p2pnet World Headlines: Jan 13, 2010
Simon and Garfunkel to Play Jazzfest New York Times
For a month, fans and potential customers of the New Orleans Jazz and Heritage Festival have been eyeing a big ‘artist TBA’ on the schedule New Orleans Jazz and Heritage Festival. That TBA has now been announced by the festival: the surprise act for the first of Jazzfest’s two weekends, on April 24, will be the reunited Simon and Garfunkel.
SMS ban in porn crackdown Straits Times
Mobile users in China will be banned from sending short messages if they are found to have distributed pornography or other ‘illegal’ content by phone, state media said Wednesday. China Mobile, the world’s biggest cell-phone operator, is helping Chinese police in a campaign to crack down on ‘illegal short messages’, the Nanfang Daily newspaper reported. Subscribers will have their text messaging services cut if they are found by the company’s ‘checking system’ or reported by other users to have distributed obscene, violent or other ‘unhealthy’ messages, it said. They will also be required to promise in writing not to distribute such content in future if they want their services to be restored, the report added.
Apple App Store Has Lost $450 Million To Piracy 24/7
Apple and the companies that sell software for the iPhone and iPod touch at the App Store have lost over $450 million to piracy since the store opened in July 2008 according to an analysis by 24/7 Wall St. There have been over 3 billion applications downloaded since the App program began. Bernstein analyst, Toni Sacconaghi, estimated that between 13% and 21% of those downloads are from paid applications. According to this analysis, the average price of an application purchased at the App Store is $3. Sacconaghi estimated that Apple’s revenue from the App Store is between $60 million and $110 million per quarter. That amount has certainly increased since this research report was published because of the rapid growth of the number of applications. However, behind all this success lies an insidious force that has plagued the music, software, and movie industry for decades. Developers of iPhone applications have reported alarming piracy rates for their software, and the ease with which users may obtain pirated versions of paid applications for free is only increasing. The total number of applications available at the store, including those which are free and those which require payment, is in excess of 100,000.
Vatican criticizes ‘Avatar’ Associated Press
The Vatican newspaper and radio station have called the film ‘Avatar’ simplistic, and criticized it for flirting with modern doctrines that promote the worship of nature as a substitute for religion. L’Osservatore Romano and Vatican Radio dedicated ample coverage to James Cameron’s big-grossing, 3-D spectacle. But the reviews were lukewarm, calling the movie superficial in its eco-message, despite groundbreaking visual effects. L’Osservatore said the film ‘gets bogged down by a spiritualism linked to the worship of nature.’ Similarly, Vatican Radio said it ‘cleverly winks at all those pseudo-doctrines that turn ecology into the religion of the millennium.’
Indianapolis man 1st to be prosecuted under computer-extortion law Indy Star
A 28-year-old Indianapolis man was sentenced today to two years in state prison for trying to extort $208,00 from an insurance company after stealing a computer server. Kevin M. Stewart was the first to be prosecuted under a law that makes it a crime to commit extortion with material from a protected computer system. U.S. District Court Judge Sarah Evans Barker issued the sentence in U.S. District Court in Indianapolis.
France plans its own rival to Google Books Associated Press
France’s culture minister Tuesday unveiled a plan for adapting the country’s literary patrimony to the digital age by developing what he hopes will prove a uniquely Gallic competitor to Google Books. Frederic Mitterrand didn’t rule out cooperating with the ubiquitous, U.S.-based search engine and said France was prepared to share files with Google under certain conditions. But he made clear that the company would have to play by France’s rules. Billed as a public-private partnership, the impetus and funding for the French initiative comes from the state. The Google Books project already has scanned and catalogued more that 10 million books as part of its project to create an online library accessible to anyone with an Internet connection.
‘Gay Up’ matador helps Swedish farmers take bulls by horns The Local
A Spanish matador who recently challenged the sport’s macho image by advertising a drink popular on the gay club scene has been invited to southern Sweden to help local farmers master their bulls. Joselito Ortega hit the headlines in the autumn after agreeing to carry advertising for energy drink Gay Up on his bullfighter’s cape. Now the trailblazing toreador is on his way to Sweden following an approach from the Småland county administrative board.
..… and identi.ca
First they ignore you, then they laugh at you, then they fight you, then you win ~ Mahatma Gandhi
January, 2010
Use free p2pnet newsfeeds for your site. Subscribe to p2pnet.net | | rss feed: http://p2pnet.net/feed
Net access blocked by government restrictions? Use Psiphon from the Citizen Lab at the University of Toronto. Go here for details.
Related Articles
Del.Icio.Us this! | Digg this! | Reddit this! | Stumble this!
No comments yet