December 15th -21st

Internet:
Old media becomes new media ... Monkey magazine launches online, free with registration. It's a 'men's magazine' so it's just soft porn, cars, sport and gadgets, just like Nuts and Zoo. What makes it interesting though is the interface - it's presented as a double page magazine page that you can click to focus in on or zoom out from, with pages that can be turned and containing features that are actually videos that can be played, plus sections that hyperlink to other web pages. For those of us who thought that electronic print/papers/books couldn't work, this may be one answer ... find a free issue sample at: http://www.monkeymag.co.uk/registration/

Music:
US Record companies begin legal action against Allofmp3.com (21st Dec): http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/technology/6199237.stm

Music:
An Australian court has upheld an earlier ruling against a website that merely provided links to illegal MP3s and thus 'effectively authorized copyright infringement', a decision that equates linking - providing information about - with the illegal activity itself (21st Dec): http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/business/6199933.stm

Music:
HMV warns of poor profits due to online and supermarket competition (21st Dec): http://business.guardian.co.uk/story/0,,1976469,00.html

Internet /Video games:
Are there really 2m people using Second Life, as was claimed last week? (21st Dec): http://technology.guardian.co.uk/weekly/story/0,,1975940,00.html

Internet:
Ofcom pushes ahead with its plan for a new PSP -Public Service Publisher, delivering content online (21st Dec): http://business.guardian.co.uk/story/0,,1976440,00.html

Future Tech:
A UK Government report warns that robots could demand legal rights in the future (21st Dec): http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/technology/6200005.stm

Television:
The take-up of digital television continues to rise, according to media watchdog Ofcom. Quarterly figures show that 73.3% of households watch digital services on their main TV set, a rise by around 800,000 over the last three months. Around 18.5 million have digital TV installed, with increasing numbers watching on second or third sets. The figures also show that 9.3 million households now have digital terrestrial television, such as Freeview. More households (7 million) watch digital terrestrial TV than traditional analogue TV (6.4 million) on their main set, according to Ofcom's report (20th Dec): http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/entertainment/6197747.stm

Internet:
An article on the arrest of Tom Stephens in relation to the Ipswich/Suffolk killings, the media interest in his Myspace page and attacks on his 'friends' (20th Dec): http://www.guardian.co.uk/g2/story/0,,1975648,00.html His Myspace page is soon taken down ... before he is charged with anything ...

Music / Security:
Sony BMG finally settles on the compensation payable to computer users affected by its November 2005 placing of a DRM XP 'rootkit' on consumer's computers (20th Dec): http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/technology/6197107.stm

Cyborgs:
'The world's most advanced bionic hand' is fitted to a man in Scotland (20th Dec): http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/health/6193681.stm

Internet / Television:
The BBC announces it will make hundreds of BBC TV programmes available on a file-sharing network to make them available to audiences overseas, although they will be paid for and come with DRM (20th Dec): http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/technology/6194929.stm

Internet:
Hamleys toy store 'pillaged' after internet error lets customers get up to 60% discount. It says at first that it will honour the orders (19th Dec): http://business.guardian.co.uk/story/0,,1975206,00.html but the next day it backs down and refuses (20th Dec): http://business.guardian.co.uk/retail/story/0,,1975865,00.html This coming not long after the Threshers email voucher offer was spread virally around far more people than the company bargained for in early December ... see: http://www.guardian.co.uk/christmas2006/story/0,,1963310,00.html and http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/business/6198828.stm

Security:
A report on Google and Yahoo's operations in China (19th Dec): http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/technology/6191171.stm

Television:
£600m of the BBC licence fee will go towards helping the elderly get digital TV (19th Dec): http://business.guardian.co.uk/story/0,,1974973,00.html

Internet:
A conference on social networking has to be cancelled because of lack of interest ... presumably people weren't that interested in actually meeting each other! (18th Dec): http://business.guardian.co.uk/story/0,,1974179,00.html

Internet:
On the spread of viral videos and movie clips (18th Dec): http://media.guardian.co.uk/mediaguardian/story/0,,1973938,00.html

Mobile Phones:
Orange are in talks with Google for a 'Google phone', providing information wherever you are (17th Dec): http://www.guardian.co.uk/mobile/article/0,,1974094,00.html

Internet:
'You' are named as Time magazine's 'person of the year' - as in the producers of user generated content (17th Dec): http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/technology/6187113.stm On January 4th 1983 Time announced 'the man of the year' for 1982 was the computer. As it said: 'There are some occasions when the most significant force in a year's news is not a single individual but a process, and a widespread recognition that this process is changing the course of all other processes.' Now, given the realisation of the computer's potential through increased processing power, the power of computer networking, the economic and practical democratisation of the technologies of computing and digital production and the transformation of media content into a digital form so that it can be produced and dissemintated over these networks ... we have the user as the person of the year ...

Video Games:
Over enthusiastic users of the new Wii controllers lead Nintendo to recall and improve wrist straps (15th Dec): http://www.cnn.com/2006/TECH/12/14/wii.danger.ap/index.html Within a week they're hit by a lawsuit for damages ... (20th Dec): http://news.com.com/2061-10797_3-6145335.html The newly launched Wii is already outselling PS3 (for the moment) in the US (10th Dec): http://www.cnn.com/2006/TECH/fun.games/12/10/nintendo.sony.reut/index.html

Video Games / Internet:
Posted a few days ago but important enough to include - a story about Sony faking Youtube style video postings from PSP (Play Station Portable). Their hoped-for viral marketing failed when the fakery was discovered ... (11th/14th Dec): http://blogs.guardian.co.uk/games/archives/2006/12/11/new_sony_viral_marketing_ploy_angers_consumers.html

Security:
A hacker attack at UCLA affects 800 000 (12th Dec): http://www.cnn.com/2006/TECH/ptech/12/12/ucla.data.theft.ap/index.html

December 8th-14th

Music:
On changes in music recommendation and discovery through new media (14th Dec): http://media.guardian.co.uk/newmedia/story/0,,1971057,00.html

Music:
Has iTunes passed its peak? On contradictory research into the success of downloads (14th Dec): http://media.guardian.co.uk/newmedia/story/0,,1971068,00.html

Mobile Phones:
Slingbox helps make 3G mobile phones relevent - the Slingbox connected to your own TV sends the signal directly to your phone (14th Dec): http://media.guardian.co.uk/newmedia/comment/0,,1971147,00.html

Video Games:
Controversy over a new Christian video game (14th Dec): http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/technology/6178055.stm

Mobile Phones:
Norwegian trials of personalised adverts on mobile phones (14th Dec): http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/technology/6180509.stm

Internet:
Blogging set to peak next year. A report on the slowdown in blog growth (14th Dec): http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/technology/6178611.stm

Internet:
Mypsace records more US page views than Yahoo for the first time In November, News Corp.'s MySpace recorded 38.7 billion U.S. page views, compared with 38.1 billion for Yahoo Inc., according to comScore Media Metrix. MySpace's growth was 2 percent over October and triple the 12.5 billion recorded in November 2005. (13th Dec): http://www.cnn.com/2006/TECH/internet/12/13/myspace.yahoo.ap/index.html

Security:
UK online banking fraud up 8000% in two years (13th Dec): http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/6177555.stm

Television:
The new Reality TV Show - a rape trial with a celebrity jury ... (13th Dec): http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk_news/story/0,,1970725,00.html

Internet / Security:
The US State Department turns to Google to help it track Iranians with links to the country's nuclear programme (12th Dec): http://www.guardian.co.uk/international/story/0,,1969860,00.html

Video Games:
German gamers face jail for acts of violence in video games 'on humans or human looking characters'!!! (12th Dec): http://www.guardian.co.uk/germany/article/0,,1969920,00.html

Internet:
Government website planned to shame absent parents who refuse to pay maintenance for their children (10th Dec): http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/6166045.stm

Media History:
First Edison light bulbs may sell for £300 000 (9th Dec): http://www.guardian.co.uk/science/story/0,,1968254,00.html

Music:
Aging rockers in plea for copyright extension to 95 years ... and in the process they become pawns in the music industry's continued legal piracy against the public (8th Dec):
http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk_news/story/0,,1967046,00.html

Security:
Internet criminals are using students as 'sleepers' - part of a great report offering an overview of the new types of cybercrime appearing (8th Dec): http://education.guardian.co.uk/higher/news/story/0,,1967228,00.html

Music / Mobile Phones:
"Concern" over children swapping music over their mobile phones (who's concerned? Not me, not the kids, only a music industry whose definition of 'piracy' always omits their own prices and practices ...) (8th Dec): http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/technology/6217998.stm

December 1st-7th

Internet / Television:
Google moves into TV ads with BSkyB deal: 'In the first such deal for Google, the Californian firm will provide BSkyB with technology so it can offer email and internet telephony to customers of its fledgling broadband product. Google, which paid $1.65bn (£840m) for YouTube in October, is also licensing its video search and sharing technology, which Sky will use to set up its own user-generated content site. Google will also operate the search engine on BSkyB's new broadband website, sharing advertising revenues with the broadcaster, as it does for other internet firms such as AOL. The two companies are also exploring "future forms of web, TV and mobile advertising", Google said. The company, which dominates the lucrative search advertising market, is already experimenting with newspaper, magazine and radio advertising in the United States, using its technology to sell adverts in the so-called offline world. Under the BSkyB deal, Google will be able to move into TV advertising. Google is looking to use information about viewing habits, which can be obtained through the broadcaster's set-top boxes, to produce more targeted TV advertising. Eventually, marketing experts could tailor campaigns to specific viewers, even storing adverts on the set-top box itself' (7th Dec): http://business.guardian.co.uk/story/0,,1966056,00.html

Internet:
Myspace to block sex offenders (7th Dec): http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/technology/6216736.stm
Video Games:
Dell enters Second Life. Dell invites you to go to 'Dell Island': http://www.dell.com/html/global/topics/sl/index.html?redirect=1

Mobile Phones:
Mobiles cleared of cancer risk (6th Dec): http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/health/6209960.stm

Internet:
BSkyB has announced a partnership with Google to provide its broadband customers with branded search, email and other services including a YouTube-style video sharing website (6th Dec): http://business.guardian.co.uk/story/0,,1965485,00.html

Internet:
Avatars consume as much energy as Brazil! (5th Dec): http://www.roughtype.com/archives/2006/12/avatars_consume.php

Internet:
BT enters the broadcasting market with football challenge to BSkyB. BT will offer a free set top box with its broadband service to offer a range of television services on demand (5th Dec): http://business.guardian.co.uk/story/0,,1964404,00.html

Internet / Security:
Iran censors net access to specific sites (4th Dec): http://www.guardian.co.uk/international/story/0,,1963099,00.html

Internet / Security:
Too many passwords and logins on the net creates a security risk as users reuse familiar passwords (4th Dec): http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/technology/6199372.stm

Internet / Security:
US Government signs a deal on .com domain names with Verisign, giving it control until 2012 (4th Dec): http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/technology/6199394.stm?ls

Cinema:
DVD pirate receives 6 month sentence plus a £55 000 fine or another two year sentence, for importing and distributing pirated DVDs (4th Dec): http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/entertainment/6206210.stm

Security / Cinema:
US movie industry lobbyists kill a bill that would have stopped companies and individuals from using deceptive practices to obtain private data about another - arguing they need to do this to combat piracy (1st Dec) : http://www.wired.com/news/technology/0,72214-0.html?tw=wn_index_16

New Technologies:
Satnav sends ambulance on 200 mile detour (2nd Dec): News in brief page -http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk_news/story/0,,1962275,00.html

And from the December issue of Wired:

Internet:
The Youtube article already mentioned: http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/14.12/youtube.html

Internet:
An article on the Lonelygirl15 Youtube video: http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/14.12/lonelygirl.html and article

A study of customer generated advertising: http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/14.12/tahoe.html

Internet:
A murder on Myspace and its effects on the community: http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/14.12/murderblog.html