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Sony caves to angry Quebeckers

We reported on this in today's Globe and Mail (Toronto). Sony deletes terrorist attack. From the story: Electronics giant Sony Corp. yesterday bowed to intense pressure from Quebec politicians and decided to delete video-game scenes featuring separatist terrorists engaging in bloody gunfights in a Toronto shopping mall and subway.
Syphon Filter 4: The Omega Strain included terrorists from the fictitious Quebec Liberation Front attacking Toronto with biological weapons, machine guns and grenades. The video-game player is told to “mow down” the terrorists.”
Here's the paragraphs I wrote for that story that didn't make it into the paper or online version. Please note, that the following really should be viewed in context with the story at the link above:

Almost all ex-FLQ members now live away from the spotlight, working in trades such as librarian, university professor or union executive.
The FLQ began in 1963 with a series of bombings against symbols of the Anglophone establishment in Quebec — army depots, factories, mailboxes — and culminated in the October, 1970, kidnapping of British diplomat James Cross and the murder of provincial labour minister Pierre Laporte.
The real FLQ of the 1960s and 1970s never attacked any targets in Toronto or outside of Quebec.
Reached by telephone afetr Sony made its decision to change the contents of his game, Mr. Garvin seemed to be in ill humour and quickly hung up the phone.
Mr. Garvin heads up one of Sony’s in-house software studios in Bend, a medium-sized city of about 60,000 people in the central part of that state.
As with previous Syphon Filter games, the player works through various levels or missions.
The meta-mission for the series to stop a global terrorist consortium from unleashing the fictional Syphon Filter virus, a biological weapon that could kill millions.
Syphon Filter 4 started in a Toronto shopping mall. The player comes across dozens of dead people, victims of the Syphon Filter virus. The player must then avoid some gun-toting scientists while trying to perform an autopsy on one of the bodies. Subsequent missions put the player in Toronto’s subway system where the player must jump up on the roof of a moving subway and defuse a bomb while fighting bad guys.
The central character is named Gabe Logan, who works for a group known only as The Agency. The Agency’s mission is to rid the world of the Syphon Filter virus.
Logan’s goal and, by extension, the goal of the game’s players, is to destroy the terrorist organizations who are planning to use the virus, and prevent an attack on Moscow by Chechen rebels.

Can phones keep track of kids?

A story moved on the Reuters wire last week describing how some new services are about to debut in Finland that will let parents keep track of their kids using a GPS-enabled cell phone. My producers thought it was a neat idea and wondered if anything like that was going to happen in Canada. I said I'd look into it. Then, this week in Toronto, <a href="http://www.ctv.ca/servlet/ArticleNews/story/CTVNews/20031021/missing_girl031020/?s_name=a 9-year-old girl was abducted from her home, apparently while sleeping. The idea of some technology gadget that would lead parents and law enforcement types right to the missing child became especially appealing. It quickly made it to the top of my to-do list.
So I asked around about a technology, be it cellphones or anything else, to keep track of kids using Global Positioning System (GPS) technology.
The short answer is: There is no, nor is there likely to be, a GPS-enabled solution that could keep track of our kids. If you think, otherwise, of course, let me know.
Some stuff I learned tracking down this non-story:

  • No service provider in Canada has a service like the ones to debut in Finland although “Telus last week announced the first GPS-enabled cell phone handsets in Canada. )
  • A company in the U.S. called Wherify offers a 'Child Locator' service using GPS systems and digital PCS phones. The service is available only in the U.S.
  • In all cases, be it Finland, Telus, or Wherify, a consumer GPS deviced can be easily defeated by someone who wants to remain hidden. That is most easily done by simply moving indoors. Consumer GPS systems do not work unless there is a line-of-sight connection to a satellite. Providers are working to get around this limitation mostly by using digital PCS phone transmitters to act as locators. Even still, digital PCS coverage is spotty in many areas and can also be defeated in, say, a parking garage or a subway. And, of course, relying on a cell phone network to transmit data means the cell phone network has to work. And not just any cell phone network but a digital PCS network. Travelling to a remote area or an area where the only cellphone coverage is old-fashioned analog cellular will defeat the GPS system. In all cases, the devices will be defeated as soon as the battery wears out. We're all familiar with how long batteries last in cellphones. They are most quickly drained by making calls. Using them for GPS would drain them even faster. The makers of the Wherify device (it's a thick wrist-watch device that gets locked to a kids' wrist) lasts for about 60 hours before it needs recharging.

Software piracy in Canada

Prince Edward Islanders are notorious software thieves, an industry group said today while one in three copies of business software in use in Canada's most populous province, Ontario, is a counterfeit. These findings are from the Canadian Alliance Against Software Theft, the Canadian chapter of the Business Software Alliance. Some excerpts from the provincial software piracy study press release are below:

ONTARIO'S SOFTWARE PIRACY RATE REACHES ALL-TIME LOW
But Problem Still Costs Ontarians Over $1 Billion Annually In Lost Wages
TORONTO, ON – The Canadian Alliance Against Software Theft (CAAST), an industry alliance of software publishers, today released a study that places Ontario's software piracy rate at 35.5 per cent, the lowest rate the province has had in four straight years. The province's piracy rate is almost four points below the national average of 39.4 per cent, ranking it as the second lowest in the country after Alberta.
The independent study, conducted for CAAST and the Business Software Alliance (BSA) by International Planning and Research Corporation (IPR), indicates that in 2002, Ontario lost $210 million in retail sales of business software applications due to software piracy as well as $1 billion in wage and salary losses and 13,000 jobs.
“While Ontario is showing excellent progress in its fight against software piracy, the impact that software piracy continues to have on the local economy cannot be ignored,” said Jacquie Famulak, president CAAST. “Despite having one of the lowest piracy rates in Canada, Ontario accounts for 51 per cent of the impact of dollar losses due to piracy. As a province with a significant software industry, Ontario must continue to be diligent in preventing software piracy from becoming an even greater economic burden.”
The ranking of provincial piracy rates, starting with the highest, is: Prince Edward Island (65.3%), Newfoundland (61.5%), Nova Scotia (53.3%), Saskatchewan and Yukon (53.1% each), British Columbia (47.4%), New Brunswick (40.5%), Manitoba (39.6%), Quebec (38.6%), Northwest Territories and Nunavut (36.6%), Ontario (35.5%) and Alberta (33.6%).

Internet Population hits 150 million

I realize a lot of folks will poke holes in the methodologies used by Comscore and its competitors. Still, a couple of interesting points from the company's latest release.

First — The Internet population in the U.S. hit 150 million in September. You are a member of this population, Comscore, says, if you used the Internet from any location at least once during the month.

Second — Check out Verisign's SiteFinder-assisted numbers . . .

From the Comscore press release (which has tables):

comScore Media Metrix


COMSCORE MEDIA METRIX ANNOUNCES TOP 50 U.S. INTERNET PROPERTY RANKINGS FOR SEPTEMBER 2003

U.S. Internet Population Breaks the 150 Million Mark

RESTON, Va. October 21, 2003 – comScore Media Metrix today announced the top 50 U.S. Internet properties for the month of September 2003. comScore Media Metrix also reported that in September, the total number of U.S. Internet users passed the 150 million mark for the first time ever. Further, the total amount of time spent by Americans on the Internet grew by 3 percent in September, although the month of September is one day, or 3 percent, shorter than August. This increase in time spent online was driven almost entirely by the university population returning to campus and their computers ….

In September, there were three new entrants to the Top 50 Properties ranking. Verisign's launch of SiteFinder, which redirects mistyped URLs to its site, drove a sharp spike of 540 percent in unique visitors. This increase – the largest of any major property in September – pushed Verisign Sites from a rank of 135 in August to the number 11 position in September…

Cowpland admits to insider trading

Michael Cowpland, the founder and former CEO of software maker Corel Corp., was in front of the Ontario's stock market regulator yesterday. He is accused of and admitted yesterday to insider trading for a trade in 1997 in which he sold $20-million worth of stock a few weeks before Corel surprised the market with disastrous financial results.
This is an important case for Canadian stock market regulators. Unlike the U.S.Securities and Exchange Commission, Canadian stock market regulators — there is no national regulator but one for each province — have relatively weak enforcement powers. None can, like the SEC, send anyone to jail and they have little power to actually levy fines. Any fines paid by those who break securities laws are 'voluntary' fines.
Cowpland and regulatory investigators are proposing total fines of about $1.6-million for the $20-million trade. Cowpland and investigators say the loss he avoided by the early sale is anywhere between zero and $1.3-million, so total fines of $1.6-million means he will be worse off after the fines. But critics of Canada's regulatory system say you could calculate the loss he avoided differently and that when you do that, he actually avoided losing $5-million. By that yardstick, he has still benefited from breaking the law.
You can watch the report I did on this story for last night's CTV National News here. The original statement of allegations by the Ontario Securities Commission is here.

The best Windows app ever written

As a cub tech reporter many moons ago for the The Hamilton Spectator, I convinced my bosses to pay for the airfare from Toronto to San Francisco to report on a Macworld Expo. This was either the first or second Macworld for the reign of Jobs II — his return to the company he co-founded after his ouster.
As he does at most Macworlds, Jobs gave the keynote and the atmosphere was electric. I've yet to meet a business leader who can exude the excitement and charisma he can. The only think I can remember about his talk is that this was before the iMac showed up and someone got up to talk about an early version of DreamWeaver.
But I digress . . .
Earlier this week, Jobs was back on the same stage I saw him on at the Moscone Convention Center in downtown San Francisco to announce that Apple's top-notch music software iTunes was now available (along with Apple's Music Store on Windows.) You can watch some video excerpts of his presentation at C|Net and Apple fans will get a kick out of Jobs' claim, delivered with a straight face to rousing applause that iTunes on Windows is “the best Windows app ever written.”
Sad thing is, he could be right.

Big holes in Microsoft's core products

There are some big holes in Microsoft Exchange that could let an attacker seize control of a machine and run arbitrary code. The holes could let in someone who wants to unleash a worm or a virus. Systems affected include those running Windows NT, XP, 2000.
Microsoft has some patches posted.

  • <a href="http://www.kb.cert.org/vuls/byid?searchview&query=VU%23467036,VU%23575892,VU%23422156,VU%23435444"A description of the problems.
  • Microsoft calls these security updates “Critical” — it's highest rating.
  • Not surprisingly, the geeks at Slashdot have a few opinions.

Blogs and Journalism — will this discussion never end?

There's already all sorts of comments and Trackbacks for a post Jay Rosen made to his blog, PressThink. I've never met him but he sounds like a smart guy and he knows a lot about my job. That's because he runs New York University's journalism school.
Now, I've read his post but I've not read the Trackbacks or the comments yet. I'd thought I'd shoot first and read questions later, so to speak.
The post in question is titled “What's Radical About the Weblog Form in Journalism?” and it's a top 10 list that presents some of his observations about the relationship between blogs and journalism. This is a hot topic these days. Actually, it seems to be one of those topics that arrived with the popularity of blogs and now, like Sheridan Whiteside, won't ever leave and is taking over the joint.
I wish this debate would end becuase it obscures a more important issue: What is journalism and how does it serve its audience?
But first let's dispense with the idea of framing a discussion that compares, as Rosen's list does, blogs to journalism. Recognizing that definitions for both the term blog and the term journalism are still under debate, it seems to me that the term blog describes a form; the term journalism describes a process or a system. Of course, blogs can be part of a system we call journalism and, just as obviously, not all blogs are part of that system. (Nor do all bloggers want to be journalists.)
Yet people want to argue that blogs will upend or revolutionize journalism and mainstream journalists argue that blogging isn't Real Journalism. They do this, I think, because the output of the blog form and the journalism process are similar — that is: A reader or viewer learns something new about the world as a result of exposure to both. And so bloggers and journalists believe they are all working on the same thing. They are not. Or not always.
Now, I'm not an academic — I'm a working journalist who returns to work Monday after a month off — and I'm still trying to solidify these thoughts but the system or process of journalism includes several things that are independent of the form of output (the form of output could be newspaper articles printed on newsprint, broadcast journalism distributed on the Internet or, yes, blogs): Here are just three characteristics of the system that is journalism:

  • A contract or an understanding between reader and journalist about how the bills are paid. I think most consumers of journalism have a good idea how the bills are paid at The Globe and Mail — through the sale of ads. My salary is paid by my paper and does not normally rise or fall depending on what we say about a particular advertiser. (I can't stress the importance of this enough. A reader needs to know who's paying the bills. It's a key factor in a reader's ability to determine the validity of the news that is presented to hime or her. )
  • A reader has some sense of the instititional existence of the process. In other words, the reader need not be worried that if I, the journalist, disappear tomorrow, that the contract we have will end. You can argue with me on this one but I believe it becomes journalism when you have a system in place to ensure that whatever information you're in the business of providing keeps on being provided in my absence. You may accuse of me saying that journalism must exist within an institution and I would say, yes, that's what I'm saying I'm guess. Now the tricky part: What do we mean when we say institution? What are an institution's defining characteristics in this context?
  • With journalism, a reader can count on some regularity. This, too, is a key point and key part of the contract between journalist and consumer. While journalists may write sporadically, the system works to a deadline — be it once a year or once an hour. We promise to say something at a certain time on a certain date and our readers start to look for and count on that that regularity. Journalists do this becuase it enhances our validity and says to our readers that journalism is what we have committed ourselves to doing.

There are more characteristics of this system called journalism. You may know of some and I'd encourage you to post some comments. I can feel them and intuit them, but it's tough to precisely codify them (particularly between changing the diapers of a very active two-year-old and the feedings of the newborn that is the reason I'm on holiday in the middle of October.)
Perhaps most importantly, the whole “are blogs journalism” debate is about the control of journalism and I don't see enough journalists facing up to this question honestly. Many journalists and many critics of journalists want to control who is allowed to call themselves a journalists. On some journalism listservs I belong to, a perennial topic revolves around whether Canadian journalists ought to form a professional organization like doctors or lawyers and set standards for admittance and all that. I'm dead set against such an idea or any other idea the prevents anyone from doing whatever it is he or she thinks is journalism. I say, if you think what you're doing is journalism, go ahead and call yourself a journalist. Mind you, I don't have to agree that you're a journalist and you don't have to agree that I'm one. But, if you want to be a journalist, knock yourself out and be one.
Journalism is to important to the functioning of a democratic society to seal it off, license it, and prevent anyone from becoming a practitioner.
So let's stop asking if blogs are journalism. Instead, let's start blogging and talking about real important things. Like, when are the Toronto Maple Leafs actually going to win a game?

Online Journalism's Best Friend

John Warnock, the co-creator of the Postscript language that lets us print beautiful documents and the co-founder of Adobe Systems, is surely the best friend online journalism ever had. He is single-handedely keeping Salon afloat.
Back in February I and lots of other journalists wrote that it seemed Salon was about to be shuttered. It was unable to pay the rent on its pricey San Francisco office space and it seemed to have no prospects for some long-term stable financing.
But, as some Salon execs crowed shortly after we wrote those words, word of its demise seem greatly exaggerated.
That's because Warnock, who is now retired from Adobe but sits on its board, has written one cheque after another to keep Salon afloat. The latest cheque, according to an SEC filing this week, was for another $100,000 (U.S.) of his own money. He gets — as he has several times already — warrants to buy up to 300,000 common shares of Salon Media Group Inc. for .0805 cents a share. The stock (SALN.OB), which trades in the Nasdaq over-the-counter market, is trading at about 6 cents a share right now.
(The Hambrecht family, tool, has been a big supporter of Salon. Bill Hambrecht is the venture capitalist behind Hambrecht and Quist and his daughter, Elizabeth, is Salon's president. Hambrecht was also an early investor in Adobe and Warnock.)
But Warnock isn't doing it for the money. He thinks Salon is a good idea and he wants to it succeed.
I've met and inteviewed Warnock twice. He's a charming patient man. And a good friend to journalism.
As for Salon, well . . .
“The Company will use the capital raised for working capital and other general corporate purposes,” it says in the SEC filing, which means, as it has every time Warnock has written a cheque, that this money is urgently needed to pay the writers, pay the rent, and pay for the Internet services it needs to keep publishing. Despite Warnock's largesse, this is not yet close to being a sustainable business.
According to its most recent financial statements, Salon Media Group had just $83,000 on hand at the end of June, down from $162,000 at the end of March. It ran an operating loss for the quarter of $1.32-million on a revenue of $1.045-million. That, though, was an improvement, believe it or not, over the same quarter in 2002, when it had an operating loss of $1.66-million on revenue of less than a $1-million ($972,000).
It was able to sign up about 18,000 paying subscribers in the quarter, bringing the total number of netizens paying for what may be the Web's premier online-only journal to about 66,000. There are, by the way, about 600 million people on the Internet.
As the company itself says in that financial statement:
“Salon has incurred losses and negative cash flows from operations since inception and has an accumulated deficit at June 30, 2003 of $83.6-million. These factors raise substantial doubt about Salon's ability to continue as a going concern.”
Let that sink in for a moment: This is a company with revenues of barely $4-million a year and it's more than $80-million in the hole!