DivX Connected gets vital upgrade: Flash

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The DivX Connected platform has received a couple of crucial upgrades, making the hardware-software hybrid system more attractive to open source developers and consumers alike.

Version 1.4 of the DivX Connected server has been released, finally granting the home server software Flash Support, and adding to its unique Wake-on-LAN tools. With the server upgrade, a host of associated plug-ins were also released, bringing the platform into a place where it is equally desirable to casual consumers as it is to the maker crowd.

Flash support has finally given DivX Connected users access to YouTube, Hulu, ABC News, DailyMotion, CollegeHumor, Vimeo, and so many other Flash-based video sites that form the backbone of online video today. DivX s Bruce Lidl says, From now on, it s the whole world of dogs on skateboards, fully consumable from your sofa.

Similar to TiVo s unique YouTube interface , these plug-ins tailor video sites to the DivX Connected remote control scheme. On a standard definition television, the Hulu and Vimeo plug-ins are highly watchable.

Wake-On-LAN functionality grants users with DivX Connected hardware such as the D-Link DSM-330 the ability to remotely turn their media servers on and off via the client, regardless of physical location.

The DivX Connected system has matured tremendously, but still is best suited as a Second TV solution. From the perspective of a user, I ve grown to look at the DSM-330 as the Apple TV of free content, and the addition of Flash support just opens the box even further to that world. However, the unique wake-on-LAN features -- and the potential exploitation of that feature -- give it an added boost in desirability.

While its offerings are far from comprehensive entertainment solutions, like those provided by video game consoles or TiVo, developers are given a lot to play with. The latest upgrades give devs access to Tile and Film Strip control, allowing nested column-based or cover flow style UIs to be built, complete with perspective and reflection elements. The Gecko engine which the system is built upon -- the same that powers Firefox 3 -- has also been upgraded. Most importantly, of course, Flash support now avails the giant amount of Web content heretofore off-limits to the platform.
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Pandora sees relief ahead in net radio fee talks

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Pandora s Tim Westergren says he s more optimistic than ever before that his webcasting service won t be yanked offstage, as the House passed a bill letting net radio stations extend royalty rate negotiations with labels and artists.

The Webcaster Settlement Act of 2008 would give Congressional blessing for SoundExchange, the music industry s collection service, to work directly with the Digital Media Association, which represents online services such as Pandora, as worked out by an industry agreement last week . The permission to negotiate rates would circumvent rate levels set in 2007 by the Copyright Review Board.

Those rates would have, by 2010, demanded performer royalties totaling as much as 70 percent of station revenues, far exceeding those paid by satellite radio or by over-the-air AM FM radio -- which, for the record, pays no performance royalties at all.

That royalty gap -- which dates back decades -- has been the elephant in the room in the long-running negotiations, Westergren tells BetaNews. Back in the 1930s and 1940s, composers -- not singers or musicians -- had most of the bargaining power when it came to negotiating fees for broadcast-radio play. To this day songwriters get royalties for radio play of their songs while performers console themselves, or don t , with the record-selling publicity that airplay provides. But as music styles changed and performers rose in importance, they were able to push for greater parity with songwriters, not to mention more lucrative deals with satellite radio and, now, webcasters.

Westergren, a performer himself, says that webcasters aren t seeking a return to AM FM non -pay rates; they re not fair. But stratospheric rates for Webcasters are even less fair in light of net radio s proven ability to sell records. Once again getting played has promotional benefit -- and the irony is there s not a performer alive that wouldn t want to be played -- but online, the promotion of playing an irresistible song is powered by the rocket fuel of instant online-shopping gratification.

Pandora has gathered a great deal of data on how its 16 million users shop, and Westergren says that those studies show that online listeners are most definitely bigger music buyers.

The industry right now is wrestling with, What is a sale? -- whether that s 99-cent singles, or CDs, or whatever. As the retail impact of Net radio becomes better known, says Westergren, I hope the RIAA will start to be able to recognize a friend. He says that Pandora has offered to pay for additional studies showing the impact of net radio play on sales, but the company s offers have been RIAA-rebuffed.

The Recording Industry Association of America has had a famously unfriendly relationship in general with music on the Internet. The perception of RIAA is that interactivity equals cannibalism, says Westergren, whose service is more interactive and less like traditional radio than one such as competitors Live365 or Shoutcast. But the only thing that should matter is data around purchase habits.

He acknowledges that changes to the system, however overdue as law catches up to the technology, will continue once all sides have entered into the period of reconciliation he sees ahead. The music business is a schizophrenic industry -- there are wild extremes, there s a tremendous amount of internal debate about how to proceed online. But webcasters have been at this long enough that some strategies are either bearing fruit, or they re futile.

And though the gap between the law and technology may have strained the nerves of both principal players and the tens of thousands of net radio fans who hit the phones whenever Pandora and other stations were threatened, Westergren s quick to say that artists and consumers should be thanking the government for dragging all parties to the negotiating table once again.

Rep. Jay Inslee D - Wash. , long a presence in the net radio debates, sponsored the current bill, officially known as HR 7084; the four co-sponsors are Reps. Howard Berman D - Calif. , John Conyers D - Mich. , Donald Manzullo R - Ill. and Lamar Smith R - Tex. . Westergren also cited the support of Sam Brownback R - Kan. and Ron Wyden D - Ore. , who sponsored the Radio Equality Act of 2007. That legislation was widely credited with dragging the RIAA-radio tussle over fees back from the edge of the abyss last year.
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US gov't cannot use cell phone IDs without a warrant, court affirms

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How much does your cell phone say about who you are and where you are? Last year, the US government wanted the authority to use the information cell phones put out naturally in its own investigations. Yesterday, a judge said no.

Pennsylvania US district court judge Terrence McVerry late yesterday denied the US government's appeal of a federal magistrate's order last February, that effectively prohibited the government from acquiring location information from individuals' cell phone location tracking devices without a warrant.

Last February, a five-judge panel of magistrates denied a government petition that would have enabled it to use live data generated from cell phones to track the locations of suspects, without a court order. Specifically, the government wanted to use the Stored Communications Act as a basis for requesting cellular service providers for information about a suspect's whereabouts. In its argument, the government stated that its agents determine suspects' whereabouts through clandestine visual tracking already, without court order, and that clandestine electronic tracking would not be very different.

In essence, the government argued, a suspect does not have the Constitutional right to his or her own location. The magistrates considered whether any such tracking would constitute a violation of citizens' rights under the Fourth Amendment of the Constitution.

Writing on behalf of the panel last February, Judge Lisa Pupo Lenihan noted that there's no doubt that the government may be entitled to such information in the course of its investigation. However, the judge continued, the standard which must be met for proving probable cause in court, is not unreasonably high.

"The issue is not whether the Government can obtain movement/location information, but only the standard it must meet to obtain a Court Order for such disclosure and the basis of authority," Judge Lenihan wrote in February (PDF available here , courtesy Judicial Review). "It emphasizes that the Fourth Amendment standard is not a difficult one, requiring only that the Government support its belief of criminal activity and the probable materiality of the information to be obtained.

"The Court notes that it is entrusted with the protection of the individual civil liberties, including rights of privacy and rights of free association, so paramount to the maintenance of our democracy," the judge continued, on behalf of the magistrates' panel. "The Court also observes that the location information so broadly sought is extraordinarily personal and potentially sensitive; and that the ex parte nature of the proceedings, the comparatively low cost to the Government of the information requested, and the undetectable nature of a [cellular service provider's] electronic transfer of such information, render these requests particularly vulnerable to abuse."

Lenihan went on to say that most Americans aren't really aware of how much location information their cell phones are capable of divulging, adding "most Americans would be appalled by the notion that the Government could obtain such a record without at least a neutral, judicial determination of probable cause."

Essentially affirming the panel's conclusions yesterday, Judge McVerry merely stated that he carefully considered amicus briefs filed in opposition to the government's request, including from the American Civil Liberties Union, and used their arguments to conclude Judge Lenihan's order "is not clearly erroneous or contrary to law."





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