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It’s getting harder and harder to be surprised about the MPAA’s silly tactics. So, surprise! The MPAA has successfully shut down an Ohio town’s municipal Wi-Fi network because one person was caught illegally downloading a movie. You know, peers and seeders and all that.

The Wi-Fi network was set up around the Coshocton County Courthouse located in central-ish Ohio. The network has been up and running for about five yeas now, and serves up to 100 people on a busy day. (Not that I have any idea of what would cause such a commotion in the town!)

The town’s commissioner said: “It’s unfortunate that one person ruins it for those who use the service legitimately.” Yes, and when some maniac stabs another person we confiscate everyone’s kitchen knives. Or when a drunk driver kills an innocent motorist the government comes around and takes away everyone’s car.

Collective punishment, anyone?

The MPAA’s nonsense really isn’t going to be challenged until our elected officials have an understanding of basic technology, which I don’t think will happen any time soon.

Before you read any further just lean back and take a deep breath. You are about to enter the “Research Zone”. You know the place well. It’s where we give you shocking numbers that someone has come up with using their “methodology” and it is then used to create shocking headlines around the Internet for your reading enjoyment. It’s almost like having an informant who whispers something in your ear then you get to blab it all over the place and set the masses running. It’s fun!

Today’s “OMG stat” is brought to you by comScore via TechCrunch. Apparently, Twitter had a rough October.

Ever since last summer, Twitter’s growth in the U.S. has been stalling. But in October, the number of people who visited Twitter.com from the U.S. actually declined for the first time by 8 percent month-over-month. Estimates released today by comScore put Twitter’s domestic unique visitors at 19.2 million, down from 20.9 million in September.

On an annual basis, Twitter is still going gangbusters with 1,271 percent growth from 1.4 million visitors in October, 2008. And on a global basis, it still seems to be chugging away with 58.4 million visitors in September. But a hypergrowth company like Twitter cannot afford to slow down in its home market.

Things to consider:

• Evan Williams, Twitter’s CEO, has acknowledged the slowdown so there must be some validity to it. His hope is new features will help slow or stop this trend
• These results do not measure those accessing Twitter via third party clients. Only Twitter knows how many actual accounts they have and which are showing activity. Of course, I challenge them to present a number of accounts that are real users and not spammers. What would the numbers look like then?
• This could be a hiccup
• Facebook is possibly cleaning their clock
• US growth is one piece, albeit a very important one, to the grand Twitterscheme of things

Here’s the pretty picture for you to look at wonder over.

So what’s your take? Twitter – thumbs up or thumbs down? Can adding new features attract more users or are they just tools that “preach to the choir” meaning only helping those already on board? Should anyone be worried about this?

Comments

Thank you, PC Gamer

How’s that Modern Warfare 2 boycott going? Well, judging by this screenshot, it seems that many of y’all were either bluffing, or simply couldn’t resist the temptation to, as Rock Paper Scissor put it the other day, Put The Cursor Over the Man’s Face. Boycotts only work when, you know, you follow through with your threats…

By Scott M. Fulton, III, Betanews

All next week, Betanews will be reporting from Los Angeles, at the scene of this year’s Microsoft Professional Developers’ Conference. Based on our experience with prior years’ shows, here’s the pattern we expect: Day 1 (officially next Tuesday) will center on self-congratulation for Windows 7, much of it deserved. Day 2 will likely bring out the bugle corps for the public introduction of Office 2010 Beta 1 — not the Technical Preview that’s currently being circulated, but a more feature-complete rendition that should have more Web- and cloud-related connectivity.

But our coverage will begin on Monday with an unusual twist to “Day 0,” which is usually reserved for in-depth workshops that command extra attendance fees. This year, Microsoft is trying an unusual step by opening up its day-long “Windows 7 Developer Boot Camp,” headlined by Technical Fellow and SysInternals engineer Mark Russinovich, not only to all PDC attendees but to the general public. Here, we’ll see how much attention Windows 7 can get not just from developers, but from passers-by on the street corner.

The coverage schedule for Betanews this year is the most feature-packed it has ever been, including 15 straight hours of sessions, speeches, and interviews scheduled for Betanews for Tuesday alone. We’ll be checking in with you throughout the day for updates, analysis, and live reports from the keynotes, then follow up with full analysis each evening. Then we’ll be bringing you complete interviews with conference newsmakers beginning the following week.

But every year, we like to put our reputation on the line and take some bets on expectations. Naturally, we don’t have to risk too much on a bet that Office 2010 will be given a lot of spotlight; but based on what we’ve seen thus far (especially the fact that this year’s show itinerary came together so late), here is our annual list of flashpoints (cue the network news music) that we expect will be the talk of attendees throughout the week:

• Making up for UAC. Among developers — especially in the security arena — the fact that Microsoft let up a little bit on its default security settings for Windows 7 User Account Control, relative to where they were in Vista, has been an issue of some contention. Many are concerned that the company’s engineers will have had to engineer new and tighter security techniques into the operating system to make up for that lax setting; while others argue that UAC isn’t much of a barrier anyway, even at full throttle, compared with a decent anti-virus. Even though Windows 7 has already launched, there will be plenty of developers expecting to learn for the first time what new behaviors the operating system will exhibit, to raise the bar back to Vista’s level.
• Why Windows Azure? It was October 2008 when Microsoft first demonstrated its cloud-based deployment platform for .NET applications, but many feel that since that time, the company has yet to actually demonstrate one single, real-world application for it. We’re seeing a lot more granularity in the topic breakdowns for sessions devoted to Azure this year, so we expect company engineers to make the case for Azure, as if for the first time. But that case will have to be for an entirely new class of apps, including some that are to some degree hybridized to work on local PCs and cloud processors simultaneously.
• What will Office Web Apps do? It looked at first as though Microsoft had solved a very important dilemma, with its plans to release Office Web Apps to the general public — reversing an earlier decision to market Office WA only to Office 2010 licensees. But then came indications that Office WA would not have full functionality, or perhaps not offer full functionality to general users anyway, making users wonder not only what Microsoft’s plan was, but whether it really had one. The fact that Office WA does not play a prominent role in this year’s PDC schedule, indicates that questions about the latter possibility are still justified.
• Making the case for Office 2010. We expect to see a much tighter relationship between the next version of the traditional Office software suite, and online collaboration functionality such as SharePoint. The use of SharePoint in collaboration will very likely be built directly into the new O’10, in an in-your-face way designed to help advertise SharePoint. But we also expect a more consumer-oriented level of collaboration to be built into the suite, perhaps in conjunction with Office Live or Windows Live, not just for collaboration and portable storage but things like synchronization and live annotation. These will likely be presented not just as add-ins or attachments, but full-scale features of the product.
• The new flavor of Visual Studio. Although what’s currently being distributed as Visual Studio 2010 is officially a beta, with respect to developers’ tools, it’s usually the beta that is the most often deployed — VS 2008 is already being back-burnered. It’s the obvious goal of VS 2010 to move developers toward a programming model that’s more conducive to Silverlight, XAML, and dynamic scripting. The real question is whether developers actually want or need to move that direction. With Silverlight being the carrot, we expect the “stick” next week to come in the form of changes to the principal low-level languages — C# and Visual Basic — to incorporate more componentized features that could drag developers kicking and screaming into Microsoft’s idea of the future.
• Will virtualization envelop Windows? Hyper-V is almost a standard component now in installations of Windows Server, especially the new 2008 R2 variety. But technologically, Microsoft is a generation (at least) behind VMware in making virtualization versatile and ubiquitous — note, for example, the lack of 64-bit virtualization capability in Windows 7, a feature that even Sun’s VirtualBox has in spades. Microsoft has an opportunity here to remake the server operating system into a virtual envelope that runs not just applications and services, but operating environments, in terms of roles — the broader functions that servers perform. We’ll see next week how far Microsoft is planning to move toward that model.
• The push toward online identity. Here is the wildcard of the week. We’ve already seen this week the discovery that Microsoft has been applying for patents for methods to secure localized privileges for software components using authentication tools and passwords — something Windows has desperately needed for over a decade. And we’ve also seen questions as to Microsoft’s “sinister motives,” especially questioning whether it’s some exclusionary tactic with regard to Linux. That’s all probably smoke. The real innovation here, I feel, is a genuine effort to deploy a kind of single-sign-on with scalability in two directions it’s never had before: from the wide scale of multiple online Web sites and services, to the narrow scale of COM components in one processor’s memory. There’s the potential for a huge achievement here, but we’ve seen this kind of thing fizzle before. So we have hopes for an opportunity to get our hopes up.

All of Microsoft’s star players are on tap for next week — we mentioned crowd favorite Russinovich. There’s also Luca Bolognese, Ray Ozzie, Bob Muglia, Henrik Nielsen, Don Box, Jeffrey Snover, Dean Hachamovitch, Mike Neil, Brian Goldfarb, and programming giant Butler Lampson.

This year, add one name to the list of giants: Burton Smith, the co-founder of Cray, and since 2005 a Technical Fellow at Microsoft. Smith will be on hand this year to profess on his favorite topic, one he helped create: parallelism, and how new processing techniques can be leveraged by better development methods.

It will be a colossal week, and we invite you to stay with Betanews all next week and into the coming days as we sort it all out, live and direct from Los Angeles.

Copyright Betanews, Inc. 2009

A five-song AFI track pack is coming to Rock Band ‘s in-game music store next week along with one from ’80s all-female band The Bangles. Handheld rock…

Well this is a bit of a surprise. For all the talk we keep hearing about how piracy is destroying the video game industry, and news stories with video game execs talking up DRM and the threat of piracy, a recent study of video game developers had only 10% saying that piracy was a threat to their business. Plenty were concerned about it as an issue they had to deal with, but most seemed to have some perspective on the relative risk of the threat. In fact, other parts of the survey note that about 50% are adapting to the marketplace, saying that “piracy” will change the way they do business, with it mostly meaning more “piracy-proof” business models. On the DRM front, there isn’t a whole lot of interest. 50% called it irrelevant with another 20% describing DRM as a part of the problem. I have to admit I’m a bit surprised by the findings (which makes me wonder a bit about the methodology), but it’s nice to see at least some suggestion that developers are adapting, rather than threatening and blaming.

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We’ve been told that T-Mobile retail locations have started receiving their shipments of BlackBerry 9700s in preparation of Monday’s national release. Though we doubt stores will sell them early, it’s always worth a try, no? We have also heard each store should be receiving a minimum of 25 units.

When it comes to Meditation we must have an open mind and make a commitment if we want change in our lives.

When people think of meditation they often think of religion or they think of it as a waste of time. But meditation is the ultimate skill of patience, which gives peace and calm to our minds, bodies, and then to our lives.

Stress causes a racing mind of worry and fear, which is usually on autopilot. When on autopilot we display unwanted emotions like anger, irritability, and moodiness. When our mind is noisy we are unable to fall asleep, stay asleep, and get essential hours of sleep.

Other thoughts that may cause disorder in our mind and lives are of what we don’t have, peoples’ offenses, the need to control other people, or lack of faith in ourselves. These stressful thoughts manifest into physical symptoms and cause muscle tension and stiffness.

A popular meditation technique to help remedy all of the above mentioned is Deep Relaxation Meditation, which is most effective if done everyday.

When we learn the technique of deep relaxation and do it often enough we will create a habit of being aware of our tension and stiffness throughout the day. In other words, we become more aware and in tuned with our mind and body. This habit allows us to bring ourselves to a relaxed and calm state anywhere at anytime.

The Deep Relaxation Meditation should be done everyday to produce the habit mentioned above. The best time to do this is right before you go to sleep so that you may create an intentional deep sleep and if you have difficulty sleeping this will also help improve your rest in the evening.

On the whole, we can benefit from Deep Relaxation Meditation if done two to three times a day. This technique can be done in 5 to 10 minutes.

The best way to learn this practice is with an instructive audio. After listening once or twice it should be very easy to facilitate on your own.

A good audio will teach you to begin in a comfortable position with deep breathing exercises. Then the audio will bring you through a process of relaxing every part of your body. Not only does this relax your body it also relaxes your mind because you take yourself out of your thoughts and into the focus of the senses in the body.

This practice has the benefit of releasing physical strain, quieting the mind, giving the participant peace, and it allows you a spiritual space.

When your mind is quiet and your body is relaxed you will better be able to hear that still small voice.

Learn to do a Daily Deep Relaxation Meditation and you will be an expert at destressing yourself and creating happiness in your life.

When you destress yourself you change your thoughts, feelings, actions, and attitude. You change your thoughts, feelings, and actions of stressful habits to successful practices.

If you are unhappy something must be done. If you are not living life with happiness, joy, energy, and vitality then you must do something about it.

You can learn to be happy by destressing yourself and I can show you how, for free. Subscribe to this blog for the updated posts, visit my website, sign up for our free weekly newsletters, visit our store and download the free stress management audios.

If you would like to live the life you dream of, let me help you. Learn to destress yourself, for free, by me, and learn what permanent stress relief really is.

Thank you for visiting my blog.

Hope this is helpful.

Until next post… Don’t forget to have fun and be playful, it is in your nature.

Elizabeth

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Well, well. It looks like the Moon bombing went well as NASA just released a whole lot of data supporting the initial findings that there’s water on the Moon. Read NASA’s take and view a whole lot of line graphs I don’t understand at NASA.gov. Next up, moonQuest DSV.

Players of Xbox Live gaming service will be barred of service due to some modification in the game consoles. It is estimated that estimated players of 600,000 to 1 million will be suffered. This step is taken by Microsoft because of illegally downloading from file-sharing sites is taking place.

In a statement recently Microsoft said, “All consumers should know that piracy is illegal and that modifying their Xbox 360 console violates the Xbox Live terms of use, will void their warranty and result in a ban from Xbox Live.”

Sad to say that the timing of the statement is coinciding with the release of Modern Warfare 2.

According to Microsoft there are over twenty million players globally using Xbox Live gaming service. This service of the company allows the gamers to play online with each other and also to buy and download games.

The company further said in the statement, “All consumers should know that piracy is illegal and modifying their Xbox 360 console violates the Xbox Live terms of use, will void their warranty and result in a ban from Xbox Live.”

The “Terms of Use” agreement of Xbox Live and Windows games’ as of September 2008 states: “only authorized software and hardware to access the Service,” and that they agree that their software and hardware “have not been modified in any unauthorized way … and that we have the right to send data, applications or other content to any software or hardware that you are using to access the Service for the express purpose of detecting an unauthorized modification.”

By Bob Powers
Bostonglobe.com

New Product, Powered by Adobe AIR, Provides Offline/Online Convenience

The Boston Globe announced today the formal launch of GlobeReader, a digital version of The Boston Globe newspaper that can be read offline or online. GlobeReader replaces the preview edition that had been available since this summer to all Boston Globe subscribers at no charge.

Through GlobeReader the content of the Globe is downloaded daily to a user’s desktop, laptop or netbook, in a format designed to resemble the look and feel of the print version of The Boston Globe. Enhancements to the preview edition include the addition of comics, sports scores, weather and the daily crossword puzzle. Various product and design improvements have also been incorporated.

“Reader response to the preview edition of the GlobeReader has been very encouraging. Now we’re pleased to offer GlobeReader to the public at large,” said Chris Mayer, senior vice president, circulation and operations, The Boston Globe. “It is important for our business to offer Globe news and information on a variety of platforms that appeal to a variety of market segments.”

GlobeReader is available at a fee of $4.98 per week. A bundle including home delivery in the Boston metro area of the Sunday Globe plus 7-day access to the GlobeReader is offered at the same price. For the Globe’s seven-day newspaper subscribers, it is included at no additional cost.

Designed for people who enjoy reading the news, GlobeReader combines the familiarity of The Boston Globe newspaper format with the convenience of a digital product. . . READ FULL STORY

The Center for Community Service at Ashland University will sponsor a poverty simulation with the Ohio Association of Second Harvest Foodbanks from 6:30 to 9 p.m. Nov. 18.…

“The poverty simulation is an interactive and role-playing activity designed to show participants the realities and ambiguities of living in poverty and to dispel the myths and stereotypes often associated with it,” said Erica Phillips, coordinator of the Ohio Campus Compact AmeriCorps VISTA Program for AU’s Center for Community Service.

»Read the full article in Mansfield News Journal.

Click here to see the video.

"Well, we have come to call each other Barack and Yukio," said Prime Minister Yukio Hatoyama of Japan in a joint press conference after the first meetings of President Obama’s trip to Asia. 

The Prime Minister went on to discuss the almost infinite range of issues on which our two countries are aligned and working together.   President Obama also gave full recognition to the importance of the relationship:

We have to understand that the future of the United States and Asia is inextricably linked.  The issues that matter most to our people — issues of economic growth and job creation, non-proliferation, clean energy — these are all issues that have to be part of a joint agenda.  And we had very productive discussions about these issues this evening.

It’s true that because of the strength of our economic ties, that was not the first item on our agenda, but we are fortunately going to have the opportunity to spend a lot of time discussing that in Singapore in the coming days.  As the world’s two leading economies, we have spent a lot of time working together in the G20 to help bring the world back from the brink of financial crisis, and we’re going to continue to work to strengthen our efforts so that we can expand job growth in the future.  And we will be discussing with our APEC partners how to rebalance our deep economic cooperation with this region to strengthen our recovery.

The Prime Minister and I discussed our cooperation on Afghanistan and Pakistan.  And I did thank the people of Japan and the Prime Minister for the powerful commitment of a $5 billion over the next five years to support our shared civilian efforts in Afghanistan, as well as the commitment of a billion dollars to Pakistan.

This underscores Japan’s prominent role within a broad international coalition that is advancing the cause of stability and opportunity in Afghanistan and Pakistan.  And I shared with the Prime Minister our efforts in refining our approach to make it more successful in the coming year.

We discussed our shared commitment to stopping the spread of nuclear weapons and ultimately seeking a world without them.  Since I laid out a comprehensive agenda in Prague to pursue these goals Japan has been an outstanding partner in those efforts.  And together we passed a historic resolution in the Security Council last September.  We are building a new international consensus to secure loose nuclear materials and strengthen the nonproliferation regime.

And to that end, we discussed both North Korea and the situation in Iran, recognizing that it’s absolutely vital that both countries meet their international obligations.  If they do, then they can open the door to a better future.  If not, we will remain united in implementing U.N. resolutions that are in place and continuing to work in an international context to move towards an agenda of nonproliferation.

Finally, we discussed our partnership on energy issues and climate change.  The United States and Japan share a commitment to developing the clean energy of the future and we’re focused on combating the threat of climate change.  This is an important priority for us; I know it’s an important priority for the people of Japan.  And we discussed how we can work together to pave the way for a successful outcome in Copenhagen next month.

So I believe that we are off to a very successful start.  I’m looking forward to continuing the conversation during dinner, as well as as we both travel to Singapore.  And I am confident that we will continue to strengthen the U.S.-Japan alliance so that it serves future generations.

Japanese Prime Minister Yukio Hatoyama, right, motions for President Barack Obama to be seated at the start of the bilateral meeting with their delegations at the prime minister’s official residence in Tokyo, Japan, Nov. 13, 2009. (Official White House Photo by Pete Souza)

Measuring and monitoring brain waves to analyze why people have problems with sleeping isn’t an easy task. Normally, patients need to be examined in special laboratories and wear head sets with up to eight electrodes over a certain period of time. But now Osaka-based Siix Corporation and the Osaka Bioscience Institute Foundation have developed a simple device that makes it possible to measure and monitor sleep-related brain waves in the comfort of your own home.

As you can see on the picture, the device isn’t much bigger than a box of cigarettes and fits on the head, meaning patients are able to use the device in their own beds when they sleep. Siix says it only records brain waves, but if you add electrodes the device can be used for monitoring your breathing patterns and eyeball movements as well.

The company works on making the device even smaller and aims at commercializing it as early as spring 2010, targeting medical facilities and designers of sleep-related furniture.

Via Nikkei [registration required, paid subscription]

Dell said today it plans to introduce smartphones based on Google’s Android platform in Brazil and China.

The company said it plans to sell its new Mini 3 smartphones through China Mobile, the largest telecommunications firm in the world with more than 500 million customers, and Claro, which has more than 42 million customers in Brazil as part of the America Movil network.

"Our entry into the smart phone category is a logical extension of Dell’s consumer product evolution over the past two years," said Ron Garriques, President, Dell Global Consumer Group.

"We are developing smaller and smarter mobile products that enable our customers to take their internet experience out of the home and do the things they want to do whenever and wherever they want."

Details of the phone models will be released when the devices are available in store, which will be late November for China Mobile and around the end of the year for Claro.

The move by Dell will help Google’s Android platform become more widely available. Other companies that are backing the Android platform include Motorola, HTC, Verizon, Garmin, LG and Samsung.

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