This is the third in a series of posts about the proposed Google Book Search settlement.

Now that we've described the proposed settlement agreement's biggest potential upside for the public—expanded online access to books, particularly out-of-print books—that benefit must be weighed against the potential down-sides. On that score, the settlement's potential impact on competition in the online book market has loomed large. Critics of the settlement have emphasized two principal dangers:

1. The potential for a Google monopoly over orphan and unclaimed books.
2. The potential for monopolistic pricing of the Institutional Subscription Database, particularly for higher education.

The revised Settlement 2.0 made little or no effort to address these concerns, leaving it to Congress or antitrust authorities to fix later.

A Google Monopoly on Orphan & Unclaimed Books?

At the heart of the proposed settlement is a bargain that lets Google (and only Google) leapfrog the problem of "unclaimed works"—books whose copyright owners cannot be found or whose owners can't be bothered to fill out paperwork for a small payment disbursed by the Registry (consider how many "class action" notices you've tossed in the trash unread). Thanks to the magic of the class action process, the settlement solves this problem by resolving the copyright claims of these otherwise unreachable copyright owners and designating all of their works by default as available for "Display Uses" by Google. In other words, so long as no one steps forward to claim these books, Google (and only Google) has a license to make them available in all the ways the settlement allows.

Many who filed objections to the proposed settlement, including the Department of Justice, Microsoft, Amazon.com, the Internet Archive, and Public Knowledge, among others, argued that this could create a de facto Google monopoly over online use of these unclaimed works. And while the revised Settlement 2.0 creates an "Unclaimed Works Fiduciary" (UWF) to act as a guardian on behalf of owners of unclaimed works, neither the UWF nor the Registry has the power to grant a similar license to any other entity that might want to make the same kinds of uses that Google will be entitled to make under the settlement.

Nobody likes this "only-for-Google" aspect of the settlement—in fact, Google has said that it would support orphan works legislation that would empower the Registry to make the same deal (or even a better deal) with others who want to use these unclaimed works. (Where the claimed books are concerned, in contrast, the Registry will likely ask the rightsholders to appoint it to license companies other than Google. But that still leaves all the unclaimed books out.) The settlement agreement even has a provision that makes it clear that the UWF can license others "to the extent permitted by applicable law"—what amounts to an "insert orphan works legislation here" invitation.

But absent some legislative supplement to the revised Settlement 2.0, it still seems that any other company would have to scan these books, get sued, and hope for a class action settlement. That, of course, is the kind of barrier to entry that any monopolist would envy.

This raises a worthy question: if legislation is necessary to fix the competition problem posed by the settlement, then why do we need a class action settlement in the first place? Why not solve what seems like a quintessentially legislative problem with legislation, instead? (As Amazon points out, that's exactly what was done when music publishers brought a class action against the first digital audio tape (DAT) recorders).

Here's where realpolitik enters the equation. Google correctly points out that Congress has been working on orphan works legislation for years, to no avail. And none of the legislative proposals came close to the comprehensive solution embodied in the proposed settlement. So the question boils down to a political one: do you believe that approval of Settlement 2.0 will make orphan works legislation more likely, or less likely? Without a crystal ball, it's hard to know.

Monopoly Pricing of the Institutional Subscription Database?

One of the commercial services that Google is authorized to provide under the proposed settlement is the "Institutional Subscription Database" (aka "ISD"), which will provide "all-you-can-eat" access to the corpus of scanned books. The chief customers for the ISD are likely to be universities (the same folks who are providing Google with the books to be scanned), for whom instant digital access to every word in every book in Google's collection is likely to be very compelling.

The big question is whether, over time, the ISD will become the one database that no university can do without, and the one database with no market substitute (again, because Google will be the only company who can provide a comprehensive corpus without fear of copyright liability, for the reasons explained above). This, of course, is a recipe for monopolistic price gouging, as a group of academic authors led by Prof. Pam Samuelson have pointed out. Over time, universities could face spiraling prices as Google and the Registry conspire to maximize their revenues on the ISD product.

Google and its supporters respond by pointing out that the settlement requires that pricing for the ISD be set with regard to "two objectives: (1) the realization of revenue at market rates for each Book and license on behalf of Rightsholders and (2) the realization of broad access to the Books by the public, including institutions of higher education." The settlement goes on to promise that Google and the BRR "will use the following parameters to determine the price of Institutional Subscriptions: pricing of similar products and services available from third parties, the scope of Books available, the quality of the scan and the features offered as part of the Institutional Subscription."

But Google's own people have reportedly admitted that there might not be any "similar products and services" to the ISD. And the settlement does not give ISD subscribers the right to go to court to enforce these "objectives" and "parameters." Instead, Google has entered into "side agreements" with some of its major library partners (U. of Michigan, U. of Wisconsin—both of which will be receiving subsidies from Google for their ISD fees) that allow only those institutions to challenge pricing, and only under certain circumstances. So what we are left with is a "trust us" from Google, the Registry, and their biggest library partners.

Of course, the chances of this coming to pass are hard to know in advance. As we have pointed out, if many large publishers pull their books out of the ISD database, then perhaps the ISD service won't become indispensable to universities after all. So, ironically, the more successful the ISD proves to be, the more of a danger its pricing mechanism might prove to be for higher education.

Fixing the Competition Problem

Just because the proposed Book Search settlement isn't good for competition doesn't mean it's illegal. There is a robust debate going on (see, e.g., articles by Picker, Elhauge, Fraser, Lemley, and Picker again) about whether the proposed settlement might violate antitrust laws, and the Antitrust Division of the Department of Justice will doubtless continue its investigation.

But we shouldn't be satisfied with antitrust law here. This is not just a simple market transaction between commercial entities. Google is building an enormously important public resource, a task it can only undertake with the blessing of a federal court. The public deserves a solution that is not "barely legal," but that instead encourages real, robust competition. As written, without some modification or legislative adjunct, Settlement 2.0 does not do that.

In the UK, the Labour administration's impatience to pass its "Digital Economy" agenda risks throwing balanced, deliberate reform of copyright law utterly out of the window. In less than 12 hours, the draft Digital Economy Bill will be released. It will apparently include a provision granting the Secretary of State — currently Lord Peter Mandelson — the power to make statutory instruments that can re-write Britain's Copyright, Design and Patents Act with almost no Parliamentary debate.

Once the Digital Economy Bill is passed by Parliament, the Secretary of State could use sweeping powers to effect wide-ranging changes to the copyright system very swiftly, ignoring the voices of UK citizens, to meet the needs of one set of interest holders:
In a letter to Harriet Harman, the committee leader who would be responsible for granting such powers, Mandelson says he is "writing to seek your urgent agreement" to changes to the 1988 Copyright, Designs and Patents Act "for the purposes of facilitating prevention or reduction of online copyright infringement."

The only way to stop constant ratcheting up of punishments and restrictions on innovation is to ensure that such broad powers are never granted. Call your MP now, and tell him or her that no Secretary of State should be able to rewrite copyright law on a whim.

Suggested message to your MP

All MPs can be contacted via the House of Commons switchboard at:
+44 (0)20 7219 3000

"I'm calling to state my opposition to Lord Mandelson's proposals to change our copyright law to benefit a few industries, and his attempts to make wide-ranging changes through secondary legislation. Please make it clear to the government that their Digital Economy bill and any related statutory instruments affecting copyright law will damage the digital economy, not build it." (Add your own comments.)

After your call, let the UK's Open Rights Group know what your MP said here.

For more information:

EFF Deeplinks: A Pirate Finder General for the UK?

Copyright law involves a delicate balance, made all the more fragile by the number of people who now find their every day actions affected by it. Some people benefit, others find ordinary behaviors made illegal. Reforming copyright in the face of new technology is a vital process, but it needs to be performed carefully, with all affected parties considered in the debate.

In the UK, the Labour administration's impatience to pass its "Digital Economy" agenda, risks throwing that balance utterly out the window.

In less than 12 hours' time, the draft Digital Economy Bill will be released. It will apparently include a provision granting the Secretary of State &mdash currently Lord Peter Mandelson &mdash the power to make statutory instruments that can re-write Britain's Copyright, Designs and Patents Act with the minimum of Parliamentary debate,.

Secondary legislation has been used in a sweeping manner before in the UK. After the UK's RIPA surveillance act was passed with promises that it would only be used for serious crime, secondary legislation was subsequently proposed that expanded its snooping powers to dozens of government bodies, including the Post Office and the Food Standards Agency.

Using secondary legislation as part of the Digital Economy Bill is far more dangerous. This bill would grant the Secretary of State sweeping powers to mess with the very fundamentals of the UK copyright system law, ignoring the voices of UK citizens to meet the needs of one set of interest holders:

In a letter to Harriet Harman, the committee leader who would be responsible for granting such powers, Mandelson says he is "writing to seek your urgent agreement" to changes to the 1988 Copyright, Designs and Patents Act "for the purposes of facilitating prevention or reduction of online copyright infringement".

Once the Digital Economy Bill is passed by Parliament, the Secretary of State could effect wide-ranging changes to the copyright system very swiftly. To give an example of why Mandelson feels it necessary to arbitrarily transform the law, in this same letter, he expressed his concern over the recent emergence of "cyberlockers" as a threat to the media industries.

"Cyberlocker" is the entertainment industry's name for services like Amazon's S3, Dropbox, Apple's MobileMe iDisk, Ubuntu One, or YouSendIt that allow you to easily upload, synchronise and share files with friends. Businesses and individuals use these services every day to collaborate with colleagues and pass on files like family photos or large work documents. In Britain, this entire large, useful Net market innovation could be regulated out of existence without even a vote. And if you think that is not likely to happen, consider that the entertainment industry successfully lobbied the US Trade Representative to include an obligation on the South Korean government to target the same sector (“webhard services”) in the US-Korea Free Trade Agreement (see the third side letter).

If Mandelson is specifically seeking the power to capriciously wipe out entire fledgling industries that depend on our current copyright law, imagine what other instruments from the grab-bag of recent rightsholder demands might also be candidates for statutory instrument action. Throttling or blocking P2P? Creating joint investigation teams of police and IP owners? Filtering all Net traffic through music-infringement-filters? All of these are entertainment industry promoted proposals which judges or politicians have previously considered.

Once granted this power for these reasons the meddling would never stop. After all, this is the government that said:

If [illegal filesharing] is a massive problem we could turn on a fast, powerful response... If there is a little problem we can be more proportionate. How draconian we are will be a matter for the secretary of state to decide at the time."

The only way to stop constant ratcheting up of punishments and restrictions on innovation is to ensure that such broad powers are never granted. If you're in the UK, call your MP now and tell him or her that no Secretary of State should be able to rewrite copyright law on a whim.

Patenting podcasting? You've got to be kidding. Yet a company called Volomedia just got the Patent Office to grant them such exclusive rights.

EFF and the law firm of Howrey, LLP aren’t willing to just sit by and watch. This patent could threaten the vibrant community of podcasters and millions of podcast listeners. We want to put a stop to it, but we need your help.

The Volomedia patent covers "a method for providing episodic media." It's a ridiculously broad patent, covering something that many folks have been doing for many years. Worse, it could create a whole new layer of ongoing costs for podcasters and their listeners. Right now, just about anyone can create their own on-demand talk radio program, earning an audience on the strength of their ideas. But more costs and hassle means that podcasting could go the way of mainstream radio -- with only the big guys able to afford an audience. And we'd have a bogus patent to blame.

In order to bust this patent, we are looking for additional "prior art" -- or evidence that the podcasting methods described in the patent were already in use before November 19, 2003. In particular, we're looking for written descriptions of methods that allow a user to download pre-programmed episodic media like audio files or video files from a remote publisher, with the download occurring after the user subscribes to the episodes, and with the user continuing to automatically receive new episodes. You can read the entire prior art request here, and if you have something that could help, please send it to podcasting_priorart@eff.org or fill out the form on our Volomedia page.

EFF's Patent-Busting Project has taken on ten of the worst free-speech and innovation crushing software patents approved by the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office. Eight of the ten have had a bite taken out of them so far, with two busted entirely, one narrowed, four reexams granted by the Patent office, and another one invalidated by the courts. We weren't looking to add to our list of the "worst of the worst," but this one was so bad we had to add it as a special bonus offender, and we can't wait to shoot it down. As Renee DuBord Brown of Howrey said, "Overbroad patents deter innovation. Congress specifically authorized the reexamination process to correct such errors, and we are looking forward to working with EFF on this reexam."

ICT Results

The European Union-funded GRid enabled access to rich mEDIA (GREDIA) content project has developed a platform that makes the grid's resources available to business users. "Many business applications need to work fast and need to work with huge amounts of data," says GREDIA coordinator Nikos Sarris. "The grid is ideal for that, but software developers don't use it because they don't know how." Sarris says the GREDIA platform will help business application developers exploit the grid without requiring them to become grid technology experts. He says the system is reliable because it is distributed across numerous machines, and it optimizes business transactions using algorithms that make the most of the grid's distributed resources. The project developed and demonstrated two business services: one allows any number of sources using almost any kind of device to be used as a news-gathering team; a second is designed for the banking industry. The banking applications enable lenders to use their home computers or handheld devices to securely provide information. The program authenticates information, combines it into a profile, and calculates credit rankings using a protocol specified by the lender.

From "There's No Business Like Grid Business"
ICT Results (11/16/09)
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University of Southampton (ECS)

A social networking tool called Healthii has improved personal and group well-being and interactions, according to researchers at the University of Southampton's School of Electronics and Computer Science. A study of 10 Healthii users over five weeks reveals that half felt they were more reflective, eight said they were more aware of other group members, and half said they would really miss this level of communication when the trial ended. Healthii was designed to help users of social networking sites and microblogs understand how they and their peers are doing, and to help them enhance their quality of life at work. The application uses graphical avatars to show the level of busy-ness, enjoyment, stress, and health of users, and adding a numeric code would allow a person to quickly communicate that he or she is feeling very busy, enjoying the task, averagely stressed, but feeling a bit under the weather, for example. The field of Human-Computer Interaction tends to focus on designing to support efficiency or productivity in tasks, says dr schraefel. "That's important, but we're now beginning to consider how to design systems to support well-being while engaged in everyday tasks to enhance quality of life," says schraefel. "Eventually, we hope to inspire designers and researchers not only to explore these attributes in social networking applications, but also to consider the potential for well-being measures across Human-Computer Interaction the same way we consider efficiency today," says Ph.D. student Paul Andre.

From "New Social Networking Tool to Improve Well-Being Awareness"
University of Southampton (ECS) (11/18/09)
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Wall Street Journal

The U.S. Federal Communications Commission (FCC) is debating whether it should force Internet service providers (ISPs) to share their networks with rivals and increase the fees charged to consumers' phone bills to pay for broader Internet access. The proposals, which are heavily opposed by telecommunications and cable companies, are a reversal from the Bush administration, when regulators reduced government control of Internet and phone service. The new Democrat-controlled commission is considering if more government oversight is necessary to ensure competition and more affordable Internet service. The FCC will examine possible solutions in December and make a formal recommendation in February when it is scheduled to release its National Broadband Plan for improving broadband speed and access. FCC officials estimate that the plan could cost $20 billion to $350 billion, depending on the speed offered, to connect all U.S. households to high-speed Internet service. One potential solution would revive open access rules, which would require ISPs to lease their networks to rivals at government-regulated rates. Open access rules are in place in Europe and some Asian countries, and consumer advocates argue that open access is a major reason why Internet service is cheaper and faster in those countries. Cable and phone companies argue that they will have little reason to invest in networks if they are required to offer below-rate access to competitors.

From "Feds Mull Rules, Fees to Spur Net Access "
Wall Street Journal (11/18/09) P. A1; Schatz, Amy
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New Scientist

The European Union requires member states to create noise maps of their urban areas once every five years. Instead of deploying sensors all over a city, the maps are usually created using computer models to predict how various sources of noise affect the surrounding areas. However, those maps are not an accurate reflection of residents' exposure to noise, says Sony Computer Science Laboratory researcher Nicolas Maisonneuve, who has developed NoiseTube, a downloadable software app that uses smartphones to monitor noise pollution. NoiseTube records any sound picked up by the phone's microphone and marks the location using the device's global positioning system capabilities. Users also can label the data with additional information, such as the source of the noise. The recording is converted into a format that can be mapped using Google Earth. The software checks against weather information to reject data that may have been distorted by high winds, for example. Locations with sustained levels of noise are labeled as dangerous. The software currently must be calibrated to work with the microphone used in each individual smartphone, but the researchers are working on a method of automatically calibrating microphones.

From "Cellphone App to Make Maps of Noise Pollution "
New Scientist (11/18/09) Ananthaswamy, Anil
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ACM

CSAB, Inc.--the lead society within ABET, Inc. for the accreditation of programs in computer science, information systems, IT, and software engineering--is seeking evaluators for degree programs in computing. The role of a CSAB evaluator includes visiting college campuses to review facilities, curriculum, faculty qualifications, student achievement, and other key program areas. Program evaluators are expected to serve for at least one three-year term and to be available to make a minimum of one school visit each year. Candidates with an industrial background must have at least five years of experience as a working practitioner in a computing-related field, hold an advanced degree, and have a minimum of one degree in a computing-related field. Recent contact with computing graduates and experience in evaluating them (for example, recruiting, hiring, interviewing, or working with graduates) is also required. Desired qualifications include one or more years of management experience in a computing-related discipline, experience evaluating computing degree programs (such as industrial advisory committees, curriculum committees, and undergraduate teaching experience), and experience in evaluating the criteria for success in a computing career (for example, career monitoring, academic advisory activities, making hiring and promotion decisions). Interested candidates should apply directly at www.abet.org/volunteer.shtml/. Applications are due by Dec. 31.

From "Evaluators Sought for Degree Programs in Computing"
ACM (11/18/09)
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Netherlands Organization for Scientific Research (NWO)

Dutch researchers Remco de Boer and Rik Farenhorst, working on the Netherlands Organization for Scientific Research's Joint Academic and Commercial Quality Research & Development program, investigated how software architectural knowledge can be better disseminated and retrieved. Designing and building large software systems requires a great deal of creativity and knowledge, but architects without access to the right knowledge often end up unnecessarily reinventing the wheel. Farenhorst explored how software architects can share knowledge more easily and discovered that many architects simply do not talk with each other enough, often because they want to receive knowledge but are less willing to pass on their own knowledge. Farenhorst recommends using fixed templates to record architectural knowledge in combination with open communication facilitated by forums that allow architects to find each other. Remco de Boer studied the role of auditors who assess the quality of software systems, which often requires searching through piles of paperwork for specific information, such as the decisions an architect made during the design process. De Boer developed a method for guiding auditors through the information in a more efficient manner. Both researchers conducted their efforts through the GRIFFIN project, which aims to describe how and why software engineers make their decisions about software architecture.

From "Software Knowledge Unnecessarily Lost"
Netherlands Organization for Scientific Research (NWO) (11/18/09)
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San Jose Mercury News (CA)

Researchers from IBM's Almaden Research Center and the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory have performed a computer simulation that matches the scale and complexity of a cat's brain, while researchers from IBM and Stanford University say they have developed an algorithm for mapping the human brain in unprecedented detail. The researchers say these efforts could help build a computer that replicates the complexity of the human brain. In the first project, an IBM supercomputer at the Lawrence Livermore Lab was used to model the movement of data through a structure with 1 billion neurons and 10 trillion synapses, enabling researchers to observe how information "percolates" through a system similar to a feline cerebral cortex. The research is part of IBM project manager Dharmendra Modha's efforts to design a new computer by first better understanding how the brain works. "The brain has awe-inspiring capabilities," Modha says. "It can react or interact with complex, real-world environments, in a context-dependent way. And yet it consumes less power than a light bulb and it occupies less space than a two-liter bottle of soda." Modha says a major difference between the brain and traditional computers is that current computer are designed on a model that differentiates between processing and storing data, which can lead to a lag in updating information. However, the brain can integrate and react to a constant stream of sights, sounds, and sensory information. Modha imagines a cognitive computer capable of analyzing a constant stream of information from global trading floors, banking institutions, and real estate markets to identify key trends and their consequences; or a computer capable of evaluating pollution using real-time sensors from around the world.

From "IBM Announces Advances Toward a Computer that Works Like a Human Brain"
San Jose Mercury News (CA) (11/18/09) Bailey, Brandon
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Technology Review

Web experts are developing technologies capable of tracking online conversations in real time, even when those conversations are distributed across the Web. For example, popular videos and articles often get re-posted and discussed on hundreds of sites, and the creators of that content may want to be able to follow those discussions. In response, new Web protocols have been developed that provide notifications when new content is available. One protocol, pubsubhubbub, can push content out to feed readers as it is updated. Another, Salmon, enables comments to "swim upstream" to connect to the original post. In a keynote address at the recent Defrag 2009 technology conference, speaker Kevin Marks said that these types of technologies are needed for today's Web, where content rapidly flows from one site to another. Gathering this distributed content and related discussions could be critical for people who want to participate in the conversation that surrounds the content they post online, particularly because people are increasingly likely to discuss and interact with content away from the site it was originally posted, according to PostRank chief technology officer Ilya Grigorik. For protocols like Salmon to work, they would have to be adopted by both content publishers and services that may subscribe, distribute, or discuss that content. When new content appears, the publisher could use pubsubhubbub to notify subscribers, who would use Salmon to send back any information or discussions to the publisher.

From "Who's Talking About Me?"
Technology Review (11/18/09) Naone, Erica
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Computerworld Australia

Australia recently unveiled the Sun Constellation, a 140 teraflop machine that will be the country's most powerful supercomputer. The $15 million Sun Constellation, which ranks among the world's top 40 supercomputers, has 180 Sun Blade x6275 Server Modules implemented in two computer racks, but there are plans to expand to 14 racks by the end of 2009. The total system leverages the Sun Lustre Storage System and the Sun Datacenter InfiniBand Switch 648. The Sun Constellation also has an energy consumption rate of 604 kilowatts. The National Computational Infrastructure (NCI) will operate the supercomputer, which will be housed at the Australian National University (ANU). The Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organization, ANU, the Australian government, and other partners will use the supercomputer for research projects, such as computational chemistry, nanotechnology, astronomy, photonics, medicine, and environmental science. Australia also has plans to introduce a 1 petaflop or 2 petaflops next-generation machine in 2011. "Australia's now back in business in the high-performance computing league," says NCI director Lindsay Botten.

From "New Supercomputer to Boost Aussie Research"
Computerworld Australia (11/16/09) Edwards, Kathryn
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Network World

Intel chief technology officer Justin Rattner believes that three-dimensional (3D) Web technologies will revive the high-performance computing (HPC) industry. Rattner, who delivered the opening address at the SC09 supercomputing conference, said HPC demand is currently limited to small markets. However, he said virtually the entire population could benefit from HPC if the right platform became available. "High-performance computing doesn't need a killer app as much as it needs a killer application framework," Rattner said. "It needs a platform in which people can leverage the power of high-performance computing to do just about anything they can imagine." Rattner believes the killer application framework is the 3D Web, powered on the back end by cloud technologies and the HPC industry. The 3D Web will power virtual worlds and create new ways for people to interact, as well as new platforms for businesses to test products. Guest speaker Aaron Duffy, a biology researcher at Utah State University, said he is using 3D simulations to study how environmental conditions affect fern populations over several generations. Fashion Research Institute CEO Shenlei Winkley, another guest speaker, said 3D modeling and simulation programs have reduced design times by 75 percent and sample costs by 65 percent. "This is the killer application infrastructure platform that will power growth and increase [research and development] capability in high-performance computing," Rattner said.

From "3D Web Will Save High-Performance Computing Industry, Intel CTO Says "
Network World (11/17/09) Brodkin, Jon
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Universidad Politecnica de Madrid (Spain)

Researchers from several European institutions, led by the Universidad Politecnica de Madrid's School of Computing, are creating a services development platform that will be able to process millions of data per second. The researchers say the new technology could help fight real-time credit card fraud, mobile telephony SIM card cloning, and fraudulent unpaid telephone calls. Banks and credit card companies have several systems in place to detect fraudulent credit card use, but they all detect fraud after it has been committed, aiming to identify the fraud and prevent cardholder losses. The new system will implement real-time fraud detection, preventing improper credit card use and cardholder losses because improper payments will not be authorized. The same technology can be applied to mobile phones, where SIM card copying or the fraudulent use of telephone lines is only detected after the crime. The real-time system is being developed as part of the Scalable Autonomic Streaming Middleware Project (Stream), which aims to build a platform for real-time processing of massive data flows. The major technological innovation is that Stream uses large node clusters to process massive data throughput of millions of data per second.

From "A New Tool for Real-Time Credit Card Fraud Prevention"
Universidad Politecnica de Madrid (Spain) (11/12/09) Martínez, Eduardo
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University of Texas at Austin

The National Science Foundation (NSF) has launched the iPlant Collaborative, a $50 million, five-year project that will create the cybernetic infrastructure needed to solve grand challenge problems in plant biology. iPlant will provide the ability to draw from resources and talents in remote locations, enabling plant, computer, and information scientists from around the world to collaboratively work on questions of global importance. iPlant co-director Dan Stanzione, deputy director of the Texas Advanced Computing Center at the University of Texas, Austin, says feeding the world is a crop production problem, and sustaining a breathable atmosphere is a plant problem, so solving these problems is of vital importance. "iPlant is the first attempt at this scale to build a cyberinfrastructure that fills the gap between building a supercomputer and what scientists do in their labs," Stanzione says. Filling that gap requires identifying the technical and structural obstacles that prevent researchers from using high-performance computing systems to find solutions. Over the past decade, NSF has supported numerous individual projects in plant sciences. iPlant will integrate the disparate data that was created through those projects to create a comprehensive network of knowledge.

From "Planting Seeds for a Fertile Future"
University of Texas at Austin (11/11/09) Dubrow, Aaron
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SINTEF

A study of Norwegian Internet users and social media found that people are willing to post their personal information on social media sites even when they are not aware how it will be used. Conducted by SINTEF for the Norwegian Consumers' Council, the researchers found that 60 percent of Norweigan Internet users are on Facebook. SINTEF's Petter Bae Brandtzaeg and Marika Luders conclude that Facebook offers relatively poor personal data protection due to the service itself, its design, the level of competence of its users, and their lack of awareness of how to protect themselves. "Facebook has become an important arena for social participation in our personal environment," Brandtzaeg says. "However, it is becoming ever more easy to gather and aggregate personal information, outside the control of users." Still, people are willing to post their personal information because so many other people use Facebook, and they rarely hear of unfortunate incidents. Respondents were usually not aware that Facebook uses personal information for commercial purposes, and their personal information also can be used against them, such as when they apply for a job. The researchers say that people and objects will be woven together ever more closely by the next wave of Internet media such as Google Wave and mobile smartphones. "This can make us even more vulnerable to failures of personal data protection," Luders says.

From "Facebook Offers Poor Personal Data Protection"
SINTEF (11/17/09)
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CNet

The first-ever Random Hacks of Kindness recently took place in Mountain View, Calif., bringing software developers together to focus on how technology could be used to help people get information and find each other during emergencies. Organized by Google, Microsoft, Yahoo, NASA, the World Bank, and SecondMuse, the event is viewed as a way to bring technologists together to solve real-world problems and create a community of developers to build tools to help emergency workers. "We're trying to seed the community," says Google Crisis Response's Jeffery Martin. "We're saying, partner with the private sector and we can push technology forward and innovate." Developers used social media sites such as Twitter and short message service (SMS) for information sharing to build about a dozen tools. One project would use laptops, routers, mobile devices, USB keys, and Wi-Fi to create a mesh network during a disaster. A group primarily from NASA took first place with a mobile application for easily notifying loved ones that "I'm OK" via SMS by clicking one button. The organizers plan to hold the next Random Hacks of Kindness event in early 2010 in Washington, D.C.

From "Hackers Create Tools for Disaster Relief"
CNet (11/15/09) Mills, Elinor
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OSU News

Ohio State University (OSU) researchers have combined several computer systems to analyze massive amounts of genetic data collected from publicly available isolated strains of the H5N1 virus, the cause of the avian flu. The researchers then developed a Web-based application using Google Earth that enables health officials and the public to visualize how the virus moved around the world. The researchers say the visualizations are the most comprehensive map of how the avian flu has been transmitted among sites in Asia, Africa, and Europe. To create the visualizations, the researchers developed a new method for analyzing genetic data that generates more complete information about the flu's spread. The method, combined with the growing availability of sequenced genomes of isolated flu strains, is expected to help public health officials make better-informed predictions about how the H1N1 flu will evolve. "We are taking into account more data but at the same time, we're making simpler visualizations, allowing users to choose what they want to see," says OSU professor Daniel Janies. "We waded through all of the complexities so people in the public health realm who want to determine how a flu virus got from point A to point B can find that out, and we'll have better public health outcomes as a result."

From "Scientists Put Interactive Flu Tracking at Public's Fingertips"
OSU News (11/12/09) Caldwell, Emily
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The ACTA juggernaut continues to roll ahead, despite public indignation about an agreement supposedly about counterfeiting that has turned into a regime for global Internet regulation. The Office of the United States Trade Representative (USTR) has already announced that the next round of Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement (ACTA) negotiations will take place in January — with the aim of concluding the deal "as soon as possible in 2010."

For the rest of us, with access to only leaks and whispers of what ACTA is about, there are many troubling questions. How can such a radical proposal legally be kept so secret from the millions of Net users and companies whose rights and freedoms stand to be affected? Who decides what becomes the law of the land and by what influence? Where is the public oversight for an agreement that would set the legal rules for the knowledge economy? And what can be done to fix this runaway process?

We wrestle with these questions in an essay on “The Impact of ACTA on the Knowledge Economy”(PDF here) in the Yale Journal of International Law (November 2009 edition). We explain how ACTA got this far, in this form, and propose four mechanisms for USTR transparency reforms, that will give the public a voice in ACTA, if U.S. citizens — and their elected officials — speak loudly and quickly enough.

In brief, the ACTA process has been deliberately more secretive than customary practices in international decision-making bodies to evade the debates about intellectual property (IP) at established multilateral institutions. The Office of the USTR has chosen to negotiate ACTA as a sole executive agreement. Because of a loophole in democratic accountability on sole executive agreements, the Office of the USTR can sign off on an IP Enforcement agenda without any formal congressional involvement at all. But the negotiations do not have to be secret, and the sole executive agreement process does have mechanisms for oversight: they have not been used in ACTA, but can and should be.

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