Author: Serkadis

The album artwork [itsbeenreal.co.uk] of the music album titled “Of the Blue Colour of the Sky” (Amazon) of OK Go contains several artistic visualizations of the song lyrics as well as text from the album’s namesake, the 1876’s book The Influence of the Blue Ray of the Sunlight and of the Blue Colour of the Sky by General A.J. Pleasonton.

The text and song lyrics were analyzed by hand in order to gather data about the grammatical parts of speech and the pattern of stressed and unstressed syllables. Further explanations of the visuals should be provided “eventually” (unfortunately…).

See also Charting the Beatles, Illinois: Visualizing Music and Astronaut Flickr-based Lyrics Association. From the same artists, see also Literary Organisms.

We were overly excited to try Swype when it was first released, but now it seems its one of many line based on-screen keyboards to come. Just last month SlideIT came into existence, with many excited, we thought it would be the best and the last. It seems pocknow has done a video to prove us wrong.

The video demos the new ShapeWriter in action on what seems like an HD2. The video shows truly how fast an on-screen keyboard can be. Unlike Swype, this new keyboard cost a little cash, and a little being $19. That price tag is a deal breaker for me, that is a little too much for a keyboard I will hardly ever us. This is certainly a good concept, and it seems fast, but with that price, I am sure you’re better off with Swype.

Back in 1988 and 1990, PBS aired the two parts of the seminal documentary Eyes on the Prize about the civil rights movement. Since then, it’s been considered one of the best ways of explaining and showing the civil rights struggle to those who did not live through it. Yet, it soon went out of print, and for years there have been fights to get it released on DVD. The problem? You guessed it: copyright. When the original documentary makers made the film they were only able to secure limited licenses for the archival footage they used, and once those licenses expired, the film was effectively dead in the water. For obvious reasons, this greatly upset some people, who started encouraging people to download copies of the film to get it seen — even if this did upset others who were (loosely) associated with the film, fearing that it would hurt the ongoing negotiations for eventual licensing.

While it’s taken a long, long time, the good news is that part I of the documentary has finally been released on DVD, even though part II is still tied up in licensing problems. While I can understand why some have been upset in linking the issue of civil rights with copyfighting, this seemed like a perfect example of the problems of copyright law today. Allowing this DVD to go forward would, in no way, “harm” the market for the original archival footage. It was a way to get it much more attention — on an incredibly important topic that has deserved much greater awareness. To have all that content mostly locked up for nearly two decades is a real shame, and speaks to the censoring power of copyright law.

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From Diana Olick at CNBC: Foreclosures Are Rising

Yes, banks are ramping up loan modifications and ramping up short sales and ramping up deeds in lieu of foreclosure, but the plain fact is that as the systems are oiled, the loans are moving through faster, and the pig in the python is showing its face.

We won’t get the [foreclosure] numbers until next week, but sources tell me they will likely be a new monthly record.

Keep reading at Calculated Risk >

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Contrary to what you might have expected, what with the bad economy and all, in 2009 violent crime was low in NYC.

A quarter of the way through 2010, that’s changing in a big way.

Homicide is up 20%.

In Los Angeles the rise is less pronounced, but a still-meaningful 5%.

If you believe leaders in both of these cities, the mystery can be explained by lower city budgets, which mean fewer cops, which means more crime. The math is simple.

Of course, this isn’t the story everywhere. Newark’s superstar mayor Cory Booker has earned the right to brag that his city went its first murder-free month in nearly four decades during March. Also worth noting is that other violent crime in LA is actually down, so the picture isn’t black and white.

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For a while now, IBM has been positioning itself as being in favor of really fixing our broken patent system (even as it’s remained at the top of the food chain in terms of companies filing for patents). However, we’ve always been a bit skeptical of IBM’s claims about this — as they quite often seemed to be more of a PR positioning move, rather than any real commitment to fixing the patent system. Almost exactly five years ago, the company made a big stink about freeing up approximately 500 patents for use in open source offerings. At the time, even that seemed like more of a PR stunt than anything else, but still, you’d at least think they’d live up to their word.

Not so apparently.

Slashdot points us to the news that IBM has threatened an open source project with some patents — including two that were in that list of 500 (along with over 100 others). In the past, when IBM’s nastier patent activities have gained attention in the tech-blog world, it’s been known to back down, so it wouldn’t surprise me to see that happen again here. But the fact that it made this threat in the first place, yet again, calls into question IBM’s real commitment towards moving away from supporting patents as a bullying tool.

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We’re not sure if the web editors at the NYT business section were making an intentional thematic choice here, but it doesn’t really matter.

These two articles side by side can’t be a coincidence, can it? (And if you have the stomach to actually read the articles, see here and here.)

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Our screens are filled with signals that the economy is recovering, and yet one area where there’s no discernable improvement is housing. At best the bleeding has stopped. At worst there’s plenty of room to fall.

This should stand in sharp contravention with news that the consumer is coming back, especially given the conventional wisdom that the home is (or was, anyway) the ultimate ATM, and that it was the so-called housing wealth effect that fueled years and years of American spending.

What gives?

Paul Jackson at HousingWire reckons that what we’re seeing is the twisted result of Obama’s mortgage schemes. Basically, scads of troubled Americans are living in their homes, waiting for some type of modification, not paying their mortgages, and thus freeing up an unusual amount to spend on stuff.

Jackson’s logic:

• There are 7.4 million non-current loans in this country (a ton of folks living in a home but not paying at the moment for said home).
• Most Americans behind on their mortgages have now gone a year without paying a single bill.
• As we know, Americans are discontinuing their mortgage payments before other payments.

And he writes:

Consider the following individual as a case study — an actual ‘HAMPlicant’ at one of the nation’s larger servicing shops, as highlighted in a guest post at the Calculated Risk blog. They had an $1,880 monthly payment on their mortgage they’d defaulted on, yet their bank statements for the past 30 days included the following expenses:

• visits to the tanning salon
• visits to the nail spa
• some kind of gourmet produce market
• various liquor stores
• A DirecTV bill that involved some serious premium programming or pay-per-view events
• Over $1,700 in retail purchases, including: Best Buy, Baby Gap, Brookstone, Old Navy, Bed, Bath & Beyond, Home Depot, Macy’s, Pac Sun, Urban Behavior, Sears, Staples, and Footlocker

His conclusion: If half the 7.4 million homeowners are skipping a $1,000 monthly mortgage payment, that provides a potential $3.7 billion boost to consumer spending.

If Jackson’s reasoning is correct, it suggests that critics of Obama’s mortgage schemes are attacking them from a completely wrong angle.

It’s not about, as the Santellis of the world might suggest, that it’s some grave evil to be helping your neighbor who may or may not have gotten in over their head. It’s more basic: the scheme is creating serious economic distortions, and are bound to unravel in ways that the market isn’t properly anticipating.

For all the flaws of “crass Keynesianism” (see today’s wankfest between The White House and Edmunds.com over cash-for-clunkers) characterized by charges of pulling demand forward is just as silly. The real economic violence comes from messing with economic signals, which appears to be what’s going on here.

Jackson’s point also jibes with what we heard when we talked to a Phoenix mortgage pro, who noted the violence to his market that mods were creating.

Until these really filter through the system, these, mortgage mods not only make the housing market suspect, but obviously other areas of the economy as well.

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See Also:

• Phoenix Mortgage Pro Speaks! "I Don’t See Any Recovery At All"
• Edmunds.com Slams The White House For Its Ongoing Cash-For-Clunkers Defensiveness
• Actually, What We Need Is MORE Foreclosures, Not Fewer. And Soon.

Filed under: Coupe, Performance, Jaguar, Middle East

Ever wonder what happens to all those supercars that go to the Persian Gulf? After seeing this images, we kinda wished we hadn’t.

This Jaguar XJ220 – a veritable poster child for the dawn of the modern supercar era, the one-time standard bearer of the 200 MPH Club and one of only 281 produced – made its way from Coventry to Lebanon, then through a Dubai dealership before finally ending up in Qatar.

With only 900 kilometers (560 miles) on the odometer, this big cat has clearly been subjected to more abuse than any supercar lover (or animal rights activist) could possibly stand to see. The neglect, from the pictures at least, doesn’t look much worse than a good washing could recover, so here’s hoping.

[Source: crankandpiston.com | Reproduced with permission from Phil McGovern]

Supercar Blasphemy: Rare Jaguar XJ220 left to wither in Qatar? originally appeared on Autoblog on Tue, 06 Apr 2010 19:57:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Filed under: Coupe, Performance, Europe, Crossover, Ford, Diesel

For model year 2011, Ford has put three new engines into its Mustang that give the pony car both more power and better fuel efficiency than ever before. Nonetheless, even with a V6 that is rated at 31 miles per gallon on the highway along with 305 horsepower, it would still be hard for Ford to sell the Mustang in Europe. While Ford has occasionally offered the Mustang overseas, it has never been a big seller.

Now that the automaker is living by the “One Ford” philosophy where it sells the same cars globally, it apparently wants to have One Mustang as well. During last week’s edition of Autoline After Hours, Mustang chief engineer Dave Pericak discussed what it would take to offer the Mustang in Europe where diesel engines are the dominant motivators. Ford builds the 3.0-liter turbodiesel V6 that goes into European Jaguars like the XF and XJ. In its latest incarnation, the V6 diesel produces 270 horsepower and a massive 443 pound-feet of torque. In the XF, this engine is rated at 34.6 mpg (U.S.) combined on the EU test cycle. Similar results could be expected from the lighter Mustang along with decent performance. If such a model ever happens, it is likely still a couple of years off – and it’s unlikely that a diesel Mustang would ever come to America. That said, would you ever want to see it sold here? Drop us a line in ‘Comments.’

Photos by Drew Phillips / Copyright (C)2010 Weblogs, Inc.

[Source: Autoline After Hours]

Turbodiesel Ford Mustang? Could happen in Europe someday… but would you want it here? originally appeared on Autoblog on Tue, 06 Apr 2010 19:28:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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The best thoughts on the Fed minutes come from BTIG’s Mike O’Rourke, who makes two superb points, and ultimately concludes that the Fed board (Mr. Hoenixg excepted) is still in dove mode.

The March FOMC minutes released today provide interesting insight into the thought process of the FOMC.  In short, the tone of the minutes was one of a Fed that is very cognizant of the danger of a 1937 type scenario in which support is removed too early.  The minutes recited the case made by the doves, who are currently dominating policy.  “A few members also noted that at the current juncture, the risks of an early start to policy tightening exceeded those associated with a later start, because the Committee could be flexible in adjusting the magnitude and pace of tightening in response to evolving economic circumstances; in contrast, its capacity for providing further stimulus through conventional monetary policy easing continued to be constrained by the effective lower bound on the federal funds rate.”  In essence, the FOMC stated that since it came as close as it could to running out of ammunition during the Great Recession, the Fed better not risk curtailing economic momentum as it begins to build up.  The Fed would rather be behind the curve than ahead of it.  The language is very reminiscent of the attitude taken during the 2002-2004 time frame.

And bear in mind there was a minor language change the pundits initially interpreted as hawkish, but which O’Rourke is reading as dovish:

Although the “exceptionally and extended” language was not literally dropped by the Fed, it was figuratively dropped when the FOMC redefined it, declaring that a calendar time frame did not apply.  “A number of members noted that the Committee’s expectation for policy was explicitly contingent on the evolution of the economy rather than on the passage of any fixed amount of calendar time.”  

And that means…

This reinforces the belief that the Fed does not want to pull any potential policy tightening levers until the very last possible moment, even one as benign as jawboning.  Redefining the language indicates that the FOMC plans to keep it longer (if they were planning to drop it, redefining it would only cause confusion).  Setting up to drop the language at the next meeting would have not have been inconsistent with market expectations for the earliest potential tightening near year end.  There would be little harm in changing the language at the next meeting, except reinforcing expectations that the FOMC sees the potential for rate hikes in late 2010.  One might interpret this as an indication that at this time, the FOMC does not want to reinforce the belief of those who anticipate tightening later this year.  Overall, these minutes give the impression of a Fed that is notably more dovish than both our and the market’s expectations.

This is probably how the market read the report, as the minutes turned a down day into an up one (basically, the Dow excepted).

Join the conversation about this story »

See Also:

• Federal Reserve March Minutes Announcement: No Change!
• Get Ready: Today May Bring The End Of The Fed’s Famous "Exceptionally And Extended" Language
• 11 Worrisome Indicators That Scream Market Reversal

Review: 2010 Hyundai Tucson GLS is a stylish all-rounder without sacrifice

Are style and substance mutually exclusive in the compact CUV set? We test Hyundai’s all-new Tucson to find out.

Spy Shots: Clearest look yet at BMW’s next 6 Series

The follow-up to the 6 Series is due to arrive next year, and our spies catch BMW’s newest coupe out in the open ahead of its debut in 2011.

BMW Art Car to compete in 24 Hours of LeMans

BMW’s Art Cars rarely tread on the road, but this June, BMW’s newest rolling masterpiece is set to compete at the 24 Hours of LeMans.

Also of interest:

• Video: Sign #5,328 You Have Too Much Free Time – Lego R/C Veyron with seven-speed gearbox
• Report: Last-ditch sale effort for Hummer post wind-down announcement fading
• Motionlite retractable wheel puts the spotlight on your dubs. Yes, really. [w/video]
• Aston Martin to field near-stock Rapide at Nürburgring 24
• Report: Ford to give Falcon XR8 and FPV supercharged Coyote V8 to celebrate 50 years

Browse our archive of Daily U-Turn posts or subscribe to the RSS feed

Daily U-Turn: What you missed on 4.6.10 originally appeared on Autoblog on Tue, 06 Apr 2010 19:20:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Last year we had a post, based on a post by Peter Friedman, suggesting a big reason why Girl Talk hadn’t been sued for creating entirely sample-based music was because there was a good chance that Girl Talk/Gregg Gillis would win that lawsuit, and establish a clear fair use right in sampling. Now, with the more recent discussion about the legality of the documentary Copyright Criminals, Friedman is making the same point again: suggesting that the filmmakers won’t get sued, because they would likely win, and redraw the boundaries of the law on music sampling and fair use:

But if McLeod is willing to fight a lawsuit — and I think he is — the recording industry won’t sue him. The existing precedents requiring licensing of every single recorded sample would be overturned, and the record industry would [have] lost the appearance created by these precedents, an appearance that makes the vast, vast majority of samplers pay license fees for their samples. It’s better business for the industry to let the occasional brave and creative soul feel as if he’s getting away with something than to have the industry’s precious — and ill-founded — legal precedents put at genuine risk.

Of course, there’s a separate argument, that has been made by Copycense, that race actually plays a role in this. The musicians who have been sued over sampling tend to be black. Gillis is not:

Gillis hasn’t been arrested or sued because his socioeconomic status fits what the mainstream wants to see when it talks about this issue. Gillis’ bio reads well for mainstream public relations purposes — he is white, middle-class, and educated — and his basic story (fell in love with music and sampling while studying science at a renown institution of higher learning) is All-American. For establishment folks like Congressman Mike Doyle (D-PA), who represents the district in which Gillis resides and has testified before Congress on Gillis’ behalf, Gillis’ story presents a squeaky clean image of American innovation — and decidedly not sepia-toned humans toiling against misery in dark, sweaty, basements or ghetto community rooms where sampling and hip hop culture were born out of the need to get by with less.

On that note, while the movie Copyright Criminals features a mix of artists of different races, many are black. However, the main fillmmakers behind the film, Benjamin Franzen and Kembrew McLeod, are both white. I have no idea how much of a role this actually plays in the decisions about who to sue over sampling, in music, but if race really does play into it, that would be a shame.

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Filed under: Spy Photos, Paris Motor Show, Crossover, BMW

We’re expecting the 2011 BMW X3 to debut sometime this year and judging by this latest crop of spy shots out of Munich, Bimmer’s mid-level ‘ute should be ready for prime-time when the Paris Motor Show rolls around this fall.

Although the prototype appears slightly larger than the current model, the changes will be largely cosmetic, particularly up front, where the outgoing X3’s plebeian proboscis has been dispatched in favor of BMW’s new upright fascia. The headlamps appear to have grown in size and we’re particularly digging the sculpted bumper, with it’s larger lower grille, more dramatic lip and angular air intakes.

The styling appears more standard on the sides and out back, although BMW is sure to redesign the D-pillar and fit new LED taillamps inspired by the rest of the range.

Naturally, the 2011 X3 will feature BMW’s 3.0-liter six-cylinder powerplants – either naturally aspirated or turbocharged – with a handful of diesel mills available to our friends abroad. However, don’t be surprised to hear about some kind of four-cylinder fitted to the X3 after it’s initial launch, and here’s hoping that the 335d and X5 xDrive35d’s impressive oilburner finds its way under the hood of the X3 in the U.S. in short order.

Spy Shots: 2011 BMW X3 out and about in Munich originally appeared on Autoblog on Tue, 06 Apr 2010 18:57:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Last week, a federal appeals court rejected luxury goods retailer Tiffany’s claim that eBay should be liable for trademark violations on its site based on general knowledge that such infringement is happening (but no specific knowledge of a specific infringement). The ruling is a victory for online service providers, eBay sellers, and consumers alike.

As we noted in our amicus brief, Tiffany’s arguments would have resulted in over-policing by intermediaries like eBay. If eBay had to worry about potential trademark lawsuits and liability for every one dollar auction, you can be sure that it would move to reduce risk by blocking even potentially lawful uses of trademarks. What intermediary wants to take a big legal risk for a little customer? That’s the question that translates legal liability for intermediaries into a “clearance culture” that squelches lawful content protected by fair use or other speech-protecting doctrines.

So it’s good that eBay prevailed in last week’s ruling. But the decision highlights a growing problem in trademark enforcement: the lack of avenues for “put back” when a trademark owner makes an improper infringement claim. One key to eBay’s legal success was its rapid notice-and-takedown system, known as VeRO, which has helped the company position itself as a sympathetic actor, responding expeditiously to trademark complaints. Savvy intermediaries are likely to adopt similar processes, if they have not already done so.

Unfortunately, intermediaries have little incentive to give equal respect to users. Unlike in the copyright area, where Congress created a “counternotice” procedure that allows a citizen to get lawful content restored after a bogus takedown notice, trademark law provides no such safeguards. The DMCA’s counternotice process relieves a service provider (e.g., YouTube, MySpace, Blogger, etc) from having to make judgment calls about whether something is or is not infringing. Without a similar simple process for service providers in the trademark realm, the cards are stacked against users. Unless the service provider has a free lawyer, the cost of doing a fair use analysis and defending a lawsuit—even if the service provider knows it will win—is almost certainly more than a service provider is charging any individual customer, or even a whole bunch of customers. Thus, even if a user explains that her use is protected by nominative fair use or other trademark doctrines, service providers have little motivation to put content back up unless and until the trademark owner withdraws its complaint. And that is not likely to happen unless the target can recruit legal representation to help persuade the trademark owner to see reason.

So we are not as optimistic about the impact of this ruling as we’d like to be. The decision was good for consumers and free speech, but we still have a long way to go to protect against trademark misuse.

Sony has revealed today the date and time of their E3 2010 conference, which will be held at the Shrine Auditorium in Los Angeles.
 

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Over the past few years, the review site Yelp has been no stranger to controversies regarding its treatment of comments and criticisms aimed at local businesses. Negative reviews on Yelp have spurred various lawsuits, accusing Yelp of unfair business practices that have been called “Extortion 2.0” — referring to the accusation that Yelp salespeople put pressure on companies to pay up for better ratings to appear more prominently on Yelp (and to remove the bad reviews that coincidentally seem to appear on the site when these salespeople allegedly suggest that better ratings could be bought).

In response, Yelp has explained (over and over again) that its algorithms are optimized to display the most “trustworthy” reviews of local businesses — in a way that’s completely unrelated to its sales efforts. Trying to put a friendly wrapping around its umpteenth explanation, Yelp has even created a cartoon to help educate everyone on its methods:

However, no matter how simply these explanations are conveyed, they have not been particularly convincing to small businesses who feel punished by bad reviews and see Yelp’s services as a veiled threat to their livelihood. So Yelp has taken another step by announcing some changes to its services to avoid further confusion:

Businesses can no longer buy a “Favorite Review” like they could before — so that there’s no confusion over businesses being able to influence reviews by paying Yelp. This sounds like a pretty big step towards making it clear that companies can’t just buy better reviews, but what does this mean for companies that formerly bought “Favorite Reviews?” Those companies are being penalized with the unexpected removal of this service, and there’s still no guarantee that ratings can’t be manipulated by cunning business owners or competitors. Though, the conspiracy theorists may never actually be satisfied on this point, and gaming online rating systems will likely always be a nagging concern.

Yelp is still keeping its review filtering algorithms a secret, but it will now display reviews that have been removed by its automated filters in an effort to allow users to see a bit of the reviews that Yelp deems suspicious or untrustworthy. However, Yelp is not exactly highlighting these filtered-out reviews — just making them available to be viewed in case anyone is curious to see what kind of reviews are tossed out on a regular basis.

Yelp is adding video ads as a service for businesses — presumably to offset the loss of its “Favorite Review” feature.

Yelp says it’s created a Small Business Advisory Council for companies to give feedback to Yelp management. This is an interesting development, but it’s not exactly easy to find out more information on how this council works. Granted, it was just announced, but its announcement seems to lack a bit of commitment when there aren’t any obvious links about it on yelp.com (yet?).

Yelp proudly states that it’s increasing transparency with these changes, allowing businesses and users to peek into what its algorithms are filtering out behind the scenes. But it’s not clear that anyone really asked for that feature — and getting that look at the filtered reviews isn’t going to ease the concerns that Yelp’s algorithms are inherently weighted against small businesses who don’t pay up for advertising space on Yelp.

The more significant change seems to be that Yelp is shifting away from a “Pay for Placement” business model with its reviews. Replacing its “Favorite Reviews” with video ads seems a bit odd, though — but apparently video ads were a top request from merchants. So at least Yelp is listening to its customers and responding — and if Yelp really wants to increase transparency, maybe we’ll see how Yelp actually handles feedback someday. But since Yelp doesn’t allow commenting on its own blog, chime in here and tell us what you think Yelp is doing wrong or right with its approach.

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