In a recent interview, CEO of Viacom Philippe Dauman, spoke about such things as the digitization of television and his controversial decision to pull both The Daily Show and The Coblert Report from Hulu. All in all the man doesn’t necessarily seem to be against the merging datastreams of television and internet, but he does seem to have a fair amount of dissatisfaction with Hulu. Namely, he isn’t getting enough money from them. He spoke of the internet television phenomenon as more of an experiment. They were testing out whether profitable web tv is possible, and apparently it is… just as long as you get rid of all the middlemen. He spoke of both increased traffic and content on Comedy Central’s own streaming broadcasts of the aforementioned shows, he just doesn’t like handing over the control of the ads to someone else.

Good news for all you pirates out there. From now on, whenever someone starts taking talking to you about the ethical dilemmas involved in your internet escapades, you can throw the New York Times in their faces.  According to the ethics editorialist at the NY Times, Randy Cohen , modern copyright laws don’t account for the modern technological environment, and given the right circumstances, piracy can be “ethical.”

The plummet of Palm is certainly unfortunate, but it was inevitable.  The bigger problem is that the same exact pattern of downfall can, and likely has to happen to the more competitors in the cell-phone operating system game.  If you look at why they fell, it becomes obvious that more mobile OS producers could reach the same fate.  Obviously, everybody who wanted to compete in the smartphone OS market wants to think that they are going to be the next big thing in cell phone OSs. People want to get on board with the next big thing in tech, so   obviously all OS makers can’t be right. 

As we all know, every tech company out there has been throwing their contender into the OS war. It seems that they’ve learned from the 90’s that he who makes the premier software, rules any given software revolution.  It seems, though, that one major player has recently been knocked out of the race in a big way.  Today, Palm inc’s stock plummeted. This appears to be because of their lack of ability to actually sell their phone operating system.  It seems that the smartphone OS landscape just got more treacherous.

According to a Verizon bigwig, the age of flat rate internet is over. This has some analysts up in arms; not surprising, or undeserved. Unlimited internet access for a single flat price is quite frankly, awesome. The loss of such a convenience would do more than just irritate web junkies, but it has the potential of crippling the cloud. Part of the premise behind the marketing of web based tools is the fact that accessing them is essentially free. Every business in a mall would suffer the same consequences if the mall suddenly decided to set up a toll booth at the front door.

 

Whether you support the increased security of the Digital economy bill or oppose its reduction of freedoms, you can’t deny that it’s a game changer.   In addition to setting a precedent of security over freedom within the internet, which was its intent, there may well be some other effects of the bill that were certainly less than intentional.  The most revolutionary and potentially disastrous of these would be an increased demand for genuinely anonymous ISP providers.

This is going to be a bit of an out-of-the-blue, but Apple may have just crossed the line. Over 5000 apps have been removed from the app store this past weekend, for "suggestive content." Yes, it is true that apple has been blocking 18+ content for a long time, but their regulations have just become even more draconian.

The iPhone version of Opera Mini does indeed look promising. In true Opera form, they are offering streamlined versions of the essential features with the added speed that comes from not being bogged down with unnecessary coding. You may be asking yourselves, “Wait a second, isn't that the sort of thing that Apple specifically blocks?” Well, yes, it is the EXACT sort of thing that they have been blocking since the inception if the iPhone. However, times are changing.

Both FloTv and Vizo ran adds this Superbowl. Both advertised their new media platforms/services. Both are appealing to our sense of immediate gratification to get us to want their brand entertainment on demand. Both adds, however, were not created equal.

 It's not particularly surprising in this economy that not one, but two, online job search sites ran commercials during the 2010 Super Bowl (Monster and

Ever since the infamous “1984” Apple Superbowl commercial, the creation of a quality tech ad to be aired on Super Bowl Sunday has simultaneously been known as a marketing minefield, and as a potential holy grail.

We want to look somewhere else, but they keep dragging us back. It's official, the combatants have shown their colors, the lines have been drawn, and the battlefield has been selected: tablet computing. Recently, Google and Apple have been making a number of aggressive moves towards each other.

Apparently, immediately after his amicable presentation to the public, Jobs conducted his own question and answer presentation, only this time it was only open to Apple employees. Normally nothing would have gotten out, but Wired was able to leak a few juicy tidbits from the evening.

 If there is one thing that can be universally said about Apple products, it is that they are always safer than their competitors. The Apple brand has always been making us feel a little safer while we play on the rusty digital playground. However,during all the iPad buzz, wireless technology and modern encryption software has been making more than just the internet safer: Armatix is using it to try and make guns safer.

1 K Price - Of all the rumors this is the most disheartening. Some are saying that the new Apple tablet will begin priced at under $1,000.  Of course, everybody knows what "under $1,000" means: $999. Unless they pull out all the stops, it is very hard to believe that such a product would be worth THAT price tag.