You may be unaware that various nefarious parties are currently negotiating a global treaty that plans to roger the freedom we currently enjoy on the internet. The next round of negotiations are being held in Wellington, and the fine folks at InternetNZ have secured the keynote services of a veritable superstar, Michael Geist for their pre-ACTA conference.

ACTA brings back those lovely ideas like internet termination for copyright infringement, so we should be worried about it. Think about it: you can conduct fraud, hacking, or even child pornography on the web and not have your internet cut off. But infringe copyright? Don’t even think about it you dirty “stealing” pirate!

Geist was the guy that broke the first leak of the ACTA wording, bringing a degree of clarity to the clandestine treaty, and exposing the truth behind the weasel-words that we were getting from the negotiators. There has been an avalanche of reaction since that first leak. Now even the European Parliament are baulking at the treaty.

Now you know about ACTA, get thee along to InternetNZ’s PublicACTA event on the 10th of April and make some noise.

Full release follows:

Michael Geist to keynote PublicACTA – InternetNZ
Media release – 10 March 2010

InternetNZ (Internet New Zealand Inc) is excited to announce that
renowned Canadian law professor Michael Geist, a world authority on
technology law issues, will be the keynote speaker at the PublicACTA
event, being held in Wellington on 10 April 2010.

“We are delighted that Professor Geist is able to make it to New
Zealand to contribute to the debate around the ACTA negotiations,”
says InternetNZ Policy Director Jordan Carter.

PublicACTA is being held the weekend before the next round of ACTA
negotiations in Wellington, 12-16 April 2010.

ACTA is a plurilateral trade agreement being negotiated by the USA,
EU, Japan, Canada, Australia, New Zealand and other countries, aimed
at increasing the control that intellectual property owners have over
their products and ideas, and at reducing incidents of counterfeiting
and illegal trade in goods. The negotiation phase of the treaty is
intended to be finished in 2010.

Professor Michael Geist, the Canada Research Chair in Internet and
E-commerce Law at the University of Ottawa in Ontario, Canada, has
written widely on the challenges of copyright and digital technology.

“His in-depth understanding of the ACTA process to date, and well
publicised positions in favour of citizen access to the negotiation
process, will add quality analysis and profile to the event,” Carter
says.

“PublicACTA will be aimed at creating a constructive contribution to
the negotiations being held in Wellington. Professor Geist’s
participation will contribute to that goal,” says Carter.

Professor Geist is looking forward to participating in the event:

“New Zealand has emerged as a leading global voice on ACTA and I’m
delighted to have the chance to participate in this important event.

“Many people around the world have watched with admiration at how
thousands of New Zealanders have actively engaged in domestic and
international copyright reform initiatives, promoting a balanced
approach that meets the needs of all stakeholders,” he says.

Further information about Michael Geist is available at his website,
which can be found at www.michaelgeist.ca.

People who are interested in attending the PublicACTA event should
register their interest by sending an email to rsvp@internetnz.net.nz.

Further details about the Conference will be released on a dedicated
website next week.

Popularity: 2% [?]

The Weekend Herald has pointed out the blindingly obvious: TiVo uptake in New Zealand is horrendous. I pointed out last year that TiVo worldwide was experiencing a serious nose dive, just as New Zealanders were expected to buy in droves.

I seriously wonder at the decision making behind releasing something like TiVo, let alone TVNZ investing millions into it. It’s a fringe device at best, hobbled by ISP exclusivity, and with no point of difference other than the brand name. A back of the envelope calculation should be enough to pin that as a losing proposition from the outset. Sky subscriptions are nearing saturation point (hell, they had 750k subscriptions in 2008), so where is the market for a premium DVR?

In the USA, TiVo is a reasonably nice DVR that sits on top of your existing cable service. Imagine if you could use any DVR on Sky in New Zealand, and you start to get the full picture. There would be a healthy ecosystem of competing DVRs, and TiVo would probably do fairly well. But this isn’t the case. In New Zealand you get MySky or nothing. There is no other DVR alternative for Sky (ignoring decoding hacks and analogue connections with IR blasters).

TiVo by comparison, is a Freeview DVR with an on-demand download service locked to one ISP. By all accounts, the on-demand portion is bordering on pathetic. Little choice beyond in-store DVDs, and waits of at least 30 minutes before you’re able to view anything.

The lack of uptake is entirely unsurprising.

Popularity: 10% [?]

The buzz about Buzz must be hurting Google at the moment. It’s an exercise in how not to launch a social media service.

When developing the service, Google made the assumption that your regular contacts on Gmail are the same people that you would like to share your public photos, videos and status with. A lot of people loved the ease of use, but a vocal (and correct) minority pointed out the pitfalls of revealing your email contact network to the world.

I talked to Morning Report on Radio New Zealand this morning about the launch, what went wrong, and what it means for the future of Buzz. To me, the crux of the issue is the way Google treats everything as pure data. In the same way staff in financial institutions can be numbed by the huge numbers they deal with, I wonder if Google engineers analysing pure data can easily forget about the humans that created the data in the first place.

Here’s the audio [1MB MP3 Link] . I’d love to hear your thoughts.

Popularity: 7% [?]

Verbatim from the Apple iPad AU/NZ press release:

Pricing & Availability
iPad will be available in late March worldwide for a suggested retail price of $499 (US) for the 16GB model, $599 (US) for the 32GB model, $699 (US) for the 64GB model. The Wi-Fi + 3G models of iPad will be available in April in the US and selected countries for a suggested retail price of $629 (US) for the 16GB model, $729 (US) for the 32GB model and $829 (US) for the 64GB model. International pricing and worldwide availability will be announced at a later date. iBookstore will be available in the US at launch.

It takes a bit of decoding, but I read it like this:

• WiFi models available everywhere at launch
• WiFi + 3G “US and selected countries” at launch
• iBookstore “US at launch”

This does not bode well for iBookstore availability in New Zealand, especially when we consider that the Kindle is still not available in New Zealand. What the heck is going on with New Zealand book publishers? Care to comment?

Popularity: 35% [?]

The Apple iPad has burst through the cloud of rumour and speculation. A crepuscular ray in the shape of a giant iPhone with a 9.7″ IPS screen, custom 1GHz Apple A4 processor, 16-64GB of memory, 3G and WiFi, and 10 hours of battery life. And there, bathing in the pools of light are the old-media stalwarts: NYT, Penguin, and others; ready to illuminate their texts. Steve Jobs is their modern-day Gutenberg, iTunes his press, and the iBooks application his moveable type: together distributing printed works cheaper and faster than any paper press could ever do.

As with the iPod, this means neither the demise of old distribution, nor the rise of new. It does, however, provide another compelling platform for consumers to spend freely on more content. Like the App Store before it, Apple’s new distribution platform creates a near-frictionless method to part consumers with their money in return for content. Over the past couple of years, I’ve spent more on music and applications using my iPhone than any physical products. Similarly, I can see myself buying more subscriptions, applications, and premium content than ever before.

But wait, there’s more (and more of the same)

Apple knows when it is on to a good thing. The iPad enlarges the familiar iPhone interface, and also builds on their massively successful iTunes music and application stores. You can use all the same applications, music, and podcasts that have been available for the iPod and iPhone. But of course the increased size and resolution of the iPad will lend itself to larger-format applications – some of which Apple demonstrated during their announcement.

Apple has also finally leveraged their purchase of PA Semi, producing the “A4″ chip: a custom 1GHz processor with combined graphics processing. We can assume from this that the iPad will have 3D gaming graphics far in excess of the iPhone and iPod. Electronic Arts leveraged this, and demonstrated some rather stunning 3D games.

Then there’s iWork. Apple’s existing suite of Office applications have been tweaked to run on the iPad. Apple has deeply integrated multi-touch, creating an almost Minority Report interface for the various applications. iWork on iPad is not an addendum to your desktop or notebook PC – each US$9.99 application is a complete standalone product. If you’re a hard-core road warrior, you might want to grab the matching keyboard dock.

Shine a light on us

And what of New Zealand? Are we left out in the Kindle-like cold? Not entirely. The iPad is available to buy worldwide in 60 days time (3G models will follow 30 days after that). However, the pre-pay data plans (US$14.99 for 250MB and US$29.99 for unlimited) are only available in the USA. But there should be nothing stopping you putting a Vodafone or XT sim card in the iPad, because they are carrier unlocked by default. Word of warning: like the iPhone, the iPad’s 3G will work ok on Vodafone in cities, and great on XT everywhere (when XT isn’t offline of course).

Here’s how much you’re going to pay for an iPad in US$:

And you know you’re going to. Like many Apple products, the features matter less than the fashion. When you see these devices in cafes and buses, you’ll want one. What are you waiting for? You don’t want to be left alone in the dark now do you?

[Image credits: GDGT]

Popularity: 85% [?]