Games vs. Music:

The Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) is a stick-in-the-mud organization that uses litigation to protect copyright music. While you can’t blame the legal arm of the recording industry for protecting its intellectual property, the RIAA has proven resistant to adapt to changes in music distribution.

Compare the plight of the recording industry to a different digital medium, video games and you get a stark contrast. Few industries are as adaptable and experimental as the video games industry. Perhaps that’s why PricewaterhouseCoopers has recently suggested there will be a $68.3 billion dollar spike in the games industry through to 2012.

Clint over at Audioholics thinks the music industry could learn a lot from gaming when it comes to keeping your sector profitable. The RIAA needs to listen and apply some new ideas for online distribution. Part of the reason the record industry is so bad off is the media itself, CDs are a media without a future. Who buys CDs nowadays?

It’s a pathetic failing of the recording industry that a computer hardware company like Apple created the most successful music retailer in the world. You can read the full article here: “Games Prove to Music Industry that Content is King”.

Philips has released two new eco-friendly HDTV product lines. The 5000 line are more affordable LCD panels and the 7000 is a higher-end line. Both lines include an ambient light detection feature that reduces energy consumption by reducing unnecessary backlighting when the room is darker. They’re also made completely lead-free and use parts with reduced or no toxicity in its flame retardant components. No word yet on the levels of bromine or PVCs, the harmful toxins generally used in almost all consumer electronics.

Both lines are 1080P flat panel LCDs with plenty of Philips own proprietary video enhancements and HDMI 1.3a. The 7000 line also includes 120Hz refresh rates which guarantees silky smooth motion whether you’re watching 60Hz video or 24 fps film.

Do electronics manufacturer’s waving the green flag mean we’re turning a corner in eco-friendly products? I say it’s a good start. The prohibitive cost of gas these days has a lot of people thinking seriously about energy efficiency.

Sony Ericsson F305

It had to happen sooner or later. The PlayStation Portable has been a successful little device for Sony, even thought it trails DS by miles in sales. But three years after its North American launch and PlayStation, even the newer Slim and Lite models, are missing something. A mobile phone, of course! That’s where Sony Ericsson’s new F line will come in.

The F305 is the first mobile gaming phone by Sony Ericsson. The quad-band GSM phone will support up to EDGE mobile network speeds and lots of cool gaming features. It’ll come with three games pre-loaded including: Bowling, Bass Fishing and Jockey. One of the secrets behind the phone is that it’ll support motion control – just what every gaming-phone needs. 

Since Wii’s motion revolution games designers aren’t satisfied with simple button mashing anymore. On a mobile gaming device, in-game motion control has potential to be pretty cool or it could be an utter disaster.

Note the familiar X and O keys, familiar to any Sony gamer. Also familiar to Sony fans is the required Memory Stick Micro that you’ll have to buy for your F305 gaming-phone. The new phone will be delivered with only a pathetic 10Megs built in.

You’ve seen the cell phone popcorn videos on You Tube and wondered what all that cell phone radiation is doing to your noggin. But being as you use the N95, the most powerful cell phone in the world, and would pop your head clean off, you’ve got to ask yourself one question: Do I feel lucky? Well, do ya, punk?

Is it true? Can cell phone radiation heat the moisture inside a kernel of popcorn enough to make it pop as if it were inside a microwave oven?

Of course not! The notion plays upon our natural superstitions toward things that use energy we cannot see. It’s a close relative of the kinds of superstitions that once explained thunder and lightning. The clever video is a trick. But cell phones do not give off enough microwaves to sufficiently excite the water inside a kernel of popcorn like a microwave oven.

It’s a riff on the natural fear of microwaves. If a cell phone could give off that much radiation it would fry your brain before your wife gave you her full carry-out fast food order. There would be no long-term, cancer-causing, deleterious mystery effects on the body. You would be struck with immediate, harsh physical pain every time you tried to talk on the cell phone.

The videos could have been an attempt at viral advertising by the cell phone’s manufacturers. Because the brands in the video range from Nokia to Sony-Ericsson it’s probably not advertising. But what a brilliant idea if the manufacturer’s marketing department came up with the video as an attempt at viral promotion.

That the message could be construed as a negative one for the product provider (ie. the cell phone is harmful) is immaterial to the marketing campaign. The lasting message would be the use of the cell phone in a party “good time” setting. Any issue of danger associated with the product would be flushed out in the subsequent popularity curve of the viral object.

Fortunately the science behind whether or not a cell phone could actually pop-popcorn has quickly debunked the validity of the video. It’s a clever act, nothing more.

Imagine having your iPhone scanned for copyrighted material on your way to a diner across the border. That’s exactly what the Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement would have you endure if it gets its way. It would slow travel with any data storage device and make anyone re-think their decision to carry an iPhone that has any copied music files.

If the deal passes, border guards would become copyright enforcement police responsible for checking data on laptops, iPods, cell phones and even USB thumb-drives. Draconian variations on copyright laws would be enforced to ensure any regard to fair use is tossed out the window. Established in the landmark 1984 Supreme Court decision, Sony vs. Universal City, fair use protects copying material you already own for personal use. Under the new policy you’d have prove you owned any CD you ripped onto your laptop or MP3 player.

The scary thing about this tri-lateral negation process between the EU, Canada and the US is it’s being held in secret. It seems to reflect the RIAA and Hollywood movie studio’s wettest dreams for content protection. ACTA documents were leaked that say officials could be given the "authority to take action against infringers."

So, anyone found with infringing content in their possession would be open to a fine or worse, could have devices confiscated or destroyed. All this would take place under searches without a lawyer present where debatable versions of laws are enforced and executed on the spot.
We can only hope ACTA is thrown away. Our overworked border security officials have more important security issues to keep them busy without having to become copyright enforcement agents.

Cell Phone Radiation

Cell phone radiation’s cancer causing risk is from its emission of an electromagnetic field (electromagnetic radiation) or EMF. EMF fear creates anxiety proportionate to media coverage of the topic. Mobile phones give off EMF, but so do power lines, household appliances, the Sun and the Earth.

In a three year review the National Research Council found there is no conclusive or consistent evidence that EMF causes harm to humans.

But the controversy keeps coming back as it did this week at the University of Calgary. Dr Robert Steller, an environmental consultant said: “Research shows prolonged exposure to electromagnetic radiation in the home can produce harmful effects on our bodies.”

Dr. Stellar went on to suggest that the risks can be averted by throwing away your microwaves, cell phones and unplugging electrical all appliances in your house - especially when you sleep.

He says that when you sleep the body detoxifies. Detoxification is part of a health-ideology that hates microwaves, cell phones and pretty much all technology. This radical form of holism believes in therapeutic crystals, hydro-colon cleansings and detoxifying foot-pad scams.

The misconception continues because it contains all the classic elements of the Urban Myth, tales that speak to collective anxieties about modern living. These stories play a role once filled by legends and myths of old. In cruel twists of fate, the wicked are punished while the just and meek are rewarded.

The Urban Myth is helped immensely if it involves unwittingly victimizing the very old and the very young. The EMF myth does this well as it holds that children and the elderly are especially at risk of cancer causing electromagnetic radiation.

If you feel EMF is causing you ill, maybe you’ve just been spending too much time plugged-in. May is a great time to unwind, get away from the computer, turn off the cell phone and your anxieties and just take a walk among the sun and fresh air.

Just be sure to use plenty of sun-screen – I swear too much outdoors will kill you!

If you’ve got one of those old-school, baking-cookies moms that expects grandchildren anytime now … and she wields a mean remote control, congrats - you’ve got a true digital mom. Here are few gift ideas for the mom that straddles the line between traditionalist and high-tech.

Keep her memories set to random with a Digital Frame. But don’t forget the SD memory card! Mom didn’t forgot the batteries for that spark shooting, walking robot you opened Christmas morning did she?

Most digital frames don’t come with built-in memory so you’ll probably have to buy an SD memory card. They can be about as cheap as batteries since you’ll do well with under a GB, and they’ll last a whole lot longer.

If you want to tell mom you’ve made it on mother’s day - there’s no better way to do it than with a high-brow Digital Camera. Sure, anyone can find a cheap digital camera these days but… buying someone a cheap-assed digital camera is like buying someone a headache.

Remember there are only two brands of cameras in the world: Canon and Nikon. The rest are well… the rest.

Okay shooter, you’ve got mad skillz with the cordless so why not mount an LCD Monitor for mom in the kitchen or bathroom.

Philips makes this amazing mirror LCD flat screen. Yes, it looks like a mirror when it’s off but you can flip it on to watch Oprah. If mom has one of those luxury tubs in a bathroom that can deal with excessive condensation, the mirror LCD monitor is the perfect companion to Epsom Salts.

Albert Hoffman, the father of LSD died Tuesday in Switzerland. He produced the substance as a medicine and probably didn’t intend to touch off the hippie revolution that followed Timothy Leary.

But the use of LSD as a hallucinogen by the Merry Pranksters in the 1960s is the basis for a wave of technological optimism that would follow for decades. It’s a cultural contribution that has so deeply permeated our lexicon that the self-actualization of LSD culture is taken for granted today, even in unexpected areas of society.

Corporate culture is great at tossing out meaningless vernacular when it doesn’t really know what to say. So, it borrows language from concepts like transcendence.

Terms like synergy and phrases like thinking out of the box are direct descendants of LSD (acid) culture. Try opening up that discussion at the board room over the next power point presentation!

Hoffman himself decided long ago that the self-realizing attributes of LSD can be achieved naturally so he did not condone using it as a recreational drug. Acid and other psychedelics are probably not as prevalent anymore, unfortunately having been replaced by the kinds of white powders often lamented by Ray Manzarek of the Doors. 

Next time you’re looking at a psychedelic Winamp visualizer plug-in that dances to your music… thank Hoffman for his part in the development of new technologies.

What other LSD inspired technologies can you think of?

Line for GTA IV

The game is said to be the biggest entertainment story of the year and is already projected to be the highest selling video game ever. Projections have some 400 million copies being sold in the first week alone. A small but dedicated crowd had already been waiting outside the doors of a local retailer since long before staff arrived for the midnight GTA IV event.

The crowd’s dedication to their game was from a grade of purity that’s difficult to find in the world today. There was no rumor of shortages. There was no possibility of speculators cashing in, buying copies and selling them on eBay for a profit. The mood at stores last night was nothing like recent game-console launches.

People waited outside the doors of the local electronics store because they could think of nothing they’d rather be doing at 11PM on a Monday night - they simply couldn’t wait to be the first kid on their block to play Grand Theft Auto IV.

In some way’s GTA IV epitomizes our cynical times. The Rockstar Games franchise was born out of controversy and remains rife with post-modern cynicism and a sarcasm that makes shows like The Simpson’s and Family Guy strike a deep chord with audiences. GTA IV is populated with sometimes brutal anti-heroes like the game’s star, Nico. Nico is the kind of digitally rendered guy who gets the attention of a generation that grew up learning to questioning rules and authority.

What kind of cynical young adults would sit outside a store at midnightGTA IV Begins waiting to get copies of this kind of video game? Grand Theft Auto IV doesn’t seem like the kind of storyline that would attract devotion normally associated with the Star Trek or World of Warcraft crowd.

It turns out the crowd waiting in line outside my local electronics big-box store consisted of a cross-section of regular people. There were students, workers and parents. They talked about their classes, jobs, kids and the kindly golfing weather we’ve enjoyed lately.

These were not air-headed fantasy fanatics, nor jaded anti-heroes like Nico. The lines last night were filled with normal people who, in one very un-jaded and non-cyincal night - let themselves be tipped into childlike excitement over the release of a video game.

The latest rumor has cropped up on the hopeful voice of the Toronto Star. Toronto’s left-leaning paper says industry contacts have told it Rogers hopes to unveil an iPhone plan by summer, making it part of a campaign to release new touch-screen phones.

The Star’s article said:

“It has been widely speculated that the stumbling block was Rogers’ wireless data plans.” That’s an understatement, Star!

Canadian Telcos; Bell (CDMA) and Rogers (GSM) have operated beneath an anti-competitive shield of government protectionism for years. Inside the bubble, Canadian telcos take advantage of helpless consumers by mercilessly brutalizing their customers with perhaps the highest prices for mobile data in the world.

It’s so bad that the burgeoning new industry of mobile data content is effectively squelched in Canada. This is why Apple has no interest in releasing iPhone through Rogers, Canada’s exclusive GSM provider.

Apple requires a reasonably priced, unlimited data plan for its iPhone so customers can get busy with Apple’s real business; which isn’t selling you cool communications devices… it’s selling you overpriced music tracks through iTunes.

President of Rogers was quoted in the piece as saying: “We’re not fans of unlimited plans…”

Of course you’re not a fan of unlimited plans Rogers! If you were you couldn’t charge customers a buck-a-meg for digital data.

iPhone hasn’t been released in Canada yet, not because of Apple’s indifference, but because of crooked Canadian Telcos.

Canadians are hopeful that healthy competition might be introduced when the former TV-UHF bands get auctioned off in 2009. That should bring Canada a host of new CDMA and GSM network providers.

Until then, to the communications back-waters of Canada at least, iPhone will remain an exotic curiosity of the modern world - like flush toilets were to the Bolsheviks who invaded Germany after World War II.

EDIT 4-29: Well, this story just turned out to be wrong. Rogers just announced that it cut a deal with Apple today.