TorrentFreak reports that Nine Inch Nails has launched their own BitTorrent tracker to handle the bandwidth of their official lossless tracks.

[W]hen they released the album ‘Ghosts‘ for free last year their server couldn’t handle the high traffic numbers and downloads, so the linked to the torrents they had uploaded to The Pirate Bay instead. Thanks to The Pirate Bay, many fans didn’t have to wait till the server recovered, and the torrent quickly became one of the most downloaded files on the tracker.

With the release of their tour promo NIN/JA today, NIN decided to prevent similar server troubles, and the band now offers .torrent downloads for the higher quality (and size) downloads. The tracker used for the torrents is hosted by the band itself on the tracker.nin.com subdomain. The tracker is already being used by thousands of fans just hours after it went up.

I wonder what license the promos are under.

• TorrentFreak
• Digg

Star-Telegram.com reports that Texas representative Marc Veasey is pushing for the state to mandate all all its documents be produced in a freely-accessible format such as OpenDocument.

Veasey, a local Democrat, says the move could save the state millions of dollars by stopping payments of hefty software licensing fees to such companies as Microsoft and ensure that Texas doesn’t lose any of its digital history. “My bill ensures these documents are always accessible to the public,” Veasey said.

It could also mean that many state workers may see familiar Microsoft products such as Word and Excel replaced with lesser-known competitors on their work computers.

Detractors counter that the bill is anti-competitive.

I doubt it will pass, but it’s good to see another government body trying to adopt standardized formats.

• Star-Telegram.com (Turn off JavaScript)
• ZDNet.com
• Slashdot

Computerworld reports that TomTom has countersued Microsoft for patent infringement. The patents in question are implemented in Microsoft Streets and Trips.

In a suit filed earlier this week, TomTom alleges that Microsoft infringes on four patents in Microsoft Streets and Trips. The product is mapping software that runs on computers and can be used with a small GPS receiver that connects to a laptop. TomTom is asking for triple damages for willful infringement, since it says it had notified Microsoft about its alleged infringement.

Microsoft said it was reviewing TomTom’s filing and that it remains committed to a licensing solution and has been for more than a year.

This could very well be why it took Microsoft so long to sue someone for the patents infringed by the kernel Linux: fear of a countersuit.

• Computerworld [Print Version]
• Slashdot

iPod Shuffle 3G. Source: bfishadow on Flickr. License: CC-BY 2.0

Boing Boing’s article on the supposed DRM in Apple’s new iPod Shuffle has been updated, reporting that Apple has stated that the chip does not use encryption or authentication, and is thus not subject to the DMCA’s prohibitions on circumvention.

Update 2: Just spoke with Apple. There is no encryption or authentication on the chip, so clones could conceivably be made, just not with “Made for iPod” official certification. And now we know!

While the move to remove controls from the unit itself still makes the new Shuffle incompatible with just about every set of headphones and anything with a TRS audio cable, at least we can expect a workaround in due time, since third parties do not have to go through Apple first unless they want to bear the “Made for iPod” mark. Hopefully an adapter will be made by someone that contains the controls and allows the customer to use his or her existing headphones or audio cables.

• Boing Boing Gadgets
• Slashdot

Jaiku Logo. Source: http://jaiku.com/

The Jaikido Blog reports that the JaikuEngine, which was abandoned two months ago, has been released as free software.

Yesterday, we flipped the switch and moved Jaiku to App Engine. Today, we are open sourcing the Jaiku code base under the Apache License 2.0. The code is available as JaikuEngine on Google Code Project Hosting as of now. Anyone can set up and run their own JaikuEngine instance on Google App Engine.

I have to wonder why it took them so long. Were there licensing issues with the code?

• Jaikido Blog
• jaikuengine – Google Code
• Slashdot

Fred Trotter reports that he has been able to set up a meeting with the Certification Commission for Healthcare Information Technology presumably to discuss the use of free software in healthcare.

The best established certification body is CCHIT. They have not been named as the certification body, but they are likely lobbying for that role. However, CCHIT has had an anti-open source stance for years. For years, I and other activists in the community have chosen
to largely ignore this bias. Simply because CCHIT was an optional certification. Now, things have changed. It is possible that the government will mandate a certification program that is either CCHIT or similarly unfriendly to FOSS.

Recently I submitted my complaints to Dennis Wilson (associated with both FOSS Laika and employed by CCHIT) who put me in touch with Mark Leavitt. As a main result of that discussion, Mark has agreed to have a meeting with the community-at-large about this issue at HIMSS (please see the forwarded message from the CCHIT e-newsletter below).

Granted, this is like offering to meet with the Rebel Alliance at the annual Death Star conference. HIMSS is decidedly anti-open source. HIMSS EHR Vendor association continues to limit membership to vendors who “design, develop and market its own proprietary Electronic Health Record (EHR) software application.” Further HIMSS has specially advocated against the US governmenfunding FOSS EHR solutions, which implicitly includes VA development of VistA. There is also great concern about the ties between CCHIT and HIMSS/EHRVA. Leavitt himself was employed by HIMSS immediately before his current position and is currently a fellow of HIMSS. CCHIT maintains that the two organizations are independant, everyone else seems to understand the dangerous familiarity between the two organizations.

I’m hoping that this will lead to a change of heart in the organization. Governments are willing to trust free software. Why not healthcare?

• Fred Trotter
• Slashdot

The MobileRead forums have been sent a DMCA takedown notice for linking to a Python script that allows Kindle owners to purchase e-books on their Kindles from stores other than Amazon’s own store.

As some of you may already know, this week we received a DMCA take-down notice from Amazon requesting the removal of the tool kindlepid.py and instructions associated with it. Although we never hosted this tool (contrary to their claim), nor believe that this tool is used to remove technological measures (contrary to their claim), we decided, due to the vagueness of the DMCA law and our intention to remain in good relation with Amazon, to voluntarily follow their request and remove links and detailed instructions related to it.

A quick backgrounder: kindlepid.py is a small Python script allowing you to derive a Mobipocket-compatible personal identifier (PID) for your Kindle reader. This PID in itself has nothing at all to do with reading any copyrighted content. It is only used to make legitimate e-book purchases at stores other than Amazon’s.

We believe in the freedom of speech and we encourage you to continue expressing your views and thoughts on tools like kindlepid.py. We only ask you not to provide any how-to instructions, source codes and/or links for obtaining kindlepid.py.

I have to wonder if Amazon suffers from being so big that its departments don’t talk with each other. How can their music division get the concept correctly while the e-book division can mess it up so badly? Make no mistake, Amazon’s Kindle Store is the iTunes Store of e-books, and Amazon is just as overzealous and controlling as Apple when it comes to their products, even after the point of purchase. Indeed, Amazon is worse: at least you can play MP3s on an iPod. Try reading a PDF on your Kindle without paying your “reading right” to Amazon first.

• MobileRead forums
• Slashdot

iPhone ebook - Credit: tsmall on Flickr (CC BY-SA)

MONEC Holding Ltd, a Swiss firm, filed a lawsuit against Apple for promoting the iPhone as a touchscreen ebook reader.

A Switzerland-based communication firm on Monday filed a lawsuit against Apple, alleging that the corporation is committing patent infringement, unfair trade practices, monopolization and tortious interference by promoting the iPhone as a touchscreen book reader.

In its 7-page complaint [pdf], Monec Holding Ltd, a business that develops and markets data transmission tools for mobile electronics, cites a patent it filed seven years ago titled “Electronic device, preferably an electronic book.” The patent describes a lightweight electronic device with a touchscreen LCD display for reading e-books. The firm claims Apple is violating the patent by distributing reader applications through the App Store — thereby endorsing the iPhone as an eBook reader.

How dare people be able to read things on the iPhone!  There should only be shapes and colors!

• Wired
• Apple Insider

Rip: Credit opensourcecinema

opensourcecinema.org, with the help of Kaltura, has released RiP: A Remix Manifesto under CC BY-NC-SA.

In RiP: A remix manifesto, Web activist and filmmaker Brett Gaylor explores issues of copyright in the information age, mashing up the media landscape of the 20th century and shattering the wall between users and producers.

The film’s central protagonist is Girl Talk, a mash-up musician topping the charts with his sample-based songs. But is Girl Talk a paragon of people power or the Pied Piper of piracy? Creative Commons founder, Lawrence Lessig, Brazil’s Minister of Culture Gilberto Gil and pop culture critic Cory Doctorow are also along for the ride.

A participatory media experiment, from day one, Brett shares his raw footage at opensourcecinema.org, for anyone to remix. This movie-as-mash-up method allows these remixes to become an integral part of the film. With RiP: A remix manifesto, Gaylor and Girl Talk sound an urgent alarm and draw the lines of battle.

Which side of the ideas war are you on?

Why can’t I figure out how to download this?  Is it seriously not downloadable?  How are people remixing it?  Does someone who wants to create an account want to tell me how?  Thanks, Kaltura people for emailing me about this, I didn’t post for a while because there was no downloadable version, and I wasn’t completely sure it really was released.  I’ve watched 2 chapters so far.  It’s pretty well done, but because the sides are called the copyRIGHT and the copyLEFT, I feel like we are saying that free licensing is a liberal standpoint and otherwise is conservative.  I really don’t think that’s the case, but maybe that’s just me.  I think it’s better that we don’t scare away conservatives by acting like this movement is some sort of hippy thing, when it’s really something that both sides can embrace (in my opinion, conservatives even more so, but that’s another rant).

Good Gear Guide reports that One Laptop per Child, due to power concerns over the current Geode chip, will be using ARM processors in the XO-2. Unfortunately, they are trying to get Windows ported to the ARM so that it can be offered as an option.

OLPC’s goal is to extend the battery life of the XO-2 laptop while building in more functionality than is in the XO-1, said Ed McNierney, chief technology officer at OLPC. OLPC officials said Arm-based integrated chips will draw less power than x86 integrated chips while building in functionality such as graphics and wireless networking.

However, the Arm chip could lead to problems for XO-2 in trying to load a full version of Windows, Negroponte said. As with the XO-1, OLPC wants to offer a dual-boot option on XO-2 where users can choose to load either Linux or a full Windows OS. While Arm processors can run Windows Mobile operating systems, they can’t run a full Windows OS.

“Like many, we are urging Microsoft to make Windows — not Windows Mobile — available on the Arm. This is a complex question for them,” Negroponte said.

OLPC is in talks with Microsoft to develop a version of a full Windows OS for XO-2, Negroponte said. The XO-2 is still 18 months away from release, so “a lot can change with regard to Microsoft and Arm,” Negroponte said.

I doubt Windows is likely to be ported to ARM anytime soon, seeing as previous ports of Windows NT to other architectures failed to gather support due to developers not porting their software to the other architectures.

• Good Gear Guide
• Slashdot