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Today's Topics:
1. Retailers Whose Slips Show Too Much Attract Lawsuits
(Monty Solomon)
2. For a fee, inmates can upgrade cells (George Antunes)
3. P2P STB: Vudu Casts Its Spell on Hollywood (George Antunes)
4. New US Passport: RFID, Flags & Bison (George Antunes)
5. Cardinals mourn loss of pitcher Josh Hancock (Greg Williams)
6. Officials: Three dead at Kansas City shopping center (Rob)
7. Latest, greatest in TV: Do you need it? (George Antunes)
8. The Internet sure loves its outlaws (George Antunes)
9. Simple Flickr starts to see its flame burn brighter
(George Antunes)
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Message: 1
Date: Sun, 29 Apr 2007 11:55:29 -0400
From: Monty Solomon <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: [Medianews] Retailers Whose Slips Show Too Much Attract
Lawsuits
To: undisclosed-recipient:;
Message-ID: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii"
Retailers Whose Slips Show
Too Much Attract Lawsuits
Credit Receipts From Rite Aid, Wendy's, Fedex
Draw Fire for Containing Certain Consumer Data
By ROBIN SIDEL
April 28, 2007; Page B1
Consumers are pulling out their plastic for everyday purchases more
than ever, and now the nation's retailers are coming under legal
assault for printing too much payment-card information on customer
receipts.
So far this year, plaintiffs' lawyers have filed more than 100
federal lawsuits seeking class-action status against big merchants
such as Rite Aid Corp., Wendy's International Inc., FedEx Corp., TJX
Cos. and Inter Ikea Systems BV. Also in the line of fire are
lesser-known regional restaurant chains such as In-N-Out Burger and
Melting Pot fondue restaurants.
A slew of suits brought on behalf of consumers have been filed in
recent weeks in U.S. district courts in California, Pennsylvania, and
Kansas.
Merchants are under pressure to help ensure the security of
electronic transactions. Still, most of the nation's retailers don't
comply with the card industry's myriad rules that prohibit the
storage of certain customer data and require the installation of
sophisticated firewalls to protect their computer systems.
Earlier this year, TJX, parent of discount clothing chains T.J. Maxx
and Marshalls, disclosed that its computers had been hacked in a
security breach that left at least 47.5 million of its customers
vulnerable to fraud.
The requirement that retailers cut off card data is part of the Fair
and Accurate Credit Transactions Act of 2003, which sought to protect
consumers from fraud and identity theft amid the growing use of
electronic payments. Although it was enacted more than three years
ago, the law gave retailers some breathing room to make the change.
In addition to the receipt requirements, the law also gives consumers
the right to obtain a credit report, without charge, every 12 months.
As of Dec. 4, retailers are prohibited from printing more than the
last five digits of a credit-card or debit-card account number on
receipts that are handed to customers. The receipts also can't
include the account's expiration date. The law applies only to
electronically printed receipts, rather than those that are written
by hand or imprinted on old-fashioned manual machines.
...
http://online.wsj.com/public/article/SB117771144745785336-S1YwB4VdRuerW3MvcvSJBNlHLUg_20080428.html
------------------------------
Message: 2
Date: Sun, 29 Apr 2007 11:33:13 -0500
From: George Antunes <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: [Medianews] For a fee, inmates can upgrade cells
To: medianews@twiar.org
Cc: [EMAIL PROTECTED], [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Message-ID:
<[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1"; format=flowed
[Some news of the weird. My thanks to Bard-Allen Finlan for calling this
item to my attention.]
April 29, 2007
For $82 a Day, Booking a Cell in a 5-Star Jail
By JENNIFER STEINHAUER
NY Times
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/04/29/us/29jail.html?_r=1&oref=slogin&pagewanted=print
SANTA ANA, Calif., April 25 ? Anyone convicted of a crime knows a debt to
society often must be paid in jail. But a slice of Californians willing to
supplement that debt with cash (no personal checks, please) are finding
that the time can be almost bearable.
For offenders whose crimes are usually relatively minor (carjackers should
not bother) and whose bank accounts remain lofty, a dozen or so city jails
across the state offer pay-to-stay upgrades. Theirs are a clean, quiet, if
not exactly recherch? alternative to the standard county jails, where the
walls are bars, the fellow inmates are hardened and privileges are few.
Many of the self-pay jails operate like secret velvet-roped nightclubs of
the corrections world. You have to be in the know to even apply for entry,
and even if the court approves your sentence there, jail administrators can
operate like bouncers, rejecting anyone they wish.
?I am aware that this is considered to be a five-star Hilton,? said Nicole
Brockett, 22, who was recently booked into one of the jails, here in Orange
County about 30 miles southeast of Los Angeles, and paid $82 a day to
complete a 21-day sentence for a drunken driving conviction.
Ms. Brockett, who in her oversize orange T-shirt and flip-flops looked more
like a contestant on ?The Real World? than an inmate, shopped around for
the best accommodations, travelocity.com-style.
?It?s clean here,? she said, perched in a jail day room on the sort of
couch found in a hospital emergency room. ?It?s safe and everyone here is
really nice. I haven?t had a problem with any of the other girls. They give
me shampoo.?
For roughly $75 to $127 a day, these convicts ? who are known in the
self-pay parlance as ?clients? ? get a small cell behind a regular door,
distance of some amplitude from violent offenders and, in some cases, the
right to bring an iPod or computer on which to compose a novel, or perhaps
a song.
Many of the overnighters are granted work furlough, enabling them to do
most of their time on the job, returning to the jail simply to go to bed
(often following a strip search, which granted is not so five-star).
The clients usually share a cell, but otherwise mix little with the
ordinary nonpaying inmates, who tend to be people arrested and awaiting
arraignment, or federal prisoners on trial or awaiting deportation and
simply passing through.
The pay-to-stay programs have existed for years, but recently attracted
some attention when prosecutors balked at a jail in Fullerton that they
said would offer computer and cellphone use to George Jaramillo, a former
Orange County assistant sheriff who pleaded no contest to perjury and
misuse of public funds, including the unauthorized use of a county
helicopter. Mr. Jaramillo was booked into the self-pay program in
Montebello, near Los Angeles, instead.
?We certainly didn?t envision a jail with cellphone and laptop capabilities
where his family could bring him three hot meals,? said Susan Kang
Schroeder, the public affairs counsel for the Orange County district
attorney. ?We felt that the use of the computer was part of the
instrumentality of his crime, and that is another reason we objected to that.?
A spokesman for the Fullerton jail said cellphones but not laptops were
allowed.
While jails in other states may offer pay-to-stay programs, numerous jail
experts said they did not know of any.
?I have never run into this,? said Ken Kerle, managing editor of the
publication American Jail Association and author of two books on jails.
?But the rest of the country doesn?t have Hollywood either. Most of the
people who go to jail are economically disadvantaged, often mentally ill,
with alcohol and drug problems and are functionally illiterate. They don?t
have $80 a day for jail.?
The California prison system, severely overcrowded, teeming with violence
and infectious diseases and so dysfunctional that much of it is under court
supervision, is one that anyone with the slightest means would most likely
pay to avoid.
?The benefits are that you are isolated and you don?t have to expose
yourself to the traditional county system,? said Christine Parker, a
spokeswoman for CSI, a national provider of jails that runs three in Orange
County with pay-to-stay programs. ?You can avoid gang issues. You are
restricted in terms of the number of people you are encountering and they
are a similar persuasion such as you.?
Most of the programs ? which offer 10 to 30 beds ? stay full enough that
marketing is not necessary, though that was not always the case. The
Pasadena jail, for instance, tried to create a little buzz for its program
when it was started in the early 1990s.
?Our sales pitch at the time was, ?Bad things happen to good people,? ?
said Janet Givens, a spokeswoman for the Pasadena Police Department. Jail
representatives used Rotary Clubs and other such venues as their potential
marketplace for ?fee-paying inmate workers? who are charged $127 a day
(payment upfront required).
?People might have brothers, sisters, cousins, etc., who might have had a
lapse in judgment and do not want to go to county jail,? Ms. Givens said.
The typical pay-to-stay client, jail representatives agreed, is a man in
his late 30s who has been convicted of driving while intoxicated and
sentenced to a month or two in jail.
But there are single-night guests, and those who linger well over a year.
?One individual wanted to do four years here,? said Christina Holland, a
correctional manager of the Santa Ana jail.
Inmates in Santa Ana who have been approved for pay to stay by the courts
and have coughed up a hefty deposit for their stay, enter the jail through
a lobby and not the driveway reserved for the arrival of other prisoners.
They are strip searched when they return from work each day because the
biggest problem they pose is the smuggling of contraband, generally
cigarettes, for nonpaying inmates.
Most of the jailers require the inmates to do chores around the jails, even
if they work elsewhere during the day.
?I try real hard to keep them in custody for 12 hours,? Ms. Holland said.
?Because I think that?s fair.?
Critics argue that the systems create inherent injustices, offering
cleaner, safer alternatives to those who can pay.
?It seems to be to be a little unfair,? said Mike Jackson, the training
manager of the National Sheriff?s Association. ?Two people come in, have
the same offense, and the guy who has money gets to pay to stay and the
other doesn?t. The system is supposed to be equitable.?
But cities argue that the paying inmates generate cash, often hundreds of
thousands of dollars a year ? enabling them to better afford their other
taxpayer-financed operations ? and are generally easy to deal with.
?We never had a problem with self pay,? said Steve Lechuga, the operations
manager for CSI. ?I haven?t seen any fights in years. We had a really good
success rate with them.?
Stanley Goldman, a professor of criminal law at Loyola Law School in Los
Angeles, has recommended the program to former clients.
?The prisoners who are charged with nonviolent crimes and typically have no
record are not in the best position to handle themselves in the general
county facility,? Professor Goldman said.
Still, no doubt about it, the self-pay jails are not to be confused with
Canyon Ranch.
The cells at Santa Ana are roughly the size of a custodial closet, and
share its smell and ambience. Most have little more than a pink bottle of
jail-issue moisturizer and a book borrowed from the day room. Lockdown can
occur for hours at a time, and just feet away other prisoners sit with
their faces pressed against cell windows, looking menacing.
Ms. Brockett, who normally works as a bartender in Los Angeles, said the
experience was one she never cared to repeat.
?It does look decent,? she said, ?but you still feel exactly where you are.?
================================
George Antunes, Political Science Dept
University of Houston; Houston, TX 77204
Voice: 713-743-3923 Fax: 713-743-3927
antunes at uh dot edu
------------------------------
Message: 3
Date: Sun, 29 Apr 2007 11:49:48 -0500
From: George Antunes <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: [Medianews] P2P STB: Vudu Casts Its Spell on Hollywood
To: medianews@twiar.org
Cc: [EMAIL PROTECTED], [EMAIL PROTECTED], [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Message-ID:
<[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1"; format=flowed
April 29, 2007
Vudu Casts Its Spell on Hollywood
By BRAD STONE
NY Times
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/04/29/business/yourmoney/29vudu.html?ref=business&pagewanted=print
FOR the last two years, the employees of Vudu Inc. have quietly toiled in a
nondescript office in Santa Clara, Calif., in the heart of Silicon Valley.
The only hint of the company?s plans are black-and-white Rat Pack photos
that adorn its walls and oversized models of Gollum and R2D2 that watch
over its cubicles.
Insiders familiar with Vudu?s hidden magic say that this 41-employee
start-up has everything we?ve come to expect from Silicon Valley: a daring
business plan, innovative technology and entrepreneurs prone to breathless
superlatives when discussing their new offering?s possible impact on the world.
?This is something that is going to alter the landscape,? boasts Tony
Miranz, Vudu?s founder, of the product he plans to begin selling this
summer. ?We are rewriting economics.?
Vudu, if all goes as planned, hopes to turn America?s televisions into
limitless multiplexes, providing instant gratification for movie buffs. It
has built a small Internet-ready movie box that connects to the television
and allows couch potatoes to rent or buy any of the 5,000 films now in
Vudu?s growing collection. The box?s biggest asset is raw speed: the
company says the films will begin playing immediately after a customer
makes a selection.
If Vudu succeeds, it may mean goodbye to laborious computer downloads,
sticky-floored movie theaters and cable companies? much narrower
video-on-demand offerings. It may even mean a fond farewell to the DVD
itself ? the profit engine of the film industry for the last decade. ?Other
forms of movie distribution are going to look silly and uncompetitive by
comparison,? Mr. Miranz asserts.
It is not only Vudu?s disciples who are zealous about the company?s
prospects. Every major studio ? except, for now, Sony Pictures
Entertainment ? and 15 smaller ones will make their films available on
Vudu. And film executives largely wax adulatory when speaking about Vudu.
Jim Rosenthal, president of the New Line Television division of Time
Warner, says Vudu addresses ?the two major issues that people think are
getting in way of the growth of digital distribution: they are getting
movies onto the television, and they are doing it in a way that consumers
don?t have to sit there for two hours waiting.?
Despite such high praise, Vudu faces hurdles. It is wading into a field
dominated by heavyweights whose own aggressive efforts to kindle movie
downloading over the Internet have largely failed. There is also little
proof that consumers care much about the wide selection or instant
availability of movies downloaded from the Web, especially if a movie isn?t
cheaper than buying a DVD.
Vudu also needs to persuade regular folks to drag another whirring,
electricity-guzzling gizmo into their already-crowded living rooms. ?Three
hundred dollars for the privilege of paying another 6 or 10 for a movie is
a high hurdle,? said Nicholas Donatiello Jr., chief executive of the market
research firm Odyssey. ?Americans do not want more boxes under their TV if
they can avoid it.?
Even with such challenges, however, Hollywood itself says Vudu represents a
real breakthrough.
?The first time I ever saw TiVo was an a-ha moment, and this was the same
thing,? says Jim Wuthrich, a senior executive with Warner Brothers Home
Entertainment Group. ?It looks fairly sexy and inviting. This is going to
pull people in.?
VUDU is arriving at a time of rapid change in the entertainment and media
landscapes. This year, for the first time, a majority of American homes
will have a broadband connection to the Web, according to iSuppli, a
research firm. That benchmark has reshuffled the cards in the media and
entertainment industries.
With versatile data pipes now reaching into most homes, the deep thinkers
in Hollywood and Silicon Valley say they believe that television shows and
movies ? just like e-mail, Web pages, songs and albums ? will one day be
cheaply and efficiently imported into the home.
The question is when.
For all of their confidence, the new ventures now crowding the digital
video launching pad look, if anything, a tad sickly. YouTube, which Google
bought last year for $1.65 billion, is an exception: it has attracted
millions of users fanatical about watching bite-sized video clips. But
services offering longer video content have yet to get much traction.
The Web sites Movielink and CinemaNow have allowed consumers to download
feature-length films to their personal computers for the last five years.
Few viewers have chosen to, partly because the pinched PC screen is a lousy
place to watch movies. Over the last 15 months, similar movie downloading
services for the PC have started from such varied sources as Amazon.com,
Wal-Mart, Google, BitTorrent and the Starz movie channel of Liberty Media.
Bowing to the copyright anxieties of Hollywood, all of these companies
encrust their digital media files with cumbersome copyright protection
software that often foils computers and frustrates users.
?Consumers want choice and control, but for long-form video like movies on
the PC that is not enough,? said Mr. Donatiello at Odyssey. ?You have to
get the content to the television.?
Steve Jobs, at least, understands that. Apple, which has the most
successful movie downloading effort so far on iTunes ? offering just 500
films from two major studios ? began selling a device called Apple TV last
month. Priced at $299, the box wirelessly draws movies, TV shows and music
from the computer to the television.
The people at Vudu seem particularly wary of Apple TV: they have bought two
to test. But they are betting that movie downloads will ultimately be free
from an awkward dependence on the computer, and they think that this could
happen sooner than anyone else expects.
?This shift can look very slow in the beginning and very sudden at some
moment in the future,? says Alain Rossmann, a Silicon Valley veteran and
the chairman of Vudu. ?That is the history of technology.?
A graduate of the ?cole Polytechnique, the engineering school in France,
Mr. Rossmann worked on the original Macintosh for Apple in the 1980s before
starting four Silicon Valley companies over the following 20 years. The
last, a software start-up named Phone.com later renamed OpenWave Systems,
established a standard for how early cellphones wirelessly connected to the
Internet.
Mr. Rossmann left Phone.com in 2001, and three years later one of his
former colleagues came to him with an idea. Mr. Miranz, 43, an energetic
and persuasive former vice president at OpenWave, started thinking about
downloading movies over the Internet after his wife grew frustrated at her
inability to find the 1980 miniseries ?Marco Polo? at a nearby Blockbuster.
Signing up for Netflix and waiting for DVDs to arrive in the mail, he said,
?seemed like settling for a meal of worms in the desert.?
Over the summer of 2004, Mr. Miranz and Mr. Rossmann began discussing a
digital download service, and soon watched the first generation of
downloading stores beat them online. But they agreed that a truly
mainstream movie service would need to originate on the television, not the
computer. Mr. Miranz said he was also ?obsessed with the idea of
instantaneousness? ? the notion that consumers, sitting in front of the
television, could click a button and play a film without delay, as if a
disc were in the DVD player.
Mr. Rossmann approached that challenge mathematically. Sending each ordered
movie from a central facility over the Web, he reasoned, would become more
expensive the more popular such a service became. Instead, he concluded,
peer-to-peer networking ? the idea of passing files, or pieces of files,
between users ? was the most economical and efficient solution.
That technology was behind renegade file-trading bazaars like the early
manifestations of Napster and Grokster, that were the bane of the
entertainment industries. But it also underlies a new wave of legal
Internet video services like Joost and Kontiki.
From 2004 to 2006, Mr. Miranz?s and Mr. Rossmann?s newly formed company ?
which first went by the name Vvond, and later Marquee ? filed 42 patent
applications sketching the principles of an Internet movie network that
would keep consumers where they belonged: rooted to their living-room couch.
The system, according to interviews and those patent applications, will
operate like a traditional peer-to-peer service, but without any active
participation by users. Vudu boxes that already have a certain movie on
their hard drives ? say, ?The Godfather? ? will send pieces of that movie
to a nearby box when its owner suddenly gets a taste for the epic Mafia drama.
But to get those movies playing quickly, the Vudu engineers struck upon
another notion: using a slice of the digital real estate on each Vudu box
to store the beginning portions of each film. They also delved into the
science of predictions. When the company determines that a movie is more
likely to be rented or purchased ? early in its release, for example ? it
will plant lengthier pieces of that film on unused portions of Vudu boxes
in customer homes.
Rajeev Motwani, a computer science professor at Stanford who worked with
the Google founders when they were doctoral students, reviewed Vudu?s early
plans. ?It?s so clever that in hindsight it seems like the obvious thing to
do,? he says.
By mid-2005, after raising $21 million from two Valley venture capital
firms, Greylock Partners and Benchmark Capital, Vudu was ready to begin
designing the box itself. Mr. Rossmann said he advised Mr. Miranz to ?get
some DNA from the company with the closest experience to what we are going
through: TiVo.?
TiVo?s set-top boxes have snared a passionate audience over the last decade
by offering time-saving utility with a simple user interface. Vudu hired 11
TiVo veterans to help steer product design and manufacture its box. That
left Vudu in need of content deals with studios ? a challenge that fell to
Mr. Miranz, whose ambition and taste for deal-making were suited to Hollywood.
During his first year of regular trips to Los Angeles, Mr. Miranz found the
going tough; Mr. Rossmann regularly called from his vacation home in France
to express concern over the lack of progress.
But by 2006, Mr. Miranz recalled, the tide had turned Vudu?s way. DVD sales
began to stagnate because studios had finally plowed through their entire
backlog of movies that could be released on the shiny discs. The success of
iTunes was also proving that the digital transition was inevitable and that
one powerful player, Apple, could control the market if Hollywood did not
find other viable partners. And outlaw services like the pirate Web sites
that use BitTorrent technology demonstrated that digital piracy, which had
consumed the music business first, now posed a real problem for Hollywood.
The studios were suddenly very ready to talk. Ron Lamprecht, the senior
vice president for digital distribution at NBC Universal, which signed the
first deal with Vudu in May 2006, said he was enamored by the relative
simplicity and intuitive user interface of the company?s box. Universal
also liked the system?s security. Vudu?s devices use the same encryption
technology inside a cable or satellite box, and Hollywood?s valuable film
assets never have to cross the PC screens, where they typically become
exposed to the predations of hackers.
?The platform is secure from the moment we provide them content to the
moment it shows up in the box,? Mr. Lamprecht said.
With Universal on board, Mr. Miranz signed up Fox, Disney, Warner Brothers
and Paramount over the last year. ?It?s always nice to see the entire
industry getting behind a format,? said Thomas Lesinksi, president of
Paramount Pictures Digital Entertainment, noting the industry rift over
high-definition DVD technology. ?When that happens, it has a much higher
chance of success.?
Edward Lichty, who left TiVo last year and is now Vudu?s chief operating
officer, says the company is ?not expecting to be a mass product out of the
gate.? But its peer network can be run so cheaply, he says, that it needs
to have only modest success selling its box, which should retail for around
$300. (A final price has not yet been set.) The company can also someday
add television shows, music and video games to its service.
Vudu executives even consider the possibility that their hardware box might
eventually melt away, with its services running as the video-on-demand
feature in a satellite box, video game console or a new breed of
high-definition televisions.
BUT can the little company with big plans even get that far?
In addition to Apple TV, Vudu has to face off against Microsoft?s gaming
console, Xbox 360, which lets users download movies and TV shows. Other
technology heavyweights such as Yahoo, Google and Cisco are no doubt also
contemplating how to get Internet video onto television. Even Netflix,
which built a DVD rental business via mail premised on the idea that movies
delivered online were a long way off, is thinking about it. It recently
hired a founder of ReplayTV ? an early rival to TiVo ? inviting speculation
that it, too, was working on a movie box for the television.
In an interview, Reed Hastings, a founder of Netflix, said he recently met
with Vudu to learn more about the company. He would not discuss details of
the meeting other than to say: ?It?s an open question whether Vudu makes an
impact on the world or not ? but either way it is emblematic of the
Internet innovation wave beginning to wash over television sets everywhere.?
================================
George Antunes, Political Science Dept
University of Houston; Houston, TX 77204
Voice: 713-743-3923 Fax: 713-743-3927
antunes at uh dot edu
------------------------------
Message: 4
Date: Sun, 29 Apr 2007 12:13:50 -0500
From: George Antunes <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: [Medianews] New US Passport: RFID, Flags & Bison
To: medianews@twiar.org
Cc: [EMAIL PROTECTED], [EMAIL PROTECTED], [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Message-ID:
<[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii"; format=flowed
April 29, 2007
The New Passport
Stars and Stripes, Wrapped in the Same Old Blue
By NEIL MacFARQUHAR
NY Times
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/04/29/weekinreview/29macfa.html?ref=technology&pagewanted=print
SAN FRANCISCO -- WHEN I went to collect my newly minted American passport,
I discovered that it came with a radically altered design that included
sheaves of wheat, the rather large head of a bald eagle plus the flag
wrapped around my picture. And that was just one page.
But the design overhaul wasn't much noticed by people emerging from what
they called the purgatory-length waits to obtain their new passports.
"Don't you want to kill this guy right now?" Sharon Marks exclaimed to a
fellow sufferer outside the Passport Agency in San Francisco. "What are you
talking about, design? It's such a tangled mess in there that we haven't
even looked at the thing."
When Americans do open their new passports, they'll see a document
strikingly different from the old booklet. By July, all applicants will get
the new design, with the State Department expecting to issue a record 17
million passports this year, up from last year's record of 12 million.
The new passport, in the works for about six years, incorporates the first
complete redesign since 1993. Given new international standards for
post-9/11 high-tech security features, which transform the document into an
"E-passport," the State Department decided it was time for something
completely different.
The new passport comes with its own name: "American Icon." It's hard to
think of one that was left out.
The inside cover sports an engraving of the battle scene that inspired "The
Star Spangled Banner." A couple of lines of the anthem, starting with, "O
say, does that star-spangled banner yet wave," are scrawled in what the
State Department says is Francis Scott Key's own cursive.
The short, 28-page version of the passport comes with 13 inspirational
quotes, including six from United States presidents and one from a Mohawk
Thanksgiving speech. The pages, done in a pink-grey-blue palate, are rife
with portraits of Americana ranging from a clipper ship to Mount Rushmore
to a long-horn cattle drive.
Certain riffs are not obvious at first glance. The passport opens on
Chesapeake Bay, while the last page shows Diamond Head in Honolulu. (Guess?
"From sea to shining sea.")
"We thought it really, truly reflects the breadth of America as well as the
history," said Ann Barrett, deputy assistant secretary of state for
passport services. "We tried to be inclusive of all Americans."
The outside cover remains the standard gold seal on midnight blue, with the
addition of a small gold emblem on the front, a circle surrounded by two
parallel bars, which is the international symbol that the passport contains
a computer chip; in this case, bearing a digital image and biographical
information about the holder. (The chip, buried in the back page somewhere
above the moon, has been the source of some controversy out of fear of
electronic theft, although State Department officials say it is locked.)
The new passport was developed by a six-member committee from the State
Department and the Government Printing Office, with then-Secretary of State
Colin Powell approving the final icon theme. Others themes considered
included American documents, the Wright brothers and space exploration.
(The latter called for black pages, deemed rather impractical for reading
visas.)
"We think it is a beautiful document as well as the most secure," Ms.
Barrett said. "It's a work of art."
Professional designers shown the passport to critique mentioned art as well.
"It is like being given a coloring book that your brother already colored
in," said Michael Bierut, of the design firm Pentagram in New York City. A
passport, not unlike a scrapbook, gets its allure from gradually accruing
exotic stamps, with the blank pages holding the promise of future
adventure, he and other designers said. But they find that the new jumble
of pictures detracts from that.
"There is also something a little coercive about a functional object
serving as a civics lesson, even a fairly low-grade civics lesson," Mr.
Bierut said.
New passport bearers in San Francisco seemed divided.
"It's very patriotic," said Cynthia Yacur of Folsom, Calif., relieved to
receive one just days before leaving for Greece. "Cool pictures. An eagle.
A bison. Nice. Every page is different. I like it."
Another Californian, Candace Serona, was less convinced.
"It seems to represent an idealized version of a country that is far from
ideal right now," she said, adding that the most positive thing was that at
least the images embedded over her photograph hid some wrinkles.
Perhaps the ultimate judges will be border guards.
Rick Davis, a retired NBC News correspondent, said he recently handed his
over at Syria's Damascus International Airport. The officer fingered it at
length, gaping at the many pictures.
Finally he said haltingly, "You are a diplomat?"
================================
George Antunes, Political Science Dept
University of Houston; Houston, TX 77204
Voice: 713-743-3923 Fax: 713-743-3927
antunes at uh dot edu
------------------------------
Message: 5
Date: Sun, 29 Apr 2007 19:26:50 -0400
From: Greg Williams <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: [Medianews] Cardinals mourn loss of pitcher Josh Hancock
To: medianews@twiar.org
Message-ID: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1; format=flowed
Cardinals mourn loss of pitcher Josh Hancock
http://stlouis.cardinals.mlb.com/news/press_releases/press_release.jsp?ymd=20070429&content_id=1936551&vkey=pr_stl&fext=.jsp&c_id=stl
Reliever killed in tragic automobile accident Sunday a.m.; tonight's
game with Cubs is postponed
ST. LOUIS -- The St. Louis Cardinals were informed this morning by the
St. Louis Police Department of the tragic death of pitcher Josh Hancock,
29, who was killed in an auto accident on westbound Highway 64/40 within
the city limits.
Cardinals' Manager Tony La Russa informed Josh's father of this tragic
event. Major League Baseball representatives have also been notified and
tonight's 7:05 p.m. game with the Chicago Cubs has been postponed.
The Cardinals and the St. Louis Police Department will make a brief
statement to the news media at 3 p.m. CDT in the Busch Stadium interview
room.
Hancock, who is single, has been a member of the St. Louis Cardinals
since February of 2006 and helped the team to its 10th World Series
title last Fall.
The Cardinals ask that all fans join the team in offering their prayers
and condolences to Josh Hancock's family on this very sad day for the
Cardinals and Major League Baseball.
--
Greg Williams
K4HSM
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
http://www.twiar.org
http://www.etskywarn.net
------------------------------
Message: 6
Date: Sun, 29 Apr 2007 18:53:41 -0500
From: Rob <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: [Medianews] Officials: Three dead at Kansas City shopping
center
To: Media-News <medianews@twiar.org>, News-4-Us
<[EMAIL PROTECTED]>, Tom and Darryl <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Message-ID: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1; format=flowed
Officials: Three dead at Kansas City shopping center
http://www.cnn.com/2007/US/04/29/mall.shooter/index.html
(CNN) -- Three people died and at least two others were wounded Sunday
in a shooting at a shopping mall in Kansas City, Missouri, a Fire
Department official said.
In addition, a police officer was wounded in a nearby incident
authorities believe is related, Kansas City Fire Department Battalion
Chief Joe Vitale said. He added that the dead include the original shooter.
The dead and two or three others who were wounded were at Ward Parkway
Shopping Center, about nine miles south of downtown Kansas City, Vitale
said.
Janet Coleman said she saw "a young man with a sawed-off shotgun" in the
parking lot being chased by police.
"I could just see a blunt-sized gun bigger than, like a regular .44,"
she said, adding that she gained her expertise in weapons from watching
"a lot of crime TV."
Inside, clothing store manager Lissa Young said "several rounds of
gunfire" were followed by two customers who ran into the store and said
shots had been fired.
She said she immediately locked the doors and ordered the customers to
the back of the store, where they waited until police gave them the
all-clear.
Witness Queea Miller said the shootings took place in the parking lot.
"I was in my truck and the gunman was two cars over from me," she told
CNN. She said she saw the gunman shoot in the direction of a Starbuck's
coffee shop. "Then after he stopped, he re-loaded and started shooting
again."
She said that, during the shootings, she and her 18-year-old daughter
"lay our seats all the way back and I got to praying. You could hear the
shots going off again."
Then police, their guns drawn, began "coming from everywhere," she said.
------------------------------
Message: 7
Date: Sun, 29 Apr 2007 20:04:21 -0500
From: George Antunes <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: [Medianews] Latest, greatest in TV: Do you need it?
To: medianews@twiar.org
Cc: [EMAIL PROTECTED], [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Message-ID:
<[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1"; format=flowed
http://www.latimes.com/technology/la-fi-consumer29apr29,1,102486.story?coll=la-headlines-technology
Latest, greatest in TV: Do you need it?
The best HD sets have fallen in price, but the upgrade may be subtle.
By David Colker
LA Times Staff Writer
April 29, 2007
Remember when buying a television was easy?
You just settled on what size you wanted and chose a cabinet in black,
silver or the look of real wood.
Now you have a plethora of choices, including technologies such as LCD,
plasma and DLP rear projection. And you're shopping with the knowledge that
whichever type you pick, it will get more advanced technologically and less
taxing financially if you just wait a little longer.
The latest thing to watch for is a mysterious number-letter combination
that has been cropping up increasingly in advertisements and reviews:
1080p. The term is sometimes mentioned in hushed, reverent tones, as if it
were a secret covenant known only to those who have reached the highest
state of consumer electronics enlightenment.
It's the maximum possible resolution in high-definition television.
Technically, it refers to an image that is made up of 1,080 lines of
digital information. The "p" stands for progressive ? a regimen that scans
those lines all at once 60 times a second for a brighter image than with
earlier scan technologies.
Until recently, only a handful of 1080p models were available, and they
cost several thousand dollars more than the more common 720p sets.
But this year, 1080p has gone mainstream. You can get a 1080p, 42-inch LCD
flat-panel set for as little as about $1,800.
A TV at 720p is available for about $1,000.
Is 1080p worth the premium cost? Experts are divided, mostly because no
home TV channels ? whether conveyed by broadcast, cable or satellite ? show
programming in resolution as high as 1080p.
Richard Doherty, head of consulting firm Envisioneering Group, thinks that
will change.
"If you plan to keep your TV a long time, you'll get the benefit," he said.
"I would be surprised if there is not broadcast of 1080p within a decade."
While you're waiting, there are movies that can be viewed in 1080p. These
are in the Blu-ray and HD-DVD formats, which are kind of like regular DVDs
on steroids. Studios are turning out more and more of these upgraded discs,
especially of recent releases. But you will need either a Blu-ray or HD-DVD
player (more expense) to play them.
Van Baker, a research analyst at Gardner Inc., wasn't so bullish on 1080p
for home users.
"We are in the era of specsmanship," he said. "People have gotten hung up
on the numbers.
"The real question is, how much resolution do you really need?"
Baker doesn't foresee that broadcast or cable channels will be offering up
1080p programming anytime soon because it uses up valuable bandwidth.
"Broadcasters are trying to squeeze more channels into their bandwidth, not
less," he said. In addition, cable providers probably would have to add
equipment to get true 1080p to most homes, and satellite companies would
need to add satellites.
Even with the advent of Blu-ray and HD-DVD discs, which debuted last year,
average home viewers may not notice much of a difference, especially on
screens smaller than 50 inches.
Baker thinks viewers might be better served by getting the most out of
equipment they already have.
"Studies have shown that a lot of people who think they are watching real
HDTV are not," Baker said. That's because just having an HDTV set usually
isn't enough. Cable and satellite companies don't provide HDTV signals, in
most cases, unless an extra charge is paid.
"My advice is to spend a little less on a TV and put the money toward HDTV
services," Baker said. "Then it will look fantastic."
Doherty counters that home viewers should not necessarily go for the bargains.
"You are talking $2,000 for something that the average American watches
five hours a day," he said.
"If you are going to watch that much TV, why not do it on the best possible
display?"
If you do settle for 720p, you can be comforted by the fact that in many
cases, those TVs will be able to convert signals to 1080i. The "i" stands
for interlace, a scan technology that needs two split-second passes to
complete an image.
The difference between interlace and progressive can be subtle. Bill Hunt,
co-owner of the Digital Bits website, which tracks the latest in disc
technology, can see it.
"When the camera pans and there is a lot going on, you might see some
stutter in the image with 1080i," he said. "The movement is too fast for
the interlace processor to handle. Progressive is much smoother."
But Hunt goes far beyond even a 50-inch screen for his viewing. On his
living room ceiling, Hunt installed a powerful front projector to beam
movies on a 110-inch screen.
The image is glorious, but nearly every tiny flaw is evident.
The rule of thumb seems to be, if you are buying a set measuring 50 inches
or larger, seriously consider 1080p. Especially if you plan to watch movies
in the Blu-ray or HD-DVD formats.
*
(INFOBOX BELOW)
Choosing a TV
Beyond the 1080p debate are the long-standing questions about which type of
digital TV set is best. All have pros and cons and are suited to different
viewing situations.
LCD flat panel
Pros: These popular sets have fallen so much in price that they are nearly
on par with plasma models. They're lightest in weight of all HDTV types on
the home market and are the green choice because they use relatively little
electricity. Former problems with pixel burnout (those pin-point black
spots that marred the picture) largely have been eliminated. "It's been
years since I've seen a dead pixel," industry consultant Richard Doherty said.
Cons: LCD sets aren't as widely available as plasma in the larger screen
sizes that many home viewers want. Some manufacturers offer sets in the
50-inch and even 60-inch neighborhoods, but these usually carry a premium
price. Also, videophiles have noted that LCDs aren't capable of producing
true black in images.
Plasma flat panel
Pros: Plasma is still the big-screen king in flat-panel televisions, with
sizes available all the way up to a 103-inch Panasonic suitable for
baronial living (at $70,000 a pop). The image quality is top-notch,
especially with dark tones. "It's the best picture quality you can have,
especially in a darkened room," analyst Van Baker said.
Cons: Plasma sets can be deceptively heavy, despite their thinness. "There
have been some very bad stories about people trying to hang a 60-inch
plasma on the wall by themselves," Doherty said. These sets don't give off
nearly as much heat as when they were first introduced, but they're still
hotter than LCDs.
Rear projection
Pros: These sets come in a variety of types ? including DLP and LCD
projection (not to be confused with LCD flat panel) ? and offer HDTV at
bargain prices. "They are still the best bang for the buck for the big
screen," Baker said.
Cons: They aren't flat panels. These models run 10 inches and more in
thickness. Not only are they not suitable for hanging on a wall (at least
not without a lot of trouble), they also suffer from a lack of hipness.
"These days," Doherty said, "everyone wants the flat."
CRT
Pros: Some of these old-fashioned picture-tube TVs can deliver HDTV (but
check carefully; most models can't). They deliver high-quality images,
often at bargain prices.
Cons: CRTs are so heavy and thick that screen sizes usually top out at
about 30 inches.
--
Price watch
Here are average prices, but big discounts are available. Expect price
drops by year's end.
Size LCD Plasma DLP
32" $1,136 $1,299 NA
37" 1,503 1,711 NA
42" 1,716 1,738 $1,369
65" 10,000 9,060 2,873
--
Source: ISuppli
Los Angeles Times
================================
George Antunes, Political Science Dept
University of Houston; Houston, TX 77204
Voice: 713-743-3923 Fax: 713-743-3927
antunes at uh dot edu
------------------------------
Message: 8
Date: Sun, 29 Apr 2007 20:06:08 -0500
From: George Antunes <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: [Medianews] The Internet sure loves its outlaws
To: medianews@twiar.org
Cc: [EMAIL PROTECTED], [EMAIL PROTECTED], [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Message-ID:
<[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1"; format=flowed
http://www.latimes.com/technology/la-ca-webscout29apr29,1,2733117.story?coll=la-headlines-technology
The Internet sure loves its outlaws
Despite the MPAA and the Swedish police, the Pirate Bay's file-sharing ways
are popular.
By David Sarno
LA Times Staff Writer
April 29, 2007
THEY may not wield battle-axes or wear horned helmets like their Viking
forebears, but today's Swedish pirates are still wreaking some pretty
heavy-duty havoc.
The Pirate Bay file-sharing collective, one of the world's largest
facilitators of illegal downloading, is only the most visible member of a
burgeoning international anti-copyright ? or pro-piracy ? movement that is
striking terror in the heart of an industry that seems ever less capable of
stopping it.
When the Pirate Bay's Stockholm headquarters were raided last May and their
servers seized, the Motion Picture Assn. of America thought it had scored a
major victory. "Swedish Authorities Sink Pirate Bay," trumpeted its news
release. (As has since been pointed out, this is a mixed metaphor.) But the
rejoicing didn't last long. The site was back online three days later, and
worse yet for Hollywood, the raid and several mass protests afterward
generated so much sympathy for the pro-file sharing cause that both
candidates for prime minister announced publicly that they did not think
young file-sharers should be treated as criminals.
Sweden's state-registered Pirate Party also benefited from the raid's
fallout. Its membership has now grown to almost 9,000, closing in on the
nation's Green Party (9,550), which holds 19 seats in Parliament.
But the renegades back at the Pirate Bay don't care for politics. They are,
after all, pirates. The group's website is a database of 500,000 copied
movies, TV shows, songs, games and software titles. Instead of pointing you
directly to a downloadable song or movie ? like Napster used to ? the
Pirate Bay provides a kind of digital treasure map. The map, called a
torrent file, points your computer toward all the little fragments of the
booty that are hidden around the Internet. Feed the torrent file to your
downloading software, wait a couple of hours, and ta-da! You now have a
shiny new copy of "The Bourne Supremacy."
Also, you have become a criminal.
Well, join the club. The Pirate Bay alone claims more than 5 million active
users. According to Internet traffic ranker Alexa.com, it's the 292nd most
popular site in the world. (Netflix is 382; the U.S. Postal Service is 385;
Wal-Mart is 391.) Some estimates say that file sharing accounts for 80% of
the Internet traffic generated by home users. Last year, the MPAA released
the results of a study it had commissioned to gauge the effects of illegal
copying. In 2005, the report said, the worldwide motion picture industry
lost more than $7 billion as a result of Internet piracy.
This number was widely quoted as evidence of piracy's economic harm.
Even Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa jumped in. "It's not just
Hollywood that is affected," he said in December. "It's not the big stars.
It is the people behind the scenes and small mom-and-pop video stores and
hometown theaters."
(The MPAA used remarkably similar language in a statement for this article:
"It's not just Hollywood that feels the impact; piracy hurts Mom and Pop
video stores, hometown theatres ? everyone involved in making and
distributing movies.")
However, critics have been skeptical. As Timothy B. Lee, an adjunct scholar
at the Cato Institute, points out, the report was just a summary, not the
study itself, meaning neither its results nor its methodology can be
independently verified.
Lee is not surprised by the MPAA's decision to keep the details of the
study away from public scrutiny. "What they're interested in is having a
big number for the headlines," he said.
Could be. But if so, who can blame them? For a decade, the industry has
shut down one file-sharing service after another, each bigger, faster and
harder to dismantle than the last.
"The technology will always be one step ahead," said Peter Sunde, the
Pirate Bay's head software designer. The Pirate Bay "is not going to be
needed in a couple of years ? there will be better systems. Everything is
going to evolve. It's just getting easier and easier to connect."
Sunde also spoke about the Pirate Bay's upcoming project to design its own
next generation file-sharing technology, one of its goals being to make
every transaction completely untraceable. The project will be open source,
meaning programmers from all over the world will be able to contribute.
The Pirate Bay has built its reputation on taunting big entertainment and
scoffing at copyright law. One of its claims to fame is its online gallery
of legal threats, each of which is appended with a less-than-polite riposte
from the pirates. One reply to DreamWorks' legal team read, "It is the
opinion of us and our lawyers that you are ? morons, and that you should
go" ? etc.
But the Pirate Bay does have a more adult side. Its guiding principle is
that the current copyright system is outmoded. "The culture is growing from
using file sharing," Sunde said. "A basic human feeling is the need for new
ideas and new concepts. We need to be influenced."
Nor are the pirates so base as to be against paying artists for their work.
In fact, the group's next venture is a music sharing site called
Playble.com, where users will have the option of paying whatever monthly
subscription fee they can afford. Every time a user downloads a song, the
artist gets a portion of his fee. Sunde says he approached a major record
company ? he wouldn't say which ? about a partnership. An executive did not
take kindly to the offer, and, according to Sunde, accused the Pirate Bay
of perpetrating a disturbingly Viking-like act on the executive's
livelihood and family. Hint: He didn't say "pillage."
================================
George Antunes, Political Science Dept
University of Houston; Houston, TX 77204
Voice: 713-743-3923 Fax: 713-743-3927
antunes at uh dot edu
------------------------------
Message: 9
Date: Sun, 29 Apr 2007 20:08:44 -0500
From: George Antunes <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: [Medianews] Simple Flickr starts to see its flame burn
brighter
To: medianews@twiar.org
Cc: [EMAIL PROTECTED], [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Message-ID:
<[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii"; format=flowed
http://www.latimes.com/technology/chi-0704271323apr29,1,4250383.column?coll=la-utilities-technology
Simple Flickr starts to see its flame burn brighter
James Coates
Chicago Tribune
April 29, 2007
As Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz was to Isaac Newton and Elisha Gray was to
Alexander Graham Bell and Henri Poincare was to Albert Einstein, so am I to
the guy at the newspaper down the street from this one.
Each of the aforementioned unknown guys made credible claims that they had
figured out calculus (Leibniz), invented the telephone (Gray) and
discovered relativity (Poincare) either before or right alongside Newton,
Bell and Einstein.
Now it's my turn, as I turn to the topic of an immensely rewarding Web
photo-sharing site for non-propeller heads. A few weeks ago I set out to
write about how Yahoo's burgeoning Flickr photo storage-and-swap site don't
get no respect, as the late Rodney Dangerfield so cogently put it.
While I was tap-tap-typing toward my deadline Friday, the missus showed me
a competitor's column published Thursday. "Why don't you ever do columns
like this explaining that there are easy ways that ordinary people can get
into things like Internet picture shows instead of all those reviews of
software I either can't afford or can't figure out?"
Yes dear, said I, with a metaphorical tear running down my cheek.
The fact that competing newspaper guys see fit to write glowing reviews of
Flickr probably underscores the fact that this digital-picture-Web-storage
outfit is starting to get well-deserved attention.
My friend Flickr has served my family for two years now as I post what I
consider the cream of the digital photos I snap of relatives, strangers and
the dandelion patches I find strangely poignant.
It's free and fast and your Web browser does all of the heavy lifting of
finding photo files on your hard drive before uploading them to Flickr's
busy Web site.
The best thing about Flickr is that it's simple and straightforward. Also,
Flickr.com has become one of the most amazing and dynamic records of every
day on this planet.
It should be noted that Google competes with the billionaires who own Yahoo
with a more complex and quite beautiful scheme called Picasa that loads
onto a user's hard drive.
Picasa offers features like a postermaker that breaks an image into four
parts, printing each one on an 8.5-by-11 sheet to be pasted together. Its
tools do great stuff tweaking, cropping and arranging collages.
Yet Picasa's very strength makes Flickr a better choice for many neophytes.
Flickr's Web-only scheme is easier on the nerves than the feature-filled
Picasa software.
Like MySpace, YouTube, Facebook and the rest of the socially-oriented Web
sites, your free Flickr account gives you a personal page that features
thumbnails of all of the images you choose to upload.
Collections can be shared with the whole universe or restricted to approved
visitors.
Here's your chance to actually send those pictures of the kids' Saturday
soccer action to the grandparents to whom you promised they were coming
soon. Instead of telling them that the check is in the mail, just shoot
them a Web address.
Do this for long and you will have built a uniquely personal record of the
high points and beauties you encounter in life.
If there weren't downsides to things, there would be no need for reviewers,
so I am reassured to say that some stuff about Flickr rankles me. Let's
start with the fact that a session of posting pictures or viewing them hits
you with a blizzard of sales pitches.
You can upgrade from the free 100 megabytes of storage to unlimited storage
for $24.95 per year. If you don't upgrade, Flickr will store your images
full size but only make low-resolution versions available on free accounts.
Flickr stores the full-size image files because it also pitches schemes to
have images enlarged and printed professionally by a company called Imagekind.
Imagekind also culls cash from Flickr users by acting as an agent for those
with great photographs sold as pricey prints to a public that seems eager
for the incredible variety of high-quality wall art. Figure $200 and up for
a 30-inch framed print.
Not surprisingly, many gifted amateur photographers with whom art galleries
can't be bothered have flocked to Flickr, hoping that one or more of their
great images will catch fire. Give Flickr a flyby and you'll see the world
in a wholly new way.
================================
George Antunes, Political Science Dept
University of Houston; Houston, TX 77204
Voice: 713-743-3923 Fax: 713-743-3927
antunes at uh dot edu
------------------------------
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End of Medianews Digest, Vol 248, Issue 1
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