Starbucks to Offer Free, 1-Click, No Registration WIFI at all Locations Starting July 1

Starbucks used their Twitter account to announce, what will undoubtedly turn out to be a brilliant marketing move, free WIFI.

Between the recession and Dunkin’ Donuts, Starbucks has been taking a beating for quite a while now. I’m not going to go into a whole business class lecture about what caused Starbucks to stub their toe, but suffice it to say, I think that this announcement, small as it may appear, is a big step to Starbucks righting itself again.

Finally an Infographic to Prove the Internet is Basically a Giant Porn Mag

The Stats on Internet Pornography
Via: Online MBA

Secret Copyright Treaty is Leaked and It’s Scary, 1984 Type Scary

The Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement negotiations are taking place in Seoul, Korea right now. The United States has been working on the section of the agreement which, not surprisingly, seems to have the most jackbooted authority for media companies while basically hanging the average user out to dry.

The Obama administration has been extremely secretive about this task which has, ironically, leaked onto the internet.

  • That ISPs have to proactively police copyright on user-contributed material. This means that it will be impossible to run a service like Flickr or YouTube or Blogger, since hiring enough lawyers to ensure that the mountain of material uploaded every second isn’t infringing will exceed any hope of profitability.
  • That ISPs have to cut off the Internet access of accused copyright infringers or face liability. This means that your entire family could be denied to the internet — and hence to civic participation, health information, education, communications, and their means of earning a living — if one member is accused of copyright infringement, without access to a trial or counsel.
  • That the whole world must adopt US-style “notice-and-takedown” rules that require ISPs to remove any material that is accused — again, without evidence or trial — of infringing copyright. This has proved a disaster in the US and other countries, where it provides an easy means of censoring material, just by accusing it of infringing copyright.
  • Mandatory prohibitions on breaking DRM, even if doing so for a lawful purpose (e.g., to make a work available to disabled people; for archival preservation; because you own the copyrighted work that is locked up with DRM)

The ACTA Internet Chapter: Putting the Pieces Together

President-elect Obama Lays Out His Plan to Make the Internets Better

It’s pretty freaking cool that we have President that not only knows, but realizes how important it is that the United States is ranked 15th in world broadband adoption.  He promises to bring broadband to schools and hospitals across the country.

That’s all well and good but let’s home he also deals with the fact that our broadband completely sucks compared to the rest of the world.

speeds

Umm yeah, I’ll take some of that Japanese broadband please.  Is there anything invented in the US that the Japanese don’t take and make a thousand times better?