victoria

Leaked from today's 404 episode:

- Australian police discourage use of Apple Maps app after rescues.

- "50 Shades" success yields $5,000 bonuses at Random House.

- Best Buy sends five iPads in error, says "keep them."… Read more

Yahoo, Google, AOL, and Microsoft try not to let copyright-infringing Web sites sign up. Their advertising network contracts currently prohibit it.

But that isn't stopping the White House from pressuring those four companies to do more to satisfy Hollywood and other copyright holders who are peeved about online piracy -- in this case, that presumably means addressing piratical Web sites that cover their bandwidth costs through ad revenue.

A White House report (PDF) released today singles out those four companies by name, arguing that they and others should "act as checkpoints for infringing activity and reduce the distribution … Read more

Only weeks after protests over two digital copyright bills demonstrated the political muscle of Internet users, the White House is publicly endorsing new copyright legislation that also would target suspected pirate Web sites.

After the unprecedented outcry against the Stop Online Piracy Act and the Protect IP Act -- designed to target offshore copyright-infringing Web sites -- supporters of the bills on Capitol Hill backed down and moved on to other topics.

But the White House today reignited the congressional debate by throwing its weight behind legislation targeting offshore Web sites. "We believe that new legislative and non-legislative tools … Read more

The White House today proposed sweeping revisions to U.S. copyright law, including making "illegal streaming" of audio or video a federal felony and allowing FBI agents to wiretap suspected infringers.

In a 20-page white paper (PDF), the Obama administration called on the U.S. Congress to fix "deficiencies that could hinder enforcement" of intellectual property laws.

The report was prepared by Victoria Espinel, the first Intellectual Property Enforcement Coordinator who received Senate confirmation in December 2009, and represents a broad tightening of many forms of intellectual property law including ones that deal with counterfeit pharmaceuticals … Read more

The Obama administration has drafted new proposals to curb Internet piracy and other forms of intellectual property infringement that it says it will send to the U.S. Congress "in the very near future."

It's also applauding a controversial copyright treaty known as the Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement, or ACTA, saying it will "aid right-holders and the U.S. government to combat infringement" once it enters into effect.

Those disclosures came from a report released today by Victoria Espinel, whom President Obama selected as the first intellectual property enforcement coordinator and was confirmed by the Senate … Read more

Ecotality announced today that it's been chosen to partner with the government of the Australian province Victoria to install and monitor Blink electric vehicle charging stations in a test project.

As part of the Victorian Electric Vehicle Trial, the Victorian Department of Transport is asking 180 households to volunteer to have Ecotality's Blink Level 2 fasting-charging stations installed in their homes and drive an electric vehicle (EV) for at least three months.

As with the U.S. EV test project, those who join the Victorian test project will be agreeing to have their chargers monitored so the government … Read more

If you're an Hitachi Data Systems storage customer, you by now know that HDS announced its latest virtualized storage platform codemnamed Victoria, also known as the Virtualized Storage Platform or VSP. And if you were an HDS customer at the announcement event held Monday at the Santa Clara, Calif., Hyatt, then you would also have seen Hitachi's VP and CTO Hu Yoshida bring closure to a debate that once raged over where a storage virtualization engine should live.

As storage-networking technology was maturing in the early 2000s, storage and networking vendors started testing the market for customer receptiveness … Read more

U.S. President Barack Obama isn't the only government official who wants to smack down copyright infringement and counterfeiting.

During a hearing before the House of Representatives' Committee on Foreign Affairs, some congressional lawmakers on Wednesday said they want the U.S. government to retaliate against countries that turn a blind eye to online piracy, as well as people who peddle knockoffs of American products here and abroad.

The Obama administration has made copyright enforcement a priority, but Wednesday's hearing made it clear that thwarting piracy and counterfeiting has bipartisan support. The film and music industries have claimed … Read more

Do people commit theft when they share unauthorized copies of film and music over the Internet? U.S. Vice President Joe Biden thinks so.

"We used to have a problem in this town saying this," Biden told reporters Thursday at a press conference in Washington, D.C. "But piracy is theft. Clean and simple. It's smash and grab. It ain't no different than smashing a window at Tiffany's and grabbing [merchandise]."

Biden spoke to the media alongside Victoria Espinel, the U.S. intellectual property enforcement coordinator, to introduce the government's strategy on protecting … Read more