Thursday, April 5, 2007
Google turns to users for online maps
SAN FRANCISCO (AP) - Google Inc. (NASDAQ:GOOG) is calling upon its millions of users to chart a new direction for its online maps.As part of an initiative being launched Thursday, the Internet search leader will provide free tools designed to make it easy for people to share their knowledge about their neighborhoods and other favorite places by creating customized maps that can assemble information from a variety of sources.The map creators will be given the option to make the content public or keep it private.Thousands of hybrid maps, often called 'mashups,' are already available on the Web, documenting everything from local housing markets to active volcanos.But cobbling together an online map typically requires some computer coding skills.Google has tailored its tools for a mass audience, making map mashups as easy to produce as pointing and clicking a computer mouse. The Mountain View-based company is hoping the simplicity will generate millions of highly specialized maps that can be stored in its search index.Until now, Google's two-year-old maps had primarily been used for driving directions and finding local businesses. The more personal maps should open up new avenues as users share insights about their favorite vacation spots or a wide range of academic subjects, said Jessica Lee, product manager of Google maps.'This is a big change,' Lee said. 'Even if we cut loose all our developers, we could never create maps with the same depth and quality as our users can.'While testing the new tools, Google's own engineers created maps focused on U.S. Route 66, the Hawaiian island of Kauai, Major League Baseball stadiums and voting patterns in the 2004 presidential election.If Google succeeds in its effort to build a vast storehouse of customized maps, its Web site could become an even more popular Internet destination. Achieving that goal would give Google even more opportunities to display the online ads that accounted for most of its $3.1 billion profit last year.The feature also could drive more traffic to Google's YouTube because the new toolkit also includes an option to embed video into the customized maps.Google's maps already are a big draw, with 22.2 million U.S. visitors during February, according to the most recent data available from comScore Media Metrix. That ranked Google maps third in its category, trailing AOL's Mapquest (45.1 million visitors) and Yahoo (NASDAQ:YHOO) (29.1 million visitors).The concept of mapping mashups was popularized by a computer animation engineer, Paul Rademacher, who charted apartment listings from Craigslist. Google has since hired Rademacher to work in its mapping department.Copyright 2007 Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
Solar bursts may threaten GPS
WASHINGTON (AP) -- The Global Positioning System, relied on for everything from navigating cars and airplanes to transferring money between banks, may be threatened by powerful solar flares, a panel of scientists warned Wednesday.
"Our increasingly technologically dependent society is becoming increasingly vulnerable to space weather," David L. Johnson, director of the National Weather Service, said at a briefing.
GPS receivers have become widely used in recent years, using satellite signals in navigating airplanes, ships and automobiles, and in using cell phones, mining, surveying and many other commercial uses.
Indeed, banks use the system to synchronize money transfers, "so space weather can affect all of us, right down to our wallet," said Anthea J. Coster, an atmospheric scientist at the Haystack Observatory of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
The cause for their concern, Johnson said, was an unexpected solar radio burst on December 6 that affected virtually every GPS receiver on the lighted half of Earth. Some receivers had a reduction in accuracy while others completely lost the ability to determine position, he said.
Solar activity rises and falls in 11-year cycles, with the next peak expected in 2011.
If that increasing level of activity produces more such radio bursts the GPS system could be seriously affected, the researchers said.
And protecting the system is no simple task, added Paul M. Kintner Jr., a professor of electrical engineering at Cornell University, who monitored the December event.
There are two possible ways to shield the system, he said, both very expensive. Either alter all GPS antennas to screen out solar signals or replace all of the GPS satellites with ones that broadcast a stronger signal.
That's why it's essential to learn more about the sun's behavior quickly in an effort to find ways to predict such events, the researchers said.
In addition to the GPS system, the December solar flare affected satellites and induced unexpected currents in the electrical grid, Johnson said.
"The effects were more profound than we expected and more widespread than we expected," added Kintner.
Dale E. Gary, chairman of the physics department of the New Jersey Institute of Technology, said the burst produced 10 times more radio noise than any burst previously recorded.
The difference between that burst and normal solar radio emissions "was like the difference between the noise level of a normal conversation and the noise level in the front row of a rock concert," he said.
"This is a wake-up call" to improve technology, commented Anthony J. Mannucci, group supervisor at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory.
Patricia H. Doherty, co-director of the Institute for Scientific Research at Boston College, said the burst affected but did not shut down the Federal Aviation Administration's Wide Area Augmentation System, which uses GPS signals to assist in navigation.
Most of the WAAS ground stations were able to maintain contact with enough satellites to continue working, though their accuracy was somewhat affected, she said.
The stations have to maintain contact with at least four satellites to work, but usually monitor at least 10 to increase their accuracy, she said. Most were able to meet the minimum, she said.
The briefing came at a Space Weather Enterprise Forum convened by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration to discuss the effects of solar activity. Because of its increasing importance, Johnson said, the Weather Service's Space Environment Center was converted from a mainly research center in 2005 to an operational center reporting on solar activity and its impacts.
Copyright 2007 The Associated Press. All rights reserved.This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
"Our increasingly technologically dependent society is becoming increasingly vulnerable to space weather," David L. Johnson, director of the National Weather Service, said at a briefing.
GPS receivers have become widely used in recent years, using satellite signals in navigating airplanes, ships and automobiles, and in using cell phones, mining, surveying and many other commercial uses.
Indeed, banks use the system to synchronize money transfers, "so space weather can affect all of us, right down to our wallet," said Anthea J. Coster, an atmospheric scientist at the Haystack Observatory of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
The cause for their concern, Johnson said, was an unexpected solar radio burst on December 6 that affected virtually every GPS receiver on the lighted half of Earth. Some receivers had a reduction in accuracy while others completely lost the ability to determine position, he said.
Solar activity rises and falls in 11-year cycles, with the next peak expected in 2011.
If that increasing level of activity produces more such radio bursts the GPS system could be seriously affected, the researchers said.
And protecting the system is no simple task, added Paul M. Kintner Jr., a professor of electrical engineering at Cornell University, who monitored the December event.
There are two possible ways to shield the system, he said, both very expensive. Either alter all GPS antennas to screen out solar signals or replace all of the GPS satellites with ones that broadcast a stronger signal.
That's why it's essential to learn more about the sun's behavior quickly in an effort to find ways to predict such events, the researchers said.
In addition to the GPS system, the December solar flare affected satellites and induced unexpected currents in the electrical grid, Johnson said.
"The effects were more profound than we expected and more widespread than we expected," added Kintner.
Dale E. Gary, chairman of the physics department of the New Jersey Institute of Technology, said the burst produced 10 times more radio noise than any burst previously recorded.
The difference between that burst and normal solar radio emissions "was like the difference between the noise level of a normal conversation and the noise level in the front row of a rock concert," he said.
"This is a wake-up call" to improve technology, commented Anthony J. Mannucci, group supervisor at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory.
Patricia H. Doherty, co-director of the Institute for Scientific Research at Boston College, said the burst affected but did not shut down the Federal Aviation Administration's Wide Area Augmentation System, which uses GPS signals to assist in navigation.
Most of the WAAS ground stations were able to maintain contact with enough satellites to continue working, though their accuracy was somewhat affected, she said.
The stations have to maintain contact with at least four satellites to work, but usually monitor at least 10 to increase their accuracy, she said. Most were able to meet the minimum, she said.
The briefing came at a Space Weather Enterprise Forum convened by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration to discuss the effects of solar activity. Because of its increasing importance, Johnson said, the Weather Service's Space Environment Center was converted from a mainly research center in 2005 to an operational center reporting on solar activity and its impacts.
Copyright 2007 The Associated Press. All rights reserved.This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
Wednesday, April 4, 2007
Virtual feds visit Second Life casinos
NEW YORK (Reuters) -- FBI investigators have visited Second Life's Internet casinos at the invitation of the virtual world's creator Linden Lab, but the U.S. government has not decided on the legality of virtual gambling.
"We have invited the FBI several times to take a look around in Second Life and raise any concerns they would like, and we know of at least one instance that federal agents did look around in a virtual casino," said Ginsu Yoon, until recently Linden Lab's general counsel and currently vice president for business affairs.
Second Life is a popular online virtual world with millions of registered users and its own economy and currency, known as the Linden dollar, which can be exchanged for U.S. dollars.
Yoon said the company was seeking guidance on virtual gaming activity in Second Life but had not yet received clear rules from U.S. authorities.
The FBI and the U.S. Attorney's Office for Northern California declined comment.
Hundreds of casinos offering poker, slot machines and blackjack can easily be found in Second Life. While it is difficult to estimate the total size of the gambling economy in Second Life, the three largest poker casinos are earning profits of a modest $1,500 each per month, according to casino owners and people familiar with the industry.
The surge in Second Life gambling coincides with a crackdown in the real world by the U.S. government, which has arrested executives from offshore gambling Web sites.
Most lawyers agree that placing bets with Linden dollars likely violates U.S. anti-gambling statutes, which cover circumstances in which "something of value" is wagered. But the degree of Linden Lab's responsibility, and the likelihood of a any crackdown, is uncertain.
"That's the risk; we have a set of unknowns and we don't know how they're going to play out," said Brent Britton, an attorney specializing in emergent technology at the law firm Squire, Sanders & Dempsey in Tampa, Florida.
Britton said Linden Lab could potentially face criminal charges under the 1970 Illegal Gambling Business Act or the Unlawful Internet Gambling Enforcement Act. The latter law, passed last year, takes aim at credit card companies and other electronic funds transfers that enable Internet gambling.
"What they did was go after the processors, and made it a crime to process payments that relate to online gambling sites. Linden could potentially be held as the same sort of processor," said Sean Kane, a lawyer at New York's Drakeford & Kane who has studied the legal issues of virtual worlds.
"If you're buying money on the Lindex (a virtual currency exchange) and utilizing it for gambling purposes, Linden could have a much higher level of responsibility," he added. "If they would be found in violation, that's difficult to say, but I can see a much stronger case being made."
Linden Lab's rules prohibit illegal activity.
"It's not always clear to us whether a 3-D simulation of a casino is the same thing as a casino, legally speaking, and it's not clear to the law enforcement authorities we have asked," Yoon said.
Even if the law were clear, he said the company would have no way to monitor or prevent gambling in Second Life.
Copyright 2007 Reuters. All rights reserved.This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
"We have invited the FBI several times to take a look around in Second Life and raise any concerns they would like, and we know of at least one instance that federal agents did look around in a virtual casino," said Ginsu Yoon, until recently Linden Lab's general counsel and currently vice president for business affairs.
Second Life is a popular online virtual world with millions of registered users and its own economy and currency, known as the Linden dollar, which can be exchanged for U.S. dollars.
Yoon said the company was seeking guidance on virtual gaming activity in Second Life but had not yet received clear rules from U.S. authorities.
The FBI and the U.S. Attorney's Office for Northern California declined comment.
Hundreds of casinos offering poker, slot machines and blackjack can easily be found in Second Life. While it is difficult to estimate the total size of the gambling economy in Second Life, the three largest poker casinos are earning profits of a modest $1,500 each per month, according to casino owners and people familiar with the industry.
The surge in Second Life gambling coincides with a crackdown in the real world by the U.S. government, which has arrested executives from offshore gambling Web sites.
Most lawyers agree that placing bets with Linden dollars likely violates U.S. anti-gambling statutes, which cover circumstances in which "something of value" is wagered. But the degree of Linden Lab's responsibility, and the likelihood of a any crackdown, is uncertain.
"That's the risk; we have a set of unknowns and we don't know how they're going to play out," said Brent Britton, an attorney specializing in emergent technology at the law firm Squire, Sanders & Dempsey in Tampa, Florida.
Britton said Linden Lab could potentially face criminal charges under the 1970 Illegal Gambling Business Act or the Unlawful Internet Gambling Enforcement Act. The latter law, passed last year, takes aim at credit card companies and other electronic funds transfers that enable Internet gambling.
"What they did was go after the processors, and made it a crime to process payments that relate to online gambling sites. Linden could potentially be held as the same sort of processor," said Sean Kane, a lawyer at New York's Drakeford & Kane who has studied the legal issues of virtual worlds.
"If you're buying money on the Lindex (a virtual currency exchange) and utilizing it for gambling purposes, Linden could have a much higher level of responsibility," he added. "If they would be found in violation, that's difficult to say, but I can see a much stronger case being made."
Linden Lab's rules prohibit illegal activity.
"It's not always clear to us whether a 3-D simulation of a casino is the same thing as a casino, legally speaking, and it's not clear to the law enforcement authorities we have asked," Yoon said.
Even if the law were clear, he said the company would have no way to monitor or prevent gambling in Second Life.
Copyright 2007 Reuters. All rights reserved.This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
Tuesday, April 3, 2007
Google goes back to maps showing Katrina damage
NEW ORLEANS, Louisiana (AP) -- Google Inc. is once again showing this city in ruins after the company came under fire for replacing post-Hurricane Katrina imagery on its popular map portal with views of the city as it existed before the storm.
An Associated Press article on Thursday highlighted the changes, leading a U.S. House subcommittee to accuse Google of "airbrushing history" for depicting a New Orleans and Mississippi Gulf Coast without hurricane damage.
The new satellite imagery, which offers a bird's eye view of the world, now shows post-Katrina New Orleans dotted by blue protective tarps on damaged roofs and the Lower 9th Ward neighborhood covered in debris.
Still, the new images are outdated. For example, there is no sign of the massive floodgates that the Army Corps of Engineers built on three drainage canals. Google is still using pre-Katrina pictures for some small coastal towns on the Mississippi Gulf Coast. Places like Waveland, Bay St. Louis and Pass Christian were obliterated by Katrina but were intact on Google maps.
John Hanke, Google director for satellite imagery, said in an entry on Google's blog Monday that the imagery was changed last September "with pre-Katrina aerial photography of much higher resolution as part of a regular series of global data enhancements."
"Given that the changes that affected New Orleans happened many months ago, we were a bit surprised by some of these recent comments," Hanke wrote in his blog. "Make no mistake, this wasn't any effort on our part to rewrite history."
Late Sunday, Google replaced the pre-Katrina imagery with aerial views from 2006, Hanke said.
Meanwhile, Google is expected to brief the U.S. House Committee on Science and Technology's subcommittee on investigations and oversight on the changes. Edith Holleman, the subcommittee's staff counsel, said that briefing has not been scheduled yet.
The subcommittee chairman, Democratic Rep. Brad Miller, wrote Google CEO Eric Schmidt to say that "Google's use of old imagery appears to be doing the victims of Hurricane Katrina a great injustice by airbrushing history."
Copyright 2007 The Associated Press. All rights reserved.This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
An Associated Press article on Thursday highlighted the changes, leading a U.S. House subcommittee to accuse Google of "airbrushing history" for depicting a New Orleans and Mississippi Gulf Coast without hurricane damage.
The new satellite imagery, which offers a bird's eye view of the world, now shows post-Katrina New Orleans dotted by blue protective tarps on damaged roofs and the Lower 9th Ward neighborhood covered in debris.
Still, the new images are outdated. For example, there is no sign of the massive floodgates that the Army Corps of Engineers built on three drainage canals. Google is still using pre-Katrina pictures for some small coastal towns on the Mississippi Gulf Coast. Places like Waveland, Bay St. Louis and Pass Christian were obliterated by Katrina but were intact on Google maps.
John Hanke, Google director for satellite imagery, said in an entry on Google's blog Monday that the imagery was changed last September "with pre-Katrina aerial photography of much higher resolution as part of a regular series of global data enhancements."
"Given that the changes that affected New Orleans happened many months ago, we were a bit surprised by some of these recent comments," Hanke wrote in his blog. "Make no mistake, this wasn't any effort on our part to rewrite history."
Late Sunday, Google replaced the pre-Katrina imagery with aerial views from 2006, Hanke said.
Meanwhile, Google is expected to brief the U.S. House Committee on Science and Technology's subcommittee on investigations and oversight on the changes. Edith Holleman, the subcommittee's staff counsel, said that briefing has not been scheduled yet.
The subcommittee chairman, Democratic Rep. Brad Miller, wrote Google CEO Eric Schmidt to say that "Google's use of old imagery appears to be doing the victims of Hurricane Katrina a great injustice by airbrushing history."
Copyright 2007 The Associated Press. All rights reserved.This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
Monday, April 2, 2007
EMI-Apple pen deal to sell songs
LONDON, England (AP) -- Breaking from the rest of the recording industry, EMI Group said Monday it will begin selling songs online that are free of copy-protection technology through Apple Inc.'s iTunes Store. The deal, however, doesn't include music from the label's biggest act, The Beatles.
ITunes customers will soon be able to buy songs by the Rolling Stones, Norah Jones, Coldplay and other top-selling artists for $1.29, or 30 cents more than the copy-protected version. The premium tunes also will be offered in a higher quality than the 99-cent tracks.
EMI Chief Executive Eric Nicoli said The Beatles music catalog is excluded from the deal, but said the company was "working on it." He declined to set a time frame for negotiations over the catalog.
The announcement followed calls by Apple Chief Executive Steve Jobs earlier this year for the world's four major record companies, including EMI Group PLC, to start selling songs online without copy-protection software.
The technology, known as digital rights management, or DRM, is designed to combat piracy by preventing unauthorized copying or sharing, but it also can be a consumer headache. Some music players, for instance, support one type of DRM software but not others.
The DRM used by Apple does not work with competing services or devices, meaning that consumers can only download songs from iTunes to work on their computers or iPod music players.
The lock between the download services and players has drawn criticism from European industry regulators, who argue that it limits buyer choice.
"Doing the right thing for the customer going forward is to tear down the walls that impede interoperability," Jobs told a London news conference.
He has previously argued there was little benefit to record companies selling more than 90 percent of their music without DRM on compact discs, then selling the remaining percentage online with DRM.
Some analysts suggest that lifting the software restrictions could boost sales of online music, which currently account for around 10 percent of global music sales.
Jobs said that he planned to offer around half of all music in the iTunes store under the premium package by the end of the year, but declined to say whether the company was in discussions with other leading record companies.
"Consumers tell us overwhelmingly that they would be prepared to pay a higher price for digital music that they could use on any player," Nicoli said. "It is key to unlocking and energizing the digital music business."
The iTunes music store will begin offering EMI's entire catalog -- apart from The Beatles -- without DRM software starting next month, he said.
EMI has acted as the distributor for The Beatles since the early 1960s, but The Beatles' music holding company, Apple Corps Ltd., has so far declined to allow the Fab Four's music on any Internet music services, including iTunes.
The situation was exacerbated by a long-running trademark dispute between Apple Inc. and Apple Corps. That legal feud was resolved in February when the two companies agreed on joint use of the apple logo and name, a deal many saw as paving the way for an agreement for online access to the Fab Four's songs.
Apple Corps was founded by the Beatles in 1968 and is still owned by Paul McCartney, Ringo Starr, the widow of John Lennon and the estate of George Harrison.
Copyright 2007 The Associated Press. All rights reserved.This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
ITunes customers will soon be able to buy songs by the Rolling Stones, Norah Jones, Coldplay and other top-selling artists for $1.29, or 30 cents more than the copy-protected version. The premium tunes also will be offered in a higher quality than the 99-cent tracks.
EMI Chief Executive Eric Nicoli said The Beatles music catalog is excluded from the deal, but said the company was "working on it." He declined to set a time frame for negotiations over the catalog.
The announcement followed calls by Apple Chief Executive Steve Jobs earlier this year for the world's four major record companies, including EMI Group PLC, to start selling songs online without copy-protection software.
The technology, known as digital rights management, or DRM, is designed to combat piracy by preventing unauthorized copying or sharing, but it also can be a consumer headache. Some music players, for instance, support one type of DRM software but not others.
The DRM used by Apple does not work with competing services or devices, meaning that consumers can only download songs from iTunes to work on their computers or iPod music players.
The lock between the download services and players has drawn criticism from European industry regulators, who argue that it limits buyer choice.
"Doing the right thing for the customer going forward is to tear down the walls that impede interoperability," Jobs told a London news conference.
He has previously argued there was little benefit to record companies selling more than 90 percent of their music without DRM on compact discs, then selling the remaining percentage online with DRM.
Some analysts suggest that lifting the software restrictions could boost sales of online music, which currently account for around 10 percent of global music sales.
Jobs said that he planned to offer around half of all music in the iTunes store under the premium package by the end of the year, but declined to say whether the company was in discussions with other leading record companies.
"Consumers tell us overwhelmingly that they would be prepared to pay a higher price for digital music that they could use on any player," Nicoli said. "It is key to unlocking and energizing the digital music business."
The iTunes music store will begin offering EMI's entire catalog -- apart from The Beatles -- without DRM software starting next month, he said.
EMI has acted as the distributor for The Beatles since the early 1960s, but The Beatles' music holding company, Apple Corps Ltd., has so far declined to allow the Fab Four's music on any Internet music services, including iTunes.
The situation was exacerbated by a long-running trademark dispute between Apple Inc. and Apple Corps. That legal feud was resolved in February when the two companies agreed on joint use of the apple logo and name, a deal many saw as paving the way for an agreement for online access to the Fab Four's songs.
Apple Corps was founded by the Beatles in 1968 and is still owned by Paul McCartney, Ringo Starr, the widow of John Lennon and the estate of George Harrison.
Copyright 2007 The Associated Press. All rights reserved.This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
