rights

Advocates: Google Books can bridge digital divide

Much of the discussion around Google's proposed book settlement has centered on copyright law and competition. Advocates for access got their say Thursday.

A coalition of civil-rights and disability groups in favor of Google's book-scanning project held a press conference Thursday to marshal support for improving access to knowledge, the key benefit of Google's deal with authors and publishers to create a new kind of digital library. They fear that a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to gain digital access to knowledge previously stored in libraries at expensive universities or rich communities could be hampered by the opposition to the settlement from some authors and privacy advocates.… Read more

Intuitive grammar and style analysis

RightWriter Grammar Analysis allows users to evaluate their writing for proper grammar and effective style. Although the trial version disables the program's main feature, the sample text provided with RightWriter makes us think that the program is a useful tool for writing improvement.

The program's interface is basic and intuitive. Users type or paste the text they want to analyze into a text box, click the Analyze button, and the analysis shows up in another text box. The program suggests alternatives when word choices are too "wordy," identifies use of the passive voice, and gives other … Read more

Business Intelligence moves to the cloud

One of the most difficult aspects of cloud computing is dealing with the integration of various applications that run between your enterprise and a cloud provider or data center. Application integration is arguably the biggest challenge to enterprises attempting to adopt cloud principles.

To that end, Jaspersoft, Talend, RightScale, and Vertica have teamed up to offer a joint solution stack that delivers complete Business Intelligence (BI) in the cloud.

Business intelligence has been the No. 1 technology spend for the last three years running, according to reseach firm Gartner. And, despite the the recession, Madan Sheina from Ovum has called BI … Read more

Facebook tweaks its terms to address ads, privacy

Facebook on Tuesday proposed a new version of its Statement of Rights and Responsibilities document, which acts as a terms of service for its users.

One of the larger changes is clearer language of Facebook's share to everyone feature, which is now an integral part of the social network's updated search engine. The new wording makes it pretty clear that anything users post with the "everyone" designation can be seen by the entire world, not just users on the service.

The company also added a new section which details proper use of its pages features, including … Read more

Amazon says it won't repeat Kindle book recall

Amazon said late Friday that it recalled two Kindle e-books because the publisher lacked the rights to the book. However, in the future, it says it won't pull already downloaded material from customers' devices.

The removal of two George Orwell books from the accounts of those who had already purchased them sparked an outcry from customers, bloggers, and mainstream media outlets.

"These books were added to our catalog using our self-service platform by a third-party who did not have the rights to the books," Amazon spokesman Drew Herdener said in an e-mail. "When we were notified … Read more

Amazon recalls (and embodies) Orwell's '1984'

Much is being made this Friday over Amazon's move to essentially forcibly recall two e-books that some customers had purchased.

According to multiple reports, Amazon removed the books from users' accounts after the publisher decided to pull its e-book. (My favorite headline, by the way, was Seattlest's "Amazon's Kindle: Now with new take-backsies feature".)

The publisher is certainly within its rights to stop selling the e-book and certainly Amazon needs to honor those wishes. But its hard to understand by what rights the retailer can remove the book from those who have already purchased one … Read more

Music copyright lawsuit targets Microsoft, Yahoo, Real

I'm not a lawyer, but I'm well-acquainted with legal filings from analyzing Microsoft's legal travails for the last nine years. I've seen a lot of aggressive lawsuits, but a copyright infringement suit filed Monday in the U.S. District Court for Middle Tennessee is one of the boldest--and, I'd argue, short-sighted--filings I've ever seen.

The suit appears to have been initiated by Music Copyright Solutions (MCS), which claims to administer copyrights for more than 45,000 compositions. MCS is named as the lead plaintiff, along with a number of songwriters including Mark Farner of … Read more

Brain-power tool

MB Brain Test is a simple program that answers users' questions about which side of their brain is more dominant. With a primitive display and simple questions, this program proves to be more fun than informative.

This download's interface is not going to win any beauty contests, but it proves to be functional. With primitive graphics leading users through a series of questions answered by clicking a radio button, there should be no confusion for users of any experience level, though there is an online Help file available. The program functions simply, which makes the test rather fun. After … Read more

SpiralFrog dogged by DRM issues, unhappy investors

Update: To note that SpiralFrog users did not purchase music.

Controversy trailed SpiralFrog while it existed and continues to hound the company, even after closing down.

Some shareholders of SpiralFrog, the ad-supported music download store that shuttered its site on March 19, are unhappy with how the company's assets are being sold. Separately, several site users have complained that they weren't warned they could lose their music if the site closed down.

New York-based SpiralFrog offered free downloads to users who agreed to be served advertisements with their songs. They never purchased the music outright and conditions of … Read more