The Internet - The first Worldwide Tool of Unification ("The End of History")

" ... Now I give you something that few think about: What do you think the Internet is all about, historically? Citizens of all the countries on Earth can talk to one another without electronic borders. The young people of those nations can all see each other, talk to each other, and express opinions. No matter what the country does to suppress it, they're doing it anyway. They are putting together a network of consciousness, of oneness, a multicultural consciousness. It's here to stay. It's part of the new energy. The young people know it and are leading the way.... "

" ... I gave you a prophecy more than 10 years ago. I told you there would come a day when everyone could talk to everyone and, therefore, there could be no conspiracy. For conspiracy depends on separation and secrecy - something hiding in the dark that only a few know about. Seen the news lately? What is happening? Could it be that there is a new paradigm happening that seems to go against history?... " Read More …. "The End of History"- Nov 20, 2010 (Kryon channelled by Lee Carroll)

"Recalibration of Free Choice"– Mar 3, 2012 (Kryon Channelling by Lee Carroll) - (Subjects: (Old) Souls, Midpoint on 21-12-2012, Shift of Human Consciousness, Black & White vs. Color, 1 - Spirituality (Religions) shifting, Loose a Pope “soon”, 2 - Humans will change react to drama, 3 - Civilizations/Population on Earth, 4 - Alternate energy sources (Geothermal, Tidal (Paddle wheels), Wind), 5 – Financials Institutes/concepts will change (Integrity – Ethical) , 6 - News/Media/TV to change, 7 – Big Pharmaceutical company will collapse “soon”, (Keep people sick), (Integrity – Ethical) 8 – Wars will be over on Earth, Global Unity, … etc.) - (Text version)

“…5 - Integrity That May Surprise…

Have you seen innovation and invention in the past decade that required thinking out of the box of an old reality? Indeed, you have. I can't tell you what's coming, because you haven't thought of it yet! But the potentials of it are looming large. Let me give you an example, Let us say that 20 years ago, you predicted that there would be something called the Internet on a device you don't really have yet using technology that you can't imagine. You will have full libraries, buildings filled with books, in your hand - a worldwide encyclopedia of everything knowable, with the ability to look it up instantly! Not only that, but that look-up service isn't going to cost a penny! You can call friends and see them on a video screen, and it won't cost a penny! No matter how long you use this service and to what depth you use it, the service itself will be free.

Now, anyone listening to you back then would perhaps have said, "Even if we can believe the technological part, which we think is impossible, everything costs something. There has to be a charge for it! Otherwise, how would they stay in business?" The answer is this: With new invention comes new paradigms of business. You don't know what you don't know, so don't decide in advance what you think is coming based on an old energy world. ..."
(Subjects: Who/What is Kryon ?, Egypt Uprising, Iran/Persia Uprising, Peace in Middle East without Israel actively involved, Muhammad, "Conceptual" Youth Revolution, "Conceptual" Managed Business, Internet, Social Media, News Media, Google, Bankers, Global Unity,..... etc.)


German anti-hate speech group counters Facebook trolls

German anti-hate speech group counters Facebook trolls
Logo No Hate Speech Movement

Bundestag passes law to fine social media companies for not deleting hate speech

Honouring computing’s 1843 visionary, Lady Ada Lovelace. (Design of doodle by Kevin Laughlin)

Tuesday, March 31, 2015

Google Unveils Unified Email for Android Users

Jakarta Globe, AFP, Mar 31, 2015

This Sept. 2, 2012 file photo shows the Google logo during a press announcement
at Google headquarters in New York. (AFP Photo/Emmanuel Dunand)

San Francisco. Google said on Monday it was updating its mobile Gmail app for Android device users to allow them to manage multiple email accounts from a single program.

“Starting today, you’ll be able to view all your mail at once, regardless of which account it’s from, using the new ‘All Inboxes’ option,” Google software engineer Regis Decamps said in a blog post.

“This way, you can read and respond to all your messages without having to hop between accounts.”

The new app will aggregate email from rival services such as Yahoo and Microsoft Outlook, among others.

Gmail had allowed users to access multiple accounts from desktop computers, but the new app aims to seamlessly integrate the various email services in a unified inbox with search and preview capability.

Agence France-Presse

Friday, March 27, 2015

Apple CEO Tim Cook plans to donate $800m fortune to charity before he dies

  • Cook says money will go to many social causes, as well as nephew’s education
  • Apple co-workers found Cook’s sexuality to be a ‘yawner’, he says in interview

The Guardian, Rupert Neate in New York, 26 March 2015

Tim Cook is one of many high-profile business people in the US, including
 Bill Gates, Mark Zuckerberg and Warren Buffet, in giving at least 50% of their
wealth to charity. Photograph: Lucy Nicholson/Reuters

Yim Cook is planning to give away all of his near $800m fortune before he dies, the Apple boss said in a surprisingly frank interview, in which he also described his sexuality as a “yawner”.

Cook, 54, who took over as Apple chief executive from Steve Jobs in 2011, told Fortune magazine that he planned to donate all of his wealth to charity after providing for his 10-year-old nephew’s education.

Cook, who has spoken publicly about the importance of stopping HIV/Aids and climate change, as well as championing human rights and equality, did not specify which causes he would support but said he had already begun donating money quietly. He said he would develop a systematic approach to philanthropy, rather than just writing cheques.

Fortune estimated that Cook holds $120m worth of Apple shares and a further $665m of restricted stocks.

Cook follows other high-profile executives in giving their money away. In 2010, Warren Buffett and Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates launched the Giving Pledge, an appeal to billionaires to give at least 50% of their wealth to charity. Tesla chief executive Elon Musk, former New York mayor Michael Bloomberg, Facebook boss Mark Zuckerberg and eBay founder Pierre Omidyar have all signed up.

Cook has previously spoken of his affection for his nephew. In a speech last year, he said: “I have a nephew that I dearly love that’s 10, and when I look at him, and when I think of leaving a world that’s not as good as when I entered it, there’s no bigger sin than that.”

In 2012, Cook donated $50m to Stanford hospitals, near Apple’s Silicon Valley headquarters, including $25m for a new children’s hospital. He also gave $50m to Product Red, a charity working to combat Aids, tuberculosis and malaria, according to Silicon Valley website the Verge.

Cook also spoke about his decision to come out as gay last year – making him by far the most influential gay business executive as head of the world’s most valuable company.

He said he made the decision to come out “quite some time ago” and that his announcement was viewed internally at Apple – where most people already knew he was gay – as a “yawner”.

However, Cook said making his sexuality public knowledge was difficult because he is a very private and guarded about his personal life. “To be honest, if I would not have come to the conclusion that it would likely help other people, I would have never done it,” he said. “There’s no joy in me putting my life in view.”

In the interview, Cook also took a strong line on investors trying to make a quick buck out of Apple’s rising share price. “The kind of investors we seek are long term because that’s how we make our decisions,” he said. “If you’re a short-term investor, obviously you’ve got the right to buy the stock and trade it the way you want. It’s your decision. But I want everybody to know that’s not how we run the company.”

Earlier this week, a financial analyst predicted that Apple could soon become the world’s first trillion dollar company. Analysts at Cantor Fitzgerald on Monday said they thought Apple’s shares – which are currently trading at about $127, valuing the company at $733bn – could soon be worth $180 each, which would value the iPhone maker at $1.05tn.

It would be the first time any company had ever been valued at more than $1tn, and would make Apple more valuable than the gross domestic product (GDP) of Indonesia,the Netherlands or Saudi Arabia, according to World Bank statistics. It would also mean Apple would be worth 2.6 times as much as Google, the second most valuable company in the US, with a market valuation of $383bn.

Related Articles:



Thursday, March 26, 2015

New Partnerships Extend Microsoft’s Reach Into Android

Jakarta Globe, AFP,  Mar 24, 2015

This March 27, 2014 file photo shows the Microsoft logo seen in San Francisco,
California. Microsoft says its new Windows 10 operating system will be coming
"this summer" in 190 countries and 111 languages. (AFP Photo/Josh Edelson)

Washington. Microsoft on Monday unveiled partnerships with Samsung and other manufacturers to install its services including Word and Skype on devices powered by the rival Google Android system.

The move is part of a push by Microsoft, which has been lagging in efforts to get Windows-powered devices in the marketplace, to deliver services to consumers and businesses using Apple and Android hardware.

Microsoft said it was expanding a deal with Samsung — which had already agreed on pre-installing Microsoft services on its high-end smartphones — to include some tablets.

The deal will provide Microsoft Word, Excel, PowerPoint, OneNote, OneDrive and Skype on “select Samsung Android tablets,” a statement from the Redmond, Washington, group said.

”Our partnership with Samsung is emblematic of our efforts to bring the best of Microsoft’s productivity services to everyone, on every device, so people can be productive wherever, however and whenever they want,” said Peggy Johnson, executive vice president of business development at Microsoft.

In a separate statement, Johnson said 10 other hardware makers would also install Microsoft services on their Android devices.

These firms include US-based Dell, TrekStor of Germany, JP Sa Couto of Portugal, Datamatic of Italy, DEXP of Russia, Hipstreet of Canada, QMobile of Pakistan, Tecno of Africa, and Casper of Turkey, and Pegatron — a Taiwan-based firm which makes devices for other brands.

”Original device manufacturers are important because they extend Microsoft services to the ecosystem,” Johnson said.

”More specifically, they help to reach a greater number of other device manufacturers, resulting in even more choice for customers around the world. And for Microsoft, this is part of the company’s mobile-first, cloud-first vision.”

Agence France-Presse

Wednesday, March 25, 2015

IBM partnership with Chinese company to make US unhappy

Want China Times, Staff Reporter 2015-03-25

IBM's France headquarters at La Defense, Paris. (File photo/CFP)

IBM and China's Beijing Teamsun Technology recently announced their partnership allowing the latter to develop and sell domestic innovation products based on IBM's technologies — a move seen as disturbing for the US government, Shanghai-based outlet the Paper reports.

The Obama administration has been wary of the information security component in the draft of China's anti-terrorism law, and IBM's cooperation with a Chinese enterprise in handing over source codes will make the US government even more unhappy.

IBM will be open to Chinese enterprises, not only to share its designs with them but also to help them carry out design work on next-generation microchips, said Wang Yang, IBM senior vice president and general manager of its China Development Center, on March 21.

A day earlier, IBM and Teamsun jointly announced their cooperation program, with Teamsun agreeing to develop domestic innovation products based on IBM's technologies.

Last November, the two sides reached an agreement on data banks, with IBM authorizing Teamsun to use Informix software source codes.

According to foreign media reports, US trade bodies led by the American Chamber of Commerce in the past filed letters to the Chinese and the US governments respectively, calling for Beijing to postpone implementation of network supervisory rules and asking the US government to respond to the Chinese government on related rules.

On March 2, President Obama said in an interview with Reuters that the new rules crafted by Beijing would be unfavorable to US tech companies and called for China to change its policy.

IBM said its move is not intended in response to the new Chinese government policy; it said it is seeking a win-win situation allowing more people to understand and apply IBM's technologies.

Wang said IBM's opening is fully market-oriented, focusing on Chinese enterprises as China has the demand and a massive market. IBM also wishes to establish an industry ecosystem so that the cooperation will accelerate related development.

Beijing has cited the Edward Snowden revelations of US government surveillance as leverage to present foreign tech companies as potential threats to information security and to emphasize the domestic production of IT equipment. However, China trails behind in developing domestic operating systems, middleware, and high-end servers.

Related Article:


Friday, March 20, 2015

Microsoft teams up with Xiaomi, offers free Windows 10 to pirates

Want China Times, Staff Reporter 2015-03-19

Terry Myerson, Microsoft's executive vice president, announced that
Windows 10 can run on Xiaomi's Mi 4 smartphones. (Photo courtesy of MIUI)

Microsoft unveiled its latest operating system, Windows 10, revealing its collaboration with Chinese internet companies as well as another OS custom-made for Chinese budget smartphone brand Xiaomi during its Windows Hardware Engineering Community, reports our Chinese-language sister paper Want Daily.

It has been seven years since the last such event was held in China. Microsoft revealed the new operating system that is set to be launched this summer and its flagship store in Hangzhou.

Windows 10, which can run on smartphone, tablets and desktop computers, will be launched in 190 countries and regions and support 111 languages. Its new feature, Windows Hello, is a biometric authentication system that allows users to unlock their computer with their face, iris or finger. The system also will come with the intelligent personal assistant Microsoft Cortana, which is called Xiao Na and Xiao Bing in China.

Windows 7, Windows 8.1 and Windows Phone 8.1 can upgrade to Windows 10 for free for a year but Microsoft has yet to provide more details, such as whether the users need to pay after the time period expires.

The software giant is also extending the offer to users of pirated versions of Windows, which will benefit many computer users in China, where over three quarters of personal computers are believed to be running unauthorized copies of Windows. The move therefore represents an amnesty that would turn illegal users into clients.

The company also announced its collaboration with Tencent, Xiaomi, Lenovo and Xiaomi during the event. PC giant Lenovo has pledged to release Windows phones this year. Smartphone market leader Xiaomi has also been testing Microsoft's Windows ROM on some of its flagship Mi 4 Android smartphones. The software is said to be able to covert Android smartphones into Windows phones, according to TechCrunch.

Related Article:


Sunday, March 15, 2015

EU Ministers upset businesses with new data protection rules

EU ministers have agreed to give more power to a pan-European body of Internet regulators. The move upset tech businesses and countries who say it will result in unncessary bureaucratic hurdles.

Deutsche Welle, 13 March 2015


The European Union's interior and justice ministers agreed on Friday to grant more powers to regulators to enforce a new data protection law, upsetting businesses who hoped the power would instead be devolved to the regulators in each individual country.

Initially, the new EU law would have established a "one-stop-shop" mechanism, meaning that a business operating across the whole 28-nation bloc would only have to deal with one protection authority - in the country where it has its headquarters or European base, even if the issue affected citizens in another EU country.

However, this upset some countries which do not what their national authorities to lose all jurisdiction over big technology companies like Apple and Facebook, which are based in Ireland. In the past, Ireland has been accused of going soft on large multinationals in order to remain an attractive place for doing business, something Dublin has denied.

Under pressure from the concern nations, the EU ministers agreed that henceforth if one country's authority is "concerned," they can appeal any ruling to an as-yet-uncreated board of all 28 regulators who could then come to a binding decision.

New rules will encourage "capricious referrals"

"The proposed mechanism will be more cumbersome than the existing procedures, resulting in unnecessary administrative burdens, including delayed decisions for citizens," said the Industry Coalition for Data Protection, which includes major technology firms Apple, Google, and IBM.

EU diplomats had previously agreed to scrap an adjoining proposal that at least one-third of the national regulators would have to raise an objection before a case would be referred to the European Data Protection Board (EDPB).

Member states such as Ireland, Great Britain, and the Netherlands had supported the numerical threshold, saying it would have "greatly reduced the risk of capricious referrals," according to Ireland's justice minister.

Friday's agreement is still subject to change until June, when ministers will review the entirety of the proposed new data protection law - the General Data Protection Regulation, meant to update decades-old statutes that have not kept up with the development of the Internet.

Germany's Justice Minister Heiko Maas called the new data law "one of the most important projects under discussion in Brussels at the moment."

es/msh (AFP, Reuters)

Thursday, March 12, 2015

In Hague, court rules for Dutch tech-privacy advocates

A Dutch court has scrapped a national data retention law. The judge ruled that, although saving metadata might help solve crimes, it certainly breached the privacy of telephone and Internet users.

Deutsche Welle, 11 March 2015


A court in the Netherlands struck down a law requiring telecoms and Internet service providers to store their clients' private phone and email data, saying it breached EU privacy rules. The decision took effect immediately on Wednesday, but officials announced that the Security and Justice Ministry could appeal.

"The judge ruled that data retention is necessary and effective to combat serious crime," according to the district court in The Hague. "Dutch legislation, however, infringes on the individual's right to privacy and the protection of personal data." The court added that "the law therefore contravenes the Charter of Fundamental Rights of the European Union."

The law had previously required telephone companies in the Netherlands to store information about all fixed and mobile calls for a year. Internet providers had to store information on their clients' use for six months.

In April 2014, the European Court of Justice struck down a 2006 EU law forcing telecoms to store electronic metadata - the time, date, duration and destination of communiques, but not the content - for up to two years. The practice was ruled to be invasive, despite the claimed anti-terror potential. Advocate General Pedro Cruz Villalon had declared the 2006 legislation illegal and told the European Union's 28 member states to take the necessary steps to withdraw it.

'Far-reaching crime'

The written ruling by Gerard van Ham conceded that scrapping the data storage "could have far-reaching consequences for investigating and prosecuting crimes," but, the judge added, this could not justify the privacy breaches that the law entails. The judge did not set a deadline for disposing of the data.

According to Privacy First, one of seven organizations that took the government to court last month, the ruling "will bring to an end years of massive privacy breaches." The Dutch Association of Journalists was also a party to the suit.

After last year's ruling in the EU court, the government had announced that it would amend its law. However, in a written statement released on Wednesday, officials from the Security and Justice Ministry criticized the court's decision.

"Providers are no longer required to store data for investigations," the officials complained in the statement. "The ministry is seriously concerned about the effect this will have on fighting crime."

The extent to which governments and corporations monitor private individuals has risen to the forefront in the wake of a series of documents released since 2013 by the American intelligence whistleblower Edward Snowden. According to the latest report, New Zealand has monitored neighbors in the Asia-Pacific region. A new anti-terror law in China requires that foreign corporations allow the government to access their data.

The Wikimedia Foundation has sued the US National Secutiry Agency over its mass surveillance of private individuals. And consumer advocates have lashed out at large corporations that harvest personal data for commercial purposes.

mkg/rc (Reuters, AFP, AP)
Related Article:


Lippo’s Mochtar Riady Donates Nanotech Center to UI

Jakarta Globe, Maria Fatima Bona, Mar 10, 2015

Lippo Group chairman Mochtar Riady, left, Research and Technology Minister
 Muhammad Nasir, center, and University of Indonesia rector M. Anis.
(ID Photo/David Gita Roza)

Jakarta. Lippo Group founder Mochtar Riady donated a cutting-edge research center to the University of Indonesia (UI) on Tuesday in a sign of strong support for nanotechnology development in Indonesia.

In ceremony on Tuesday at which the Lippo Group founder handed over the center to the university, named Mochtar Riady Quantum Plaza, Mochtar said progress in research and development was essential for advancing any country. He cited the United States’ leadership in technology research and development as an example.

“Technology really determines the fate of a nation and shapes a university,” he said in a speech at UI’s School of Engineering.

The 3,000-square-meter, five-story building will provide researchers, students and lecturers with state-of-the-art equipment.

Also attending the ceremony was Research and Technology Minister Muhammad Nasir, UI rector Muhammad Anis and Engineering School dean Dedy Priadi.

UI is one of the nation’s greatest sources of strength, Mochtar said, adding that he hoped the new research center would enable the university to lead the field in researching and developing new technology.

Since there are already numerous nanotechnology researchers at UI, Mochtar said he believed that the center had the potential to unite and accelerate field’s advancement in Indonesia.

Dedy praised Mochtar, saying that his encouragement propelled the university to become a center of excellence for nanotechnology research when he chaired the university’s highest body, Wali Amanat, from 2002-06.

He added that the donation would make it easier for UI to become a world-class university.

Minister Nasir said that the government would continue to support research for the benefit of people as a whole.

“The government will continue to work together with companies to advance research,” through incentives such as tax deductions, Nasir said. “We hope that more companies like Lippo Group are willing to cooperate with universities and the government,” he said.

The Jakarta Globe is affiliated with the Lippo Group.


Tuesday, March 10, 2015

3D printed organs offer ultra-realistic practice models

Yahoo – AFP, Shingo Ito, 10 March 2015

Professor Toshiaki Morikawa (L) gives a lesson while using a 3D-printed 
lung at the Jikei University hospital in Tokyo (AFP Photo/Yoshikazu Tsuno)

An incision from the surgeon's scalpel sends liquid oozing over the surface of a the lung, but on this occasion it doesn't matter if something goes wrong -- the doctor can simply create another model with a 3D printer.

The ultra-realistic lung -- wet, soft, and complete with tumours and blood vessels -- is one of a range of organs being produced by a Japanese firm that will allow surgeons to hone their skills without hurting anyone.

"With the wet model, doctors can experience the softness of organs and see them bleed," said Tomohiro Kinoshita of creator Fasotec, a company based in Chiba, southeast of Tokyo.

"We aim to help doctors improve their skills with the models," he added.

Professor Toshiaki Morikawa holds a 
3D-printed lung at the Jikei University hospital
in Tokyo (AFP Photo/Yoshikazu Tsuno)
From guns to cars, prosthetics and works of art, 3D printing is predicted to transform our lives in the coming decades, researchers say, as dramatically as the Internet did before it.

The so-called Biotexture Wet Model, which will come onto the market for surgery training and medical equipment-testing in Japan in as early as April, is created by scanning a real organ in minute detail and creating molds on a 3D printer.

That shell is then injected with gel-type synthetic resin to give it a wet, lifelike feeling in the surgeon's hands.

Each one is designed to exactly mimic the texture and weight of a real organ so it can react to the surgical knife in exactly the same way.

'Close to living organ'

Maki Sugimoto, a medical doctor who has tried samples, said the wet models are almost "too realistic".

Seen without their context, he said, it would be easy to mistake them for the real thing.

"The touch is similar to that of the real liver," said Sugimoto, who is also a special instructor at Kobe University Graduate School of Medicine in Kobe, western Japan.

"I suppose that not only young, inexperienced doctors but also experienced doctors can perform a better operation if they can have a rehearsal first," he said.

Toshiaki Morikawa, a medical doctor at Jikei University Hospital in Tokyo, also said: "The current models are too simple and details of anatomy are not accurately reflected."

"But this is obviously superior as it's produced precisely and is very close to the living organ in quality," he said.

For Morikawa, the world of 3D printing, which works by building up layers of material, offers endless possibilities for medicine, including maybe one day functional organs for use in transplants.

"Considering future progress in life sciences, I think it is an urgent and significant theme that this outstanding technology should be modified for application to biology," he said.

Fasotec began pre-sales of wet model bladders and urethral tubes in October, with a price tag of 15,000 yen ($127).

The firm plans to expand sales overseas and has already received enquiries from other Asian countries, the company's Kinoshita said.

Too many competing wifi networks is causing problems for users

DutchNews.nl, March 9, 2015

There are so many competing wifi networks in residential areas and city centres in the Netherlands that at least 50% of users say they have problems using the internet, according to research by the governent’s telecoms agency. 

The agency, which is part of the economic affairs ministry, carried out readings at 180 different locations and found that the most commonly used 2.4 GHz frequency is now ‘becoming full’. 

In some areas, up to 40 wifi networks are competing for bandwidth. This is leading to problems with downloading, Skype conversations and speed. 

A household with two or more people can easily have 10 or more pieces of equipment using the network when mobile phones, computers, televisions, printers and remote controls are taken into account, the agency said. 

Shifting more people to the 5 GHz wifi band would improve the quality of internet connections considerably, the agency said.

Monday, March 9, 2015

Glodok Gets US Trade Rep’s ‘Notorious Market’ Moniker

Dubious Distinction: Jakarta electronics emporium causing US ‘significant losses’


Harco Glodok market in Jakarta, Indonesia’s largest trade center for consumer
electronics and related goods. ( JG Photo/ Yudhi Sukma Wijaya)

The US Trade Representative’s office released its latest list of so-called notorious markets, identifying sites that cause “significant financial losses” for US companies to piracy and other forms of intellectual property infringement.

The 2014 survey identified physical marketplaces in 10 countries where significant amounts of counterfeit goods are sold. The markets are in Indonesia, Argentina, Brazil, China, Ecuador, India, Mexico, Nigeria, Paraguay, Thailand and Uruguay.

Particular areas of concern are Harco Glodok market in Jakarta, listed as Indonesia’s largest trade center for consumer electronics and related goods; Argentina’s La Salada, which the report identified as South America’s largest black market; the Silk Market in Beijing, where vendors reportedly have access “to a supply of newly manufactured counterfeit products to replace those that have been confiscated”; and the Computer Village Market in Lagos, Nigeria, reportedly the largest market for knockoff computer products and accessories in the nation.

China is the source of many of the counterfeit goods sold in markets in Prado, Italy; Lagos; Ciudad del Este, Paraguay, and Bangkok, according to the report.

The report lists a number of websites where enforcement activities have cut down on the quantity of counterfeit goods sold, including Seriesyonkis.com, Aiseesoft.com, Xunlei.com, and wawa-mania.ec, Mp3skull.com and Share-rapid.cz.

In other intellectual property and copyright news:

Rocketman

A challenge by Elon Musk’s Space Exploration Technologies to a patent on which Jeff Bezos is the lead inventor received a positive ruling from the US Patent and Trademark Office.

At issue is a patent that covers the sea landing of space launch vehicles and is aimed at re-using rocket elements, instead of discarding them during flight as is usually done. Re-using launch vehicles would make space travel cheaper.

According to the patent, a structure would be positioned in a body of water and the launch vehicle returning to Earth would land tail-first on it.

The patent was issued to Blue Origin of Kent, Washington, a company established by Bezos, the chairman of Amazon.

In a March 3 decision, the Patent Trial and Appeal Board said that Musk’s Hawthorne, California-based SpaceX demonstrated a reasonable likelihood that it would prevail in showing the unpatentability of one of the patent claims.

The board agreed with SpaceX that some of the claims in the patent under review had been anticipated by and were obvious in the light of a technical paper, “Re-entry and Terminal Guidance for Vertical Landing TSTO (Two-Stage to Orbit),” presented at the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics in 1998.

The application for the disputed patent was filed in June 2010.

The board ruled that a procedure known as an inter parties review could be conducted over this patent.

UK blogger vindicated in his contention that someone is wrong on the Internet

A UK blogger who was the subject of a Digital Millennium Copyright Act claim after he posted a press release sent to him by an organization advocating heterosexual rights won a default judgment in a California federal court.

Oliver Hotham, identified in court papers as a student journalist and blogger, publishes a blog on the WordPress.com website operated by San Francisco’s Automattic [sic].

After reading a news account of Straight Pride UK, he contacted the organization, identifying himself as a student and freelance journalist, and asked for information about the organization, according to his pleadings.

The organization sent him a press release, which Hotham published in part on his blog. That same day, the self-described press officer for Straight Pride sent takedown notices to Hotham and Automattic, claiming copyright infringement.

Hotham sued in federal court in Oakland, California, in November 2013, accusing the press officer of misrepresentation of copyright.

In her March 2 order, US District Judge Phyllis J. Hamilton granted a default judgment and awarded damages, including attorney fees, of $25,084.

She said Hotham and Automattic have been unsuccessfully attempting to locate the press officer, Nick Steiner, in order to serve the recommendations of a federal magistrate judge with respect to the default judgment. She said the court would require no further expenditure of resources.

The report from US Magistrate Judge Joseph Sero was filed Oct. 6. He recommended that Steiner be found to have made material misrepresentations in filing a DMCA infringement complaint.

All your assets are belong to us, Kim

Kim Dotcom and his co-defendants in a criminal copyright case have no standing to contest the forfeiture of their assets, a federal court in Virginia ruled.

Dotcom is in New Zealand, fighting attempts to have him extradited to the US to face the charges. The case is related to websites the government claims facilitated unauthorized file- sharing.

US District Judge Liam O’Grady ruled Feb. 27 that because Dotcom and other co-defendants are fugitives, they can’t contest the forfeiture.

He said the government successfully invoked a US law that bars such actions. The law, he said, was enacted to prevent the “unseemly” spectacle of a fugitive criminal defendant who is facing both incarceration and forfeiture from attempting to invoke “from a safe distance only so much of a US court’s jurisdiction” to recover alleged criminal proceeds.

According to court papers, the government is seeking the forfeiture of 18 bank accounts in Hong Kong and New Zealand; Dotcom’s assets in Computershare Investor Services; two luxury homes in Auckland; 21 cars, including Mercedes Benzes and Cadillacs; a Dutch Angel motorcycle; four personal watercraft; a 108-inch television; three 82-inch TVs; a Devon watch valued at $27,000; and a photo by Olaf Mueller.

Bloomberg

Saturday, March 7, 2015

Dutch Offer Preview of Net Neutrality

The New York Times, Mark Scott, Feb 26, 2015

Outside an Apple store in the Netherlands. Two years ago the country mandated
 that Internet providers treat all traffic equally. Credit Jasper Juinen/Bloomberg
News, via Getty Images

THE HAGUE — When Bruno Leenders takes the 50-minute train ride to Amsterdam, he likes to stream blues and funk music through his smartphone. At home, Mr. Leenders, a Dutch technology consultant, watches Steven Seagal action movies on Netflix. Between meetings, he dashes off a few emails.

Mr. Leenders’s digital life has not changed all that much in the two years since the Netherlands started demanding that Internet providers treat all traffic equally, the same sort of rules that the United States adopted on Thursday.

His bill has gone up just marginally. He surfs, streams and downloads at the same speed — if not a little faster given the upgrades to Netherlands’ network, already one of the world’s best.

In short, the new law was not the Internet Armageddon that many Dutch telecommunications companies, industry lobbyists and some lawmakers had predicted.

“I can still watch what I want, when I want,” Mr. Leenders said on a half-empty commuter train recently, as he checked his emails and the latest news on his smartphone. “It is not up to any company to tell what I can do online.”

Students use tablets in a school in Sneek, the Netherlands. The country’s
telecommunications infrastructure has seen continuing investment.
Credit Michael Kooren/Reuters

As the United States moves to regulate broadband Internet service as a public utility, the Netherlands offers a rare case study of what could await American consumers and companies. The Netherlands was the second country in the world to adopt so-called open Internet rules, after Chile.

It is not a perfect comparison.

The Netherlands, with a population of about 17 million, is geographically about the size of Maryland. That makes it far easier and cheaper for operators to provide high-speed Internet access compared with carriers trying to serve all of the 50 states.

The Dutch rules also allow for some premium deals between operators and services like Netflix, the online video-streaming company. Such agreements are supposed to be tightly restricted under the new regulations by the Federal Communications Commission.

Still, the Dutch experience — at least in the short term — could be instructive.

As with the American plan, Dutch carriers cannot discriminate among types of content, say by putting the brakes on data-hungry services like movie streaming. Nor can they charge extra for faster speeds and more reliable connections to the Internet’s pipelines, which could give deep-pocketed technology companies an advantage over fledgling start-ups.

And net neutrality opponents made all the same arguments in the Netherlands as they have been in the United States.

Local telecommunications providers, including the country’s former monopoly KPN, had wanted to charge Internet and media companies like Google and WhatsApp, the messaging service, for premium access to their networks. Companies warned that the price of consumers’ monthly contracts would rise if they could not levy additional fees. Otherwise, telecommunications companies said they would not be able to invest in technology and infrastructure — and the networks could grind to a standstill.

“If you overregulate through net neutrality, there’s a risk you reduce the levels of investment because the rules become too onerous,” said Michel Combes, chief executive of Alcatel-Lucent, the French-American telecommunications manufacturer.

Proponents, though, countered that such deals would potentially limit what content could be used online, giving carriers and broadband companies too much control over how people surfed the web. As more people worldwide rely on high-speed Internet access, the net neutrality debate has become a rallying call for advocates who consider unobstructed online access akin to a human right

“There was a lot of pressure to pass these rules,” said Nico van Eijk, a professor at the University of Amsterdam, who specializes in telecommunications and media law. “People didn’t want to be told which online services they could and couldn’t use.”

But two years later, the Internet business in the Netherlands is still humming along.

Consumers have not cried foul en masse over the costs. Dutch consumer groups say cellphone and cable packages in the last two years have remained relatively stable, with contracts priced at as little as $25 a month for the ability to stream online content. The average cellphone contract in the Netherlands is about one-third the price of an equivalent plan in the United States.

Sophie van Haasen, 31, a social worker, uses her mobile data package to stream music online through her Spotify account, and she said she was thinking about signing up for Netflix, mostly to watch the series “House of Cards.” She pays about $35 a month for her cellphone, and $40 for home broadband.

“I can’t say my payments have gone up, maybe a little as I’m using my phone more to get on the Internet,” she said, sitting at a cafe in Amsterdam in the late afternoon on her day off. “But that’s O.K. I’m getting what I paid for.”

Telecommunications companies in the Netherlands have also continued to invest in their infrastructure, bolstering network speeds around the country, which were already pretty fast before the rules went into effect. The average broadband speed is around 14 megabits a second, up about 10 percent since late 2013, according to Akamai Technologies. That compares to 11.5 megabits a second in the United States

“Prices didn’t go up,” said Martijn van Dam, 37, the deputy leader in Parliament of the Dutch Labor Party, who helped draft the Internet rules. “Our experience in the Netherlands shows that it’s nonsense to say that companies won’t invest.”

In part, that comes down to competition.

While rivalry among broadband providers remains relatively limited in much of the United States, there is fierce competition in the Netherlands between wireless and broadband providers to attract customers. To give consumers greater choice, regulators have limited efforts to consolidate the number of cellphone carriers, while KPN and Ziggo, a cable provider, fight doggedly to sign up customers for superfast home broadband.

Analysts say this competition, more than net neutrality, has forced companies to compete solely on price and speed — and not on which services come bundled with monthly cellphone or broadband packages.

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“You don’t need net neutrality if you have healthy competition,” said Ot van Daalen, a privacy lawyer who helped push through the Dutch net neutrality rules. “But the U.S. has less competition than in Europe. The U.S. needs net neutrality a lot more than the Dutch do.”

But the Dutch rules do color the landscape.

The Netherlands does not police so-called interconnection arrangements, in which content companies pay a fee to guarantee fast and reliable access to a network. Those deals proved controversial in the United States after Netflix struck such agreements with Comcast and other providers. Under the new rules, the F.C.C. will tightly regulate those relationships.

In contrast, the Dutch authorities have taken a harsher line on so-called zero-rating deals. Those deals allow operators to offer free access to certain online services like music streaming as part of monthly cellphone or broadband contracts.

Under the Dutch rules, such agreements are outlawed because they prioritize some Internet traffic over others. But experts predict that the F.C.C. will offer more leeway in this area, provided it does not harm the overall market.

And there are signs that Dutch regulators are taking an increasingly tough line with operators that try to skirt the rules. Vodafone was fined $225,000 last month after bundling HBO’s smartphone app into its monthly package, which was deemed a violation of the zero-rating prohibition. KPN, Vodafone’s main rival, received a $280,000 penalty for blocking Internet calling services on some of its Wi-Fi hot spots.

“As a way to protect consumers, net neutrality has worked,” said Bart W. Schermer, a partner at Considerati, a Dutch technology consultancy. “More than anything else, it’s created a level playing field.”

Correction: March 2, 2015
An article on Friday about the effect of net neutrality rules in the Netherlands misstated the position of Martijn van Dam, who commented on the matter. He is the deputy leader in Parliament of the Dutch Labor Party, not the deputy leader of the party as a whole.

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"Recalibration of Free Choice"–  Mar 3, 2012 (Kryon Channelling by Lee Carroll) - (Subjects: (Old) SoulsMidpoint on 21-12-2012, Shift of Human Consciousness, Black & White vs. Color, 1 - Spirituality (Religions) shifting, Loose a Pope “soon”, 2 - Humans will change react to drama, 3 - Civilizations/Population on Earth,  4 - Alternate energy sources (Geothermal, Tidal (Paddle wheels), Wind), 5 – Financials Institutes/concepts will change (Integrity – Ethical) , 6 - News/Media/TV to change, 7 – Big Pharmaceutical company will collapse “soon”, (Keep people sick), (Integrity – Ethical)  8 – Wars will be over on Earth, Global Unity, … etc.) (Text version)

“…5 - Integrity That May Surprise…

Have you seen innovation and invention in the past decade that required thinking out of the box of an old reality? Indeed, you have. I can't tell you what's coming, because you haven't thought of it yet! But the potentials of it are looming large. Let me give you an example, Let us say that 20 years ago, you predicted that there would be something called the Internet on a device you don't really have yet using technology that you can't imagine. You will have full libraries, buildings filled with books, in your hand - a worldwide encyclopedia of everything knowable, with the ability to look it up instantly! Not only that, but that look-up service isn't going to cost a penny! You can call friends and see them on a video screen, and it won't cost a penny! No matter how long you use this service and to what depth you use it, the service itself will be free.

Now, anyone listening to you back then would perhaps have said, "Even if we can believe the technological part, which we think is impossible, everything costs something. There has to be a charge for it! Otherwise, how would they stay in business?" The answer is this: With new invention comes new paradigms of business. You don't know what you don't know, so don't decide in advance what you think is coming based on an old energy world. ..."


The Internet  - The first Worldwide Tool of Unification ("The End of History")

" ... Now I give you something that few think about: What do you think the Internet is all about, historically? Citizens of all the countries on Earth can talk to one another without electronic borders. The young people of those nations can all see each other, talk to each other, and express opinions. No matter what the country does to suppress it, they're doing it anyway. They are putting together a network of consciousness, of oneness, a multicultural consciousness. It's here to stay. It's part of the new energy. The young people know it and are leading the way.... "

" ... I gave you a prophecy more than 10 years ago. I told you there would come a day when everyone could talk to everyone and, therefore, there could be no conspiracy. For conspiracy depends on separation and secrecy - something hiding in the dark that only a few know about. Seen the news lately? What is happening? Could it be that there is a new paradigm happening that seems to go against history?... " Read More …. "The End of History"- Nov 20,2010 (Kryon channelled by Lee Carroll)