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Buzz Out Loud 876: A year without lawsuits, how did you know?

The RIAA has given us the greatest gift of all this holiday season, a promise not to sue you. However they are enlisting the ISPs into their fight against piracy. We also talk about how Universal is making bank, Apple fans are planning protests (Shah), and wish a fond farewell to Majel Barrett. Listen now: Download today's podcast Episode 876

In these troubled times, RIAA can’t afford to sue you http://news.cnet.com/8301-1023_3-10127003-93.html http://online.wsj.com/article/SB122966038836021137.html http://www.paidcontent.org/entry/419-recording-industry-moves-away-from-lawsuits-enlists-isps-in-piracy-figh/

Universal Music seeing ‘tens of millions’ from YouTube http://news.cnet.com/8301-1023_3-10126439-93.html… Read more

Group seeks blinders on Google Street View in Japan

Citing privacy concerns, a group of Japanese lawyers and professors have asked Google to shut down its Street View feature of Google Maps in the country, according to a Reuters report.

"We strongly suspect that what Google has been doing deeply violates a basic right that humans have," said Yasuhiko Tajima, a professor of constitutional law at Sophia University in Tokyo and head of the Campaign Against Surveillance Society, in an interview with Reuters.

"It is necessary to warn society that an IT (information technology) giant is openly violating privacy rights, which are important rights that the … Read more

Google reveals upcoming Android features

Imminent enhancements to Google's Android mobile platform have been revealed this week, in the form of a development effort called "Cupcake."

Android is in the process of being turned by Google from its own development project into open source. This week, some of the changes made to the mobile operating system by a private group of developers came to light in Cupcake--the Android code the group shares with the outside world. Now, according to the Android road map, the Cupcake enhancements have started to be merged into the wider, open-source Android project.

The private development branch will … Read more

Google refines search results on iPhone

After revamping the iPhone's presentation of Google search results last month, the Internet giant has spread the change more broadly on the Apple device.

Previously, the new Google search results were available only when people typed Google.com into the phone's browser, then performed the search. Now the results also appear when using Safari's built-in search box, which, given that it's one fewer slow-loading page away from results, is how I use the service.

Google announced the change on its Google Mobile blog. The new results also appear on the T-Mobile G1, which uses Google's Android operating system. … Read more

The Digital Home Podcast 44: The Holiday Special

In Don's Holiday Special episode, he takes a look back at some of the most interesting stories of the year and walks you through his opinion of each. Check it out!

And as always, follow him on Twitter!

Listen now: Download today's podcast EPISODE 44 … Read more

Universal Music seeing 'tens of millions' from YouTube

YouTube's traffic machine may finally be turning into a cash machine.

For the first time, there are signs that YouTube is driving significant revenue for itself and some of the video site's partners. In an interview with CNET News this week, Rio Caraeff, executive vice president of Universal Music Group's eLabs, said the largest of the top recording companies is bringing in "tens of millions of dollars" from YouTube.

"(YouTube) is not like radio, where it's just promotional," said Caraeff, who heads up Universal's digital group. "It's a revenue … Read more

Google search server gets translation option

Google has begun experimenting with a new cross-language ability for its Search Appliance, a server customers can use to power their in-house search service.

"Many of our enterprise search customers have dozens of offices all over the world with tens of millions documents indexed in a host of different languages," said Cyrus Mistry, Google's enterprise product manager, in a blog post Thursday. "Cross-Language Enterprise Search instantly translates your Google Search Appliance query from one language to one or more other languages using Google's best-in-class translation engine."

Existing customers can try the feature by downloading it … Read more

OpenX's strategy to 'leapfrog' the competition

I've written before about one of my favorite open-source companies, ad-server company OpenX. However, since I first covered the company, a lot has happened, all seemingly positive.

For one thing, OpenX now tops 300 billion ad impressions per month, 150,000 publishers, and 2,500 paid customers using its hosted offering. This impressive growth, however, belies a big challenge for OpenX:

Next comes the more difficult process of converting the free products and services into revenue-generating operations. The vast majority of the ads served by the installed software were from freely downloaded versions, and few of those using the … Read more

Daily Tidbits: TomTom takes aim at Google Maps

GPS vendor TomTom announced Thursday that it has launched an online mapping solution to compete with MapQuest and Google Maps. Dubbed TomTom Route Planner, the free service provides door-to-door route planning options to any address in the U.S. or Canada.

Using TomTom's MapShare technology, the service provides users with continued map improvements made by TomTom users that see flaws and correct them. According to the company, improvements are uploaded regularly to provide up-to-date driving conditions. TomTom's IQ Routes feature will offer more accurate arrival estimates by accessing average speeds for each road instead of employing posted speed … Read more