Latest Rumors Peg An LT...

After a period of unnerving quietness, the Apple rumor mill is back up and running at full capacity producing two somewhat credible rumors over the last 24 hours. The next iPhone will not be announced until October if the latest rumors are believed. A separate rumor is just so wild that it might be true: The iPhone 5, or whatever it’s to be called, will be made of LiquidMetal, which will allow for a unique unibody construction. But again, these are just unfounded rumors. Please proceed with caution. Gene Munster, analyst for Piper Jaffray, stated that chipmaker Qualcomm is gearing up to supply the LTE chipset. However, per Qualcomm’s CEO yesterday, unpredicted demand has caused supply issues. Munster believes this sets Apple up to launch the iPhone in October, conveniently a year after the iPhone 4S’ announcement. Korea IT News recently reported that the iPhone 5 will be housed in a LiquidMetal casing. This material, an alloy of titanium, nickel, copper, zirconum and other metals, is said to have a feeling of glass despite having the physical strength of metal. The material is perfect for use in smartphones. It’s physically tough and naturally resistant to wear, scratches and dents. However, unlike traditional metal fabrication, LiquidMetal objects can be formed with a sort of injection molding similar to plastic. This allows for a wider range of applications and physical forms — perhaps a stronger unibody casing. Phone manufacturers have recently turned to different material to set their phones appart. Motorola used a bit of carbon fiber on the back of the RAZR phones and Samsung is said be employing ceramic for the upcoming Galaxy S III. But the benefits of LuquidMetal would set the iPhone 5 apart and Apple has the exclusive rights to the material for use in consumer electronics. It’s safe to say that the next iPhone will be something different even if it doesn’t employ LiquidMetal. The current iPhone design has been used for nearly two years now and has had its share of problems. Even glass touted as tough as gorillas is a poor material for a phone. So sometime in the coming future, perhaps this summer or maybe in October, Apple will announce the sixth generation iPhone.

Hotfile is Out Cold, Bu...

Google recently threw down in the ongoing legal battle between the MPAA and Hotfile with amicus curiae panache. But Google wouldn’t file an amicus brief from the kindness of its algorithmic heart. Larger issues are at play – namely, safe harbor protection under the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA). As Google’s counsel stated on Friday, “Google’s aim in seeking to participate in this case is to underscore the importance of the Court’s decision to a wide array of legitimate and socially beneficial Internet services, and to the overall climate of free expression online.” The stakes are absolutely huge, both for Google and the Internet as a whole. The DMCA safe harbor protections enabled Google to successfully defend a multi-billion dollar lawsuit filed by Viacom against YouTube in 2007 (although the case is still on appeal). The safe harbor provisions have also been used by Amazon, eBay, Photobucket, Veoh, and MP3tunes to defeat otherwise crippling lawsuits. Facebook, Twitter, and Wikipedia likewise rely on the safe harbor provisions to protect their everyday operations. Without the DMCA safe harbors the Internet would look entirely different. Here’s a more detailed look at the legal issues in play. For those of you who need some background, the DMCA was passed in 1998 before the bubble burst. The law criminalized circumvention of digital rights management technology but also limited the liability of ISPs for copyright infringement. The so-called DMCA safe harbors were designed to address the concern that online communication and commerce would be chilled if ISPs were held subject to potentially expansive infringement liability for material that their users posted, stored, transmitted, or made available for viewing. Contrary to popular belief, however, Google is not Hotfile’s tag-team legal wrestling partner. Google doesn’t really care what happens to Hotfile. Google just wants to spread the precedential seeds of recent cases (including Viacom v. YouTube) to the Eleventh Circuit, which has yet to interpret the DMCA safe harbor provisions. Frankly, Hotfile is out cold. Google acknowledges that in order to receive protection under the DMCA safe harbor, “a service provider must meet certain threshold conditions for eligibility, including the adoption and implementation of a repeat-infringer policy, and must designate an agent to receive notifications of claimed infringement from copyright owners.” For Hotfile, their efforts in this regard were too little, too late. First, Hotfile failed to register and disclose a DMCA agent until May 2010 (15 months after launch) and was, according to the MPAA, still technically in violation of this provision as of 3/5/2012. As explained in Google’s brief, “the agent’s role is to facilitate the notice-and-takedown regime at the heart of the safe harbor … by expeditiously removing or disabling access to the material that is claimed to be infringing.” Hotfile’s complete lack of a designated agent for this purpose (at least initially) may disqualify it from safe harbor protection altogether. Second, Hotfile did not reasonably implement a repeat-infringer policy until after the MPAA filed suit. Although key facts were redacted in the public version of the MPAA’s motion for summary judgment, the evidence seems fairly strong that Hotfile did not have in place any system to track repeat infringers – which would make it fairly impossible to implement a meaningful repeat-infringer policy. This is not to say that Hotfile has an affirmative duty to monitor its services for infringing activity, but it does suggest that Hotfile didn’t really have a repeat-infringer policy at all, or at least didn’t have one until the lawsuit. But what happens to Hotfile is not really important to Google anyway. What matters is how the Eleventh Circuit interprets DMCA section 512(c)(1)(A), which can be used to disqualify an ISP from safe harbor protection. This section provides that no safe harbor protection is available to an ISP that acquires “actual knowledge” that particular material stored on its system is infringing, or becomes “aware of facts or circumstances from which infringing activity is apparent,” but then fails to act expeditiously to remove, or disable access to, the material in question – this is the infamous notice-and-takedown procedure. To make matters more complicated (and also more interesting), section 512(c)(3)(B)(i) provides that a notification from a copyright owner that fails to comply substantially with the DMCA takedown notice requirements shall not be considered in determining whether an ISP has “actual knowledge” or is “aware of facts or circumstances” from which infringing activity is apparent. So we have two issues: First, what exactly constitutes knowledge that would disqualify an otherwise eligible service provider from safe harbor protection; Second, what exactly constitutes substantial compliance with the DMCA takedown notice requirements. These issues are at the heart of Google’s  amicus brief. Google cites  Viacom v. YouTube  to argue that the phrases “actual knowledge” and “facts or circumstances” indicating infringement are extremely specific. In Google’s interpretation of the law, these phrases actually describe “knowledge of specific and identifiable infringements of particular individual items . Mere knowledge of the  prevalence of   such activity in general  is not enough.” So if you run a website and you have knowledge that infringing activity is taking place in general, that’s fine. You’re good, as long as you don’t have specific knowledge that a particular item of intellectual property belonging to a specific copyright owner has been infringed. Moreover, in addressing the MPAA’s claims that Hotfile turned a blind eye to red flags of obvious infringement, Google points to relevant legal authority affirming that those flags “must be brightly red indeed – and waiving blatantly in the provider’s face.” The infringement “must be apparent from even a brief and casual viewing.” Google then takes it one step further, citing a case holding that “if any investigation is required to determine whether material is infringing, then those facts and circumstances are not red-flags.” The logic is this: according to the legislative history, Congress recognized the fact that websites permitting users to contribute their own content often contain infringing items. This was common knowledge at the time. But if the DMCA safe harbor protects only those ISPs that do not have even this common knowledge, it would protect  no one at all  because everyone knows, generally at least, that infringement is taking place. The DMCA would then totally fail in its stated goal of “ensuring that the variety and quality of services on the Internet would continue to expand.” Congress therefore placed the burden of policing copyright infringement on the copyright owners themselves (i.e., through the notice-and-takedown procedure) – which makes sense since they are in the best position to determine whether infringement is actually taking place and because they have the greatest incentive to do so. As to the issue of compliance with takedown notice requirements, Google cites voluminous case law to argue that a copyright owner must “provide the specific location of the allegedly infringing works in each instance for the notice to be effective.” As a result, notices that do not identify the  specific location  of the alleged infringement are not sufficient to confer actual knowledge on the ISP. This is a critical point, because it’s directly relevant to the question of whether an ISP has the “actual” or “red-flag awareness” that would disqualify it from safe harbor protection based on previous takedown notices it has received. Google does an excellent job of raising the bar for copyright owners who wish to protect their material through the notice-and-takedown procedure. And that’s the key point: If Google can shift the burden of policing copyright infringement to the copyright owners, and further make this burden somewhat onerous, then in the long run Google wins and Hollywood loses. Practically speaking, it would also be a win for the free flow of content across the Internet, for better or for worse. But we’re not done. The MPAA makes one last argument, namely, that if Hotfile  intentionally< induced infringement, then it should not be eligible for safe harbor protection. That’s because “inducement liability” is based on active bad faith while the DMCA safe harbor protections are meant to protect only good faith conduct aimed at operating legitimate Internet businesses. This is essentially the rule articulated in  MGM Studios v. Grokster  – that inducement liability arises from providing a service with the object of promoting its use to infringe copyright. The MPAA argues that inducement liability arises from an ISP’s culpable intent –  not  from its storage services – while the DMCA safe harbor only protects against liability that arises from storage. Google rejects this argument by claiming that the DMCA safe harbor is so broad that it bars liability for all direct, vicarious, and contributory infringement claims that arise from storage services offered by an ISP, which include any “automated process for allowing replication, transmittal, and display of user-submitted materials covered by the storage provision.” Google contends that inducement is simply one form of contributory infringement and is therefore covered by the DMCA safe harbor. But then Google seems to back-pedal somewhat by arguing that “the court should hold simply that whether a service provider is eligible for DMCA safe-harbor protection is distinct from whether it is liable for inducement under  Grokster .” That seems to leave unanswered the question of whether eligibility under the DMCA safe harbor can be used as a shield to guard against inducement liability; my initial sense is that it cannot, since Google acknowledges that each analysis should be distinct. But at the same time, it’s evident that each analysis will likely depend on common or interrelated facts – so it’s somewhat of a gray area that results from the interplay of the statutory DMCA safe harbor carve out and the judge-made inducement infringement standards articulated in  Grokster . Legal arguments aside, Google’s  amicus  brief underscores the historic importance of the Hotfile lawsuit in particular and IP litigation in general. These legal battles will ultimately define the flow of revenue streams across the internet and will have a deciding impact on the course of innovation in internet services. Competition and innovation will always create winners and losers. In the new digital millennium, Google has been winning so far, but that could change if the legal landscape is altered significantly. In the meantime, Google is doing what it can to draw that landscape favorably, while simultaneously preparing its appellate defense in  Viacom v. YouTube.

Interactive Learning St...

Over the last few years, we’ve seen technology start to play an increasingly disruptive role in both primary and secondary education. There’s still a long, long way to go, but schools are becoming more receptive to integrating mobile, web, and cloud technologies as a means to improve the learning experience in and out of the classroom. As more and more startups jump into the game, we’ve seen a rise in “blended learning,” which aims to increase the productivity of teachers and students through the strategic integration of technology into the classroom. If you attended a university with large classes, you may be familiar with those hand-held clickers that professors use to take polls from students during class discussions. One Canadian startup, called Top Hat Monocle has been using the old clicker model as an entry point into university classrooms, as it attempts to bring that model a serious dose of more modern technology — with some gamification to boot. To do so, the startup is capitalizing on the profusion of laptops and mobile devices among university students, having built a web and mobile-based classroom response solution that looks to give students a more engaging in-class experience while giving professors realtime feedback on the degree to which their students are understanding the material. For those unfamiliar, Top Hat lets professors take advantage of polls, quizzes, and interactive demonstrations in class, while allowing students to participate on any device they own, whether it’s a smartphone, a feature phone, an iPad or a laptop. For those with feature phones, Top Hat offers an SMS-based response system, while all others access its platform through the web. Students can ask questions during lectures without interrupting teachers and get instant feedback from other students. Those answers are then saved, allowing them to monitor their own progress, study past work, etc. That’s where Top Hat is looking to go beyond just being a simple polling mechanism for higher education. Professors can offer interactive demos students can watch on their laptops or smartphones in class, or save for homework, choosing from a library of pre-existing demos or designing their own. They can ask open-ended questions and reward students for participating or helping each other out, upload and share files (course notes, lab materials, etc.), and take advantage of the fact that Top Hat automatically grades and tracks all answers submitted in its “Gradebook.” Professors can access the tool on their desktops, integrating the system into their presentations to display poll results, demos, etc. as they lecture. This means that there’s no hardware to buy or install, and the on-boarding process is fairly simple. And this is how Top Hat is gaining entry into higher ed classrooms: Rather than selling its product to universities themselves, they’ve been using a direct sales force to go straight to teachers, side-stepping the software pricing model by offering the solution for free to teachers, while charging students to use it. In a sense it’s an alternative (or replacement) to textbooks, and it’s pretty affordable for students at $20 a semester or $38 for five years. And it seems to be working. While the startup initially launched in 2009, it’s largely flown under the radar, in spite of finding some decent traction over the last year. After raising over $1 million in early angel funding, the startup now has over 60,000 paying customers in over 75 universities. It grew its team to 22, while managing to remain profitable, as it saw $1.4 million in revenues for 2011, which represented 500 percent year-over-year growth. The executive team said they expect to hit $4 million in revenues by 2013, and are currently raising a second round of venture capital to support that growth. But, perhaps more important than that, is the fact that professors are loving the tool because it replaces “clickers” with a much more useful suite of tools that make their jobs easier, while the startup reports that classes have seen a 3 to 5 percent improvement in their average grades. In the big picture, higher education is an easier market for Top Hat to target, with shorter sales cycles as universities largely operate on the semester system — as compared to high school and K-12, where classes tend to run over longer periods of time. What’s more, at the university level, professors have a bit more freedom in choosing the material, setting curriculum, and choosing what types of technologies to integrate into the classroom experience. There Top Hat can have a greater influence on the learning experience: “All told, we really want to own the relationship between the teacher and the student,” said CEO Mike Silagadze and CRO Andrew D’Souza. Providing classrooms with an easy-to-integrate solution that makes learning more interactive, more fun, and more social, the startup has opened the door, and there’s obviously a lot more it can add to that experience once it has the trust of students and professors and has truly shown that its model is effective in hiking engagement levels. That’s why, just as we’ve seen so many other consumer-facing startups and companies do — across verticals — Top Hat is looking to introduce some game-ification into the mix. The team has developed a feature called the “Tournament Homework Module,” which it’s testing in beta now and hopes to launch publicly in the next month. As the name suggests, it turns homework into a week-long competition, or tournament, in the hopes that bringing game dynamics to problem sets and workbooks will increase the retention of material, raise grades, and maybe make homework a little more fun. It works like this: Professors set up a question bank and a tournament question bank, and leading up the tournament (let’s say at the end of the week), students practice questions from the first set and receive practice scores. On the day of the tournament, students log in and are automatically paired with other students at their level of ability, proceeding through rounds of problem solving, until there’s a winner. The top five are publicly displayed. While this may irk some, the idea is that knowing that they will be publicly competing with winners to be displayed on a class scoreboard incentivizes students to actually practice problem sets and learn the material. So far, the executives say, the response has been “remarkable,” and apparently students and professors are going for it. It will be interesting to see how classrooms across the country react to this kind of game-ification. If the way the rest of the web is going is any indication, it may not be long before tournaments are popping up at your alma mater. For more, check out Top Hat at home here , or check out the video below:

Stanford Law Review: SO...

The Stanford Law Review has posted a concise and informed takedown of SOPA and PROTECT-IP , the bills currently creeping their way towards votes in their respective legislative bodies. They make many of the same objections I brought up in my article Kill Switch , but with fewer words and more authority. The piece was authored by Mark Lemley, David S. Levine, and David G. Post — from Stanford, Elon, and Temple Universities respectively — and touches on a few finer legal matters, such as the acts’ nullification of due process and the questionable constitutionality of the whole thing. It’s brief and worth a read, but here are a couple highlights: Directing the remedial power of the courts towards the Internet’s core technical infrastructure in this sledgehammer fashion has impact far beyond intellectual property rights enforcement—it threatens the fundamental principle of interconnectivity that is at the very heart of the Internet. The Supreme Court has made it abundantly clear that governmental action suppressing speech, if taken prior to an adversary proceeding and subsequent judicial determination that the speech in question is unlawful, is a presumptively unconstitutional “prior restraint.” In other words, it is the “most serious and the least tolerable infringement on First Amendment rights,” permissible only in the narrowest range of circumstances. The Constitution requires a court “to make a final determination” that the material in question is unlawful “after an adversary hearing before the material is completely removed from circulation.” The procedures outlined in both bills fail this fundamental constitutional test. At a time when many foreign governments have dramatically stepped up their efforts to censor Internet communications, these bills would incorporate into U.S. law a principle more closely associated with those repressive regimes: a right to insist on the removal of content from the global Internet, regardless of where it may have originated or be located, in service of the exigencies of domestic law. Strong words, but this bill is strong medicine. The New York Times and Reuters both posted some commentary related to lask week’s discussions and some choice excerpts from the bills’ proponents. I like Fox Filmed Entertainment’s Tom Rothman’s chestnut that “Our mistake was allowing this romantic word — piracy — to take hold.” While I agree that sometimes the lexicon can affect social trends, I don’t think that people really conflate illegal online activities with adventure on the high seas. As you may know, SOPA was recently in the House Judiciary Committee and delayed on account of dozens of objections and amendments, almost none of which were accepted. But instead of being delayed until January, which would give time for both sides to further entrench themselves, another session was scheduled for Wednesday , at which time it is expected to be approved for reading and vote in the House. Once there, it could still fail to pass, and then there is the threat of veto, but Obama has been quiet on the issue. It’s odd, considering the administration was very clear about its position on net neutrality. As in some other debates, all the experts and those with no financial involvement are lining up on one side, and threatened business interests are lining up on the other. It may be too late to affect the vote of your representative, but it can’t hurt to forward articles like the Stanford Law Review one, which could make for powerful ammo in a floor debate.

Report: TDK Technology ...

Potentially big news from The Nikkei: Japan’s biggest business daily has learned yesterday that TDK developed a technology that can “more than double” the storage space of hard disc drives. It appears TDK has developed a special laser that heats up a hard disk’s surface with a precision of a few dozen nanometers. According to The Nikkei, TDK also changed the material used in the magnetic head and redesigned its structure to expand the recording density. As a result, more data can be stored on drives of the same size. To be more specific, TDK’s technology apparently makes it possible to store one terabyte on one platter. The Nikkei says that TDK plans to pitch HDD manufacturers by saying a drive with two platters produced with their technology can save 1,600 hours of HD video (two weeks of HDTV content from five channels). The company currently aims at commercializing the technology as early as next year. It has been working on expanding recording density in HDDs for years .