Entrepreneur Watch

Species extinction

The film "Call of Life," about species extintions caused by humans, was accepted for the Blue Planet Film Festival, running from Sept 4th to Sept 7th in Santa Monica, CA. You can see a short clip here.

The basic theme of the film, says Larz Losness, one of those involved in making the picture: "Earth is in its 6th mass extinction, but this time it is not a meteor or asteroid or a volcanic eruption, it is one rogue mammal causing all the damage.  So this is our responsibility."

In my opinion, any species that could become as successful as humans and spread so widely around the world would cause the same devastation. Invasive species crowd out others, especially when they're so good at altering ecosystems for their own use. Our intelligence made us the only species so successful. So we need to use our intelligence to figure out what we're going to do about it. This film does a great job of laying out the problems and calling for solutions.

The producers have two weeks to raise $29,000. It's worth whatever donation you can make.

FCC to Apple: Why not Google apps?

From the Wall Street Journal:

The Federal Communications Commission has launched an inquiry into why Apple Inc. rejected Google Inc.'s Internet-telephony software for the popular iPhone, another sign of the Obama administration's stepped-up scrutiny of competitive practices in the technology industry.

Wow.

European court says 11-word extracts too much

What is wrong with these people? 

From Slashdot:

"The European Court of Justice, which is Europe's highest court, has ruled that a service providing 11-word snippets of newspaper articles could be unlawful. Media monitoring company Infopaq International searches newspaper articles and provides clients with a keyword and the five words either side. This was challenged by the DDF, a group representing newspaper interests, as infringing their members' copyright. The court has referred the issue back to national courts to determine whether copyright laws in each country will be subject to the ruling. The full ruling is available at the European Court of Justice website."

Haven't they ver heard of the concept of "fair use"? Most book authors relying on outside research couldn't survive without it.

Besides, this is the Internet. 11 words are only going to drive you to the original article, increasing readership.

Eejits.