Technology News

Adobe Configurator Revolutionizes Photoshop

Source: All About Jazz
November 19, 2008

To help make Photoshop more flexible and bit easier to work with, Adobe has just released Configurator an add-on that makes it easy to customize Photoshop panels to suit your needs.

For newcomers, Photoshop can seem like a labyrinth. The photo editing app is very powerful, but with great power comes great complexity figuring out how to do what you want can take longer than actually doing it. The customization options mean that you can take your favorite menu items, ...

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The Copy Left/ What is Art For ?

Source: Michael Ricci
November 18, 2008

LEWIS HYDE ON WALDEN POND The Cultural Commons In the late 1990s, Lewis Hyde began extending his lifelong project of examining the public life of the imagination into what had become newly topical territory: the cultural commons. The advent of Internet file-sharing services like Napster and Gnutella sparked urgent debates over how to strike a balance between public and private claims to creative work.

For more than a decade, the so-called “Copy Left" a diverse group ...

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MySpace Believes in Japanese Music's Appeal

Source: PC Magazine
November 18, 2008

TOKYO - Banking on the global appeal of Japanese pop and video games, social networking site MySpace said it would more than double the number of artists on its Japanese pages to get more clicks internationally. The growth of new sign-ups and page views is slowing in Japan for rival networking services such as mixi Inc, but Myspace, which launched its Japanese site two years ago, aims to buck the trend by expanding the range of sales artists can make ...

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Disc Shelf: A Place to Release Albums

Source: All About Jazz
November 18, 2008

Recently a service for musicians was opened. The service is called Disc Shelf and allows musicians to upload their music and present it to their listeners in form of albums: singles, EPs, LPs, promo discs and WIPs (work in progress). Each album receives a unique URL for distribution.

The whole idea of the project is to have works online that would have no ratings, comments, no weird menus and without it looking like a web page. Instead, it looks more ...

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Comcast Expands 50-Mbit Service to Ore., Wash.

Source: PC Magazine
November 18, 2008

Starting next month, Comcast will expand its revamped “wideband" service, which offers speeds up to 50 Mbits/s, to Oregon and southwest Washington state. The cable provider started rolling out wideband in Minneapolis-St. Paul earlier this year and expanded to Boston, southern New Hampshire, and areas of Philadelphia and New Jersey in October. Wideband, also known as DOCSIS 3.0, will be available in two tiers for residential customers: Ultra and Extreme 50. Those with Ultra will get up to 22 Mbits/s ...

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The Worst Tech Problem? 'The Internet's Down'

Source: PC Magazine
November 18, 2008

Most of us have been plagued with a blue screen of death, a laptop that refuses to connect to a home wireless network, or a cell phone that just doesn't feel like making calls. About 48 percent of technology users have encountered such problems with their devices in the last year, according to a Sunday report from the Pew Internet & American Life Project. How do they deal with these technological meltdowns? Most turn to customer support or just tinker ...

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Harvard Law Prof Takes On RIAA in Music Copyright Fight

Source: All About Jazz
November 17, 2008

Law professor fires back at song-swapping lawsuits The music industry's courtroom campaign against people who share songs online is coming under counterattack. A Harvard Law School professor has launched a constitutional assault against a federal copyright law at the heart of the industry's aggressive strategy, which has wrung payments from thousands of song-swappers since 2003. The professor, Charles Nesson, has come to the defense of a Boston University graduate student targeted in one of the music industry's lawsuits. By taking ...

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Napster Judge Calls for Major Copyright Reform

Source: All About Jazz
November 16, 2008

Judge Miriam Hall Patel, who presided over the case that killed off original Napster, proposed a bold plan Monday to reform copyright for the digital age by creating a new public/private organization with authority over the licensing and enforcement of copyright.

There needs to be a comprehensive revision of the provisions that relate to the administration of copyright licensing, royalties and enforcement. I propose that a joint public/private administrative body made up of representatives of all competing interest, including the ...

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