infoneer pulse

Iran Blocks HTTPS, Cutting Off Gmail, Yahoo and Other Major Sites

Fri, 10 Feb 2012 17:49:06 -0500

Iran Blocks HTTPS, Cutting Off Gmail, Yahoo and Other Major Sites:

The Iranian government isn’t exactly known as a champion of free speech and access to information. Thus, it’s never shocking to hear about Internet censorship in the country, the state of which appears to be getting worse all the time.

Today, news surfaced that the country is blocking access to websites that use HTTPS. That means that a number of popular, secure websites like Google, Gmail, Yahoo and even online banking sites are inaccessible. Anything based outside the country that uses a secure connection via HTTPS is blocked, according to news reports and a thread on Hacker News. Secure sites based within Iran are reportedly still accessible.

» via ReadWriteWeb

BitTorrent Piracy Doesn’t Affect US Box Office Returns, Study Finds

Fri, 10 Feb 2012 17:06:06 -0500

BitTorrent Piracy Doesn’t Affect US Box Office Returns, Study Finds:

A new academic paper by researchers from the University of Minnesota and Wellesley College has examined the link between BitTorrent downloads and box office returns. Contrary to what’s often claimed by the movie industry, the researchers conclude that there is no evidence that BitTorrent piracy hurts US box office returns. Internationally, there is a link between downloads and revenues, which the researchers attribute to long release windows.

» via TorrentFreak

Craig Silverstein, Google's First Employee, Departs for Khan Academy

Fri, 10 Feb 2012 16:17:05 -0500

Craig Silverstein, Google's First Employee, Departs for Khan Academy:

Craig Silverstein, the first employee hired by Google co-founders Sergey Brin and Larry Page, will leave the search giant for Khan Academy, an online education portal based in Mountain View, Calif.

“Craig’s been with Google since the early days,” said a Google spokesperson. “He was instrumental in the development of search and made numerous contributions to Google over the years. We wish him all the best at the Khan Academy and know that he will do great things to help them promote education around the world.”

News of Silverstein’s departure first appeared yesterday in EdSurge, a newsletter on education and technology entrepreneurship. Google confirmed the news with the folks at AllThingsD.

» via International Business Times

"So what if you are someone who only has a high school diploma as an educational certificate? Do you..."

Fri, 10 Feb 2012 15:52:50 -0500

“So what if you are someone who only has a high school diploma as an educational certificate? Do you think someone of that intellectual caliber should only see materials calibrated to that level of achievement? Or what if your income level is lower than that of the super-wealthy (an increasing concern for many in today’s society)? Should you, or should you not, see the same results shown to those individuals? Now you might say; Look they’ve got at least 1,500 data elements on you (in the case of Google, narrowed down to 56) and you don’t know what they are, nor do you know the algorithms by which they are correlated, compiled and/or utilized. So it’s virtually impossible to say how these are controlling what you’ll see. You’d be absolutely right. It also means that when you do a search on the Web, you don’t know what’s defining you. Nor do you know how it is being used to decide what will be included and more specifically, what will be excluded in presenting results to your search.”

- Thoughts from Carl Grant: A key librarianship differentiator: Finding information without bias

Education Gap Grows Between Rich and Poor, Studies Show

Fri, 10 Feb 2012 15:43:23 -0500

Education Gap Grows Between Rich and Poor, Studies Show:

Education was historically considered a great equalizer in American society, capable of lifting less advantaged children and improving their chances for success as adults. But a body of recently published scholarship suggests that the achievement gap between rich and poor children is widening, a development that threatens to dilute education’s leveling effects.

It is a well-known fact that children from affluent families tend to do better in school. Yet the income divide has received far less attention from policy makers and government officials than gaps in student accomplishment by race.

Now, in analyses of long-term data published in recent months, researchers are finding that while the achievement gap between white and black students has narrowed significantly over the past few decades, the gap between rich and poor students has grown substantially during the same period.

» via The New York Times (Subscription may be required for some content)

"What is crucial to understand is that academic publishing is not a free market. Researchers send..."

Fri, 10 Feb 2012 12:17:24 -0500

“What is crucial to understand is that academic publishing is not a free market. Researchers send papers to journals for free, because their jobs depend on it. Senior scientists don’t charge journals to review potential articles, thereby helping the editors to identify the best work, because that is a part of being an academic. Libraries have to subscribe, because the researchers they serve cannot work without access to the scholarly record. Academic publishers thus have a captive work force and a captive audience.”

- From the same amazing Boston Globe piece, the quickest and clearest summary of academic publishing’s dysfunction I’ve ever seen. It is VITALLY IMPORTANT that everyone in the ecosystem understand these basic facts. (via arlpolicynotes)

"In the bigger picture, it is worth noting that the ground has shifted considerably since the..."

Fri, 10 Feb 2012 08:40:49 -0500

“In the bigger picture, it is worth noting that the ground has shifted considerably since the scanning controversy first erupted. Today, ebooks are everywhere and the out-of-print works that Google is holding have little economic value (aside from improving the company’s search algorithm). Compared to Amazon’s mega-footprint or Apple’s new textbook initiative, the once-feared Google book monopoly no longer feels very daunting.”

- Google Books Lawsuit Lurches Forward | paidContent

After Uproar Over Anti-Piracy Bill, a Movie Studio Courts Law Professors

Fri, 10 Feb 2012 02:20:05 -0500

After Uproar Over Anti-Piracy Bill, a Movie Studio Courts Law Professors:

Just weeks after a Web-fueled backlash stopped a pair of controversial anti-piracy bills from advancing in Congress, one movie studio is trying to cool the debate by courting law professors and asking them to hold conversations about how to prevent copyright infringement.

In a letter sent to dozens of law professors last week, Paramount Pictures’ vice president of worldwide content protection and outreach, Alfred C. Perry, wrote that the company was “humbled” by the strong public opposition to the Stop Online Piracy Act and the Protect IP Act, two bills that sparked worldwide protests in mid-January. The backlash surprised the company, the letter states, and Mr. Perry asked professors to consider inviting representatives for campus discussions of intellectual-property laws. The goal would be to “exchange ideas about content theft, its challenges, and possible ways to address it,” the letter reads.

» via The Chronicle of Higher Education (Subscription may be required for some content)

Internet firms aren't broadcasters: court

Fri, 10 Feb 2012 01:33:05 -0500

Internet firms aren't broadcasters: court:

Internet service providers are not broadcasters, and don’t need to adhere to strict rules designed to boost Canadian content on domestic television and radio, the Supreme Court of Canada ruled on Thursday.

The decision is a victory for telecommunications and Internet companies, including Bell Canada, Telus, Rogers Communications, Cogeco Cable and Bell Aliant, and a loss for Canadian performers and producers.

» via Yahoo! News

"As for who actually decided to play the stream, or why, VEVO says the public had access to the..."

Fri, 10 Feb 2012 00:47:05 -0500

“As for who actually decided to play the stream, or why, VEVO says the public had access to the computer being used so they can’t say for sure who exactly was responsible. Which is dubious (and almost certainly spin) — there was clearly someone actively controlling the computer, because they refreshed it when the connection stalled, and I’m pretty sure it wasn’t a random attendee who was taking the helm. Must have been one of those nasty pirates. In any case, were it the music industry that was on the other side of this, you can be sure they’d dismiss all of the aforementioned explanations without a second thought. And then they’d probably assess damages in the realm of $20,000 per down.”

- Music Labels’ Joint Venture, VEVO, Shows Pirated NFL Game At Sundance | TechCrunch

Jury strikes down Eolas' 'Interactive Web' patent

Thu, 09 Feb 2012 23:14:00 -0500

Jury strikes down Eolas' 'Interactive Web' patent:

Web companies such as Google and Amazon won a closely watched patent-infringement lawsuit today when a jury ruled that a patent central to the complaint was invalid.

A federal jury in Tyler, Texas, deliberated for just a few hours this afternoon before concluding that all of Eolas Technologies’ claims of ownership to a patent related to the “Interactive Web” were invalid, according to a Wired report. Also challenging the validity of the patents were Adobe Systems, CDW, JCPenney, Staples, and Yahoo.

Eolas and the University of California contended it was due $600 million in royalties from the Web companies for alleged violation of a patent its founder Michael Doyle, along with two co-inventors, were awarded back in 1998. The company and the University of California, which co-owns the patents because they originated from work Doyle did while employed by the school, claimed a host of Web sites were infringing on the patent by way of online video streaming, search suggestions, and other “interactive” elements on pages.

» via CNET

"By aligning herself with Amazon, she’s turning her back on independents,” Seattle Mystery Bookshop..."

Thu, 09 Feb 2012 22:28:06 -0500

““By aligning herself with Amazon, she’s turning her back on independents,” Seattle Mystery Bookshop owner J.B. Dickey told the Seattle Times. “Amazon is absolutely antithetical to independent bookselling, and, to many of us, truth, justice and the American way.””

- Beloved Librarian Who Signed With Amazon: ‘The Vehemence Surprised Me’ | paidContent

"For example, among 18- to 34-year-olds 24 percent have taken unpaid internships for work experience..."

Thu, 09 Feb 2012 22:02:41 -0500

“For example, among 18- to 34-year-olds 24 percent have taken unpaid internships for work experience and 35 percent go back to school to get a job. This all translates to 24 percent of Americans in that age bracket moving back in with their parents — a stat which jumps to 34 percent for the narrower group of 25- to 29-year-olds.”

- 34% of 25- to 29-Year-Olds Moved Back Home - National - The Atlantic Wire

"While scholars might get government grants to do research, “Peer-reviewed papers are not the result..."

Thu, 09 Feb 2012 20:55:05 -0500

“While scholars might get government grants to do research, “Peer-reviewed papers are not the result of the Federal Government’s investment,” wrote Meadows for Wiley-Blackwell. “Wiley believes that publishers — and learned societies — themselves should determine the business models under which their publications operate,” Meadows elsewhere argued.”

- U.S. call for advice on publicly funded research reignites open access debates | Inside Higher Ed

Why People Believe Misinformation, Even After It's Corrected

Thu, 09 Feb 2012 20:09:06 -0500

Why People Believe Misinformation, Even After It's Corrected:

These days we are bombarded with information, much of it incorrect, and long after the political campaigns are over a lot of it will still be buried in the part of our brain where we store our memories. And new research shows that the more intensely we believe something to be true, the more likely it will resurface in the future, even if we have learned it was false.

» via Yahoo! News

AP enrollment grows along with questions of privilege

Thu, 09 Feb 2012 19:55:15 -0500

AP enrollment grows along with questions of privilege:

Despite efforts to offer college-level courses to more high schoolers, new data show 80 percent of black graduates whose PSAT scores suggested they could have succeeded in an Advanced Placement courses never enrolled in the classes. That rate drops to about 40 percent for Asians and 60 percent for whites.

Those statistics, which one AP executive called “powerful” and “haunting,” suggest there’s work to be done in enrolling students – particularly members of some minority groups — whose test scores say they are prepared but who still don’t take AP classes, say College Board officials. Often, those courses aren’t offered at their high schools.

» via Inside Higher Ed

Penguin Group Terminating Its Contract with OverDrive

Thu, 09 Feb 2012 19:34:27 -0500

Penguin Group Terminating Its Contract with OverDrive:

libraryjournal:

In a stunning development, Penguin Group has extricated itself from its contract with OverDrive, the primary supplier of ebooks to public libraries.

Starting February 10, Penguin, which had recently instituted limitations on library lending for ebooks and audiobooks, will now no longer offer any ebooks or audiobooks through OverDrive.

“Looking ahead, we are continuing to talk about our future plans for ebook and digital audiobook availability for library lending with a number of partners providing these services,” said Erica Glass, in a prepared statement.

» via Library Journal

"It’s about time that faculty woke up and realized their interests aren’t different from those of the..."

Thu, 09 Feb 2012 12:13:19 -0500

“It’s about time that faculty woke up and realized their interests aren’t different from those of the librarians.”

- University of Pittsburgh Library System director Rush Miller, quoted in the U Pitt University Times on the Elsevier boycott. Right on! (via arlpolicynotes)

Apple’s iTunes Match (aka iMatch): The First Royalties Are In

Wed, 08 Feb 2012 21:42:05 -0500

Apple’s iTunes Match (aka iMatch): The First Royalties Are In:

The first royalty payments from iMatch are in, and they got me excited – the total amount is over $10,000 for the first two months.

This is magic money that Apple made exist out of thin air for copyright holders.

» via tunecore blog

Tim Berners-Lee Takes the Stand to Keep the Web Free

Wed, 08 Feb 2012 20:55:05 -0500

Tim Berners-Lee Takes the Stand to Keep the Web Free:

The inventor of the World Wide Web, Tim Berners-Lee, testified in a courtroom Tuesday for the first time in his life. The web pioneer flew down from Boston, near where he teaches at MIT, to an eastern Texas federal court to speak to a jury of two men and six women about the early days of the web.

His trip is part of an effort by a group of internet companies and retailers trying to defeat two patents — patents that a patent-licensing company called Eolas and the University of California are saying entitle them to royalty payments from just about anyone running a website with “interactive” features, like rotating pictures or streaming video.

» via Wired