Charter Cable To Replace Ads For Customers

Reports are running rampant across the web today regarding Charter Communications , one of the nations largest cable broadband companies, and a new tactic they're deploying to make money from your internet usage. In some markets customers are recieving a letter in the mail stating that they will be part of a new service, where Charter replaces advertising in web pages with advertising deemed "more relevant". An excerpt...

"I'm writing to inform you of an enhancement coming soon to your web browsing experience... While continuing to deliver the same fast and reliable internet service you've always received, innovative new technology enables Charter to provide you with an enhanced online experience that is more customized to your interests and activities. As a result, the advertising that you typically see online will better reflect the interests you express thorugh your web-surfing activities. You will not see more ads - just ads that are more relevant to you."

They do offer an opt-out process , but the opt-out process requires you to input personal information in a non encrypted http session and stupidly relies on cookies which are frequently cleaned on peoples pc's obviating the necessity of redoing this dodgy and dangerously insecure process. Over and over and over again.

This is wrong on so many levels I cannot figure out where to start. The privacy issues are as obvious as the above statement. As a publisher who relies on advertising to survive, it potentially makes our advertising useless. Advertising is what drives the net economy, and this tactic sets a dangerous precedent ethically and legally.

This tactic also skims dangerously close to rights infrigement, because this in essence is modifying website content without permission. For those individuals who use blocklists to avoid advertising altogether, it makes that a meaningless endeavor as well.

This is yet another clear example of ideas gone wrong, and avarice taken too far. I don't think the Electronic Frontier Foundation will have much of a fight here though. Every mainstream news and information portal in the world, most of which make the bulk of their revenue from advertising, will be lining up around the block to sue Charter Communications over this stupidity.

14/05/2008 | Email

MSNBC Needs An MS Office License

Just when you think the Pennsylvania Primary is the news of the hour, out of left field comes this. I was sitting watching MSNBC's Live feed of the Primary today, and during a commercial break I got to see MSNBC's feed PC being outed for having a bad MS Office license. Click on the image for a fullsize pop-up.

Maybe MSNBC is merely experiencing the woes many of us do with Microsoft's ridiculous and flawed Genuine Advantage program. Hilarious nonetheless.

22/04/2008 | Email

Microsoft Makes Move To Buy Yahoo

Though details are still somewhat sketchy, it looks like the persistent rumor of Microsoft devouring Yahoo is getting some teeth. 44 Billion Dollars worth of teeth . Expect more news on this as it breaks, as the details currently are somewhat lacking, but consider this move a serious play in the battle for net supremacy with Google.

This would make this deal the largest internet based acquisition since the $182 Billion AOL/Time Warner debacle in 2001, largely viewed as the worst acquisition in history. Still the battle for net advertising dominance is a real one, with an estimated $80 Billion up for grabs in the net advertising market by 2010. This constitutes an extra 40 Billion reasons when compared to 2007 market scope, so take it seriously.

01/02/2008 | Email

Another Stupid Survey About Billions In Lost Productivity Misses The Point

Global Secure Systems and Infosecurity Europe released the results of a poll they use to claim the U.K experiences upwards of 6.5 Billion Pounds in lost productivity costs to social networking sites like Myspace, Facebook, and Bebo. A quote...

The poll was carried out amongst 776 office workers, who admitted to spending at least 30 minutes a day visiting social networking sites whilst at work, that's a minimum of 10 hours a month which equates to 3 weeks of every year with two respondents who were so hooked that they spend 3 hours visiting these sites everyday!! The end result is potentially billions of pounds in lost productivity maintain GSS, plus the extra demand on bandwidth which is an additional cost to a business in terms of efficiency, maintenance and resources. As is often the case with polls asking a question in a certain manner can almost guarantee the conclusions reached. Also, when the parties involved are both interested in selling U.K. businesses their products and consultancy services you might want to replace that grain of skepticism with a boulder.

Any business really concerned about the productivity drain of social networking sites could easily block those sites from their employees with about 30 seconds worth of effort. [ED: We'd be happy to consult with you and show you how :P] But perhaps most smart business managers realize the value of having a diversion or two when working. Stop treating your employees like human beings and believe me, they'll stop acting like them which is a worse thing for productivity. When I worked in corporate america with hundreds of employees directly in my charge a survey like this one would have revealed to me the obvious thing here. That being someone trying to sell me a solution for a problem I didn't really have. It happens all the time.

Move on, nothing to see here...

28/01/2008 | Email

Psychologist Cooper Lawrence Pays The Price On Fox News

In a Fox News segment, psychologist and self-help book author Cooper Lawrence shot herself in the foot by proclaiming all sorts of inane untruths about a game (Mass Effect, Electronic Arts ) being harmful to children for one mildly graphic sex scene. In a game rated M for Mature. A game she knew absolutely nothing about before she appeared on Fox and started making the mistake of opening her mouth.

Exposing ones own ignorance and prejudices on Fox News is pretty normal these days, but Ms. Lawrence is experience a great deal of grief as a result of speaking without thinking. Her latest self help book, The Cult of Perfection is experiencing a massive flood of spam reviewing on Amazon.com. As a result her new book is sitting on Amazon with a 1 star rating in it's review system, with 472 reviews at this writing. Perhaps someone who is a published author should have learned to check facts and think before speaking. Sometimes the lessons you learn are harsh Cooper. Oh....and she's HOT! :P

(editors note: Amazon has REMOVED all the negative comments....nice way to change reality hunh?)

25/01/2008 | 1 comment | Email

FyreTV - IPTV For Pervs

Announced at the AVN Adult Video awards ceremony adjacent to CES 2008 last week is a new streaming IPTV service called FyreTV . Promising DVD quality streaming video over a broadband connection, FyreTV's service is geared specifically towards content from the erotic film industry.

Though there are those who assert that the net is literally awash in ways to obtain porn for free (most of which aren't legal) the convenience of such a device cannot be made light of. FyreTV's set top box itself is a fairly small and innocuous device. Offering no internal storage it does come fully loaded to connect to a modern high definition or standard definition TV set, with an Ethernet port, HDMI, Component, Composite, S-Video, Analog Audio,SPDIF output, and a full function remote. Curiously the rear of the unit also has two USB ports, the purpose of which isn't apparent. The units themselves come at no cost to the consumer, with FyreTV banking on it's success through a monthly subscription fee.

Currently the service is in beta-test and should go live sometime in April. We've been accepted into the beta, and plan on giving a full evaluation of the hardware and service once our FyreTV set top box arrives. Forgive us however, if we take care to censor our usually extensive photo gallery.

16/01/2008 | Email

FBI Can't Pay Its Phone Bill

A recently released Justice Department Audit conducted by the departments Inspector General, Glenn Fine, found that the U.S. governments expanded powers under FISA may have been undermined by something totally unrelated to the technical challenges related to wiretapping phone calls and emails. Apparently the FBI didn't pay it's phone bill. About half of 1000 bills related to wiretaps were either not paid on time or not paid at all, resulting in wiretaps being cut.

We'll pause for a second to let that sink in, and give you time to catch your breath from laughing your *ss off.

11/01/2008 | 1 comment | Email

Limewire On One-Third Of All PCs WorldWide

Though not exactly a new story, eMediaWire put out a press release earlier this month on a survey conducted by Digital Music News and BigChampagne regarding the market penetration of the big kahuna of p2p applications, Limewire. From a survey sample of 1.66 million desktops worldwide they found Limewire present on 36.4% of all PC's in the survey.

31/12/2007 | Email

RIAA Insanity-Suing People For Ripping CD's They Purchased

With this past weeks announcement by Warner to release its entire catalog to Amazon in MP3 format with no Digital Rights Management, you would think that the organization that represents them, The Recording Industry Association of America , would begin changing its tune. However, in an inane display of hubris and futility, the RIAA presses on in it's tirade against the very consumers its partners rely on by (we're not making this up) suing individuals who merely rip CD's they've purchased legally.

29/12/2007 | 3 comments | Email

More Wiimote Hacks - Head Tracking Hack

This guy just doesn't know when to stop. Johnny Chung Lee graces us with yet another one of his inventive Wiimote projects. This time, it involves using the Wii-mote and a pair of inexpensive LED safety goggles (with the standard LED's replaced with InfraRed ones) to allow positional head tracking, achieving an effect similar to what is experienced with three dimensional displays and CAVE systems. The video dramatically illustrates the effect. Game developers take note. This simple little variation on infrared tracking could allow for some seriously immersive gameplay in the future.

22/12/2007 | 2 comments | Email