This is major progress. First Steve Jobs comes out against Digital Rights Management and now one of the major labels is starting to crack. Could this be the start of a sane policy of selling unprotected music. As someone who owns both iPod and non-iPod music players and likes a choice of where to buy music, I sure hope so.

Music company EMI Group PLC - home of The Rolling Stones and Coldplay - has been talking with online retailers about possibly selling its entire digital music catalog in MP3 format without copy protection, the Wall Street Journal reported Friday, citing numerous people familiar with the matter.

Source: EMI in talks to sell unprotected MP3s

This is an extremely interesting observation by researcher David Finklehor, director of the Crimes Against Children Research Center. What it implies is that we might be teaching teens and children the wrong things when it comes to giving out personal information. I’ll have more on this in an upcoming post. Follow the link to BlogSafety.com (in the post) to read the rest and discuss it with others.

Data suggest change in Internet safety strategy

We had a paper published in the Archives of Pediatric and Adolescent Medicine this week that I think has some very important findings that suggest the need for a somewhat different approach to Internet safety education. It finds that giving out personal information online (one of the key prevention strategies emphasized in safety education) does not really increase a youth’s risk for sexual solicitation. Rather risk is related to making a lot of online acquaintances and talking with them about sex.

You can read the rest of this post and discuss it at BlogSafety.com

David Finkelhor
Director
Crimes against Children Research Center
University of New Hampshire

Well, I’m now officially a blogger. Thanks to Dave Winer for suggesting I give out my RSS feed (I almost forgot) and thanks to Dan Bricklin for helping me figure out how to house this thing. After running a website for 12 years (yes, I launched Larrysworld.com shortly after Mosiac came out) I am having to make a change. No big deal the blogosphere but a giant step for me.

My RSS is http://pcanswer.com/?feed=rss2

It sounds crazy, but a New York State Senator says that there outta be a law against using an iPod and other devices while walking around New York City. New York State Sen. Carl Kruger told Reuters that three of his Brooklyn constintuents have been killed since September as a result of being distracted while using an electronic device.

I can understand the Senator’s motivation but it seems pretty nutty to me. It’s also possible to trip on your shoelaces while walking in public so perhaps we should ban those too.

You can listen to the podcast of my KCBS segment about this (about 2 minutes)

Larry

By Larry Magid
from San Jose Mercury News
Monday, February 5, 2007

Until last week, I wasn’t convinced the world needs yet another video download service.

We already have video rental services like CinemaNow and Movielink, not to mention free services like YouTube.

Then I saw Jaman, a video download service that focuses on foreign and independent North American films that have been shown at festivals including Sundance — the very type of movies you’re not likely to find at your local video store. And unlike other services, it has a customer-friendly pricing model. (more…)

by Larry Magid

Palm Desert, Calif., Feb. 2, 2007

Every year, about 700 tech industry insiders gather in the desert to look at new products. The event, which is in its 17th year, is called Demo because it’s an opportunity for companies to demonstrate their wares. Before they make it to the Demo stage and exhibit hall, companies and their products have to be vetted by Demo executive director Chris Shipley, who said that she looked at more than 300 companies before sending invitations to the 68 selected for this year’s show.

There were a few big companies on stage this year including hard disk-maker Seagate and software maker Adobe Systems, but most of companies were ones that you — and I — had never heard of. In many cases they had never before introduced a product.

(more…)

By Larry Magid

Special to the Mercury News

TV tuners for PCs have been around for more than a decade, but until recently they have been of questionable use. When I first reviewed a PC tuner back in the early 1990s, I wondered why anyone would want one when all they did was turn an expensive computer into an inexpensive TV set.

But things have changed and they’re about to change even more. For one thing, it’s now possible to record TV shows to your PC’s hard drive, which lets you use a PC as if it were a TiVo to time shift your viewing. For another, there are now tuners that work with laptops, allowing you to watch TV while you’re on the road. (more…)

November 13, 2006

It should come as no surprise that parental involvement is the key to keeping kids safe online. You can lecture your kids, you can install filters to block objectionable websites, you can spy on your kids and you even can try to keep your kid off the Internet, but none of those tactics are as effective as engaging them in conversation about what they’re doing online.

This is especially true in the “Web 2.0″ era of the interactive Internet when kids are not only “downloading” inappropriate information but “uploading” information about themselves in social networking sites like MySpace and even video sites like YouTube. Today, parents have to worry not just what their kids “see” on the net but what they “say” as well. (more…)