John Battelle's Searchblog
Kevin Johnson Leaving Microsoft
A month or so ago I sat down for a strategy briefing from Kevin Johnson, the then-president of Microsoft responsible for Windows and online services. I never did get around to writing what I thought of that meeting, partially due to a request from Microsoft PR that the session... (Go to Searchblog Main)
Traveling...
Have a fair amount of traveling to do today, but once I settle in, late tomorrow, I'll be in a place to write far more...... (Go to Searchblog Main)
Darn.
It had been a week since I saw the fail whale. Damn.... (Go to Searchblog Main)
A Reminder of the World We Are Not.
Five dollar gas? Boing Boing reminds us that it's not just gas that's a precious resource in many parts of the rest of the world with this photo. Wow.... (Go to Searchblog Main)
Guardian Technology
Illegal downloaders to get warning letter in clampdown by government, ISPs and music industry
Internet service providers have struck a deal with government and the music industry to help clamp down on illegal downloading. The deal, to be announced later today, is thought to include an agreement for ISPs to send out hundreds of thousands of letters to account holders responsible for illegal downloading. The memorandum of understanding, struck with the BPI, the body that represents record labels, and the government, will be announced today ahead of the launch of a consultation on the introduction of legislation to clampdown on offending. The memorandum of understanding has been struck with the UK's six biggest ISPs - BT, Virgin, Carphone Warehouse, Orange, Tiscali and BSkyB - and includes a deal for all parties to work together to develop ways to deal with repeat offenders. The agreement has been reached ahead of an announcement expected later today by the Department for Business, ...
Surprise in the post for illegal music downloaders
Thousands of parents will learn of their children's illegal downloading habits when warning letters arrive at their homes in a battle against internet piracy. A government-backed drive is targeting the worst offenders of the estimated 6.5 million web users involved in illicit file-sharing of music and films. Britain's six largest internet service providers, or ISPs, have joined the scheme, amid estimates that the practice could cost the music industry £1bn in the next five years. One sanction being considered is to disconnect those who ignore warnings under a "three strikes and you're out" rule similar to a measure under consideration in France. But this is still under consultation, and likely to be opposed by some ISPs. The action will begin with sending letters to the most prolific downloaders to warn them that they have been detected and are being monitored. Many technophobic pa...
The man with the musical broomstick
It could only happen in New York. Where else in the world would people queue around the block for a seedy-looking jazz club, to hear the performance of a man best remembered for having invented the musical broomstick, whose fingers are so arthritic they can hardly move, and who is still pumping it out every Monday night at the age of 93? But then, the weekly Les Paul show at the Iridium Club, a basement joint on Broadway that looks as though it was set in aspic some time in the 1950s, is more than just a performance. It's a pilgrimage, where fans of 20th-century American music and lovers of the electric guitar - Paul McCartney, Jeff Beck, and Keith Richards among them - come to pay homage to the great man. Richards bluntly summed up the aura of the man when he said: "We must all own up that without Les Paul, generations of flash little punks like us would be in jail or cleaning toilets....
Touch takes hold, but it's no mouse-killer
As reported a few weeks ago in these pages, the market is being flooded with touchscreen phones - and this time there's no controversy over whether they've succeeded: sales of the iPhone surprised even its most ardent admirers from day one. Meanwhile, the desktop market is showing signs of adopting similar technology. Both Apple's next operating system and the next version of Windows will contain "hooks" for touchscreen technology, if installed on the right hardware. This has led to speculation about the future of the keyboard and mouse. "We already have well-integrated touch technology on consumer electronics, from Apple's multitouch devices (iPhone, MacBook Pro, the new Mac operating system), games consoles (Nintendo DS) and now PCs and notebooks," says a spokesman for HP, which has now released the TouchSmart, a desktop system with a touch interface. And this month, Dell released a m...