New on the Cable Dial: Interactive Games

"Susquehanna's 16,500 digital subscribers in York, Pa., are now able to tune to channel 998 on their cable boxes and play any one of six trivia games provided by Buzztime Entertainment, an interactive game provider that has until recently focused on restaurants and bars.

Viewers in York can compete against their neighbors in real time for prizes. Buzztime, a unit of NTN Communications, is seeking to add other cable operators to its trivia train, allowing viewers to race nationwide to their buzzers (which, in this case, are simply buttons on their remote controls). Playing the games is free with a digital cable subscription, but Buzztime hopes to offer other content for which it would charge." [New York Times, via Chris Van Buskirk's ITV Weblog]

This would give a whole new meaning to game night at our house! This is a smart move on the part of Susquehanna and Buzztime, because they obviously realize the built-in audience of librarians they're wrapping up.

Airport Kiosks to Offer Movie Downloads

"Air travellers will be able to download feature films and computer games to a handheld computer using a service to be launched first at US airports this summer.

Customers will be able to insert their computer's removable memory card or chip into slots in the kiosks, to download films, music, games, electronic books and newspapers....

The service will be available for handheld computers running Microsoft Pocket PC or Palm operating systems. A range of memory cards and chips, including Flash memory cards, Sony's Memory Stick and IBM's Microdrive, could be used in the kiosks....

A typical feature film will take less than three minutes to download, and one megabyte of memory will store a minute of film, says Pocket PC Films, the company that will supply the movies in a compressed format. Games and books will have a much quicker download time.

Pocket PC Films currently sells feature films and other video content on CD-ROMs. These cost between $9.99 and $49.99, but movies will cost slightly less through the new kiosks, nREACH says. Similar kiosks will also be installed in shopping malls and other retail outlets." [New Scientist]

My first thought was to ask who on earth would want to watch a movie on a screen that small. Then I realized what a godsend this would be at the doctor's office with the kids, when I'm stuck at the airport, or even just in meetings.  ;-)

So I guess I'm geeky enough to look forward to this. I wonder if libraries can use something similar to circulate digital videos from within the building (over the net or via wireless would be a whole other ballgame).

'Ranger' Vs. the Movie Pirates

"Ranger is burrowing through the public parts of your computer, sniffing around, turning over bits of data, trying to find out if you've stolen a movie over the Internet.

Ranger is scouring the globe -- Web sites, chat rooms, newsgroups and peer-to-peer file-sharing sites -- spanning 60 countries, searching in English, Chinese and Korean. Ranger's work is helping to bust illegal movie sites in Iran, Taiwan and Hong Kong. Ranger is 24-7. Ranger is relentless.

Ranger is a piece of software that acts like an Internet search engine. It is the latest, most far-reaching weapon in the movie industry's constant and escalating battle against movie piracy....

The movie studios provide Ranger Online with a constantly updated list of 100 to 150 movie titles, typically those about to be released or just released. In other words, the ones that the industry stands the most to lose from if they're stolen....

Ranger takes the titles and, 'like a bloodhound,' Valenti said, sets out on the Internet, looking for those films on Web sites, in chat rooms, on peer-to-peer sites. It is an automated software, speeding across the Internet. When it finds a movie title, it marks the location, decides whether the movie is being used in a way that infringes on its copyright, then moves on. Jeremy Rasmussen, Ranger Online's chief technology executive and founder, won't disclose exactly how his software manages this, except to say: 'The challenge is 'How do you cover a lot of area without having to visit every page?' That's part of the intelligent way we scan.'

Ranger Online provides the data to the MPAA and prepares cease-and-desist letters. The MPAA reviews the data and decides which letters to send. Last year, the group sent 54,000 letters; this year, it is on pace to send 80,000 to 100,000. Typically, the letters are sent to the Internet service provider hosting a site or user that the MPAA has deemed to possess ill-gotten films. The ISPs take down the offending site 85 to 90 percent of the time, Valenti said. Ranger then checks back periodically on the offending site to make sure it hasn't begun pirating again....

Ranger sells itself to the MPAA and other clients based on its global scope, speed and thorough analysis. But a recent suit questions Ranger's precision.

In April of last year, Internetmovies.com's Rossi got an e-mail from the MPAA and its 14 big studios accusing his site of illegally posting copyrighted material: "We have notified your ISP of the unlawful nature of this web site and have asked for its immediate removal," the e-mail read. The MPAA followed up with a certified letter and a phone call to the ISP. Rossi said his ISP dropped him. He was down for about three days, searching for a new provider.

From New Zealand, where he is attending a film festival, Rossi said he did nothing wrong. All he did, he said, was post links to film trailers already distributed by the studios. He said he never distributed copyrighted material. Rossi filed suit against the MPAA on April 25 of this year, seeking minimal damages....

The MPAA stands by its actions, saying Rossi was "at the time, offering for distribution for members [of his Web site] copyrighted films," said Mark Litvack, the MPAA's director of worldwide legal affairs for anti-piracy." [Washington Post]