YouTube has secured an agreement with the UK societies that collect royalties for 50,000 composers, songwriters and publishers to legitimise the use of recorded music on Google’s popular video-sharing website.

The agreement to license 10m pieces of music to YouTube – in return for a flat fee which has not been disclosed – is the first of its kind, said Steve Porter, chief executive of the MCPS-PRS Alliance. “This is the first fully formed agreement,” he said, although some US collecting societies had reached interim arrangements with YouTube.

The agreement marks another milestone in YouTube’s attempts to win over owners of media content, who have expressed alarm at the amount of material available on the site that is either pirated or that generates no revenue for the companies that created it.

Apple has invented a novel method of disabling stolen iPods - by preventing them from charging. The company has filed a patent for a technology that recognises when a device is plugged into an unauthorised computer and, if it is, prevents any further charging.

Every portable gadget with a rechargeable battery has a charging circuit that recognises when the external mains charger has been plugged in. It then manages the transfer of current to the battery. Apple’s patent suggests that by attaching a “guardian circuit” to the charging circuit, it would be possible to block the charging process.

When a device is plugged into an unauthorised computer, software would compare a security code in the device to a code buried in the software in the computer. Apple already employs a similar technology to “pair” iPods to iTunes running on a specific Mac or PC. If the codes do not match, then the guardian circuit could be triggered to prevent any further charging.

“For devices that are mainly powered by a rechargeable-power-supply (eg. music-players, phones, Personal Digital Assistants), disabling the recharger effectively renders the device inoperable when the power of the main power-supply has run out,” Apple notes in the filing. “As such, disabling the recharger should serve as a deterrent to theft.”

Prosecutors are considering criminal charges against casino gamblers who won big on a slot machine that had been installed with faulty software.

The machine at Caesars Indiana credited gamblers $10 for each dollar they inserted because the software wasn’t designed for U.S. currency, state police said. More than two dozen people played the machine before one gambler alerted Caesars employees.

Caesars lost $487,000 on the machine during that time, state police said.

A decision on whether to bring criminal charges could come in a couple of weeks, said John Colin, chief deputy prosecutor for Harrison County. He said “criminal intent” may be involved when people play a machine they know is faulty.

The casino said some of the gamblers returned the money after the casino contacted them.

“This is a bit of an unusual case because you’ve got to go back and piece together who did what,” Colin said. The prosecutor’s office declined to say Thursday what criminal charges could be brought.

The incident occurred last July, but he said obtaining casino records took longer than expected.

Kathryn Ford of Louisville, Ky., the gambler who alerted the casino, said going after the other patrons was unfair.

When a slot machine jams and gamblers lose money, they don’t get it back, she said.

“It doesn’t work in the reverse,” Ford said. “They need to forget it and move on.”

1, Isn’t it the casino’s fault for putting out unchecked machines?
2, Kathryn Ford is a complete idiot (I had to restrain myself from putting anything else down). What fool would go and alert the casino? “Oh I don’t like winning, here casino, take it back”.

Maximize musical ideas on-stage or in a home studio setting with the new Akai MPK49 performance controller. The Akai MPK49 ushers in a new era for USB/MIDI controllers by combining a high-quality, 49-key, semi-weighted keyboard with aftertouch and 12 MPC-style drum pads. 48 total pads are accessible via 4 pad banks. The pads feature popular MPC Note Repeat function and Swing parameters, and the Akai MPK49 performance controller has its own arpeggiator, for creating quick, creative riffs in seconds.

The Akai MPK49 features MPC-style Full Level and 12 Levels functions on its pads, and MPC Swing can be applied to both Note Repeat and Arpeggio functions. Tap Tempo and time-division buttons allow for real-time control of Note Repeat and Arpeggio clock speeds. The Akai MPK49 delivers an amazing 72 assignable controls, with assignable inputs that include an expression pedal, footswitch, pitch bend and modulation wheel.

Key Features

• 49-key, semi-weighted keyboard with aftertouch
• 8 full-sized, 360 degree rotation pots, each with 3 banks for 24 pots total
• 12 MPC-style velocity and pressure sensitive pads
• MPC-style note repeat and all new arpeggiator
• 8 full-sized sliders with 3 controller banks for each for 24 sliders total
• 8 assignable backlit switches with 3 controller banks each for 24 switches total
• MMC/MIDI Start Stop transport buttons
• Large, easy-to-read custom LCD display

Akai Pro MPK49 Musik Messe 2007 Sonic State Video here.

I have been looking for a new MIDI Keyboard / Drum Pad controller for a while now, and when I found this in early April I was glued. Since then, various sources have said it will be released on 1st July 2007 - the date came and went, with no sign of its grand debut. So yesterday, I went and emailed Akai Pro asking for an official release date and retail price. Here was the reply:

Hello,

Currently this information is not known as the MPK49 is still in
development. Once this is ready for release we will pricing information on
dealer’s websites and a full manual on our site.

Best Regards,
Justin Baro

So I guess it’s back to blindly waiting. Although I might give up waiting (which would be a shame), and settle for a Korg Kontrol49, or a Korg K61P and Akai Pro MPD24. Yes, I’m a Korg fan; before anyone says, the padKontrol just doesn’t seem right for my needs.

Chan Nai-ming, a 38-year old Hong Kong man convicted of sharing pirated movies, has lost his final appeal in the territory’s highest court and will now have to finish serving a three-month prison sentence. He used the screen name “Big Crook” and is believed to be the first person to receive jail time for distributing movie files using BitTorrent. Chan was originally charged in April 2005 for copyright infringement after uploading and distributing three Hollywood movies — Daredevil, Red Planet and Miss Congeniality. He was sentenced in November 2005 and had served several weeks in prison before filing a series of appeals.

Chan’s lawyer argued before the Court of Final Appeal that he only uploaded the movies and did not distribute them, but the court dismissed the distinction: “He plainly succeeded in distributing copies of the films in question. The appeal must accordingly be dismissed.” The Hong Kong government said Chan’s conviction was a milestone in the fight against illegal online sharing of intellectual property and that since his arrest illegal file-sharing had fallen by 80%.

Out of energy? Need a quick energy boost? Feel like having a power nap (also known as a catnap)? Then you need to get yourself an EnergyPod. If you are feeling any of the above, all you need to do is hop into the EnergyPod, let the pod recline and a privacy shield descend, and drift off into LaLa Land. After twenty minutes (the optimum time a power nap should last) you will be woken by gentle vibrations and an acoustic alarm.

Sound amazing? Indeed it is. The EnergyPod can be yours for only US$8,000.

Check out the new MSN.com website here

I think this is a fantastic advertising idea, and finally demonstrates that Microsoft does have some creative minds at work. When I first saw the website, and I’m sure some of you experienced the same, I actually froze for a second and thought “what is going on?”. I’m an Office 2007 user myself, and for that second, I actually thought I had Microsoft Word 2007, and the Ribbon Interface I really love open. And then it took me another second to realise that I could actually still click the search box and type something in, and wasn’t really stuck in Word or some other dream world.

There will certainly be 100’s of copycats around; it would be interesting to see how long this advertising technique will last, not only on MSN.com, but on the Internet as a whole. How willing will Webmasters be to allow entire homepage(s) to turn into an advertisment for a product? Or should I be saying - how much will companies be willing to pay to advertise products in such a way on high-traffic websites, compared to simple banners? On the other hand, will this technique simply remain used within company websites?

Before turning this blog entry into a mini-review (actually, maybe I should write one!), I highly recommend users upgrade to Microsoft Office 2007. It a fantastic new product with loads of (added) functionality - e.g. I can now save directly to PDF files - and the advertising team definitely deserves some credit for their work.

The Official Microsoft Office 2007 Website
Download a 60-day trial of Microsoft Office 2007

The second annual National Technology Scan conducted by Park Associates, a Dallas-based technology market research firm, have found that 29% of U.S. households (31 million homes) do not have Internet access and do not intend to subscribe to an Internet service over the next 12 months. The survey noted that 44% of these households say they are not interested in anything on the Internet, 22% say they cannot afford a computer or the cost of Internet service, 17% say they are not sure how to use it, 14% say using it at work meets their need and 3% said the Internet doesn’t reach their homes. The study also found U.S. broadband adoption grew to 52% over 2006, up from 42% in 2005. Roughly half of new subscribers converted from slower-speed, dial-up Internet access while the other half of households had no prior access.

Soon enough, Google really is going to control all information on the Internet. $1.65B also doesn’t seem that much in comparison to other business buyouts, takeovers and purchases.

Google, the Internet’s leading search engine, announced Monday that it is buying popular online video site YouTube for $1.65 billion in stock.

YouTube, which was founded in February 2005, has quickly become the most well-known of several online video sites. More than 100 million videos, many of which are short videos created by the site’s users, are downloaded a day on the site.

According to Internet research firm Hitwise, YouTube has about a 46 percent share of the online video market.

For Google (Charts), the purchase of YouTube gives the company the ability to tap into the potentially lucrative online video and social networking markets. Some analysts have criticized Google for relying too much on advertising tied to keyword searches.

The combination of Google and YouTube could further strengthen Google’s dominance in online advertising, giving it an edge over rivals such as Yahoo!, Microsoft’s MSN and News Corp., which owns the social networking site MySpace. Some analysts said Monday that Yahoo, Microsoft and News Corp. also had probably expressed interest in buying YouTube.

In a statement, Google said that YouTube will operate as an independent unit of Google once the deal closes and will retain the YouTube brand name. The companies added that no YouTube workers will lose their jobs as a result of the acquisition and that Google will maintain its own online video business.

I ordered my Ubuntu CDs on the 24 July 2006, and although I had pretty much forgotten about them, I finally received my package today. It took just under a month for them to arrive in Hong Kong! I’m taking it for a spin now, so stay tuned for my “Ubuntu - First impressions” post, coming soon!

P.S. Don’t call me greedy - 7 of the ordered CDs are for my friends!