Bill S-4 – (The not quite) Digital Privacy Act ?
I had originally wanted to wait until the Privacy Commissioner of Canada released a report on Bill S-4 before commenting but decided that I should just go ahead and post something about this senate bill.
This bill was proposed to help in the cases of security breaches, to help control identity theft. But unfortunately it may also cause individuals to have their information given to third parties without their consent or knowledge.
“an organization may disclose personal information without the knowledge or consent of the individual if
(a) the disclosure is made to the other organization, the government institution or the part of a government institution that was notified of the breach under subsection (1); and
(b) the disclosure is made solely for the purposes of reducing the risk of harm to the individual that could result from the breach or mitigating that harm.” – Bill S-4, Section 10.2 (3)
Furthermore warrants may not be required under Bill C-13 and the costs associated to the infrastructure required to keep records of your online activities would be passed onto either consumers and/or taxpayers.
Are to believe this bill is meant to improve our situation ? We would be paying more for internet and give more private information to a government that was just hacked because of the Heartbeat Bug.
I think this bill needs to be re-written. And if you do too I think you should sign the Open Media petition on Privacy.
Thank you.
Free Television Online ? Tou.tv Update.
Francophone service Tou.tv has decided to offer extra content to their subscriber. But again it appears that some people will get this content free and some people will need to pay $6.99 per month for the service.
Now rebranded as ici.tou.tv, the Radio-Canada affiliate will offer their extra content free to Telus and Rogers subscribers but this commercial free content will only be available as a subscription to everyone else.
Personally I used the service to catch up on Radio-Canada Television programs La Facture, L’épicerie, Découverte and La Semaine Verte whenever I missed an episode of these series. But now I don’t know if the service will remain accessible on my Smart TV, as is, or if it will only be able to access a few episodes because I am not on Telus or Rogers.
The site is currently in beta so details are light. But it appears that users might already be limited to one or two seasons worth of episodes online.
I have checked the recordings for the aforementioned series and they appear to be limited to the most recent season, which is acceptable. But hopefully they are not considering further cuts to the free content.
I have noticed that they have added quite a few Pierre Richard films so I’m a bit tempted to take advantage of their $3.49 offer, which is valid for three months. And I’m sure if they were to offer more films from TV5, TFO and Telé Québec I would possibly consider subscribing. But I’m guessing they will take some time to get the site up and running at full speed.
Pono Music – A Week Later
It’s been a week and the response to Neil Young’s Pono Kickstarter project has been incredible.
They have now surpassed US$4 Million when their original goal was US$800,000. And many of their first Pono players have already sold out.
The official Pono Music site has been updated with a special video from Neil Young along with additional information on the player and music service.
By the way, a second VIP Dinner and Listening Party with Neil Young has been added to the project. This event will again happen in New York.
Pono Music Player Update
Neil Young is planning on starting a Kickstarter crowdfunding campaign for his new high fidelity music device on March 15th, according to his March 10th, 2014 press release.
The PonoPlayer, which was developed by engineers at Ayre Acoustics (of Boulder, Colorado), will feature a 128 gigabyte hard drive and will convert digital music files to analog.
It will retail for $399 and will be coupled with software and a music service that will sell 192 kHz, 24-bit recordings.
Neil Young is scheduled to speak about Pono at the SXSW 2014 Music Conference in Austin, Texas today from 5 pm to 6 pm, Central Time.
Update – The Kickstarter campaign was moved forward is is currently active. The device is currently available to people who donate $300 or more. Click here for details.
Turntable.fm Closing
Turntable.fm will be closing on December 2nd, 2013 according to the official blog.
The company wishes to concentrate their efforts on their “Turntable Live” operations, a service that streams live performances, world wide.
Goodbye Winamp
Winamp will be no more as of December 20th, 2013.
The once popular, 15 year old mp3 software had been purchased from Nullsoft by AOL in 1999 for $80 million. But the company will discontinue the software next month and is allegedly hoping to sell it to Microsoft, along with the Shoutcast music streaming service.
Although I haven’t used Winamp for over five years, I’m a bit sad to see it go.
Winamp was my favourite mp3 software for years, until iTunes came along for Canada. And I had used it to rip the vast majority of my CD collection even after windows media player offered that ability.
I loved compiling my favourite music to CDs for my multi-disc carousels and I am still listening to music I had ripped a decade back using this software.
Hopefully it’ll find a new home at Microsoft. But I’m guessing it’ll probably be rebranded for the X-Box.