Streaming media is going portable in Europe, and is sure to follow here in North America. AT&T and Verizon will get major heartburn about the load it will inevitably place on their underpowered wireless networks.  The Apple i-this and i-that media monoculture will be facing a formidible assault by cheap Andriod devices that do the streaming trick the fruit cult won’t allow.

This week, European streaming music serviceSpotify demonstrated its Android app, which features on-demand streams of songs the user doesn’t own, as well as an offline synchronization and caching function that allows a listener to enjoy a song on the go, regardless of whether the phone is connected to a data network at that moment. That’s dangerously close to owning a song, and speculation is already rife that Apple won’t accept Spotify’splanned iPhone app because it’s too much of a threat to Apple’s iTunes music store.

Spotify, whose free desktop service is popular in Europe, doesn’t offer anything in the U.S. yet, and the Stockholm-based company has hinted that it may charge users in all geographies for premium accounts in order to use the mobile service. But it seems inevitable that consumers everywhere will eventually demand ubiquitous on-demand mobile streams, whether from Spotify or someone else, making ownership of music less popular and iTunes therefore less important. And in that respect, Apple’s decade of investment in music and current domination of the online music world may become an Achilles’ heel, as Android’s openness and neutrality give it greater flexibility than Apple’s closed system to offer consumers what they want as alternatives arise.

 Apple will probably try to do a competing service within its monoculture. AT&T and Verizon will have to invest in their networks after thier investment in the Washington lobby fails to stop progress. Broadcasters who do not hear the wireless IP threat drawing closer will seal their own fates. Broadcast media’s  obsolescence could be looming just over the horizon.

6. Special Provisions Regarding HSD Service

(ii) I agree that TWC or ISP may change the Maximum Throughput Rate of any tier by amending the price list or Terms of Use. My continued use of the HSD Service following such a change will constitute my acceptance of any new Maximum Throughput Rate. If the level or tier of HSD Service to which I subscribe has a specified limit on the amount of bytes that I can use in a given billing cycle, I also agree that TWC may use technical means, including but not limited to suspending or reducing the speed of my HSD Service, to ensure compliance with these limits, and that TWC or ISP may move me to a higher tier of HSD Service (which may result in higher monthly charges) or impose other charges and fees if my use exceeds these limits.

(iii) I agree that TWC may use Network Management Tools as it determines appropriate and/or that it may use technical means, including but not limited to suspending or reducing the Throughput Rate of my HSD Service, to ensure compliance with its Terms of Use and to ensure that its service operates efficiently. I further agree that TWC and ISP have the right to monitor my bandwidth usage patterns to facilitate the provision of the HSD Service and to ensure my compliance with the Terms of Use and to efficiently manage their networks and their provision of services. TWC or ISP may take such steps as each may determine appropriate in the event my usage of the HSD Service does not comply with the Terms of Use. I acknowledge that HSD Service does not include other services managed by TWC and delivered over TWC’s shared infrastructure, including Video Service and Digital Phone Service.

That ladies and gentlemen is the modification that will appear in a TWC bill at your domicile sometime soon. The jest of this legalize is to prepare YOU for metered service. Without the change TWC could lose in court in a challenge under the old contract.

Metered service is nigh!

Linky.

Generally Fox has their act together. But a Bill O’Reilly flap has generated some controversy —

Due to violations of the Terms and Conditions of BillOReilly.com attributed to your account, your Premium Membership is hereby terminated effective as of the date of this notice. The termination is final and any attempt to use the site or to renew membership either directly or indirectly will similarly result in termination and/or blocking use of the site.

I’m not sure what terms and conditions I supposedly violated. I never posted any comments (or “blog postings”) on O’Reilly’s site. All I did was quote (and screencap) two embarrassing comments from the message boards.

Oh, wait. I just reviewed the Terms and Conditions again, and I believe I have found the relevant language: “4. Do not expose Bill O’Reilly as a rank hypocrite.”

This all started when BOR accused the blog HotAir with not policing their website. Problem is what HotAir was accused of came from a commenter not one of the site authors. BOR then went on to say his site does not engage in this kind of mongering. Which brings us to the irony portion of this post. The blog Patterico Pontifications paid the entry fee and found — the very same mongering that BOR accused HotAir of! Then BOR had the tumidity to then ban him for reading comment entries.

Now all of this is mildly amusing. But quite honestly both sites lose in a tit for tat battle of words. It leads one down the same journalistic rat hole that is killing the pulp press. At this point both sides just ought to call an armistice and cool it.

Linky

 For me Google’s new Wave is an intriguing rethink of communications and collaboration and the open API’s could be the beginning of an ecosystem that would make it much more interesting.  If Google can better integrate it’s calandar, voice and online office suite, Wave could be an Exchange killer. That would hit Microsoft hard where it hurts. Outlook is one of MS’s most adopted products in the corporate world. If adoption of Wave catches fire, it could literally burn one of the cornerstones of Microsoft’s corporate stranglehold in effigy.

A wave is equal parts conversation and document.People can communicate and work together with richly formatted text, photos, videos, maps, and more.

A wave is shared. Any participant can reply anywhere in the message, edit the content and add participants at any point in the process. Then playback lets anyone rewind the wave to see who said what and when.

A wave is live. With live transmission as you type, participants on a wave can have faster conversations, see edits and interact with extensions in real-time.l (Google Wave)

 

We have delved into this in many forms. Even had a heated discussion with what we presume was a J-School grad a couple weeks back. We have also noted the continued outsourcing of jobs to parts other than America. Well if you meld the two observations together here’s what you get —

Last year, a news Web site in Pasadena, Calif., made headlines when they started outsourcing city hall coverage to reporters in India. Using simple webcams and e-mail, Pasadena Now would put journalists half a world away inside city council chambers to observe and file stories on local government. The site fired its staff, and replaced them with Indians who’d crank out 1,000-word stories for the rock-bottom rate of $7.50.

The media world was abuzz: American news outfit outsources local reporting to the subcontinent. Could we all be next?

We wondered too about the limits of outsourcing local news, particularly alternative journalism. Covering city council meetings via webcam is one thing. Producing entire issues of a local news and arts weekly is quite another. What started as a joke — “I’ve got an idea. Let’s outsource an entire issue to India just to see if it can be done” — has culminated in what you see here.

They cover city council meetings from Bangalore! And the papers are still failing? Think about it. If it is possible to do everything in a paper other than Section A at Indian rates these business should be making money out the ying-yang. Of course what is described above was done on a lark as an experiment. But still. Somebody might run with this full time.

The Columbia School of Journalism might as well close up shop or remorph itself as a international studies program.

Linky.

Code named Rosie, this variant of the Android platform is being developed to run on all of the HTC based products as a common baseline. What is also interesting is the fluid look of the widgets.

Android is live and kicking.

Linky.

To conclude: taking into account the troublingly [sic] weak evidence of (1) Bennefield’s reliability in connection with the allegation of unauthorized access to and hacking into the BC grading system, and (2) nexus, the search warrant affidavit fails to establish probable cause. Accordingly, because the search and seizure were not conducted pursuant to a lawful warrant, all ongoing forensic analysis of the items seized from Calixte must cease, see Commonwealth v. Kaupp 453 Mass. at 106-107, n.7 ([valid] search warrant required to search seized computer), and the items must be returned forthwith. See Commonwealth v. Sacco, 401 Mass. 204,207 and n.3 (1987). Cf. Matter of Lavigne, 418 Mass. at 836. With respect to the two seized laptop computers and any other property that the Commonwealth claims do not belong to Calixte, the Commonwealth is to undertake to identify the owner(s) of this property, and, with prior notice to Calixte, return the items to those owners.

With that the single State Supreme Court judge gave the police and Boston College the judical slap that they deserved. They are to stop all further review of his equipment and return said devices forthwith. Glad to see some judges still believe in the 4th Amendment.

The initial story we covered here.

More here.

So much for needing a label to create or release a big seller. While  Cheap Trick has made quite a bit of money for the labels during its career, the band decided to keep all of the money in the family this time around by doing its own release sans label:

The veteran rock group will start taking pre-orders for the 13-track set, which it recorded during the past year mostly in Los Angeles with producer Julian Raymond, on Friday via its official web site, http://www.cheaptrick.com , and at Amazon.com.

Those who pre-order will receive “The Latest” on June 23, the day Cheap Trick starts it summer tour with Def Leppard and Poison in Camden, N.J.

Amazon will have exclusive rights for one month, and the album will also be available in limited LP and 8-track editions. (Yahoo)

Historically the big labels counted on the revenues from their established talent to fund their crazy adventures. It looks like at least one of them will have to be a bit less adventurous this time around. There’s going to be a lot more of this happening as the relevance of music labels who missed the opportunity to adapt slowly fade away.

Microsoft remains stubbornly fixated on becoming competitive in search. The latest salvo in the war against Google and Yahoo is a rebranding of Live Search as Bing. The company has invested heavily in the new and improved search engine, and hoping the new name will help draw attention. Does Microsft has a real reason to brag? There’s an advance review  Ars Technica that may give us an inkling:

On the actual Bing homepage, you get your typical Live Search background image and links to Microsoft Web properties. The biggest change here is that the different categories for searching that are typically at the top of the search bar have been removed (Images, Video, News, Maps; and in a More drop down menu: Health, Local, Products, and xRank). However, the categories Images, Videos, Shopping, News, Maps, and Travel are under an Explore section on the left-hand side. This left-hand side bar becomes very important when using Bing because it also plays a critical role in (most) search result pages.

The most interesting part of the revamp, by far, is how Bing guesses what sections are relevant to your query. What I find very find annoying is that the Web, Images, Videos, Shopping, Maps, and More links are still at the top of the search results page, meaning there is a lot of potential for overlap, depending on the query. (Ars Technica)

So does it matter? For Microsoft itself, it might. Every new Windows based system sold will default to bing as its primary search engine. That’s also been true of Live Search for some time now, so it’s not a new advantage. Having said that, some aspects of Bing will push Google and a newly mission focused Yahoo to make some changes to keep their repective lead. I have no doubt, however, that the market shares will remain mostly the same as they are today. The search engine wars have long been over. The next wave of technology that that remakes the pecking order will be something entirely different.

Having been looking for a buyer for the ailing AOL unit, TWC has finally decided to spin the unit, er sucker, off. Considering its falling fortunes and revenues, AOL represents a $124Bn gamble that never made sense and might as well be a write off. –

“A separation will be the best outcome for both Time Warner and AOL,” Chief Executive Officer Jeffrey Bewkes said in the statement. “The separation will also provide both companies with greater operational and strategic flexibility.”

Bewkes is getting rid of AOL, which has confronted falling ad sales during the recession, to focus Time Warner on its film and cable-television businesses. AOL has dealt Time Warner a series of setbacks since the 2001 deal: shareholder lawsuits, a regulatory probe and declining sales. The parent company wasn’t able to sell or find a partner for the unit after talks last year with Google Inc., Yahoo! Inc. and Microsoft Corp.

“The obvious implication of spinning out all of AOL in one entity is that Time Warner’s efforts to sell AOL failed,” Fred Moran, a Boca Raton, Florida-based analyst at Benchmark Co., said in an interview. “Now, as a last resort, Time Warner is looking towards spinning the whole company out.”

At one time having a horizontal entity that could provide all services would seem to have made sense. But AOL was never marketed as part of a package deal, nor was AOL tool set ever leveraged to the benefit of the cable delivery unit. (eg. Cable internet uses its own portal rather than utilize AOL’s).

Fortunes fall sometime through no fault of their own. But I am afraid that the TWC-AOL deal was just a reason to be big for big’s sake. Under that guise the purchase was a fools errand. They are $124Bn poorer for it.

Linky.