d-tech

Apple to sell non-digital rights management music 

Apple has won the right to sell non-copy rights protected music on its ITunes store site.  Apple agreed with record labels such as, EMI, Warner, Sony, and thousands of others to sell their music on Apples ITunes sight without the music being copy protected.  The copy protection or digital rights management issue means that before when you downloaded music, you couldn’t transfer it to other systems as it could not be read, and also you could not share the music with your friends.  Now that there will be no copy protection on the music supplied to Apple by record labels, customer base will increase, as people will see no barriers to Apples ITunes downloads.  This small milestone will also give competitors such as Amazon MP3 an opportunity to gain more customers.  There will be a variation on the cost of the music, with more recent and popular music selling for higher prices, than the not so popular or recent brands.     

Source: Reuters Technology News – January 2009-01-07 

Google’s virtual world online site will be closed by the end of the year. 

As Google’s virtual world gaming site called, ’Lively’, has not been able to take off, the site will be closing down by, the end of the year.  The 3-D virtual world site which, was suppose to be a competitor against the well known ‘Second Life’ virtual world game has been unsuccessful.  Google has taken numerous gambles and this one has not succeeded.  Google’s Blog states that those gamers who have used the site should take print screen dumps and videos of the virtual world sites they’ve created as the site will soon be closing.  Google plans to carry on and focus on what it is best at, which is designing applications, search engine optimisation and marketing.   

Source: Reuters Technology News – November 2008-11-21

The ‘World of Warcraft’ game is the market leader in the multi player MMO industry. 

The MMO game, World of Warcraft, has about a sixty-five percent share of the European and American market, which becomes slightly less in Asia.  The multiplayer game has millions of fans all over the world.  The fans themselves spend up to sixteen hours a day on the game, which psychologist say has made teenagers socially excluded with school activities as they spend so much time on the games and hardly anytime socialising.  The game has made millions all over the world.  Its competitors are doing well, but World of Warcraft is the market leader.   

Source: Reuters Technology News – November 2008-11-20

Social Media site is now seen as a serious medium for advertising 

Companies are now using social media sites to promote their products.  It seems that by using these social media sites and other web 2.o tools such as blogging, companies can reach out to a new source of consumers.  There are tens of millions of people using social media sites and blogging.  By companies using social media sites, they can get their products known to millions more potential consumers globally and by word of mouth.  Useful tools such as RSS feeds, widget videos and gadgets makes it easier to reach more consumers, rather than the normal methods of posters, radio and TV promotions.  These original methods of promoting products by TV, radio, and posters have now been transformed into online mediums known as widget TV, Podcast Feeds, and Images.  Essentially they are all a form of widget, which is seem as a JavaScript programming code behind the scenes.        

Source: Reuters Technology News November 2008-11-19

Yahoo is now looking for a new CEO and Yang is to resign once new CEO is assigned. 

The current CEO, Jerry Yang will be stepping down as Chief Executive Officer of Yahoo, once a new replacement has been found.  This has come after the poor performance of Yahoo’s shares and the breakdown in collaboration and takeover deals.  Microsoft, Google, and Time Warner’s AOL Unit had originally had talks with Yahoo for a collaboration or takeover bid, which would have profited Yahoo greatly.  These deals fell through possibly due to Jerry Yang’s independent strategy for the organisation, Yahoo, where he wanted Yahoo to strive for success and survive as an independent firm.  Several executives from News Corporation, eBay, AOL, and Yahoo are being considered for the new role.  Yahoo has even hired a search consultancy to find the right candidate for the job.   

Source: Reuters Internet News November 2008-11-18

Divorce over virtual life affair 

Amy Taylor has initiated a divorce with her husband, David Pollard.  The divorce comes as the husband; David has been having secret rendezvous with a woman in the virtual world of online gaming.  It seems that David was caught by his wife, Amy watching scenes of David’s virtual character having sex with virtual female character online.  Amy hired a detective in the past to watch David in the virtual world and he seemed to have passed the test.  The problem then came when David was caught writing to a virtual female stating that his marriage was virtually over.  Finally, when Amy caught David watching his virtual character having sex with another virtual female, Amy decided to file for a divorce.  The divorce lawyer dealing with Amy’s case says she was not surprised as it had been the second case of social related divorce filed for her in the last week.    

Source: Reuters Internet News – November 2008-11-17

Senator Byron Dorgan, of North Dakota intends to pass a bill of Internet neutrality 

The senator and fellow officials believe that internet service providers (ISPs) holder too much power in censoring what online surfers can view or share, when using competitor sites.  President to be Barrack Obama supports the potential move of making information more accessible to online surfers, by passing regulations or standards.  Internet service providers like AT&T will come under more competition from internet content publishers such as Google Inc and Microsoft Corp.  ISPs such as Verizon and Comcast unsurprisingly disagree with these potential regulations, as they believe there needs to be less control by the Government.   

Source: Reuters.com Internet News November 2008-11-16

Illegal online medication dealers have been raided 

The regulatory body for monitoring the sale of pharmaceutical products made raids in nine countries.  The nine countries raided were Britain, Germany, Israel, Ireland, USA, Switzerland, Singapore, New Zealand and Canada.  The raid, which was named Pangea, saw the seizure of a lot of illegal fake medicines, which were to be sold over the internet.  These medicines are often ill manufactured and dangerous to the health of its recipients.  Officials say they are cracking down and anyone found selling these fake drugs over the internet will be caught and prosecuted.  Officials say using the internet legally with prescribed documents and under regulated companies would be a good way of reducing the cost of medication and increasing competition, but selling unregulated illegal drugs will be prosecuted.   

Source: Reuters Internet News – November 2008

Microsoft’s new online tool is aimed to be popular with internet users 

Microsoft has developed a new version of its online services.  The service is aimed to be available in within a year.  The aim of the tool is to integrate all application under one umbrella.  It is an act to encapsulate all of the online applications under one roof.  The online tool aims to mimic the functions of desktop tools, which can be shared by a group and bring this practice to social users.  So, friends can organise their social time and events around this calendar.  Groups will also be able to share photos and other documents with each other.  The new tool is supposed to bring fresh competition against its competitors.  Some critics believe that the system is not as user accepted as that of others, which gives a different user experience.   

Source: Reuters - Internet News 2008

Google publicises its site search tool to both individuals and organisations 

Try Google’s custom site search tool feature.  The tool is currently available via Google’s feature, which can be found within Google’s account holder’s log in.  Google’s search site feature has been available to its individual users for free.  The tool, which I also currently use, can be customised to search within specific sites or URL you suggest via its set up, or you could choose to make it searchable for all websites.  Google is now offering this customisable search bar for a price to organisations.  The price will also vary according to the size of the organisation, but there is a cut off maximum price point.

Source: Reuters.com - Internet news November 2008