Media News - Thursday, May 31, 2007

Google takes big step to make Web work offline

Google Inc. said on Wednesday it had created Web software that runs both online, and offline, marking a sea change for the Internet industry by letting users work on planes, trains, spotty connections and even in the most remote locations. The technology, called Google Gears, would allow users of computers, phones and other devices to manipulate Web services like e-mail, online calendars or news readers whether online, intermittently connected to the Web or completely offline. Google plans to make the Gears technology available for free as 'open source' software, meaning other developers are free to use and enhance the software in their own products. The first Google product to feature Gears will be Google Reader, which allows consumers automatically to track updates to hundreds of Web sites. Users could connect temporarily for updates, then go offline and read up on recent Web news. Huber said Gears' biggest impact could be in parts of Africa, Asia and Latin America, where poor or non-existent Internet connections hobble access to digital information. (Reuters)

Warner to make video archive free online

The US music company Warner, home to Madonna and the Red Hot Chili Peppers, has signed a deal with an online TV company to make its vast catalogue of video available online for free. Warner will work with Premium TV, the group behind Premiership football club websites including Chelsea and Newcastle United, to create a series of video sites. Users will be able to log their favourite music and stream video for free from Warner's catalogue. The sites will also offer previously unseen footage. Warner says the deal will make it the first of the world's four main music companies - the other three being Universal, EMI and Sony BMG - to supply its whole video archive online under a new business model that raises money via advertising. The web TV plans follow a series of web deals by music companies as they seek to create new revenue streams to fill the gap from dwindling CD sales. The global market has been in decline since 2000, prompting record labels to look for advertising money from websites and by licensing tracks for use in commercials, TV shows and computer games. (Media Guardian)

German public libraries begin online lending

German public libraries began issuing audio books and e-books for loan via the internet on Wednesday in a pilot scheme which they described as a first for Europe. Initially, nearly 10,000 titles will be available for download from the public-library systems in the port city of Hamburg and the southern city of Würzburg to subscribers' personal computers. Users can check them out online at any time of the day and night. After five days, the items expire and become unusable. The audio and video files employ Microsoft's WMA encoding and can be played on computers and other devices using Windows software. "It's the libraries' answer to the digital revolution," said Holger Behrens, chief executive of DiViBib, the company based in Wiesbaden, Germany which devised the system. Borrowing materials online is expected to appeal in particular to a younger, internet-savvy audience. In Würzburg, one of the cities chosen for the pilot project, 70 percent of library patrons are younger than 40 years. The pilot project will be extended to two more cities - Cologne and Munich - in mid-June. (Deutsche Welle)

CNBC launches 24hr Africa network

Africa is to enter the era of rolling news this week when CNBC launches the first 24-hour information network dedicated to coverage of news and business on the continent. CNBC Africa is to go on air from Friday from its main studios in Johannesburg, South Africa, and will also take feeds from bureaus in Lagos, Nairobi and London. The new channel will have a heavy business bias and will feature live broadcasts of the opening and closing of key African markets, including the stock exchanges in Johannesburg, Lagos and Nairobi. The US-based CNBC already has networks operating in Europe, Asia and the Middle East. While rollings news networks such as CNN, BBC World and al-Jazeera International are available to television viewers in Africa, none broadcast from studios in Africa. African governments frequently complain about Western coverage of their continent, complaining that it is too often negative and overly-focused on natural disasters. (AFP via Independent Online)

EU states share monitoring of militant Web sites

European Union states have started sharing monitoring of militant Web sites, including sites linked to al-Qaeda, a draft statement agreed by the bloc's ambassadors on Wednesday shows. The EU police agency Europol is building an information portal to allow exchange of information on militant Web sites monitoring, the draft prepared for the next meeting of EU justice and interior ministers in June said. The portal is to include a list of links of monitored Web sites, statements by terrorist organisations, and details on experts checking the web in EU countries, including their language competence and technical expertise. Expert meetings will also be organised. Western security analysts say al Qaeda and its offshoots have been very adept at using new media, publishing footage of violent executions and attacks on British forces in Iraq on the Internet within hours of them happening. Germany, which holds the rotating EU presidency, has been pressing the 27 EU states to cooperate on web monitoring, arguing that not all member states have experts who can translate and analyse Web sites used by militants. (Reuters)

Gorbachev launches new book by slain Putin critic

Former Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev on Wednesday hosted the launch of a new book by murdered Russian journalist Anna Politkovskaya, the first by her to be widely available in her native land and language. Politkovskaya, a critic of President Vladimir Putin and reporter of human rights abuses in Chechnya, was shot dead last October. Investigators say her unsolved murder was linked to her reporting. Gorbachev, 76, hosted the launch at his political institute in Moscow alongside Politkovskaya's son, daughter and estranged husband, who edited the book. Politkovskaya's death sparked outrage in the West but little emotion in Russia, where previous books by her were never properly published. Her reports appeared only in the fringe intellectual newspaper 'Novaya Gazeta', part owned by Gorbachev. The 988-page hardback book, entitled 'What for' and priced at around 600 roubles (EUR 17), arranges work by Politkovskaya around different themes. Friends and colleagues at the launch criticized the slow pace of the investigation into her death. 'It's essential that the investigation is brought to a swift conclusion, the killers are found, they are prosecuted and justice is delivered,' said Aidan White, General-Secretary of the worldwide journalists' union the International Federation of Journalists, to applause from Gorbachev and others. White was in Moscow to attend a conference which called on governments to do more to catch reporters' killers. (Reuters via ABC News)

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