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A mobile player is coming soon, as well as an
iPhone-viewable site for the service.

SceneCaster lets you build custom rooms and stock them with real furnishings. (Image based on SceneCaster template.)

SceneCaster is trying to build a “YouTube of 3D,” with embeddable worlds and pervasive distribution. It’s a big goal, and perhaps not quite the right analogy. Creating YouTube content doesn’t take much more than pointing a camera at someone or ripping off AVI files. Creating SceneCaster content, no matter how good the authoring environment, requires more of a commitment.

Also, the service now adapts its 3D display to the device viewing it. Even an old browser without the 3D plugin, or Java, can access SceneCaster content. It will be flat and static, but it will at least be there. Alain Chesnais, SceneCaster’s chief technical officer, told me this, plus the portal feature, will let users build Myst-like apps.

SceneCaster, which I covered from DemoFall 2007, is back at Demo 2008 with an add-on to the product, which it is calling SceneWeaver. The service, which lets you create 3D rooms, now lets you link rooms to each other. So if you click on a door you can hop to the room it opens in to. That’s more than just a small feature: It lets users create entire worlds. Not that they will. But they can.

Users can also create links to objects, which might make for cool retail experiences.

For its part, the NSA says that it abides by U.S. law. Last week, Donald Kerr, the principal deputy director of national intelligence, blamed critical reports on the NSA’s culture of “stand-offishness” and said “we’ve lost something we never knew we needed until we didn’t have it–the support of a grateful nation. The question we have to ask now, and this is something everyone here should help think about, is how do we get it back?”

If you get the feeling that a lot of this depends on a set of legal definitions that the NSA would like to keep as fuzzy and ambiguous as possible, you’re probably right.

A survey CNET News.com published in February 2006 asked the major telecommunications and Internet companies this question: “Have you turned over information or opened up your networks to the NSA without being compelled by law?” AT&T, Adelphia, Google, Level 3, Verizon, and Yahoo would not answer the question; the rest said they had not.

The National Security Agency was once known for its skill in eavesdropping on the world’s telephone calls through radio dishes in out-of-the-way places like England’s Menwith Hill, Australia’s Pine Gap, and Washington state’s Yakima Training Center.

But that law referred only to “the program known either as Terrorism Information Awareness or Total Information Awareness, or any successor program”–leaving the door open, given sufficiently clever lawyering, to a similar program that wasn’t quite close enough to be called a “successor” to TIA.

FISA reinforced the notion that the NSA could conduct widespread surveillance of foreigners, but specified that a court order (or authorization from the attorney general) was needed to spy on American citizens. That means the world’s largest intelligence agency is, legally speaking, on very shaky ground when operating its e-mail/text-messaging/Web-site-visiting/search-term dragnet.

Elements of this data dragnet have been disclosed before. USA Today
reported two years ago on how the NSA has been secretly collecting the phone call records of tens of millions of Americans, using data provided by AT&T, Verizon, and BellSouth; the latter two have narrowly denied it. Qwest reportedly was approached but rejected the request.

If the reports are correct, what this transactional-data-dragnet amounts to is a rebuilding of the Defense Department’s Total Information Awareness program, which promised to do extensive warrantless data-mining to identify “information signatures” that could identify criminals. After a public outcry, the department renamed it Terrorism Information Awareness; Congress zeroed funding for it in September 2003.

The infobox incorrectly asserts that the NSA can review “[s]ites visited and searches conducted” without a warrant. “According to current and former intelligence officials, the spy agency now monitors huge volumes of records of … Internet searches.” “The [NSA's] haul can include … records of Internet browsing.” To the contrary, courts have held that search terms are “content” within the meaning of the Electronic Communications Privacy Act.

On Monday, the Wall Street Journal published an article saying that the NSA can, “without a judicial warrant,” obtain the Subject line and other header information from e-mail messages, plus information about Web sites visited and queries to search engines. Phone records, credit card usage information, and airline passenger data are also reportedly vacuumed up by the NSA.

“According to current and former intelligence officials, the spy agency now monitors huge volumes of records of domestic emails and Internet searches as well as bank transfers, credit-card transactions, travel and telephone records. The NSA receives this so-called ‘transactional’ data from other agencies or private companies, and its sophisticated software programs analyze the various transactions for suspicious patterns,” the article said.

That led some high-ranking House Democrats, including Energy and Commerce Chairman John Dingell, to circulate a letter (PDF) advising their colleagues to look skeptically at a Republican proposal that would grant retroactive immunity to companies that illegally let the Feds plug into their networks. The Republicans’ blanket of retroactive immunity would likely cover e-mail providers, search engines, Internet service providers, and instant-messaging services too.

The Electronic Frontier Foundation’s Kurt Opsahl posted a stinging critique of the data-dragnet’s legality. Here are some excerpts from what Opsahl wrote, referring to the Journal article:

The infobox asserts that the NSA can get cellphone location data without a warrant. “The information [obtained by the NSA] can give such transactional information as a cellphone’s location…” The issue of obtaining cell phone location information has been contentious for some time, but the vast weight of judicial interpretation is that a probable cause warrant is required.

Recent evidence suggests that the NSA has been focusing on widespread monitoring of e-mail messages and text messages, recording of Web browsing, and other forms of electronic data-mining, all done without court supervision. Taken together, those activities raise unique privacy and oversight concerns greater than those posed by large-scale monitoring of voice communications.

One thing the recent disclosures are likely to do is put the Bush administration on the defensive, which will happen just as Congress is preparing to vote on extending retroactive immunity to telecommunications companies. It has looked likely to pass if the House Democratic leadership had held an up-or-down vote; the Senate already approved its version by a 68-29 margin.

Today those massive installations, which listened in on phone conversations beamed over microwave links, are becoming something akin to relics of the Cold War. As more communications traffic travels through fiber links, and as e-mail and text messaging supplant phone calls, the spy agency that once intercepted telegrams is adapting yet again.

A subsequent article by Seymour Hersh in the New Yorker said the NSA had returned to “intercepting large numbers of electronic communications made by Americans”–the same kind of legally dubious tactic that led to the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act being enacted in 1978.

Add in FBI Director Robert Mueller’s acknowledgment last week of additional surveillance abuses, and his admission that retroactive immunity may not be all that necessary, and retroactive immunity looks a lot less compelling a prospect than it did a week ago. Then again, the NSA didn’t need it to create an electronic dragnet in the first place.

The infobox incorrectly asserts that the subject lines of email are not “content,” and can be obtained without a warrant… But this is contradicted by the Department of Justice’s own 2002 Searching and Seizing Computers and Obtaining Electronic Evidence in Criminal Investigations manual, which states that “the subject headers of e-mails are also contents.”

Documents released last week by a security consultant (PDF) indicate that an unnamed major wireless provider has opened its network to the U.S. government, allowing customers’ e-mail, text messaging, and Web use to be monitored. And Assistant Attorney General for National Security Kenneth Wainstein said last week that surveillance of e-mail was the real concern raised by the debate over amending the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act.

Aggarwal also noted he has received more clarity on the Yahoo-Google advertising test, which is viewed by Microsoft-Yahoo merger watchers as another lever by which Yahoo may elicit a higher bid from Microsoft.

Yahoo is set to report its first-quarter results on Tuesday, with Wall Street soothsayers predicting the company may ride the coattails of Google’s phenomenal quarter.

Not only would a strong Yahoo quarter potentially assist in attracting a higher bid from Microsoft, it would also show that Yahoo can execute, despite enormous distractions to its workforce. Microsoft launched its unsolicited bid on Feb. 1, one month after Yahoo began its first quarter. (For full coverage, see “Microsoft’s big bid for Yahoo.”)

And while analysts expect Yahoo to report revenue of $1.32 billion, excluding the cost to acquire traffic, Yahoo’s management in January said it anticipated generating revenue of $1.28 billion to $1.38 billion, excluding traffic acquisition costs.

“We think that a big beat March quarter by Google should increase pressure for Microsoft to acquire Yahoo sooner. From Microsoft’s perspective, Google has been growing very fast and no other company has been able to challenge Google to become a compelling No. 2 player in online advertising,” Sandeep Aggarwal, a Collins Stewart senior Internet Research analyst, said in a research note.

A consensus of analysts’ estimates foresees Yahoo reporting earnings of 9 cents a share on revenue of $1.32 billion for the quarter, according to Thomson Reuters. The range among analysts, however, varies as low as 7 cents a share to as high as 14 cents.

Search is expected to show some weakness in the U.S. market, which accounts for two-thirds of Yahoo’s paid search business. That said, however, Aggarwal still expects that Google advertisers who faced a low ranking with Google’s quality scoring may have defected to Yahoo in the first quarter.

And for Yahoo, such performance could assist it in capturing a higher buyout bid from Microsoft, which has been loath to up the ante without engaging in formal merger talks.

“Yahoo’s testing of Google is an AdSense relationship very similar to any third party Web publishers using Google to monetize its Website,” Aggarwal noted in his research note. “This means the backend integration, use of Google’s algorithm, or retiring of IT infrastructure by Yahoo does not come into play.”

“Google has been seeing relatively higher growth from big advertisers. This means that Yahoo, which tends to have far deeper relationships with big advertisers, should see continuation of growth reacceleration in its…display ad,” Aggarwal said in his report. “We think that the display ad can offset a likely modest weakness in search.”

LAS VEGAS–Mobility will be the key driver of growth for phone companies in the coming years as they expand their businesses to include new services like TV and broadband, AT&T CEO Randall Stephenson told attendees at an industry trade show here Tuesday.

AT&T CEO Randall Stephenson

(Credit:
Marguerite Reardon/CNET Networks)

AT&T and the entire telecom industry have been transforming themselves over the past few years as traditional phone business slowly dies. No longer are these companies simply offering telephony, but they also offer TV, high-speed Internet, and wireless services. But it will be the mobilization of new services that will drive growth for companies in the next few years, Stephenson predicted during his keynote speech at the NxtComm trade show.

He used Monday’s U.S. Open final as a perfect example of how mobility is changing usage. Stephenson said that he wasn’t able to watch Tiger Woods clinch the U.S. Open golf title on his big screen TV at home, so he watched it on his mobile handset that uses the MediaFlo mobile broadcast TV service offered through AT&T.

He also made historical references to the Sony Walkman cassette player that essentially changed the music industry and made LP records obsolete. The same thing has happened to music yet again with devices like the
iPod and now the iPhone, which allow people to take their digitized music on the go and even allow them to get their music wirelessly.

When devices and services are mobilized, Stephenson said, usage of all services shoots up. As an example, he said that even as AT&T’s traditional phone business declines, voice minutes are growing 10 percent every year.

“As we mobilize services more things accelerate,” he said. “We stimulate economic growth and drive prosperity on a global scale.”

And as AT&T and other phone companies grow their video and broadband services, mobility will once again accelerate the market.

Today, roughly 2 billion people connect to the Internet. And by 2011 that number is expected to increase by another billion with most of these new broadband users coming from the developing world. But unlike the first 2 billion Internet users, these new users will access the Net from mobile devices, like Apple’s new
iPhone, Stephenson said.

With about 80 percent of the world’s population living within range of a cell phone network, Stephenson believes the industry is poised for tremendous growth that will impact economies throughout the world.

“These are exciting times to be in this business and the industry,” he said. “We are on the verge of an innovation explosion.”

But he said that the industry must work through the challenges of a complex ecosystem to ensure the industry can deliver on its promise.

“The opportunity is fleeting in this business,” he said. “Markets are moving fast. And not one us has the time for misfires or missed deadlines.”

Steve Jobs takes the stage Wednesday at Apple's music event.

(Credit:
Stephen Shankland/CNET)

SAN FRANCISCO–Though technically he returned to work two months ago, it was as the host of Wednesday’s Apple music event that Steve Jobs publicly retook the reins of the company he founded.

Jobs was the first person to emerge on stage at the Yerba Buena Center for the Arts here to open the now-annual September
iPod introduction. Appearing notably thin, he received a prolonged standing ovation from the audience, much of it composed of members of the media, but also a range of guests including app developers, entertainers, and music industry types. Jobs quietly took in the applause and then began to speak fairly candidly about the well-known medical problems that kept him away from work for the first half of the year.

“I’m very happy to be here today with you all,” he said. “As you may know, I had a liver transplant. So I have the liver of a mid-20s person who died in a
car crash, and was generous enough to donate their organs. And I wouldn’t be here without such generosity.”

He used the moment to encourage more people to do the same, calling on everyone to be an organ donor. He also thanked everyone at Apple and the Apple community for the support he received while he was gone.

At that point, it wasn’t yet clear whether this was a farewell or a welcome home event for Jobs. But it became very apparent soon after, when he thanked the man who had taken over day-to-day duties running Apple between January and June, COO Tim Cook, and all of the Apple executive team.

“They really ran the company very ably during that time,” Jobs said. “So, I’m vertical, I’m back at Apple, and loving every day of it.”

The statement was clearly Jobs’ way of saying that he’s reassumed full responsibility as the leader of his company. There had been speculation that, though he was back at work, if he did appear at the event Wednesday he would use it as a way to say goodbye and step into the background while a new successor began to be groomed. That was not what happened.

Jobs was the host of the entire 75-minute event, just as he always had been at similar events in years past. Though other executives joined him, including Phil Schiller, Apple’s senior vice president of marketing, and Jeff Robbin, lead iTunes software designer, it was clearly his show. He also revived two well-known trademarks of his public appearances: his outfit of black turtleneck, jeans, and white tennis shoes, and his “one more thing” phrase.

He also hinted there’d be more public appearances to come, signing off the event by thanking everyone for coming and promising, “See you all again soon.”

Everyone remembers their first computer. Well mine was a PCjr and I don’t care how history remembers it. The piece of junk stole my heart.

I wouldn’t push the analogy too hard, but your first computer’s a lot like your first love in one respect: years later, the memory does not fade with the passing of the seasons.

IBM PCjr: They don’t make ‘em like that any more.

So it was that I was reading Jonathan Zittrain’s excellent new book, The Future of the Internet–And How to Stop It (more about that in a future post), when I paged across his disquisition on the early PC era and got pulled back in time.

I missed out on the hobbyist fad of the late 1970s and early ’80s. But once I got a job and could scrape together enough money, I was desperate to learn what all the fuss was about. I still remember the day, 20 years ago today, when I marched into the local ComputerLand, plunked down $1,200, and walked out with an IBM PCjr. What a machine: 512K of RAM, a 5 1/4-inch internal floppy drive with 360K of storage and an 8088 Intel chip that ran at 4.77Mhz. It didn’t matter that the machine caused more trouble than it was worth–IBM pulled the plug a year later–I really became fond of that miserable hunk of plastic.

Maybe it was because the Junior caused me so much grief. I wound up screwing around with the machine day after day, taking pieces apart and then making a hash of putting them back together the right way. In the process, I received the equivalent of a crash course in personal computing. Even if the real pioneering work had taken place several years earlier, you still felt present at the creation. The computer industry was still in an early state of formation and chaos was everywhere. Booting up the PCjr the first time and watching it cough and whirr until it came alive–man, that was something to behold.

What about you? Any equally treacly love stories about your first PC? Do share.

commentary

In an attempt to turn this blog into a gossip rag, I’m going to “start” posting unsubstantiated (Meaning, true or almost certainly true but with sources that I can’t reveal) rumors. Fiction is always more fun.

In this case, however, it’s the truth. First in line to acquire SUSE back in the day was…Red Hat. Matthew Szulik decided to pass on the opportunity and, well, the rest is history. Ironic, isn’t it? With whom would Microsoft have done its patent deal had Novell not been around? Would Ubuntu have started sooner to fill the competitive Linux void?

We’ll never know….

Manufacturers are falling over themselves to call their products “green” these days yet consumers often have limited means to verify those claims. But before consumers get cynical about those claims, better standards and certifications are needed, according to one expert.

Surveys show that about 20 percent of the public is interested in green products, with a small percentage of “deep greens” who are very well educated on products and services.

But how can a consumer avoid getting duped or disillusioned? Follow the lead of other industries, where there is some oversight of food and
car safety or the financial statements that companies put out, said Scot Case, a vice president of environmental marketing firm TerraChoice.

In other words, what green products need are standards and reputable certifications.

“One of the ways to avoid so-called greenwashing is to actually prove that you can meet the standard,” Case said.

TerraChoice, which administers the EcoLogo program, covering about 7,000 products, did a survey late last year that found that “greenwashing,” where companies make overinflated or false statements about products, was rampant. Out of more than 1,000 consumer products investigated, nearly all committed a greenwashing “sin.”

The situation has become so serious that the Federal Trade Commission earlier this month started a series of hearings on green marketing.

The FTC chose to focus first on voluntary carbon offsets, where people purchase a certificate that represents an investment in reducing carbon emissions, such as a renewable-energy project.

But everything from televisions to home-cleaning products are calling themselves clean. Green alternatives was the theme of both the North American International Auto Show (aka the Detroit auto show) and the Consumer Electronics Show in the past few weeks.

The danger is that aggressive green marketing, combined with a proliferation of more specialized certificates, will lead to misinformation and unhappy consumers, said Case.

“This is what absolutely terrifies me,” said Case. “It killed the movement in the 1980s. Green products were all the rage but the volume of greenwashing created so much cynicism that people walked away.”

The other problem in the 1980s was that many environmental products were simple and not as good.

These days, consumers have many more choices to buy products that are as good, if not better, and priced the same.

The long arm of ISO.
How were standards set? The EcoLogo program starts with ISO, the international standards organization that sets blueprints for everything from battery sizes to digital documents. The ISO outlines how a standards should be set. For example, a printer’s green certificate should take into account the amount of recycled material and hazardous chemicals used.

Then certification authorities write a standard with input from interested parties. Then they are published, Case explained.

In the case of EcoLogo, manufacturers apply to gain the certification and then independent auditors go out to test the products. The goal, Case said, is to set the standard so that only the top 20 percent of the market can get the certification, while recognizing the inevitable trade-offs that occur between say, energy efficiency, and recycled materials.

Depending on how you look at the numbers, the failure rate for gaining green bragging rights is quite high.

Ninety-seven percent of people who show initial interest in the EcoLogo program don’t get to the point of applying for certification. About 83 percent who think they can meet the standard can prove it, said Case, who also mentioned the Green Seal certification.

“This is the Information Age. If I want to buy green product, I should be able to go online in the store with my phone to get details,” he said. “That’s the way to stop greenwashing. You provide the information.”

After a couple months with the
iPhone 3G, I thought it was only right to take a look back at what it has meant to me.

And as always, drop me a line or follow me on Twitter!

Streaming Web video is just one of several upgrades coming to the Archos line of video products.

(Credit:
Archos)

The GPS accessory for the 605 WiFi was just the first of several product upgrades announced by Archos today. Also on deck are streaming Web video and audio and upgraded media support for the 605 WiFi and 705 WiFi; Slingbox-style placeshifting functionality for the Archos TV+ DVR; and a content deal with Paramount Digital Entertainment. Details are as follows:

Flash 9 video support: A free firmware upgrade available in May will enable the 605 WiFi and 705 WiFi to stream Flash 9 video. Using the built-in Opera browser, Archos users can go to any Web site using the latest iteration of Flash video (Hulu, ABC, CBS, YouTube, CNET TV–you name it) and watch the video of their choice. That’s a major advantage over the YouTube-only walled garden available on the
iPhone and
iPod Touch. (If you’re keeping score at home: full Flash support is on its way to Archos handhelds, while it remains unavailable on Apple’s flagship portables.)

Streaming video, audio, and podcast support: Also on the way to the 605 and 705 is the “Web TV and Radio plug-in.” Not to be confused with the old Microsoft “Internet on TV” set-top box, this $20 software upgrade will add dedicated streaming video and Internet radio support to Archos handhelds. The company promises support for more than 600 video streams, 9,600 Web radio stations, and 110,000 podcasts–just for starters. However, unlike the freewheeling Flash video options, this is a walled garden, so you’re stuck with the content providers that Archos aggregates. For instance: the BCAT (Brooklyn Community Access TV) station in the photo above is a New York-area public access station–not exactly HBO.

“TVportation” placeshifting: The Archos TV+ DVR is getting Slingbox-style placeshifting functionality. A downloadable plug-in (normally $50, but free if you register your Archos TV+ at the company’s Web site) available in May will add what Archos is calling “TVportation.” It’s a nice buzzword, but it basically means that the TV+ can stream your live TV programming to other Internet-connected devices, including (for starters) the Archos WiFi portables, Windows PCs, Windows Mobile smartphones, and Symbian smartphones. The viewing software will be free for those devices, and there’s no monthly fee associated with the streaming. (The Windows version of the software looked nearly identical to the viewing software for Hava placeshifting products, and an Archos rep confirmed that Hava was indeed contributing its software know-how.) The initial version of the software will only allow for the streaming of live TV and the ability to change channels; for now, you’ll be unable to access programs recorded on the Archos TV+, nor will you be able to manage your recording schedule.

Paramount Digital Entertainment partnership: Archos has inked a deal with Paramount, allowing selections from that studio’s movie library to be available on Archos video products. In addition to being added to Archos’ online Content Portal for purchase, future TV+ units will be sold with several dozen movies preloaded on the hard drive, where they can be unlocked (purchased) for instant viewing.

CNET will be updating its reviews of the 605 WiFi, 705 WiFi, and publishing a new review of the Archos TV+; as soon as the relevant software updates become available. In the meantime: what do you think? Do these imminent upgrades make the portables a worthwhile alternative to the iPhone/iPod Touch? And does the TVportation feature make the TV+ a true competitor to a TiVo/Slingbox combo?