November 26 2007
Aucklander Peter Calveley describes his motivation for having a go at Amazon’s one-click patent as basically being bored. Amazon didn’t deliver on a book order, which seems to have got his goat up - and provided him with a line of work to keep him busy. The work of proving that there was substantial prior art concerning one-click transactions on the web. Thanks to Calveley Amazon have proposed changes to the patent which will reduce its scope to one-click transactions involving a shopping cart, after the US Patent Office & Trademark Office had rejected the majority of Amazon’s claims (21 of 26).
Calveley used the technique of having the patent re-examined to be able to use prior art. Ironically he used information provided by Amazon’s Alexa via the Archive.org’s Wayback Machine as the source of information providing him with evidence that one-click transactions were in use on the web prior to Amazon and its patent.
Sydney Morning Herald and a couple of stories from Outlaw provide the background. For Peter’s take check his blog.
Filed under:
nz
consuming_interests
copyright/ip
October 20 2007
I’ve used Jon Udell’s LibraryLookup bookmarklet for doing lookups against the University of Auckland Library for quite some time. It’s a great tool that provides you with a quick way of seeing whether a book of interest is available in your local library. Say you’re looking at an interesting read on Amazon, click on LibraryLookup in your bookmark toolbar and a new browser window opens up, with search results from the local library, showing whether the book is available. If it is you can log in to the library and request the book, quickly mitigating the temptation of a one click purchase.
LibraryLookup works by finding an ISBN number within a web page and using that to search the library’s collection.
Which is great however as I’m not enrolled at university this year I have been using Auckland City Public library to quell my urges to purchase books. After a cursory g search returned naught for the Public Library I peeked and poked the necessary url gubbins into the librarylookup code.
So here are the results, bookmarklets for the Auckland region libraries. Drag the relevant one into your bookmark toolbar. If you’re having problems with this check out this screencast from Jon.
Auckland ISBN Lookup
Manakau ISBN Lookup
North Shore ISBN Lookup
Rodney ISBN Lookup
Waitakere ISBN Lookup
For those that want details
As the Auckland, Manakau, Waitakere and North Shore city libraries all use ELGAR (e Libraries for a Greater Auckland Region) there is a single base url for all libraries. The parameter searchscope defines which library’s collection is searched and the associated skin in which the results are returned within. Here are the codes for the specific libraries.
1 = ELGAR overview
2 = Auckland
3 = Auckland Kids
4 = Manakau
5 = Manakau Kids
6 = North Shore
7 = North Shore Kids
8 = Rodney
9 = Rodney Kids
10 = Waitakere
11 = Waitakere Kids
Filed under:
nz
media
tech
May 9 2007
E65 & Python
Ever since Nokia introduced Python for their Series 60 phones I have been planning on acquiring one. The phones have slowly become smaller, less expensive and with more features. Whilst the N95 represents the future of features, with a decent camera, WiFi and integrated GPS, it’s not there in terms of cost, size and battery life. So I have selected the E65, only slightly heavier than my current phone but with lots of S60 goodness, WiFi and VoIP capabilities.
Naturally the first thing I’ve attempted is to install Python. There are a couple of gotchas, one a bug and the other related to increased security measures within the 3rd edition of Series 60.
1. You need to configure the phone to allow self-signed applications to be installed before installing Python.
2. When installing Python you must install the current version to the phone memory rather than the memory card (BTW: the micro-SD cards are tiny), this is a known bug and will be fixed in future releases.
Nokia provide great access to the phone’s features via Python so I’m looking forward to seeing what I can do with it. Here are some initial ideas: send the phone a SMS to take a photo, time lapse photo sequence with auto-upload to flickr and have the phone record locations of open WiFi spots detected (requires the external GPS).
JB HiFi
After buying the E65 I chanced upon JB Hi-Fi on Queen St. opposite Smith & Caughey. The Ockker retailer looks set to stir things up - they have a massive selection of games, music and DVDs with a smattering of consumer electronics. Nice to see some more competition in Auckland. Its not a pretty retail environment with its fluoro sale now look and if you’re looking for decent staff recommendations I would still head down to Marbecks.
Filed under:
nz
music
s60
python
consuming_interests
March 2 2007
Hyperlocal
Continuing the hyperlocal meme is a segment within the excellent PBS documentary, Frontline Newswar. An investigation into the future of news.
Part 3 examines the changing news scape. The impact of new, lower cost creation and distribution technologies, citing rocketboom.com, aaa and the dailykos.com as examples of the challengers to old media.
Rob Curley and his teams’ efforts at Lawrence Journal, Daily Naples and the Washington Post are highlighted as exemplars of hyperlocal. Using the web and online video to create a richer and more personal local news offering.
All four parts are online streaming in Quicktime or Windows Media.
Newswar is great viewing* and the site has a ton of additional interviews and resources. The Frontline team do not hold back on the issue of quality, standards and innovation within US news. Thought always in that classic, understated, serious documentary style.
‘Why TV News Sucks’
David Rosenblum, the digital videojournalist, on the other hand tells it straight up. In a post entitled Why TV News Sucks he rails against the same old format of news production “Guy at a desk with a box over his shoulder” and pleads for innovation.
Newspapers: As is, to be
Mark Glaser looks at imagining a future tense for newspapers using “as is”/”will be” couplets for contrast.
The way it is: Newspapers try to cover all the news themselves.
The way it will be: “Cover what you do best. Link to the rest.”
NZ?
So whilst the portals assemble their own corporate mashups where is the hyperlocal in NZ? Will the big print players get into their own video production? Or will we see the rise of a new class of independent and locally focused cross media organisations?
*I’ve watched most of Part 3 and one segment of Part 1. Having to watch video at your desk on your computer isn’t a great experience. This subject deserves a post on its own.
Filed under:
nz
media
hyperlocal
February 25 2007
startups links
Guy Kawasaki MCs an informative and entertaining panel discussion (video) on community focused startups involving the founders of hi5.com, slide.com, suicidegirls.com, hotornot.com, fark.com and plentyofish.com.
Loads of great stories, from their experiences, on building out an idea starting with bugger all.
…at the same time I was debating whether or not to do an online curry recipe database, cause I don’t know if you guys know but there are no really good curry databases on the internet…so its an open niche I’m telling you… - Drew Curtis of fark.com
Startupping is a new resource aimed at helping online entrepreneurs. As well as their own blog they have aggregated their best blog picks on the subjects of Entrepreneurs, Venture Capitalists and Angel Investors.
..and in NZ I see that Trade and Enterprise have a number of events which may be useful for local startups with an eye on exporting or just straight up networking.
Tip of the hat:
http://www.drury.net.nz/2007/02/23/new-thinking-week/
Filed under:
nz
start_up
February 19 2007
I attended the Auckland InternetNZ session on the Copyright Amendment Bill last Wednesday. This was part of InternetNZ’s process of consultation to help frame their submission to the Commerce Select Committee. The presentations and discussions also helped many in translating the language of statute to discover the essence of the bill.
The submission period has now been extended, so you have until March 9 to provide your input into the proposed changes.
The materials from the presentations are available online.
Here are a few issues that emerged:
Format shifting
The provisions provide weak rights to the consumer. As previous noted:
- There is a two year sunset clause which will see this right removed unless the clause is renewed by an Order in Council.
- Companies can remove this right through contracting out.
- It is limited to audio material.
One issue I hadn’t seen raised before is the “private and domestic” use clause limiting the format shifted music to your home. Clive Elliott raised the question of whether it would be legal to listen to your format shifted iPod music at work.
As noted by more than one learned lawyer at the workshop - the format & time shifting clauses will be irrelevant to most NZers. After all we have been happily time shifting since Sony introduced the consumer video tape recorder in 1975, have been copying CDs onto iPods/MP3 players since the Diamond Rio appeared and will continue to copy DVDs onto portable video players such as the video iPod. Despite the fact that this will remain illegal if the bill is passed in its present form.
Law? The Big Picture
This is an area where the law as statute and the law as in what is socially acceptable are poles part. The format shifting and time shifting provisions do help close up the gap. The question of what is fair in the balance between copyright holder and society
was raised by questions from the floor. These sought to question or reframe the basis of copyright. As Bronwyn Turley from the Ministry of Economic Development noted the process, leading to this bill, has solely been targeting a digital update of current legislation, and not a complete review of copyright.
More importantly NZ’s ability to redesign copyright within our jurisdiction is framed by our international relationships including the treaties on IP and Trade we are signatories of.
TPM test case
If the bill passes, without change to the TPM sections, we will have an interesting test case with the introduction of the new high definition video discs into NZ. More specifically the test will involve the lawful playback and viewing of region controlled video.
Although the back catalog HD DVD discs now available appear to be region free, it is clear that some form of Region Playback Control (RPC) is likely to be introduced. This would bring HD DVD in line with Blu Ray which already has defined its RPC.
Therefore it appears certain that we will be able to legally import a HD DVD or Blu Ray disc which will not play in a NZ zone player.
It is equally clear that the MPA et al are aware of this thorny issue and are lobbying against it through submissions to the US government.
TPMs & Creative Innovation
During Peter Gutmann’s presentation on TPMs he cited an example of a creative individual being stymied by TPMs that prevented them from viewing their own content on a PC. The TPM in question was Macrovision, an analog video TPM. This issue emerged last year when there were fresh attempts to impose measures against the so called analog hole. TPMs pose a real danger to creators. In protecting ‘proper’ content all other content is assumed to be illegal. This will remove or reduce the functionality available to creators who are limited to consumer level equipment. Given that copyright is supposed to exist to promote the creation of works, if TPMs place a barrier to creation you have to wonder if they have a place in copyright legislation.
Creative Commons & Govt
There was some brief talk during the panel on the history of attempts to get a NZ set CC licences available. Afterwards during drinks there was a suggestion raised that when a NZ CC non-commercial licence exists it would be a great way to allow government departments, SOEs and CROCs to provide non-commercial use of our information and content assets - whilst still allowing commercial exploitation. By allowing citizens to experiment with our national assets commercial applications could be discovered. In a similar way that the BBC’s Backstage non-commercial feeds have helped spawn commercial licence paying applications. BTW for a great discussion on the realities of DRM and complex rights situation within archives spend a hour listening to backstage’s first podcast.
Filed under:
nz
drm
music
media
copyright/ip
February 10 2007
David Haywood has provided significantly more detail, with pictures, on the three big ideas that Richard Simpson outlined in his 'Punctuating Auckland' session at baacamp.
David lives, works and blogs from Christchurch.
Tip of the hat:
http://www.publicaddress.net/default,3930.sm#post3930
Filed under:
nz
baacamp/barcamp/foocamp
February 7 2007
“All had fun, and came away physically exhausted but mentally recharged” - Nat Torkington
baacamp was a great experience. Here’s a selection of my memories from the weekend:
Networks
Friday evening saw Minister David Cunliffe give his pitch on the government’s approach to ensuring NZ has the necessary infrastructure in place to compete online. He seemed genuinely surprised by the consequences of de-peering which was communicated to him by the room. As noted by others in the room he took that issue away as a priority.
Energy
David Haywood gave a talk on energy. Starting by explaining the difference between store and flow based energy. Then looking at each of the flow based sources and discussing their merits. Including work he’s been involved with around wave generation and sterling engines. Peering also raised its head here, in relation to the difference between what an electricity network will sell and buy electricity. This is an issue when you have home based wind or solar generators with excess electricity that can offering to others back on the grid.
Copyright
Judith Tizard fronted to give her position on the whys and wherefores of the Copyright Amendment Bill. Followed by some analysis by lawyer and policy foosters.
Judith started out by recounting a meeting with a music executive who had urged her to continue making formating shifting - of music - just a ‘little bit illegal’. She also explained that a goal of the bill was to put in place copyright law that would continue to relevant in the face of future technological developments. I wish the bill truly reflected a policy and rights based approach. However the exclusion of format shifting of video from the bill demonstrates the political reality that the movie industry continues to trump consumer rights.
It would be a shame if the bill was to be passed in this state. Video format shifting of material is happening now across NZ in exactly the same way the music is being format shifted. This bill would then create law which continue to make things a ‘little bit illegal’ for those: copying their DVDs to the media centres or transcoding and copying their DVDs onto their video iPod.
There was very limited discussion on TPMs (aka DRM), some this was around the desire to access DRMed content sans DRM. In the music world there are signs that DRM is dying. The latest being Steve Jobs’ open letter reaction to Norway’s stance.
Of course there will be plenty more opportunity to discuss the bill next week at the InternetNZ workshops. I intend to get to the Auckland session.
Xero
As someone with a couple of recently created small trading entities the Xero preview was of direct interest to me. It’s accounting Web 2.0. style for small to medium sized enterprises (SMEs). Naturally that means great data integration/interchange and a well thought out user experience.
Rod Drury, the man behind Xero, talked about the capital bootstrapping process that has got them to where they are. The trade sale of email archiver AfterMail was part of the process. In the world post Sarbanes-Oxley archiving email is required for many companies. Accounting is another activity that is required. Do I spot a MO?
Find an activity companies are compelled to do - then provide a solution which makes the activity as painless and as valuable as possible?
Its certainly not a bad starting angle for startups.
“Fucking big web sites”
Artur Bergman from Six Apart gave a wonderfully deadpan presentation on how to handle seriously loaded dynamically generated web sites. In-between dissing filesystems, databases and codecs he explained the pragmatic approach that LiveJournal has taken. Their Perl based tools (Perbal, memcached, GearMan and MogileFS) created for this end are open source and were in use by a number those in attendance. This presentation from OSCON 2005 provides insight into their architecture.
Auckland City
The talk by Richard Simpson on how to punctuate Auckland was remarkable for two reasons. Firstly there were almost as many non-Aucklanders in the audience as those living in Jaffaville. But more importantly the discovery that there is someone in council who has big, ballsy and in many respects, beautiful ideas on how we can transform Auckland into the city it deserves to be. Including a new bridge - for all transport, a national stadium that would help link the CBD with the Domain and a canal between the two harbours. Shame there are no plans for an aqueduct on the canal though;)
Thanks!!!
Big Thanks for organising/supporting the whole experience to Nat, Russell, Jenine, Vern and the sponsors including Google, Xero and Karajoz.
Filed under:
nz
drm
media
baacamp/barcamp/foocamp
copyright/ip
December 6 2006
Well missed the introduction of the amendment to the Copyright Bill on Monday.
Boing Boing has a slightly rubber hammer reaction to it, and Ben from gadgetophile.com has already whipped into action and sent my MP and the Minister responsible a letter on the issue.
Best to go to the source, the Bill is available online:
PDF here.
Plain text version here.
From a very brief scan of the bill here are some comments.
Private copying exception
s 81A(1) is the legalise iPod section. Basically if you are the genuine owner of a CD you’re allowed to make one copy of the CD to any device. So rip it in iTunes on your Mac/PC (one copy) then sync it with your iPod (one copy). This ability to copy is limited to music recordings and audio books. So ripping your DVDs to your computer or onto an iPod remains a breach of copyright.
Problems.
1. This section has a sunset clause, s 81A(3), which will see it expire after two years from the date that the Act comes into force. It can be extended multiple times by an Order in Council, so that means it’s easy enough to extend it should there be a political will to do so.
2. s 81A(2) allows the seller of music recordings and audiobooks to contract out of this provision by specifying how it may or may not be copied.
3. Why didn’t they extend this private copying exception to audio visual works? What is the fundamental difference? People are currently actively doing both forms (CDs and DVDs) of format shifting.
Technological Protection Measures (TPM)
Okay I’m not going to discuss the broader ugly issues with TPM. The EFF (consider a donation to the EFF it’s Christmas!) and Professor Ed Felten of Freedom to Tinker have plenty of background reading.
But there are some balances in the Bill to the obvious issues with TPM. s 226D outlines when TPM does not apply and s 226E provides a method for users to circumvent TPM when the TPM prevents them from ‘exercising a permitted act’.
Basically libraries, archives and educational institutes are allowed to circumvent TPM to undertake encryption research, effect interoperability of software, correct an error in software or allow a permitted act – like listen to your DRM music.
So in theory these provisions would enable a user to rescue music or video wrapped in a DRM system that was no longer supported. But they can only engage a library, archive or educational institute to bypass the DRM, see s 226E(b). How realistic is this? Will they supply DRM translation services, allowing Freeplay DRM to be unwrapped then rewrapped into Windows Plays for Sure DRM? Could be quite a profitable and active area of operations for these prescribed libraries, archives and educational establishments.
Disassembly of Computer Programs
s 80A allows a legal user of a computer program to decompile the program from a low level language to a high level language. This is granted for two purposes. Firstly where this is required to create another computer program which will interoperate with the first program. Secondly when there are errors in the program. The exception is only granted if the supplier does not play ball by either provide a means of integration in the first case, or where there is an issue with a program and the supplier does not supply ‘a properly functioning and error-free copy of the program…in a reasonable time at an ordinary commercial price.”
This cannot be contracted out of by suppliers of computer programs, see s 80C. Compare this with the private copying provisions which can be contracted out of.
So that’s my 1 hour brain dump. /p>
Filed under:
nz
drm
copyright/ip
May 29 2006
Apple is running a preview show for the Worldwide Developer’s Conference (WWDC) in Australia and New Zealand.
But for the second year running the sole NZ location of this event is Wellington.
I love the town of my birth. But unfortunately I along with a third of the population of NZ live in the town called Auckland.
So why can’t Apple do a session in Auckland?
Is NZ limited to one session?
Does Wellington have more developers than Auckland?
I can’t make Wellington, but could probably swing WWDC, care to send me?
Filed under:
mac
nz
