In brief:
* How Hollywood Is Encouraging Online Piracy (2012-Aug-21) [Scientific American]
The people want movies. None of Hollywood’s baffling legal constructs will stop the demand. The studios are trying to prevent a dam from bursting by putting up a picket fence.
And if you don’t make your product available legally, guess what? The people will get it illegally. Traffic to illegal download sites has more than sextupled since 2009, and file downloading is expected to grow about 23 percent annually until 2015. Why? Of the 10 most pirated movies of 2011, guess how many of them are available to rent online, as I write this in midsummer 2012? Zero. That’s right: Hollywood is actually encouraging the very practice they claim to be fighting (with new laws, for example).
* The Signs of Video Conferencing Disruption (2012-Aug-21) [bloggeek.me]
The enterprise video conferencing industry needs to look at ways to stay relevant when its basic paradigms and beliefs are questioned every day by new startups with new ideas at a fraction of the cost structure of the incumbents. (via @kinshasha)
* The Perfect Case For Jason Bourne’s 16 iPads (2012-Aug-18) [Gizmodo]
Just me and my 16 iPads, flying to Maui, said the one person who invented this case that simultaneously charges 16 iPads a laptop.
This case, and more, are available from Parasync
* Assange exploits decade of US folly (2012-Aug-18) [The Age]
Ecuador has clashed with the US and has a record of rights abuses – notably, and ironically, in judicial interference and denying its citizens freedom of expression. However, the recent track record of the US and its allies in bending and even breaking long-standing international laws and conventions creates enough doubts about the circumstances of Assange’s case that Ecuador has felt able to accept him as a ”victim of political persecution”. The claim that he faces a real but unacknowledged risk of extradition to a third country, the US, where ”he would not face a fair trial”, is founded on the record of the past decade.
Some reading/listening:
* Steven Erikson – Forge of Darkness [Tor]
The latest book in Steven Erikson’s Malazan series—out on September 18—begins the Kharkanas Trilogy, a new story set millennia before the main Malazan sequence and a new jumping on point for fantasy fans interested in taking on a new epic.
To whet your appetite, Tor.com will be releasing the first five chapters of Forge of Darkness in the coming weeks!
Now is the time to tell the story of an ancient realm, a tragic tale that sets the stage for all the tales yet to come and all those already told…
☠ Forge of Darkness, Prelude and Chapter One (Excerpt)
☠ Forge of Darkness, Chapter Two (Excerpt)
☠ Forge of Darkness, Chapter Three (Excerpt)
☠ Forge of Darkness, Chapter Four (Excerpt)
Something from Bandcamp:
