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Tag: United Kingdom

  • Europe Gets An Envy-Inducing Collector’s Edition For Resident Evil 6

    Europe Gets An Envy-Inducing Collector’s Edition For Resident Evil 6

    I’ll be honest here – I spend way too much money on collector’s editions of my favorite games. If there’s a collector’s edition, I’m probably going to end up getting it for all the awesome swag that it contains. There has been a disturbing trend recently, however, that makes me rethink my long-term plans of staying in the United States.

    Capcom announced some special editions of Resident Evil 6 for the U.S. a while back that included digital versions of all the past games in the series. It was a pretty awesome set and a pretty good deal at $90 for those who haven’t played the past games in the franchise. What about those of us who are Resident Evil diehards though? The fans who have been with the franchise since the awesome N64 port of Resident Evil 2? Where’s our special edition? It’s apparently only coming to Europe.

    The Capcom Europe blog announced the existence of an absolutely amazing collector’s edition for Resident Evil 6. It contains an absolutely mind-blowing amount of awesome stuff that makes the U.S. collector’s edition for Resident Evil 5, which I purchased for $90, seem like utter trash.

    The RE6 CE for Europe comes with the game in one of those wonderful steelbook cases, a hardcover art book, download codes for avatar gear on the Xbox 360 or a dynamic theme on the PS3, emblem insignias for the three main characters, an Ivy University Tall Oaks hoody and an awesome “Needle Bomb” box that houses all of it.

    Like I said, I’m seriously questioning my nation of origin at this point. If Capcom thinks so little of us that we only get a couple of digital games and not something as awesome as this, I feel a little insulted. Of course, Capcom has not announced all of their plans for the U.S. market yet, but it does sound like this particular collector’s edition is going to stay Europe-only for the time being.

    If you are one of the lucky ones to be born to European parents, you can pick up this awesome collector’s edition in the UK, France and Germany from select retailers. You may want to start saving now, because I’m sure it’s going to cost a pretty pound sterling/euro.

    We’ll keep you up to date if Capcom decides to start treating U.S. citizens like normal people. Between Japan getting the awesome $1,200 leather jacket special edition and this, it just seems like they don’t care about the gamers who put the original Resident Evil on the spot. Maybe they need a reminder that it has been U.S. gamers who continuously pump more money into the Resident Evil franchise than any other territory. Just a thought.

  • Jimmy Wales Pens Petition to Halt Richard O’Dwyer’s Absurd Extradition to U.S.

    Earlier this year, Wikipedia founder Jimmy Wales added instrumental support in the internet’s successful fight against the U.S. government-backed Twin Bills of Terrible known as SOPA and PIPA. For his second act, Wales is hoping he can once again use the internet to galvanize supporters in both the public and the government to take up the cause of U.K. student Richard O’Dwyer’s impending extradition to the United States.

    Richard O’Dwyer, 24, if you recall, was arrested in November 2010 in London on charges that his website, TVShack.net, was violating copyright law because it hosted links to pirated TV shows and movies – just links, mind you, and not the actual content. Although O’Dwyer has never lived in the United States and none of his servers were hosted in the United States, a U.K. judge nonetheless ruled that O’Dwyer should be extradited to the United States to stand trial. The charges against O’Dwyer carry a (jaw-dropping) maximum of ten-year sentence.

    Anonymous has already targeted the website of the U.K Home Office as a response to (among other reasons) O’Dwyer’s impending extradition to the U.S. More personally, O’Dwyer’s own mother has spoken out against the United State’s imminent domain-like seizure or her son and the site he ran, calling on activists to save the internet from the U.S.

    Wales met with O’Dwyer earlier this month and subsequently created a petition on change.org yesterday to further increase awareness of O’Dwyer’s extradition. Wales’ petition was released concurrently with an opinion piece in the Guardian. In both pieces, Wales makes an impassioned plea for support from the internet as well as reason from the government bodies that are currently threatening O’Dwyer’s quality of life.

    The internet as a whole must not tolerate censorship in response to mere allegations of copyright infringement. As citizens we must stand up for our rights online.

    When operating his site, Richard O’Dwyer always did his best to play by the rules: on the few occasions he received requests to remove content from copyright holders, he complied. His site hosted links, not copyrighted content, and these were submitted by users.

    Copyright is an important institution, serving a beneficial moral and economic purpose. But that does not mean that copyright can or should be unlimited. It does not mean that we should abandon time-honoured moral and legal principles to allow endless encroachments on our civil liberties in the interests of the moguls of Hollywood.

    Richard O’Dwyer is the human face of the battle between the content industry and the interests of the general public. Earlier this year, in the fight against the anti-copyright bills SOPA and PIPA, the public won its first big victory. This could be our second.

    Wales is right to stand up for O’Dwyer but it’s a shame that additional persuasive ambassadors of the internet have not come forward to support O’Dwyer’s case. Wales accurately compares O’Dwyer’s site to Google in that it merely provides a space for people to post links to videos that are hosted somewhere else on the internet. Google has argued a similar defense of its online video service, YouTube, in that it cannot be responsible for what the users of the service upload (although YouTube is actually hosting real content as opposed to mere links that forward users to other sites). Google has even proffered its two cents in similar piracy cases, such as it did earlier this year by submitting an amicus brief in the Motion Picture Association of America’s lawsuit against Hotfile, a file-sharing site.

    If Google believes that it is lawfully protected by the “safe-harbor” provision provided by the Digital Millenium Copyright Act and that Hotfile is likewise protected, there’s no reason why O’Dwyer shouldn’t be protected by the same provision (nor is there any reason why Google couldn’t make another interjection in O’Dwyer’s case the way it did with the Hotfile case).

    In the meantime, hats of to Jimmy Wales for helping broaden the attention on Richard O’Dwyer’s nigh-Kafkaesque legal nightmare.

    As of writing this, Wales’ petition to the UK Home Secretary has collected 28,353 signatures (it actually increased nearly 2,000 in the time it took me to write this article) of the 35,000-signature goal.

  • Google Street View To Go A-Rowing in the UK’s Canals

    When Google Maps went offshore in order to put some Street View action on the Amazon River earlier this year, it signaled that Google was moving beyond the task collecting ground-level imagery of mere streets (despite the product’s name). At the Next Dimension conference earlier this month, Google Maps dignitaries showcased some of the advents they’ve been making with the trike they use to capture the Street View imagery. For example, Street View Engineering Director Luc Vincent revealed that they’ve fit the trike to be toted around via backpack or bicycle in order to chart places that the Street View car might not be able to access, leaving the audience with the impression that Google has plans to go where no mapping service had gone before.

    One of the next projects on deck for Google Street View will be to map out some of the canal towpaths in the United Kingdom. According to V3.co.uk, Google Maps plans on rowing down some 2,000 miles of the U.K.’s canal systems to capture imagery that it hopes will promote local and tourist interest in visiting the towpaths.

    Google Maps will be collaborating with the Canal & River Trust to map out the canal towpaths in hopes of promoting people to choose the canals as a method of travel. Ed Parsons, a geospatial technologist with Google UK, said, “Canal towpaths offer green routes through our towns and cities and by working with the Canal & River Trust we’re adding towpaths to Google Maps and encouraging people to discover their local waterway.”

    Apple might be able to keep up with Google in terms of flashy 3D images of overhead views, but this is just a reminders that Google Maps offers so many more services that will not only keep them relevant but likely retain their users’ loyalty.

    [Via Search Engine Watch.]

  • UK ISP Comes Out Against The Pirate Bay Blockade

    It’s been a little over a month since the The Pirate Bay was blocked in the UK due to a court order. The block was meant to cut down on the amount of file-sharing happening across the Internet, but it seems to have had the reverse effect for now. Now a UK ISP has come out against the court order.

    According to ISPreview, business ISP Fluidata is not a big fan of the The Pirate Bay IP blockade. Back when the court order was originally issued, Virgin Media expressed their disappointment, but only said that there were better ways to combat piracy. Fluidata on the other hand comes out swinging by pointing out the outdated business model that runs the music industry. Andi Soric, account manager for Fluidata had this to say:

    “That the record label business model is ‘out of date’ is a point that scarcely needs to be made. The twin pillars that upheld it; the reliance of artists on record labels to produce music, and consumer demand for cassettes/CD’s, have crumbled at alarming speed under the weight of file sharing and distribution of content, and although efforts have been made by these companies to embrace the internet age and find ways to charge for digital music, the industry still rests on precarious foundations.

    While the internet has disadvantaged record labels, it is important to remember it hasn’t necessarily been a negative to the music industry. To the contrary, British artists such as Ed Sheeran, Jessie J and even American superstars such as Justin Bieber (my personal favorite) can be thankful to the internet for their current career success.

    Self-made artists can now upload audio and use media platforms such as YouTube and MySpace to broadcast their talent to millions of people at virtually no cost. In my view, this can only be positive for music and society as a whole and makes you wonder how many stars have been missed in the last 50 years due to the costs attached to recording and distributing music.”

    Ignoring that Soric is a fan of Justin Bieber for a minute, he has a point. The Internet has completely changed the game of how we create and consume music. I have found so many new artists that would have only been possible thanks to the Internet. That doesn’t mean that we as music consumers want to stop listening to the music produced by the industry. I love the major pop stars just like everybody else who isn’t a hipster. The point is that the music industry, like the television and movie industry, must provide alternative methods for us to enjoy music.

    That being said, I will say the efforts of services like Spotify have definitely helped to modernize the music industry. Compared to movies and television, the music industry is already way ahead thanks to free streaming services. Here’s hoping the MPAA and television industries can work out a deal to have their content available via all major video streaming services.

  • Julian Assange Loses UK Supreme Court Appeal

    We received word last week that a decision would me made today in regards to Julian Assange’s bid to avoid extradition. It would appear that he he has lost that bid as the UK Supreme Court issued their verdict today and they are letting the extradition go ahead.

    Here’s the judgement from the document released by the UK Supreme Court:

    The Supreme Court by a majority of 5 to 2 (Lady Hale and Lord Mance dissenting) dismisses the appeal and holds that an EAW issued by a public prosecutor is a valid Part 1 warrant issued by a judicial authority within the meaning of section 2(2) and 66 of the 2003 Act.

    As we reported, Assange’s lawyers were challenging whether or not the Swedish public prosecutor could be considered a “judicial authority” when issuing a European arrest warrant. That argument obviously failed before the court. In their decision, the court says that the Vienna Convention extends “judicial authority” to prosecutors.

    “…the Supreme Court is not bound as a matter of European law to interpret Part 1 of the 2003 Act in a manner which accords with the Framework Decision, but the majority held that the court should do so in this case. The immediate objective of the Framework Decision was to create a single system for achieving the surrender of those accused or convicted of serious criminal offences and this required a uniform interpretation of the phrase ‘judicial authority’. There was a strong domestic presumption in favour of interpreting a statute in a way which did not place the United Kingdom in breach of its international obligations.”

    The two dissenters – Lord Mance and Lady Hale – said that the framework decision was unclear. In their statement, the two said:

    “In this case, the correct interpretation of ‘judicial authority’ in the Framework Decision, a question of EU law, was far from certain. Thus if Parliament had intended to restrict the power to issue EAWs to judges or courts, that would not have required a deliberate intention to legislate inconsistently with the Framework Decision. As the words in the statute were ambiguous, it was appropriate to have regard to ministerial statements, and those statements showed that repeated assurances were given that an issuing judicial authority would have to be a court, judge or magistrate.”

    After the verdict was made, RT reports that Assange’s legal team requested a 14-day extension. It’s reported that Assange’s defense lawyer, Dinah Rose, argued that the court’s decision was made based upon legal precedents that were not discussed during the appeal. In this case, the legal precedent is the

    So what’s next for Assange? Fair Trials International put together a informative document that details what the future holds for the Wikileaks founder. They say that Assange’s only hope at the moment is to appeal the decision to the European Court of Human Rights, but Fair Trials says that his extradition being stopped is very unlikely.

    As for Assange’s trip to Sweden, Fair Trials says that he can expect to be arrested upon landing in Sweden and then held in detention until his first court hearing. From there, it’s unlikely that he will be granted bail so he will most likely be stuck in detention until his actual court date. Fortunately, Sweden usually gets prisoners through the court system fairly quickly and Assange will have access to his lawyer throughout all of this.

    For their part, Wikileaks has been rather quiet since the ruling came this morning. Their Twitter account announced the verdict and gave out some resources regarding the trial. There has been no formal announcement from Assange or anybody on his legal team.

    It looks like the fight against extradition is not over yet. We’ll keep an eye out for any developments today and throughout the week. It will be interesting to see the reaction from both sides of the debate.

    [Lead image: Protests outside of Supreme Court this morning courtesy of @_cypherpunks_]

  • Julian Assange To Find Out If He’s Being Extradited Next Week

    It’s been a long time since Julian Assange was arrested for an alleged rape and sexual assault in Sweden. According to Wikileaks, he’s been detained in house arrest for 533 days. He’s been in and out of court hearings, starting a TV show, running for Australian government positions and even guest starring on the Simpsons. It’s those court hearings that are the most important though and we should finally hear a verdict next week.

    The Guardian is reporting that the U.K. supreme court will finally decide on whether or not Assange should be extradited to Sweden. The verdict is expected to come Wednesday, but they’ve been putting off this verdict for long enough already. I wouldn’t be surprised if it was delayed once again.

    For those who are just joining us, the case is pretty simple. Swedish prosecutor Marianne Ny issued the original European Arrest Warrant for Assange. The Wikileaks founder’s lawyers argue that Ny outstepped her authority to issue such a warrant. During the appeal proceedings in February, the defense argued that Ny “lacks the impartiality and the independence from both the executive and the parties which constitute essential features of the exercise of judicial authority under domestic and European law.”

    The Swedish authorities argue that they don’t need to be “independent and impartial” when in the “preliminary stages of an investigation.” Sweden apparently thinks that extraditing an Australian citizen from the U.K. to Sweden is part of a preliminary investigation. I don’t know what preliminary means in Sweden, but I’m pretty sure it doesn’t mean a full-fledged extradition that assumes Assange is guilty without trial.

    Seven justices will be deciding the Assange case according to The Guardian. They speculate that the large number of justices means that the U.K. is taking the issue very seriously. That could be why they have taken so long to decide this particular case.

    If Assange does lose the appeal, he still has one avenue available to him. He can take the case up to the European Court of Human Rights which only has 14 days to respond to the appeal. This isn’t the first time the ECHR has shown up recently as one of the founders of The Pirate Bay has appealed to it as a last ditch effort to avoid fines and a prison sentence.

    If the U.K. Supreme Court does deliver a verdict next Wednesday, we’ll be sure to let you know. The outcome of this case has a lot riding on it. Not only will the outcome immediately affect Assange, but it could have an effect on future extradition proceedings.

    [lead photo courtesy of acidpolly on flickr]

  • Facebook Isn’t The Best When It Comes To Marriage

    Facebook is great for a lot of things – catching up with old friends, discussing topics with like-minded individuals and following your favorite celebrities. It’s not so great when it comes to marriage though.

    Back in January, a survey found that over 30 percent of all divorces in the U.K. mentioned Facebook in the filings. From that survey, we could gather that the openness Facebook brings with it is not good for marriage. Sure, society tells us that we should never keep secrets from our spouses, but Facebook makes sure that those secrets don’t stay secret for long.

    That was all in the U.K. though. Surely the Internet, specifically Facebook, doesn’t play as large of a role in our divorce-happy nation, right? Unfortunately, Smart Money has found that over 80 percent of divorce attorneys have started to find social networking in their clients’ filing according to a report from the American Academy of Matrimonial Lawyers. Individual lawyers are also coming forward and saying that over half of all cases that submit electronic material as evidence include Facebook.

    So what’s the big deal with Facebook and divorce? It’s the same problem that plagues a lot of stupid people on the social networking site. People think they’re anonymous when on Facebook even when the site clearly displays a lot of identifying and potentially incriminating information. This leads to people posting stupid things like siphoning gas from a cop car. It can also lead to people potentially admitting to an affair or other damning information, like leaving the toilet seat up.

    What could be even worse is that Smart Money has found judges using Facebook posts to determine child custody and alimony. I understand that Facebook offers an extra layer of evidence in determining the competency of a human being, but I hope that it’s not the only thing being used. A lot of posts, at least from me, are full of hyperbole and exaggerated statements that aren’t meant to be taken literally.

    It’s important to remember, however, that Facebook is just one part of the problem. Nothing can save a bad marriage, even when concealing your activities on Facebook. Posting irresponsible content on Facebook that brings your loyalty or maturity into question will not help matters at all.

    Once again, the moral of the story is to always be careful of what you post to Facebook. You never know who is going to see it and it could have disastrous effects. I would also advise you not to obsessively stalk your spouse’s Facebook account. It’s their privacy and they will share it with you if they want. Being suspicious is only going to add undue stress to the relationship.

  • The Pirate Bay Is Doing Well In The UK After ISP Block

    We reported Monday on the UK’s absurd attempt to stop copyright infringement by blocking access to The Pirate Bay. Nobody was going to lose any sleep over the matter since tips on how to get around the blocks went up immediately after the court’s ruling. If anybody thinks the tactic is going to slow down piracy, they’re only fooling themselves and The Pirate Bay has the proof to back it up.

    Speaking to TorrentFreak, a Pirate Bay insider said that the news circulating through all the major news networks like BBC and The Guardian equated to free publicity. They said that The Pirate Bay saw 12 million more visitors than usual after the story started to go live. They even suggested that The Pirate Bay should write a “thank you note” to the British Phonographic Industry, the group who instigated the case that ruled the torrent tracking site to be behind “copyright infringement on a massive scale.”

    The Pirate Bay sees this increase in traffic as only a good thing as it will give them time to educate new users how to get around what they see as pitiful efforts by governments to prevent access to their site. Our own Chris Richardson covered the majority of these solutions in his story on Monday. The gist is that users can use free services to change their DNS servers and any censorship is immediately circumvented. There’s also services like Tor and iPredator that help get around such blocks.

    I think we can draw a parallel between The Pirate Bay’s very public ISP block in the UK and MegaUpload’s very public takedown. Both sites were very well known and make up a good chunk of Internet traffic. Both sites are hit with some form of censorship that goes very public across multiple news networks. In the case of MegaUpload, file sharing went down immediately after the takedown. Unfortunately for the copyright industry, it went right back to pre-takedown levels the next day after everybody moved on to another service. I’m pretty sure that The Pirate Bay expects the same thing to happen in the UK. Even if they don’t use The Pirate Bay, they’ll figure out a way to obtain the files they’re after.

    As TorrentFreak points out, not everybody will be prepared to circumvent the block when it goes into effect. There will be some people who hear about The Pirate Bay and then find out later that it has been blocked. Will they search Google for one of many easy solutions or will they just give up and buy the legitimate product? I think it’s too early to tell, but The Pirate Bay will probably still see plenty of action from UK citizens.

    Do you think The Pirate Bay will continue to thrive in the UK? Or will the blockade reduce piracy in the country? Let us know in the comments.

  • Study Finds That People Aren’t Physically Interacting Much Anymore Due To The Internet

    I’m going to be straight up with all of you – I think I’m addicted to the Internet. While my job involves my sitting at a desk working online all day, I can’t get away from it once the work day is over. Upon getting home, I sit down at my desk and continue my regular online activities. With that being said, I don’t think I’m as bad as the people found in a recent study of so-called “technology addicts.”

    The Mail Online is reporting on a study from digital marketing group dnx on a troubling new trend that sees people obsessed with the Internet and technology going up to 48 hours without interacting with another human being. But people obsessed with the Internet totally interact with humans, right? Well, that’s true, but they aren’t physically interacting with other humans. For example, they aren’t traveling to their friend’s house to hang out on the couch, but rather texting or video calling them from the comfort of their room.

    The research study took place in the UK and interviewed a thousands adults. Most of those surveyed aren’t as bad as the ones described above. Sure, they still use digital communication technology to perhaps an unhealthy degree, but they at least physically interact with humans from day to day.

    The above groups combined make up about 16 percent of those surveyed and 19 percent of those people are the ones who save their human interaction for the chat rooms and Skype logs of the world. Not that that’s a bad thing. Surely they still interact with humans on their day-to-day errands, right? Well, as it turns out, this particular group of the population also avoids humanity every chance they can get by using machines to replace functions that would normally require human interaction like buying a train ticket or getting lunch by buying from a vending machine.

    Of course, the people who ran the study find this a little alarming. The messages seems to be that it’s great people are adopting technology so rapidly, but don’t forget that there are actual real people out in the world as well. Just because you can talk to your pal via text doesn’t mean you shouldn’t meet up with him for some good ol’ physical bonding.

    While there is a large portion of the population that is keeping up with technology, there appears to be a separate group who just can’t keep up. Seventeen percent of those surveyed said that they were being left behind by the constant onward march of technology. This leaves them making simple mistakes like ordering the wrong quantity from an online shop or clicking on malicious links because they really think that they’re about to win one of those newfangled iPads.

    The survey, while conducted in the UK, does point out a problem that has been plaguing pretty much every other modern nation on Earth. I’m going to pretend that my experience in the U.S. can be applied to any other technophile’s experience. I avoid contact with humanity whenever I can not because I hate it, but technology has made it easier to do. Why should I buy a movie ticket from the box office when I can just swipe my card at a machine that will print one out for me?

    The best example of this phenomenon, however, is seen in Japan. They even have their own special word for it – “hikikomori.” It literally means “pulling inward, being confined” but has since been applied to a rising portion of the population that essentially put themselves under voluntary house arrest to avoid the outside and the people who inhabit it. These “hikikomori” are even more hardcore than the people in UK study because they usually don’t even leave the house for more than six months. With more than 700,000 Japanese adults going with that lifestyle, I don’t know if the US and UK could ever, or even want, to catch up.

    All of this is to say that you should get out more. Technology is great and it does make our lives easier, but it doesn’t give you an excuse to ignore humanity. I’m as guilty as the next guy when it comes to avoiding people because it’s more convenient to use technology or, if you’re like me, have some form of an impediment that makes social interactions occasionally awkward. It’s still a good idea to brush up on those physical communication skills just in case you actually have to use them someday. While I don’t suggest you take a year off from using the Internet, you may actually have to interact with real people when it comes to a job or family.

    Besides, you’re going to get lonely one of these days, right? Right?

    Do you think your physical interactions have been negatively affected by technology? Or has it made you even more social? Let us know in the comments.

    [Lead image: TurboTax Ad]

  • The Pirate Bay To Be Blocked In The UK

    We reported a few months ago that there was a high court ruling currently pending on whether or not The Pirate Bay could be blocked by UK ISPs. It seems that those in the copyright industry got their wish as the UK High Court ruled that the torrent host must be blocked.

    The BBC is reporting that the ruling makes it so that Sky, Everything Everywhere, TalkTalk, O2 and Virgin Media must now block The Pirate Bay from being accessed in the UK. Apparently the High Court isn’t publicizing its decision, but the British Phonographic Industry is happy to speak for them.

    BPI’s CEO Geoff Taylor said that the High Court agreed with them in that The Pirate Bay “infringes copyright on a massive scale.” He also uses the age old argument that the people who operate the site profit by “commercially exploiting music and other creative works.”

    The ISPs are taking a more cautious response to the news. Virgin Media told the BBC that they will comply with the court order, but they believe that outright blocking access is not the right move. They feel that instead of blocking piracy, corporations should compete against piracy with better service. Virgin specifically mentions Spotify as a legal alternative that has already proven wildly successful.

    While the UK will be outright blocking access to The Pirate Bay, ISPs in the U.S. will be utilizing a different method to “punish” those who pirate media. It will be a “graduated response” program that will seek to educate those caught file-sharing then introduce stiffer punishments if the initial scare tactics fail.

    While the U.S. has a better response to piracy, more and more people may be getting letters from their ISPs. It’s hard to compete with piracy when alternative services like Hulu are now losing their value due to cable companies not willing to evolve and offer a better service.

    Do you think the UK should block Web site like The Pirate Bay? Or do you agree with Virgin Media in that companies should compete with piracy instead of trying to stamp it out? Let us know in the comments.

  • Researchers Track British Mood With Twitter

    Researchers in the Intelligent Systems Laboratory at the University of Bristol have presented a paper in which they track the national mood of the United Kingdom through Twitter posts. This is not the first, or even the largest, study to track public mood swings using Twitter. This study, however, is interesting because it specifically shows the increasing public anger leading up the the riots that erupted last year.

    The study looked at 484 million tweets by more than 9.8 million users over a period of 31 months. The study covers the timeframe from July of 2009 to January of this year. Over the course of the last two years the UK has faced three major events: the budget cuts announcement from October 2010, the royal wedding of Prince William in Aprill 2011, and the riots in August 2011.

    From the study abstract:

    Our findings, besides corroborating our choice of method for the detection of public mood, also present intriguing patterns that can be explained in terms of events and social changes. On the one hand, the time series we obtain show that periodic events such as Christmas and Halloween evoke similar mood patterns every year. On the other hand, we see that a significant increase in negative mood indicators coincide with the announcement of the cuts to public spending by the government, and that this effect is still lasting. We also detect events such as the riots of summer 2011, as well as a possible calming effect coinciding with the run up to the royal wedding.

    The study captured standard public mood measurements, such as sadness peaking on Halloween and Joy peaking on Christmas. However, the study captured something I find interesting about the mood of the British public around the time of the riots last year. In the month leading up to the riots, anger can be seen spiking heavily, and the riots are followed by a cathartic lowering of anger. The odd part is that fear during the riots did not have nearly as significant a rise as did anger. Fear did match anger, though, when the budget cuts were announced in October 2010. This suggests to me that the British public fears poverty more than London or Manchester being on fire, but I, like the authors of the study, leave such interpretations to social scientists.

    The study was presented at the Workshop on Social Media Applications in News and Entertainment being held in Lyon, France. The workshop is co-located with the World Wide Web 2012 conference. The authors of the study are Thomas Lansdall-Welfare, Vasileios Lampos, and Nello Cristianini.

  • Anonymous Attacks UK Home Office Web Site

    Anonymous Attacks UK Home Office Web Site

    Anonymous may be waging a war against China’s censorship of the Internet, but they are also fighting something a bit closer to home. That is, if you count the UK as being closer to home.

    The Anonymous UK Twitter account announced over the weekend that the Home Office was taken offline due to a DDoS attack. They also took down the Web site for UK PM David Cameron. This is all part of an operation called #OpTrialAtHome. It seeks to stop the extradition of UK citizens to the US where they face charges of hacking into US government Web sites and other Internet crimes.

    The BBC News story reporting on the attacks claimed the hack was in response to not only extradition, but also the proposed surveillance laws that are to be presented in May during the Queen’s Speech. Anonymous UK refutes this saying this latest hacking attack is squarely opposed to current extradition laws, but the group did announce that they would be starting ops against the surveillance laws soon.

    One interesting thing to note is that a UK government spokeswoman told BBC that the Home Office Web site was the “subject of an online protest last night.” This is interesting as it may be the first time a government official has called an DDoS attack a protest, instead of a hacking attack. As Anonymous and most net savvy people would tell you, DDoS isn’t hacking as it so much just overloading a server with too many requests that it forces the site offline. Many online protesters compare DDoS attacks to the sit-in protests that Gandhi and Martin Luther King Jr. used for non-violent protests.

    Just like with China, this particular movement isn’t over. Alongside the extradition protests, Anonymous will carry out ops in protest against the aforementioned surveillance laws. We’ll keep you updated on any developments in this and all other Anonymous stories.

  • Computer Science Training A Must For Teachers

    We reported last week that there’s a movement among adults to learn programming languages. It would seem that people from every profession was interesting in learning programming, because they’re not content in just knowing how to use computers.

    While it’s important for adults to learn a bit of programming, it’s even more important that we begin teaching our children these various languages.Their young minds are much more flexible to taking in the absurd amount of knowledge required with some programming languages. The problem, of course, comes in the forms of the teachers not knowing enough to effectively convey this knowledge to students.

    The Guardian reported on this very same situation Saturday with a call to arms for teachers to begin training in computer science. Teachers can’t pass this knowledge off to students if they don’t know it themselves to begin with.

    John Stout, a teacher at King George V Sixth Form College in Southport, Merseyside, said that most students who come to him with an ICT background only know how to use Microsoft Word. It’s an unfortunate situation that most schools’, including my own high school, computer programs consist of learning how to use the Microsoft suite of business tools like Word and Excel.

    It’s good news then that at least one school has begun changing its curriculum to have an increased focus on computer science. Amy Desmond-Williams, director of ICT studies at Sidney Stringer Academy, says that “there is only so much Powerpoint and Word can teach.” While she doesn’t discredit the value that learning business applications has for students, she feels that there needs to be more emphasis placed on programming skills for those students who want to go into those fields.

    All of this comes back to the major problem at hand – none of the computer science teachers in schools know to program. People in education agree that they need to step up the training of teachers first before they attempt to teach children programming.

    While this story is obviously from the UK, the same can be said of the U.S. as well. Considering that app development is now one of the fastest growing economies in the U.S., it only makes sense that we start teaching our children how to code.

    Programming is no longer a job that only “nerds” do or whatever applicable stereotype you want to use. No matter the field, programming is now a part of it. Having some basic knowledge of how computers work will make our future workers that much more desirable in the job market.

  • The UK Wants To Monitor Internet Use And Then Some

    It’s no big surprise now that many governments all over the world want to monitor the Internet usage and communications of its citizens. There’s a law currently sitting around in Canada, the United States’s rumored NSA surveillance facility, and the UK’s rumored legislation that would force ISPs to spy on their customers. From here, it looks like the legislation in the UK is the one that has the best chance of actually being enacted.

    The Telgraph is reporting that the new spying legislation will be proposed next month in the Queen’s Speech. The legislation would make it so that ISPs have to install hardware that would let the government spy in real time on its citizens. It’s the kind of Orwellian nightmare that many people have fought to prevent. The government thinks it has a good reason to enact such measures though – it’s all about keeping you safe.

    Perhaps in a way of not making it seem that bad, it is required that police have a warrant when they want to access the information. If that doesn’t make you feel better, you’re doing it right. The ISPs still have to keep records of all communications between yourself and groups of people. It doesn’t just stop at who you talked to, but for how long and how often.

    The UK government has been obsessed with security ever since they won the bid to host the Olympics in London this summer. They believe that the event will be a major terrorist target and they want to protect its citizens from any such event. A noble cause if there ever was one, but spying on your own citizens isn’t how one combats terrorism and crime. It’s invading the privacy of normal citizens. You would think governments would learn by now that terrorists and criminals, unless they’re really stupid, don’t use easily traceable and breakable forms of communication.

    This news is on the heels of the NSA being called in last month to answer questions on its rumored surveillance program that would spy on every citizen in the United States. The UK is at least letting their intentions be known via legislation, whereas the NSA is rumored to be doing its dirty deeds under the noses of everybody without any kind of oversight.

    The Telegraph says that a similar bill was proposed in 2006. It was eventually killed by massive outcry from citizens. We can only hope that the current bill faces a similar backlash that will eventually kill it. We’ll keep you updated when the UK government formally introduces this bill.

  • Fact: UK Internet Users Actually Pronounce “Search” As “Google”

    Fact: UK Internet Users Actually Pronounce “Search” As “Google”

    Experian Hitwise pointed out yesterday that UK internet users’ visits to search engines is sustaining a massive growth rate. Year-on-year, there was an 8.7% increase in visits to search engines when comparing February 2012 and February 2011 and the trend appears to set to continue next month.

    One thing I immediately noticed about the visits to search engines in the United Kingdom is that “search engine” might as well be spelled G-O-O-G-L-E. Last month, Google netted 91.57% of all searches, up from 90.64% in January 2012. That market share for Google is up from last year at the same time by .89%. The nearest competitor to Google is Microsoft, whose sites (like Bing) amassed a blink-and-you’ll-miss-it 3.69% of the search market. Yahoo claimed 2.58% and after that, remaining people who didn’t use those three search sites went back to using two aluminum cans connected with a piece of twine.

    Comparatively, Google’s market share of online search in the United States isn’t quite that dominant for February 2012 but it’s still unquestionably commanding at 66.4%. Laying claim to two-thirds of the search market is still an amazing take but it’s nowhere near the absolute monopoly Google has on search in the UK.

    Google isn’t eating most of the search pie in the UK so much as its gobbling up all of it and leaving Microsoft and Yahoo to bicker over the crumbs left cooling on the placemat. Microsoft is slowly carving out a piece of the search market for itself in the United States, but its virtually non-existant in the UK. So why is Google so much more dominant in the UK, I wonder.

    James Murray, a marketing research analyst with Experian Hitwise, spoke with me about why Google has achieved such an irresistible dominance in the search market. Turns out it really might be as simple as pointing to Google’s unrivaled quality in producing reliable search results.

    “In the UK at least Google has held over a 90% share of the search market for at least the last five years,” Murray said. “What’s amazing is that Google managed to achieve such a dominant place in the UK search market with no discernible advertising or marketing. It achieved its status by being the best in its field, offering the most relevant information and by word of mouth.”

    Murray also notes that Google’s achievement has been so convincing that it’s changed the vernacular related to internet search.

    “Google has just become synonymous with search, so much so that we’ve created a verb around its brand name,” he added. “When you want to find information online, you Google it, that’s how powerful the brand is.”

    That much is true no matter what side of the Atlantic you find yourself on. As for why Google has been verbified to denote the act of conducting an internet search in the UK? Maybe it’s just more fun to say with a British tongue. Regardless, you’d be hard pressed to find anyone in the UK that uses Bing or Yahoo to search the internet.

  • Wikipedia Cofounder Jimmy Wales Now to Advise UK

    Wikimedia Foundation boss Jimmy Wales can add one more not-for-profit post to his CV. He’ll now be advising the British government on matters of technology, transparency, open policy-making, and political crowdsourcing.

    So announced Downing Street top aide Rohan Silva yesterday, in a talk–titled: Open Source Government, Enterprise and Innovation–to the South By Southwest crowd. “(We) must use new technology to recast politics for the 21st century,” he said, according to the Daily Telegraph. The talk addressed the British Governments “adventures in crowdsourcing,” the future of open data, open government and technology policy, and entrepreneurial opportunities in the UK.

    Wales will be working pro-bono for the UK government. As a part of his new unpaid position, he will serve across all government departments, and will advise civil servants (that includes Members of Parliament) rather than ministers, reports the Telegraph. Neither the duration of Wales’s tenure as adviser nor any specific projects of his have been formally announced.

    While nothing’s been formally announced, it’s not hard to divine Wales’s first round of suggestions. He’ll probably lead off with the the idea of a legislative “sandbox,” where government officials can try out new policies and have them reviewed by anonymous peers before implementing them in the wider political arena. Then he’ll likely suggest abolishing the entire UK tax code, replacing the outdated funding platform with a series of annoying banner ads featuring financial pleas from Commonwealth subjects, Members of Parliament, and even the Queen herself. If the government is unable to reach its fundraising goal of some £560 billion by next March, the solution will be simple: the UK will just have to start charging for some of its services. Parking violations will also soon read: “[citation needed].”

    Okay, so I made those up. (And if you read the subtitle you know I also recycled a joke. Shame on me.) But here’s one real project Wales might have a hand in: https://www.gov.uk/. The website, currently in beta mode, exists to test the feasibility of consolidating all government websites under a single address. At the moment, Directgov remains the UK’s official government website.

    Here’s what Twitter has to say about the appointment.

    Those in favor:

    @PhilippaNews
    Philippa Thomas    Time to Make Over Govt? RT@davewiner: Wikipedia’s Jimmy Wales becoming adviser to British government. http://t.co/vQtayLBo 45 minutes ago via Twitter for iPhone ·  Reply ·  Retweet ·  Favorite · powered by @socialditto

    @PXDigitalGov
    Chris Yiu    @jimmy_wales congratulations! Great to have you advising UK gov. Let us know next time you’re over, would love to talk http://t.co/Py0jZbxg 49 minutes ago via web ·  Reply ·  Retweet ·  Favorite · powered by @socialditto

    And those opposed:

    @charlesfrith
    Charles Edward Frith    Jimmy Wales working for Govvcorp is not good news. Let’s see if he backs ACTA et al now. 55 minutes ago via web ·  Reply ·  Retweet ·  Favorite · powered by @socialditto

    And one guy that even shares my sense of humor:

    @piggiebrotha
    Dorian Prodan    Wikipedia’s Jimmy Wales becoming adviser to British government. Expect “please, can you spare some pennies” banner in Parliament. 1 hour ago via Silver Bird ·  Reply ·  Retweet ·  Favorite · powered by @socialditto

    Portions of the British Government will also soon be available in over 280 languages, including Esperanto and Simplified English. Or, as the English call it, “American English”. I’m still kidding.

  • UK Court Rules The Pirate Bay Illegal

    UK Court Rules The Pirate Bay Illegal

    In what could be a major hit for The Pirate Bay, a UK high court has ruled the Web site violates copyright law on a major scale.

    The Guardian is reporting that Justice Arnold of the London High Court has ruled that both the Web site, The Pirate Bay, and its users “unlawfully share copyrighted music.”

    Record labels are wanting to use this momentum to get UK ISPs to block access to the Web site. Those same record labels claim that The Pirate Bay generated $3 million last year by making copies of music and movies available for its users to download.

    Justice Arnold laid out his verdict in a written statement:

    In my judgment, the operators of [The Pirate Bay] do authorise its users’ infringing acts of copying and communication to the public. They go far beyond merely enabling or assisting. I conclude that both users and the operators of [The Pirate Bay] infringe the copyrights of the claimants … in the UK.

    Despite their ability to do so and despite the judicial findings that have been made against them, the operators of [The Pirate Bay] take no steps to prevent infringement. On the contrary … they actively encourage it and treat any attempts to prevent it (judicial or otherwise) with contempt.

    The court will make a verdict by June on whether or not The Pirate Bay will be blocked in the UK. We’ve reached out to The Pirate Bay for comment. We’ll update this story if we hear back.

    Geoff Taylor, chief executive of the British Phonographic Industry, was absolutely pleased with the verdict:

    The High Court today ruled that The Pirate Bay is illegal. The site defrauds musicians and causes huge damage to the music industry and wider creative industries.

    The ruling helps clarify the law on website blocking and we will now proceed with our application to have the site blocked to protect the UK’s creative industries from further harm.

    This may just be another stumbling block for the world’s largest torrent site as its founders had their sentences upheld in court recently, but the site isn’t letting any of the recent rulings against it stop them. Its recent changes to make the site more secure against such attempts to shut it down, such as its change to a new domain name or its use of magnet links, should keep the site going for many more years.

    Not to mention, if taking down MegaUpload didn’t hurt piracy, what is blocking The Pirate Bay going to do? The use of proxies and alternative services will keep piracy going until the content industries evolve or die.

  • Anti-Terror Plan In UK Seeks To Spy, Store Personal Data On Everyone

    We live in a world full of terror. To protect its people from this terror, the UK wants to store all of its citizens personal data – phone calls, text messages, online browsing history – to combat whatever terror is threatening them next.

    The Telegraph is reporting that the UK is cooking up a new anti-terror plan. The plan would require land line, mobile phone and broadband providers to store all of its users information, including the details of every phone call and text message, in a massive database that can be accessed by authorities at any time.

    To relieve any concerned citizen who may feel that this is a massive infringement of their privacy, the plan explicitly states that it would not record the contents of the calls or text messages. It would just record who you made those calls to.

    For those who think that recording who you call or text isn’t that bad, wait till you hear this. The government also wants to store who you send messages to on Facebook, Twitter and in online video games.

    The government is reportedly already in talks with providers over the proposed plan with an announcement planned for March.

    The plan is being spearheaded by MI5, the UK’s equivalent of the FBI, and MI6, the UK’s equivalent of the CIA.

    At least this plan holds some things in common with other plans that sought to store users’ records in massive databases. The UK doesn’t want to pony up the funds to actually fund such a program. They want the companies in question to pay for and support these massive databases that would cost them and taxpayers a couple million a year.

    Laughably, the Labour party drew up plans for a similar database that would be run and paid for by the government, but dropped them in favor of the current plan that would make the companies and taxpayers pay for it.

    The government wants the ability to track suspected individuals in real time with their cell phones. They want to be able to track where they are and who they called when making a phone call. This would allow the authorities to track people down based on their cell phone usage.

    The original plan, as mentioned above, was scrapped due to little public support. The current plan seems to be moving along without much public input to avoid the fate of the last proposed security plan.

    The current plan is supposedly called the Communications Capabilities Development Programme and the government hopes to propose the legislation during the Queen’s Speech in May.

    The government feels they need this plan to combat terrorists who can circumvent modern tracking technology. This is especially crucial to them as they feel the London Olympics this year faces a major terror threat.

    Like with any major revision to privacy and tracking like this, the government needs to keep the people updated on any proposed changes. Creating plans like this in the dark without any public support will only come back to bite you in the end. Just look at ACTA and the storm that has created.

  • UK Committee Seeks To Remove Violent Content From The Internet

    UK Committee Seeks To Remove Violent Content From The Internet

    It’s pretty obvious by now that the Internet can be a nasty place. Is it nasty enough to warrant censorship though?

    That’s what the Home Affairs Committee suggested yesterday in their report titled, “The Roots of Violent Radicalisation.” The report comes from a study that began in May 2011 that found the Internet is the best vehicle to spread violence radicalism – more so than prisons, universities or places of worship. Witnesses told the Committee that the Internet contributed to most, if not all, cases of violent radicalisation.

    It’s worth noting that the British government has powers under the Terrorism Act of 2006 to remove unlawful material from the Internet. The Committee recommends, however, that ISPs should be more proactive in monitoring the material that is on the Internet. They suggest that ISPs work with government to remove material that promotes violent extremism.

    The Committee highlight three matters:

    The need for better liaison and information-sharing between prison authorities, the police, the UK Border Agency and other relevant authorities following the release of prisoners who have been convicted of terrorist offences or who are otherwise considered to be at risk of violent radicalisation.

    The importance of reviewing the list of proscribed organisations – the prospect of de-proscription could in certain circumstances create an incentive for organisations to renounce their support for violence.

    The threat from the far-right, which consists mostly of solitary, disaffected individuals rather than organised terrorist units.

    The group also said that the current name of their current counter-radicalisation strategy “Prevent” should be changed to “Engage” to promote a more supportive approach in working with those at risk.

    The chairman of the Committee, Rt. Hon Keith Vaz MP, had this to say on the proposed rules:

    “The July 7th bombings in London, carried out by four men from West Yorkshire, were a powerful demonstration of the devastating and far-reaching impact of home-grown radicalisation.

    We remain concerned by the growing support for non-violent extremism and more extreme and violent forms of far-right ideology.

    The conviction last week of four men from London and Cardiff radicalised over the internet, for a plot to bomb the London Stock Exchange and launch a Mumbai-style atrocity on the streets of London, shows that we cannot let our vigilance slip. More resources need to be directed to these threats and to preventing radicalisation through the internet and in private spaces. These are the fertile breeding grounds for terrorism.

    We do not believe universities are “complacent to the risks” of radicalisation as has been suggested. Those engaged in public life must ensure that the language they use reflects the same tone.

    Individuals from a wide variety of backgrounds are vulnerable to radicalisation. There is no typical profile or pathway to becoming radicalised. It is a policy of engagement, not alienation that will successfully prevent radicalisation.”

    The Committee has a point. There should be more effort directed at preventing people from falling into radical groups. I just don’t know if attempting to censor Web sites is the right way to go about it.

    What do you think? Should governments be given control over the content of the Internet to prevent violence? Let us know in the comments.

    [Lead image courtesy of suburbanslice on Flickr]

  • Google Maps London: Crime Stats, Train Times Updates For 2012 Olympics

    Similar to how they gave Las Vegas a customized update ahead of Computer Electronics Show, Google’s been busy with their Maps updates in the United Kingdom leading into the Summer Olympics later this year.

    A week or so ago, Google announced that it would be partnering with traintimes.org.uk in order to provide live real-time maps of London’s Tube (that’s their public railway system for you non-British). By visiting the above site, you can get a glimpse of where each train is and, by mousing over each of the pins on the map, see an estimate of the train’s arrival time.

    Additionally, if you visit the actual Google Maps UK site and enter your directions, by choosing the option for directions via public transportation you’ll see pins on the map of each Tube station that also includes arrival and departure times for different train lines.

    Finally, Google has paired up with the London and Wales government in order to apply crime statistics to Maps so that residents and travelers alike can see the types and density of crimes that have been committed in certain postcodes. Users can distinguish between what kind of crime stats they want to see (I guess so that people can assess their risk of becoming arson victims or burglary or the ominous “anti-social behaviour”).

    Given that it’s just now January, I expect that Google will continue to enhance their Maps data for London as the Olympics approaches, such as interior floor maps of stadiums and well-populated hotels.

  • Assange Granted Permission To Appeal Extradition

    Earlier today Wikileaks founder Julian Assange was granted the right to appeal against his extradition to Sweden. It’s been a little over a year since Assange was detained in London and awaited extradition to Sweden in order to face two charges of sexual assault. The Supreme Court of the United Kingdom has said that it “has granted permission to appeal” due to the great public importance of the issue, which is whether a prosecutor is a judicial authority.” The hearing is scheduled for February 1, 2012.

    The issue is of some importance to followers of this long news saga, some of whom shared their reactions on Twitter. Due to Assange’s polarizing stature, the tones unsurprisingly ranged from welcoming to weary:

    @stavvers
    Zoe    How much is it costing us to keep listening to an Australian who won’t go to Sweden to answer a couple of questions? #Assange 1 hour ago via web · powered by @socialditto

    @x7o
    x7o    Congratulations to Julian Assange. The appeal will be heard. 2 hours ago via web · powered by @socialditto

    @estheraddley
    esther addley    WOW. Supreme Court has granted Julian #Assange permission to appeal against his extradition to Sweden #Wikileaks http://t.co/84zd0kCR 3 hours ago via web · powered by @socialditto

    @billiegirltoo
    billiegirltoo    So much for the supposed conspiracy to take him down>>Supreme Court Grants Assange Right to Appeal http://t.co/7PbrB3c0 41 minutes ago via TweetDeck · powered by @socialditto

    Assange has managed to stay involved in the activities of Wikileaks, most recently appearing at a conference earlier this month in London to speak about government surveillance. Given that it’s taken over a year of judicial foot-dragging to even get to this point, hopefully the brevity of the hearing – two days – will hasten the process of whether Assange ends up getting extradited to Sweden. Have any of you been following this case (I know, it’s kind of easy to forget about given how long it’s stretched on)? What do you think about Assange being granted a hearing next year? Agree or disagree? Comment with your opinion below.