Media News - Thursday, March 11, 2010

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Internet ‘in running’ for Nobel Peace Prize

The internet is among a record 237 individuals and organisations nominated for this year's Nobel Peace Prize. The number of nominations surpasses last year's record of 205 nominations. The internet's nomination has been championed by the Italian version of Wired magazine for helping advance "dialogue, debate and consensus". The nomination for the internet is supported by 2003 Nobel Peace Prize winner Shirin Ebadi and the founder of the USD 100 laptop project Nicholas Negroponte. Nominations can be put forward by former laureates, members of national governments and select university professors, among others. Others on the shortlist are thought to include Russian human rights activist Svetlana Gannushkina and Chinese activist Liu Xiaobo. The final list was decided by the Norwegian Nobel Committee - which has responsibility for the Peace Prize - at its first meeting of the year on 9 March, where the five-member panel was able to add its own nominations. It is unclear who would accept the prize if the internet were to win. Internet for Peace, set up to help support the nomination of the internet, says the prize would be "a Nobel for each and every one of us". (BBC News)

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Google partners with Italy for groundbreaking book scanning deal

Google and the Italian Ministry of Cultural Heritage have reached an agreement to digitise up to a million out-of-copyright works at the national libraries in Florence and Rome, including some by Galileo. Google is not only to work closely together with the Italian libraries, but also with the Italian ministry of culture – the first time that the search engine has had a government department a such a close partner on such a project. Google called it a "groundbreaking deal". "The libraries will select the works to be digitised from their collections, which include a wealth of rare historical books, including scientific works, literature from the period of the founding of Italy and the works of Italy's most famous poets and writers," says Google's strategic partner development manager, Gino Mattiuzzo, in a blogpost announcing the deal. While the costs will be covered fully by Google, the company will pass the scans on. The books will be available to groups including the EU's Europeana project, which already has scanned 6 million digital items of cultural value. Google has similar arrangements with Oxford University, Madrid's Complutense University, the Bavarian state museum and others. (The Guardian)

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TV may be the new Google Reader Play’s best venue

Google announced an experimental Web browsing feature on Wednesday that it will offer as an alternative view to explore content on the Google Reader Web site. The company is praising its simlplicity, but the advantage may be in the highly visual way it displays information. Google Reader Play, which was announced on the company’s blog by Garrett Wu, a Google software engineer, offers a personalized Web site feed reader that tracks users’ favored content while eliminating a laborious setup. Google hopes to increase its Reader audience by keeping things simple. Play does this by offering an application that learns a new user’s preferences by having the user mark items with a star to read later, with a face to let others see what has been marked and a diamond to share with friends. The software finds unique articles using the same technology as the “Recommended Items” already used in the standard Google Reader. It then looks for other things on the Web that appear to fit the user’s preferences. If the person is linked to other Google Reader users, their preferences can be used to select material. Another interesting aspect of Google Reader Play comes with the simplicity of the presentation: In Google Reader Play, items are presented one at a time, and each item is big and full-screen. After you’ve read an item, just click the next arrow to move to the next one, or click any item on the filmstrip below to fast-forward. Although Google doesn’t address television in the description of the product, the promising use case for many people could be the ability to use Google Reader Play on a computer hooked up to a larger screen. (New York Times blog)

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IAB rejects measures against Venezuela’s RCTV

The International Association of Broadcasting (IAB) considers “illegal and arbitrary” a decision adopted by the Venezuelan government which denied the request to launch private TV station Radio Caracas Internacional (RCTV) as a national audiovisual production service. The IAB, which includes more than 17,000 private radio and TV stations in the Americas, Asia and Europe, filed a complaint in a statement released in Montevideo. The association is based in the Uruguayan capital. AIB says that the explanations of Hugo Chávez’s government to deny the authorization to RCTV are illegal and arbitrary. The AIB maintains that the Venezuelan TV station “provided in a timely manner all the documents that supports its international programming,” AP reported. The association said that with these measures, the Venezuelan government is “violating international treaties and constitutional rights.” The IAB called the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights to take the necessary steps to prevent “that the Venezuelan government violates with impunity fundamental rights such as freedom of expression and due process.” (El Universal)

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China to toughen requirements for reporters

China will toughen requirements for reporters by launching a new certification system that includes training in Marxist and communist theories of news, a media official said, citing problems with the current crop of mainland journalists. The South China Morning Post reported Thursday that Li Dongdong, deputy director of the General Administration of Press and Publication, said some reporters were giving Chinese journalism a bad name because they hadn't been properly trained. She didn't give any specific examples. Similar comments by Li were posted on the Web site of the official Xinhua News Agency. Li told Xinhua on Monday that the new qualification system would ensure all journalists learn socialist and Marxist theories of journalism and media ethics. Communist theories of journalism say media should serve the communist leadership and not undermine its initiatives. Many democracies embrace a model where reporters serve a watchdog role independent of the government. (AP)

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‘Minority Report’ digital billboard ‘watches consumers shop’

Engineers have developed the billboard, similar to one used in the Tom Cruise blockbuster, that uses in built cameras to instantly identifies a shopper’s age and gender as they walk past. The facial-recognition system, called the Next Generation Digital Signage Solution, then offers consumers a product it thinks is suited to their demographic. Experts said the technology, being developed by NEC, the Japanese electronics company, would allow advertisers to develop more accurate campaigns that were suited to consumers. But critics warned it was an invasion of privacy, a claim denied by the company. Officials claimed a person would remain anonymous and that images of their face would be immediately erased. The technology, currently being tested in major shopping centres throughout Japan, is similar to that featured in Steven Spielberg’s Hollywood film. In one scene Cruise’s character, John Anderton, walks through a futuristic mall with digital signs, which after recognising him start showing personal advertising. NEC said each billboard had a small camera with a “flat-panel monitor” built in. As a person walks past their personal information, including their age to within 10 years and gender, is then sent to an internal computer using facial recognition software. Engineers say the longer a person stays in front of the camera, the more accurate the data, that can either be stored or sent electronically, will be. Takeshi Yamamoto, the company’s vice president of strategic alliances, said the technology would enable advertisers in public venues, such as airports or shopping places, to better develop campaigns. The technology is being trialled in America later this year and, if successful, could be rolled out in other areas around the world. (The Telegraph)

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More recent Media News:

• 10/03/10 - Belgian newspaper issues 3D edition
• 10/03/10 - Editor is fired after criticizing Chinese registration system
• 10/03/10 - BBC teams up with citizen journalists’ network Global Voices
• 10/03/10 - US online ad spend set to overtake print
• 10/03/10 - German publisher in row with Apple over pin-ups in iPhone app
• 10/03/10 - Facebook stalking becomes even easier
• 09/03/10 - Four in five believe Web access a fundamental right
• 09/03/10 - Google ‘trialling TV search service’
• 09/03/10 - New York Times to offer book review on e-readers
• 09/03/10 - UK: Ad rules to take in use of Twitter and Facebook
• 09/03/10 - South Korea: Couple nurtured virtual child while real baby starved: Police
• 09/03/10 - 60 percent of bigger magazine websites profitable, survey shows
• 08/03/10 - A cover ad that mimics a newspaper’s front page
• 08/03/10 - European Commission urged to close digital divide
• 08/03/10 - Venezuela denies request to launch two anti-Chávez cable channels
• 08/03/10 - Language experts to monitor Turkey’s Kurdish channels
• 08/03/10 - Abu Dhabi hopes high for media forum
• 08/03/10 - U.S. hopes Internet exports will help open closed societies
• 05/03/10 - Spain’s El Mundo to launch paid news Internet application
• 05/03/10 - North Korean worker executed for passing on news
• 05/03/10 - Belgian police raid offices of Roj TV
• 05/03/10 - EU urged to level playing field for Web browsers
• 05/03/10 - Millions of YouTube videos to get subtitles with ‘auto-captioning’
• 05/03/10 - First in-car Web radio announced by MINI

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