UPDATE 20 February 2012 @ 11.58 AM I ducked up to Town Hall quickly to take a few shots for this blog entry.

Woolworths launched a trial ‘virtual’ supermarket on the walls on Town Hall near the subway entry to their store at the corner of Park and George Streets in Sydney. Basically, instead of going 25 more meters into the store and buying your goods you can use your mobile to itemise and pay for products which will be home delivered (for a fee).

While customers have been able to browse, purchase and have their goods delivered on the Woolworths iOS app and the Android app, this lets them see a full-sized image of the goods. Goods on the racks of the virtual store include your bread and milk staples as well 102+ other common goods.

While I suspect the buy on your mobile and have it home delivered option will remain, I doubt we’ll be seeing permanent inventory images on the walls of other public spaces. As mUmBRELLA said, it’s a good publicity stunt.

Google has been taking Google Maps Street View off the beaten (foot)path for awhile now. While you’ve been able to see famous destinations, art galleries and UNESCO World Heritage sites as well as famous parks, ski slopes, university campuses and even inside some businesses in 360°, Google Japan has taken Street View to a depth it’s never been before (pun intended!) with the inclusion of a cave and a mine. A project I am sure will be of interest to Geoff Manaugh at BLDGBLOG.

Now you can see inside the Akiyoshi-do limestone cavern and the Okubo-mabu mine on Google Maps (embedded below respectively).

Makes you wonder where is next for Street View?

Filed in the District Court for the Northern District of California on Thursday last week, Apple is seeking “a preliminary injunction regarding Samsung’s new Galaxy Nexus, which infringes multiple key Apple patents, is essential to prevent immediate and irreparable harm to Apple”. The patents in question are:

• United States Patent No 5,946,647 - dubbed the ‘data tapping’ patent, it protects a “system and method for performing an action on a structure in computer-generated data” which applies different responses by the software based on the type of data (for example launching the dialler app when you click on a phone number or composing a new email in your preferred email app when you click on an email address);
• United States Patent No 8,086,604 - which protects a “universal interface for retrieval of information in a computer system” and mainly relates to Siri as a user interface that uses voice search for doing internet searches;
• U.S. Patent No. 8,046,721 - which protects a function that unlocks a device “by performing gestures on an unlock image” and underpins Apple’s as yet unreleased camera unlock feature; and
• U.S. Patent No. 8,074,172 on a “method, system, and graphical user interface for providing word recommendations” and relates to predictive text.

“Absent preliminary relief, by the time Apple prevails in this case – and Samsung’s infringement is so clear there can be no serious dispute that Apple will prevail – Samsung will have rushed the Galaxy Nexus, which misappropriates many patented features from the iPhone, to capture market share from Apple that Samsung will be able to retain long into the future.”

“Sales of the Galaxy Nexus during this litigation will cause irreparable harm to Apple… The smartphone market is at a critical juncture, as the overwhelming majority of consumers move to smartphones, and the consumers’ long-term preferences and purchases may be determined to a great extent by the operating system on their first smartphone.”

Gimme more

On the weekend while I was at Androidland I was just thinking about the amount of inadvertent content created on the tester phones at mobile stores. All those display phones with their exciting functionality to explore. Think about it, how many quick portraits are snapped in mobile stores each day?

What happens to these spontaneous headshots? Do they stay on the tester phone’s harddrive? A secret testament to random consumers’ existence until the device is wiped or disposed of?

United States photographer Irby Pace spendt 2010 harvesting some of these snapshot portraits from Apple Stores. The digital collection of over 1000 ‘abandoned’ portraits are being exhibited under the title Unintended Consequences as part of his Master of Fine Arts at the University of North Texas.

Beyond the obvious socio-cultural intriguing such a set of images has, there’s another interesting situation at play. Just because the images were ‘abandoned’ does not mean that Pace’s use of them is legal. The photos are clearly still in copyright (since the subjects are (presumably) still alive, and even if they weren’t the images are protected for 70 years after they die), so Pace’s use is unauthorised. The lack of orphan works legislation in the US would leave Pace to argue fair use should litigation arise. If his use is fair use is anyone’s guess. The photos and exhibition inadvertently pose questions about the nature of ametuer content creation in the digital environment.

The exhibition details are:

Uninteded Consequences

Irby Pace
Opens 5.00 – 7.00 PM, 9 February 2012
5 – 10 February 2012
@ Cora Stafford Gallery
1120 West Oak Street, Denton, Texas

The photographs in “Unintended Consequences” come from camera equipped devices in Apple Computer stores. On a daily basis people are leaving their portraits behind on iPhones, iPads and iPods. Customers are disregarding their own discretion and abandoning these photographs. Since these images are anonymous the participants can represent themselves however they chose to without scrutiny. Taking these images explores the change in behavior when people do not consider how these images will be used.

Good on Gotye! Yesterday his track ‘Somebody That I Used to Know’ which he did with Kimbra came in as number one in yesterday’s Hottest 100 count down on Triple J. While I’d heard this cover before, it’s timely to post about it. Canadian band Walk Off the Earth used just one guitar between all the band members to record an very cute cover of the track ^_^

Haven’t sampled enough? Grab the (Re)mixed responses RSS feed for random moments of il/legitimate appropriation.

• Magic Mushrooms Could Treat Depression What happens at the merge point of sustainability, waste management, re/upcycling, community gardening, whole foods/farmer’s markets, locavore consumption, slow food and alternative food distribution? Back to the Roots is what! It’s a farming operation in California that uses recycled coffee grounds to grow gourmet mushrooms. But the waste upcycle story doesn’t end there, Back to the Roots’ own waste is given away to anyone who wants it. Turns out the mycelium, the mushroom root left over after harvest, is a composters wet dream! What started as two guys — Nikhil Arora and Alejandro Velez — growing mushrooms in an old paint tin in an UC Berkeley frat turned into a complete cylce sustainable profitable for-profit-not-evil!

  ↷ Sarah Stankorb on GOOD.is 24 January 2012.

• Magic Mushrooms Could Treat Depression Still on mushrooms, it would seem that magic mushrooms might be making a horizontal shift beyond just recreational drug use into the same kind of space as medicinal marijuana. You see it turns out that when you be tripping on psilocybin — the active ingredient in magic mushrooms — rather than the mind-altering experience referenced in anecdotes and popular culture opening up synaptic interaction between sensory-orientated parts of the brain, Discovery News, reporting on scholarly research recently published in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America, states that “… psilocybin appears to shut down activity in two key areas of the brain that regulate our sense of self and integrate our sense of awareness with our sense of the present” while decreasing activity in “… the default mode network, which is believed to be involved in maintaining a balanced sense of consciousness and ego through self-reflection…” In short, “Besides helping explain how magic mushrooms induce hallucinogenic adventures of the mind, the results suggest that, in controlled settings, psilocybin might be a useful tool for treating depression and other psychiatric problems.”

  ↷ Emily Sohn on Discovery News 23 January 2012. ♥ via Culture Club UQ Facebook Group.

• A 375-Year-Old French Bank Forgives Debts of Paris’ Poorest Crédit Municipal de Paris, a sort of ‘bank for the poor’ and one of the oldest examples of ethical and responsible banking, has opted to celebrate it’s 375th birthday by wiping clear the debt of 3,500 clients (with debts of €150 or less (about A$186)). But this celebratory charitable gesture is no token one-off; the bank has granted low-interest loans to the poor, secured against goods and chattel, since it was founded by doctor, journalist and philanthropist Théophraste Renaudot to give the needy access to fair banking. The idea was simple, “… give the poor people of Paris loans they could reasonably hope to repay, at decent rates for the time (about 10 percent annually) against whatever collateral they could produce: pots and pans, linens, silverware, artisans’ tools…” The model was so successful that these types of banks were eventually granted a state monopoly on pawn-broking loans, which still stands; something Australia could well do with exploring given the drastic increase of payday lending. An amazing model for a financial institution and an awesome gesture, especially in light of Standard and Poor’s recent downgrade of France’s credit rating!
  ↷ Isabelle Roughol on GOOD.is, 23 January 2012.

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Statement from Chairman Smith on Senate Delay of Vote on PROTECT IP Act

Washington, D.C. — House Judiciary Committee Chairman Lamar Smith (R-Texas) today issued the following statement in response to the Senate decision to postpone consideration of legislation to help combat online piracy.

Chairman Smith:  “I have heard from the critics and I take seriously their concerns regarding proposed legislation to address the problem of online piracy. It is clear that we need to revisit the approach on how best to address the problem of foreign thieves that steal and sell American inventions and products.

“The problem of online piracy is too big to ignore. American intellectual property industries provide 19 million high-paying jobs and account for more than 60 percent of U.S. exports. The theft of America’s intellectual property costs the U.S. economy more than $100 billion annually and results in the loss of thousands of American jobs.  Congress cannot stand by and do nothing while American innovators and job creators are under attack.

“The online theft of American intellectual property is no different than the theft of products from a store.  It is illegal and the law should be enforced both in the store and online.

“The Committee will continue work with copyright owners, Internet companies, financial institutions to develop proposals that combat online piracy and protect America’s intellectual property.  We welcome input from all organizations and individuals who have an honest difference of opinion about how best to address this widespread problem.  The Committee remains committed to finding a solution to the problem of online piracy that protects American intellectual property and innovation.”

The House Judiciary Committee will postpone consideration of the legislation until there is wider agreement on a solution.

Washington, D.C. - Nevada Senator Harry Reid released the following statement today on the Senate’s PROTECT I.P. Act:

“In light of recent events, I have decided to postpone Tuesday’s vote on the PROTECT I.P. Act.

“There is no reason that the legitimate issues raised by many about this bill cannot be resolved. Counterfeiting and piracy cost the American economy billions of dollars and thousands of jobs each year, with the movie industry alone supporting over 2.2 million jobs. We must take action to stop these illegal practices. We live in a country where people rightfully expect to be fairly compensated for a day’s work, whether that person is a miner in the high desert of Nevada, an independent band in New York City, or a union worker on the back lots of a California movie studio.

“I admire the work that Chairman Leahy has put into this bill.  I encourage him to continue engaging with all stakeholders to forge a balance between protecting Americans’ intellectual property, and maintaining openness and innovation on the internet.  We made good progress through the discussions we’ve held in recent days, and I am optimistic that we can reach a compromise in the coming weeks.”

UPDATE 21 January 2012, 11.18 AM In response to Senator Reid’s announcement, Representative Lamar Smith also announced that the United States House of Representatives Committee on the Judiciary will “… postpone consideration of the legislation until there is wider agreement on a solution.”

Issa’s press release reads:

An effective, targeted solution to online copyright infringement

WASHINGTON, DC – Today, Rep. Darrell Issa, R-Calif, officially introduced H.R. 3782, the Online Protection & Enforcement of Digital Trade Act in the U.S. House of Representatives. This bill delivers stronger intellectual property rights for American artists and innovators while protecting the open, accessible Internet Americans deserve. This bipartisan, bicameral bill protects American artists and innovators through the International Trade Commission (ITC), by applying due process to investigate intellectual property infringement claims against foreign “rogue” websites and cuts off funding to sites found to be willfully and primarily trafficking infringed material. Senator Ron Wyden, D-Ore., has introduced the OPEN Act in the U.S. Senate.

“OPEN is a targeted, effective solution to the problem of foreign, rogue websites stealing from American artists and innovators,” said Issa. “Today’s Internet blackout has underscored the flawed approach taken by SOPA and PIPA to the real problem of intellectual property infringement. OPEN is a smarter way to protect taxpayers’ rights while protecting the Internet.”

Issa and Wyden released the draft OPEN Act at www.KeepTheWebOpen.com last year, using the Madison platform to open up the legislative process to taxpayers for the first time. Since then, OPEN has received more than 150 substantive comments and crowdsourced suggested improvements, many of which were included in the formal bill introduction. To date, nearly 300,000 Americans have visited the website.

The legislation is supported by original cosponsors Rep. Spencer Bachus (R-AL), Rep. John Campbell (R-CA), Rep. Jason Chaffetz (R-UT), Rep. Peter DeFazio (D-OR), Rep. Lloyd Doggett (D-TX), Rep. Mike Doyle (D-PA), Rep. Keith Ellison (D-MN), Rep. Anna Eshoo (D-CA), Rep. Blake Farenthold (R-TX), Rep. Raul Grijalva (D-AZ), Rep. Mike Honda (D-CA), Rep. Tim Johnson (R-IL), Rep. Jim Langevin (D-RI), Rep. Zoe Lofgren (D-CA), Rep. Doris Matsui (D-CA), Rep. Patrick McHenry (R-NC), Rep. George Miller (D-CA), Rep. Jared Polis (D-CO), Rep. Dennis Ross (R-FL), Rep. Jim Sensenbrenner (R-WI), Rep. Jackie Speier (D-CA), Rep. Pete Stark (D-CA), Rep. Mike Thompson (D-CA), and Rep. Lynn Woolsey (D-CA).

Upon the introduction of the OPEN Act, these original cosponsors offered the following statements:

Rep. Spencer Bachus

“The Government should not be in the business of censoring speech. The Federal Government has no right to censor the Internet.”

Rep. John Campbell

“I strongly support the OPEN Act, as it is legislation that will effectively crack down on rogue foreign websites and protect American consumers, while protecting and preserving the innovative and job-creating engine that is the Internet.”

Rep. Jason Chaffetz

“SOPA threatens our cyber security, undermines freedom of speech, and chills innovation in one of the few sectors of our economy that is actually working. While I understand and appreciate the need to protect intellectual property, SOPA is a massive and inappropriate overreach. Instead, I strongly support the OPEN Act. This bi-partisan legislation addresses the problem of online piracy without causing collateral damage to the Internet as SOPA would.”

Rep. Peter DeFazio

“As written, SOPA and PIPA would jeopardize online freedom and grant corporations and the federal government unprecedented power to censor the Internet. I support the OPEN Act because it targets the people breaking the law without threatening the freedom of every other Internet user.”

Rep. Lloyd Doggett

“The threat to an open Internet posed by Rep. Lamar Smith’s SOPA cannot be cleaned up with soap and a wire brush. It should be rejected in favor of a more focused alternative, like the OPEN Act, which addresses legitimate piracy concerns without mandating censorship or blocking websites.”

Rep. Anna Eshoo

“Rogue websites and the pirates behind them represent the hijacking of American genius, and must be stopped. But the Stop Online Piracy Act’s (SOPA) overly broad language will seriously hinder the growth of new businesses, new investments, and new jobs. The economic opportunities and innovation created by the Internet and start-ups could be crushed under the weight of SOPA. Today’s introduction of the OPEN Act provides us with a framework on how to best protect U.S. intellectual property rights, and I’m proud to support it.”

Rep. Blake Farenthold

“An open internet is a marketplace for ideas that encourages innovation and economic growth. A free and open Internet gives everyone an audience for the free flow of ideas, it is the soap box of the 21st Century for political discourse exemplifying the American value of free speech. Social media is a gateway to friends and loved ones and puts new business opportunities at our fingertips. The internet is our newest frontier and must be free from oppressive government regulation.”

Rep. Mike Honda

“Throughout the public debate for the Stop Online Piracy Act and the Protect IP Act, I have often stated that at the heart of this issue are fundamental questions about what the internet and free speech means to Americans, intellectual property rights holders, and our economy; these questions are too important to haphazardly rush through Congress without a full and open debate. No one denies that copyright infringement and piracy are serious problems. What deserves a full debate are the protections that legitimate sites should have and by what method we expose criminals while allowing lawful businesses and people, like the constituents in my District, to continue to innovate in ways that change the way we look at the world. That is why I proudly support the OPEN Act. Not only for how it is crafted, properly targeting and defining rogue actors without putting innovation in danger, but also the way in which it was crafted: in a full open forum that has allowed for robust debate. It is my sincere hope that the introduction of this bill represents a critical turning point in this debate, where diverse groups of stakeholders come together and thoroughly work on a solution.”

Rep. Tim Johnson

“It is the right of every American to be compensated and receive payment for their efforts, whether they are artists, manufacturers, or any other type of business. While the protection of intellectual property in any form is a necessary function of government, these bills do not solve the problem of privacy, do not fully address the issue, and are not supported by the American public or the majority of stake holders in this issue. Simply put, these measures add unnecessary regulators to the federal bureaucracy and in the long-run, don’t solve the problem. The Open Act does.”

Rep. Jim Langevin

“We must act to use existing laws and organizations along with new marketing regimes to crack down on digital pirates while fully leveraging a growing market for online content,” said Langevin, co-founder of the Congressional Cybersecurity Caucus. “Instead of trying to mitigate security, economic, and Internet freedom concerns with broad, over-reaching technical solutions, I support proposals like this one that seek a middle ground for curbing online piracy while protecting American jobs and innovative technologies that have allowed us to remain the world leader online.”

Rep. Zoe Lofgren

Congress doesn’t have to censor the Internet or restrain innovation in order to fight online piracy. The OPEN Act shows there’s a better way. It relies on proven remedies—attacking the profit motive for online infringement—without the collateral damage to the Internet that SOPA and PIPA would cause. The OPEN Act has already benefited from a novel legislative experiment, through the solicitation of public comments and revisions at keepthewebopen.com. After the bill’s introduction, I look forward to hearing additional constructive feedback and ways to incorporate it as the bill moves forward.

Rep. Doris Matsui

“While combating online copyright infringement is a goal we all support, SOPA, as it is currently written, would cause substantial harm to American innovation and the economic opportunities created by the Internet ecosystem. Americans increasingly rely on the Internet in many important ways, from looking for a job to taking online education courses, accessing health care, and so forth. Moreover, small businesses and entrepreneurs rely on an open and free Internet to be able to offer services, and to grow and expand their businesses. That is why I am happy to join my colleagues today in introducing the bipartisan OPEN Act, which will ensure the Internet remains open and free to all Americans and enables our innovators to continue to keep our country competitive.”

Rep. Patrick McHenry

“In a society that values creativity and innovation, it’s important to protect intellectual property and prevent copyright infringement. The OPEN Act targets online piracy from rogue websites while safeguarding First Amendment rights and ensuring the American tradition of due process.”

Rep. George Miller

“SOPA and PIPA are not the right answer for the future of the Internet, and that is why I oppose them. Our bipartisan bill introduced today – the OPEN Act – can achieve what SOPA would not: crack down on foreign websites that willfully violate copyright laws, without going to the dangerous extremes proposed in the other legislation.”

Rep. Jared Polis

“Unlike SOPA and PIPA, the OPEN Act will effectively combat piracy from foreign websites while preserving Internet freedom. By using a ‘follow-the-money’ approach we can shut down foreign sites that steal intellectual property while ensuring that the Internet remains an engine of innovation, information and job creation. Without access to capital, these foreign websites will wither and die while the Internet continues to grow and thrive.”

Rep. Jim Sensenbrenner

“As an ardent defender of American intellectual property rights, I am pleased to see the OPEN Act introduced to target rogue sites without destroying Internet infrastructure or crippling legitimate innovation online. Congress must absolutely take the threat of piracy seriously, and this legislation shows we can do so without opening up the floodgates for litigation or limiting freedom of expression.”

Rep. Mike Thompson

“Today, thousands of websites such as Wikipedia and WordPress have gone dark, giving us a glimpse of what it could be like if the overly broad SOPA legislation became law. SOPA would stifle innovation, resulting in fewer new businesses, fewer new investments and fewer new jobs. While online piracy is something we must continually fight, SOPA is the wrong way to do it. That is why I am working with global leaders like Google and Twitter, to instead enact the OPEN Act, which still combats piracy but does so in a way that doesn’t let broad government oversight stifle the innovation and creativity that has been a driving force behind the Internet industry’s economic success.”

To help bring wider attention to the potential ramifications of SOPA and PIPA, an impressive list of internet heavyweights went black yesterday (United States time). While concern over the Bills has been simmering away online since last year, the 18 January blackout was designed to demonstrate the solidarity of it’s opponents and push it’s message to the general internet using population.

Confirmed participants included Wikipedia, Google, Creative Commons, Electronic Frontier Foundation, WIRED, reddit, Mozilla, WordPress, Tumblr, Vimeo, Flickr, the icanhazcheezburger network and Internet Archive, among others.

While Dominic Basulto thinks it’s too little, too late, pushing information about the Bills and why they are problematic in front of millions of internet users who are not digerati is hardly too little.