national

Sen. Leahy bows to pressure, pledges to amend Protect IP bill

Sen. Patrick Leahy, the sponsor of a controversial Hollywood-backed copyright bill, has bowed to public pressure and will yank the most controversial sections from the legislation.

The Vermont Democrat, a longtime ally of large copyright holders, said today he would delete portions of his Protect IP Act that mandate Domain Name System (DNS) blocking and redirecting.

"I'm going to set aside these domain name provisions," Leahy told Vermont Public Radio. "That we'll hold back on, because I've listened to some of the concerns on those. I think there [are] easy answers to it, but … Read more

Newsflash: AP needs a better app

AP News is a free, mediocre news-reading app for the iPad with a scrapbook-style interface and a surprisingly inefficient use of the iPad's screen space.

Articles appear as headlines with small photo thumbnails on scraps of paper, scattered spaciously across a linen background. You swipe to flip through stories in a given category (such as politics, sports, or health), or you can swipe across a column in the middle of the screen to switch between categories.

The screen is topped by local weather (in oversize Comic Sans, inexplicably), a large AP logo, and two large panels for viewing photos … Read more

Music retailers cheer first sales increase in 7 years

Music retailers sound ready to uncork the champagne on the news that overall sales for the music industry rose for the first time in seven years.

Overall sales were up just a modest 3 percent in 2011, Nielsen Soundscan reported yesterday, but from the music industry's point of view, any increase is manna from heaven. It was common during the 7-year slump to see double-digit declines.

Jim Donio, president of the National Association of Recording Merchandisers, the trade group representing music retailers, called the yearly sales figures "significantly positive."

According to Nielsen, digital album sales came in … Read more

Fisker Karma recalled over battery fire risk

Although there have been no reports of problems so far, Fisker is recalling 239 Karma plug-in hybrid sports cars due to a high-voltage battery problem that could result in a fire.

The problem with the luxury plug-in hybrid is that certain hose clamps may have been positioned incorrectly during assembly, which could cause a coolant leak near the battery compartment.

According to the the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration: "If coolant enters the battery compartment, an electrical short could occur possible resulting in a fire."

Fisker plans to notify customers, and dealerships will replace the high-voltage battery with … Read more

Display of James Bond cars opens in the U.K. next month

In celebration of the 50th year of James Bond films, a new exhibit of James Bond vehicles is opening Jan. 17, 2012 at the National Motor Museum at Beaulieu, Brockenhurst, Hampshire, U.K.

The exhibit include 50 vehicles--both Bond- and villain-driven. Several of the vehicles, such as the Ford Mustang Mach 1 from "Diamonds Are Forever," villain Zukovsky's Rolls Royce Silver Shadow II from "The World Is Not Enough," and the vintage 1962 Rolls Royce, pushed into a lake by May Day and Zorin with Bond still inside, in "A View to a Kill,&… Read more

Get the news from a respectable source

BBC News is a well-designed app for browsing through stories and video from one of the world's most respected news sources. The app also prominently showcases BBC Radio, with a button for listening to live radio while you're browsing.

BBC News is one of the better news apps available, with an attractive and efficiently organized interface that's easy to navigate--and that reacts intelligently when changing between vertical and horizontal layouts. You can browse through headlines and thumbnail pictures around categories such as Top Stories, Technology, and Features & Analysis (you can easily scroll between and within categories … Read more

Facebook throws potentially suicidal users a Lifeline

Facebook announced today that it's working with the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline on a program designed to help save lives.

The new service will enable Facebook users to click on a link and be taken to a page where they can enter into a live chat with a suicide prevention specialist. There is also a reporting link where users can alert Facebook, if they see something on a person's profile that causes them to think that the person is in severe distress. Facebook will send a message to that person to encourage them to contact the Lifeline.

The … Read more

Inside the launch of a Robot Nation

SAN RAFAEL, Calif.--It's launch day for Sarah Stocker's new company, and though there's still a lot of work to take care of before going live, her iPhone is doing its best to challenge her. "Launch! In 9m," it taunts.

Stocker is co-founder of My Robot Nation, a startup that gives buyers a set of simple Web-based tools for designing their own small, collectible 3D-printed droid figures.

It's a recent Tuesday, and as part of my Day on the Job series, I've arrived at Stocker's hillside home about 30 minutes north of … Read more

Facebook, Nielsen to devs: Smartphones are your future

SAN FRANCISCO--The U.S. is becoming a smartphone nation.

Today at the AppNation conference here, Doug Purdy, Facebook's director of developer relations, reminded the developers in the audience of the existence of the recently updated Facebook Platform for Mobile. Then, to emphasize the imperative for developers to focus on the mobile platform, he was followed by Jonathan Carson of Nielsen, who rolled out adoption figures that made it clear that the action in development has definitively moved to the mobile space.

Facebook: We're serious about mobile While Facebook announced a platform for mobile in 2007 (see this blog post … Read more