The WSJ (subscription required) has a great interview with Reginald Fils-Aime, president and CEO of Nintendo’s U.S. division. The conversation gets into the Wii’s expanded audience and whether the Nintendo console is a novelty that will eventually fall behind. Fils-Aime holds his own pretty well and lets the facts speak for themselves while avoiding direct bashing of other consoles:

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The Wall Street Journal (subscription required) has an article out on how universities are incorporating the study of social networking / online communities / user-generated content into new curricula for a graduate degree in "social computing." The programs seem to be combining classes from sociology, psychology and
communications departments with computer
science classes. Here are some quotes from the schools involved, including MIT, Cornell, University of Michigan, and Rochester Institute of Technology:

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Sony has developed a razor-thin display that bends like paper while showing full-color video. See below for a video of the new 2.5-inch display. It shows a hand squeezing a display that is 0.3 millimeters (0.01 inch) thick. Sony says it has yet to decide on how to commercialize new products using the technology.

Although, Sony spokesman Chisato Kitsukawa explains how, “In the future, it could get wrapped around a lamppost or a person’s wrist, even worn as clothing… Perhaps it can be put up like wallpaper.”

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The Wall Street Journal (subscription required) has a valid point in explaining the under-anticipated downside of going paperless. Once you’re gone, your family may not know where to begin to look for your accounts, assets, insurance policies, retirement plans, etc. So you should write all that information down and keep it in a safe place, right?

Well, not exactly. Having a list of your passwords and private information all in one place is asking for trouble.

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Trent Reznor gave an interesting interview over at the Herald Sun. In it he states, “It’s a very odd time to be a musician on a major label, because there’s so much resentment towards the record industry that it’s hard to position yourself in a place with the fans where you don’t look like a greedy asshole."

He goes on to say, “I’ve have one record left that I owe a major
label, then I will never be seen in a situation like this again. If I
could do what I want right now, I would put out my next album, you
could download it from my site at as high a bit-rate as you want, pay
$4 through PayPal.”

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Fair Isaac Corp. of Minneapolis is a "fraud-detection specialist" which has released a study showing that Internet advertising put out by "online marketing vehicles" is subject to deceptive clicks that are
occurring far more frequently than network operators
acknowledge. These reports and studies seem to pop up all over the place. In fact, last year the Economist was bold enough to claim that "’click fraud’ might undermine the industry."

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Looks like the rumors are true, Amazon has officially announced its plans to start an online music store later this year with "millions of songs" and the same major label offering (EMI) as Apple. The news comes only a month and a half after Apple announced its DRM-free agreement with EMI. The biggest difference being that Amazon appears to be sticking with the all or nothing mentality rumored earlier: all songs will be DRM-free and MP3.

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A new study / survey results conducted by the U.S. Business Software
Alliance (BSA) claims that the rate of global software piracy has been static for three years even if the cost to businesses is still rising. The conclusion is that for every $2 spent on legitimate software, $1 goes to
pirates.

BSA CEO Robert Holleyman explains how static isn’t necessarily a good thing: "The bad news is that overall global piracy rates have remained
stagnant… Overall dollar
losses have gone up because the overall market is growing."

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Some of us here at Computers.net were lucky enough to attend the OpenCourseWare Consortium Conference in Santander, Spain. Among the attendees, a representative for the OLPC (One Laptop Per Child) project who let us get a hands on look at the latest iteration. See below for pics and video.

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VIP Task Manager Professional Edition is a software package that feels like Microsoft Outlook’s task list on steroids. Task Manager is designed for small businesses in need of an easy way to manage group collaboration and tasks. The active task list / collaboration tool is updated in real time via simultaneous access by multiple users.
It allows for planning, scheduling, sharing, and reporting of all and any company activities. It’s hard to get a feel for what the software can really do without simply playing with it. Luckily, there’s a 30 day trial available here.

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