Sunday, February 6, 2011

Tax hopes over video games report

Scotland's video games companies are hoping an influential report will back their calls for the industry to receive tax breaks.

Hi-tech firms claim tax aid would safeguard thousands of jobs and generate hundreds of millions of pounds of investment.

Scotland has a significant video games sector, in a market said to be worth �55bn worldwide.

The Scottish Affairs Committee report on the industry is due out on Monday.

Video games development is currently worth about �30m to the Scottish economy.

Dundee plays a key part in the sector and is home to about 15 design companies.

But tough global competition saw the industry cut almost a fifth of its jobs in Scotland last year.

The industry was also dealt a blow last summer when the new chancellor, George Osborne, decided not to introduce tax breaks, sparking the inquiry by the Scottish Affairs Committee at Westminster.

The committee heard evidence last October and travelled to Dundee to visit the University of Abertay and two video games studios, as well as meeting industry representatives.

Industry leaders estimate it costs about �60m to develop a new game and claim that with other countries offering tax relief it is vital the UK government does the same.

Scottish games developers are hoping MPs will press the Treasury to reconsider tax breaks.



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Friday, February 4, 2011

Hacktivists target Egypt, Yemen

Hacktivists from the online group Anonymous have turned their attention to Yemen as part of their battle for greater net freedoms.

The website of President Ali Abdullah Saleh has become inaccessible as Yemenis stage anti-government protests.

It follows attacks on the websites of Egypt's ruling party and ministry of information this week.

Last month Anonymous shut down some Tunisian websites, including the government's official site.

Anonymous's move into Middle East politics has alarmed security experts, who warn people against jumping on the bandwagon.

"If you participate in these attacks, you are knowingly engaging in a cyber crime," said Graham Cluley, a senior technology consultant for security firm Sophos.

Web freedoms

"If you aren't prepared to go and throw rocks, then maybe you should think again about clogging up websites with traffic," he added.

There have been five arrests in UK and the FBI launched raids across the US in connection with the Wikileaks cyber attacks, which saw members of Anonymous targeting firms which had withdrawn services from the whistle-blowing site.

Anonymous claims that it wants to uphold web freedoms around the world but as such attacks increase, it could have knock-on effect of governments seeking to make it harder to remain anonymous online, thinks Mr Cluley.

"If there was no ability for anonymity, we would all be the losers," he said.



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Google eyes Apple in tablet war

Google has unveiled an operating system for tablet computers aimed at ramping up the competition with Apple's iPad.

More than 15 million iPads have been sold since Apple launched the gadget in 2010.

The latest version of Google's Android OS is called Honeycomb and it has been specifically optimised for tablets.

The features include the ability to buy applications from a computer, buy features inside the app, video chat and improved graphics.

"This is a serious investment of years of design and engineering to really nail the experience for a larger screen," Hugo Barra, Google's director of products for mobile, told BBC News.

"This is not a large phone - we wanted tablets running Honeycomb to not just be bigger but also to be better."

Motorola will be the first to bring a product running Honeycomb to market. Its Xoom device is due to go on sale this month, although a release date and price have not yet been revealed.

"Honeycomb brings Google closer to parity with Apple and underlines the battle between these two titans," said Ben Parr, co-editor of technology news site Mashable.

"Google has its strengths especially in the cloud, with their open source platform and integration with other Google products like Gmail and Google docs," he said. "But Apple has the design edge and a vast number of apps as well as a new iPad expected in the next couple of months."

'Big win'

Google's announcement of a web-based version of the Android market is one that is seen as long overdue.

This now means that users can browse and buy apps directly from the web. Previously users had to purchase through the Android market directly from the device making it difficult to find, download and buy apps.

Thanks to the cloud, users can send apps directly to any Android device with just a few clicks of their mouse.

"There's no wires, no synching with computers - none of that nonsense. Everything is connected," said Chris Yerga, Android engineering director.

Technology blog TechCrunch called the webstore a "big win" for developers.

"It lowers the hurdle you have to go through to buy an app," said Jason Kincaid of TechCrunch.

"If you are bored online, I can imagine a lot of people heading to the webstore and clicking on five apps before they have really thought about it."

Making money

Google also unveiled in-app purchasing, a new feature to let developers make money by selling virtual goods and upgrades in their apps to consumers.

Convincing developers to back Android is seen as key to drawing in more customers.

So far Android has more than 100,000 apps in its store, while more than 300,000 have been created for Apple's iOS.

At the launch of Honeycomb at Google's California headquarters a number of developers showcased apps designed specifically using the new operating system.

CNN presented a new tablet optimised app while Disney said it would be joining the webstore with three apps including a version of the music rhythm game Tap Tap Revenge.

Disney's head of mobile Bart Decrem said there had been more than 50 million downloads of Tap Tap Revenge on the iPhone alone.

"We have been waiting for in-app purchases and for Android to get to this stage. This really represents a general maturing of the platform and it's a really important one," said Mr Decrem.

'Best foot forward'

Unlike Apple, Google does not make its own devices but gives its operating system to manufacturers for nothing. That approach has served it well in the smartphone market.

To date there are around 145 devices running on Android, including a handful of tablets.

Google said it would be up to hardware sellers when users would see Honeycomb appear in more tablets.

Motorola will be first out of the gate but LG and T-Mobile are expected to follow close behind with their upcoming G-Slate tablet.

"We've put our best foot forward and now it's up to the ecosystem, the manufacturers, to make it flourish," said Google's Mr Barra.

He said some of the features in Honeycomb would find their way on to Android smartphones when that is updated.

But will Honeycomb help Google slay Apple, which has a new iPad out in the coming months?

That depends, says Ina Fried, senior editor of AllThingsD and the Mobilized blog.

"It's a combination of what's the speed, what's the price of the device, what type of apps will be available and when.

"This is about other people's products competing with the iPad. Clearly Google is putting a lot of resources into Android and with this first entry it's going to be a fun thing to watch," Ms Fried told BBC News.



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Call to codify wars in cyberspace

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John Bumgarner from US Cyber Consequences Unit on current threats

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The world needs cyber war "Rules of Engagement" to cope with potentially devastating cyber weapons, Russian and US experts will tell world leaders at a security conference on Friday.

The cyber proposal, seen exclusively by Newsnight, comes from the influential EastWest Institute in New York.

It describes "rendering the Geneva and Hague conventions in cyberspace".

Cyber security is on the agenda at the annual Munich Security Conference for the first time this year.

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Those attending the conference include UK Prime Minister David Cameron, German Chancellor Angela Merkel, US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov.

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The logic behind the move is that in the intermingled world of cyberspace, we may need to protect zones that run facilities such as hospitals or schools.

The draft document also calls for a fresh definition of "nation state", with new "territories" and players in cyberspace beyond government - such as multinationals, NGOs and citizens.

The proposal also says that ambiguity about what constitutes cyber conflict is delaying international policy to deal with it, and that perhaps the idea of "peace" or "war" is too simple in the internet age when the world could find itself in a third, "other than war", mode.

Pinpointing attackers

The US-Russian team point out that discriminating between military and civilian targets is more difficult in cyberspace, and may require protected, marked, domain names.

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They say cyber weapons have attributes not previously seen with traditional weapons, nor considered during the development of the current Laws of War: "Cyber weapons can deliver, in the blink of an eye, wild viral behaviours that are easily reproduced and transferred, while lacking target discrimination."

Well-placed British government sources say they do not see a need for new international "treaties" for cyberspace, but do concede that there are areas that need discussion, especially on attribution.

The nature of cyber space, with its ease of anonymity and use of proxies, makes the attribution of any attack very difficult. This raises the question of proportionality:

"How strongly should a state respond to an attack when you do not know who did it, where they did it from or what the intention was? In conventional military terms these questions are easier to answer - not so in the cyber world," these sources pointed out to Newsnight.

John Bumgarner, research director for security technology at the US Cyber Consequences Unit, spoke to Newsnight about the kind of threats which exist:

"There's things out there that right now that exist that the general public really doesn't know about - stealthy type technologies that can be embedded into systems that can run that you'll never see. Those things already exist."

He said that capabilities which currently exist include turning off power grids, disrupting water supplies and manufacturing systems.

Business agenda

Others, however, say that talk of all out cyber "war" is hype, though useful to defence companies looking for new ways to make money.

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Nevertheless, there are almost daily reports now of cyber incidents, most recently that Stock Exchanges in Britain and the US were seeking help from the security services after discovering they were victims of attempted cyber attacks.

"There's quite a lot in it, but they're also extensively hyped," according to Professor Peter Sommer of the London School of Economics, who wrote a recent Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) report on cyber security.

"In terms of the involvement of the big military companies, you have to realise that they are finding it extremely difficult to sell big, heavy equipment of the sort they are used to because the type of wars that we're involved in tend to be against insurgents.

"And so they are desperately looking for new product areas - and the obvious product area, they think, is cyber warfare - I'm not so sure about that."

And yet, "utterly dependent" is how one well-placed government source describes our relationship with cyberspace.

The message is blunt. Ensuring security in cyberspace is vital to our national security, our well being and our prosperity: "Without it we can't have the economy we aspire to."

And if that is not enough, the UK government also believes it is vital to maintaining our values as a democracy.

Real-time attack data

The government is therefore embarking on an ambitious project to forge what it calls a new "dialogue" between the state and commercial companies, for mutual benefit.

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After all, some 80% of our critical national infrastructure is owned and run by the private sector, and that is before you take account of the tangle of undersea fibre-optic cables that carry over 90% of our internet traffic, with all the physical vulnerabilities to terrorist attack that implies.

At the new Cyber Security Operations Centre at GCHQ, the UK's electronic intelligence agency in Cheltenham, the eventual aim is for real-time, open exchange of data from companies about how and when they are suffering attacks on their IT systems from cyberspace.

This should give the government early-warning of cyber attacks that could bring down critical national infrastructure. In return, the commercial sector can expect expertise on-tap.

This builds on existing trusted relationships with energy and water companies, but will extend to other sectors, such as food distribution, finance and transport.

The idea was mooted by Iain Lobban, director of GCHQ, in a rare speech at the International Institute for Strategic Studies (ISS) last October.

A substantial chunk of the �650m allocated to cyber security in the subsequent Strategic Defence and Security Review is now heading in that direction.

Watch Susan Watts' full report on the threat posed by cyber warfare on Newsnight on Thursday 3 February 2011 at 10.30pm on BBC Two, then afterwards on the BBC iPlayer and Newsnight website.

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Egypt &#39;hijacked Vodafone network&#39;

Mobile phone firm Vodafone has accused the Egyptian authorities of using its network to send unattributed text messages supporting the government.

Vodafone was told to switch off services last week when protests against President Hosni Mubarak began.

But the authorities then ordered Vodafone to switch the network back on, in order to send messages under Egypt's emergency laws, the firm said.

In a statement, Vodafone described the messages as "unacceptable".

"These messages are not scripted by any of the mobile network operators and we do not have the ability to respond to the authorities on their content."

Likely cost

The Paris-based Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development says that the government clampdown on internet services may have cost the Egyptian economy as much as $18m (�11m) a day or $90m in total.

The impact of the communications block could be even greater, as it would be "much more difficult in the future to attract foreign companies and assure them that the networks will remain reliable", said the OECD in a statement.

In another development, the credit ratings agency Fitch has downgraded the Egypt's debt grade by one notch to BB from BB+, citing the consequences of the continuing political unrest on the economy.

The country's debt grade has already been downgraded by two other ratings agencies, Moody's and Standard & Poor's.



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Thursday, February 3, 2011

Google eyes Apple in tablet war

Google has unveiled an operating system for tablet computers aimed at ramping up the competition with Apple's iPad.

More than 15 million iPads have been sold since Apple launched the gadget in 2010.

The latest version of Google's Android OS is called Honeycomb which has been specifically optimised for tablets.

The features include the ability to buy applications from a computer, buy features inside the app, video chat and improved graphics.

"This is a serious investment of years of design and engineering to really nail the experience for a larger screen," Hugo Barra, Google's director of products for mobile, told BBC News.

"This is not a large phone, we wanted tablets running Honeycomb to not just be bigger but also to be better."

Motorola will be the first to bring a product running Honeycomb to market. Its Xoom device is due to go on sale this month, although a release date and price have not yet been revealed.

"Honeycomb brings Google closer to parity with Apple and underlines the battle between these two titans," said Ben Parr, co-editor of technology news site Mashable.

"Google has its strengths especially in the cloud, with their open source platform and integration with other Google products like Gmail and Google docs," he said. "But Apple has the design edge and a vast number of apps as well as a new iPad expected in the next couple of months."

'Big win'

Google's announcement of a web-based version of the Android market is one that is seen as long overdue.

This now means that users can browse and buy apps directly from the web. Previously users had to purchase through the Android market directly from the device making it difficult to find, download and buy apps.

Thanks to the cloud, users can send apps directly to any Android device with just a few clicks of their mouse.

"There's no wires, no synching with computers. None of that nonsense. Everything is connected," said Chris Yerga, Android engineering director.

Technology blog TechCrunch called the webstore a "big win" for developers.

"It lowers the hurdle you have to go through to buy an app," said Jason Kincaid of TechCrunch.

"If you are bored online, I can imagine a lot of people heading to the webstore and clicking on five apps before they have really thought about it."

Making money

Google also unveiled in-app purchasing, a new feature to let developers make money by selling virtual goods and upgrades in their apps to consumers.

Convincing developers to back Android is seen as key to drawing in more customers.

So far Android has more than 100,000 apps in its store, while more than 300,00 have been created for Apple's iOS.

At the launch of Honeycomb at Google's California headquarters a number of developers showcased apps designed specifically using the new operating system.

CNN presented a new tablet optimised app while Disney said it would be joining the webstore with three apps including a version of the music rhythm game Tap Tap Revenge.

Disney's head of mobile, Bart Decrem said there have been more than 50m downloads of Tap Tap Revenge on the iPhone alone.

"We have been waiting for in-app purchases and for Android to get to this stage. This really represents a general maturing of the platform and it's a really important one," said Mr Decrem.

'Best foot forward'

Unlike Apple, Google does not make its own devices but gives its operating system to manufacturers for free. That approach has served it well in the smartphone market.

To date there are around 145 devices running on Android, including a handful of tablets.

Google said it would be up to hardware-sellers when users would see Honeycomb appear in more tablets.

Motorola will be first out of the gate but LG and T-Mobile are expected to follow close behind with their upcoming G-Slate tablet.

"We've put our best foot forward and now it's up to the ecosystem, the manufacturers, to make it flourish," said Google's Mr Barra.

He said some of the features in Honeycomb will find their way onto Android smartphones when that is updated.

But will Honeycomb help Google slay Apple due out with a new iPad in the coming months?

That depends said Ina Fried, senior editor of AllThingsD and the Mobilized blog.

"It's a combination of what's the speed, what's the price of the device, what type of apps will be available and when.

"This is about other people's products competing with the iPad. Clearly Google is putting a lot of resources into Android and with this first entry it's going to be a fun thing to watch," Ms Fried told BBC News.



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Wednesday, February 2, 2011

News Corp debuts daily iPad paper

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The Daily newspaper for the iPad is launched by News Corp's Jesse Angelo and Rupert Murdoch in New York.

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News Corporation's Rupert Murdoch is extending his media empire once again - this time with a digital newspaper for the iPad called the Daily.

Mr Murdoch told an audience at the Guggenheim Museum in New York that he hoped it would be an "indispensable source of news" in the tablet era.

The Daily will cost 99 cents (60p) a week and will be sold exclusively via Apple's iTunes store.

The paper will initially only be available in the US.

News Corp has hired about 100 journalists to work on it.

The Daily will feature news articles, interactive graphics, HD videos and 360 degree photos designed to work with the iPad's touchscreen.

Analysis

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If you had to characterise the Daily then it is definitely the kind of iPad app which wants to impress - and impress everybody.

Sections include news - reports on Egypt and US snowstorms; gossip - an interview with Natalie Portman and piece on Rihanna; opinion and off-beat features, including a report on New York's doggy disco.

There's so much content it's easy to spend your entire time flicking through pictures and navigating, rather than reading the text of the stories.

The whizz-bang factor is definitely high, utilising much of the iPad's functionality. There are some excellent visual devices including 360-degree photo galleries, stylish videos embedded into pieces and a neat sudoku and crossword puzzle (which requires sign-up).

It can get fiddly though. It is not always clear when to tap or swipe for more content, and on some stories the only way to get to the related picture gallery is by turning the iPad horizontally - the repeated rotation can get a little tiring.

This is billed as a digital newspaper - but the style and layout of the content give it more the feel of a magazine.

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It will add Twitter feeds into some articles and offer personalised content.

"Our target audience is the 15 million Americans expected to own iPads in the next year," said Mr Murdoch.

"In the tablet-era there is room for a fresh and robust new voice. New times demand new journalism," he said.

He promised that the Daily would combine the best of contemporary technology with "shoe leather reporting, good editing and a sceptical eye".

According to Eddy Cue, Apple's vice president of internet services, 200m news apps have been downloaded and there are 9,000 different news apps to choose from.

Revenue share

It is believed that Apple will use the tie-up with News Corp to change the way it charges for subscriptions.

It means that any publisher offering content via the iPad will have to use Apple's payment method, known as in-app purchase, which in turn means Apple will get a share of the revenue made from any subscriptions.

"That is quite a big deal," said Adrian Drury, principal media analyst at research firm Ovum.

"The specific terms News Corp have negotiated are unknown, but every other publisher now faces paying 30% of their hard won application subscription revenue to Apple," he said.

It follows a tightening of the rules around e-book readers, which will also now be required to offer customers the ability to purchase books from within the app as well as from other sources.

News Corp's move onto the iPad reflects a wider industry appetite for selling device-specific exclusive content, Mr Drury said.

What sets the Daily apart is the fact that it has its own editorial staff.

"Others re-use content but the Daily has hired expensive US journalists and has its own editorial staff," he said.

"Its parent has deep pockets, and this is going to buy it time to build an audience and refine its model," he added.

Others who have already gone down the iPad route find it a difficult road, he said.

"Anecdotal evidence [suggests] that such publications have strong download sales when they first come to market, but when it comes to subscriptions, getting people to repeat buy, it gets really tough."

It also faces stiff competition from free apps such as Flipboard, which allows users to pick the websites they want to create a personalised magazine.

Paywalls

Mr Murdoch has made no secret of his desire to get consumers paying for news on the web.

The Wall Street Journal, The Times and The Sunday Times, all owned by Mr Murdoch, have introduced paywalls for their websites.

The Times has since revealed that it has seen a 87% drop in online readership.

In November, Virgin tycoon Sir Richard Branson launched his own iPad publication, called Project.

Unlike the Daily, it is a monthly magazine dedicated to style and culture. It costs �1.79.

Other paid-for newspaper apps for the iPad include Esquire, Glamour, GQ, the New Yorker, Vanity Fair and Wired.

? <!--[if lte IE 7]> <![endif]--><!-- Comments Module Start -->

Comments

This entry is now closed for comments

  • Let's not lose sight of the bigger picture here; it's only fair that we pay for news / content that we feel has value. It doesn't really matter if you like or dislike Murdoch politics; he should be give credit for trying to put the "genie back into the bottle."

  • Dear BumSmasher,
    Of course most people would prefer not to pay for online news. But everyone in the UK already pays for the BBC online news content. Who do you think is going to write this news if nobody pays for it? If free websites that cannibalise the original news produced (at great cost) by other websites, ultimately there is no-one producing original news at all. Except PRs.

  • When will Murdoch realize that the web is designed for free content and that he cannot rule the world.

  • The internet is a source of free news and voice. I would not pay 1 cent.



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Google accuses Bing of &#39;copying&#39;

Google has accused Microsoft of cheating, following an investigation known as the 'Bing Sting'.

Google engineers created 100 nonsensical queries such as "hiybbprqag" and inserted a fake result for each.

Within weeks, the same results began to appear on its rival Microsoft's Bing search engine.

Microsoft denies copying Google and accused Google of conducting "spy-novelesque stunts".

Harry Shum, vice president of Bing, said: "We do not copy Google's search results. We use multiple signals and approaches in ranking search results," he added.

"Opt-in programs like the toolbar help us with clickstream data, one of many input signals we and other search engines use to help rank sites," he added.

Cheap imitation

But Google's Amit Singhal told industry blog SearchEngineLand.com that it was "plain and simply cheating" and he detailed the sting operation in a long blog post.

He said Google decided to conduct its experiment after mis-spelt words and results were replicated on Bing.

"A search for 'hiybbprqug' on Bing returned a page about seating at a theatre in Los Angeles. As far as we know the only connection between the query and result is Google's result page," he said.

"We noticed that URLs from Google search results would later appear in Bing with increasing frequency," he went on.

He concluded that Microsoft was gathering data on what people search for on Google, via either Internet Explorer or the Bing Search toolbar.

"Some Bing results increasingly look like an incomplete, stale version of Google results - a cheap imitation," he said.

Search voice

Danny Sullivan, a search engine expert, has mixed feelings about what the experiment shows.

"On the one hand you could say it's incredibly clever. Why not mine what people are selecting as the top results on Google as a signal?" he wrote on his blog.

But he also said he had sympathy for Google's view that Bing is doing something wrong.

"Every search engine has its own 'search voice', a unique set of search results that it provides, based on its collection of documents and its own particular method of ranking those.

I think Bing should develop its own search voice without using Google's as a tuning fork," he added.

Wider issues for him include how Google went about setting up its honeypot trap to ensnare Bing and whether it was just a "clever way to distract from current discussions about its search quality".

Google has stressed that it has now removed the one-time code that it added to plant the fake pages.

Had any of its fake queries proved popular, it said that it would have removed the page they linked to.

Mr Sullivan also questioned how much consumers knew about the data capture that allowed Microsoft to gather Google's search results, either via Internet Explorer or the Bing toolbar.

"Do Internet Explorer users know that they might be helping Bing in the way Google alleges? Technically, yes. Explicitly, absolutely not," he said.



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News Corp debuts daily iPad paper

<!-- Embedding the video player --> <!-- This is the embedded player component -->
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The Daily, a digital only newspaper, will be published exclusively on the iPad tablet computer

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News Corporation's Rupert Murdoch is extending his vast media empire once again - this time with a digital newspaper for the iPad.

The wraps will be taken off the e-paper at the Guggenheim Museum in New York later on Wednesday.

According to the News Corps-owned AllThingsD blog, the Daily will cost 99 cents (60p) a week and will be sold exclusively via Apple's iTunes store.

It said News Corp had hired about 100 journalists to work on it.

The paper will initially only be available in the US.

In a preview, the blog said the Daily will feature news articles, interactive graphics, videos and photos designed to work with the iPad's touchscreen.

A free website for the paper will feature a small selection of its content, it added.

Mr Murdoch has made no secret of his desire to get consumers paying for news on the web.

The Wall Street Journal, The Times and The Sunday Times, all owned by Murdoch, have introduced paywalls for their websites.

The Times has since been revealed that it has seen a 87% drop in online readership.

In November, Virgin tycoon Richard Branson launched his own iPad publication, called Project.

Unlike the Daily, it is a monthly magazine dedicated to style and culture. It costs �1.79.

Other paid-for newspaper apps for the iPad include Esquire, Glamour, GQ, the New Yorker, Vanity Fair and Wired.



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Tuesday, February 1, 2011

Government rethinks net blocking

The UK government has announced that it is to look again at plans to block websites that infringe copyright.

The controversial measures formed part of its crackdown on net pirates, outlined in the Digital Economy Act (DEA).

The decision to review it follows a raft of complaints about the workablility of the legislation.

Culture Secretary Jeremy Hunt has now asked Ofcom to consider the viability of blocking certain websites.

Right tools

"I have no problem with the principle of blocking access to websites used exclusively for facilitating illegal downloading of content," said Mr Hunt.

"But it is not clear whether the site blocking provisions in the Act could work in practice so I have asked Ofcom to address this question," he added.

The rethink was prompted by ideas submitted to the Your Freedom website, which asked members of the public to nominate laws and regulations they would like to see abolished.

"When we launched Your Freedom, I promised that the ideas submitted would be given proper consideration.... we have listened to the views expressed," said deputy prime minister Nick Clegg.

"The government will look at whether we have the right tools for the job in addressing the problem of online copyright infringement," he added.

It is not clear how many people complained about the DEA on Your Freedom, but a spokesman for the Department for Culture, Media and Sport said it was "one of the most commented on" pieces of legislation.

Among the questions for Ofcom to consider are:

  • Is it possible for access to the site to be blocked by internet service providers?
  • How robust would such a block be?
  • Can specific parts of the site be blocked?
  • What would it cost ISPs to implement such blocks?

The Open Rights Group, which has long campaigned against the DEA, welcomed Ofcom's review.

"It's encouraging that the government is listening to people's genuine concerns about the Digital Economy Act.

The web blocking provisions are a real mistake - they would stifle freedom of expression, for unproven benefit, whilst being extremely costly and difficult to manage," said Peter Bradwell, an ORG campaigner.

Judicial review

The government's attempts to crack down on illegal file-sharing have courted much controversy.

Ofcom is already planning the first stage of the campaign, which will see letters sent to those identified as illegal file-sharers.

The DEA is subject to a judicial review, which will look at whether the act is legal and justifiable.

The review, granted to ISPs BT and TalkTalk, will take place in March.

Opponents claim that the legislation was rushed through parliament without proper debate and that the methods that would be used to identify net pirates are flawed and unfair.

In a recent court case brought against 27 alleged illegal file-sharers, it was argued that the IP address of a computer, the numerical code that identifies the connection, cannot be used as evidence because it fails to identify the individual responsible.

The judge is due to rule on the case imminently.

The government needs secondary legislation before it can procced with any plans to block websites. Ofcom is due to report back in the spring.



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