TechEye |  |
- Google claims it is worth £28bn to the UK
- Big Content gets legal poke in the eye
- HR man becomes Nintendo boss
- Putin says Google plays monopoly
- Vodafone admits hacking journalist’s phone
- Intel regrets Broadwell fiasco
- Publisher gives “elite” Wackypedia editors present
- Intel wants to tackle smart-car security
- UK people need more than 10Mbps
| Google claims it is worth £28bn to the UK Posted: 15 Sep 2015 02:19 AM PDT
The move is clearly to convince people that it should not really be forced to pay tax like ordinary people. If it paid tax, it would not be able to bolster the UK economy so much. Accountancy firm Deloitte compiled the report, which is a little worrying given that the figures are so woolly. There is a big difference between £11bn and £28bn. Google claims it has created at least 210,000 jobs and has been great for the UK economy. Google, the search giant claimed. Obviously if you have a search engine algorithm then you will create jobs for those people who will tell you how to get around it. But it is not exactly a huge industry and really should not be there in the first place. The report states six key areas where Google claimed it has given the UK a competitive advantage: According to Google, the positive impact of its business on the UK far outweighs the negative. The report breaks down the effect of each of its products on the UK economy. So please stop talking about it writing cheques for real money to help the government provide health, social services and education. |
| Big Content gets legal poke in the eye Posted: 15 Sep 2015 02:07 AM PDT  US court in Texas Big Content's methods of automatically issuing take down notices of material it considers pirated received a poke in the eye from the US courts. A US appeals court ruled that copyright holders must consider “fair use” before demanding the removal of videos that people post online. In a closely followed case over a home video of a toddler dancing to the Prince hit “Let’s Go Crazy.” In that case Stephanie Lenz of Gallitzin, Pennsylvania had in February 2007 uploaded to YouTube a blurry 29-second clip of her 13-month-old son Holden happily bobbing up and down to “Let’s Go Crazy,” a 1984 song by Prince and The Revolution that played in the background. Lenz said she thought her family and friends would enjoy seeing the toddler, who had just learned to walk, dance as well. But Universal, which enforced Prince’s copyrights, persuaded YouTube to remove Lenz’s video, citing a good faith belief that the video was unauthorised. Lenz had the video restored and sued Universal over the takedown notice, seeking damages. “Copyright holders cannot shirk their duty to consider – in good faith and prior to sending a takedown notification – whether allegedly infringing material constitutes fair use,” Circuit Judge Richard Tallman wrote for a 3-0 panel. In January 2013, US District Judge Jeremy Fogel in San Francisco said copyright holders must consider fair use, but denied Lenz’s misrepresentation claim. Upholding that ruling, Tallman said there can be liability if a copyright holder “knowingly misrepresented” in a takedown notice that it had a good faith belief that a video “did not constitute fair use.” But he also said courts should defer to a copyright holder who has a “subjective good faith belief” to the contrary. The 9th Circuit said Lenz failed to overcome this hurdle, and instead may seek nominal damages for the “unquantifiable harm” she suffered. Corynne McSherry, a lawyer with the Electronic Frontier Foundation representing Lenz, said the decision “sends a strong message that copyright law does not authorize thoughtless censorship of lawful speech.” |
| Posted: 15 Sep 2015 01:59 AM PDT
Tatsumi Kimishima, 65, will succeed the legendary and now dead Satoru Iwata, the company said Monday. Kimishima has worked for Pokemon and was chief executive officer of Nintendo of America where he oversaw the US introduction of the Wii console and the 3DS handheld device. Kimishima has his work cut out improving Nintendo. Its business model has been undermined by competitors' free-to-play games on mobile devices and weak sales of its Wii U machine. Nintendo's revenue has fallen six straight years, dropping to 550 billion yen ($4.6 billion) in the 12 months ended March 2015. That is less than when Iwata took the role. The company has sold about 10 million units of the Wii U since its introduction in 2012. Nintendo is set to release its first game service for smartphones this year and is preparing a new console code-named NX. Kimishima said that the basic direction and strategy won't change and he will continue along the path set by Iwata. Iwata was the face of Nintendo for 13 years, fronting everything from product announcements to analyst meetings. Iwata, the first president from outside the Yamauchi family since the company was founded in the late 19th century, tripled revenue through new devices and interactive figurines called Amiibo. The company last week announced a new Pokemon title that uses a Bluetooth-ready button to interact with characters displayed in the real world. Nintendo has 32 percent of Pokemon's voting rights. Nintendo also is working with Universal Parks & Resorts to offer attractions based on its intellectual property. Since his death in July from bile duct cancer, the Kyoto-based company has been led by Shigeru Miyamoto, the creator of the Mario and Zelda series, and Genyo Takeda, the architect of the Wii console. "We thought it's better that Takeda and Miyamoto manage hardware and software, and I control administration," Kimishima said. The new system is meant "to bring up the next-generation executives of Nintendo," he said. Miyamoto and Takeda will take the roles of "Creative Fellow" and "Technology Fellow," respectively. |
| Putin says Google plays monopoly Posted: 15 Sep 2015 01:24 AM PDT
The FAS anti-monopoly body said Google had violated the law by pre-installing certain applications on mobile devices and could face penalties totalling up to 15 percent of its 2014 revenue in this part of the Russian market. FAS declined to specify the revenue in question, saying it was a trade secret, but said it would decide on the exact value of the fine after September 28. It added Google must then pay and change its ways, or risk more fines. Google Russia said it would analyse the decision and declined further comment until then. Shares in Yandex, which rivals Google as Russia’s biggest internet search engine, rose as much as 9 percent after the announcement. Must be nice when you have 60 per cent of the market to have your rival duffed up on monopoly charges. Yandex, which filed a complaint against Google with FAS in February, welcomed the decision. “We believe the FAS decision will serve to restore competition on the market,” the company said. It added the complaint included the practice of bundling applications from the Google Mobile Services with the Google Play store, requiring pre-installation of the Google search engine as the default one, and giving Google application icons preferential placement on the screen of mobile devices. “In addition, the investigation confirmed the existence of agreements on prohibition of pre-installation of competitors’ apps,” Yandex said. Yandex is ahead of Google in Russia but has seen competition stiffen in mobile phones as consumers have adopted Android-based handsets that come pre-loaded with Google products that compete directly with Yandex applications. Google’s total 2014 revenue stood at $66 billion. The company’s website does not provide a separate revenue figure for Russia, or the exact segment involved in the case. Analysts at App Annie say Russia was Google’s No.4 market in the world in the second quarter of 2015 in terms of Google Play downloads. The European Union is conducting its own anti-trust case against Google.
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| Vodafone admits hacking journalist’s phone Posted: 15 Sep 2015 01:11 AM PDT  Ayers Rock/Uluru in central Australian desert, Northern Territory. 1992. Vodafone Australia has admitted hacking a Fairfax journalist’s phone to find out who her deep throats were inside the company. Natalie O'Brien penned a story about how Vodafone's Siebel data system was vulnerable to hacking, and that the data of millions of customers was available online. The company has said that one of its employee's hacked O'Brien's phone records in an attempt to uncover her sources for stories. However it denies any "improper behaviour." True, it did mislead the authorities about systemic privacy breaches, but you should trust it that it never did anything wrong. And although O'Brien's story implied that criminal groups were paying Vodafone for customers' private information, that was nothing to worry about either. Glad they sorted that one out. "It's a creepy nauseating experience to know that someone has been trawling through your mobile phone account looking at all your call records and private text messages. "The invasion of privacy is devasting. It plays with your mind. What was in those texts? Who were they to? What did they see? What did they do with the information?" An internal Vodafone email, reported by the Australian, shows the company was aware of the extent of the security breaches and the potential legal and reputation damage of hacking a journalist's phone. However, the head of fraud management and investigations for Vodafone Group, Colin Yates, pointed out to then global corporate security director Richard Knowlton that there was a "huge risk" to the company if the hacking of O'Brien's phone "gets into the public domain". "And would certainly destroy all of the work done by VHA [Vodafone Hutchison Australia] over the past months to try and restore its reputation." The Yates email also suggests the company covered up the extent of the Siebel security breaches from the public and industry regulators. In a statement issued Saturday, a Vodafone spokeswoman said the company "strongly denies any allegations of improper behaviour. VHA takes its legal and corporate responsibilities very seriously". "Over the past four years, VHA has invested heavily in the security of its IT systems. The company has very strict controls and processes around the privacy of customer information, and has appointed a dedicated privacy officer. The privacy of our customers and protection of their information is our highest priority and we take this responsibility very seriously." As far as hacking a journalist's phone goes, the company commissioned an investigation by one of Australia's top accounting firms, which found there was no evidence VHA management had instructed the employee to access the messages. It also found that VHA staff was fully aware of their legal obligations in relation to customer information. So in other words nothing really happened so everyone can go back to bed thinking that Vodafone is a really nice company and its data is super secure.. |
| Intel regrets Broadwell fiasco Posted: 15 Sep 2015 12:51 AM PDT
Intel’s head of its Client Computing Group, Kirk Skaugen, has said that by not launching Broadwell-based chips for desktops, the chip maker’s might have harmed its bottom line. “We didn’t build a fifth-generation Core product for desktop towers. We made an experiment and we said ‘maybe we’re putting technology into the market too fast, let’s not build a chip for the mainstream tower business.” Chipzilla thought that skipping the Broadwell for PCs helped the firm to save on costs in terms of research and development. It seemed to make sense at the time, but with hindsight it was fairly daft. After the end of the Windows XP refresh, users had little or no incentive to upgrade their systems, so they didn't. Skaugen thought the move contributed to the slowdown in the desktop business this year. The unit volumes for the desktop processor dropped 16 per cent year over year for the first quarter of 2015 and 22 per cent in the second quarter. Intel will go back to refreshing its desktop chip on a yearly basis. Intel will release a “Skylake Refresh” chips for the PCs later in 2016 and its next-generation Kaby Lake chip for tower desktops in 2016. |
| Publisher gives “elite” Wackypedia editors present Posted: 15 Sep 2015 12:24 AM PDT
Michael Eisen, one of the founders of the open access movement, which seeks to make research publications freely available online, tweeted that he was “shocked to see @wikipedia working hand-in-hand with Elsevier. Elsevier provides very expensive scientific journals, which can be accessed on line. The assumption is that if Wackypedia gets access to his journals free they will link its papers as a form of advertising. Eisen said that this would mean that it would populate encyclopaedia with links people cannot access without a big bank account. Over the last few days, a row has broken out between Eisen and other academics over whether a free and open service such as Wikipedia should be collaborating with a closed, non-free company such as Elsevier. Eisen’s fear is that members of the public seek to follow such links, they will be unable to see the article in question unless they have a suitable subscription to Elsevier’s journals, or they make a one-time payment, usually tens of pounds for limited access. Eisen tweeted “@Wikipedia is providing free advertising for Elsevier and getting nothing in return,” and that, rather than making it easy to access materials behind paywalls, “it SHOULD be difficult for @wikipedia editors to use #paywalled sources as, in long run, it will encourage openness.” He called on Wikipedia’s co-founder, Jimmy Wales, to “reconsider accommodating Elsevier’s cynical use of @Wikipedia to advertise paywalled journals.” His own suggestion was that Wikipedia should provide citations, but not active links to paywalled articles. |
| Intel wants to tackle smart-car security Posted: 14 Sep 2015 11:54 PM PDT
Chipzilla has launched something called the Automotive Security Review Board (ASRB) to cut future cybersecurity risks to vehicles and drivers. The ASRB will encompass “top security talent” worldwide with a particular bent towards physical system security. Members of the board will perform ongoing security tests and audits to formulate both best practice recommendations and design suggestions to benefit automakers as whole, which will then in turn help keep drivers and passengers safe in today’s modern vehicles, Chipzilla said. Fiat Chrysler was recently blighted by the fact that severe vulnerabilities were discovered within SUVs offered by the automaker. The models used the Uconnect connected car system, which was found to be vulnerable to remote attacks leading to engine control, placing drivers in danger. Over 1.4 million vehicles have been recalled in order to patch the flaw. Alongside the launch of ASRB, Intel has published the first version of its automotive cybersecurity best practices, which will be updated as the board’s research continues. “Unlike vehicle safety, security is as much an after-sale activity as a production one. When an automobile is on the road, vehicle software is at risk from vulnerabilities, intentional and accidental owner actions, and malicious attacks. Threat analysis and risk assessment continues throughout the life of the car as old vulnerabilities are patched and new ones come to light, so the risk of attack can even increase with time,” the report states. |
| UK people need more than 10Mbps Posted: 14 Sep 2015 11:29 PM PDT
This figure is bad news for the government which is hoping that users will applaud if it forces the telcos to give them a 2Mbps and a top speed of 10 Mbps. The analyst firm has published a report assessing both objective data like speed, coverage and momentum as well as subjective factors like service experience and consumer network score in 30 countries. It says this should give communications providers a better idea of what consumers are experiencing and what they need to satisfy customers. Ovum found that the best consumer experience relies on three main factors: download speeds of 10Mbps, a stable and reliable network that delivers content within three seconds and "outstanding customer service" that deals with most issues at the first point of contact. The average broadband speed in the UK is 23Mbps, according to regulator Ofcom, which is also considering increasing the universal service obligation from 2Mbps to 10Mbps in recognition of consumer demands. For those who wanted to stream ultra high definition 4K video, the minimum requirement is 50Mbps, according to the report. Sweden finished first with an overall score of 88 percent, while the UK rated joint-eighth with Russia and the USA on 74 percent. Romania was second, Canada third, while Singapore, South Korea, Japan and Germany completed the top ten. Ovum's Michael Philpott, co-author of the report said that pressure on broadband service provided to consumers is compounded by the rise in connected devices. "Homes in mature markets were found to typically have up to four devices connected to the network, all of which have the potential to support a wide range of applications. Much of the debate at the UBBF has centred on how telcos must 'reimagine' their networks to offer a good video experience, not just for consumers, but also for enterprises who use video for communication, logistics and other purposes. "With a clear link between poor user experience and customer churn, broadband service providers need to continue to invest in broadband infrastructure in order to provide their customers with the best broadband experience and maintain a satisfied customer base," Philpott said.
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