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Atari Online News, Etc. Volume 12 Issue 26
Volume 12, Issue 26 Atari Online News, Etc. June 25, 2010
Published and Copyright (c) 1999 - 2010
All Rights Reserved
Atari Online News, Etc.
A-ONE Online Magazine
Dana P. Jacobson, Publisher/Managing Editor
Joseph Mirando, Managing Editor
Rob Mahlert, Associate Editor
Atari Online News, Etc. Staff
Dana P. Jacobson -- Editor
Joe Mirando -- "People Are Talking"
Michael Burkley -- "Unabashed Atariophile"
Albert Dayes -- "CC: Classic Chips"
Rob Mahlert -- Web site
Thomas J. Andrews -- "Keeper of the Flame"
With Contributions by:
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=~=~=~=
A-ONE #1226 06/25/10
~ Porn Sites Get A Domain! ~ People Are Talking! ~ Internet Kill Switch?
~ Will Video Sites Filter? ~ E3: Battle of Big 3! ~ Cybersecurity Bill!
~ Will .xxx Clean Up Web? ~ New $199 Xbox 360 Slim ~ Used Video Games, Yea!
~ Playing Games for Cash? ~ Digital License Plates ~ Keeping Kids Safe!
-* Viacom Loses Copyright Suit! *-
-* Dot-org Domains Can Now Be Protected *-
-* Numerous States Pursue Google for Data Grab *-
=~=~=~=
->From the Editor's Keyboard "Saying it like it is!"
""""""""""""""""""""""""""
I'm gonna tell you right off the bat, I'm beat!! It's been a long 6-day
work week, especially in the heat that we've had this past week! Don't
get me wrong, I enjoy working; and I enjoy summer weather (not crazy about
high heat and humidity!) - but it can take a lot out of you. If you're over
50, you'll probably agree with me!
There are a number of articles in this week's issue that I hope to talk
about next week because they seem quite interesting. One, the potential
positive effect on the internet by ICANN providing a new .xxx domain name.
The obvious is that porn sites will flock to this new program, and thus
making it "easier" to filter out porn sites if one so chooses - because
they'll be obvious. Not sure it's going to be that simple!
The other story line I want to delve into is the recent lawsuit loss by
Viacom. It seems that they were suing YouTube for a number of copyrighted
videos on the site, but there is a "loophole" in the 1998 Digital
Millennium Copyright Act that gave YouTube an "out". That "loophole" is an
interesting factor, and needs discussion!
Nope, I'm not going to mention the oil "spill" in the Gulf other than to
reference something I said a couple of weeks ago - where are the experts
from the rest of the world and why aren't they offering any assistance?
How ironic that when there's a crisis anywhere int he world, the United
States is one of the first countries (if not the first) to be there to
assist. But where's the rest of the world when we need assistance?
Hopefully, I'll find a way to soothe some aching muscles and get some
much-needed rest before I head out for an annual golf tournament tomorrow.
I should be good for some laughs - I haven't picked up a golf club since
last year's tournament! You'd think that working at a golf course would
provide me with some opportunity to get some playing in, but it just hasn't
happened yet! It should be interesting and fun!
Until next time...
=~=~=~=
PEOPLE ARE TALKING
compiled by Joe Mirando
joe@atarinews.org
Hidi ho friends and neighbors. Another week has come and gone, and again
there just aren't enough messages in the newsgroup.
So I'm going to talk about... yeah, you guessed it... "The Gulf".
This week, one of BP's "robot subs" bumped into that "cap" on top of the
busted pipe a mile below the surface of the ocean. For half a day or so,
oil and gas were belching out of that puppy like a huge, high-powered fire
hose, unrestricted by anything but the width of the pipe itself.
According to BP, what happened when the 'aqua robot' bumped into the cap
was that a valve closed, which forced gas (methane, I'm assuming) up the
pipe that was supposed to be bringing warm water DOWN to the cap to keep
those nasty hydrate crystals from forming. The problem with this
'hydrate' stuff is that it's basically the flammable/explosive gas that
they try to get rid of once it gets to the surface. But at the pressure a
mile down is quite literally crushing, and substances that would be a gas
at sea level can be either liquid or solid (depending on the particular
substance) a mile below the sea. Unfortunately, these hydrates can block
the flow inside the pipe and, like plaque in an artery, break off at
inconvenient times... ie: ANY time. Then that happens, they can get shot
to the surface on a column of high velocity crude oil until it gets to the
surface where the pressure drops off precipitously, allowing the crystals
to sublimate back into a gas. If this happens near flame... boom.
That's the reason they removed the cap when they did. They didn't want to
risk this gas and whatever hydrates might accumulate giving them any more
headaches than they've already got.
I don't know that the "buzz" will be by the time you read this, but right
at this moment there are groans and sighs going up all over the world at
the fact that the cap 'blew off'. But that's not accurate. BP
intentionally took the cap off to avoid problems. In this one thing, they
"done good". That move, Even though it left the well belching full
force into the open ocean, very probably kept more problems from
occurring, and possibly saved lives.
But the big problem is still there. That busted pipe is still spewing out
millions of gallons of crude oil and untold quantities of gas into the
gulf, and we have no real idea of how bad the damage is REALLY going to be.
Yes, they SAY it will take months-to-years to clean it up, but no one
really KNOWS what it'll take. This is a HUGE spill, and the oil just isn't
acting like you'd think it would. Instead of floating gently on top of
the water as we all thought it would, NOW we find that some of it is down
"as far as" two hundred feet below the surface. Now, that may not sound
"too bad", but that's huge when you're trying to clean up a mess like
this. And now that the oil and sludge is washing ashore, people are much
less vocal about yelling "Drill baby, drill".
Of course, there are those who are trying their darnedest to have it both
ways, blaming the current administration for allowing the drilling they've
been screaming for all along while yelling for yet more drilling.
Unfortunately, the truth is that we DO need petroleum. For heating our
homes, running our cars, buses, airplanes, etc., for generating our
electricity for running our homes and businesses and those laptops and
iPads and iPods, but also for lubricants like motor oil and WD40 and
bearing grease, for asphalt for our roads, and even our plastic milk
bottles and laptop computer cases. All of it requires petroleum. And until
we perfect some super bacteria that eats all the waste we generate and
belches back some form of clean, plentiful energy, we're stuck with that.
The Department of Energy just okayed millions of dollars in research money
for wind power. That's great, but we need more. More of everything. More
research money, more experimentation, more "we've just got to do it"
projects that expect to operate at a loss for a long while... possibly for
ever.
Solar, wind, wave, geothermal, they all need to be looked at. Nuclear,
well, I'm afraid to say it, but yes, we have to look at that right now
too. And, although we're nowhere near close to making it work
economically, we need to look at fusion as well.
While most of us are at least slightly familiar with fission ('splitting
the atom' to generate energy), and how radioactivity is a bad thing for
anything that lives, fusion is less understood by the masses. First of
all, it's true that fusion is less energetic than fission. But that's
counter-balanced by the fact that the waste products are so harmless. It's
simple. You slam two hydrogen atoms together with enough force to make them
merge to make a helium atom, releasing a little bit of left-over energy in
the process. Do that with enough atoms of hydrogen, and the energy can be
quite substantial. And the energy released is much more easily handled
than the energy released by fission or plutonium or uranium.
So it's a win/win situation, right? Wellll... that's where it gets a
little tricky. First of all, the energy required to get two hydrogen atoms
to fuse is really kind of high. Second of all, getting the reaction to
repeat itself is hard. But it CAN be done. Mother Nature does it herself
inside every star that shines in the sky. Fusion is what powers the sun.
It's been burning for about four and a half billion years and is only
half-way through its life. And there was no one there to "ignite" the sun.
It did it all on its own, using only the laws of physics.
You see, gravity is a really cool thing. It's not only what keeps us
"stuck" to the surface of the earth, it's what holds the sun together too.
At the very center of the sun, where the gravity is unimaginably high, one
day, 4.3 billion years ago, two hydrogen atoms got squeezed together under
unimaginable pressure and heat until they merged... or fused... and formed
a helium atom. The energy released went on to cause some other hydrogen
atoms to merge, forming more helium and releasing more energy. That energy
went on to cause other hydrogen atoms to fuse, which created more helium
and energy and... well, you get the idea.
The problem for us is creating the heat and pressure that started the
sun's fusion process. We've tried diamond anvils, lasers, super-conducting
magnets and a whole bunch of other stuff, but we still haven't been able
to do it efficiently or cost effectively.
Some of you might remember the "cold fusion" debacle about 20 years ago.
All of a sudden, it seemed possible that we could take some precious
metals and stick them into a bath of 'special' water (heavy water and an
electrolyte), hook it up to a battery and have it produce relatively large
amounts of energy.
But alas, it was not to be. Scientists all over the world tried to
duplicate the results, but couldn't. After that, the whole idea of cold
fusion has come to represent a something imaginary; as impossible as a
perpetual motion machine.
But the fact remains that cold fusion may be possible. There's a process
called muon catalyzed fusion that has always shown a lot of promise if we
can just figure out how to do it right.
So yeah, we need a lot more money for research and development. And I
don't thing any one type of energy generation holds the complete answer
either. If this current crisis has shown us nothing else, it's shown us
that we need to be smarter and cover as many bases as we can. And in this
case, that means not relying on any one source of energy no matter how
cheap, abundant or easy to use.
Well, that's it for this week, folks. Tune in again next week, same time,
same station, and be ready to listen to what they're saying when...
PEOPLE ARE TALKING
=~=~=~=
->In This Week's Gaming Section - E3 2010: The Battle of the Big Three!
""""""""""""""""""""""""""""" New $199 Xbox 360 Slim Coming!
Playing for Cash Prizes?
And more!
=~=~=~=
->A-ONE's Game Console Industry News - The Latest Gaming News!
""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""
E3 2010: The Battle of the Big Three
Now that E3 2010 is over, I've had some time to breathe and to reflect
on the over-the-top fanfare of the past week. The Electronic Entertainment
Expo is once again a big, exciting show; it's a spectacle of bright lights,
ground-vibrating explosions, and a broad spectrum of celebrity endorsement.
This marks quite a change from the E3 of a few years ago, when the show was
scaled back to a collection of hotel-room demos. Last year marked the
return to (gigantic) form for the show, as the LA Convention Center teemed
with armies of eager geeks. This year's E3 was roughly on a par with
2009's, at least in terms of sheer drama.
Once again, the three videogame giants Microsoft, Nintendo, and Sony kicked
off the show with appropriately large press conferences ahead of the
official opening. Microsoft was up first. Its media event was not quite the
spectacle it was in 2009, though, when it featured appearances by the two
living Beatles and their families, skateboarder Tony Hawk, and the debut of
a new motion-based peripheral then called Project Natal.
Microsoft decided to limit admissions to this year's invite-only event.
We at PCMag were given only a single invitation. It went to editor-in-chief
Lance Ulanoff, who live-blogged the event. The limited seating, it turned
out, was due to the announcement of a slimmed-down version of the Xbox 360:
One system ended up in the hands of each person present. That announcement
was a "one more thing" type of bonus at the end of the event: Microsoft SVP
Don Mattrick lifted up a false Xbox 360 to reveal the smaller unit tucked
inside.
While the slimmer console was a nice surprise, Project Natal - officially
renamed the Kinect for Xbox 360 at an event the night before - was once
again the star of the show. The device has largely - and correctly - been
viewed as Microsoft's play for the casual gaming space, an area long
dominated by Nintendo and reaffirmed with the Wii. The Kinect is a shot at
the motion-based Wiimote, only with a twist. Microsoft's version eschews
the controller altogether: Rather, the player becomes the controller
through advanced motion-capture technology.
If the E3 press conference was any indication, the company will be pushing
the device in a major way, making an all-out assault on Nintendo's
top-dog position in the console wars. This is a decided change from the
company's longstanding approach as a platform for "serious gamers,"
established with the first Xbox. But given what seems to be a lack of
precision due to the nature of the technology, it's hard to see Microsoft
effectively selling the Kinect to its base. Serious gamers are unlikely to
pick one up to play the latest FPS title. In fact, players have been known
to dump mind-boggling sums of money into peripherals that sell the promise
of pinpoint accuracy.
Sony, on the other hand, has taken it upon itself to appeal to everybody.
As with Microsoft, the centerpiece of Sony's presentation was a technology
first unveiled at last year's show. Introduced in 2009 as a prototype, the
Japanese electronics giant's shot at the motion controller was renamed the
PlayStation Move. And at its media conference this year, Sony spent a
considerable amount of time taking potshots at the Microsoft Kinect for its
lack of buttons and tactility.
The Move, Sony told its audience time and again, was designed with everyone
in mind, from the hardcore basement gamer to grandma and grandpa. It has
the sense of fun that made the Nintendo Wii such a massive runaway hit,
while possessing the precision required to play more serious titles.
As it turns out, both the Kinect and the Move seem to have possessed the
collective imagination of game developers. Plenty of games that utilize
the new technologies were present on the show floor - though if the EA
and Ubisoft press events were any indication, the Kinect seems to have a
head start in this incremental round of the console wars.
It seemed, however, that Nintendo had the most to prove at E3 this
year - at least in the eyes of the gaming press. Many of its members have
traditionally given the company a hard time, given its lack of dedication
graphics power and serious gaming. Nintendo's press event at last year's E3
was the most lackluster of the big three. And while the Wii is still
outselling the competition, Microsoft and Sony have managed to narrow the
gap.
By most accounts, Nintendo delivered the goods this year. Last year's
relatively disappointing Wii Motion Plus and Vitality Sensor were traded
in for what was almost certainly the biggest hardware hit of the show:
the 3DS, the successor to the company's best-selling Nintendo DS. Many
in the press were skeptical of Nintendo's ability to deliver on its
promise of 3D without glasses. But after spending some hands-on time
with the device, I'd say that Nintendo delivered - particularly with the
inclusion of the analog toggle switch, which lets the users change the
viewing angle of the top 3D screen.
Much like Sony's mocking of the Kinect, Nintendo spent a good deal of
time deriding the glasses required by the 3D gaming competition's
technology. Nintendo executives didn't actually mention Sony by name,
but that company's strong 3D push at this year's show drove the point
home, particularly when, less than 2 hours after the end of Nintendo's
event, employees handed out Real D 3D glasses at the entrance to the
Sony event.
The Nintendo 3DS also highlighted the competition's lack of commitment
to portability. Microsoft once again failed to deliver on a rumored
handheld Xbox. And while Sony insisted it is as devoted as ever to the
PSP platform, such commitment was not very perceptible at the event,
particularly in light of the absence of a much-hoped-for PSP 2.
Ultimately, however, the success and failure of each of these devices -
the Kinect, the Move, and the 3DS - will hinge on each company's ability
to deliver great games. To paraphrase a popular political slogan, "It's
the titles, stupid." It always has been.
New $199 Xbox 360 Slim Coming This Fall?
Recalibrating the rumor clock, Kotaku claims Microsoft will offer a $199
version of its new piano-black, slim-style Xbox 360 this fall. That's
based on a marketing Q&A document that reportedly answers the question
"Will you sell a $199 version of the new Xbox 360?" with a pretty
unambiguous "We will offer a $199 Xbox 360 this fall."
You probably heard Microsoft was discontinuing its older $299 Elite and
$199 Arcade Xbox 360s, and that it was fire-selling them for $249 and $149
respectively.
But even at $299 with integrated WiFi and a 250GB hard drive, the
entry-level Xbox 360 asks newcomers for a lot of upfront cash--especially
potential /casual/-grade Kinect players, who'll pay upwards of $100 extra
for a Kinect bundle, or $150 for the controller-free motion-sensing
add-on standalone.
A $199 Arcade model employing the sleek new housing (and, presumably,
lower cost internal components and design) thus makes perfect sense.
Maybe it'll have a 120GB hard drive instead of 250GB. Maybe it won't
include integrated WiFi. Maybe it won't have a hard drive at all.
Whatever the case, expect bundles. Lots of bundles. We're already pretty
sure about a few, since GameStop posted several last week, suggesting
Kinect would be $150 by itself, or $300 bundled with an Arcade model.
It looks like that Arcade model now stands revealed. Sort of. Stand by
for confirmation (or an obligatory "no comment") from Microsoft.
*Update*: Microsoft just responded to a confirm request with this: "We
will offer a $199 Xbox 360 this fall. We have no other details to share
at this time."
Video Gamers Can Now Play for More Than High Scores
Gamers may enjoy bragging to their friends about their virtual skills and
high scores but now there's a way for players to literally put their money
where their mouth is.
Richard Branson has stepped back into the video game space, where he was
an early pioneer with Virgin Interactive, with his sights set on the
emerging competitive tournament gaming space.
Virgin Gaming will be giving away over $1 million in cash over the next
12 months through video game tournaments in which players can compete
from the comfort of their own homes on consoles like Xbox 360 and
PlayStation 3.
"People have been playing competitively for a very long time, ever since
a guy picked up a rock and said he could throw it further than the guy
next to him," said Branson, who attended the Electronic Entertainment
Expo (E3) last week.
"In the videogame space, the competitive gaming landscape has only been
open to pros and the elite players. At Virgin Gaming, our mission is
similar to what Sony is doing with PlayStation Move and Microsoft is
doing with Kinect - we're broadening the scope for everyone."
With the global gaming business raking in $60 billion last year, Billy
Pidgeon, analyst for M2 Research, believes brands like Virgin Gaming
will be able to capitalize on avid gaming audiences around the world
without any legal issues.
Over the coming months, Virgin Gaming will align itself with major game
publishers and mainstream sponsors to launch tournaments for thousands
of players to compete.
William Levy, president of Virgin Gaming, said there are about 20
companies that currently offer gamers a chance to win real prizes for
virtual play.
One of those, Galaxy4Gamers, welcomes the Virgin Brand and the awareness
it has already generated for the niche gaming space.
"Millions of gamers have competed in video game tournaments over the
years, but now the mainstream audience will be introduced to this
competitive arena," said Michael Casazza, president of Galaxy4Gamers,
which caters to 18- to 40 year-old mem with disposable incomes.
"Our members are usually playing a couple times per month for cash and
prizes. We offer one-versus-one tournaments to 64-player Clan
tournaments and members can challenge our top video game professionals
for cash prizes through our Beat A Pro platform."
Levy and Zack Zeldin launched the beta of WorldGaming.com in April 2009 and
have since grown into the largest competitive tournament gaming site with
40,000 active users.
Those numbers attracted Branson, who is now putting competitive
skill-based gaming on the map.
"Beyond the cash prizes, we're going to offer unique packages that only
Virgin can deliver like a trip to the bottom of sea in one of Branson's
subs or exotic vacations aboard Virgin Airlines," said Levy.
But Virgin Gaming, which takes a 12 percent service fee for the amount
wagered, does have its detractors.
"When you have individuals wagering their own money with Virgin taking a
cut off the top, that's gambling, even if you call it skill-based gaming
transactions and service fees," said Michael Pachter, video game
analyst, Wedbush Morgan Securities.
Hal Halpin, president of the Entertainment Consumers Association, said
competitive prize-based game companies like Virgin Gaming and BringIt!
are no different than taking part in a March Madness office pool.
"You can hear the usual suspects already ramping up their usual rhetoric
about violence in games, to now include gambling - their spin would
likely be that it's that much more of an adults-only activity and in
need of regulation as a result," said Halpin. "But the same argument
could be made for fantasy football."
Thank Goodness For Used Video Games
To hear some publishers tell it, used game sales are the devil's work,
and we - meaning us consumers - the devil's henchmen.
We're buying too many used games, you see, and in our patient thrift,
we're destroying the very thing we're supposed to love.
Not the games themselves, mind you - first-class game development is
flourishing with or without the World of Warcraft's and Call of
Duty's-but, if we buy the corporate line, the ability of game publishers
to reap increasingly massive revenues.
The latest "uh-oh, used games" salvo comes from a UK-based analytics
company, which just released a report fingering preowned game trading as
"the driving force" behind year-on-year declines in UK new video game
sales.
"The second hand games market is more fearsome now than it ever has
been," concludes UK trade mag MCV, which noticed the study. "A decade ago
the only outlets for second hand games was High Street specialists and the
then burgeoning number of UK indies."
The trend's not new, of course, and it's ramping up on both sides of the
pond. In July 2009, a Nielsen retail game sales report suggested US used
game sales were cutting sharply into new ones.
"Used game purchases have picked up in 2009, and this has increasingly
come at the expense of new games when looked at as a share of the
total," said the Nielsen report. "Sales of used games increased by 31.9
percent compared to last year."
Stepping back to Sept smaller studios were in for bumpy financials given
the thriving market for pre-owned games.
"It's hard to gauge the effect of used game sales on Halo, but I'm sure
it's big," opined O'Donell. "Complaining about sales when you have a
multi-million seller is somewhat difficult to justify, but it seems to
me that the folks who create and publish a game shouldn't stop receiving
income from further sales."
And Bethesda's (Oblivion, Fallout 3) Pete Hines recently put it this way:
"We would prefer to participate in the sale of our products, especially
when we spend years putting one of these things together and we have to
continue to provide support for all these new customers without creating
any new revenue from it at all."
So are these claims fair or foul?
*Do As I Say, Not As I Do*
Game publishers know dissing used sales won't win over consumers, who
view the software they've purchased as theirs to resell at will. After
all, when it comes to personal property, is a video game different from
a book? A movie? A television? A chair? A couch?
Did the film industry whine when the used video market cut into sales of
VHS movies? DVDs? Blu-ray discs? Are TV manufacturers miffed each time a
Sony, Samsung, or LG flatscreen sells on eBay? Do furniture
manufacturers grouse about lost profits from used furniture sales at
auctions, garage sales, or consignment stores?
It's a little silly, then, to bring the issue before consumers. It's
like someone in the press complaining about the occasionally scandalous
relationship between public relations flak and game journalists. The
latter's for journalists to sort out. The former's for publishers and
retailers to grapple with. If GameStop or Best Buy or Amazon or Walmart
want to cut in publishers on a percent of used game profits, by all
means. But intimating that it's somehow the consumer's fault for
treating games as buyable and resalable commodities like any other is
allowing frustration-however justifiable-to trump common sense.
*Steamed*
If game publishers are either too maladaptive or greedy to figure out
how to continue reaping windfall profits based on changing demographic
thresholds for "new" purchases, they need to come up with alternative
revenue models. Charging for support, for instance, if it's really that
costly (I haven't called a video game support line in 15 years) might be
one way to offset what Hines is after.
For instance: I have an Apple MacBook Pro. It comes with a one year
transferable manufacturer's warranty. Apple participates in none of the
profit if I sell the laptop used before that year's up (you don't hear
Apple complaining about this). If I want to extend the support warranty
by an additional two years, I have to reach into my wallet and come up
with roughly $250 extra. If I sell the laptop with the warranty in
place, Apple could care less who's phoning in the trouble ticket. If I
sell it without, they're not obliged to support it at all. No fuss, no
muss.
Another more or less inexorable solution involves digital distribution.
I have a copy of BioShock on my Xbox 360. I pulled it down earlier this
year because I'd sold my original a while back and wanted to replay it
in anticipation of BioShock 2. I can't resell it, because it's "tethered"
to my Xbox LIVE account, and its only "physical" presence involves its
aggregate 1s and 0s footprint on my more or less piracy-proof Xbox 360 hard
drive. The same applies to PC games purchased from online distributors like
Steam. It's simply a matter of time before physical products are entirely
replaced by digital ones.
When that happens, publishers will fully control all once more...as
vanguards who only sell digital versions already do.
In the meantime, thank goodness for used games. I don't know about you,
but $60 for one new game is $10 more than my monthly discretionary
budget entire.
=~=~=~=
A-ONE's Headline News
The Latest in Computer Technology News
Compiled by: Dana P. Jacobson
Lieberman Backs Away from 'Internet Kill Switch'
Sen. Joseph Lieberman on Sunday dismissed the idea that a recently
introduced bill would give the president access to an Internet kill
switch as "misinformation." He then said, however, that the government
needs to be able to "disconnect parts of its Internet in a case of war."
"The president will never take over - the government should never take
over the Internet," Lieberman said during CNN's "State of the Union,"
according to a transcript.
Earlier this month, it was reported that Lieberman and Sen. Susan Collins
were prepping a bill that would allow the government to "take over"
civilian network in an emergency. The news prompted many to dub this
option an "Internet kill switch."
On Sunday, Lieberman denied that this was the case, but said the government
needed the option to shut down certain parts of the Web should they come
under attack.
The country's "electric grid, the telecommunications grid, transportation,
all the rest is constantly being probed by nation states, by some terrorist
groups, by organized criminal gangs," he said.
As a result, "we need the capacity for the president to say, Internet
service provider, we've got to disconnect the American Internet from all
traffic coming in from another foreign country, or we've got to put a
patch on this part of it," he said.
Lieberman insisted that he and Collins have consulted with civil
liberties and privacy experts on that bill, and that their effort is "a
matter of national security."
"A cyber attack on America can do as much or more damage today by
incapacitating our banks, our communications, our finance, our
transportation, as a conventional war attack," he said.
"Right now, China, the government, can disconnect parts of its Internet
in a case of war. We need to have that here, too," Lieberman concluded.
Senate Panel Approves Controversial Cybersecurity Bill
A U.S. Senate committee has approved a wide-ranging cybersecurity bill
that some critics have suggested would give the U.S. president the
authority to shut down parts of the Internet during a cyberattack.
Senator Joe Lieberman and other bill sponsors have refuted the charges
that the Protecting Cyberspace as a National Asset Act gives the
president an Internet "kill switch." Instead, the bill puts limits on
the powers the president already has to cause "the closing of any
facility or stations for wire communication" in a time of war, as
described in the Communications Act of 1934, they said in a breakdown of
the bill published on the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental
Affairs Committee Web site.
The committee unanimously approved an amended version of the legislation
by voice vote Thursday, a committee spokeswoman said. The bill next
moves to the Senate floor for a vote, which has not yet been scheduled.
The bill, introduced earlier this month, would establish a White House
Office for Cyberspace Policy and a National Center for Cybersecurity and
Communications, which would work with private U.S. companies to create
cybersecurity requirements for the electrical grid, telecommunications
networks and other critical infrastructure.
The bill also would allow the U.S. president to take emergency actions
to protect critical parts of the Internet, including ordering owners of
critical infrastructure to implement emergency response plans, during a
cyber-emergency. The president would need congressional approval to
extend a national cyber-emergency beyond 120 days under an amendment to
the legislation approved by the committee.
The legislation would give the U.S. Department of Homeland Security
authority that it does not now have to respond to cyber-attacks,
Lieberman, a Connecticut independent, said earlier this month.
"Our responsibility for cyberdefense goes well beyond the public sector
because so much of cyberspace is owned and operated by the private
sector," he said. "The Department of Homeland Security has actually
shown that vulnerabilities in key private sector networks like utilities
and communications could bring our economy down for a period of time if
attacked or commandeered by a foreign power or cyberterrorists."
Other sponsors of the bill are Senators Susan Collins, a Maine
Republican, and Tom Carper, a Delaware Democrat.
One critic said Thursday that the bill will hurt the nation's security,
not help it. Security products operate in a competitive market that
works best without heavy government intervention, said Wayne Crews, vice
president for policy and director of technology studies at the
Competitive Enterprise Institute, an antiregulation think tank.
"Policymakers should reject such proposals to centralize cybersecurity
risk management," Crews said in an e-mail. "The Internet that will
evolve if government can resort to a 'kill switch' will be vastly
different from, and inferior to, the safer one that will emerge
otherwise."
Cybersecurity technologies and services thrive on competition, he added.
"The unmistakable tenor of the cybersecurity discussion today is that of
government steering while the market rows," he said. "To be sure, law
enforcement has a crucial role in punishing intrusions on private
networks and infrastructure. But government must coexist with, rather
than crowd out, private sector security technologies."
On Wednesday, 24 privacy and civil liberties groups sent a letter raising
concerns about the legislation to the sponsors. The bill gives the new
National Center for Cybersecurity and Communications "significant
authority" over critical infrastructure, but doesn't define what critical
infrastructure is covered, the letter said.
Without a definition of critical infrastructure there are concerns that
"it includes elements of the Internet that Americans rely on every day
to engage in free speech and to access information," said the letter,
signed by the Center for Democracy and Technology, the American Civil
Liberties Union, the Electronic Frontier Foundation and other groups.
"Changes are needed to ensure that cybersecurity measures do not
unnecessarily infringe on free speech, privacy, and other civil
liberties interests," the letter added.
Dot-org Domains Can Now Be Protected by DNSSEC
On Wednesday, .org became the first generic top-level domain to offer
its customers improved security using DNSSEC (Domain Name System
Security Extensions).
DNS is a key building block of the Internet. The technology's most
important task is translating IP (Internet Protocol) addresses to host
names. When DNS was born in the early days of the Internet it was
designed to scale up fast, and a trade-off was made between that and
security, according to Alexa Raad, CEO at .org. The implementation of
DNSSEC will help change that and protect users against man-in-the middle
attacks, she said.
For users, this means they can be sure that the site they are visiting
is actually run by, for example, their bank, and not a hacker, as long
as they go to the correct URL.
For the rollout of DNSSEC to take off, registrars, to which domains turn
when they want to implement the technology, will have to be on board.
Today, 13 of .org's registrars can handle DNSSEC, according to its Web
site. That Go Daddy, the worlds largest registrar, is one of them, will
help create a domino effect and get more registrants to implement
DNSSEC, according to Raad.
For the proponents of DNSSEC it's been a long road. The technology has
been under development for almost two decades, but now it is starting to
pick up. Last week, the cryptographic key that will be used to secure
the Internet's root zone was created.
The fact that a large generic top-level domain now has moved from
testing to actually using DNSSEC is a stamp of approval, which signals
that the technology is now ready, according to Jakob Schlyter, IT
security advisor at Swedish consultant Kirei. When Verisign starts
offering DNSSEC on .net towards the end of the year and then soon after
that on .com other domains will follow, he said.
Connecticut, Others Pursue Google Over Data Grab
Connecticut's attorney general will lead a multi-state probe of whether
Google Inc broke the law when it siphoned personal data off wireless
networks around the world, which the Internet search leader has said was
inadvertent.
Attorney General Richard Blumenthal said on Monday more than 30 states
participated in a recent conference call on the issue. He said consumers
have a right to know what information was collected, and whether U.S.
states need to alter procedures to guard against such leaks in future.
Google's shares slid 2.29 percent to close at $488.56 on Monday.
In May, Google said its cars photographing streets around the world have
for years accidentally collected personal data - which a security expert
said at the time could have included email messages and passwords - sent
by consumers over wireless networks.
"My office will lead a multi-state investigation - expected to involve
a significant number of states - into Google's deeply disturbing
invasion of personal privacy," Blumenthal said in a statement.
"Consumers have a right and a need to know what personal information -
which could include emails, Web browsing and passwords - Google may
have collected, how and why."
Blumenthal said Google has cooperated but "its response so far raises as
many questions as it answers."
"Our investigation will consider whether laws may have been broken and
whether changes to state and federal statutes may be necessary," he said.
Illinois Attorney General Lisa Madigan said last week that she had
opened an investigation into whether Google collected personal
information about Illinois residents. Michigan Attorney General Mike Cox
requested information from Google last week about the interceptions.
News of the Blumenthal-led probe marked the latest development in a
privacy controversy surrounding Google. The company already faces an
informal investigation over the matter by the U.S. Federal Trade
Commission, a variety of probes overseas, and class action lawsuits.
Google has said the data were accidentally collected by "Street View"
cars, well known for crisscrossing the globe and taking panoramic
pictures of city streets, which the company displays in its online maps
product.
"It was a mistake for us to include code in our software that collected
payload data, but we believe we did nothing illegal. We're working with
the relevant authorities to answer their questions and concerns," Google
spokeswoman Christine Chen said in an email.
The company says it uses the location of Wi-Fi networks to enhance
location-based services on smartphones.
It first revealed that Street View cars were collecting wireless data in
April, but said that no personal data were involved. But after an audit
requested by Germany, Google acknowledged in May that it had been
mistakenly collecting samples of "payload data."
Blumenthal also released a letter sent to Google in mid-June asking for
more details of the data collection. He had written to Google previously
and the giant Internet search and advertising company had responded.
In the second letter, Blumenthal asked the company when it realized that
its Street View cars had collected "payload data," who audited or
analyzed the Street View data collection program, and whether
information was ever extracted from the payload data.
He also asked what precautions Google takes to ensure that its engineers
do not insert code into Google products, and which engineer or engineers
inserted the payload data code into the Street View cars' collection
devices.
Judge Sides with Google in $1 Billion Viacom Lawsuit
A federal judge sided with Google Inc. on Wednesday in a $1 billion
copyright lawsuit filed by media company Viacom Inc. over YouTube videos,
saying the service promptly removed illegal materials as required under
federal law.
The ruling in the closely watched case further affirmed the protections
offered to online service providers under the 1998 Digital Millennium
Copyright Act.
Viacom Inc. had alleged that YouTube, which Google bought for $1.76
billion in 2006, built itself into the world's largest video-sharing
site by promoting the unlicensed use of video taken from Viacom cable
channels such as MTV, Comedy Central and Nickelodeon.
Facebook, eBay Inc. and Yahoo Inc. were among the Internet powerhouses
that had rallied on Google's behalf in saying that the company should
not be liable because the 1998 law offers immunity when service
providers promptly remove illegal materials submitted by users once they
are notified of a violation.
In his 30-page ruling, U.S. District Judge Louis Stanton in New York
said massive volumes of evidence submitted in the case had convinced him
that YouTube did what it needed to do to fall under the "safe harbor"
provisions of the copyright law.
In dismissing the lawsuit before a trial, Stanton noted that Viacom had
spent several months accumulating about 100,000 videos violating its
copyright and then sent a mass takedown notice on Feb. 2, 2007. By the
next business day, Stanton said, YouTube had removed virtually all of
them.
Stanton said there's no dispute that "when YouTube was given the
(takedown) notices, it removed the material."
Viacom said it will appeal, calling the ruling "fundamentally flawed."
Will Video Sites Stop Filtering Content?
One question that needs to be asked a day after Google's landmark win over
Viacom in the YouTube copyright-infringement case is whether Google could
have gotten away with doing less about protected content on its
video-sharing platform.
Judge Louis Stanton noted in his ruling throwing out Viacom Inc's $1
billion lawsuit that Internet service providers (ISPs) must deal with
unauthorized copyrighted material if they have actual knowledge of its
existence. If they don't have actual knowledge, the burden shifts to
copyright holders to identify the infringement and inform the service
provider. Stanton dismissed the case because he found that Google did
act expeditiously when told by Viacom of copyrighted works on the site.
But if Google only has to act when it receives a takedown notice, does
that mean it can sit back in blissful ignorance and put the onus all on
copyright holders? YouTube has often touted its content-filtering
technology that helps identify infringing works on the network. Given
Stanton's ruling, perhaps filtering technology isn't required for
service providers to claim safe harbor from liability.
Hollywood seems to be reading that message from the decision.
"At a time where there is more talk about service providers becoming
proactive in the course of their normal routines, this opinion comes
along and says you can be willfully blind," says Cary Sherman, president
of the Recording Industry Assn. of America, who agrees that the decision
potentially opens the door to ISPs dropping their filtering technology.
"At this stage, YouTube probably won't roll back its filtering system."
But what about all those web start-ups that have to decide whether to
invest in expensive copyright-policing technology? What kind of road map
toward escaping liability are they now getting?
"Having tools like filtering helps show the court you are a good actor,
but clearly, from a reading of the legislation and from the court
decisions, it's not an obligation," says Michael Elkin, a partner at
Winston & Strawn, who is representing Veoh in an important case testing
safe harbor for ISPs before the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals.
ISPs might also take another equally important lesson from Stanton's
decision in how to escape liability. Since Stanton let YouTube off the
hook because he was impressed by its takedown regime, other service
providers will likely try to travel the same route. But after being sent
a takedown notice, will they stop to consider "fair use" before removing
an allegedly infringing video?
If they're emulating YouTube, sometimes they won't.
We've already seen people, from high-profile individuals like John
McCain to low-profile ones like Stephanie Lenz (targeted for a baby
video backed by a Prince song), try to stand up to YouTube for not
putting up a bigger fight against takedown notices. Some of the folks
cheering Stanton's decision are the same ones who believe that entities
like YouTube should do more to examine the merits of a takedown notice
before pulling a claimed video.
Carey Ramos, a partner at Paul Weiss, believes the decision will result
in Hollywood showering service providers with more takedown notices.
"And the service provider will have an incentive to make a knee-jerk
response and take the content down," he adds.
If the onus shifts to copyright holders to make takedown demands, we can
be sure they'll pursue them with vigor. And if ISPs don't want to get in
trouble with the law, we can be equally certain they'll hardly put up
much of a fight.
In other words, service providers will be passive-aggressive when it
comes to copyright enforcement. Is that really what people want?
Keep Kids Safe on Facebook
Scammers, spammers, purveyors of porn, hate mongers, and cyber predators
- it's no wonder parents are paranoid about what their kids are doing
online.
Most software solutions focus on shielding your child from the Net's
seamy dark underbelly filtering out porn, blocking certain keyword or image
searches, and preventing them from sharing certain information (like their
home address) in email or IMs.
The problem? None of these content filters do much about what information
your kids are putting out there about themselves, or who can see it. As
search engines turn into reputation engines, what your kids say and do
online will affect what happens to them down the road.
For example, roughly one out of four college admissions offices say they
Google applicants before deciding whether to accept them; one out of five
look at their social networking profiles. And in nearly 40 percent of the
cases, the information colleges find has a negative impact on the
applicant's chances.
What your kids are saying on Twitter or MySpace or posting to Facebook and
Flickr could impact their futures, and not necessarily in a good way.
That's where SafetyWeb steps in.
SafetyWeb's premise is simple: Enter your child's email address, and it
will scour the most popular sites and services, let you know if your
child has accounts on them, and if so how private they are or aren't.
That service is free.
For example, searching on one of my email addresses produces a quick
report that notes that I am "Public" on MySpace, Friendster, and
Twitter; "Private" on Facebook, Flickr, and Bebo; and "exposed" on
Flixster and Linked in. (By "exposed," I'm assuming they mean all of my
profile details are public.) Click on the screen shot to see the setup.
But if you want to see what your kids are actually posting to these
sites, or add new email addresses or new sites to the dozen or so
SafetyWeb automatically checks, it will cost you $10 a month. Whether
that's worth it depends on how clued in you are to your kids' social
media activities, as well as how sneaky they are.
In my brief experience with the product, I found it a little inconsistent.
Some of the data is old or outdated. For example, I changed my Twitter
handle more than a year ago, but SafetyWeb still reports on my old one. It
lists my Facebook profile as "private" when it's really more than half
public. It found a Twitter account for my son that belonged to someone else
entirely (though it also found one I didn't know about). It told me my son
had an Amazon account, but (because it's private) gave me no way to find
out what he's using it for.
In short, SafetyWeb is not a total solution. It's only as good as the
databases it uses to cross check these sites, and some of them clearly
need to be updated more often.
Still, I can see some good uses. It offers a quick, one-stop glance at
your kids' social activities online - a lot easier than schlepping
between MySpace, Facebook, Flickr, YouTube, etc. How effective that is
depends on how open your kids are about what services they belong to and
what email addresses they use.
My not-quite-14-year-old son, for example, is a devious little bastard
who uses multiple email addresses online, some of which he refuses to
reveal, and is militantly opposed to sharing his online life with his
parents. So SafetyWeb is a bad choice for kids like him, because it
could give parents a false sense of security. (Not us - we have no
sense of security.) Also, at $10 a month per kid, it can get very pricey
for large families. SafetyWeb co-founder Geoffrey Arone says the company
plans to offer family pricing discounts at some point in the near future.
Hey, when you're raising a digital native, parents need all the help
they can get. Tools like SafetyWeb are another helpful weapon to add to
your arsenal. Your kids may not appreciate it now, but they'll thank you
later. Maybe.
Porn Sites Closer to .xxx Web Address
It may soon be easier to block Internet porn: The agency that controls
domain names said Friday it will consider adding .xxx to the list of
suffixes people and companies can pick when establishing their identities
online.
The California-based nonprofit agency, ICANN, effectively paved the way
for a digital red light district to take its place alongside suffixes
such as .com and .org, finally ending a decade-long battle over what
some consider formal acknowledgment of pornography's prominent place on
the Internet.
While the move may help parents stop their children from seeing some seedy
sites, it wouldn't force porn peddlers to use the new .xxx address - and
skeptics argue that few adult-only sites will give up their existing .com
addresses.
Still, it's seen as a symbolic step in the opening up of Internet domain
names and suffixes, coming on the same day the agency said it would
start accepting Chinese script for domain names.
The decision is primarily a victory for U.S. company ICM Registry LLC,
which has applied repeatedly to be able to register and manage the .xxx
suffix.
The Internet names agency has rejected its application three times since
2000, partly under pressure from Christian groups and governments
unhappy with the spread of online porn, said ICM's chief executive,
Stuart Lawley. He pitches the suffix, in part, as protection for
parents, arguing it will make it easy for Web blocking software to
filter out ".xxx" sites, marking them clearly as porn.
"People who want to find it know where it is, and people who don't see
it or want to keep it away from their kids can use mechanisms to do so,"
he said
ICANN's board, at a meeting Friday in Brussels, said it had not treated
the company's application fairly three years ago when it reversed an
earlier decision recognizing .xxx as the representative of the porn
industry. ICANN is now promising to move swiftly with standard checks on
Lawley's company.
Peter Dengate Thrush, the chairman of ICANN's board, said the Friday
decision "does not mean the .xxx application has been approved ... It
means that we are returning to negotiations with the applicant." He
estimates that it could take a year for full approval, far longer than
the few months ICM says it would take.
He shrugged off criticisms that ICANN was creating a new platform for
Internet porn.
"We're not in the content business, and that's up to national
governments and lawmakers and people who are qualified to make
judgments," he said.
He also warned that .xxx might not necessarily be a success - and that
some new Internet suffixes have failed to attract many signups. Some
note that most porn sites would likely keep their existing ".com" names,
to allow their businesses to be found more easily.
"If it is still going to be available on other domains, it just sounds
ineffective" as a way of regulating adult content, said Cathy Wing, of
Media Awareness Network, a Canadian nonprofit that advises parents and
teachers about Web use.
She also said filters are "easily bypassed" and would not stop children
accessing porn.
Pornography is a huge business: The adult entertainment industry is
worth some $13 billion a year, according to the California-based Adult
Video News Media Network.
Lawley said he thinks the new address could easily attract at least
500,000 sites, making it - after ".mobi" - the second biggest sponsored
top-level domain name. He expects to make $30 million a year in revenue
by selling each .xxx site for $60 - and pledges to donate $10 from each
sale to child protection initiatives via a nonprofit he has set up.
In comparison, a .com address costs just $7 but ICANN sells 80 million a
year.
There are already 112,000 reservations for the new .xxx domain, Lawley
said - with the publicity over Friday's decision attracting an extra
2,000 in the previous day. The company could get the Internet suffix up
and running within six to nine months after ICANN checks that ICM has
the financial means and technical know-how to run it, he said.
"I think we could do a million or more. There are several million adult
top-level domain names already out there," he told the AP. He called the
.xxx suffix a "quality assurance label."
The porn industry isn't completely behind .xxx, because some see the
site as creating a ghetto for adult content and setting rules where they
don't want any.
"The XXX domain concept may just be a slippery slope for the legal adult
business. Our customers should not need to go to an .XXX domain to seek
us out any more than they would go to .violence or .R-rated for these
categories of entertainment," said Steven Hirsch, founder/co-chairman of
the Vivid Entertainment Group.
"We need to be concerned with what will follow the implementation of
this domain. Will all adult dot coms be mandated into the XXX corral and
if not, what makes some exempt but not all?"
Still, Lawley claims to have the support of many large providers and
between 60 percent to 70 percent of the entire industry.
Loic Damilaville, deputy director of AFNIC, the association that manages
the French .fr suffix, said the moral debate between some family groups
and porn firms has been more of an American than an international issue.
"It's mostly a debate on symbols: on the space porn should be allowed on
the Internet," said Damilaville, who attended the ICANN board meeting in
Brussels.
What's really at stake, he said, is setting the ground rules for how
Internet suffixes will be created in the future and how much say
governments have in the process. The availability of new suffixes is in
itself a good thing for freedom of expression on the Web, he said.
Dot-XXX Domain Won't Clean Up the Web
ICANN has approved XXX as a top-level domain. The adult entertainment
industry will soon have its own glaringly obvious domain, but unfortunately
that doesn't necessarily mean that dot-COM domains will suddenly be
porn-free.
From a security (or parenting) perspective, it would be nice. While there
are certainly legitimate Web sites offering adult entertainment sans
malware, it doesn't take more than a click or two to enter the dark and
shady side of the Web - where malware of all sorts lies in waiting to
infiltrate and compromise unsuspecting seekers of porn.
It couldn't get much easier to block employee (or child) access to
inappropriate adult material than simply banning all access to the XXX
domain. As a matter of fact, once the XXX domain is up and running it
seems fair to assume that IT administrators and parents (or consumer
security vendors) will do just that. It's a no-brainer.
However, porn sites will be like dolphins. All dolphins are whales, but
not all whales are dolphins. Dolphins are a subset of the larger whale
family. Similarly, all XXX sites will be porn, but not all porn sites
will be XXX. Many porn sites have a long and established presence as a
dot-COM domain and will not simply abandon that.
As it is, many adult Web sites have multiple domains that redirect. Both
Playboy and Penthouse own their respective dot-NET domains as well, but
if you try to visit them you will be automatically redirected to the
primary site at playboy.com or penthouse.com. Adult sites will simply
purchase the XXX domain equivalent and redirect it accordingly.
What is more likely to happen than dot-COM getting cleaner, is that more
respectable businesses will be forced to purchase the dot-XXX equivalent
of their primary domain simply to ensure it isn't purchase by a purveyor
of porn. For example, Disney certainly doesn't want customers to visit
disney.xxx, but it also doesn't want disney.xxx to be purchased by a
shady adult site. So, Disney will purchase the disney.xxx domain and
redirect it to disney.com just as it has done with disney.net and
disney.org and many other domains that are even remotely similar to the
Disney name. Disney wants to ensure that you get to Disney.com no matter
what you enter in your Web browser.
Of course, the same sort of brand and trademark protection works in
reverse, too. Even if Playboy or Penthouse chose to convert their
primary domain to XXX, each would still own the dot-COM and dot-NET
equivalents and redirect them to the dot-XXX domain to ensure that - no
matter how you enter Playboy or Penthouse in your Web browser - you
arrive at their Web site. Playboy is not going to abandon the
established playboy.com domain and leave it to be purchased by some
other opportunistic business.
The only way that the XXX domain could clean up other domains like
dot-COM and dot-NET is if an actual rule were established requiring porn
sites to only use the XXX domain. However, that is an exceptionally
slippery slope open to all sorts of interpretation - and probably
protracted legal battles.
The problem with trying to define such a rule is twofold. First, porn is
in the eye of the beholder. I mentioned Playboy and Penthouse, but many
(myself included) don't truly consider the material on those sites to be
pornographic. It is certainly of an adult entertainment nature, but its
not porn.
Second, adult entertainment companies are also - well...companies. They
are companies that engage in commercial activity. By definition, they
have a right to use the dot-COM domain for those endeavors.
Perhaps the XXX domain will make inappropriate adult content easier to
filter from corporate networks, but IT administrators will not be able
to let their guard down on defending the network against porn on other
top-level domains. And, IT administrators might want to get a jump on
purchasing the dot-XXX equivalent of their existing domain in order to
protect the brand and reputation of the company.
California License Plates Might Go Digital, Show Ads
As electronic highway billboards flashing neon advertisements become more
prevalent, the next frontier in distracted driving is already approaching
- ad-blaring license plates.
The California Legislature is considering a bill that would allow the
state to begin researching the use of electronic license plates for
vehicles. The move is intended as a moneymaker for a state facing a $19
billion deficit.
The device would mimic a standard license plate when the vehicle is in
motion but would switch to digital ads or other messages when it is
stopped for more than four seconds, whether in traffic or at a red
light. The license plate number would remain visible at all times in
some section of the screen.
In emergencies, the plates could be used to broadcast Amber Alerts or
traffic information.
The bill's author, Democratic Sen. Curren Price of Los Angeles, said
California would be the first state to implement such technology if the
state Department of Motor Vehicles ultimately recommends the widespread
use of the plates. He said other states are exploring something similar.
Interested advertisers would contract directly with the DMV, thus
opening a new revenue stream for the state, Price said.
"We're just trying to find creative ways of generating additional
revenues," he said. "It's an exciting marriage of technology with need,
and an opportunity to keep California in the forefront."
At least one company, San Francisco-based Smart Plate, is developing a
digital electronic license plate but has not yet reached the production
stage. The bill would authorize the DMV to work with
Smart Plate or
another company to explore the use and safety of electronic license
plates.
The company's chief executive, M. Conrad Jordan, said he envisioned the
license plates as not just another advertising venue, but as a way to
display personalized messages - broadcasting the driver's allegiance to
a sports team or an alma mater, for example.
"The idea is not to turn a motorist's vehicle into a mobile billboard,
but rather to create a platform for motorists to show their support for
existing good working organizations," he said.
=~=~=~=
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