running in the range of $350,000 per month, and that's not even addressing the question of the $500 per station mininum!" - RAIN

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Hello - this is your blog calling.

Imagine picking up the phone, and being greeted by a computer/blog asking your opinions, and, by the way, if you want to leave verbal comments, they could appear on the blog as well. It's already happening according to Business Week's Stephen Baker who received a call from Barista.net, soliciting his opinion regarding a local hotel.

Listen blog, how about if I call you back?

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Future iPods may be pre-loaded with music I don't want

Personally, I like the concept of getting a blank mp3 player and putting music on it that I like. For years radio stations tried to tell us what music we were supposed to like, and MTV and VH1 continue that same push mentality. Thanks to the internet, and music services such as emusic, Rhapsody, and iTunes, music lovers can choose what they want to listen to based on being able to listen to vast song libraries before actually plunking down any cash.

According to this Wired News' writer Leander Kahney, however, due to the recent settlement over the Apple name, and falling flash memory prices, future special edition iPods may come pre-loaded with pre-selected song libraries as a way to again push music on us.

No thanks. Music is far too individualistic for us to go back now to having music thrust upon us. Please just leave the players blank and let us choose!

If they would come out with a jazz-genre preloaded player, and if I was stuck in an airport before a long trip, then maybe I would care, but please, no iPods crammed full of U2, Aerosmith, Ludicrous, or some other artist du jour. IMO that's just more time I'd have to spend deleting these wasted attempts to add value.

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What a concept!

Alright - I'm posting this just for the cool factor. These cars look awesome! Check out these entries into Peugeot's annual "car of the future" design contest.

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Contextual Advertising Run Amok!

This Toyota advertisement popped up over a news story that used the word "car" in the headline. OK - maybe contextual advertising isn't all it's cracked up to be:

Technology Voting Guide

Here's a very handy guide by Declan McCullagh outlining the way House Representatives and Senators voted on technology-related bills. As for Obama, he scored "out-of-the-office" on 14 of 16 bills and left the voting to others, while Clinton voted on only 9 of 16 bills, and scored only 33% out of 100 in the tech-friendly department.

I could've used their votes to save legal Internet Poker. Poker is a skill, an awesome game, and the best way to play it, and learn it, is online! But somehow that Port Security bill really needed this anti-poker law tagged on last-minute. Way to go.

[Link to Tech Voting Map]

Vista Mayhem?

Here's a cartoon that'll assist you with your Vista purchase. [Link]

Hey Robot! Grab me a beer while you're in there!

Here it is folks - the robot servant. Now if only we could teach it to close the refrigerator door when it's done. Maybe it could also be trained to close the toilet lid and pick up the damn clothes off the floor!

Finally Caught a Spammer

This should go a long ways towards cleaning out that inbox, eh? Billions of spam emails have plagued computer users for YEARS, and now, in 2007, 17+ years after the Internet came online, we proudly announce we have caught out first ever spammer! Alright.

Unfortunately for him, since he's the only one we've caught, he'll have to serve 101 years in prison to make up for all the other spammers we haven't caught yet, but don't worry; more arrests will come. Let's check back with this story in 2024 and see if we have nabbed perpetrator #2 by then.

"Forty-five year old Jeffery Goodin was found guilty of running a running scam that fooled users into giving out personal information. E-mails that Goodin sent out made users believe that they were cooperating with a legitimate business when in fact they were not."