Author: Serkadis

Another victory for common sense. Down in Australia, we’ve covered the lawsuit filed by movie studios against popular ISP iiNet. The studios were upset that iiNet wasn’t doing enough to stop unauthorized access to movies by its users. iiNet took a very strong pro-consumer stand, and pointed out that it had no reason to act as the movie studio’s personal police force:

They send us a list of IP addresses and say ‘this IP address was involved in a breach on this date’. We look at that say ‘well what do you want us to do with this? We can’t release the person’s details to you on the basis of an allegation and we can’t go and kick the customer off on the basis of an allegation from someone else’. So we say ‘you are alleging the person has broken the law; we’re passing it to the police. Let them deal with it’.

The company claimed further that based on Australian law, its customers actually weren’t violating copyright law in trading files directly, since the law only covered distributing content “publicly” and a one-to-one trade is not “public.” Furthermore, it argued that the studios’ demand that it monitor its customers activities would violate Australia’s telecom act and violate users’ privacy rights.

Not surprisingly, a lot of folks have been waiting for the verdict and it’s in! The court has ruled in favor of iiNet, saying that just because it provides access, it does not mean it is a party to infringement. Not only that, the court has told AFACT, the Australian anti-piracy organization that handled the case, that it needs to pay iiNet’s legal fees. The ruling looks fantastic. Some snippets from the ITnews article linked above:

“I find that iiNet simply can’t be seen as approving infringement,” said Justice Cowdroy.

Justice Cowdroy found iiNet users had infringed copyright by downloading films on BitTorrent, but he found that the number of infringers was far less than alleged by AFACT.

More importantly, Justice Cowdroy said that the “mere provision of access to internet is not the means to infringement”.

“Copyright infringement occured as result of use of BitTorrent, not the Internet,” he said. “iiNet has no control over BitTorrent system and not responsible for BitTorrent system.”

The fact worldwide piracy was rife “does not necessitate or compel a finding of authorisation, just because it is felt there is something that must be done”, he said.

This is a huge victory for those who believe that the efforts by copyright holders to push secondary liability on ISPs is a very dangerous policy. It’s great to see the court get this one right.

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“Like” is probably the most abused word in the English language.

And on Facebook, the word takes on a whole spectrum of meaning from casually approving a shared news story to being totally enthusiastic about a friend’s game-winning soccer goal or marriage proposal over the weekend. So what if you want a bit of granularity?

Threadsy, which puts e-mail and social network updates together in one stream, just launched a feature that allows you to “dislike” or “love” Facebook status updates.

They’re easter egg features in the new version of Threadsy that users have to figure out how to unlock. (Clues are here.) It’s a variation on a feature they experimented with last year — the ability to “abhor” lame status updates. (See example below). After testing it out, the company found that people actually wanted a “dislike” option rather than an “abhor” one.

Even though it was meant as a joke, “people generally thought that ‘abhor’ was too strong,” explained Scott Kendall, who leads product at Threadsy. “However, we’ll consider adding ‘abhor’ and potentially other emotions in the future.  Abhor actually completes the emotional spectrum nicely: like is to dislike as love is to abhor.”

So far, people are more affectionate than nasty. Users are “loving” updates more than they are “disliking” them.

Facebook adopted a “like” feature last year as a lightweight way of letting people interact with others on the social network. It’s a data goldmine for the company — “likes” increase user engagement, because it’s easier to get people to click a “like” button than write out a comment.

It also gives Facebook vital information about how strong relationships are between different people. If you “like” or comment on another person’s status updates frequently, they’re more likely to appear in your news feed.

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While many may have written off Amazon’s Kindle — along with the rest of its e-reader brethren — after the announcement of Apple’s iPad, I haven’t been so quick to judge. If anything, we may have to thank the iPad for spurring on more competition in the e-Reader segment. Take for example the news today that Amazon has potentially acquired Toucho, a New York-based start-up that’s focusing on touch-screen technology.

The news comes from a person briefed on the deal, but it has yet to be officially acknowledged by Amazon or Touchco. The purchase makes complete sense for Amazon, since Touchco’s technology would allow for them to cheaply bring multi-touch capabilities to future Kindles.

Unlike the capacitive touch-screen technology that has been popularized by the iPhone, new mobile devices, and now the iPad —  Touchco utilizes something call interpolating force-sensitive resistance (I.F.S.R.). Instead of requiring skin contact like capacitive touch-screens, Touchco’s technology uses resistors which detect different levels of pressure. And perhaps most importantly for Amazon, Touchco’s technology is much cheaper — it could cost “as little as $10 a square foot.”

In a previous report on I.F.S.R. by the NYT, they noted that the force-sensitive resistors “become more conductive as you apply different levels of pressure, and then constantly scan and detect different inputs.” They went on to say that the technology would allow for “very low power, unlimited simultaneous touch inputs and the possibility of fully flexible multitouch devices.”

The only snag for Kindle fans is that Amazon won’t likely implement I.F.S.R. on current Kindle displays. Currently, the Kindle uses an electronic paper display by E Ink — which offers paper-like quality, and remains one of the device’s key selling points despite being limited to displaying black, white, and grey. Thanks to E Ink, the Kindle is also one of the few modern devices that doesn’t force you to stare at a bright back-lit screen, and it would be a shame for it to lose that feature.

A touch-screen Kindle is inevitable, but I hope that Amazon figures out a way to use Touchco’s technology in E Ink displays, rather than going with full-color LCD displays like modern laptops and the iPad. It’s likely that Amazon would want to compete more directly with the iPad by offering a full-color tablet of their own — and to do so this year they would definitely need to use an LCD display. Color E Ink technology probably won’t see widespread availability until the end of the year, and more likely not until 2011.

Just like with the announcement of the Kindle application store, Amazon has to balance keeping the Kindle competitive with similar devices, while also staying true to its core e-reader functionality. I’m hoping that Amazon doesn’t try to compete with the iPad too much — because in doing so they risk losing what makes the Kindle a great e-Book reader.

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LS9, one of the biggest names in the burgeoning biofuels market, just took a giant step closer to making cost-effective renewable petroleum on a commercial scale. Armed with $25 million in capital raised in September, it has bought a demonstration-scale production plant in Florida for the bargain price of $2 million.

To give you a sense of how important LS9’s success is to the green fuel and chemicals movement, two of its biggest investors are Chevron and Procter & Gamble, major corporations hoping to integrate the technology into their own practices while simultaneously greening their public images. It’s promising to hear that LS9 is moving into the demonstration phase, considering how much money its proprietary one-step fermentation process stands to save.

LS9 distinguishes itself from competitors like Synthetic Genomics and Coskata by using specially-engineered microbes capable of converting plant-based materials into fuels and chemicals in just one step. Most of its competitors are still dependent on multi-phased systems. Even Shell-backed Codexis, which just filed for a $100 million IPO, isn’t really a threat, focusing only on engineering the microbes and catalysts necessary for green fuel production without making the fuel and chemicals itself.

It also says something that LS9 has made good on recent promises — a rarity in the risky, capital-intensive cleantech sector. The South San Francisco company had said that it would start developing a demo-scale facility in the first quarter of 2010, and now it is well on its way to meet that goal, and at a low cost too. It picked up the building in Florida for 10 percent of its estimated value because the previous occupant, Biomass Processing Technology, went bankrupt. The location is also ideal for LS9, which could make good use of nearby feedstocks like corn and sugar.

The company’s time frame for bringing the plant online is ambitiously short. By the end of this year, it hopes to be churning out 50,000 to 100,000 gallons of its UltraClean Diesel. Right now, it is only producing the fuel on a very small scale at its headquarters. Its new home could eventually produce up to 10 million gallons of the biodiesel fuel a year, not to mention many more gallons of green chemicals for various applications.

Opening the Florida facility is part of an even loftier roadmap for LS9, which wants to have 20 plants up and running in the next decade, both in the U.S. and South America where suitable feedstocks are even more plentiful.

LS9 is backed by Khosla Ventures (a big believer in biofuels that also funds Coskata), Flagship Ventures, Lightspeed Venture Partners, and Chevron Technology Ventures Investments. It was passed over for a grant from the U.S. Department of Energy, which handed out $24 million to biomass projects in November — but this doesn’t seem to have had any impact on its plans.

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Looks like TiVo has run out of TiVo HD units, if their online store is any indication, which has us wondering if the newer TiVo Premiere is about to make it’s debut. We originally mentioned the TiVo Premiere when a customer accidentally received a manual for the device packed in with a TiVo HD purchase. You’d think that if TiVo was already printing instructions on how to use the device, it had to be near-ready to ship, and this was just over a month ago.

In the meantime, if you want a TiVo, go for the TiVo XL instead.

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Ahead of Ferrari’s first official Formula 1 test session this season scheduled for tomorrow, Felipe Massa took out the Ferrari 599XX on the track for the first time at Valencia’s Ricardo Tormo circuit. Massa met with clients who purchased the 599XX and led them around track before their participation in the exclusive racing program.

“I really enjoyed testing this car, I think it’s extremely powerful and has an exceptional stability,” Massa said. “Considering that it has been planned for the track it’s really easy to drive.”

The seven clients will now participate in a series that Ferrari will organize on race tracks in America, Europe and Asia, including the Finali Mondiali. The cars will be taken care of by the team of official technicians, able to guarantee the necessary support and assistance.

Refresher: Power for the Ferrari 599XX comes from a 6.0L V12 engine making 700-hp with a maximum torque of 479 lb-ft. Ferrari also added a new F1 inspired gearbox that transfers power to the wheels with gear change time cut down to 60 ms.

Felipe Massa drives Ferrari 599XX on track:

– By: Omar Rana

A Southern California man has been arrested on suspicion of posing as a federal marshal to kidnap a distant cousin’s wife and put her on a plane to the Philippines, police said Wednesday.

Witnesses said Gregory Denny, 37, turned up at the Hemet home of Craig Hibbard, a distant cousin, on Jan. 15, wearing a fake badge and a shirt imprinted with “U.S. Federal Agent,” said Lt. Duane Wisehart of the Hemet Police Department.

Displaying what turned out to be a pellet gun, Denny reportedly handcuffed Hibbard’s wife, Cherrie Belle, and told the couple she was being deported, Wisehart said. Denny allegedly drove Belle, 28, to the U.S. Customs and Border Protection station in Murrieta.

When he was told there was no warrant for her in the computer system, he apparently returned to the couple’s house in the 1200 block of Stepstone Court and instructed her husband to purchase a ticket for her online to her home country, Wisehart said.

Police were told Denny drove the woman to the international airport in San Diego, where he flashed his fake badge to get through security. He allegedly escorted her to the departure gate, uncuffed her and watched her board a plane to San Francisco en route to Manila, where she remains.

When Hibbard reported the matter to authorities three days later, police reached Denny by telephone and asked him to come into the station for questioning. Denny arrived wearing the “U.S. Federal Agent” shirt, identified himself to police as a U.S. marshal and verified the family’s general account of what happened, Wisehart said.

“This person is not and never was employed by the U.S. Marshals Service, and as far as we can ascertain, has never been employed by any law enforcement agency in any capacity,” the Hemet Police Department said in a statement.

Police arrested Denny last month on suspicion of kidnapping, false imprisonment, impersonating a peace officer, burglary and false arrest, Wisehart said. He was released the next day on $50,000 bail and is expected in court Feb. 16.

The Riverside County district attorney’s office is considering whether to file charges, said spokesman John Hall. Hemet police also notified the FBI, U.S. Marshals Service, U.S. Customs and Border Protection and the Transportation Security Administration.

Denny told the Press-Enterprise the kidnapping claims are false but did not elaborate. The Police Department did not provide a motive. [Updated at 2:48 p.m.: “There is no clear motive except that he felt he was doing a ‘favor’ for the family, and that they, the family, wanted her deported,” Wisehart said.]

Hibbard told the Press-Enterprise that his wife is five months’ pregnant and that they have been married for three years. He said she canceled her green card last year in a dispute with him, saying she wanted to go home to the Philippines.

The couple later reconciled and she tried to renew her immigration documents, the paper reported. Hibbard said they were told by immigration officials in San Bernardino that she was allowed to remain in the U.S. while her application was being processed.

[Updated at 12:07 a.m. Feb. 4: An earlier version of this post referred to U.S. Customs and Border Protection as U.S. Border Patrol.]

— Alexandra Zavis

More breaking news in L.A. Now:

Budget advisor says putting freeze on LAPD hiring could save city $69.3 million

Angeles Crest Highway to remain closed through late March

Former teen idol Leif Garrett arrested on charge of possession of heroin

Baby gray whale ‘putting on quite a show’ off Malibu Pier

LAPD’s Jim McDonnell named next chief of Long Beach Police Department

Stanford is top fundraiser among U.S. colleges in 2009

Marijuana seized in banana shipment at San Diego border crossing

L.A. filmmakers produce video of same-sex marriage trial

Crews work to repair water main breaks in Northridge, Gardena

L.A. wants to double red-light camera program: safety measure or revenue generator?

Michael Jackson death investigation may be coming to a conclusion

L.A. activists float idea of ‘freeway’ system for bikes

Mystery man wanted for questioning in slaying of Southern California model

The Wall Street Journal has reported that major textbook publishers have made deals with ScrollMotion Inc, in an effort to bring their textbooks to digital devices — including Apple’s upcoming iPad.

McGraw-Hill, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt K-12, Pearson Education and Kaplan Inc are all named as ScrollMotions’s latest partners (customers?). According to WSJ, ScrollMotion;

…has already developed applications for Apple’s iPhone and iPod Touch. ScrollMotion takes digital files provided by publishers for the iPad, adapts them to fit on the device, and then adds enhancements such as a search function, dictionaries, glossaries, interactive quizzes and page numbers.

Pretty much all the things you’d expect from a a digital edu-book. Other cool features said to be included in the iPad deal include;

…applications to let students play video, highlight text, record lectures, take printed notes, search the text, and participate in interactive quizzes to test how much they’ve learned and where they may need more work.

Only in recent years have tablet devices begun to offer a glimpse at a practical digital realization of many educators long-harbored dreams. It helps enormously that they’re book-shaped (almost removing the physical and psychological barriers laptops and desktop computers put between people), and, sometimes, they’re almost affordable. Sadly, their adoption has been hampered by lackluster design. Until the iPad appeared, the Kindle offered the best digital textbook platform for students and teachers, although that’s not saying much; the Kindle is slow, features a greyscale-only screen and offers a cumbersome input method. Most importantly, the Kindle does only one thing. It does it competently, to be sure, but it doesn’t dazzle.

It’s no wonder then, that textbook publishers are paying close attention to the iPad; it not only improves on the Kindle in almost every way (perhaps with the exception of battery life) but introduces an input paradigm already very well established and understood by millions of iPhone or iPod Touch owners. Some critics decry a lack of multitasking and expansion; but consider the far more powerful reality that the iPad just happens to be the easiest-to-use computer ever made.

For a teaching/learning aid, on the trajectory of “intuitively easy” it lies closer to the humble pen and paper than to a TFT screen with a bunch of plastic keys and a pointing device.

Publishers were already dipping their toes into the digital book market, but only tentatively. Now the iPad is just around the corner, it looks like they’re losing those prior inhibitions and preparing to dive right in, though they’re trying not to sound too enamoured. Rik Kranenburg, president of McGraw-Hill’s higher education unit, said;

People have been talking about the impact of technology on education for 25 years. It feels like it is really going to happen in 2010. Nobody knows what device will take off, or which ‘killer app’ will drive student adaptations. Today they aren’t reading e-textbooks on their laptops. But ahead we see all kinds of new instruction materials.”

Prickly Issue

Of course, the issue of Price remains prickly. Amazon sold its e-books at $9.99, despite the wishes of publishers who wanted to charge a bit more. Now, following a bit of a public spat with publisher Macmillans, prices of some e-book titles on Amazon.com (and, presumably, international Amazon sites) are beginning to change. Amazon maintains they set book prices at $9.99 to make it fair for consumers. Cynicism, on the other hand, offers an alternative reason, that includes the phrases “loss leader” and “market dominance.” I’ll leave you to decide which is most likely.

Meanwhile, one man who never seems to give two hoots about what’s fair, right or even logical – Rupert “Mad Dog” Murdoch – took a break from hating on Google to declare that he supported (and preferred) Apple’s pricing model for titles in the iBookstore. In a News Corp. earnings call yesterday, Murdoch said,

We don’t like the Amazon model of selling everything at $9.99… We think it really devalues books and it hurts all the retailers of the hard cover books. We are not against [electronic] books. On the contrary we like them very much indeed. It is low cost to us… Apple in its agreement with us […] does allow for a variety of slightly higher prices.

It’s interesting to note that a lot of criticism and debate surrounding Apple’s foray into e-book sales has been negative. Many bloggers have grumbled bitterly about Apple “doing to the publishing industry what they did to the music industry” and even yesterday All Things Digital was making reference to the “scarring” experienced by the music industry.

But what exactly did Apple do to the music industry that was so terrible? Last time I checked, Apple pretty much saved it, bringing sanity to a media landscape that, before the iTunes store arrived, was a fragmented sales and accessibility nightmare, where prices and content distribution were so appallingly inconsistent across competing services/platforms that scores of customers resorted to illegal file sharing as the de facto method for getting music.

If Apple can bring to the publishing industry the same format homogeny, pricing stability and content distribution/management methods that it brought to the music industry, that’s good for everyone. Everyone except Amazon.

Angry Internet Man here with a chip on his shoulder and a shoot promo to cut. This pre-order “bonus” video game content bullshit has to stop. Lives are at stake.

The latest example of this chicanery is BioShock 2. If you pre-order the game from GameStop, den of sin and other bad stuff, you get two exclusive multi-player characters. Well, pardon me for being a jerk and buying the game from Steam (where the pre-order bonus is a free copy of the orignial BioShock, as if I didn’t already have that—twice). Now I have to envy all the other neighborhood kids who get said characters? You know, I always hated those kids.

Granted, the odds of me playing BioShock 2’s multi-player mode are right around zero, so it’s not a huge deal, but there is a certain principle at stake here: why the heck should I have to buy—and pre-order, no less!—the game from GameStop to get access to the entire game? Why punish people who choose to shop at a different location?

And this is a benign pre-order bonus, extra multi-player skins. Who cares? Let’s look at something far more malignant: EA’s Battlefield: Bad Company 2. Did you know that unless you pre-order the game from, yes, GameStop, you won’t be able to play a certain multi-player mode for an entire month? Let’s say Wal-Mart is the only store in town; you couldn’t shop at GameStop if you wanted to. So you go over there, ask the nice cashier for a copy, come home, plop it into your PS3, and find out, oh, hey, I can’t play a mode that I paid for for four weeks. Awesome! Thanks, EA and GameStop!

(I don’t even understand how that’s legal, buying ostensibly the same product from one store but getting a hell of a lot more with your purchase than the guy who bought the same thing next door. Imagine buying a car from one dealership that included working high beams, but buying it from another store you get jack-shit for lights.)

Dragon Age: Origins had some pre-order nonsense, too. Basically, you had to buy the game 18 different times to unlock every single piece of “extra” content. What?

Mass Effect 2 rewarded armor and weapons—not superfluous multi-player skins, then—to people who pre-ordered the game from GameStop. Again, tough cookies, kid who bought the game from Target. You should have done the decent thing and driven an hour and a half out of your way to pre-order the game from almighty GameStop.

Let’s be fair: sometimes all this “extra” stuff is made available to everyone via Xbox Live or PSN after a certain amount of time. In SmackDown vs. Raw 2010, which came out last October, for example, Stone Cold Steve Austin was a GameStop pre-order exclusive (notice a pattern?) for a while, but now he can be purchased for 80 Microsoft Points. The stupidity of having to pay for something that’s already on the disc (or that could just as easily be included on the disc) aside, I do applaud THQ for at least making him available. Well, “applaud,” more like kick up dirt and say, “Gee, you guys shouldn’t have, really.”

What’s the purpose of this exclusive content stuff anyway? So GameStop can send a press release to Kotaku and JoyStiq and Techland a few days after a game’s release touting how many copies it sold? See, investors, people still buy their games from us! Yeah, of course, because you’re strong-arming publishers to incorporate extra content deals lest you devote precious shelf space to some other game whose publisher played ball with us. (I have zero information to that effect, it’s just what it feels like.)

When I buy a game, I want to know that I’ve bought the game. I don’t want to find out on CrunchGear of all places that I screwed up because I didn’t buy it at Store A, and thus lose out on armor or weapons or whatever the hell else. Why is this so hard to understand?

So you have a choice, gamers: participate in this charade by genuflecting at the shrine of GameStop (and others), thus perpetuating the garbage of “exclusive” content, or take your money elsewhere. That’s the only way it’s going to stop, too: refusing to shop at these stores that offer “exclusive” content, which only serves to harm your fellow gamers.

To arms and so forth!

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One of the major points the iPad, nook, and other e-book readers have on the Kindle is their touchability. Sure, you don’t need it to read books, but it’s nice if you like interacting with things. Well, Amazon seems to have figured this out, and has purchased a touchscreen company called Touchco (Touchco, really?) that owns a nice, transparent, resistive touchscreen tech that could easily be implemented into a Kindle — even a color one.

The technical details aren’t really that interesting — I mean, it’s pretty much just a touchscreen. But it’s a little troubling that Amazon is just buying them up now. Even if Amazon were to release a new device today, they’d still be behind the times. Let’s hope they get a move on.

[via Gizmodo]

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This image is proof that opening up space travel to private industry will speed up colonization and tourism. Apparently there’s already flights on the moon. That or a plane just so happened to get in the frame of a 500mm telephoto lens. [via reddit]

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Lindsay Lohan breaks the silence on her “private pain” (That’s a direct quote, mind you….) in an emotional interview with The Insider’s Niecy Nash this Thursday, Feb. 4. The actress has been embroiled in several legal dramas since she shot to fame as a child star a decade ago. A mirage of troubles with drugs and family have turned the once popular young actress into a much-publicized mess in recent years.

Lindsay’s been filling the holes within herself with tangible possessions — which have turned the actress’ Hollywood semi-mansion into a hoarders’ paradise — she plans to dish on that in tomorrow’s chat with Niecy.

Here’s the tagline: Amid all the reports, the young star sets the record straight about her relationship with her father, Michael Lohan. And, with a bedroom full of shoes and a living room filled with clutter — is Lindsay a secret celebrity hoarder? Tune into our revealing interview Thursday night on The Insider……

She has rooms full of clothes but wears the same pair of leggings every day? Or does she just have 600 pairs of stretch pants that all look exactly the same? Either way, the fact that LiLo is doing exposes with the poor man’s answer to Entertainment Tonight says something about how far the Lohan star has fallen.

NPR: To Stay Or Walk Away – by CalculatedRisk – Here is an interesting podcast from NPR’s Planet Money: To Stay Or Walk Away – … interview Arizona attorney Mary Kinsley. …
Now homeowners call, their voices calm, and ask her the best way to strategically default – and in some cases how to get the banks to take back the houses they’ve been delinquent on for over a year. Pretty amazing. She thinks this is just the beginning of "walking away". … – Calculated Risk Blog
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4 Reference Points on China Real Estate – Patrick Chovanec – Sometimes a picture of reality is formed from the accumulation of many small data points, perhaps insignificant in themselves, but together forming a compelling impression. I wanted to share a couple of interesting reference points I’ve come across in relation to China’s real estate market, and the question of whether there’s a bubble in that market. – Seeking Alpha

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SunWest Continues to Play Important Role in Reverse Mortgage MBS Market – Sun West Mortgage Company today announced that it has crossed the $2 Billion mark in HECM Mortgage Backed Securities (HMBS). … SunWest is able to automate the process of organizing and formatting the loan data, both for transmission to the issuer’s document custodian and for delivery to Ginnie Mae through GinnieNET said a company statement. In addition, the system’s flexible design enables rapid integration with most industry standard reverse mortgage loan servicing software. – Reverse Mortgage Daily
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Foreclosures, Enforcement, and Collections under the Federal Mortgage Modification Guidelines – Casey Milligan – … Through their income share target and “NPV test,” the federal modification programs have manufactured a tradeoff between the number of foreclosures prevented in the short term and the durability of those foreclosure prevention efforts,  … (tells how program has not been a success) – Supply and Demand In That Order
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When Forensic Loan Audits Are Used Against Lenders – BY STEVE BERGSMAN – … "Every constituent along the way is looking for their own get-out-of-jail-free card," observes Frank Pallotta, a principal with Loan Value Group LLC of Rumson, N.J. "I’ve been seeing this for the last two years. … – MortgageOrb
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US MBS market should weather Fed exit-Freddie exec – By Al Yoon – The $5 trillion market for U.S. agency mortgage-backed securities should be able to weather the scheduled end of Federal Reserve purchases as value-seeking investors fill the void, a Freddie Mac executive said on Monday – Reuters 
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The Latest Housing Fixes – Tom Lindmark – … Today was the first day of FHA’s capitulation. House flippers no longer need worry about holding a property for 90 days before a buyer is eligible for FHA financing.  … Not to be outdone, Fannie is offering 3.5% seller assistance on its inventory of foreclosures. The assistance can be used to cover closing costs. Put it together with first time buyer tax credit and you can literally move in with no money down and conceivably end up with some cash left over … has more thoughts – But Then What

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Barney Frank: The Poor Should Rent, Not Own – by Daniel Indiviglio – The Atlantic
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Dear Homebuyers: It’s Time To Start Lowballing Like Crazy Again – Gus Lubin – Money Game at Business Insider

Homeownership Finally Back To Pre-Bubble Levels, But We’ve Got A Long Way To Fall – Joe Weisenthal – Money Game at Business Insider
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has 3 plan summaries – Proposals to Reduce Mortgage Principal – By JENNIFER SARANOW SCHULTZ – The Zandi plan, The Posner and Zingales plan, the Brent White plan  – NY Times Bucks Blog

Green Diary highlights artist Luke Jerram’s new project “Aeolus,” which seeks to capture the sound of wind passing through a landscape. According to Green Diary, Jerram received an £225K grant from the UK’s Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EPRSC) to create and tour Aeolus, an exploration of acoustics, wind, and architecture, which was inspired by a tour of desert wells in Iran that one local well-digger said sung in the wind. The artist has created a range of sculptures, installations, and live art projects, including the Plant Orchestra.

Aeolian wind harps were seen by Jerram as the best tools for capturing the sound of wind. “Long tensioned strings will resonate with the wind and will be heard by visitors inside the space. The ambition is to sonify the three dimensional landscape of wind. The public will be able to visualise this shifting wind map from within the space by interpreting the sound around them.”

The piece will consist of components that explore light, including “hundreds of light pipes which both draw the landscape of light into the building and hum at a series of low frequencies. The tubes act to frame and magnify the landscape so that from inside the structure, at its centre, visitors can see through one hundred of these pipes simultaneously, contemplating an ever changing landscape of light.”

The installation features a specially designed architectural space that will resonate and sing with the wind. EPRSC and the engineering groups of University of Southampton (ISVR) and University of Salford are involved and funding the project because they hope to learn more about how to make audible wind noises without electrical power or amplification.

The temporary installation will tour sites in the UK and elsewhere, and each location’s unique wind and landscape sound will be recorded.

Read more and watch videos.

Image credit: Luke Jerram

OK, for anyone who deals with appraisals in any form, here’s a great YouTube. One of the better lines is, “Wells Fargo and BofA getting appraisals done by appraisal companies they own – It’s like Michael Jackson running a freaking boys camp! My E&O is going to go through the roof!” Definitely worth 2-3 minutes:

Despite the fun poked at the appraisal process in that video, many lenders are still searching for help for the hurdles that HVCC has thrown up in their process. I am often asked about appraisal “soup to nuts” solutions. If you are interested, or want to see how one company is managing appraisal requirements for Fannie, Freddie, and FHA, you should take a look at ValuFinders. The firm has been around for many years, and has primarily focused on being a technology company that manages all of the REO’s for the government, but lately it has set up a system that helps brokers and lenders carry out the appraisal process and comply with the complete set of government regulations. Check with Paul Anderson at www.Valufinders.com.

You shouldn’t look for any new products from Fannie or Freddie. Neither will be allowed to introduce new loan products in the mortgage market while they are under the control of the U.S. government, FHFA announced, given the companies’ massive losses and looming challenges. A story in the Wall Street Journal noted “permitting the enterprises to engage in new products is inconsistent with the goals of conservatorship.” The new rule won’t apply to foreclosure prevention efforts, which are considered separate from new product offerings. Therefore, until investors are willing to introduce products on their own, don’t look for any new industry-wide programs.

So what is the latest on jumbo products? You know, the loans that seem to be needed within 10-30 miles of any coastline, on many waterways, or in the nice neighborhoods of any city, and are now being underwritten to very tight guidelines? The National Association of Realtors (NAR) estimates that the national share of home sales above $750,000 is approximately 2.3% for 2009, down from 4.4% three years ago. Everyone knows that putting jumbo loans into securities is not an option, currently.  The loans are not part of the Fed’s MBS purchase program (although loans of up to $729,750 done in high cost areas can constitute up to 10% of a pool), and many are ARM’s, which constitute less than 10% of current production. Institutional investors don’t want the product, although many banks are adding the loans to their portfolios since the spreads are attractive versus their cost of funds. But banks are cautious about adding 30-yr maturity instruments to their balance sheets, even for their best customers, so many jumbo loans are ARM loans that either go to banks or may have some interest from hedge funds, money managers, private funds, etc.

How about the $1 Trillion in reserves banks are supposedly sitting on? If you ask someone off the street, “Who would YOU lend it to?” you might receive a shrug and a blank stare. Any mortgage banker might reply, “How about self employed or jumbo borrowers?”

Anyone taking a look at the budget saw that, once again, the mortgage deduction is viewed as low hanging fruit whenever there’s a deficit. In this case, the ack is on itemized deductions. The proposal to reduce itemized deductions, including the deduction of mortgage interest, for taxpayers reporting income above $250,000 (joint) and $200,000 (single) is being fought by various mortgage banking groups, including the MBAA. The MBAA has also publicly come out against the proposal to tax carried interest at ordinary tax rates (as opposed to the capital gains rate, as it is taxed now), as it would discourage capital formation for lending.

more news on Flagstar, Franklin American, CitiMortgage, Suntrust, Chase, PennyMacd, HUD, NAR pending sales, econlmy, rates, and joke of the day … <<< CLICK HERE TO CONTINUE

5th Annual Unalakleet Community Appreciation Basketball Tournament:  Girls 1st Unalakleet, Kotlik 2nd, Boys 1st UNK, St. Mary’s 2nd, (3 way tie with Unalakleet, St. Mary’s, and Kotlik.  Decided by a point spread.)  MVP Girls Joanne Semaken UNK, Pete Katongan UNK.  St. Mary’s Sportsmanship.

BB Scores ending 1-30

State Sen. Dan Debicella, R-Shelton, did a lot of clapping today. At one point, he even jumped out of his seat and gave Gov. M. Jodi Rell a standing ovation.

Debicella was excited, and he didn’t try to hide it.

He likes that the governor is not willing to raise taxes and supports the job-related programs she proposed in her State of the State address Wednesday. The state needed to figure out how to promote job growth and how to deal with a bad economy, Debicella said.    

“Gov. Rell spelled out the exact right way today,” he said. 

With proposals on the table, the hurdle will now be whether Democrats, Republicans and the governor can work together, Debicella acknowledges, adding that he hopes that will happen.

While Rell may have gotten standing ovations from Debicella, Democratic responses to Rell’s speech were less obvious. 

House Speaker Christopher G. Donovan, D-Meriden, called Rell’s speech nice and said she made many comments he agreed with. Senate President Pro Tem Donald E. Williams Jr., D-Brooklyn, said lawmakers would be willing to look at the governor’s proposals and would try to work in a bipartisan manner.

Worth noting is that at least two of Rell’s proposals increases the power of the governor’s office. Just two years ago, Democrats were looking to curtail Rell’s power.

One such proposal would enhance the governor’s ability to make cuts to the state’s general fund when there is a projected deficit.

Another proposal would repeal bond authorizations that have not been approved by the State Bond Commission within five years. The governor, who serves a four-year term, is responsible for setting the bond commission’s agenda. A failed 2008 Democratic proposal would have changed that. At the time, Democrats said were frustrated that Rell wasn’t bringing projects forward for approval, and they wanted more say in the process.         

The John Edwards Scandal has somehow managed to get even worse.

A new report featured in the Feb. 15 edition of The National Enquirer claims the former North Carolina senator and presidential candidate John Edwards violently punched his cancer-stricken wife Elizabeth in the ribs during an argument over his philandering last December.

A source close to Elizabeth claims John socked his wife of more than 30 year after the couple argued over his alleged continued involvement with videographer-turned-baby mama Rielle Hunter.

Elizabeth suspected John slept with Hunter — the mother of his two-year-old daughter Frances Quinn — over the holidays. The long-suffering wife unleashed the gates of Hell on her sleazy hubby, branding him “disgusting,” a “disgrace,” and “dead in her eyes.”

That’s when John assaulted her, The Enquirer claims.

The Edwards announced their separation last week. Insiders say Elizabeth plans to file domestic violence charges if John refuses to give her what she wants in the divorce settlement.

What: The Illinois Senate Commerce Committee is holding a special subject-matter hearing to promote venture capital and private equity investing in startup, small and medium sized companies to keep and create jobs in Illinois. Committee Chair Dan Kotowski (D-Park Ridge) has arranged for business leaders, professional organizations and other experts to address the committee.

Who: Witnesses include representatives from the Illinois Venture Capital Association, Chicagoland Entrepreneurial Center, Chicagoland Chamber of Commerce, the Council of State Governments – Midwest, investment firms OCA Ventures and Illinois Ventures, the Illinois Biotechnology Industry Organization (iBIO), and successful entrepreneurs from various sectors across Illinois.

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