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Archive for April, 2010

Unfounded european protectionism against Google

By: psr, 2010-04-04

Several European states and European companies seem to be planning a host of measures to curb the business of Google. The excuse is that Google makes too much money. Not a bad excuse, as lame excuses go.

Governments and companies around Europe are “unhappy” that Google is here to compete. Publishers in Germany complain that they only earn €100m per year in advertisement, while Google earns €1.2bn (in Germany). In Spain, the main telecom operator is considering charging Google for the use of its network. In Italy, privacy protection advocates are calling for making Google liable for the content of its Youtube service (despite it all being provided by Youtube users, not Youtube itself). In the U.S. Google has faced opposition …

2010-04-04 | Economy - Europe - Rights | Trackback | No Comments »

Broadcasting ignorance

By: psr, 2010-04-03

This week, TV broadcasts in Spain ceased to be analogue, and DVB-T is the only method used now. For a short period of time, the State authority managing TV broadcasts (Ministry of Industry) will be displaying a message, on the old analogue UHF channels, to remind audiences that they need to switch to DVB-T in order to continue watching TV programs.

The message says: “La programación de TV Analógica ha dejado de emitirse por este canal. Puede seguir visualizando este programa por TDT.“, which translates to: “Analogue TV programming broadcasts have ceased on this channel. You may continue to visualize this program on DVB-T.”

The text is incorrect and this is very serious, as lots of people learn to use …