Tech of the day: EU demands MS to offer other browsers

As you all know, if you install Windows on a computer, IE comes with it. A lot of people think that is monopolistic behavior, including EU. EU thinks Microsoft should offer the user choices of other browsers in addition to IE. I doubt it is practical. What choices should Microsoft provide? Must it include every browser that exists in the world? If I write a browser that nobody use and Microsoft did not include it, can I sue them? It just does not make a lot of sense.

Also, some people suggests Microsoft should provide Windows without any browser. Well, given such a Windows installation, how does the user go about downloading the browser of his/her choice? After all, even though I seldom use IE, it used to be among the first applications I executed on new computers just so I could download Firefox! (Nowadays I always bring Portable Chrome with me on my flash drive so I don't need to do that anymore)

Topic of the day: luck, fame and career

My last post about Marc Copland, who IMHO is underrated as a jazz pianist, got me thinking: why wasn't he as well-known as Chick Corea or Brad Mehldau? To me, his music is certainly as enjoyable, if not more than, the above I mentioned. I don't really have an explanation.

Perhaps that's what showbiz is like. If you want to be famous, you gotta be savvy, be aggressive to market yourself. Then you can have the companies with big budget to market you. After all, there are tons of pop singers who sing better and look better than those "American Idols" yet no one knows about them.

Then there is the comparison with competitive sports, which seems more fair, isn't it? If you have the same level of talent as Lebron James, Lionel Messi, Tiger Woods or Lee Sedol, you would have been discovered by scouts in your sports or have won many amateur tournaments and be able to "make it." In fact, I doubt you could find a golf player as good as Tiger or Go player as good as Lee yet no one knows about them.

Then I gave it some more thought: what about the "luck" factor? If Drew Bledsoe was not injured in 2001, will Tom Brady's potential ever be discovered? He might have got bored sitting on the bench, quit NFL and become a successful business exec! (he majored in Organizational Studies at Michigan) You never know... If Go Seigen was not injured in that motorcycle accident, he might have won some major titles. (It's not like not having won any major titles diminished his accomplishment as one of the all time best Go players)

Album of the day: New York Trio Recordings, Vol. 1 - Modinha

This is an awesome album by the underrated pianist Marc Copland. It has the classic jazz piano trio sound, on par with the works by Bill Evans and Keith Jarrett! Check out its reviews by various newspapers, magazines and websites.

Game of the day: LG Cup Final, Game 2

To become the best of the best, you have to beat the best of the best. That's what Gu Li just did! He shutout Lee Sedol 2:0 in the best-of-3 final of LG Cup. Time will tell if Gu Li could continue dominate the world of Go like Lee does. If he succeeds, it will be a great achievement since no other Chinese has done that in the modern era except Nie Weiping and Go Seigen. Even though the game was invented in China, the quality of Chinese Go players went downhill around 200 years ago. At the same time Go became well established in Japan, where players improved generation by generation. Japan was the super power in Go until Korea took over 2 decades ago. Players like Gu Li and Chang Hao have given China hopes to be on top of the world of Go again.

Topic of the day: online rumors rebutted online

There are 2 cases happened recently. Both has to do with companies being accused of unethical business practices. Both tried defending their reputation by posting.

Case 1: Last.fm is an online music service with a social component. What it means is that you could listen to streaming music from its website, starting with an artist of your choice, for example, rate your music and it will find people who like the music you rated highly for you. And you could get music recommendation that way.

It all works fine for music streamed from its website. What about music you listen from your own collection sitting on your local computer? That's where audioscrobbler, a piece of software/technology owned by Last.fm come into the picture. Its job is to send what music you listened locally to Last.fm so that you could get better recommendations.

And audioscrobbler is in the middle of this controversy: an insider told tech website TechCrunch that Last.fm was assisting RIAA to find out who has listened to the leaked new album of U2 since it has the data available from audioscrobbler. And Last.fm denied it officially here.

Case 2: EastBayExpress, a local free weekly, has reported that Yelp's sales rep had approached businesses to indicate that if they buy advertisement from Yelp, their negative reviews could be taken care of. Of course this is serious allegation, for a website like Yelp that relies on being neutral. And here is its official response.

You could judge yourself who to believe. Moral of these 2 stories? whatever you hear from the web, be skeptical, including reports on business ethics, restaurant reviews, and software that is supposed to keep your privacy protected.

Star of the day: Sean Penn

Congratulation to Sean Penn for winning his second Oscar best actor award (for his role in the movie "Milk," a biopic of the SF gay politician Harvey Milk who was assassinated.) I remember the first movie that I watched starring him (and Robert De Niro) was "We're No Angels." That was a hell of a funny movie! I also enjoyed his other movies like "I am Sam" and "Sweet and Lowdown" very much.

Some people in the gay community think that this Oscar might help the cause of overturning gay marriage ban. I am not too sure about that. (Studying what effects movies have on real world issue would be very interesting.) In any case, it will provide a boost to the morale of the community for sure. And I am glad to see that.

每週冷飯﹕Napster

摘自00年8月1號開場白﹕

今年以XX 2000為名推出的軟件多不勝數﹐不過風頭之勁必定沒有一個比得上Napster。首先向未用過Napster的朋友介紹一下﹐Napster是一個用來和網上其他Napster用戶交換MP3音樂檔案的軟件。簡單來說﹐Napster 軟件把用戶的電腦連接到Napster公司的中央目錄﹐一方面告知目錄該用戶有何音樂檔案與其他用戶分享﹐另一方面讓該用戶搜尋中央目錄﹐尋找能提供其所需音樂檔案的用戶﹐然後直接連接兩用戶之電腦﹐傳送檔案。大家可以想像得到這是一個很受歡迎的功能﹐事實正是如此﹕Napster用戶增長速度極快﹐短短一年之間己有二千萬用戶﹐任何時候通常都有七十萬至九十萬首歌供下載。

由於Napster如此受歡迎﹐問題亦開始發生﹕首先是美國不少大學發現由於太多學生使用Napster(免費和高速的學校網絡是使用 Napster最理想的環境)﹐其流量霸佔了網絡大量頻寬(bandwidth)﹐甚至影響了其他正常需要使用網絡的工作﹐例如學術研究﹐因而禁止了學生在校內網絡使用Napster。接著更大的問題來了﹕知名樂團如Metallica等指責Napster公司讓用戶交換其作品﹐侵犯了版權﹐要求 Napster公司交出交換他們作品的用戶名單﹐但被拒絕。然後這些樂團以及唱片業界控告Napster公司﹐這宗官司正鬧得熱烘烘﹐日前法庭判 Napster的確有版權問題﹐但上訴期間仍可運作。

平心而論﹐擁有版權的作品不可以未經授權抄錄給他人﹐這是不容爭辯的。但今日的問題也反映了唱片業﹐特別是其中的大企業﹐反應遲鈍﹐後知後覺﹐且欠缺遠見。此話何解﹖其實唱片業多年前一早就應該預見到將音樂轉化為數碼格式的技術將會越來越進步﹐也越來越普及﹐而互聯網的速度亦必定會進展到用戶可以輕易傳送這些數碼音樂﹐當時就應該盡快研究方案去配合這些技術﹐例如開發符合經濟原則和有效的數碼音樂銷售模式。就算今日能夠成功禁制Napster﹐那些沒有中央目錄的檔案交易技術如Gnutella又如何禁制呢﹖(可以告誰﹖)

其實﹐Napster也有其正面的用途﹕可讓(不計較版權的)新晉音樂人容易發表和散播他們的作品。另一方面﹐有調查顯示很多用戶在使用 Napster後增加了音樂方面的消費﹔又有調查指出Napster用戶很多都會洗去大部份下載的作品﹐換而言之﹐Napster提供了一個免費試聽服務 ﹐令樂迷花少了“冤枉錢”在不喜歡的音樂上。

Napster也可算是Peer-to-peer computing/sharing(同儕分享)的先鋒﹐其流行甚至引起了電腦業先驅Intel總裁Andy Grove的注意﹐對於目前以centralized client-server access pattern為假設的寬頻網絡基建並不符合這日漸流行的Peer-to-peer access pattern的需要感到隱憂。事實上﹐Napster這類Peer-to-peer技術可以讓網民分享學術報告﹑公開的商業資料等種種檔案﹐說不定會取代WWW成為下一代互聯網主流技術﹐其商業潛質實在不容忽視。筆者有一位朋友安裝寬頻的主要原因正是Napster。

大家請拭目以待巨人唱片業和小子Napster大戰的結果吧﹗而下一個風頭軟件不知會不會是另一些Peer-to-peer軟件如Gnutella, Scour 或 Freenet 呢﹖

事隔差不多十年﹐有幾點值得一提﹕
1) Napster官司導致「原版」Napster壽終正寢(今時今日的Napster只是購買了該名字而已)﹐但卻沒有令唱片業一勞永逸﹐眾所週知﹐繼Napster之後的突破即是BitTorrent﹐多年後的今天唱片業仍無法從法律途徑徹底「打倒」BT。
2) 當年的檔案分享發展至今日的串流分享﹐主要用於分享直播電視節目(包括體育及劇集等等)﹐位於荷蘭的MyP2P被告上法庭﹐目的是禁止該站分享各大聯賽的串流﹐結果是MyP2P獲勝﹐只有荷蘭甲組未被解禁﹐可見訴諸法律效力有多大。