Can Google Reinvent Web Video?

An ambitious attempt by Google to shift the Web over to a new, royalty-free video format has taken significant strides. New software has been released that can build the format into dedicated chips for cell phones and other gadgets, perhaps the most crucial step before it can displace the proprietary video format that currently dominates.

Google's video format is known as WebM. It was created by combining the preëxisting audio format Vorbis with VP8, a video format that Google bought last year with the intention of making it free for all to use in WebM. Google wants WebM to become the default for Web video and join the wave of new, powerful, and, crucially, free-to-use Web technologies such as HTML5 that enables Web pages to act like desktop applications.

But that would require displacing the well-established and proprietary H.264 format, now used for most streaming video online. H.264 is built into dedicated video chips in portable gadgets from phones to tablets and camcorders. A consortium called MPEG-LA controls the patents needed to create software or hardware that supports H.264. MPEG-LA levies a license fee on every unit shipped.

Enabling the development of equivalent chips for WebM is crucial if the rival format is to gain a foothold. Without such hardware, the work of encoding video is done by software that taxes a device's main CPU too much, draining battery life. "The new hardware encoder encodes VP8, using a tiny fraction of the electricity that a general-purpose processor/CPU would use even at HD resolution," says Aki Kuusela, engineering manager of the WebM Project hardware team. "This makes them very practical for mobile and other low-power devices," he says. Without a dedicated video chip, such devices can typically muster only poor resolution.

The Google team tested the new hardware encoder by running it on simulated chips and real ones known as FPGAs that can be reconfigured to implement different hardware designs. Interested hardware firms can apply to receive the code for the new encoder online. Kuusela wrote in a blog post that "several top-tier semiconductor partners" are already starting to build their next chips with VP8 built in, but wouldn't name specific firms. Major chipmakers, including AMD, Qualcomm, and Texas Instruments, are public supporters of the project, though, although they will likely support both VP8 and existing formats in their chips.

WebM has penetrated other parts of the Web's ecosystem in recent weeks. The new version of the Firefox browser released last week has support for the format built in, while Google engineers built a software plug-in to add the same capability to Microsoft's IE9 browser.

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News Analysis: Doctrine for Libya: Not Carved in Stone

In laying out his justification for the American-led assault on Libya on Monday night, the president offered the most detailed portrait of when he might commit the country?s military might in a tumultuous world.

He would take action, he said, if vital national security interests were at stake. He would consider it if economic interests were threatened, or if there was a humanitarian crisis so deep it could not be ignored. But in those two instances, he would hesitate unless there was international participation, and the cost was not too high.

But these conditions seemed tailor made for Libya, and the president seemed to provide little guidance for what position he would take in other, more vital nations in the region now roiled by an ?Arab Spring? of popular uprising. Nor did Mr. Obama?s speech on Monday shed light on whether the president would use force in other trouble spots.

?If there were ever a speech more dedicated to eliminating the idea of a doctrine, this was it,? said David J. Rothkopf, the author of ?Running the World: The Inside Story of the National Security Council and the Architects of American Power.? ?He basically said, ?We have American values and they?re going to define us, and we?re going to stick to them ? provided it?s not too hard to do so.? ?

Some of Mr. Obama?s advisers have said he has studiously avoided turning Libya into a case study for his view of foreign policy, given that it is not vital to American interests in the region and that his administration is trying to play down the United States? role in what they hope will be a NATO-led mission. To their minds, the limited use of air power in Libya does not call for an inspiring or sweeping statement of the role of governmental power. The Libya standard may not apply to the rest of the world.

In fact, Mr. Obama?s description of his criteria for military intervention offers little hint of what he might do in Ivory Coast, for example, where the United Nations says at least 700,000 people have fled their homes in Abidjan to escape daily gunfire spurred by Laurent Gbagbo?s efforts to stay in power after losing a presidential election in November, and where 10,000 civilians were holed up in a Catholic mission in one town, seeking refuge from Mr. Gbagbo?s forces.

Nor does it easily apply to Darfur, where the Sudanese government is defying a United Nations Security Council resolution by bombing rebels, and where the United Nations estimates that at least 300,000 people have died in a humanitarian crisis sparked by a counterinsurgency campaign that began in 2003.

As for the rest of the Middle East, White House officials say the president will respond to the unfolding events on a country-by-country basis, and will resist a one-size-fits-all American policy.

One administration official argued that Libya was different from Ivory Coast because, he said, Col. Muammar el-Qaddafi, the Libyan leader, had threatened to hunt down civilians in Benghazi in their homes. Mr. Obama alluded to that in his speech, when he compared Benghazi to Charlotte, N. C., a city of a similar size, with a population of 700,000. In the cases where America did act, Mr. Obama had a number of caveats. He said that ?the burden of action should not be America?s alone? ? that there needed to be a multilateral partnership ? and that regime change should not be the task of the United States military. ?To be blunt, we went down that road in Iraq,? the president said, in a swipe at his predecessor, President George W. Bush.

Not that he spared President Bill Clinton, either. Mr. Obama never used the word ?Rwanda,? where genocide took the lives of one million people during the Clinton administration. But he invoked it indirectly. ?As president, I refused to wait for the images of slaughter and mass graves before taking action,? he said.

In a 28-minute speech, Mr. Obama, a reluctant commander in chief who campaigned against the war in Iraq and set his primary agenda as creating jobs and passing the health care overhaul, staked out a vexing middle ground.

If anything, some analysts said, it revealed a deeply pragmatic president, one less ideological than some predecessors, and more likely to balance many issues, including budgets and an analysis of American interests.

?There is no Obama doctrine because the president is not doctrinaire,? said Robert S. Litwak, vice president for programs at the Woodrow Wilson Center. ?In Libya, he is grappling with persisting tensions in U.S. foreign policy that can be managed but not resolved ? between mulitilateralism and unilateralism and in confronting a humanitarian challenge rooted in the character of the Qaddafi regime, which is seeking international cover behind the principle of state sovereignty.?

Although the president?s address was not viewed as enunciating a true, new doctrine, it no doubt benefited military commanders and military planners to hear Mr. Obama?s detailed discussion of when, how and for what interests he would invest the lives of their troops.

?It was a reasonable speech expressing clear direction and guidance to the Department of Defense and to the various commands involved, but it was not an over-arching recalibration of national military strategy,? said Adm. Timothy J. Keating, who retired after serving as the senior officer overseeing two of the military?s combatant headquarters, Pacific Command and Northern Command.

Gary Hart, the former Democratic senator from Colorado, described Libya as ?the face of 21st century conflict,? and argued that the violence there proved it was time for Mr. Obama to enunciate a set of strategic principles.

?In the wake of Libya, now would be a very good time for President Obama to announce an ?Obama doctrine,? similar to the Truman Doctrine of 1947, that lays out the terms and conditions under which the U.S. will use its military power,? Mr. Hart said in an e-mail.  ?We cannot simply respond in ad hoc fashion to these local and regional crises.  A set of principles for intervention would give the American people and our allies a sense of purpose and context for our actions."

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Microsoft reportedly introducing NFC payments in Windows Phone 7

Sources have told Bloomberg that Microsoft is working on bringing Near Field Communication (NFC) technology to Windows Phone 7-powered handsets, ensuring the Redmond-based company is not left behind Google?s Android platform and also iOS, should reports that Apple is to debut the technology inside its platform be true.

If the reports are true, Microsoft would work much the same as Google did, including NFC support within its most current mobile operating system, allowing mobile manufacturers to develop the hardware to make use of the functionality embedded within the software.

According to the same sources, the first NFC-enabled Windows Phone 7 devices will become available later this year, allowing users to interact wirelessly with payment terminals, loyalty systems and door-entry systems, equipping smartphones with the functionality to become a new form of digital wallet.

Microsoft will almost definitely receive support from its mobile partner Nokia, which recently announced it would make Windows Phone 7 its primary mobile platform. Bloomberg reports that the Finnish manufacturer said it would make NFC a standard feature of its 2011 smartphones, coinciding with the fact that Windows Phone 7-powered Nokia phones will also hit the market at that time.

With Android already supporting NFC and companies including Microsoft and RIM already working on developing the technology within their software, Apple could be the only major smartphone platform without any form of wireless payment technology. The Cupertino-based company remains predictably quiet so we will have to wait until its next major unveiling to see whether it is readying NFC devices on its own.

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Mad Men opening credits animated in CSS3

The newest browsers with their support for HTML5 and CSS3 are enabling developers to achieve amazing things ? we covered a game of billiards written in only HTML5, CSS3 and JavaScript recently ? and Madmanimation counts as one of them.

Put together by Anthony Calzadilla, Andy Clarke and Geri Coady, this showcase is a reproduction of the Mad Men opening credits sequence animated in CSS3 ? and aside from the references to web designers and their books, it?s a fantastic replication.

Check it out at Animatable.

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Source: http://thenextweb.com/dd/2011/03/30/mad-men-opening-credits-animated-in-css3/

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Mad Men opening credits animated in CSS3

The newest browsers with their support for HTML5 and CSS3 are enabling developers to achieve amazing things ? we covered a game of billiards written in only HTML5, CSS3 and JavaScript recently ? and Madmanimation counts as one of them.

Put together by Anthony Calzadilla, Andy Clarke and Geri Coady, this showcase is a reproduction of the Mad Men opening credits sequence animated in CSS3 ? and aside from the references to web designers and their books, it?s a fantastic replication.

Check it out at Animatable.

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Source: http://thenextweb.com/dd/2011/03/30/mad-men-opening-credits-animated-in-css3/

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Obama Cites Limits of U.S. Role in Libya

In his first major address since ordering American airstrikes on the forces and artillery of Col. Muammar el-Qaddafi nine days ago, Mr. Obama emphasized that the United States's role in the assault would be limited, but said that America had the responsibility and the international backing to stop what he characterized as a looming genocide in the Libyan city of Benghazi.

?I refused to wait for the images of slaughter and mass graves before taking action,? Mr. Obama said.

At the same time, he said, directing American troops to forcibly remove Colonel Qaddafi from power would be a step too far, and would ?splinter? the international coalition that has moved against the Libyan government.

?To be blunt, we went down that road in Iraq,? Mr. Obama said, adding that ?regime change there took eight years, thousands of American and Iraqi lives, and nearly a trillion dollars. That is not something we can afford to repeat in Libya.?

Speaking in the early evening from the National Defense University in Washington, Mr. Obama said he had made good on his promise to limit American military involvement against Colonel Qaddafi?s forces ? he did not use the word ?war? to describe the action ? and he laid out a more general philosophy for the use of force.

But while Mr. Obama described a narrower role for the United States in a NATO-led operation in Libya, the American military has been carrying out an expansive and increasingly potent air campaign to compel the Libyan Army to turn against Colonel Qaddafi.

The president said he was willing to act unilaterally to defend the nation and its core interests. But in other cases, he said, when the safety of Americans is not directly threatened but where action can be justified ? in the case of genocide, humanitarian relief, regional security or economic interests ? the United States should not act alone. His statements amounted both to a rationale for multilateralism and another critique of what he has all along characterized as the excessively unilateral tendencies of the administration of George W. Bush.

?In such cases, we should not be afraid to act ? but the burden of action should not be America?s alone,? Mr. Obama said. ?Because contrary to the claims of some, American leadership is not simply a matter of going it alone and bearing all of the burden ourselves. Real leadership creates the conditions and coalitions for others to step up as well; to work with allies and partners so that they bear their share of the burden and pay their share of the costs; and to see that the principles of justice and human dignity are upheld by all.?

Mr. Obama never mentioned many of the other nations going through upheaval across the Arab world, including Yemen, Syria and Bahrain, but left little doubt that his decision to send the United States military into action in Libya was the product of a confluence of particular circumstances and opportunities.

He did not say how the intervention in Libya would end, but said the United States and its allies would seek to drive Colonel Qaddafi from power by means other than military force if necessary.

Speaking for 28 minutes, Mr. Obama addressed a number of audiences. To the American public, he tried to offer reassurance that the United States was not getting involved in another open-ended commitment in a place that few Americans had spent much time thinking about. To the democracy protesters across the Middle East, he vowed that the United States would stand by them, even as he said that ?progress will be uneven, and change will come differently in different countries,? a partial acknowledgment that complex relations between the United States and different Arab countries may make for different American responses in different countries.

?The United States will not be able to dictate the pace and scope of this change,? Mr. Obama said. But, he added, ?I believe that this movement of change cannot be turned back, and that we must stand alongside those who believe in the same core principles that have guided us through many storms: our opposition to violence directed against one?s own citizens; our support for a set of universal rights, including the freedom for people to express themselves and choose their leaders; our support for governments that are ultimately responsive to the aspirations of the people.?

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Michigan Cuts Jobless Benefit by Six Weeks

Democrats and advocates for the unemployed expressed outrage that a such a hard-hit state will become the most miserly when it comes to how long it pays benefits to those who have lost their jobs. All states currently pay 26 weeks of unemployment benefits, before extended benefits paid by the federal government kick in. Michigan?s new law means that starting next year, when the federal benefits are now set to end, the state will stop paying benefits to the jobless after just 20 weeks. The shape of future extensions is unclear.

The measure, passed by a Republican-led Legislature, took advocates for the unemployed by surprise: the language cutting benefits next year was slipped quietly into a bill that was originally sold as way to preserve unemployment benefits this year.

The original bill was aimed at reducing unemployment fraud and making a technical change so the state?s current long-term unemployed could continue receiving extended unemployment benefits from the federal government for up to 99 weeks ? benefits that would have been phased out next week without a change in the state law to make the unemployed in the state eligible to continue receiving benefits. Republican lawmakers amended it to cut the length of benefits starting in January.

?It turns the clock back 50 years at a time when unemployment is at historic highs since the Depression,? Representative Sander M. Levin, Democrat of Michigan, said in an interview, adding that he worried that the state would set a precedent that would be followed by other states, including Florida, that are thinking of curtailing their unemployment programs. ?I think that Michigan should not be to unemployment insurance what Wisconsin has become to collective bargaining.?

But Republicans and business groups said that cutting benefits was necessary, because the unemployment trust fund, which was ill-prepared to cope with the recession, is insolvent. The state owes the federal government $4 billion that it borrowed to keep its program afloat, and unemployment taxes on businesses have already been raised, and will need to be raised more, to repay the money. The Michigan Chamber of Commerce called the new law ?a huge win for job providers,? and said it could save up to $300 million a year.

Mr. Snyder issued a statement after signing the bill trumpeting the fact that it would preserve the extended benefits this year ? and making no mention of the fact that it would cut state benefits beginning next year. ?Snyder Signs Bill to Protect Unemployed,? was the headline of the news release that his office sent out. ?Now that we have continued this safety net, we must renew our focus on improving Michigan?s economic climate,? he said in the statement.

Sara Wurfel, a spokeswoman for Mr. Snyder, said in an e-mail that he signed the bill because 35,000 Michiganders would have lost their extended benefits this week, and an additional 150,000 would have lost them by year?s end, if the state?s law had not been altered. She said that about 250,000 people collected more than 20 weeks of benefits in 2010.

Advocates for the unemployed called it a bad trade. ?We have a temporary change to help some jobless workers that is imposing an indefinite or permanent cost on future jobless workers,? said Rick McHugh, a staff lawyer for the National Employment Law Project, which opposed the law. ?And that does seem doubly unfair when the temporary help for current jobless workers is almost totally paid for by the federal government.?

But business groups saw the state?s need to change its unemployment law as an opportunity to make the cuts to benefits that they have long sought.

?The business community, the chamber included, were opposed to a one-sided benefits increase,? said Wendy Block, the Michigan Chamber of Commerce?s lobbyist responsible for health policy and human resources initiatives, and unemployment insurance. She said that while the extended benefits were currently paid for by the federal government, the money comes from a fund that is financed by federal unemployment taxes on employers. ?Employers will ultimately see higher federal unemployment taxes to pay for this,? Ms. Block said.

More than half the states together owe the federal government more than $46 billion that they borrowed to pay for their unemployment programs during the downturn. Many states had salted away too little money in their unemployment trust funds during good times ? often because they cut taxes on employers ? and saw their funds depleted by the length and depth of the recession, and the slow pace at which businesses have begun hiring again. Now some other states are thinking about reducing unemployment benefits.

In Florida, where the unemployment rate hovers at 11.5 percent, even higher than Michigan?s current rate of 10.4 percent, lawmakers are zeroing in on a similar bill. The Florida House also approved a bill this month to reduce the number of weeks unemployed workers could receive benefits to 20 weeks, from 26, and make it easier for businesses to deny benefits to applicants. A Senate bill takes a less stringent approach and does not cut the number of weeks workers can receive benefits. (It is unclear how the differences will be resolved.) Doing so would undo a consensus that emerged in the years after World War II that states should pay up to 26 weeks of unemployment benefits. And it would come as the average length of unemployment has risen.

Richard A. Hobbie, the executive director of the National Association of State Workforce Agencies, said ?at a time when long-term unemployment is worse than ever, it doesn?t match up well with the trends in the labor market.?

One of the unemployed Michiganders who was warned that her extended benefits could run out next week without action was Melissa Barone, 42, who lost her job with a software company in August 2009, and has been collecting unemployment since then. She has gone back to school to train to be a nurse.

?Maybe what they need to do is look at giving businesses more incentives,? Ms. Barone said, ?rather than taking from the guy that is unemployed and needs those funds.?

Lizette Alvarez contributed reporting from Miami.

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Michigan Cuts Jobless Benefit by Six Weeks

Democrats and advocates for the unemployed expressed outrage that a such a hard-hit state will become the most miserly when it comes to how long it pays benefits to those who have lost their jobs. All states currently pay 26 weeks of unemployment benefits, before extended benefits paid by the federal government kick in. Michigan?s new law means that starting next year, when the federal benefits are now set to end, the state will stop paying benefits to the jobless after just 20 weeks. The shape of future extensions is unclear.

The measure, passed by a Republican-led Legislature, took advocates for the unemployed by surprise: the language cutting benefits next year was slipped quietly into a bill that was originally sold as way to preserve unemployment benefits this year.

The original bill was aimed at reducing unemployment fraud and making a technical change so the state?s current long-term unemployed could continue receiving extended unemployment benefits from the federal government for up to 99 weeks ? benefits that would have been phased out next week without a change in the state law to make the unemployed in the state eligible to continue receiving benefits. Republican lawmakers amended it to cut the length of benefits starting in January.

?It turns the clock back 50 years at a time when unemployment is at historic highs since the Depression,? Representative Sander M. Levin, Democrat of Michigan, said in an interview, adding that he worried that the state would set a precedent that would be followed by other states, including Florida, that are thinking of curtailing their unemployment programs. ?I think that Michigan should not be to unemployment insurance what Wisconsin has become to collective bargaining.?

But Republicans and business groups said that cutting benefits was necessary, because the unemployment trust fund, which was ill-prepared to cope with the recession, is insolvent. The state owes the federal government $4 billion that it borrowed to keep its program afloat, and unemployment taxes on businesses have already been raised, and will need to be raised more, to repay the money. The Michigan Chamber of Commerce called the new law ?a huge win for job providers,? and said it could save up to $300 million a year.

Mr. Snyder issued a statement after signing the bill trumpeting the fact that it would preserve the extended benefits this year ? and making no mention of the fact that it would cut state benefits beginning next year. ?Snyder Signs Bill to Protect Unemployed,? was the headline of the news release that his office sent out. ?Now that we have continued this safety net, we must renew our focus on improving Michigan?s economic climate,? he said in the statement.

Sara Wurfel, a spokeswoman for Mr. Snyder, said in an e-mail that he signed the bill because 35,000 Michiganders would have lost their extended benefits this week, and an additional 150,000 would have lost them by year?s end, if the state?s law had not been altered. She said that about 250,000 people collected more than 20 weeks of benefits in 2010.

Advocates for the unemployed called it a bad trade. ?We have a temporary change to help some jobless workers that is imposing an indefinite or permanent cost on future jobless workers,? said Rick McHugh, a staff lawyer for the National Employment Law Project, which opposed the law. ?And that does seem doubly unfair when the temporary help for current jobless workers is almost totally paid for by the federal government.?

But business groups saw the state?s need to change its unemployment law as an opportunity to make the cuts to benefits that they have long sought.

?The business community, the chamber included, were opposed to a one-sided benefits increase,? said Wendy Block, the Michigan Chamber of Commerce?s lobbyist responsible for health policy and human resources initiatives, and unemployment insurance. She said that while the extended benefits were currently paid for by the federal government, the money comes from a fund that is financed by federal unemployment taxes on employers. ?Employers will ultimately see higher federal unemployment taxes to pay for this,? Ms. Block said.

More than half the states together owe the federal government more than $46 billion that they borrowed to pay for their unemployment programs during the downturn. Many states had salted away too little money in their unemployment trust funds during good times ? often because they cut taxes on employers ? and saw their funds depleted by the length and depth of the recession, and the slow pace at which businesses have begun hiring again. Now some other states are thinking about reducing unemployment benefits.

In Florida, where the unemployment rate hovers at 11.5 percent, even higher than Michigan?s current rate of 10.4 percent, lawmakers are zeroing in on a similar bill. The Florida House also approved a bill this month to reduce the number of weeks unemployed workers could receive benefits to 20 weeks, from 26, and make it easier for businesses to deny benefits to applicants. A Senate bill takes a less stringent approach and does not cut the number of weeks workers can receive benefits. (It is unclear how the differences will be resolved.) Doing so would undo a consensus that emerged in the years after World War II that states should pay up to 26 weeks of unemployment benefits. And it would come as the average length of unemployment has risen.

Richard A. Hobbie, the executive director of the National Association of State Workforce Agencies, said ?at a time when long-term unemployment is worse than ever, it doesn?t match up well with the trends in the labor market.?

One of the unemployed Michiganders who was warned that her extended benefits could run out next week without action was Melissa Barone, 42, who lost her job with a software company in August 2009, and has been collecting unemployment since then. She has gone back to school to train to be a nurse.

?Maybe what they need to do is look at giving businesses more incentives,? Ms. Barone said, ?rather than taking from the guy that is unemployed and needs those funds.?

Lizette Alvarez contributed reporting from Miami.

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PLDT to acquire 51% of Digitel for P74.1 billion

Philippine Long Distance Telephone Company (PLDT), the Philippines? biggest telecommunications company, just announced its plans to acquire 51% of Digitel from JG Summit Holdings for P74.1 billion ($1.7 billion).

The respective Boards of Directors of the two telcos approved the acquisition by PLDT of 51.55% equity stake or 3.277 billion common shares of Digitel from JG Summit and other parties. The transaction has an equity value of 74.1 billion pesos ($1.7 billion), PLDT said.

The report adds that PLDT intends to keep the mobile operations of Digitel separate and intact, and to maintain and capitalize on Sun Cellular?s operations to continue serving specific segments of the market, especially those who prefer ?unlimited? type of services. PLDT will also make available to Sun subscribers its wide range of service offerings particularly in terms of 3G and broadband.

James Go, JG Summit Chairman and CEO states:

?In making this decision, JG Summit went through a rigorous review of its strategic options and concluded that PLDT is the best partner for all our stakeholders?Digitel subscribers should reap benefits from PLDT?s sizeable infrastructure and leading-edge platforms.?

This investment will allow the telcos to offer a wider, complementary array of products. The accelerated expansion of broadband rollout and other next-generation technologies in both fixed and wireless space would likely improve the quality of service for both networks.

This transaction is intended to be completed by the end of the second quarter of 2011.

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Source: http://thenextweb.com/asia/2011/03/29/pldt-to-acquire-51-of-digitel-for-p74-1-billion/

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