Awesome Stuff: Earbuds Are So Last Decade

from the moving-on... dept

If you're of a certain age, you'll remember what the headphones for the original walkmen looked like. Of course, nowadays they look pretty dated. How long will it be until today's earbuds face the same fate? Today's awesome stuff post looks at three crowdfunding projects that look at rather different ways to get sound into your head.

• Okay, this first one isn't just about the sound, but it's the sound part that stands out. Ever since the Pebble smartwatch became the most successful Kickstarter project ever, a number of other smartwatches have popped up on Kickstarter, IndieGoGo and some other crowdfunding platforms as well. I got one of the original Pebbles, and it's really made me rethink the watch as a computing device/accessory to a smartphone. I'd stopped wearing watches years ago, but the Pebble has actually made my phone much more useful, and I already realize that we're only seeing the very, very early stages of what can be done with smartwatches. In fact, many of the crowdfunded watches that have followed have raised the bar with cool new features. The latest, the HOT Watch, takes things to a new level: with a bizarre speaker/projection system built into the watchband that lets you cup your hand over your ear and use your hand as if it were a phone. This picture shows how it works: The little thing sticking out of the watchband projects the sound up, and (they claim) it's just like holding a regular phone conversation -- private to you so others can't hear it. The video also demonstrates how it works, though I'd imagine some people might question the quality. The smartwatch itself has some other cool features, including multitouch screen, gesture commands and a variety of other stuff. Basically, if it's been in another smartwatch, it's in this one too. Of course, if you thought that people looked goofy talking on those tiny bluetooth headsets, I'd imagine that you might think holding your empty hand up to your ear might look fairly goofy as well. Also, I'd imagine that this won't suffice as a "handsfree" option while driving, though it might confuse the hell out of police if they pull you over. Either way, this project shot past its initial goal very quickly and still has about a month left.
• Next up, we've got the Sound Band, which is designed to be a direct replacement for today's earbuds, but without putting anything in or over your ears. Instead, it uses surface sound technology, touching your head right behind your ears, to make it work. The contraption hangs over the top of your ears, but wraps around the back of your head with the actual surface sound touch part hiding behind your ears. Basically, if you see someone wearing it from head on, you probably won't even notice that they're wearing a form of headphones. The benefits of this are that you can still hear other stuff out of your ears -- which can be a real problem with earbuds that shut off all the sound around you. Of course, there are some situations where people like using earbuds or headphones to block out all other sounds, but you could see areas where this would be cool. Though, again like the project above, there are elements about using this where people might look at you like a crazy person because it will look like you're talking to yourself with nothing in your ear. Also, from behind your head, it definitely has a fairly dorky look to it, with a giant rectangle dangling on your neck. Still, I'm guessing many people might just think you've got hearing problems and have a hearing aid. The project hasn't quite reached its goal of $175,000, but it's not that far away, and still has well over a month left, so will almost definitely surpass the goal.
• And, finally, we've got the Syphon Soundwrap. It is what it says, basically. It's a "wrap" that acts as a sort of headphone, without having to use earbuds. The target market is people involved in action sports -- so you would put this wrap inside a helmet or a hat while you ride a motorcycle, a bike or go snowboarding or something -- and be able to listen to your music, without having to have earbuds sticking in the whole time (which can start to hurt if you wear them too long). These guys had a much more modest goal of $20,000, and are already just a bit over it with about a week and a half left to go. The market may be a lot smaller and more targeted than the general use market, but it seems that within that market, there's pretty good interest.

And that's it this week. Go spend some quality time with your earbuds, because they might soon be a thing of the past.

Filed Under: awesome stuff, earbuds, smartwatch, sound, surface sound

Awesome Stuff: Battery Power

from the keep-it-charged dept

As someone who often is working "on the go," I've built up my "office in a bag" over time, and one key element has always been making sure I've got power. That means I've always got a portable power strip on me (you make friends at airports quickly) for when there's a scarce power socket around. However, there are plenty of times when there are no outlets available, and over the past few years external batteries have become a big deal. I usually carry two: a bigger one that will power my laptop and a small one for my phone (though the big one can power the phone too). I've tested out a variety of different battery packs over the past few years, always looking for the mythical one that will make me never want for power (expensive lesson learned: no-name brands with impressive stats that ship from China tend to make really crappy batteries). Lately I've been using batteries from Anker, which have been pretty good (and much cheaper than less impressive competitors), though I've been drooling over the Bixnet BP160 with its absolutely insane 153 Watt-hour capacity (more than double nearly all other portable battery packs), though the price, weight and size are all a bit difficult to stomach. Given all that, I do spend a fair amount of time checking out various battery power crowdfunding projects. Here are a few current ones that struck me as interesting for this week's awesome stuff post.

• First up is the Legion battery pack. It's more or less like a variety of other battery packs for mobile devices (phones, tablets, but not laptops), but they've tried to take it up a notch with a more detailed LED display and much more actual intelligence, telling you how long you have left, how long it will take to charge and a variety of other nice-to-have features. They have two models -- a 5500 mAh one and an 11000 mAh one. That's right in line with a variety of other battery packs on the market. The pricing on the two different sizes seems somewhat higher than some competitors (such as the Anker ones I've been using), so this is marketed towards people who really value the "smarter" nature of this battery pack and the info it conveys (or people who aren't as aware of cheaper, less smart, battery packs). Still, looks like it could be cool. As I write this, they're right around hitting their target, so this will definitely be funded.
• Next up, we've got Synergy, which describes itself as "the world's best wireless smartphone charger." I will grant them that it's pretty sleek and creative -- really taking a different approach on a wireless charger -- and actually making it something cool. It's a wireless charger with a magnet connector, built into a sleekly designed colorful stand that serves as both a bedside/desktop stand and a windshield mounted stand (you can easily move it from one to the other). And it can even perform a bunch of tasks the second you connect it. So, for example, pop your phone on to the charger in the car and it will automatically open your navigation program, or connect it bedside, and it'll open your alarm clock. There are a lot of nice design touches, and watching the video helps explain it: The creators of this are very ambitious with the target funding, though, seeking $150,000. They're at about $20,000 with a little less than 4 weeks to go, which means they still have a big hill to climb. One stumbling block may be the price. Even at the early bird price of $75 it makes me wonder if it's really worth it for a charger, even one as cool as this. Wireless charging is cool, but plugging your device in isn't that annoying...
• Then there's the JuiceBee, which is a combo small portable battery backup and wall charger in a single unit. I find their marketing to be a little questionable, since they claim they're the first such product... but their Kickstarter campaign came about a week after a very similar project, the Fluxmob Bolt, closed. Still, the JuiceBee looks well-designed and for people looking for an all-in-one solution for both the wall charger and a small portable battery backup for a phone, it could be nice. These guys are looking for $50,000 and are about a third of the way there with over a month to go. Seems likely that they'll squeak by the target. Once again, the pricing strikes me as a bit high if it's just the battery pack you're looking at, but for people who value the combo nature, it could be worth it.
• Finally, we've got WaveJuice, which sort of combines two of the above ideas: it's a small portable battery pack for a phone, but using wireless charging. The idea is that rather than fiddle with a wire to connect the battery to the phone, you can just plop the phone next to the battery (on a table? in your pocket?). It definitely makes it a lot more convenient, and a lack of wires is definitely nice if you're trying to keep your stuff organized. Though, I have to admit that their video "hypothetical" of a "first date romantic dinner" is laughably ridiculous (assuming, first, that you'd put your phone on the table during such a date and that you'd wrap the cable around your wine glass...). These guys have a more modest (than most of these other projects) goal of just $10,000, and have about $2,000 committed with a month left to go. Again, the pricing on this one strikes me as a little high, but I seem to be saying that about all of the products mentioned today, so perhaps I'm not the actual target market.

That's it for this week. Hope that whatever you do this weekend, you've got enough power.

Filed Under: awesome stuff, battery packs, battery power, wireless charging

Two New Reports Confirm: Best Way To Reduce Piracy Dramatically Is To Offer Good Legal Alternatives

from the pretty-obvious,-really dept

At the beginning of last year we reported on a Swedish study that showed that streaming services had halved the number of people who were downloading music illegally in Scandinavia. That's a pretty stunning figure, but of course is only one data point, which means that people can always argue that it's not possible to generalize. So it's good that not just one but two new reports confirm and broaden that finding.

The first concerns unauthorized downloads of music, films and TV in Norway. As TorrentFreak explains:

The report shows that in 2008 almost 1.2 billion songs were copied without permission. However, by 2012 that figure had plummeted to 210 million, just 17.5% of its level four years earlier.

As expected, piracy of movies and TV shows in 2008 was at much lower levels than music, with 125 million movies and 135 million TV shows copied without permission. But by last year the figures for both had reduced by around half, to 65 million and 55 million respectively.

What's interesting is that music has fallen far more than the others. One explanation for that could be the effect observed in the Swedish study referred to above, and the fact that there are far more legal offerings for music than for other media. That's borne out by other figures from the Norwegian research:

Of those questioned for the survey, 47% (representing around 1.7 million people) said they use a streaming music service such as Spotify. Even more impressively, just over half (corresponding to 920,000 people and 25% of Norwegian Internet users) said that they pay for the premium option.

The other report concerns piracy in the Netherlands. It was commissioned by Spotify, which obviously has an interest in promoting streaming solutions as a way of reducing illegal activity. Nonetheless, its figures are interesting:

Not only has the number of people engaging in music piracy in the Netherlands fallen in recent times, it also appears to be an infrequent activity for most of those who remain.

There were 6.8m residential broadband connections in the Netherlands in 2012

BitTorrent music piracy occurred on 1.8m unique IPs in 2012, around a quarter of the total

Of that 1.8m, a large passive group of 532,000 (29%) downloaded just one music file

A minority of 188,000 (10%) "hardcore" pirates downloaded 16 files or more

This Long Tail distribution is an important insight, as it highlights that most people take very little. Meanwhile, the top 10% take over half of the content.

The Spotify study quotes some figures from earlier work in the Netherlands, which show that the number of active pirates declined from around 5 million in 2008 to 3 million in 2011 and 1.8 million in 2012. Because the methodologies of the studies were different, these may not be strictly comparable, but they do give an idea of the general direction. The research also provides the following information:

Last year also saw the publication of a study titled 'File sharing 2©12: Downloading from illegal sources in the Netherlands' by Joost Poort of IviR and the University of Amsterdam. The author claimed that illegal downloading of music has fallen between 2008 and 2012, whilst film and TV piracy is increasing (see table 2). The author cited the popularity of legal alternatives such as Spotify and YouTube as being the primary reason for explaining the fall in piracy over the four year period.

Again, copyright maximalists will doubtless say these are only a few studies, but such claims are looking weaker with every new result that confirms the general trend across multiple countries. They all underline what Techdirt has been saying for years: that the best way to reduce piracy is simply to increase the number of legal options offering what people want at a fair price.

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Filed Under: alternatives, content, copyright, innovation, netherlands, norway, piracy
Companies: spotify

State Attorneys General Want To Sue Innovators 'For The Children!'

from the oh-please dept

We warned this was coming last month, but it's now official as 49 48 47 of the 50 state attorneys general have sent an absolutely ridiculous letter to Congress seeking to obliterate the very important Section 230 of the CDA. As has been discussed, at length, over the years, Section 230 has played a key role in allowing innovation to flourish online. What it does is guarantee that (a) liability is properly placed on the party breaking the law and that (b) internet services and innovators can quickly extricate themselves from bogus costly lawsuits filed by people who try to blame those services for how their users use them.

The concept behind Section 230 is quite straightforward: the internet service is not liable for the actions of its users. This should be common sense. We don't blame AT&T when someone makes a phone call to try to extort someone. Nor should we blame an internet service when someone does something illegal via their service. Unfortunately, we live in an age of what I've referred to as Steve Dallas lawsuits, after a classic Bloom County comic strip in which lawyer Steve Dallas explains why he's suing a camera company after he got beat up by a celebrity in trying to take a paparazzi photo. He notes that all of the other suspects aren't good to sue, but going after "a major corporation with gobs of cash" and claiming they were "criminally negligent" is the American way.

This gets even worse when you throw state attorneys general into the mix. As a group, state AGs tend to be highly ambitious political folks who almost always are using the AG slot to run for higher office (Governor or Senator, typically). As such, they tend to focus on headline grabbing populist efforts, even when there's absolutely no legal basis. Tech companies have been a major target, because the AGs like to blame them for any wrongs in the world. The reality, of course, is that in doing so, they are often making their own jobs harder. For example, the AGs hounded and hounded and hounded Craigslist over and over again about the fact that some prostitutes used the service. What they ignored was that Craigslist very closely cooperated with law enforcement to help them find and arrest those who broke the law via the service. Of course, most AGs simply grandstanded against Craigslist, and Craigslist blocked such ads. That didn't decrease prostitution at all. It just dispersed it elsewhere, making it more difficult for law enforcement to actually stop the law breaking.

This is the crux of the issue: when you blame the service provider, rather than the actual law breakers, you don't stop the law breaking. You just make it harder to capture the actual law breakers. In almost every way it's counter productive unless the sole purpose of going after the service providers is to get yourself some headlines in which you can claim you "did something" to stop some societal ill, while actually making the problem that much worse.

While the AGs haven't let the fact that they have no legal case against tech companies stop them from holding crazy press conferences where they attack those services anyway -- what they're now trying to do is change the law so that Section 230 no longer protects service providers if the AGs bring a case. In other words, they want a special exemption so that they can now legally blame service providers for the actions of their users, rather than just verbally blame them. Law professor Eric Goldman put together a fantastic paper on why this is a horrifically bad idea and would "dramatically chill" online innovation.

Now that the AGs official letter to Congress is out, we can see that it's as bad (if not worse) than we expected. The problems start right from the very beginning:

Every day, children in the United States are sold for sex.

Yup. That's the first sentence. They start right out with the bogus moral panic. Yes, every day children are sold for sex, and yes this is a very real problem (though the claims made by the AGs are massively exaggerated). But blaming websites that are used in child prostitution efforts rather than using those sites to find and arrest those responsible isn't just irresponsible behavior by the AGs, it's downright horrifying. And yet, that's what they want.

In instance after instance, State and local authorities discover that the vehicles for advertising the victims of the child sex trade to the world are online classified ad services, such as Backpage.com. The involvement of these advertising companies is not incidental—these companies have constructed their business models around income gained from participants in the sex trade.

What they leave out is that the use of Backpage for such things only took off after the same AGs forced Craigslist to shut down such a service. In other words, shutting down such things doesn't stop the sex trafficking. It just moves it elsewhere. And, again, when state AGs find such advertisements, why aren't they using them to find and arrest those responsible?

But, as it has most recently been interpreted, the Communications Decency Act of 1996 (“CDA”) prevents State and local law enforcement agencies from prosecuting these companies.

And for a damn good reason: because it's not those companies who are doing the sex trafficking.

This must change.

So that we, state Attorneys General, can sue innovative companies rather than doing our jobs and actually capturing sex traffickers.

It is ironic that the CDA, which was intended to protect children from indecent material on the internet,1 is now used as a shield by those who intentionally profit from prostitution and crimes against children.

No, it's ironic that 49 state attorneys general, whose job should be to find and stop lawbreakers, are instead seeking to change the law to help those lawbreakers hide online, (with a side dose of killing off important innovations that help the public).

As online advertising of child prostitution goes unchecked, sex traffickers are able to expand their businesses, magnifying the scope of the problem. In the last few months alone, law enforcement agencies throughout the nation have linked sex-trafficking operations to internet advertisers. For example, on March 28, Miami police arrested a man for advertising the sex services of a 13-year-old girl on Backpage.com. The perpetrator had tattooed his name across the girl's eyelids, marking her as his property. Two months earlier, two men were arrested in Fairfax County, Virginia for prostituting four minors on Backpage.com. And on April 10, four males and one female were arrested in St. Paul, Minnesota for running a prostitution ring of eight girls and women ages 15 to 40. The girls and women were advertised on Backpage.com.6 These examples offer just a small sampling of the countless instances of child sex trafficking that occurs every day in the United States.

Actually, no, those seem like examples of law enforcement properly using the ads on Backpage to help them find and arrest some really evil people, which seems like a good thing. Changing the law to allow the AGs to sue Backpage means that these men won't be as easy for the AGs to find and the sex trafficking will continue. How is that a good idea?

Federal enforcement alone has proven insufficient to stem the growth of internet-facilitated child sex trafficking. Those on the front lines of the battle against the sexual exploitation of children—State and local law enforcement—must be granted the authority to investigate and prosecute those who facilitate these horrible crimes.

Again, they stupidly seem to think that all they need to do is focus the blame on the internet services these sex traffickers use rather than on actually finding and arresting the sex traffickers. It's incredible. It's particularly shameful, by the way, to see California Attorney General Kamala Harris on the list, since (of all people) she should at least recognize that this simple action would do massive harm to Silicon Valley in her home state, by opening the door to stopping all sorts of user generated content innovations, due to the ridiculous threat that grandstanding attorneys general will take criminal action against them just because a user uses the tool to break the law. By the way, as far as I can tell, only one state attorney general chose not to sign the letter: Connecticut's George Jepsen. [Update: As pointed out in the comments, Virginia's AG didn't sign on either (though the AG from the Virgin Islands did). Update 2: Also Wisconsin's AG didn't sign.] I'm not sure why, but considering his predecessor, Richard Blumenthal was one of the worst bogus grandstanders against tech companies, hopefully it's because Jepsen is one of the only AGs who actually understands why Section 230 is a good thing, rather than the bogus horror that every one of his colleagues see.

Filed Under: for the children, secondary liability, section 230, state attorneys general

Canonical Goes Big In Attempt To Crowdfund Exclusive Ubuntu Phone

from the real-time-market-research dept

It's no secret that Mark Shuttleworth, the CEO of Canonical, maker of Ubuntu Linux, has very strongly embraced the mobile ecosystem as the future. Back in May, he famously "closed" bug 1 listed for Ubuntu, which was "Microsoft has a majority market," declaring that this was no longer true, thanks to iOS and Android (mainly Android).

Android may not be my or your first choice of Linux, but it is without doubt an open source platform that offers both practical and economic benefits to users and industry. So we have both competition, and good representation for open source, in personal computing.

Even though we have only played a small part in that shift, I think it's important for us to recognize that the shift has taken place. So from Ubuntu's perspective, this bug is now closed.

This came a few months after Canonical had announced that it was launching Ubuntu for mobile platforms back at MWC.

Now they're taking it up a notch with an incredibly ambitious crowdfunding campaign on IndieGogo, trying to raised $32 million in one month, for an exclusive new hardware device, the Ubuntu Edge, which will only be available to backers of the project (if it gets funded). The video Shuttleworth put together is worth watching: Basically, they're trying to build the ultimate smartphone, and they appear to have rethought a few key design elements, including using sapphire crystal for the screen, rather than easily cracked glass. The software will work with Android, so you wouldn't have to totally do without Android, or its vast developer community. It's definitely an interesting campaign. The idea isn't to be "in the smartphone business," but rather to set a new high bar that will push others (and, of course, to encourage more people to use Ubuntu, both for mobile and desktop). As Shuttleworth notes, they're not going to be selling any more of these outside of the IndieGoGo campaign, though they may do similar crowdfunding campaigns in the future with the goal of continuing to drive the market forward. It's a fascinating strategy: if the rest of the world isn't innovating fast enough, lead the way yourself with the express intent that others will follow and help make your software more valuable in the process.

One other interesting tidbit: they set up the campaign so that if people bid on the first day, they can get the phone for $600, or $230 less than it is throughout the rest of the campaign. The campaign shot through half a million very quickly and is still going up from there, but I wonder if it will slow down a bit after the first day and the price goes up.

If this project reaches $32 million, it will more than triple the most successful crowdfunding project to date, the Pebble smartwatch, which raised over $10 million. But, this is exactly the kind of project that crowdfunding was made for -- because it really is investing in a somewhat risky project, while also acting as a form of market research. People who are buying into this are buying into the vision -- which is definitely a risk. The phone hasn't been built yet. All the imagery are renderings, rather than prototypes. And, you never know how the execution will turn out. Personally, I'd rather see and feel a phone before I shell out $600 or $800 for the device, but for people will to support the basic idea of advancing mobile computing, it appears that many see it as a worthwhile contribution towards that goal, whether or not the device itself turns out to be worth it.

It's quite impressive to see how quickly they've brought in so much money -- and it will really say something about the hunger for moving the space forward if they can get to $32 million. Of course, even if it doesn't reach the $32 million goal, the project is clearly successful on multiple levels. As we've noted in the past, crowdfunding projects that don't reach their goals are not "failures." They're smart market research at work. If there isn't a big enough market for these phones, Canonical just saved itself a ton of money by not going ahead with the actual production. And, at the same time, they still get a ton of free publicity for the mobile software... So whether or not this project hits its goal, it's crowdfunding done right.

Filed Under: android, crowdfunding, mark shuttleworth, market research, pushing the envelope, smartphones, ubuntu
Companies: canonical

Awesome Stuff: Health & Fitness

from the stay-safe dept

For this week's awesome stuff post, we're looking at three crowdfunding projects that could help people stay healthy.

• First up, the super impressive Scanadu Scout, what they refer to as a "medical tricorder." Honestly, this is the kind of thing that it feels like should have been on the market ages ago. A simple consumer device that you can use to quickly scan and record a variety of medical "vital signs," access them on your phone and even send to your doctor. The device looks pretty cool, and I'm not the only one to think so. They put it up with a $100,000 goal, and it's well over $1.6 million dollars. If you want in on the crowdfunding part, though, order now, because their campaign closes tonight.
• There are lots of fitness trackers out there these days. And while the Fitbit probably leads the pack in awesomeness, some folks are trying to take things to the next level with the Sensoria Smart Sock Fitness Tracker. It's a special sock plus anklet gadget that you attach to the socks. It measures all the same things that regular trackers do (though, potentially with more accuracy), but goes even further -- such as telling you if your running cadence is off, or if you're landing too much on your heels. Basically, it's trying to take the fitness tracker up a level. This one is pretty near its goal of $87,000 already, and still has nearly four weeks left, so it'll almost certainly pass its goal. Personally, knowing the rate I go through socks, I wonder if it will get prohibitively expensive if you have to keep buying more of the "smart socks," which appear to run a staggering $20 per pair. Also, the prototype anklet looks huge, though they promise the production device will be smaller. Still, in an age when people are looking to measure everything they do, here's another tool that measures even more.
• The last one isn't quite a health/fitness thing, but I could see how it might be used to increase health. It's an omnidirectional treadmill device (plus the special shoes needed to use it) called the WizDish -- which allows you to basically "run" or "walk" while playing video games. In this age of Wii and Kinect where we've finally moved video gaming beyond the "sit on the couch and play" stage, this tries to take it up another level by letting you feel more like you're actually walking or running around rather than being tethered to one spot. You kind of have to watch the video to understand the point: Of course, as you'll see, this has the feeling of a product where the creator spent an awful lot of time on the engineering aspect, but not nearly enough on the marketing/design aspect. The device looks kinda cheap and flimsy, and the production value of the campaign feels like it could have been done much better. On top of that, the whole thing feels a bit pricey -- and when you realize that you also need to add a VR headset (which most people probably don't have), it might not feel worth it. Perhaps that's why it's only got a little more than 12% raised of its £50,000 goal with just a week to go. Chances are this isn't getting funded. It's too bad, because the concept could be cool, but the folks who created it may want to team up with someone with some more experience in marketing these kinds of accessories.

That's it this week. Stay healthy.

Filed Under: awesome stuff, fitness, fitness trackers, health, innovation, medical tricorder, omnidirectional treadmill, sensors, smart socks, treadmills

Google Being Pressured Into Crippling Self-Driving Cars

from the disruptive-innovation dept

One of the most common results of disruptive technologies is that the legacy players scream to the heavens (or, rather, the politicians) about how dangerous the new technology is and how people will die if that new technology isn't crippled. One of the most ridiculous examples of this -- from over a century ago -- was with the introduction of automobiles. Some transportation competitors raised such a stink about how dangerous cars were, that a few governments passed so called red flag traffic laws, that required someone to walk in front of any car, waving a red flag to warn people of what was coming. One of the most famous, in the UK, included this:

... one of such persons, while any locomotive is in motion, shall precede such locomotive on foot by not less than sixty yards, and shall carry a red flag constantly displayed, and shall warn the riders and drivers of horses of the approach of such locomotives...

Of course, those who were once the disruptors often become the incumbents, so it should be little surprise that automakers are on the other side of things when it comes to the eventual roll out of Google's self-driving cars. The Wall Street Journal is reporting that politicians and automakers are pushing Google to cripple their self-driving cars while also delaying the roll out.

Google Inc. , under pressure to slow down development of driverless cars, may crimp the capabilities of the first auto products that it brings to market, people close to the company say. That may mean that cars using Google's software may not drive faster than 25 miles per hour and may feature a foam front end to limit the extent of damage caused in the event of a collision.

Yes, there are some irrational fears about self-driving cars. Undoubtedly, there will be some malfunctions and accidents. And a lot of legal issues are unsettled. However, crippling the cars to the point that they're almost useless seems rather silly. Regular, human-driven cars are notoriously unreliable and subject to accidents. It's quite likely that as more self-driving cars are on the road that accidents will decline massively, as the technology will actually make the roads much safer.

While the article highlights the potential legal concerns and "public perception" of self-driving cars as a reason to cripple the first round of those cars, there are also, not surprisingly, competing automakers and tech companies in the mix, with their fear that Google's willingness to keep innovating may leave them all far behind:

Auto makers and technology companies have made significant investments in the development of self-driving cars, although they favor a much more cautious, step-by-step approach than Google's leadership does. How the car research plays out will say a lot about how Google's innovative process will work as the company continues to mature and enter huge new markets such as transportation. It has run roughshod over the wireless phone industry for the last few years, quickly establishing the dominance of its Android operating system. But the auto industry has seen that story unfold, and doesn't want to be cast unwillingly in a sequel.

In other words, spreading FUD about self-driving cars means Google can't be as aggressive in pushing the envelope, and maybe we can hold back the tide for a few more profitable years of the old, more dangerous, kinds of cars.

Filed Under: disruptive innovation, innovation, self-driving cars
Companies: google

Awesome Stuff: Keeping Your Online Activities Private Suddenly More Interesting

from the well,-look-at-that dept

Given all the recent leaks about surveillance lately, we figured this week's awesome stuff would look at some crowdfunding projects that are a bit more focused on keeping your online activities secret. Startups that actively protect their users privacy from snooping eyes of the government are getting a lot of renewed attention. Search engine DuckDuckGo has seen a massive bump in traffic. Kim Dotcom's Mega is now working on encrypted email and messaging to go along with its encrypted storage offerings. On the crowdfunding front, we're seeing a bunch of other privacy-related projects popping up -- some with a bit more reasonable plans than others.

• Deservedly getting a ton of attention this week was the announcement about Heml.is, a new secure messaging app for mobile devices, put together by the same crew of folks who created Flattr, including Peter "brokep" Sunde (also of The Pirate Bay fame), Linus Olsson and Leif Hogberg. These are three very, very smart guys. They raised over $150,000 very quickly and then shut down the funding. The project looks pretty cool, though I wish they'd focus on more platforms than just mobile. Also, I'm a tad disappointed that they trotted out that old, silly line "if you're not paying, you're the product," because it's really misleading, and they should know that. Still, if there are people you can trust to truly focus on thinking about user privacy first, these are the guys. I'm excited to see what they eventually build.
• HiddenToolbox looks like they're trying to create a userfriendlish version of TrueCrypt or something similar, such that you can store your documents/files/data secretly, with some additional cool features built in, such as remote self-destruct, a panic shutdown, file shredder and more. Some of it sounds cool feature-wise, but it would be interesting to see if any security experts have really had a chance to stress test their system to find out how secure it really is. There seems to be precious little info on that front. They're not asking for very much money total -- just $8,000 -- which is so low that it almost sounds suspicious in its own right. Still, they've almost reached that amount. Given free products on the market that do much of what they're promising already, I'm not quite sure it's worth what they're charging, but it is interesting to see more attempts to build secure storage options.
• There are a bunch of anonymous surfing tools out there, but iAnonym is looking to make completely anonymous internet surfing easier. The project looks pretty comprehensive, and (unlike the HiddenToolbox above) they lay out a lot of the details of what they're trying to do and why it should actually allow for anonymous activities online. Unfortunately, it doesn't look like they've received very much attention for the project, which is seeking £25,000, but only has around £1,000 with about two weeks to go.
• Can't trust pure software? How about hardware. Adonify is offering a plug and play network device for people to surf the web privately. Unfortunately the video explanation is horrible. I mean this might be the worst crowdfunding video I've ever seen. The video quality, the sound quality, the explanation of the product, the dude standing around smoking while the other guy explains what's going on... it's all pretty weak. When will people finally learn that a quality video is a pretty key part of a crowdfunding campaign. For what it's worth, their IndieGoGo page isn't particularly informative either. Given the weaknesses of the video and the description, combined with asking for 100,000€, it's not too surprising that they've raised almost nothing so far, though there's still well over a month to go.
• If the Adonify had some problems attracting attention, that appears to go double for Cryptomania, a Swiss company that is trying to crowdfund money for a secure storage and communications platform. They don't have any video for their product, and they barely explain their product at all. And the crowdfunding awards are for equity in their company, which almost certainly violates public offerings laws in the US and other countries (while other countries do allow equity crowdfunding, and the US is getting there, the rules tend to be rather specific and rather strict -- and it doesn't appear these guys followed any of that). They're also trying to raise a much larger amount: 250,000€. So far... they've made 0€ with less than 3 weeks to go. It seems doubtful they'll get much more.

Unfortunately, the last two projects especially demonstrate one of the key problems with most tools to protect privacy that are on the market today. They're designed by engineers and cryptogeeks who very often are not very good at explaining what they do, making it user friendly, or convincing non-geeks why what they're doing is valuable. The quick success of Heml.is' funding, combined with the growth of DuckDuckGo are good signs, though. When you can make privacy user-friendly and understandable, people are definitely interested. I'm hoping that the new attention on privacy due to the recent leaks about surveillance will drive more companies to look at ways to do user-friendly, powerful privacy tools. It's good to see some are already on that path, though they may need some work to improve.

Filed Under: anonymity, awesome stuff, encryption, privacy, surveillance

US Innovation: Built On Copying And Permissionless Innovation

from the a-history-lesson dept

We recently wrote about Rep. Marsha Blackburn's nearly 100% fact free oped about how we need stronger copyright and patent enforcement to encourage innovation. I wanted to revisit that article to drill down on one point:

America has always been a society that rewards good ideas and protects property rights in a free-market capitalist system, not one premised on permission-less innovation where others can free-ride or take someone’s creation without even asking. It’s wrong to deny creators and innovators the fruits of their labor or to deprive them of their individual right to profit for the work they legitimately create.

That’s why the U.S. Constitution under Article I, Section 8 recognized these natural rights and empowered Congress to secure them in a way that advances honest and legitimate activity.

As we noted in response, that's simply not true. And the history of American innovation is actually almost entirely about permissionless innovation and copying someone else's ideas and making them better. Ben reminded us that a few months ago Bloomberg actually had a really detailed discussion of how early US industrialization, led by the same founding fathers of the US, was all about copying others and permissionless innovation. We wrote about this at the time, but it's worth a reminder, just to see how incredibly wrong Rep. Blackburn is in her oped.

In its adolescent years, the U.S. was a hotbed of intellectual piracy and technology smuggling, particularly in the textile industry, acquiring both machines and skilled machinists in violation of British export and emigration laws. Only after it had become a mature industrial power did the country vigorously campaign for intellectual-property protection.

In fact, it was a widely supported view that Americans should flat-out copy the innovations of other countries, and this included direct statements from some of the key framers of the Constitution. Take, for example, Alexander Hamilton, considered one of the key people behind the Constitution. He cowrote the Federalist Papers, and his contributions are considered some of the most important in understanding and interpreting the intentions of the Constitution. So, how did he feel about Blackburn's claim that Article I, Section 8 was recognizing the "natural rights" based on innovation and that it was wrong to "deny creators and innovators the fruits of their labor"? Turns out Hamilton says that Blackburn's interpretation of the Constitution and history are both completely wrong:

The most candid mission statement in this regard was Alexander Hamilton’s “Report on Manufactures,” submitted to Congress in December 1791. “To procure all such machines as are known in any part of Europe can only require a proper provision and due pains,” Hamilton wrote. “The knowledge of several of the most important of them is already possessed. The preparation of them here is, in most cases, practicable on nearly equal terms.”

Notice that Hamilton wasn’t urging the development of indigenous inventions to compete with Europe but rather the direct procurement of European technologies through “proper provision and due pains” -- meaning, breaking the laws of other countries. As the report acknowledged, most manufacturing nations “prohibit, under severe penalties, the exportation of implements and machines, which they have either invented or improved.” At least part of the “Report on Manufactures” can therefore be read as a manifesto calling for state-sponsored theft and smuggling.

The first U.S. Patent Act encouraged this policy. Although the law safeguarded domestic inventors, it didn’t extend the same courtesy to foreign ones -- they couldn’t obtain a U.S. patent on an invention they had previously patented in Europe. In practice, this meant one could steal a foreign invention, smuggle it to the U.S., and develop it for domestic commercial applications without fear of legal reprisal.

Much of the rest of the article gives example after example of how US innovation and industrialization was based on this exact pattern. And, of course, this is not just an American pattern. We've seen how other countries, including Germany, Switzerland and the Netherlands used similar techniques to industrialize. Either way, even a basic knowledge of the history of industrialization shows that Blackburn's claims about the Constitution are completely misinformed. And yet she wishes to base a massive policy shift based on these misunderstandings? Yikes.

Filed Under: alexander hamilton, copying, history, innovation, marsha blackburn

Congresswoman Claims 'Fair Use' And 'Transparency' Are Just 'Buzz Terms'

from the oh-really-now? dept

We've mentioned Rep. Marsha Blackburn a few times on this site. She's one of the RIAA's favorite elected officials, who apparently hates government interference in markets... except if it's intellectual property laws. She seems unable to recognize the irony of attacking attempts to regulate the internet via telecom policy (net neutrality is picking winners and losers), while strongly supporting attempts to regulate the internet and technology via intellectual property law. Of course, that's the government picking winners and losers too, but the winners just happen to be some of her biggest campaign contributors: pharma and the entertainment industries.

She's now written an incredible, ridiculous, and almost entirely fact-free article, insisting that the way to drive innovation in this country forward is to increase intellectual property enforcement. The article is so incredibly misleading that it's laugh-out-loud funny at times -- though, I give kudos to whatever poor staffer penned it for her, for including the line "Let’s begin an honest discussion" after paragraph after paragraph of incredibly dishonest discussion. Let's dig in.

Last year the U.S. Chamber of Commerce released a report highlighting how U.S. industries reliant on intellectual property supported more than 55 million jobs, contributed to $5.8 trillion in economic output and accounted for nearly 74 percent of total exports.

Okay, we've discussed and debunked this one before. It's a silly report that doesn't actually come anywhere close to saying what Blackburn claims it says. First off, it's not "industries reliant on intellectual property." It's industries that are defined by the study's authors as being "intellectual property intensive." The language choices here are subtle, but there's an incredibly important distinction. Nothing in the study suggests that IP laws or enforcement are necessary or responsible for the economic output in question. They just lump every industry that has some connection to intellectual property into a giant stew, and then pretend it's all because of IP. That's why grocery stores are the biggest industry in terms of "jobs." Because the report is ridiculous. Stronger IP enforcement doesn't help grocery jobs, but Marsha Blackburn is about to pretend the report she misread says it will.

Oh, and I should note that the Chamber of Commerce (and the firm they hire to write these reports, NPD) seem to have wildly fluctuating numbers. Last year's report said these IP intensive industries contributed $7.7 trillion. Just one year later and it's down to $5.8 trillion? And, at a time when both the movie and music industries claimed to be growing? Maybe, just maybe, the numbers in the report are completely bogus.

These figures prove what should be obvious: Strong intellectual property (IP) rights are essential to expanding economic growth and fostering innovation. Without strong IP protections, innovation will diminish and so will America’s economic greatness.

Except, as noted, the figures don't actually say what Blackburn is claiming. They make no statement on whether or not stronger laws and enforcement foster innovation. In fact, studies that actually look at that question appear to show that stronger IP and enforcement often hold back innovation and can be incredibly costly to the US economy. The mistake that Blackburn is making -- either out of ignorance or to be intentionally misleading, is to assume that stronger laws and enforcement are the cause of the economic output, when that's not what the report she's quoting says.

America has always been a society that rewards good ideas and protects property rights in a free-market capitalist system...

This actually isn't true, first of all, and as we were just discussing, intellectual property -- a system by which a central government authority hands out massive monopoly rights -- is the exact opposite of a free-market capitalist system. It's quite incredible to argue that the government should give out more centralized monopolies, and then pretend that's free-market capitalism.

... not one premised on permission-less innovation...

It would appear that Blackburn is almost entirely unfamiliar with the history and nature of American innovation. If she'd like, however, I'm sure that Alexis Ohanian would be happy to send Blackburn a copy of his upcoming book on the subject, but innovation in general, and American innovation in particular has a very long and detailed history of exactly that: permission-less innovation.

In fact, permission-less innovation actually is a key hallmark of a free-market capitalist system. If you need to get permission to innovate, often via a government authority, which is what she is advocating for, it's the exact opposite of what she claims she supports. Either way, early American industry thrived on copying technology and content from Europe -- and then often improving on it (without permission). And that's always been the nature of innovation. It's an ongoing process of improvements, and if you add in a requirement to get permission -- which often isn't granted -- you slow down innovation drastically.

It’s wrong to deny creators and innovators the fruits of their labor or to deprive them of their individual right to profit for the work they legitimately create.

Of course, as the US Supreme Court has made clear (does Blackburn not know this?), US intellectual property laws are not based on a "fruits of their labor" concept, but rather act solely for the benefit of the public, as a supposed incentive for innovation. If it was merely a "fruits of their labor" concept, we wouldn't even have a public domain, and yet that was a key part of how the Founders designed copyright and patent law. More importantly, patent law, in particular, clearly deprives many innovators of the "fruits of their labor" by not recognizing an independent invention defense -- meaning that if someone else gets a patent first, every other innovator who came up with the same thing (or better!) separately, is now unable to continue to innovate in that arena, without paying up. That's completely antithetical to the idea of supporting someone getting the fruits of their labor. And that's really the main issue with patent law today: it allows others -- often patent lawyers who buy up crappy patents -- to hold "the fruits" of others' labor hostage.

That’s why the U.S. Constitution under Article I, Section 8 recognized these natural rights and empowered Congress to secure them in a way that advances honest and legitimate activity.

This is simply not true. The Constitutional clause on IP did not "recognize natural rights." In fact, it's quite clear that the framers did not believe that IP was a "natural right" and the Supreme Court has repeatedly reinforced this point. Instead, it granted Congress the power -- if it so chose -- to provide these limited monopolies solely for the purpose of benefiting the progress of science and the useful arts.

That’s what John Locke advocated in his Second Treatise of Civil Government in the 17th century. The origins of this constitutional clause are found in English copyright law, and 12 of the 13 colonies provided these rights after the Continental Congress.

Ah, the RIAA's new favorite bogus talking point. A few months ago, they tried to rewrite history by selectively quoting John Locke. When you put Locke's comments back into context, you realize that he actually spoke out against early versions of copyright, and a detailed analysis of how the US framers drafted that part of the Constitution, showed that they explicitly rejected Locke's commentary as the basis for the constitutional clause.

Blackburn is pushing out bogus RIAA talking points that have been debunked, repeatedly, by actual scholars on the subject. But, just the fact that she's spewing RIAA talking points should make it rather obvious where this writeup came from.

Who is going to take the U.S. seriously if we continue to deny a performance right for sound recordings as the rest of the developed world already does?

The US has rejected performance rights for decades, as Congress recognized the promotional impact of music playing on radio. Does Blackburn really think that no one has taken the US seriously for all of that time?

Will other countries take advantage of U.S.-based innovation if we aren’t willing to take reasonable actions against foreign-based rogue websites that threaten U.S. health and safety?

This is another bogus talking point from the SOPA talking points. What "rogue websites" threaten US health and safety? The US Chamber of Commerce and other SOPA supporters loved to pull the big switcheroo on this one. They would talk about fake drugs and military parts -- which are a tiny and almost non-existent issue, but which represent actual safety threats, and then lump them in with sites that some users access for the purpose of copyright infringement... and then claim they're all "rogue sites threatening health and safety." It's a cheap, hacky debater's trick that should have no place in any "honest" discussion.

We continue to allow 25 percent of all Internet traffic to go to illegal rogue websites.

If they're illegal, take them to court. But, the problem is they're not actually illegal. Blackburn is making that up.

It helps criminal enterprises thrive but it kills American business and hurts consumers.

How? Where? Where's the evidence of this?

Creators benefit from the certainty of consistent and strong enforcement.

Actually, strong enforcement only seems to lead to more splintering and driving infringement underground, but has done nothing to help creators. At all. Instead, what has helped creators is innovation -- the same innovation that folks like the RIAA have been trying to stifle with strong IP laws, advanced by the likes of Blackburn.

America must do more than just offer reports that include the typical feel-good language: “transparency,” “fair use,” “coordination,” and “voluntary initiatives.” Instead of rehashing buzz terms and talking points, we need to institute a national strategy that puts Americans’ private property rights and the rule of law at the forefront.

Wait. Fair use is a "buzz term"? I thought it was a clear part of the law. Hmm. Why, yes, it is. Oh, and remember that study that Blackburn quoted at the beginning, and which she insists shows the need for stronger enforcement and less fair use. Well, as we've noted, another study, which used the identical methodology found that fair use contributes even more to economic output. So, if we are to take Blackburn's initial comment seriously, shouldn't she actually support stronger fair use and greater public rights, rather than locking them down with stronger IP laws?

If we don’t, countries like China and India will have no problem taking advantage our failures to fight for what is rightfully ours.

US IP laws do not apply to China and India as they are, last I checked, separate countries, which have their own laws. Of course, the US's idiotic push for getting those countries to more strongly enforce patents and copyrights has resulted in China, for example, using IP laws to block American companies from the Chinese market. Blackburn should be careful what she wishes for, because the Chinese, unlike Blackburn, recognize that copyright and patent laws are protectionist laws, which they can use to harm foreign companies.

In India’s case, they’ve adopted an industrial policy that exploits our intellectual property on a whole new level. India has found itself on the United States Trade Representative’s Special 301 “Priority Watch List” precisely because of the country’s lack of respect for U.S.-based innovation. Nearly every major U.S. industry — technology, bio, pharmaceutical, chemical, agriculture, communications, medical, and manufacturing — has strongly criticized India’s policies for clashing with internationally accepted IP standards.

And yet all of those industries seem to hire a ton of folks in India. If this was really such a big problem, why would they be doing that?

Let’s begin an honest discussion that acknowledges that intellectual property is a catalyst for American innovation

An honest discussion doesn't start with something where the evidence says the exact opposite.

The genius of the American people and the promise of the free market will outlast and outperform all alternatives so long as property rights and the rule of law are respected in our new virtual economy.

Again, how can she claim that a system of government-granted monopolies has anything to do with a free market?

Blackburn is spewing US Chamber of Commerce and RIAA talking points -- the same talking points that were used to push SOPA. It's almost certain that this means they're gearing up to try again with something SOPA-like. It's not surprising that they're still using the same bogus talking points, but it seems that Blackburn and the US CoC/RIAA don't seem to have learned that spewing pure bullshit about this stuff doesn't work any more.

Filed Under: congress, copyright, enforcement, fair use, innovation, intellectual property, marsha blackburn, patents, transparency
Companies: riaa, us chamber of commerce