U.S. House Just Put the SOPA Bill on Hold (Updated) [Sopa]
According to Cnet, House Rep. Lamar Smith—aka the most vocal proponent of the proposed SOPA legislation—just announced that the House will put the bill on hold. The move follows tuesdays SOPA blackout protest and the Senate's decision to postpone their vote on the corresponding PIPA bill.
Rep. Smith issued an official statement, saying that he has "heard from the critics" and that it's "clear that we need to revisit the approach" with regard to SOPA. His full statement is as follows:
Statement from Chairman Smith on Senate Delay of Vote on PROTECT IP Act
Washington, D.C. - House Judiciary Committee Chairman Lamar Smith (R-Texas) today issued the following statement in response to the Senate decision to postpone consideration of legislation to help combat online piracy.
Chairman Smith: "I have heard from the critics and I take seriously their concerns regarding proposed legislation to address the problem of online piracy. It is clear that we need to revisit the approach on how best to address the problem of foreign thieves that steal and sell American inventions and products.
"The problem of online piracy is too big to ignore. American intellectual property industries provide 19 million high-paying jobs and account for more than 60 percent of U.S. exports. The theft of America's intellectual property costs the U.S. economy more than $100 billion annually and results in the loss of thousands of American jobs. Congress cannot stand by and do nothing while American innovators and job creators are under attack.
"The online theft of American intellectual property is no different than the theft of products from a store. It is illegal and the law should be enforced both in the store and online.
"The Committee will continue work with both copyright owners and Internet companies to develop proposals that combat online piracy and protect America's intellectual property. We welcome input from all organizations and individuals who have an honest difference of opinion about how best to address this widespread problem. The Committee remains committed to finding a solution to the problem of online piracy that protects American intellectual property and innovation."
The House Judiciary Committee will postpone consideration of the legislation until there is wider agreement on a solution.
And while this doesn't necessarily mean the end for SOPA or PIPA, we can at least all concede that Tuesday's public outcry did some good. Well done, Internet. [Cnet]
Update: We spoke with an operative of Anonymous, a group which went into a frenzy last night over Megaupload and general SOPA-spurred anger. When asked if the agent considered the SOPA crash a win for Anonymous, he replied:
no i consider it a win for the whole of humanity
i think everyone that contribiuted had a hand
no matter if you where calling politicians or ddosing
or holding signs or making street art
Even with the good news, Anon doesn't seem to be completely optimistic:
Related Storiessadly
there will always be men with lust for more power
and the internet is a scary place for those who can not understand it
Unfriend Everyone [User Manual]
You have too many Facebook friends. You're following too many people on Twitter. You're connected to too many people who don't care too much about you. Get rid of them. Get rid of all of them.
If you're a standard internet citizen, you've been accumulating social detritus for about half a decade—or whenever you decided to hop onto Facebook. You and your elementary, high school, and estranged college friends all found each other. Click! Friends. Why not? It was still a novelty back then—the gimmick of staring at photos of and information about people who stopped mattering a long time ago was warm and thrilling. That was years ago, and yet there they still sit. They plop on your News Feed, they tweet sour nothings into a void you're witness to, and they take up space.
"I can just ignore them."
No you can't. Every time you stare at a name or look at a link, a tiny piece of your brain is being wasted. It's time to clean up shop.
Dropping a neutron bomb on your friends list might be difficult. It's a good thing to have a lot of friends, right? You've got an excuse for each and every fauxquaintance, like a hoarder clutching a 1989 issue of Better Homes and Gardens.
But one you gain momentum, you'll realize that most of the people you know on Facebook are pointless. Time to start applying filters.
Have you ever met this person?
If not, you can probably delete—unless it's some foreign relative, a telecommuting coworker, or something similarly practical. Otherwise, scrap.
Have you seen or spoken to this person recently?
The HEY WE JUST MET LET'S BE FRIENDS instinct runs strong and deep throughout the internet—it's customary among many circles to friend someone you've met the next day, or sometimes even that very night. But why? If it's a friend of a friend of a friend, or a date who went nowhere, you'll probably never see them again. And if you'll probably never see them again, why should they be on any list at all? Dump 'em.
Have you had sex with this person?
You might again someday. Do not unfriend.
Do you hope to someday have sex with this person?
Keep 'em. You never know.
Are they so bad they're actually good?
Some faux friends are so idiotic or over the top that even if they make a mockery of our notion of friendship, they're worth keeping around for other reasons. Like your cousin's friend Wayne, so dumb he can't stop posting pictures of his lawn and links to Taco Bell tweets. He's fascinating in his own way. Study him.
Twitter is probably more prone to accumulating crud, because you don't even need the social pretense. But just like Facebook, your list can easily get out of control, putting a strain on our finite human brains—so let's flush what we don't need. Out, damned spot!
Do you remember why you followed this person in the first place?
Who are you? Why are you here? Did you write something witty a long time ago? Is that why I followed you? Have we ever met? If you find yourself contemplating any of this, odds are the answer is no, and this person can go.
Do you get news from them?
Even if you don't know (or do but actively despise!) someone, they can still be a great source of information. If you're not learning something from a random name you're following, cut them out.
Do they tweet too much?
One good Twitter user can ruin twenty decent ones if they're spraying you with a fire hose of words every five minutes. Tweet hyperactivity makes a mess of your timeline, drowning out the rest of the worthwhile crowd.
Do they tweet too little?
There's always the one hit wonder account. They had a hit—a crazy one-liner, a fascinating link—and then they crept back into obscurity. Let them sit in their cave—delete them!
Err on the antisocial side. If you're not sure whether to keep someone in your fake digital social life or not, remind yourself that it's a fake digital social life and trim the fat. The people who actually matter will never be on the chopping block to begin with. Chop chop. Chop.
Daily Desired: Is this a Space Heater or an iPod Dock? [Desired]
Everdure's beautiful little box doesn't play music, but it sure looks like it could. In fact, the design more than an iPod dock, the E Cubo reminds me of Sony's old Digicube "Dream Machine" alarm clocks from the 1980s. But alas, it's built to heat your frigid room.
I wish I lived in Australia so I could grab one of these portable heaters and plop it down next to my bed every night. The E cubo oscillating electric space heater weighs just 6.5 pounds so you can carry it around your house all winter long. The heater is controlled by the detachable LCD remote—that's not weird some Australian music player. In the summer, the fan-only mode means the heater doubles as a desk fan. [Everdure via Appliancist]
Related StoriesCustomizable Chocolates Come in More Flavors Than Willy Wonka's Lickable Wallpaper [Video]
Why is it so impossible to make a tasty chocolate confection? I swear, every other one I eat is either coconut creme, lemon asshole, or some other flavor that has no business in my mouth. These new modular chocolates however will taste exactly how I want them to—delicious.
These customizable confections are the brainchild of ECAL grad Student, Elsa Lambinet, in coordination with Swiss chocolatier Blondel. The sweets combine arrays of chocolate shells, inserts like nugat or caramel, and toppings like cherries, hazel nuts, or whatever else you fancy.
"Participants get to mix and match ingredients for hours and hours as they gorge themselves on custom confectionery goodness," Lambinet said in her thesis. There's no word on whether these ingenious luxury chocolates will make it to market unfortunately. [Fastco Design]
Related StoriesMusic Video Megamart Vevo Might Find New Home at Facebook [Facebook]
The go-to service for music videos on YouTube could be heading to Facebook of all places. Because we all know how well it works out when social networks become a place for musicians to hang out (*cough* MySpace).
According to CNET, Vevo has been talking to Facebook about leaving YouTube. The music video service has only been around for two years and already its video view uniques are second only to YouTube. Vevo has 43 million unique visitors a month, while YouTube as a whole has 130 million uniques. People really like music videos.
Vevo's deal with Google still has a year before it expires. And with Google Music not exactly taking off, the search giant should probably try to hold on to any music service it can. [CNET]
Related StoriesUncrop Your Photos, Raise Minesweeper From the Dead, and Shoot Your Way to Victory [Video]
You know what cropping does. What AntiCrop does is attempt to restore some of the missing image at the edge of your photos. Like magic. Some zombies get thrown into minesweeper and fly around in an over-head shooter with super-bright colors. So many colors.
Google Puts the Hammer Down on Three More Services [Google]
Good news everyone! Google announced today that three of its web services will be getting the axe by mid-year.
Picnik, a photo-editing company that Google acquired in 2010 with hopes of integrating into Picasa will be shutted by April 19th, "so the Picnik team can continue creating photo-editing magic across Google products," said Dave Girouard, vice president of product management, in a blog post. Google Message Continuity, a service that backed up emails from clients' exchange servers will soon be shown the door, despite interest by "hundreds" of businesses; pushed out in favor of adding its functionality to the Google Apps suite. Needlebase, the data management platform you've never heard of, will also be killed off by June 1st.
In addition, Google announced that its Sky Map Android app will go open-source by mid-year, thanks to a partnership with Carnegie Mellon University. [Google Blog - PC World - Image: The AP]
Related StoriesPut Pants On Before You "Hangout" With President Obama on Google+ [Google+]
Google+, impervious to the teasing of tech-bloggers, marches on. Now with more than 90 million users, they just picked up a rather prominent one. The Big O (not Oprah), El Presidente, Mr. Barack Obama himself, and the house he lives in.
This is just the latest foray into social media for the White House. Twitter and Facebook, sure. LinkedIn? Uhhh, why? Instagram! Sure! And now Google+. "Hey youths, look how cutting edge we are! You're gonna vote for us again, right?" Well, probably. Google+ actually might have a little more to offer, though. According to the White House's blurb:
On our Google+ page, we'll host regular "White House Hangouts" with administration officials on a range of issues and topics. Some Google+ users will be invited to join the Hangout with the White House and have a conversation with policy experts. But the best part is that even if you're not "in" the Hangout, you can watch the whole thing live on WhiteHouse.gov, on our Google+ page or on the White House YouTube channel.
That's actually kinda cool. I wanna hang out with Barack Obama. We could watch our favorite YouTube videos together while eating Funyuns. Well, maybe not, but the White House is currently accepting ideas for Hangouts, so add 'em to a circle of yours and let them know what you want to chat about. Me? I'd just like to ask him why the hell he has a LinkedIn account. Given the current crop of Republican candidates, I'd say he's got job security at least until 2016.
Related Stories10 Awesome Apps for Your Jailbroken iPhone and iPad [Jailbreak Apps]
You've taken the plunge. Your iOS device is jailbroken. And now it's time to head straight to Cydia and download all those illicit apps that'll supercharge your iPhone or iPad.
Activator: Free
A shortcut, gestures, and button management tool. A great way to enhance how you interact with your device. Use a gesture to launch an app, hold down the volume key to make a call. It's total control, and it feels like magic.
WinterBoard: Free
Change the default look of your iPhone with WinterBoard themes. Video wallpaper, customized keyboards, a world of backgrounds to choose from. This should be one of your first stops to make your phone look exactly how you want it.
MyWi: $20
Tethering your iPhone without getting dinged by your carrier is one of the main reasons people jailbreak. Here's the app that'll help you do it. Warning, if your carrier realizes what's happening, they're gonna be pissed.
iKeyEx: Free
A keyboard extender that adds the number buttons to the top of your iOS devices keyboard. A real time saver especially if you need to input alpha-numeric information on a regular basis.
My3G: $4
Trick your iPhone into thinking your 3G connection is actually a Wi-Fi connection. Now you can do FaceTime anywhere.
iBlacklist: $12
Block calls and texts from people you don't want to talk to anymore. I've been getting a ton of SMS spam lately and this is a lifesaver.
Lockinfo: $8
If you're envious of Android owners and their fancy lock screens, give Lockinfo a download. You can peruse the weather, time, calendar events, and more, all without diving into your phone. And there are enough themes and plugins available for Lockinfo that the sky's the limit.
SBSettings: Free
Add settings to iOS 5's Notification Center. That's just one of the tweaks you can make to your device with this Springboard settings app.
Multiflow: $5
Show all the open apps in a single screen for fast switching. It's Expose for your iPhone and iPad.
Gridock: Free
Put icons anywhere on the screen without having to adhere to the slide-to-fill rows and columns on your iOS device. Want icons only in the four corners of a home screen? You're crazy. I love it. Use Gridlock.
Not quite sure how to actually jailbreak your device? Lifehacker has a great series of how-tos that cover every device and iOS version. Proceed with caution!
Related StoriesThe Best Worst Photos of Megaupload's Kim Dotcom [Video]
Kim Schmitz aka Kimble aka Kim Dotcom. He was born in Kiel, Germany. According to the feds, he has done many bad things. But who was Kim the man, really? Was he a monster? A gangster? A misunderstood genius perhaps?
These images are better than any biography. So, without further ado, witness Kim Dot Il in unharnessed action. Enjoy.
He ate.
He used his thumbs.
He tried to eat Bruce Willis.
He jumped on beaches.
He pointed at girls in bikinis while simultaneously pointing at yachts.
He held guns.
He covered himself with alive female humans.
He hung out with three girls.
He watched movies on a portable DVD player.
He jacuzzied fully dressed with several males and one female in bikini.
He hammer-timed on the beach.
He hammer-timed on a yacht.
He threw parties with dancing engineers and software developers.
He did good steak impressions.
He hunted some ducks.
He drove cars.
He gave thumbs up to magazines with naked girl photos on them.
His lived in a $30 million estate in New Zealand.
He talked on the phone by blue sport cars.
He bathed with balloons.
He drank juice on planes.
He hung out on planes.
He bathed in foam.
He bathed in a lot of foam.
He liked music.
Found more good photos of the King Kim? Please send them to me using the mail below.
What Comes After 4G? [What Is]
Wait wait wait, we're talking about 5G mobile data now?! Ugh, but we just got 4G squared away. In any case, the ball is already rolling on the next generation of cellular technology, so we might as well figure out what in the hell IMT-Advanced is.
IMT-Advanced will not be the next mobile data technology that Verizon or Sprint or AT&T try and sell you. It's what the WiMAX's and LTE's of the world will look to when jockeying to become the next mobile data spec. IMT has been one of the most influential organizations in developing mobile broadband standards over the past couple of decades, and now that they've put the finishing touches on their IMT-Advanced spec, that trend will continue. Think of it like those proto-cars at auto shows; you'll see them someday, but they'll go through some changes before hitting the road.
Two current standards are currently approved by IMT as meeting their Advanced spec: WirelessMAN-Advanced and and LTE-Advanced, which are based off the pre-existing WiMax and LTE technologies. LTE-Advanced is the obvious front runner, but you never know what could happen between now and then.
This is probably the least surprising part of 5G IMT-Advanced. It will be faster than 4G LTE and WiMAX. Both WiMax and LTE both promise theoretical download speeds over 100 Mbits/second. IMT-Advance technologies will have a theoretical max of 1 Gbit/second. Daily Trends says you'll theoretically be able to download a 720p TV show in 90 seconds or less. FAST.
IMT-Advance technologies will not only to be able to allow more connections at each individual cellular hub, but will facilitate seamless handoffs when moving from one hub to another. Hopefully, that means good things for cities such as SF and NYC, which are affected both by heavy clusters of smartphone users and signal killers that are tall buildings.
More bandwidth means less stress on the networks of mobile providers. Less stress on mobile networks means less of a need to impose data caps on consumers. If IMT-Advance delivers on its promise, we could see upward aspiring companies become competitive by racing to lift data caps.
The earliest implementations of IMT-Advanced could arrive in a couple of years, as Daily Trends ponts out, but it'll be longer than that before you see national coverage and a solid ecosystem of handsets. 4G LTE just grew into its own shoes, which came roughly four years after 3G did the same. Still though, how do you not get excited about 5G?!
Original Image via Lifehacker
Related StoriesGizmodo Night and Weekend Editors Wanted [Announcements]
The person we're looking for knows and gets technology, gadgets, design and the internet crazy amazingly well. They're smart, and snappy, like cybernetic whips. And they've got at least two years of tech journalism experience.
To the requirements:
• For the night position, based in Europe or Asia (fluency in written English required! Obviously!) or a crazy-but-reliable-night owl. You'll be writing and editing from night time to early morning, East Coast time.
• For the weekend position, based in the US is bestest, since you'll be writing and editing during normal East Coast hours.
• Know technology. Know news. Know internet culture. Be awesome.
• At least two years writing about gadgets or technology professionally—for a website, a newspaper or magazine. Sorry kids, this isn't optional!
• A strong editorial sense: The ability to find the most important news, most killer image or most amazing thing at that very moment, package it beautifully and get it up fast. (This is super duper uper critical.)
The night gig is full time; the weekend gig, well, you know. The pay and benefits are competitive. The job will love you. Apply here: jobs@gizmodo.com with the subject "late night writer" or "weekend writer." No attachments. We're really looking forward to hearing from you, if you are excellent.
Related StoriesNetflix Discovers It Has a Marketing Problem [NetFlix]
Adage reports that Netflix is replacing its chief marketing officer Leslie Kilgore. You don't say? I'm nearly as surprised as I was when yesterday was Thursday. Netflix' marketing was nothing short of disasterous last year.
It's little wonder the company is looking for someone new. Kilgore has been running Netflix marketing since 2000, and obviously has done a lot of good work in that time. But 2011? Sheesh. It was an utter disaster. And much of that can be laid at the feet of bad marketing.
The thing is, Netflix' actual product—video delivery—remained solid. In some ways (like its new iPad or Android apps) it even improved. But marketing and messaging was an outright disaster. I mean, it took one of the most-recognized brands in technology, split it in half, and renamed its main business after a foul-mouthed, dope-smoking kid on Twitter without ever bothering to secure the handle.
Worse, it didn't gauge customer reactions before making big changes. Even that disastrous new pricing scheme, could likely have been handled smoothly with better communications and marketing aimed at giving customers an incentive to swap—or at least some sticky streaming price point that people would have been wowed by. Instead it just came off as arrogant and out of touch with what its customers wanted.
So it spent much of 2011 backpedaling, apologizing, and being mocked. It rolled out bizarre videos, and seemed to be in pure reaction mode much of the time. Its press was almost entirely lousy. Users revolted. All because it couldn't explain what it was doing, or why you should buy into it. And it seemed to be completely ignorant of how its customers would react to anything it did.
Now, if only it could do something about that CEO.
Related StoriesNFL Team Logo Mats Are Your Cleanliness-Is-Next-to-NFL-iness Deal of the Day [Top]
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Senate Leader Harry Reid Postpones PIPA Vote (Updated: RIAA Speaks) [Piracy]
In response to tuesday's online blackout in protest of the proposed SOPA and PIPA bills floating around congress, Senate leader Harry Reid has opted to postpone the vote on the bill, believing there's a way to first find compromise between all parties.
From his official statement:
There is no reason that the legitimate issues raised by many about this bill cannot be resolved. Counterfeiting and piracy cost the American economy billions of dollars and thousands of jobs each year, with the movie industry alone supporting over 2.2 million jobs. We must take action to stop these illegal practices. We live in a country where people rightfully expect to be fairly compensated for a day's work, whether that person is a miner in the high desert of Nevada, an independent band in New York City, or a union worker on the back lots of a California movie studio.
UPDATE: The RIAA has issed an official statement on the Senate decision. Unsurprisingly, they're not happy.
Related Stories"There is a near universal consensus that cracking down on foreign rogue websites is an important priority for the U.S. government. The Senate had an opportunity to have a national conversation about an important and urgent issue: protecting American workers and consumers from foreign criminals. It is a shame that the Senate will not have that debate next week.
"This issue is too important, too vital to our economy, to let misleading demagoguery have a veto over meaningful reforms. Everyone, every intermediary in the Internet ecosystem, has a role to play and a responsibility to help. We have been told repeatedly that the tech community agrees that something needs to be done. We take them at their word, and continue to hope that we can sit down with responsible leaders from that community to devise a solution that will address counterfeiting and theft and, yes, bring the rule of law to the Internet."
Why Did the Feds Target Megaupload? And Why Now? [Megaupload]
The federal government, with help from police abroad, came down on Megaupload.com with the online cop fury of an Old Testament God. But why Megaupload? And why now?
There are plenty of players in the no-questions-asked online storage game: HulkShare, MediaFire, YouSendIt. They're all staples of web sharing—and they're all still up and running today. Partly because they're smaller than Megaupload, partly because they're smarter, but mostly because they're don't operate like sloppy drug kingpins.
The Justice Department's whopping 72-page indictment against Megaupload—or as it's tellingly referred to in the document, the "Mega Conspiracy"—illuminates a cavalier operation of opulence, carelessness, and tons of money. The Mega Conspiracy crew—which spanned continents, and was lead by flamboyant fatboy millionaire conman Kim Dotcom—was openly, wittingly rich off of copyrighted music. They were flagrant about their intentions to squeeze cash out of Simpsons episodes and 50 Cent albums, rewarding their most piracy-pushing users, laundering money through the site, and spending the cash in the most conspicuous ways imaginable.
And the feds have records of all of it.
Of all the brushes that painted a giant target on Megaupload's back, the most obvious one is size. Megaupload ain't no misnomer; the megasite consumed a staggering 4 percent of all traffic on the internet with 50 million daily visitors. There were other places to throw the dart, but Megaupload was a glowing bullseye the size of a dinner plate, they earned millions on their own through ad revenue, and allegedly cost copyright owners an estimated $500 million (the MPAA reportedly provided highly inflated financial damage estimates to the DoJ in advance of the crackdown). The Mega Conspiracy was too good for its own good.
The sheer volume alone was enough to attract the attention of the Justice Department's Intellectual Property Task Force; from there, it wasn't hard for the feds to start getting very suspicious, very quickly. Because Megaupload wasn't just big; it was brazen. The site didn't have blinking text that said SHARE YOUR PIRATED STUFF HERE, but the motive was clear. According to the indictment, the site wanted good pirated gems uploaded and spread far and wide. The document goes on to state that Mega knew it had infringing videos and songs on its servers, and wanted it downloaded as much as possible for maximum ad money. So they bribed users to do it for them, says the indictment:
The Mega Conspiracy did provide financial incentives for premium users to post links on linking sites through the "Uploader Rewards" program, which ensured widespread distribution of Megaupload.com links throughout the Internet and an inventory of popular content on the MegaConspiracy's computer servers.
The rewards took the form of premium account upgrades, which allowing for faster downloads, or in some cases, straight cash.
The sprawling indictment goes on to describe cash that was spread around Megaupload's international presence, with million dollar transfers flying between Hong Kong, Virginia, and Georgia, courtesy of a coding team that spanned US, Europe, and New Zealand. Some of this money went back into beefing up Megaupload, or was paid out to its super users. The Mega money bin also served as a handy way to launder money, the feds claim:
Members of the Enterprise and their associates committed money laundering, attempted to commit money laundering, and conspired to commit money laundering to facilitate and expand the Enterprise's criminal operations.
Pretty cut and dry. And on top of all that, plenty of the dough was just pocketed: in 2010 alone, Kim Dotcom, the site's Dr. Robotnik-meets-Larry Flynt founder, hauled in $42 million. His taste for women, expensive things, and surfeit is well documented. Last fall, while attempting to bribe New Zealand into residency and a $30 million mansion, he bought a $500,000 fireworks show for the city of Auckland. Just because he could. In the Feds' eyes, he was a known crook who lived too large. And if you're itching for a piracy conviction, why go after boring Jimmy HulkShare when you can hit the guy laundering money around the planet and buying his own fireworks shows?
Then again, Megaupload's meteoric piracy blaze and Dotcom's obese materialism had been rolling for years. Why yesterday? We asked the DoJ's IP Task Force, and they haven't responded (yet). But CNET's Molly Wood has a conspiratorial-sounding theory that makes a hell of a lot of sense—and explains why that itch had grown so strong. It all came down to SOPA:
My sources tell me the timing of the Megaupload arrests was no accident. The federal government, they say, was spoiling for a fight after the apparent defeat of SOPA/PIPA and not a little humiliation at the hands of the Web. And what better way to bolster the cause for cyber-crackdown than by pointing to a massive display of cyber-terrorism at the hands of everyone's favorite Internet boogeyman: Anonymous?
They certainly got Anonymous' attention.
The feds—those tasked as intellectual property sentinels in particular—want more power to kill sites like Megaupload. It looks like they're not going to get their way through legislation, so setting a prominent target ablaze in a very public and dramatic manner is a great screw you to SOPA's foes.
If that's the case, the Department of Justice should be gagging on irony: their swift destruction of Megaupload sans SOPA proves how gratuitous the bill was in the first place. This week has been the week of copyright warfare, but the decision to nuke the king copyright violator so spectacularly only goes to show how little the feds need bigger bombs.
Original photo: Amy Walters/Shutterstock
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