This post appeared in the San Jose Mercury News on January 26, 2012

by Larry Magid

Many people are celebrating the “people’s victory” that derailed, at least temporarily, the Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA) in the House and the Protect IP Act (PIPA) in the Senate.

These controversial bills would require websites to refrain from linking to any sites “dedicated to the theft of U.S. property.” The bills would also prevent companies from placing ads on the sites, and would block payment companies like Visa, MasterCard and PayPal from transmitting funds to the sites. The bills could even give the U.S. attorney general power to seek a court order to block the domain name server (DNS) records, effectively cutting off access to the entire site.

Derailing the bills was indeed a big victory, but was it “people power” or a new form of corporate lobbying? The ability of Google and the nonprofit Wikipedia Foundation to drive people to sign online petitions is indeed impressive. But it’s also a little scary.

In this case, I think they were on the right side. But while I applaud the intention behind the anti-SOPA campaign, I worry a little about the precedent it set.

A number of advocacy groups — including Public Knowledge, Electronic Frontier Foundation, and Center for Democracy &Technology — had been working to stop the bills for months. But it wasn’t until Google and Wikipedia famously joined the fight that SOPA and PIPA became household words and millions of people were activated to express their opposition.

When people went to Wikipedia on Jan. 18, they weren’t able to get to whatever article they were looking for, but they did see a big banner that included links to help visitors reach their members of Congress. Google didn’t go dark in protest to the bills, but it did black out its logo and — more importantly — placed a link to an online petition against them which, so far, has garnered more than 7 million signers.

Google, which is a $185 billion company, has an enormous reach that dwarfs that of any of the world’s major media companies. Google.com is the most trafficked site on the Web, with more than 12 billion search queries in December, according to comScore. Wikipedia is the world’s sixth-most popular site, according to Alexa. Google occupies three spots on Alexa’s top 10 list. Google.com is No. 1, YouTube is No. 3 and Blogspot.com is No. 7.

Tech companies flexed their muscles Jan. 18 and we found out that they’re a lot more buff than many had thought. We all know about the power, money and influence flowing out of Hollywood, but even though traditional media companies influence a great many people, they don’t have the same ability as tech companies to offer links to places where citizens can take immediate action.

I am starting to worry about the concentration of media power into the hands of a relatively small number of very high-traffic Web companies. It’s similar to the concern people have raised for decades about the power of the news media. But instead of fearing the power of TV networks and newspapers, we now need to be concerned about the power of online media companies, including Google, Facebook, Yahoo, China’s Baidu, Wikipedia, Twitter and Amazon.

For the most part, these sites stay out of politics. Google’s search algorithms are ideologically neutral and Amazon is happy to sell stuff to people, regardless of their ideological bent. Wikipedia’s editors had a big debate over whether to go dark Jan. 18 because some felt that it impinged on their neutrality. What the foundation finally decided was to take a stand on SOPA and PIPA, arguing that these bills “would put the burden on website owners to police user-contributed material and call for the unnecessary blocking of entire sites.”

Wikipedia founder Jimmy Wales tweeted, “The encyclopedia will always be neutral. The community need not be, not when the encyclopedia is threatened.”

One reason to worry about the power of online companies is because — like Hollywood — they too have lobbyists in Washington and plenty of reason to flex their own political muscles. One difference between Hollywood and Silicon Valley — for now at least — is that Silicon Valley is on the defensive while Hollywood is often on the offensive. Hollywood is seeking strong government laws to protect its assets while much of Silicon Valley’s lobbying is focused on getting the government off its collective back.

In 2012, there will be plenty of legislative and regulatory actions that will affect the likes of Google, Facebook and Twitter, as well as Amazon, which is fighting a losing battle to keep states from collecting sales tax from its online customers. Of course, these companies have a right to try to protect their interests, but let’s hope that they don’t abuse their online presence to enlist support with a level of reach that’s gargantuan compared to that of most people, organizations or even companies.

So, while I join the celebration over the apparent demise of PIPA and SOPA and appreciate the help the movement got from big tech companies, I also worry about giving these companies too much power and influence.

Disclosure: Larry Magid is co-director of ConnectSafely.org, a non-profit Internet safety organization that receives financial support from Google, Facebook and other Internet companies.

Will Magid

OK I’m biased, but my son Will Magid is an awesome musician and he’s about to come out with an album from the new Will Magid Trio. He’s also on the verge of a major concert, Will Magid’s World Wide Dance Party at Cafe Du Nord in San Francisco this Saturday night, starting at 8:30 PM.

Take a listen to the KPFA segment and check out his website for more music.

As my fellow CNET News blogger Chris Matyszczyk pointed out in a recent post,  Slovokian violinist Lukas Kmit found a way to acknowledge an annoying cell phone that rang during a concert, without missing a beat.

The sound you hear in this video is that of a Nokia phone but, undaunted, Kmit just mimicked the ring tone as if it were part of his performance.

This post appeared in the San Jose Mercury News on January 23, 2012

by Larry Magid

Streaming Web video and audio have been around for years, but 2012 seems to be shaping up as a pivotal year for Internet media.

Last week Forbes.com reported that AOL’s Huffington Post Media Group plans to launch its own cable-style live TV channel to compete with the likes of CNN. Reportedly, it will feature live reports from the blog’s 320-person editorial staff and will even broadcast editorial meetings to give viewers a glimpse of the news-gathering process. That strikes me as one way to get reporters and editors to behave during meetings. I blog for the Huffington Post, but have no inside knowledge about this reported plan.

Global reach

One major international TV network is using live streaming partially to get around the fact that it’s not carried on most U.S. cable and satellite systems. Al Jazeera English (where I occasionally serve as an on-air tech analyst) live streams its 24/7 programming from its website and makes its feed available to Roku, which provides streaming video to TV sets. Al Jazeera is available on cable and satellite systems around the world but has very few such outlets in the U.S. The Qatar-based broadcaster is using its website to encourage its viewers to “Demand Al Jazeera in the USA,” with links to a form where they can request their cable company to pick up the signal.

Reuters, which competes with AP as a leading wire service for news organizations, has launched its own TV channel. As far as I can tell, Reuters TV doesn’t have live programming but it does offer recorded programs hosted by its many reporters. Videos are hosted on YouTube but also available from the Video link at the top of Reuters.com.

Of course, there is nothing new about news organization hosting video. All of the major TV networks and many newspapers, including the Mercury News, offer at least some video on their sites. Print reporters who traditionally worked in text, not pictures and sound, often find themselves in front of a camera instead of a keyboard. Not all print journalists are good on TV but some, like my colleague David Pogue of the New York Times, are excellent.

One of the best uses of Web video is live webcast events. An increasing number of conferences live blog their sessions, often for free. I suppose this could cut back on paid attendance but it also increases the visibility of the speakers, which is one of the reasons people agree to speak for free at conferences.

I go to a lot of press conferences but sometimes I’m not able to attend. But if the company webcasts it, I can watch from the comfort of my home, hotel room or Wi-Fi equipped coffee shop. In some ways I prefer watching press conferences on the Web because I can more easily write about them and get my blog post up quickly. From home, I know I’ll have a good Internet connection, which is not always the case at events.

YouTube, which mainly has user-generated content, has professional content as well. The Google owned site just announced that it’s launching an online “film festival” that will feature short films submitted by aspiring film makers. Although there are no age restrictions, they are encouraging young filmmakers and producers to enter. Ten finalists will be flown to the Venice Film Festival to screen their films.

In October, YouTube launched an expansion of its original content video library, “including channels created by well-known personalities and content producers from the TV, film, music, news, and sports fields,” according to a YouTube blog post.

Radio

While the Internet has long disrupted TV and DVD rentals, it is just starting to have an impact on radio. Many people listen to radio in their cars and, until a couple of years ago, it wasn’t practical to stream Internet radio to a moving vehicle. That’s changing thanks to smartphones.

Last week I drove round-trip to the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas and listened to Pandora Internet radio during much of my drive. When I wasn’t listening to music or comedy routines on Pandora, I was listening to broadcast stations from around the country via the Radio.com app, or streaming live network feeds and on demand features via the CBS Radio News app which is available for Apple and Android phones and tablets. For the record, I serve as CBS News’ technology analyst.

I have a Pioneer AVIC-Z130BT Audio and Navigation System in my car that connects directly to an iPhone and lets me select recorded music as well as Pandora and Aha radio programs directly from the Pioneer unit. Most newer cars have connectors that allow you to play the audio from a smartphone through the car’s speakers.

To my delight, I rarely lost the data signal, even in remote areas along the way. I happen to have an unlimited data plan on my Sprint iPhone plan, but if you don’t have such a plan, make sure you’re not going over your allotment or this “free” radio could wind up costing you money.

by Larry Magid

At its F8 developer’s conference in September, Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg announced that users would be able to display data from apps on their Facebook Timeline. Partners immediately launched a handful of apps, including one that tells your friends what you’re reading on the Washington Post, but for the most part users were left to wonder what else would be forthcoming.

The wait is over. At a small press event in San Francisco (the first Facebook presser I’ve attended that didn’t feature Zuckerberg), the company unveiled the 60 new apps that are now integrated with the Timeline.

The idea is to display your activity with the apps directly on the new Facebook Timeline for your friends to see. Some of these apps are primarily on Facebook but others interact with mobile apps from the same publisher.  For example, if someone downloads Foodspotting to their smart phone and takes a picture or rates a meal they’re having at a restaurant, that picture and rating can immediately appear on their Facebook Timeline.  Likewise, if you’re using Gogobot to plan a trip, all the details of that adventure can be shared on Facebook with anyone you choose. You can ask questions such as “what should I do on Maui,” and your friends can clue you in.

Rotten Tomatoes allows you to share your thoughts on movies you’ve watched and learn about what your friends are watching. You can post movies you want to see which can trigger a conversation or maybe even help you find someone to go see it with.

Other companies with new apps include Foodly, Ticketmaster and Pinterest.

All this is possible thanks to Facebook “open graph,” which is a set of application interface tools (APIs) that allows developers to create apps that share user activities back to Facebook.

In a blog post about the new apps, Facebook’s Carl Sjogreen said “There will be apps for all types of interests, as more apps will launch over time. Whether you love snowboarding, gardening, hiking, or knitting, or something else, there will be an app for you.”

Users are required to authorize the application and determine who they want to share with. Even after you start sharing you have access to controls that let you limit the audience further.

Facebook users can add apps by clicking here.

Visitors to Google.com see a blacked out logo and a link to an online petition

Knowing that Wikipedia would go dark for 24 hours in protest to SOPA and PIPA, I took the precaution of printing it out last night. Just kidding. Wikipedia is huge. I wanted to say just how big it is, but when I went to Google to look up “size of Wikipedia,” most of the relevant results directed me to articles on Wikipedia which, of course, is dark for the day.

Google didn’t go dark but it did black out its logo and has a link to “Tell Congress: Please don’t censor the web!” with a link to an online petition.

What are SOPA and PIPA and why are people upset?

This is all because of two pieces of legislation: the Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA) in the House and its Senate companion bill, the Protect IP Act (PIPA).  The purpose of these bills is to make it harder for sites — especially those located outside the United States — to sell or distribute pirated copyrighted material such as movies and music as well as physical goods such as counterfeit purses and watches. Even most of SOPA and PIPA’s strongest opponents applaud the intentions of the legislation while deploring what it might actually accomplish.

Although its sponsors have said that they would amend the bill, as currently written, SOPA would enable the U.S. Attorney General to seek a court order to require “a service provider (to) take technically feasible and reasonable measures designed to prevent access by its subscribers located within the United States to the foreign infringing site.” Until this weekend, one of the ways to do that would have been to cut the DNS (domain name server) records that point to the site, but that provision is likely to be removed after the Obama administration weighed in on the issue over the weekend, saying “Any effort to combat online piracy must guard against the risk of online censorship of lawful activity and must not inhibit innovation by our dynamic businesses large and small.” The administration also echoed concerns raised by a number of security experts, including some anti-malware companies that the bill could disrupt the underlying architecture of the Internet.

The White House statement coincided with sponsors agreeing to remove the DNS blocking provisions. Still, the bill could require search engines like Google to delete any links to the sites.

These are not partisan bills. SOPA and PIPA have proponents and opponents on both sides of the aisle.

The bill would require sites to refrain from linking to any sites “dedicated to the theft of U.S. property.” It would also prevent companies from placing on the sites and block payment companies like Visa, Mastercard and Paypal from transmitting funds to the site. For more, see this blog post on Reddit.

The problem with this is that the entire site would be affected, not just that portion that is promoting the distribution of illegal material. It would be a bit like requiring the manager of a flea market to shut down the entire market because some of the merchants were selling counterfeit goods.

The bill would also cut off funding by prohibiting payment services from cooperating with infringing sites.

Opponents say it would create an “internet blacklist.”

As CBSNews.com said in its analysis, there are existing laws, including the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DCMA) that require operators to remove specific infringing content. SOPA and PIPA would go after the entire sites.

Hollywood vs. Silicon Valley

These bills have pitted the entertainment industry against the technology industry. “Hollywood” has a legitimate interest in protecting its intellectual property. Not only are profits at stake but so are jobs. Thousands of Americans make their living by dreaming up content and selling it to the world and piracy does in fact take money out of their pockets.  Silicon Valley has invested billions in creating companies that freely distribute information. While Google and every other Silicon Valley company must respect copyrights, they thrive on helping people find what they want. If, suddenly, every web site that had links to other sites had to worry that they could be in violation of the law by linking to a “banned” site, it could put undo pressure on these companies. There is also worry that SOPA and PIPA could be abused and lead to censorship for purposes other than intellectual property protection.

Are the protests having any effect?

Shutting down Wikipedia for a day or blacking out the Google logo won’t stop these bills in their tracks, but they have raised an enormous amount of awareness about the issue. As a result, it is likely that these bills will continue to be amended and, though they may pass in some fashion, they are likely to be quite different than they were when first proposed.

This post appeared in the San Jose Mercury News on January 16, 2012

by Larry Magid

As I walked around the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas last week, I was struck by how the mobile phone is taking over as the hub of our physical lives.

Nowhere was that more obvious than at LG’s booth, where they were pushing home appliances, including refrigerators, washing machines and even a robot that lets you use a cellphone as a command and control center. It was also obvious at the Belkin and Schlage booths, where they showed products that let you use a cellphone to lock or unlock your front door from anywhere on the planet. Craftsman, meanwhile, showed a garage-door opener that sends you a message if you forget to close it. There are also companies that allow you to use a smartphone as a TV remote control.

Ford has multiple smartphone apps that work with its new line of cars, including ones to help you find recharging stations or see how many miles per gallon you’re getting on your hybrid. There also are apps to remotely lock or start your car.

This highlights how mobile devices are actually more useful than PCs.

It was 11 years ago that former Apple CEO Steve Jobs declared the Mac a “digital hub,” the control center for all our digital devices and the repository of all our data. In 2007, former Microsoft CEO Bill Gates told CNN that “We’re making the PCs the place where it all comes together,” again stressing the role of the PC as the device for storing data and controlling your other devices. Now we’re storing our data in the “cloud,” and accessing it from our mobile devices as well as our PCs.

The move toward mobile makes sense for a lot of reasons. First of all, mobile phones are ubiquitous. Even in the United States, there are people who don’t use PCs on a regular basis, and most people in the developing world don’t have PCs at home. Just about everyone with a pulse has a mobile phone and an increasing number of us are getting smartphones.

Another reason for the shift toward mobile is that the devices are portable. Most people don’t carry their laptop or tablet around all day, but how many people do you know who go anywhere without their mobile phone? I never go out the door without checking that I have my keys, my wallet and my phone. And the obvious advantage of smartphones is that they have a screen, a keyboard and a speaker to send you an alert and, as long as you have a data signal, you’re always connected to the Internet.

Although it may seem a bit gimmicky, I’m impressed by the vision behind LG’s Smart ThinQ line of connected home appliances that communicate with each other and to the Internet via Wi-Fi and other wireless protocols.

LG smart refrigerator shown at CES (Credit: LG)

It may sound like a joke to have your refrigerator send you a note that your yogurt is about to expire, but if that information is available from your cellphone while you’re at the grocery store, it might be useful. The refrigerator has a screen that lets you enter information about each item as you place it in. Not only can it display what it is, when you bought and when it expires, you can also indicate where in the refrigerator you’re placing it so you no longer have to wonder where you stashed those leftovers. Eventually these refrigerators will be equipped with bar code readers as well as the ability to scan your receipt to automatically determine what you’re putting in. I wouldn’t be surprised if some grocery stores start uploading your purchases to the cloud to be automatically accessed by your refrigerator and oven.

The refrigerator, of course, can communicate with LG’s “smart” oven to let it know what ingredients you have, and can help you cook by finding recipes and programming itself accordingly. The oven can also send a message to your cell phone to let you know when the roast is done. If you’re away, you can switch the oven to warming mode so it stops the cooking but maintain a temperature.

LG’s washers can send a message to your phone or your TV to let you know when it’s time to put the clothes in the dryer. If you’re away from home while your clothes are drying, you can remotely put it in spin mode to keep them from getting wrinkled. If the house in on a smart electrical grid, you can program the dryer to turn on when the utility rates are low.

LG also has a “home bot” vacuum cleaner that has a camera to send remote video of what’s happening at your house. If George Jetson had one of these, he could use his cell phone to remotely tell his dog Astro to get off the couch.

Scroll down for step-by-step instructions to turn off personal search

Earlier this week Google announced that search is going “social,” so that what you find when you do a Google search will be influenced by what your friends on Google+ are saying.  In a blog post, Google said that it’s “transforming Google into a search engine that understands not only content, but also people and relationships.” In addition to putting your friends posts and pictures front and center in search (subject to the privacy options they chose when the posted it), Google now presents search results based on what your friends are saying. So, if your Google+ friends like a certain restaurant, its more likely to come up higher on a search. And if you search for a person and that person has a Google profile, that’s what’s likely to pop up.

Privacy and antitrust concerns

As the New York Times pointed out, some privacy advocates are concerned and others worry about antitrust issues, arguing this gives Google a competitive advantage over Twitter and Facebook that don’t happen to own a dominant search engine. I’ll leave it up to regulators and Google’s competitors to worry about the antitrust issues

I’m not terribly worried about privacy. To its credit, Google+ has good privacy controls. Every time someone posts, they can determine the audience. It can be specific individuals, people in their “circles” (who they have opted to share with) or the public. Still, there is a contextual difference between finding a post in Google+ vs. finding it in a what may be an unrelated search.

Biased results

My biggest concern about the change is that it kind of ruins what Google spent so many years building. Google’s well honed algorithms have historically been based on finding the most relevant results based on their “importance.” It’s a complex and secret formula but it’s based, in part, on how many other sites link to it and the ranking of those sites. If a lot of highly ranked sites link to a page, it’s likely to have a higher ranking than a page with few links or even a page with a lot of links from other pages that aren’t highly ranked.  The algorithms aren’t perfect and they can be gamed, but they generally produce results that are at least reasonably objective.

As Mat Honan pointed out on Gizmodo, the problem with social search and personal results is that it biases the results based on the perspective of your friends. If I had a lot of friends who worked for Chrysler and I asked them to name the best car on the road, chances are they’d pick a Chrysler car. But if I asked the general public, I’d probably get a different response. It’s like that old joke Democrats use to tell after the 1972 election, ” I don’t know how Richard Nixon got elected, all my friends voted for George McGovern.” I’m sure many Republicans felt the same way after the 2008 election.

Turn off personal search

Fortunately, there is a way to completely turn off personal search as well a way to see universal results after getting your personal results.

To see general results on a specific search, after the search just click the globe near the upper right corner of the search results page. The will hide personal results.

Click the globe to temporarily disable personalized search for this one search. The person icon restores personalized search

Turn off  personal search for all searches

To turn off personal search for all searches:

1. Go to Google search and click on the gear icon in the upper right corner and click “Search settings.” You need to be signed-in to your Google account to make any changes.

Click on the gear in upper right corner to change search settings

2.  Scroll down to the section marked “Personal results” and click on “Do not use personal results.”

Setting lets you turn off personalization for all searches

3. Scroll to the bottom of the page and click Save.

Private browsing

Another option is to do your search using the private browsing or “incognito”option of your browser. When using that option, you are not logged into Google and none of your usual preferences are in effect. Also, there is no record of any searches or activity stored on your machine or sent to Google. Another option is to log out of your Google account.

Disclosure: Larry Magid is co-director of ConnectSafely.org, which receives financial support from Google and Facebook.

I’m old-enough to remember when Americans looked forward to new car models to marvel at the latest designs, features and oomph thatDetroit engineered into our cars. Those days ended sometime in the seventies when cars — especially American cars — became me-too commodities.

From what I’m seeing at the Consumer Electronics Show, we’re entering a new golden-age for autos. I spent some time with Ford CEO Alan Mulally and Chief Technology Officer Paul Mascarenas during CES (you can read about it as listen to the podcast over at my CNET blog) and I came away quite impressed.

One of the things that impressed me was Ford’s departure from the “not invented here” mentality that has long contributed to mediocre car entertainment and navigation systems. It’s not only an American problem — Japanese and European automaker are also saddled with in-car technology that is obsolete before the first car rolls off the assembly line, let alone after a person has owned the car for several years. Like a lot of people, I keep typically keep my cars for about ten years but I like to replace the consumer technology I use in the car far more often.

By 2022 — when today’s cars are 10 years old — their built-in nav and entertainment systems are going to look mighty old.  Ford’s strategy is allow users to leverage whatever mobile technology they have at the time by building in-dash screens that communicate with smart phones.

It’s not a perfect strategy — even screen technology will evolve and there could be new generations of smart phones that they won’t be able to interact with — but it still makes more sense than building very expensive systems, typically adding more than $2,000 to the sticker price of a new car.

The company has opened a Silicon Valley research center and is collaborating with other companies to deliver better technology. “It’s all about collaboration and partnership and open architecture,” Mulally said in my CBS News/CNET interview. “We’ve watched many people try to develop all their own capability and embed it into the vehicle What we have found is that the most import thing we can do is manage the interface so we can help people be less distracted but more connected.”

The U.S. auto-industry still has a long way to go, but from what I’m seeing at CES, it’s finally moving in the right direction.