AMCP Tech Blog

Millions of people use YouTube (Correction, "GoogTube") to watch thousands of videos online, but you might not know that YouTube might be watching you. After getting a subpoena in May, YouTube has been keeping tabs on users who are known to post copyrighted materials, and has even given a name to lawyers from a movie studio.

The studio turned out to be Viacom Inc.'s Paramount Pictures and they went ahead and sued Chris Moukarbel, for copyright infringement, in federal court. Even though Chris broke the law, the point here is that YouTube gave user data without putting up a fight. Now you'll need to be careful when you post copyrighted material on the popular service because you won't receive YouTube's protection.

Lawyers defending the music industry use tatics such as warning users, and later suing them for piracy. And it now appears that others are using the same idea against YouTube users. This choice by YouTube goes against everything Google has fought for (Now that YouTube is owned by Google). Recently, the United States government sent a subpoena to numerous search services, such as Yahoo!, Microsoft and Google. While Yahoo! and Microsoft complied to hand over user information, Google fought back to defend user's rights to privacy. Google is now fighting the Brazilian and Indian governments over user privacy. MarketWatch expects that over 40 million of YouTube's users might now be in legal trouble after this latest example, but could this signal the end of video online?

Apple Computer has confirmed that they have accidentally shipped a small number of video iPods with the Windows trojan, RavMonE.exe. While only 1% of the units shipped after September 12 were affected, it should still raise concern. RavMonE.exe, a mass storage virus which only affects Windows, allows hackers to get into your computer after contacting remote servers to alert the attackers of infection. It goes under a few names, such as Win32.RJump.a and Troj/Bdoor-DIJ. Sophos, a security vendor, rates it as a low-grade infection and reports that most up-to-date antivirus programs should remove it. A statement on Apple's website now clarifies that the problem never affected iPod Nanos, Shuffles or Mac OS X. If you think you're infected and don't currently have any antivirus (Shame on you!), Windows Live OneCare Safety, which scans within your browser, will remove the trojan for free (Microsoft finally did something right...). Additionally, Apple noted that the virus will stay on the iPod, but the "restore" feature of iTunes should wipe your 'Pod free of the infection. So, Apple shipping Windows-only trojans - What's next?

Update: As InsideMicrosoft reports, Apple Computer is now blaming Microsoft for "not being more hardy against such viruses". This just keeps getting better and better!

Thousands of dollars are exchanged in virtual worlds and games, such as World of Warcraft and Second Life, and now the big question is whether it should be taxed. After launching a probe into many online games sporting virtual economies, the U.S. congressional committee is wondering if virtual assets and transactions should be taxed. Over $500,000 is exchanged in Linden Lab's Second Life game each day, and now the US government wants to get their share of the virtual economy bubble.

For now, the US government gets a slice of the pie from real-world earnings when you cash out of a game, but now they are considering taxing you on in-game profits as well. However, the details about this are a little sketchy. For instance, users of Second Life can make income based on investments made in-game, but it's unclear how you'll be taxed on it. Should you pay in Second Life's currency, Linden Dollars after selling property, even if you don't cash out using American currency? Personally, I think that doing this will cause a lot of problems. Not only is the currency problem a game-by-game issue (think about it, different games use different in-game currencies), but what about games being governed by real-world laws? Share your thoughts in the comments and don't forget to vote in our new poll, "Should Virtual Economies be Taxed?".

I had nothing constructive to post this week, so I decided to post something destructive.

My digital camera died a few months ago, and I decided on the spur if the moment last weekend to take it apart for a blog article. Here are the photos!

http://www.flickr.com/photos/76558968@N00/tags/camera/

Monday night the web-based video company YouTube was acquired by Google, the notorious search giant. The deal was worth over a billion dollars in Google stock.

Because I am writing for a weblog and not a newspaper, I feel compelled to offer my opinions on this deal, despite the fact that it is not my weblog. There are a few interesting aspects to this deal. Firstly there's the fact that it is being paid for in stock, not cash. I'm no business analyst, so I don't know what, if anything, to read into this. Maybe Google is trying to avoid using liquid assets...in which case maybe they're readying themselves for another takeover? Just idle speculation there, as I have not the slightest idea what I'm talking about in the field of economics.

Secondly, and far more ominously, it seems to me that the YouTube acquisition epitomizes Google's changing of attitudes. I've talked about this before, but it seems like the people who are noticing this are very few, so I'll talk about it again. It seems to me like Google is gradually and tragically turning away from the creative, iconoclastic, idealistic, "we-can-do-it" attitude that started their success, and becoming more and more like their big brothers, Yahoo and (oh, dread) Microsoft. Google's original strategy was always to take something that already exists, make it better, and beat the competitors on sheer guts and brillance, not by throwing billions of dollars at the project or buying out the competition. They demonstrated this beautifully with Google Search, the majority of their other search-based projects, and Gmail, which is the crowning example. But it seems like the more money they make, the more they drop this approach. They've bought out Keyhole (Google Earth) and Picasa (Picasa ;-). Additionally, it's been a very long time since they've released a truly exciting product. I have no problem with that. It's folly to expect any company to roll out another Gmail every other month. But I do have a problem with Google's product releases: they feel that they have to have an image of youth and extreme productivity, so they continue to overextend; to release into continual beta products that are not innovative and are bad copies of existing products, and to not update other failed beta projects that badly need tweaking. But this buyout was really worse than all of this to me. The buyout did not just represent lack of innovation, which I can understand (I can't remember the last time I wrote a brilliant program used by millions of people), but a laziness and sloth that I find unacceptable in a company that I've adopted like my firstborn son.

They couldn't beat 'em, so they stuffed them with money and confiscated their brand.

So that you know who to yell at in the comments, this article was written by Joseph Wilkinson, standing in for Alex Morganis.

SearchMash is a low-profile search tool created by Google that mixes normal search results with Google Images. As shown in this screenshot, the idea is similar to an older version of A9. The Google Operating System has the run-down:

Search results are numbered and you can reorder them. Clicking on the green URL, you'll see a list of options like "cached copy", "similar sites". You don't have click on the search box to type your query. There is no search button, you just have to type enter. Google shows the number of visible search results in the top right corner. Clicking on the "more" link, Google loads a new set of results using Ajax and scrolls to the first result of the new set using a nice animation (this seems broken in Firefox). Actually the entire site uses a lot of JavaScript and Ajax, and it can't be used if you disable JavaScript.

For now, Google will use SearchMash as a place to play around with their technologies, and might be the foundation for a redesigned version of Google's search results.

Anyone remember Unfaced, a tool that could check user's Facebook profiles to see whether they were romantically compatible? As good as that may sound to some of our more weirder readers, Facebook sent a cease-and-desist letter to Unfaced's creator, John Arrow, and disabled his Facebook account until the site has been removed. Facebook argues that it breaks several parts of their terms of service, including breaking privacy policies by "automating against the site and storing site data locally." The popular social networking site also points out that the "Face" used in "Unfaced" may infringe on their trademark. Arrow created the site out of good fun, saying that it's a good experience with viral marketing. While Unfaced is still up-and-running and accepting registrations, Arrow says he has no plans to removing the site.