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LibDems drop net blocking, blame activists
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Andrew Orlowski
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LibDem peers agreed to drop their controversial net-blocking clause from the Digital Economy Bill after the government advised that the proposal would be legally unenforceable. It means the Bill now heads for the Commons with one of the key copyright infringement countermeasures up in the air, although it’s likely to be a return to Plan…
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Ad industry: You write the cheques, we’ll drown the puppies
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Andrew Orlowski
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The UK advertising industry has bravely decided it can continue to accept millions of pounds from the state to create alarming climate advertisements, despite inaccuracies and a storm of complaints from parents. The principled decision, from the admen’s self-regulatory body the ASA, follows 939 complaints about the UK energy ministry DECC’s “Drowning Dog” prime time…
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Why BBC3, BBC4?
by
Andrew Orlowski
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Conservative culture front bencher Jeremy Hunt is asking what’s the point of BBC3 and BBC4? It’s a good time to ask the question. In an interview with the Independent, Hunt queried why £100m was being spent, merely to attract “very, very small” audiences. This is some way short of calling for the channels to be…
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Whatever happened to the email app?
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Andrew Orlowski
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Musings on the state of email clients. Which might have something to do with the state of email… Is the email program dead? Did the whole world just migrate away from Hotmail over to Facebook when we weren’t looking? Does anyone else care? Weirdly, the answer seems to be yes, yes, and no. Email has…
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Home streaming is ‘killing music’
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Andrew Orlowski
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Two weeks ago a US market research company caused a panic in the music business when it reported sales of MP3s had declined. DRM has all but disappeared from digital music, while music catalogs and retailer choice have grown… and yet the volume of digital song sales fell. Ironically, it’s the major labels’ darling Spotify…
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Mystic Met Office abandons long range forecasts
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Andrew Orlowski
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The Met Office has confirmed it is to abandon long range weather forecasts, finally acknowledging criticism. The most recent forecasts were so inaccurate, that even the BBC is reconsidering whether to appoint an alternative supplier, such as Accuweather, after 88 years of continuous service from the 1,700-strong MoD unit. The Mystic Met predicted a barbecue…