George Orwell
“In a time of universal deceit, telling the truth is a revolutionary act.”
You are Browsing the April 2008 Archive:
Warner Bros. TV Unveils Online Programming Slate; WB Gets Second Chance As Female-targeted Video Net
Although details slipped out about its broadband plans a few weeks ago, Warner Bros. TV Group is now prepared to say it’s resurrecting its WB Network TV brand as an ad-supported video network that will offer a mix of new programming and old series aimed at women viewers. TheWB.com, which launches next week in beta, [...]
Sky's Murdoch criticises iPlayer, sees it as potent threat - ITProPortal
 ITProPortal |
Sky's Murdoch criticises iPlayer, sees it as potent threat
ITProPortal, UK - Apr 28, 2008 BSkyB also owns a catch-up service called Sky Anytime and like the iPlayer, Channel's four 4OD and others, it uses the Kontiki platorm which is owned by … |
Sky TV Considering IPTV For Its Picnic Pay TV Service | As Well As A DSL Set-Top Box
BSkyB is looking to launch Picnic, a pay-TV service with Sky Sports 1, Sky Movies, Sky One, a children’s channel and a factual channel.
The current plan is to broadcast the channels at various times of the day on MPEG-2 streams, which would be sent …
George Bernard Shaw
“The power of accurate observation is commonly called cynicism by those who have not got it.”
Kurt Vonnegut
“Another flaw in the human character is that everybody wants to build and nobody wants to do maintenance.”
Voluntary Collective Licensing and Extortion
Reihan Salam has a new piece at Slate about voluntary collective licensing of music (which was also the topic of an online symposium organized by our center at Princeton). I’m generally a fan of Reihan’s work, but this time I think he got it wrong…
Two-Way Media's Patent Suit Against Akamai, Limelight, AT&T
Dan Rayburn submits:
On April 11th, Colorado based Two-Way Media filed suit
against Akamai (AKAM), Limelight Networks (LLNW) and AT&T (T) over a series of
patents entitled "multicasting method and apparatus". (patent
description below) While this is just one of many patent suits taking
place in the content delivery sector, there are a few unique details
about this one to watch. For starters, Two-Way Media first filed suit
against AOL and after a successful Markman ruling in their favor, AOL
settled out of court for an undisclosed amount. That by itself does not
mean anything as it may have been easier for AOL to settle rather than
pay legal costs, but the fact they settled after a ruling is a bad sign.
Even more interesting in my eyes is that the main patent, number 5778187
was filed in 1996 and was licensed by Two-Way Media to Cable &
Wireless in the early days of the content delivery market. For those
that remember, Sandpiper and Digital Island were some of the original
CDNs that were acquired by Cable & Wireless. There is no way to
know if Cable & Wireless licensed the patents because they felt
they were valid or not, but the fact another CDN even licensed it makes
this suit even more interesting.
NJ Voting Machine Tape Shows Phantom Obama Vote
I’ve written before (1, 2, 3) about discrepancies in the election results from New Jersey’s February 5 presidential primary. Yesterday we received yet another set of voting machine result tapes. They show a new kind of discrepancy which we haven…
Pablo Picasso
“There is no abstract art. You must always start with something. Afterward you can remove all traces of reality.”