IPv6: Europe 'ahead' in new net address scheme

Norway is leading the way in preparing for the move to the net's new addressing scheme, a survey has shown.

The survey comes a month before World IPv6day that will see many v6 websites permanently activated.

The new IPv6 scheme is needed because the older system, IP Version 4, is about to run out of addresses.

Compiled by Europe's net address overseer, RIPE, the report found that Norway was ahead of Asian nations where IPv4 addresses are no longer available.

The Rise Of The Schminternet

During the fight over the much-maligned Stop Online Piracy Act, the implacably irreverent denizens of Reddit took a moment to contemplate their future should the controversial bill become law. Under the headline "If SOPA passes..." one Redditor whipped up animage macro of Will Ferrell (as Ron Burgundy) screaming: "We'll make our own internet and you won't be invited!"

SOPA did not pass, of course, so the creation of a new internet was not needed. But a similar sentiment actually caught on with internet service providers after the Federal Communications Commission passed net neutrality rules in December 2010. With their behavior on fixed broadband now hemmed in by regulations, the ISPs are, in effect, creating a secondary sort of internet that allows them more freedom to influence their customers' media consumption. Among insiders it is known as "the Schminternet."

The controversial piracy law, the Digital Economy Act, delayed

The measures, such as letters to suspected illegal downloaders and potential disconnection, will not be enforced until at least 2014.
Since being passed at the end of the Labour administration in 2010, action has stalled due to legal challenges.
The delay was welcomed by the Internet Service Providers' Association (Ispa).
Under the Act, letters sent out to apparent illegal file-sharers would offer advice on how to prevent such illegal activity.
Serious repeat offenders risk facing measures that limit, or even cut off, internet connection.
ISPs have criticised aspects of the Act, suggesting it would unfairly force them to police user behaviour on the internet.
'Effective solution' "The fact it hasn't been implemented is a good thing," an Ispa spokesman said.

"We don't think it's a particularly good piece of legislation."

However, he added that there were other measures being discussed which could see a clampdown on piracy.
"There's more than just the Digital Economy Act when it comes to tackling copyright infringement online," he said.
"Ispa continues to believe that the most effective solution to the problem of users accessing unlawful content is for reform of the licensing framework so that legal content can be distributed online in a way that consumers are demanding."
Last month, BT and TalkTalk lost a two-year legal bid to have the Act overturned. They argued it was incompatible with European law.
The repeated delays have led some industry observers to speculate that the Act's measures will never come into force.
"I think I might be waiting for a fairy to arrive and wave her magic wand over the House of Commons saying 'come to your senses, come to your senses'," wrote Trefor Davies, chief technology officer for service provider Timico.
"Maybe that's the point at which I wake up and find that I've been dreaming."


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YouTube loses court battle over music clips

YouTube could face a huge bill for royalties after it lost a court battle in Germany over music videos.

A court in Hamburg ruled that YouTube is responsible for the content that users post to the video sharing site.

It wants the video site to install filters that spot when users try to post music clips whose rights are held by royalty collection group, Gema.

The German industry group said in court that YouTube had not done enough to stop copyrighted clips being posted.

Rights battle

YouTube said it took no responsibility for what users did, but responded when told of copyright violations.

"Today's ruling confirms that YouTube as a hosting platform cannot be obliged to control the content of all videos uploaded to the site," said a spokesperson for the video site.

"We remain committed to finding a solution to the music licensing issue in Germany that will benefit artists, composers, authors, publishers and record labels, as well as the wider YouTube community," they added.

Gema's court case was based on 12 separate music clips posted to the website. The ruling concerns seven of the 12 clips.

If YouTube is forced to pay royalties for all the clips used on the site it will face a huge bill.

Gema represents about 60,000 German song writers and musicians.

If enforced, the ruling could also slow the rate at which video is posted to the site as any music clip would have to be cleared for copyright before being used.

Currently, it is estimated that about 60 hours of video is uploaded to YouTube worldwide every minute.

YouTube owner Google has yet to comment on the ruling.

The court case began in 2010 and came after talks between YouTube and Gema about royalties broke down. In 2009, the stalemate meant that videos from German recording firms were briefly blocked on the site.

Gema has rung up several victories against sites it has claimed are using music without paying royalties.

In 2009, file-sharing site Rapidshare was told to start filtering songs users were uploading following action by Gema. In March, 2012 a second judgement told Rapidshare to be more proactive when hunting down content pirated by users.

Music streaming site Grooveshark pulled out of Germany claiming licencing rates set by Gema made it impossible to run a profitable business in the country.

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US charges British twins over $1.2m 'stock robot' fraud

Twin brothers from England face US civil charges for allegedly defrauding investors out of $1.2m (£745,000) through a bogus stock-picking robot.

Alexander and Thomas Hunter, of Whitley Bay, North Tyneside, were aged 16 when, in 2007, they devised the scheme of the robot, dubbed Marl, say US officials.

The Securities and Exchange Commission said the stocks "picked" were actually firms that paid the twins hefty fees.

The Hunters allegedly snared about 75,000 investors, mostly in the US.

In November, Newcastle Crown Court ordered Alexander Hunter to pay back nearly $1m after he admitted providing unregulated financial advice. He was given a suspended 12-month prison sentence.

'Goldman Sachs algorithm'

According to an affadavit filed in a New York federal court on Friday, investors paid $47 for newsletters listing Marl's stock picks and $97 for a "home version" of the software.

"The longer Marl is allowed to run on a computer... The More Advanced He Becomes!" one of the brothers' websites said.

The home version was simply a program that grabbed ticker symbols fed in by the Hunters, who reportedly live with their parents in Whitley Bay.

The twins collected an additional $1.9m from companies that paid to appear in the newsletters and in the software program, according to the US court document.

In one example given by the Securities and Exchange Commission, Marl picked stock in 2008 for a music publishing company called UOMO Media, doubling its share price to 69 cents, and then again a year later, driving it to $1.06. UOMO has not traded above a penny since September 2010.

The twins claimed Marl had a track record of detecting cheap stocks whose prices were on the verge of soaring by 200-400%.

Marl was a supposed combination of the names of its phoney creators, Michael Cohen and Carl Williamson. The Hunters claimed that "Michael Cohen" had developed a Goldman Sachs trading algorithm that reaped billions in profits.

Officials are asking the court to block the Hunters, now 20 or 21, from the securities industry and return money to investors. They are also seeking further financial penalties.

Eric Bruce, a lawyer for the Hunters, did not respond to requests for comment on Friday, reports Reuters news agency.

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'Revenge porn' website IsAnyoneUp.com closed by owner

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Patent wars plague Internet Age

The Internet Age is becoming as known for patent litigation as it is for online innovation.

From the makers of computer chips to creators of smartphones and designers of videogames, rivalries have spread from marketplaces to courtrooms with combatants warring over rights to use technology.

“For many years, there was basically a stalemate in the patents arms race with an understanding that companies wouldn’t sue each other,” said Colleen Chien, a law professor at Santa Clara University in Silicon Valley.

“That was disrupted by a new business model of patent assertion,” she continued. “It has become acceptable to violate the gentlemen’s agreement of not suing and now it is the new norm.”

The break in the unofficial truce was inspired in part by “patent trolls,” entities that buy or file patents with the sole intent of some day suing entrepreneurs who use the ideas.

Ranks of patent trolls are growing, as is the number of large companies turning to patent litigation not just to cash-in but to gain or protect market terrain, according to Chien.

“What do you call an AOL or a dying company that turns to patent lawsuits?” she asked rhetorically. “Do they become corporate trolls?”

Struggling Internet pioneer Yahoo! last month filed a lawsuit against Facebook accusing the social networking star of infringing on 10 of its patents.

The suit claimed that “Facebook’s entire social network model, which allows users to create profiles and connect with, among other things, persons and businesses, is based on Yahoo!’s patented social networking technology.”

Facebook returned fire with a countersuit accusing Sunnyvale, California-based Yahoo! of being the one infringing on patents, and not the other way around.

Even business software giant Oracle has weighed in. A trial will get underway on Monday in a patent case Oracle filed against Google based on software used in Android operating systems.

As patent suits proliferate, Internet firms with ample war chests are spending small fortunes to arm themselves with portfolios purchased from technology companies selling off intellectual assets.

AOL this week announced plans to sell more than 800 patents to Microsoft in a $1.056 billion deal giving the faded Internet star a needed cash injection.

Microsoft general counsel Brad Smith said that the software giant is getting “a valuable portfolio that we have been following for years.”

Facebook in March confirmed that it bought 750 software and networking patents from IBM to beef up it arsenal on an increasingly lawsuit-strewn technology battlefield.

Early this year, Google bought 188 patents and 29 patent applications related to mobile phones from IBM but did not disclose how much it paid.

Last year, IBM sold Google 2,000 or so patents ranging from mobile software to computer hardware and processors.

Google has been strengthening its patent portfolio as the fight for dominance in the booming smartphone and tablet computer markets increasingly involves patent lawsuits – with Apple a prime litigator.

The Mountain View, California, technology titan behind Android mobile device software last year transferred patents to smartphone giant HTC Corp. to help the Taiwan-based company in an intellectual property clash with iPhone maker Apple.

Apple has accused HTC and other smartphone makers using Google’s Android mobile operating system of infringing on Apple-held patents.

Some of the patents that HTC got from Google had belonged to Motorola Mobility, which Google is buying for $12.5 billion in cash in a quest for precious patents.

“Our acquisition of Motorola will increase competition by strengthening Google’s patent portfolio, which will enable us to better protect Android from anti-competitive threats from Microsoft, Apple and other companies,” Google chief executive Larry Page said when the Motorola Mobility buy was announced.

Motorola Mobility chief executive Sanjay Jha told financial analysts the US maker of smartphones and touchscreen tablet computers has over 17,000 issued patents and another 7,500 pending.

Meanwhile, Apple and Microsoft allied in a consortium that outbid Google to buy thousands of patents from bankrupt Nortel Corp. in what was branded the largest transfer of intellectual property of the Internet Age.

“The reality is, there is more and more liability in making a product,” Chien said. “Companies like Google and Facebook with few patents but big roles in the marketplace have the most to lose.”

Patent suits in hot Internet markets are not necessarily bad news for consumers, provided that companies cashing in use windfalls to develop even more innovative products, according to Chien.

Managing patents could also become a potential source of competitive advantage for startups.

“The Facebook example shows that you can go out and buy patent protection,” Chien said. “It is only when you are making money that you become interesting as a target, and when you are making money you can afford to buy patents.”

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EU investigates internet's spread to more devices

The European Commission is extending a probe into the spread of the internet.

The regulator says it expects an explosion in the number of household appliances and other devices connected to the net before 2020.

It is launching a consultation over controls of the way information is gathered, stored and processed, saying it wants to "ensure the rights of individuals are respected".

The public is being invited to send in its views before a 12 July deadline.

The commission says that the average person living within the 27-nation bloc has at least two devices connected to the net at present - typically a computer and smartphone.

It expects the figure to rise to seven by 2015, with a total of 25 billion wirelessly connected to the net worldwide. By the end of the decade it says that could climb to 50 billion.

"If a university teacher cancels a morning lecture because they are sick, students' alarm clocks and coffee machines could automatically be reset," it gives as an example.

"If an elderly person forgets to take an essential pill, a warning message could be sent to a close family member."

"People need to know and trust that this sort of change is one they are comfortable with, and it's important to have that conversation now," a spokesman told the BBC.

Energy-efficient chips

The spread of wireless-connected devices has been dubbed "the internet of things" and has previously identified as potential catalyst to the economy.

Arm Holdings - the British computer chip designer - is at the forefront of efforts to spur on the tech.

Read More... 

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Google profits higher as it announces stock-split

Internet giant Google has reported a large jump in profits and sales as it announced an effective doubling of its shares.

The company said net income in the first quarter was $2.89bn (£1.8bn), up 60% from the same period last year.

Google's quarterly revenues also exceeded $10bn, with more than half of that coming from outside the US.

The firm will create a new class of non-voting stock and effectively split the shares two-for-one.

The owner of each existing share will receive one new share of the non-voting stock.

As well as generating money through advertising based on search, Google also makes the popular Android mobile phone operating system.

'No big acquisition'

"We also saw tremendous momentum from the big bets we've made in products like Android, Chrome and YouTube," Larry Page, the chief executive, said.

Read More... 

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