Author: Serkadis

Virtualization and cloud computing are the top priorities for CIOs, according to a study by Gartner. The study is more proof that despite modest IT spending, virtualization and cloud computing continue to attract keen interest from executive management.

Gartner expects IT budgets to be essentially flat in 2010. Despite this, a shift is occurring that will shape IT structure for many years to come. According to the survey of 1,600 CIOs, the big shift is the result of the recession.

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Perhaps the most significant change is in the demand for social technologies, which is leading to the adoption of new technologies such as cloud computing.

According to the survey, virtualization is the top priority, followed by cloud computing, which last year came in 16th. Interestingly, Web 2.0, which often goes hand in hand with cloud computing, came in as the number three priority. Mobile computing jumped to the number six spot. It came in 12th last year.

The list reflects a change in the workforce. Cloud computing is in some sense changing how we work, requiring a more non-location based focus. For instance, more people work outside of an office. Smartphone usage is starting to soar. Many of the enterprise collaboration services now available are cloud-based. Users will need access to those applications to do their work.

Virtualization is important as it helps IT groups get more out of their assets. Data centers can be optimized while also reducing labor costs.

Gartner sees IT departments as having an opportunity to develop flexible, adaptive enterprises. Cloud computing and virtualization help make that vision a reality.

Discuss

Christine Ahn interviews CHARLOTTE BUNCH, Founder of the Center for Global Women's Leadership SAN FRANCISCO, Jan 25 (IPS) One year after U.S. President Barack Obama's inauguration, how has his administration fared in terms of advancing an agenda for women's rights around the world?

Charlotte Bunch, founding director of the Center for Global Women's Leadership at Rutgers University and a longtime feminist scholar activist, as well as a board member of the Global Fund for Women, spoke with Christine Ahn about her assessment of the U.S. president's achievements, and what remains to be done.

Q: Now that we're one year into the Obama presidency, how is the administration faring on advancing women's rights around the world?

A: So far the Obama administration has done pretty well in advancing women's rights through their foreign policy. The most substantial evidence of this is the increase in money that the State Department is now allocating to women's concerns.

According to a recent report by Women Thrive Worldwide, the budget for women's rights has dramatically increased from the Bush years. Their analysis of the State, Foreign Operations budget for FY10 found an increase of 1.66 billion dollars more than FY09 to the tune of nearly 8.0 billion dollars for global development.

Also important to note is the focus on women's empowerment and gender integration across the foreign aid programmes which will be applied to 16.5 billion dollars in funding. The Congressional bill also included 3.1 million dollars for the newly created Office for Global Women's Issues at the State Department.

Of course, the State Department budget still pales in comparison to the Defence Department, but the allocation of more dollars does signal clear intention of U.S. foreign policy to empower women and improve their rights.

Within the first few weeks of taking office, President Obama implemented some very important and symbolic policies. On his first day in office, he overturned the global gag rule, which the Bush administration had reinstated preventing U.S. government dollars from supporting any form of reproductive healthcare or family planning overseas.

The administration also immediately restored funding to the United Nations Population Fund and later pushed for the "gender architecture" reform that will create a new super women's agency at the United Nations. President Obama also created the White House Council on Women and Girls to coordinate at the federal level all Cabinet and Cabinet-level agencies to consider how their policies and programmes impact women and families.

There was some discussion about whether this would be a commission, similar to what President [John F.] Kennedy set up in 1963. The difference is that the commission was public and included the perspective of civil society as a major component. Granted, in the 1960s there were few women in high level appointed federal positions so women in civil society played a big role, whereas today there are many.

Certainly times are different, but it still would have been good to have representation from civil society perspectives shaping the agenda of the White House Council. And most recently, Secretary of State Clinton renewed the U.S. government's support for the program coming out of the U.N. International Conference on Population and Development, in 1994 in Cairo that linked women's empowerment and reproductive rights with development goals.

Q: Do you see any negative moves?

A: As for disappointment, escalating the war in Afghanistan isn't improving the situation for Afghan women, men or children. And although they have made development in Afghanistan a priority, it still doesn't balance the damage and destruction that will be wrought from more militarised violence. Similar questions could be raised about continuing U.S. military activity in Iraq and other places.

Another moment of disappointment for women was Obama's speech to the Muslim world in Cairo last year. Although it was heralded in many parts of the world for its cross-cultural outreach from a women's rights perspective, it was a low point. In that speech, he stressed the need to reach out to Muslims, but he didn't give much attention to the state of women's rights in that part of the world beyond the need to improve women's access to education.

He missed an important opportunity to challenge the discriminatory practices of all religions in subjugating women by calling upon all Christians, Muslims and people of all faiths everywhere to improve women's human rights.

President Obama could have borrowed a few words from The Elders, a council of retired leaders including Nelson Mandela, Mary Robinson, Archbishop Desmond Tutu, Ela Bhatt, and Jimmy Carter who are calling on religious leaders of all faiths to change discriminatory practices and traditions that oppress women.

Whether or not the Obama administration views women's rights as a priority in a larger geopolitical and military context is questionable. For example, the White House has talked of working with "moderate" Taliban-despite its abhorrent record of abusing and oppressing women-as acceptable to achieving their objectives in Afghanistan.

I'm not as cynical as during the [George W.] Bush administration when all efforts for women's rights seemed manipulative. I do believe that there is a genuine concern for advancing a women's rights agenda, but when that comes into conflict with their broader goals, I doubt that it will not trump other priorities.

Another measure of how much political capital the Obama administration is going to wage on advancing women's rights will be whether they are going to pursue the ratification of the Convention the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women (CEDAW). There are 186 signatories to the international treaty, but the United States, along with Sudan and Iran, are among the very few countries that have not ratified it.

The ratification of CEDAW will certainly improve the status of women in the United States, but it is also an important symbol of the United States commitment to being part of this historic women's rights convention and the international human rights regime.

Q: Can you talk about U.N. Security Council Resolution 1888 and its significance?

A: UNSC 1888 builds upon two previous resolutions: UNSC 1325 on women, peace and security, which was passed ten years ago and UNSC 1820 passed in 2008. The Bush administration built upon 1325 by promoting UNSC 1820 which advocated for more protection of women facing sexual violence in conflict zones.

Last September, the UNSC passed 1888 which put real teeth into implementing1820 by authorising a U.N. special representative of the secretary general to monitor it and report to the Security Council.

During the Bush administration, women rights advocates very ambivalent about the U.S. proposing 1820 because we felt like it was a cover for their clearly egregious anti-women's rights agenda (as seen in their objection to family planning and reproductive rights and promotion of abstinence-only programmes).

The Obama administration deserves credit for getting 1888 passed, which will enable more reporting and put pressure for more progress on the protection of women in conflict areas.

Q: Why was restructuring the U.N. women's units into one larger agency so important?

A: Work on women's rights at the U.N. has been important, but its structures have been fragmented and under-resourced and its leadership has lacked access to key decision- making. In 2006, women's civil society groups initiated a campaign to demand a stronger U.N. agency and this became the Gender Equality Architecture Reform (GEAR), a coalition of over 300 organisations from 80 countries.

Last September, the U.N. General Assembly adopted a resolution to create a stronger women's rights and gender equality agency that is to be led by an under secretary general. The four existing women's units at the United Nations will be combined to create this new agency and the goal is for it to have the heft of UNICEF and be able to raise the profile of women's rights globally and advance their implementation.

UNICEF has an approximately three-billion-dollar annual budget, whereas the four women's units collectively have only 221 million dollars, less than one percent of the 27-billion-dollar budget of the United Nations and all its agencies. Our goal is to double or triple or quadruple the money put into gender equality.

The Obama administration has become very supportive of gender architecture reform at the United Nations, whereas the Bush administration was an obstacle or indifferent at best. The real test will come with what kind of money the U.S. will invest in this new agency in the coming years.

*Christine Ahn is the Policy and Communications Analyst at the Global Fund for Women.

Kim Kardashian is showing her support for the New Orleans Saints at next month’s Super Bowl. The Saints and Kardashian’s on-again, off-again boyfriend Reggie Bush are headed for Super Bowl XLIV after defeating the Minnesota Vikings 31-28 on Sunday night.

“Super Bowl baby!!!! WOW no words! Congrats New Orleans,” the reality star wrote on her Twitter account from the big game last night. Fellow E! reality star Kendra Wilkinson, on the other hand, is throwing her support behind hubby, Hank Baskett, who will square-off against Reggie and the Saints for the NFL championship:

“Got married, had a baby, n now headed to Miami to Superbowl … what a year its been (sic),” Kendra Tweeted after Hank’s team, the Indiana Colts, beat the New York Jets for a spot in the Super Bowl.

The New Orleans Saints will take on the Indiana Colts on Sunday, February 7 in Miami for Super Bowl XLIV.

I’m at the Midem conference this week, and in preparing for it, Steven Masur asked me to write up a chapter for a book he was putting together of thoughts from various thinkers for a gathering of the International Association of Entertainment Lawyers (IAEL) here at Midem. Below is what I submitted. If you’re a regular reader of the blog, there’s little that will surprise you, but even so, it may be a good read, as it’s got a whole bunch of different things I’ve discussed about — things like “CwF+RtB” all summarized in one single place. Later, I’ll do another post on what I discussed this year at Midem, since it builds on what’s written below, and digs in much deeper on how to create compelling reasons to buy.

It’s no secret that there’s a lot of concern these days about what the music industry will look like going forward — especially from those who work on the label side of the business and have been around for a bit. A variety of things have caused rapid change in the market. Competition from other forms of entertainment, such as the internet, movies and video games, have put more pressure on the industry, as consumers have been presented with significantly more options for their entertainment attention and dollars. And, of course, there’s the ever-present specter of unauthorized file sharing — or, as the industry prefers to call it (accurately or not), “piracy.”

While the industry spent many years fighting the rise of the internet as a distribution and promotion method for music, it was eventually forced to recognize it. The labels eventually licensed music to Apple and iTunes (as well as some other stores). It took them way too long to recognize that people wanted DRM-free music, but they’ve finally come around to recognize that as well.

But the big new questions are all about licensing. New services are starting to show up on the scene, such as the industry’s new darling, Spotify. Then there are attempts, such as those by Choruss and Warner Music, to set up something that is somewhat akin to a blanket license. For the most part, the industry hasn’t shown much willingness to do these sorts of deals in manners that allow the underlying companies to survive, let alone profit. Numerous innovative startups have suffocated under burdensome licensing terms — and as each one fails, it just gives consumers fewer and fewer reasons to actually use these services, wondering how long each will last until it goes out of business.

However, there is another solution: stop worrying and learn to embrace the business models that are already helping musicians make plenty of money and use file sharing to their advantage, even in the absence of licensing or copyright enforcement.

In simplest terms, the model can be defined as:

Connect with Fans (CwF) + Reason to Buy (RtB) = The Business Model

Sound simple? It is, if you understand the basics — and it can be incredibly lucrative. The problem, of course, is that very few seem to fully understand how this model works. However, let’s go through some examples.

Trent Reznor, the man behind the band Nine Inch Nails, has done so many experiments that show how this model works that it’s difficult to describe them all. He’s become a true leader in showing how this model works in a way that has earned him millions while making fans happy, rather than turning them into the enemy.

Reznor has always reached out to his fans, and has an amazingly comprehensive website, with forums, chat rooms and many other ways of interacting. He encourages fans to better connect with each other as well. While companies like Warner Music forced all the music videos of their artists off YouTube for many months, Reznor actually aggregates all the videos his fans take at concerts (he encourages them to bring cameras) on one page on his own website. He does the same for photos. He released a (free) iPhone app that allowed fans to locate each other, and communicate with each other, while sharing photos and videos as well. It’s all about connecting with those fans, and helping them better connect with each other, so they feel like a part of a club.

From there, he gives fans real reasons to buy. Lately, he’s taken to releasing everything he records for free online, knowing that the music will show up on file sharing sites anyway, so he sees no reason to fight it. Yet, he adds many other options that people might want to buy. With his release of the album Ghosts I-IV, he released all the tracks under a Creative Commons license that allowed anyone to share them online for free. Yet, he also set up some cool “reasons to buy.” You could get the two disc CD, if you wanted, for just $10. Above that, though, was a Deluxe Edition Package, for $75. It was, effectively, a box set, but around a single album. Beyond the two CDs, it also included a DVD and a Blu-ray and a photobook of images.

Where the experiment got even more interesting was that he offered up the $300 Ultra-Deluxe Limited Edition Package — of which there was a limit of just 2,500 available. This was an even more impressive “box” that also included the songs on high quality vinyl, and some beautiful giclée print images. But, most interesting of all was that that limited set of 2,500 were all signed by Reznor himself.

It took just 30 hours for all 2,500 to sell out, bringing in $750,000 in just over a day.

For music he was giving away for free.

But, by connecting with fans, and giving them a reason to buy, they did. In the first week alone, combining all the other offerings for Ghosts I-IV, Reznor brought in $1.6 million. Again, this is for music he was giving away for free.

The idea that you “can’t compete with free” or that free means there’s no business model is a myth. As Reznor and others have recognized, when the music goes free, it opens up new opportunities for better, stronger, more efficient business models.

Reznor’s next album, The Slip, was released just a few months later, and again, was given away entirely free, but it was released the very same day as he announced his next Nine Inch Nails tour. All he asked, if you wanted to download the music, was that you provide an email address. He then gave fans the option of what quality to download the songs — all the way up to lossless FLAC files. All for free. But, if you downloaded the files, you also learned about the tour, and the tickets were quickly snapped up.

The free music didn’t hurt Reznor’s ability to earn money. It enhanced it.

By connecting with fans and giving them a reason to buy, he’s been able to thrive.

Some have complained that Reznor is not a representative example. After all, that huge fanbase came about in large part because of his success under the “old” model, where he was signed to a major record label who helped promote his album and turn him into an international rock star. While some may quibble with how much the label actually helped Reznor, it’s worth exploring how this model has also worked for many other artists — from the superstars to new up-and-coming acts.

Josh Freese is a session drummer based in Los Angeles, who appears on well over 100 albums and performs with many different bands. He’s played with (among others), Nine Inch Nails, Guns ‘N Roses, Sting, Devo, The Vandals, the Offspring. Yet, outside of certain musical circles, he doesn’t have a huge individual reputation with fans. So, when he released his first solo album, called Since 1972, in March of 2009, he decided to set up a system similar to Reznor’s Ghosts I-IV experiment, but made it more fitting to his own personality — which meant making the options extreme and hilarious.

There were cheap options to get the music and CDs, but at $50, you would also get a personal 5 minute “thank you” phone call, where he said you could ask anything you wanted (his suggestion: “Which one of Sting’s mansions has the comfiest beds.”) There was a limited $250 option to get lunch with Freese at a PF Changs or a $500 chance to get dinner with him at Sizzler. The lunches sold out in about a week.

Then Freese took the model to a different level altogether. At $2,500 (limit of 5 available), he would provide a drum lesson, where you’d get to keep one of Freese’s snare drums. You’d also visit the Hollywood Wax Museum with Josh and one of a rotating list of his rockstar friends (depending on who was available). Finally, you’d get to take and keep any three items from Josh’s closet.

At $10,000, you’d get dinner with Josh and a rockstar friend, before hanging out at Disneyland (where Josh’s father worked for many years, and where Josh got his start as a professional drummer) with Josh. And at the end of the day, you would get to keep Josh’s Volvo station wagon — after dropping him off at home. Obviously, there was only one of those available.

There were also $20,000 and $75,000 options available, including many more offers, like having Josh join your band or be your personal assistant for a few weeks. You’d also get to go on tour with Josh. He would also write and record a five-song EP about you. A teenager in Florida actually purchased the $20,000 option, and spent a week with Josh, including a night on the Queen Mary cruise ship, a pizza party at Mark Mothersbaugh (of Devo)’s house and a game of mini-golf with the singer from Tool.

Once again, by connecting with his fans, and giving them something of scarce value, Freese was able to create a business model that worked.

Connecting with Fans (CwF) plus a Reason to Buy (RtB) worked again.

However, some still complain that he’s a product of the “old” industry, even if he was little known outside of it.

The next example is Jill Sobule, who had a hit song in 1995 with “I Kissed A Girl” (not the Katy Perry song). Since then, however, she’s been dropped from two record labels and had two independent labels she was signed to go out of business. When it came time to record her latest album, she decided to get her fans to help fund it. She’d already done an excellent job connecting with her fans, regularly interacting with them on Facebook, where she would hold fun contests each day and actually chat with them and respond to questions.

She launched a website called “Jill’s Next Record” that — like Reznor and Freese — offered up many options for how her fans could support her to fund a new album. They could pay $200 and get free access to any shows for a year. They could get their name mentioned on a “thank you” song. At $5,000, she would do a home concert at your house. She even noted you could charge for that one, and maybe even make some money. She ended up doing five or six such concerts. At $10,000 (described as the “weapons grade plutonium” level) you could sing on the album. This was meant to be a joke, but a woman in the UK purchased it, and Jill had her flown out to LA where she did, in fact, appear singing backing vocals on the album.

Her goal was to raise $75,000, and she had no idea if she’d be able to reach that number at all. Yet, she broke through that number and ended up raising over $80,000 in just 53 days. With that, she was able to go into the studio and record a full scale production, including hiring famed producer Don Was to handle production.

CwF+RtB worked again.

Again, some complain that Jill is not representative, due to her hit song in 1995 — though, again, they’ll ignore her being dropped from two record labels and and having two others go out of business.

So, let’s look at Corey Smith. In the earlier part of this decade, Smith was a high school teacher, playing open mic nights on weekends. But then, he started focusing on building his music career. He started playing numerous live shows, and really worked hard to connect with fans. He gave away all of his music for free off of his website, and used that to drive more fans to his shows. On top of that, he offered special $5 pre-sale tickets to many shows, which has a useful side effect: his biggest fans would convince many others to go as well, building up his fan base, and getting more people to go to more shows. He tried pulling his free music off of his website as an experiment, and saw that his sales on iTunes actually dropped when he did that. In 2008, mostly thanks to live shows, Corey was able to gross nearly $4 million. While giving his music away for free. Connecting with fans and giving them a reason to buy worked wonders.

Jonathon Coulton was a computer programmer. In September of 2006, he decided to write, record and release a new song every week for a year — with all of the songs being released under a Creative Commons license, so anyone could share them. And share them they did. Coulton became a cult sensation, and was making a good living within months of this decision. His fans were supporting him along the way, even creating music videos for every song he released. He started using services like Eventful to more strategically target concert opportunities. If enough people requested a show in a certain location, he knew it would be profitable and started “parachuting” in to do shows that he knew would make him money. Again, by connecting with fans and giving them a real reason to buy, he was able to build up a great following and make a good living.

Moto Boy is a singer/songwriter in Sweden on the wonderfully named label “Songs I Wish I Had Written.” Moto Boy and his label purposely put all of his songs on file sharing networks — including The Pirate Bay (the label’s founder, at times, has shared an office with one of The Pirate Bay’s founders). But, Moto Boy has worked quite hard to connect with fans. He has a great website, where fans can interact, and he encourages sharing his music in creative ways. When a bunch of his fans started filming his concerts and putting them on video hosting sites like YouTube and Vimeo, his label found the best such vidoes, and put them all together into a “YouTube concert.” Compare that to record labels like Warner Music forcing their content off of YouTube. While all of Moto Boy’s music is free, he’s continued to connect with fans in fascinating ways. Last year, he began selling wind-up music boxes, that play one of his songs. Just recently, he launched a limited edition (only 25) of those music boxes in beautiful, hand-crafted wooden boxes, signed by Moto Boy, with a CD and the music notation inside the box. Connecting with the fans and giving them a reason to buy beyond just the music has turned Moto Boy into a star in Sweden.

Amanda Palmer is a singer who made a name for herself as a member of the “punk cabaret duo” The Dresden Dolls. While she put out a solo album on Roadrunner Records (a subsidiary of Warner Music), she found that they had little interest in promoting her, and took things into her own hands. She reached out directly to fans on services like Twitter, often setting up “flash gigs” where people would show up wherever she wanted to perform. In June of 2008, one such flash gig at a beach in Los Angeles ended up with an impromptu, beautiful, music video for a song that Palmer had just learned that morning, due to a suggestion from a fan on Twitter. And she’s doing a good job making money, as well. Bored in her apartment one evening, she started twittering with fans and came up with a jokey t-shirt suggestion, and set up an immediate store, selling $11,000 worth of t-shirts in days. Another night, she started a live video stream from her apartment, and started an impromptu online auction for various items in her apartment associated with a recent tour, often with a personalized twist. In three hours, she brought in $6,000. Connecting with fans and offering them something fun and unique to buy worked wonders. To date, she hasn’t received a single royalty check from Warner Music on her album.

Matthew Ebel is a singer in Boston who started building a fanbase by playing live and actively participating in social networks and other sites. He started regularly performing in Second Life, for example. At one point, he decided to set up a “subscription” backstage pass offer, whereby fans could pay $5, $10 or $15/month to get various benefits — including access to new songs every couple of weeks, as well as having new recorded shows sent to them. Depending on the level of support, they could get access to special shows, gift bags or other opportunities for unique offers not available to others. Ebel has discovered that he’s making enough so that music is his full-time job. Subscription revenues represent nearly 40% of his income, which is about equal to live gigs and sales of CDs and digital songs combined. Connecting with fans and giving them a real reason to buy has made it so that he can have career as a musician.

Moldover is an electronic musician based in San Francisco. Being in such a high tech hub, he had an interesting idea for his next album. Along with the music itself, the CD case would be a working circuit board, with all the songs spelled out in soldered electric circuits. These connected various components to make the CD case itself an instrument. Pushing a button on the side of the case, would light up the center and make a noise, which could be modified through a pair of light sensors, creating a virtual theremin. The case even had a line out jack, so it could be plugged into a computer or an audio system. The CDs themselves were sold for $50, and Moldover discovered the demand was far stronger than he expected. Yes, even though we’re told that no one will pay for music (without strict copy protection), this less well known artist is doing brisk business selling $50 CDs.

Of course, these are just musicians, but these sorts of models impact the wider ecosystem. Companies like TopSpin, Nimbit and Kickstarter are making this work today (for artists big and small). TopSpin has helped enable musicians to better connect with fans and give them a reason to buy over and over again — and found that, when it’s done right, people absolutely buy. One of TopSpin’s artists recently had an average transaction price of over $100, and multiple artists have seen their average transaction price at over $50. The claim that fans just want stuff for free is not borne out by these examples. Across all of TopSpin’s artists, they’ve seen an average transaction price well over $20 — more than the cost of your average CD. By enabling bands to connect with fans while giving them something of unique value to buy, beyond just the music, these bands are thriving.

And, of course, there’s a role for labels to play as well. Terry McBride runs Nettwerk, a Canadian-based label that has tremendous success embracing these sorts of models with a bunch of different artists. McBride has declared that copyright won’t even matter within a decade, and he’s acting accordingly. But he’s making sure that his acts really do connect with fans. With a recent album release by the hip hop artist K-OS, before the album was released, they released all the stems from the songs to let the fans do their own mixes. These weren’t “remixes” because the original mixes weren’t even out! Rather than worrying about an album leaking, K-OS and Nettwerk purposely got the core of the music out themselves and let fans do what they wanted with it. They then set up a system to submit the fan mixes and to vote on them, such that the best mixes were then put on their own album, and both the “professional” and the “fan mixed” albums were released at the same time — leading many fans to buy them both. Both albums, separately, but at the same time, ended up in the top 50 on the charts.

As you look through all of these, some patterns emerge. They’re not about getting a fee on every transaction or every listen or every stream. They’re not about licensing. They’re not about DRM or lawsuits or copyright. They’re about better connecting with the fans and then offering them a real, scarce, unique reason to buy — such that in the end, everyone is happy. Fans get what they want at a price they want, and the musicians and labels make money as well. It’s about recognizing that the music itself can enhance the value of everything else, whether it’s shows, access or merchandise, and that letting fans share music can help increase the market and create more fans willing to buy compelling offerings. It’s about recognizing that even when the music is shared freely, there are business models that work wonders, without copyright or licensing issues even coming into play.

Adding in new licensing schemes only serves to distort this kind of market. Fans and artists are connecting directly and doing so in a way that works and makes money. Putting in place middlemen only takes a cut away from the musicians and serves to make the markets less efficient. They need to deal with overhead and bureaucracy. They need to deal with collections and allocation. They make it less likely for fans to support bands directly, because the money is going elsewhere. Even when licensing fees are officially paid further up the line, those costs are passed on to the end users, and the money might not actually go to supporting the music they really like.

Instead, let’s let the magic of the market continue to work. New technologies are making it easier than ever for musicians to create, distribute and promote music — and also to make money doing so. In the past, the music business was a “lottery,” where only a very small number made any money at all. With these models, more musicians than ever before are making money today, and they’re not doing it by worrying about copyright or licensing. They’re embracing what the tools allow. A recent study from Harvard showed how much more music is being produced today than at any time in history, and the overall music ecosystem — the amount of money paid in support of music — is at an all time high, even if less and less of it is going to the purchase of plastic discs.

This is a business model that’s working now and it will work better and better in the future as more people understand the mechanisms and improve on them. Worrying about new copyright laws or new licensing schemes or new DRM or new lawsuits or new ways to shut down file sharing is counterproductive, unnecessary and dangerous. Focusing on what’s working and encouraging more of that is the way to go. It’s a model that works for musicians, works for enablers and works for fans. It is the future and we should be thrilled with what it’s producing.

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Amnesty International on Tuesday warned that the government’s heavy-handed response to the threat posed by al-Qa’ida puts Yemen at risk of being locked in a downward spiral on human rights.

In its latest briefing paper on Yemen, published ahead of Wednesday’s international high level meeting in London, Amnesty International highlights an increase in human rights violations against those who criticize or oppose the government.

"The fear is that international demands for a crackdown on suspected supporters of al-Qa’ida will be interpreted by the government as a green light to crush all opposition with no consideration for human rights," said Malcolm Smart, Director of Amnesty International’s Middle East and North Africa programme.

The government appears to have further intensified its new sweep against al-Qa’ida suspects following reports that a Nigerian national alleged to have tried to blow up a plane over Detroit last December had received training in Yemen.

Security forces claim to have killed and captured a number of leaders and activists of the group. Family members of such suspects have also been killed by government forces.

Attacks by al-Qa’ida, and groups apparently linked to it, have occurred sporadically throughout the last decade.

But most human rights abuses have taken place during conflict between government forces and armed rebels from the Zaidi Shi’a minority in the north and a strengthening, largely peaceful separatist movement in the south, both reportedly unconnected to al-Qa’ida.

"The government has resorted to increasingly repressive methods to counter this opposition, including waves of arrests, incommunicado detention and unlawful killings," said Malcolm Smart.

"Counter-terrorism is no excuse to sideline human rights. Whilst the government has a duty to protect people and hold to account those engaged in terrorism it must abide by its obligations under international law."

In Sa’da, in the north of the country, the long running conflict between government forces and the Huthis, armed fighters belonging to the Zaidi Shi’a minority, resumed with new intensity last August and has been marked by serious abuses on both sides.

Both sides are alleged to have killed civilians and according to the UN’s refugee agency, so far more than the 200,000 people have been forcibly displaced.

The government has sealed off the area, preventing independent reporting of the conflict, and aid agencies have faced continuing problems as they seek humanitarian access to those at risk

Civilians have also been put at risk, and some possibly killed, by Saudi Arabian security forces that have carried out attacks against rebels in Yemen’s northern border region. These attacks lacked any safeguards for the protection of civilians.

In Aden and other cities and towns in the south the government has faced growing protests from local people over the government’s failure to address discrimination.

The government’s response to these protests has been heavy-handed, with unarmed demonstrators being shot in the streets and those leading local demands arrested and detained. Since the protests began in 2007, the security forces have arrested and detained, in many cases arbitrarily, thousands of demonstrators and bystanders.

Independent media in Yemen has also come under sustained attack in connection with the unrest in the south of the country. The authorities have stormed newspaper offices, blocked distribution of newspapers and arrested journalists critical of the government.

The Industrial Automation Group of Advantech introduces the UNO-2173A and UNO-2173AF fanless box PCs with 1.6GHz Atom-based CPUs. These models are equipped with Gigabit Ethernet ports, rich I/Os, 1 x Mini-PCIe socket for WLAN and 3G solutions, and Moblin (Mobile Linux) support. Both have passed the Energy Star certification and also feature an IP40 anti-dust protection and a wide operating temperature (-20 ~ 70°C) providing high performance with low power consumption.

The UNO-2173A features a single-side I/O, 1 x onboard DDR2 SDRAM, 1 x Gigabit Ethernet port, 1 x VGA, 2 x RS-232, 2 x USB ports, 1 x internal printer port, 1 x CompactFlash slot and 1 x built-in 2.5” SATA HDD/SDD bracket for storage. The UNO-2173AF has dual side I/Os including all of the ports of the UNO-2173A, but also incorporating a LVDS port (low-voltage differential signaling), a backlight control port, 5.1 channel HD audio, an additional RS-422/485 port, three additional USB ports and 1 x internal USB pin head.

In our efforts to provide more Green Automation solutions, Advantech not only provides energy efficient AC/DC power units, but also power saving features such as increased DC/DC power conversion efficiency and reduced standby power consumption. Furthermore, the UNO-2713A and UNO-2713AF provide various operating efficiency modes like: off, sleep and idle. Users can experience up to 50% reduced energy consumption through these devices.

Benefited by Advantech’s strong driver support, customers can easily develop applications on Windows 2000/XP/Vista, Linux or Embedded OS such as Windows XP Embedded and Embedded Linux, and Windows 7 operating systems.

The UNO-2173A and UNO-2173AF are cost-effective low power consuming Fanless Box PCs for industrial automation applications. For more information or to purchase, please contact Advantech directly or your regional Advantech authorized dealer.

DELO-MONOPOX AC:
One-component, anisotropic electrically conductive adhesives, heat-curing

DELO-MONOPOX:
One-component, non-conductive, heat-curing, reactive resins

Properties:

DELO-MONOPOX AC:
Enable production in the smart card and smart label industries to be made markedly more efficient by highly automated processes.
For example, in flip-chip technology the chip is set and contacted in one process step

DELO-MONOPOX:
Extremely rapid curing
For flip-chip bonding and as Die Attach
Fixing of SMD components
Chip encapsulation compounds for the automotive sector and high-quality industrial products

Filed under: Convertible, Performance, Europe, Videos, Bugatti, Celebrities

Remember last week’s Conan O’Brien stunt where he decided that the best way to get even with NBC for forcing him out of his dream job was to create insanely expensive bits? He dressed a Bugatti Veyron up as a mouse and played some heavily copywritten Rolling Stones. Total purported price tag: $1.5 million dollars.

But see, Conan’s not really a car guy. A real car guy would have known that if the plan was to soak NBC for as much green as possible, some plain-old closed top Veyron ain’t going to cut it. A real car guy would have got his hands on the Bugatti Veyron Grand Sport and its staggering $2.25 million asking price. Have you met Jay Leno?

That’s right, the once and future king of late night television gets his denim-clad paws all over Bugattis’ latest and greatest. And – being Jay Leno – he talks about the Grand Sport in the Bugatti wing of his Big Dog Garage. Literally, the Bugatti wing. Jay is also joined by Bugatti’s North American Marketing Manager John Hill as well as Veyron hot shoe and former F1 driver Pierre-Henri Raphanel. The latter of which takes Jay for a little ride (ahem) around the quiet streets of Burbank.

For his part, Jay seems extra giddy during this week’s episode, as if the Veyron Grand Sport and its removable top have actually tickled and excited him. True, Jay makes a couple of verbal typos, like saying that the Veyron’s W16 engine displaces 16.4-liters (it displaces 8.0-liters), but we can forgive him. After all, how cool, calm and composed would you be standing next to a roadster that can hit 253 mph? (That’s with the top on, the Grand Sport can “only” hit 217 mph sans roof). Make the jump to watch the video.

[Source: Jay Leno’s Garage]

Continue reading Video: Jay Leno’s Garage welcomes Bugatti Veyron Grand Sport

Video: Jay Leno’s Garage welcomes Bugatti Veyron Grand Sport originally appeared on Autoblog on Mon, 25 Jan 2010 12:59:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Dreams of a talent show superstardom have been shattered for one American Idol contestant, who has been cut from the ninth season of the TV talent competition after his father violated a confidentiality agreement by talking to a local newspaper.

Michael Lynche, known as Big Mike, was reportedly forced to leave Idol after his father revealed to their local Florida newspaper that Lynche had made the Top, a new report claims. The elder Lynche revealed to his local Florida paper, The St. Petersburg Times, that Michael had made the top 24 — a violation of the show’s rules, which require the singers and their families to keep the Hollywood week results a secret until they’re broadcast. The confidentiality agreement ensures the Top 24 results are not revealed until the Hollywood week episode airs.

Neither FOX nor Lynch has commented. Lynch has been replaced.

The above rendering has shown up on GSMhelpdesk.nl, purporting to the the HTC Obsession.

Of course the very android screen shot may be a bit of a problem, and the device does look like a typically unattractive android device, so it does seem rather unlikely.

Do our readers think this device measures up in any way to the HTC HD2? Let us know below.

With unemployment in double digits it’s very easy to get discouraged if you’re out of work and looking for a new job. However there are at least a few industries out there that might be considered recession-proof.

According to a recent survey by Forbes magazine, health care is the most solid industry offering careers with job security. Registered nurses topped the list as the number one most recession proof job, in part because there is a nursing shortage across the country.

Trang Guzze, a registered nurse at the University of California in Los Angeles told Fox News as long as there are patients and hospitals nurses will always have jobs.

“I feel very lucky actually,” Guzzi told Fox News. “I have many friends who have been laid off and they are engineers and lawyers and they are going back to school to get their nursing degree and I’m amazed that wow, I have all this experience and I didn’t have to go back to school again.”

Also on the list, retail or sales associates, accountants, occupational therapists and financial advisors. Yes, even in this economy, financial advisors are in demand. Economics professors say companies are certainly concerned about their bottom line and they are going to need good financial people to help them weather the economic storms.

“Companies are going to find shortages of bright, smart skilled people, says David Smith, economics chair at Pepperdine University. “Those people are going to valuable to companies over time.”

According to the bureau of labor statistics, the health care industry was the leading industry for job gains last year, and that means more than just nurses. Occupational therapists are also in demand as well as many other types of support jobs.

And as the baby boomer generation ages, there will be even more of a need for nurses and other healthcare workers… Which by the way pay well too. Nurses in particular can earn anywhere from 50 to 100 thousand dollars a year depending upon their specialty.

Secretary Clinton’s speech last week on Internet Freedom was an important step in bringing online free expression and privacy to the forefront of the United States’ foreign policy agenda.

But for all the strong language, it was also a speech of caveats: powerful statements like “we stand for a single internet where all of humanity has equal access to knowledge and ideas” sat close to hedges about the dangers of anonymous speech, and how it might be used to distribute “stolen intellectual property”. Clinton expressed concern at those who “violate the privacy of citizens who engage in non-violent political speech”, but she also spoke of “redoubl[ing] efforts” similar to the Convention on Cybercrime, a document which provides scant protections for the privacy of anyone being investigated by a foreign government.

Enacting policy has a way of clarifying these ambiguities, for good or ill. Many of the projects that the State Department says it will encourage and fund, including systems to allow whistleblowers to expose corruption, and permit citizens fighting drug-related violence in Mexico to make “make untracked reports to reliable sources to avoid having retribution visited against them”, require a strong anonymous infrastructure. The State Department’s work will depend on anonymity, so we hope it will defend it. The US government could also take a diplomatic lead in requiring high standards for evidence and due process in international cybersecurity treaties, and we hope they will.

Perhaps the most significant shift in the State Department’s attitude, however, concerned its attitude to domestic companies and their relationship with repressive architecture abroad.

Censorship should not be in any way accepted by any company from anywhere. And in America, American companies need to make a principled stand. This needs to be part of our national brand. I’m confident that consumers worldwide will reward companies that follow those principles.

Now, we are reinvigorating the Global Internet Freedom Task Force as a forum for addressing threats to internet freedom around the world, and we are urging U.S. media companies to take a proactive role in challenging foreign governments’ demands for censorship and surveillance. The private sector has a shared responsibility to help safeguard free expression. And when their business dealings threaten to undermine this freedom, they need to consider what’s right, not simply what’s a quick profit.

Secretary Clinton has put her stamp of approval on voluntary initiatives to help global companies create global standards of privacy and free expression that are consistent with international human rights documents. She cites the work of the Global Network Initiative, an organization that includes companies like Google, Microsoft and Yahoo! and human rights groups like EFF, Human Rights Watch, and the Committee to Protect Journalists.

But Secretary Clinton went even further here. She specifically included a proactive role in challenging illegitimate government demands for “surveillance”. This is important and should be the start of a broader conversation inside and outside the government. Because in the case of both filtering and spying on the Net, the risk is not only from companies that comply with illegitimate requests: it is from companies that actively profit from those authoritarian government’s demands.

Secretary Clinton’s call for a public-private partnership in building tools to support Internet freedom should include a call for attention, and action to stop another set of troubling public-private partnerships: between authoritarian governments and private companies willing to build their Great Firewalls and dragnet surveillance systems for them. If Internet freedom really is part of America’s national brand, we could start by alerting consumers of not only the victims of Internet censorship and control, but those who help build the technology that enables it.

A new storm is expected to sweep through Southern California this evening, slowing the Tuesday morning commute but not posing a threat to hillside homes, authorities said.

Officials with the National Weather Service described the storm as a single event that probably would bring considerably less moisture than the multiple series of storms last week that drenched the region.

“This is just a solitary storm, coming down the coast,” said Jamie Meier, a meteorologist with the National Weather Service in Oxnard. “Right now the exact track of the storm is a bit iffy.”

The system will bring some periods of heavy rain and gusty winds Tuesday, but that is expected to be short-lived, she said.
The storm was expected to dump between a half-inch to 1 inch of rain on the region before tapering off Wednesday. 

Dry and cool conditions were expected to prevail the rest of the week, the National Weather Service said, though there is a chance of more rain Friday.

Last week’s storms forced more than 2,000 hillside homes to be evacuated as more than 6 inches of rain deluged some foothill areas.

“This coming system does not appear to pose a problem as far as mud flows are concerned,” said Bob Spencer, a spokesman for the L.A. County Department of Public Works. “There shouldn’t be the kind of precipitation that we saw last week coming down the mountains.”

Bulldozers, dump trucks and other heavy equipment were being used today to clean out debris basins in La Cañada Flintridge, La Crescenta and other foothill areas scarred by last year’s Station wildfire. The basins are designed to catch and channel mud, boulders, branches and other water-driven debris away from homes and roads.

“We’ve had a couple of days of respite to clear out the basins,” Spencer said. “That’s been good for us.”

Authorities asked motorists in the foothills to take extra caution because so much heavy equipment is navigating the roads. The curious were asked to stay away so as to minimize traffic.

“Right now, there’s a huge amount of public works equipment in the burn areas,” Spencer said.

Most roads in the Angeles National Forest remained closed as crews removed debris and checked for damage.
Last week’s storms pushed the Los Angeles area about 3 inches above normal rain levels for this time of year, said experts with the National Weather Service.

— Patrick J. McDonnell

Photo: The sun sets over the San Gabriel Valley on Sunday, ending a week of severe storms in Southern California. A new storm is expected Tuesday. Credit: Robert Gauthier / Los Angeles Times

More breaking news in LA. Now:

Zsa Zsa Gabor’s husband wants to be governor; California residents want to cut services

Vans, small trucks deliver supplies to snowed-in Big Bear

Crews work to clear closed roads to Big Bear of snow and ice

School district gets heat for banning dictionary over ‘oral sex’ definition. What do you think?

Rains turn some L.A. beaches into trash dumps

Woman who lies down in Riverside traffic is killed

As his true identity remains unknown, like most of his life, many people say many things about Top Gear’s "tame racing driver", the Stig. Very few of them are true. Actually we don’t believe any sentence which doesn’t include a lap time next to "The Stig".

However, now we are presented with the rare occasion of reporting one of these facts: Some say….the Stig has been immortalized by Google’s street view cameras while standing next to the Loch Ness lake. Hmmm, how was it… (read more)

Kanye West and blonde beard Amber Rose are getting heat the animal rights zealots of People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals over their recent decision to wear fur coats during the kickoff of Menswear Fashion Week in Paris last Thursday.

Taking a quote from Yezzy’s 2004 smash “All Falls Down,” PETA bosses ripped the rapper and his model companion in a scathing statement issued Monday:

“West apparently lives by his lyrics. The ethical dropout—who horrified voters in PETA’s Worst-Dressed Celebrity competition last year—and his sleazy sidekick, Amber Rose, were snapped by paparazzi strutting around Paris in “the ugliest things,” indeed. Both were wearing head-to-toe fur, and Amber refused to remove her full-length lynx coat during a show at Paris Men’s Fashion Week. As PETA V.P. Dan Mathews so eloquently put it, ‘Kanye can’t help making himself look like an idiot, whether at an awards show or a fashion show. He and his girlfriend look like pathetic creatures from a shabby roadside zoo.’”

In the midst of this month’s flurry of quarterly earnings reports, analyst David Rosenberg sheds some light on the true state of earnings growth. Turns out that YoY growth collectively is very low while financial companies are busy posting record profits.

Breakfast With Dave: It’s still relatively early in the Q4 earnings season, with about 20% of S&P 500 companies reporting. We’ll have a better view on Q4 earnings after next week as 130 S&P companies and 12 Dow companies report.

On the surface, earnings results have been strong with a blended earnings
growth rate at 193% year-over-year, up 9 percentage points over the past week, and 11 percentage points from the start of reporting season (according to Thomson Reuters). But the headline is a tad misleading. Outside financials, which are bungee jumping off a super-depressed base of a year ago earnings, are tracking 9% YoY.

So far, nearly 80% of companies that have reported have beat expectations, which is significantly above the long-run average of 60%. On average, companies have beat analyst expectations by about 21% (long-term average is 2%).

While earnings have been strong, revenue results have lagged. On this basis, the blended rate is 5% year-over-year, which is lower than last week’s rate of 7%. Once Financials are stripped out, revenue growth is sitting at the grand total of 0% — down a percentage point from a week ago even as bottom-lines improved. The question going forward is how much more companies can cut costs – at some point sales need to increase in order to increase earnings (have a look at “The Great Corporate Pullback” on page B2 of today’s WSJ). We have likely reached that point, and investors can sense it.

Join the conversation about this story »

See Also:

• Morgan Stanley: The Super Cycle Will Push Base Metals Up Another 30% In 2010
• Morgan Stanley: 10-Year Yield Going To 5.5%, Here’s What It Will Do To Stocks
• JPMorgan: Absolutely Nothing Is Getting In The Way Of The Ongoing Recovery Trade

Filed under: Videos, Crossover, Mini

If you can’t get enough of the forthcoming Mini Countryman, twelve minutes of new footage that doesn’t involve yellow swirlies has found its way onto the ‘Net. Thankfully, there’s no annoying musical soundtrack, so you can see and hear the tiny crossover careening through a Western European landscape and a port area with only its drivetrain as accompaniment.

Follow the jump to check out the vids, the second video being a polished clip of the first. The second link below will take you to more of the car sitting by the sea and detailed shots of its interior. Hat tip to Bryce.

[Sources: YouTube, Youku]

Continue reading Video: More Mini Countryman action, fewer no yellow camo paint jobs

Video: More Mini Countryman action, fewer no yellow camo paint jobs originally appeared on Autoblog on Mon, 25 Jan 2010 12:31:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Ah, Pee-Wee’s Playhouse, my favorite TV show when I was a kid. If you find yourself searching for some kitsch to deck out your own playhouse, perhaps this replica Clocky will do the trick. It’s a real, working clock, too.

Available on eBay with a Buy-It-Now price of $150…

…It’s a one-of-a-kind, handmade paper-maché replica of Clocky from Pee-wee’s Playhouse, and it is a working clock.   Made to hang on a wall.  It is lightweight but sturdy, it measures just under 30″x20″ at its widest points. The Clocky pictured is not the exact one that the winner will receive, but it is basically the same in every way.

Clocky Pee wee’s Playhouse Herman prop – WORKING CLOCK [eBay via Geekologie]

Buy This Item: [Click here to buy this item]

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