Throughout the trial, the prosecution contended the sites’ co-founders brought in as much as $4 million per year in advertising revenues, while the defense argued no profits were made – hence any illegal activity was actually on the individual users who chose to participate. In an ironic (or is that hypocritical) twist, it looks like the Pirate Bay is about to be sold for a hefty profit. Details are being finalized at this point, with sources reporting Swedish based “Global Gaming Factory X” putting up somewhere between $7.7 and $7.9 million dollars for the acquisition – making that $3.6 million dollar fine look like chump change. [full text press release, PDF]

So what’s a Swedish company to do with an organization recently convicted of illegal activity by Swedish courts?  Legitimize it, of course. Stick with me for a moment folks, if this business plan doesn’t make any sense to you, you’ve got the jist.

First, Global Gaming chief exec Hans Pandeya, plans to license content from media companies for legal downloads. That’s right – they’re expecting the likes of the Sony and Viacom and Fox and Warner Brothers of the world embrace the namesake Pirate Bay to legally tout their digital wares. No, it’s not deja vu… how’s that business plan working out for you Napster? Surely, those 20 million users in search of free downloads will stick around when the site’s offerings are slashed to near nothing and will suddenly see the light and start paying for it.

Next comes some premium advertising. Pandeya and co hope to raise up to $50 million per year in ad revenues on the newly legit ‘Bay. As of now, the Pirate Bay (and sites like it) have difficulty finding advertisers that will even touch potential breeding grounds for digital theft. Advertisers on display range from bottom feeders to downright scammers, bidding at some of the lowest CPMs on earth. But hey – once it goes legit, everybody will forget the past! Large companies will surely see that same light the users do, and will ignore history to put their highly protected trademarks and reputations all over it. (You might want to turn down your sarcasm detectors if you haven’t already; I’m not responsible if they blow a gasket.)

But lastly, we have a real gem of a business idea. The Pirate Bay is going to get in the Internet services biz. They’re going to take the concept of peer-to-peer and leverage those millions of users’ Internet connections… Users can opt in to a program where they share their existing bandwidth with a peer to peer “cloud.”  Internet service providers can rent capacity on this network when they need short term boosts of bandwidth to handle unusually high loads. This new technology is called “Peerialism” and potential uses might be streaming video during major media events (like the great bandwidth drains earlier this year care of studious employees watching the NCAA Final Four on their work computers.) After all, this distributed model has been used by legitimate researchers to do things like search for aliens and seek out a cure for cancer.  Only here, users will be compensated – financially – for participating. Earnings might be paid out directly, or used within the site to purchase music from the afformentioned licensees.

Cool idea on the bizarro Internet, perhaps. In the real world, the whole idea is perposterous. It’s against the terms of service set by pretty much every single Internet Provider out there. Looking at my own provider’s ToS, I can count at least half a dozen ways this violates my contract. Save yourself the legal jargon – here’s the synopsis, assuming a residential connection. You can’t use the service to make a profit or run a commercial endeavor. You can’t re-sell your connectivity. You can’t redistribute audio/visual content. You can’t charge others in any way shape or form for access to any facet of your service. You get the picture. Ignoring the fact this will either be blocked by your provider or cause your connection to go dark without a refund, it still doesn’t make sense if you consider who the intended customer is: Internet pervice providers. Why again will an ISP essentially buy back the bandwidth it just sold you? It’s like buying a dozen ears of corn at the grocery store and telling your grocer “hey, I just noticed you’re short 12 ears of corn, I’ve got a dozen here you might be interested in!” ISPs already have bandwidth sharing strategies to buy bandwidth from one another when their tubes get clogged… but SURELY they’ll want to go around in circles and buy their own bandwidth back care of their own customers in violation of their own terms of services – from the Pirate Bay, of all places. (OK, you can turn those sarcasm detectors back on, I’m done.)

In summary, so long Pirate Bay. It’s been a good run. And while I’m not a certified financial advisor and you should always read your prospectus first… if Global Gaming Factory X or “Pirate Bay 2.0″ ever goes public, you might want to devise a short sale strategy.

(Updated: The bill has been voted down in the house. More info at the bottom.)

Media reports have been all over the map, with sources suggesting anywhere from 5 million to 20 million US households are unprepared for the transition.  There have also been reports of as many as 2.5 million on the FCC’s waiting list for their converter box coupon program.  13.5 million coupons have been passed out, but it’s estimated that roughly half have not been used.  The coupons carry a 90 day expiration, and as the unused coupons expire those on the waiting list will get a shot at one.

President Obama has called for an additional $850 million as part of his stimulus package to provide additional funding to the FCC coupon program.

The FCC has of course already auctioned off and collected it’s nearly $20 billion dollars to re-license the wireless spectrum that would have been freed in just 3 weeks.  (Why again, does the FCC need another $850 million of taxpayer’s dollars to cover the coupon shortfall? Anyway…)

Major players AT&T and Verizon will have to wait until June to begin using their newly acquired slice of the airwaves, though this morning’s bill includes a 116 day extension to the end of their original licenses as compensation.

(Shameless plug warning: who needs OTA anyway, when you’ve got Artvoice TV?)

Update, Wednesday Jan 28: Despite the unanimous vote and the support from President Obama, it turns out this bill was not a shoo-in after all. Because the bill had been fast-tracked in the House, it required 2/3rds votet here before reaching the President’s desk; however, this morning it was shot down by a 256 to 168 vote. So it’s not over yet folks. The House may vote next week for a second time on the issue. In the mean time, we can say the great digital delay… has been delayed.

Wading through the blogosphere (as opposed to wading through the two feet of snow outside), it looks like the story starts here: CNET reports that sources close to the RIAA claim the group’s budget is being slashed and their role reduced. One might assume they face the same problems as any business or organization – a tough economic climate, dwindling sales, and so on. A likely story, but given the fact that those 350,000 lawsuits targeted many innocent individuals, levied disproportionately high penalties to very small time file sharers, and in sum total did next to nothing to curb on-line piracy, maybe the truth is their litigious witch hunt has been a near total failure, and they’re finally acknowledging that.

It’s not all good news for fans of file sharing, as you aren’t off the hook yet.  The RIAA has apparently struck deals with several major ISPs to enact a “3 strikes and you’re out” policy.  So the witch hunt is still on, but instead of slapping you with a lawsuit, the RIAA intends on tattle-taling to your Internet provider instead.  The ones who have agreed to cooperate (and so far, the ISPs in agreement have NOT been named), will likely follow this line of attack: (1) a warning; (2) a second warning coupled with speed reduction and/or possible block of peer to peer traffic, (3) cut off your Internet access all together.

NY State’s own Attorney General Andrew Cuomo apparently played a large role in brokering this deal.  You may remember Cuomo’s campaign to stop on-line child pornography earlier in the year (aka the ISPs campaign to have a good excuse to stop providing Usenet service while making good press yet not actually doing much to stop on-line child pornography)… borrowing a page from that book, we can see the list of ISPs Cuomo has already gotten cooperation from in the past here. I’ll reiterate – the RIAA has not said which ISPs are on board; and this is speculation on my part, but I have a feeling we’ll see a lot of those same names come out as participants.

So the bit of good news is, you probably aren’t going to get sued if you’re caught illegally downloading a couple of songs.  The RIAA also will never know your identity, nor harass or subpoena your ISP to learn your identity.

The bad news? There’s a couple points…

• The RIAA doesn’t need to follow due process anymore. That saves them a lot of lawyers, a lot of time, and a lot of money.  Remember those budget cuts I mentioned?  Probably not relevant; they don’t need the budget to do things this way. No lawyers needed, less in depth investigation needed… any suspicion of somebody? Just fire off an e-mail!
• The RIAA still reserves the right to sue big-time file sharers with large volumes of songs.  They might go after you if you do something particularly irksome as well (careful with those “leaked” pre-release albums, kids!)  There’s no clear line. So while the risk to file sharers has gone down, it hasn’t gone away.
• It looks like enforcement is a the discretion of the ISPs, and it’s the RIAA’s word against yours. No real proof needs to be provided, no appeals process, etc… unless your ISP is nice enough to provide a fair process, you’re probably out of luck, be it rightly or wrongly accused.
• Lastly, it’s just a huge can of worms that probably shouldn’t be opened.  ISPs should be neutral. They provide a service that transmits your data from point A to point B.  They shouldn’t have any business telling you what you can or can’t send from “A” to “B” – if you’re breaking the law, there’s a legal system to deal with it. Does this mean ISPs are going to start spying on your traffic to confirm RIAA complaints?  Does it mean they’re going to do the police work for other industry organizations?  Are ISPs themselves going to take heat if they fail to comply with RIAA requests? Are they going to go beyond cutting off your Internet access and blacklisting you from their services as a group – again, without any sort of legal due process to prove your guilt?  (That’s what they’re looking to do in some European countries, by the way.)  Are they going to apply the connection-slowdown-punishment to other areas at their discretion? Obviously there’s a lot more questions than answers right now, but it doesn’t look good for the pro-net neutrality folks.

Surely this will be an on-going process that we’re all going to have to wait to see how it pans out. It’s a small victory for file sharers.  Potentionally a large loss for privacy and neutrality advocates. Possibly, like the RIAA’s last campaign, a bunch of hot air that gets them nowhere fast. Some day we’ll come up with a way where artists looking to get paid can, and ‘netziens looking for free content can find it without fear… but it’s certainly not today.

Hacking Democracy

First, we’ll take a look at one of the best kept secrets of the campaign season, from both sides, care of a Newsweek article published just today.  Over the summer, the FBI had its hands full with simultaneous cyber crime investigations: the hacking of the Obama campaign computer system(s), and the hacking of the McCain campaign computer system(s).  While the intrusions have been acknowledged,  little else has been released or confirmed yet.  At this point, it’s known for sure that the FBI was involved, that “a large number of files” were stolen from the Obama side, and that the attacks came from a “foreign entity” and definitely did not come from the opposing sides.  The McCain campaign systems were intruded on in a similar fashion as the Obama systems, but the extent of the compromise on their side was unmentioned.  The rest is speculation of course: security experts have suggested the attacks likely came from China or Russia, and anyone’s best guess is that the goal of such an intrusion was to gain an inside line on procedures and policies used by the campaigns for a leg up in future dealings with the to-be president. (H/T to Newsweek)

This of course wasn’t the only politically motivated cyber-crime this campaign season – I’m sure many recall the Sarah Palin e-mail intrusion back in September.  Though it’s significance is near nil at this point, we’ll remember it as the day our servers felt the shock wave of a web traffic explosion.  If anyone is still interested: David Kernell, a college student in Tennessee, and the son of Tennessee democratic representiative Mike Kernell, was indicted by grand jury in late October.  His trial begins on December 16th, and faces up to 5 years and fines.  Not so “anonymous” now, eh David?  A court has also ordered the e-mails in both of governor Palin’s Yahoo! accounts be preserved for further investigation.

Another dishonorable mention is the state of Ohio election information and registration website that also came under attack, and experienced some brief downtime in late October.  (H/T to Reuters)

Technology Promises

I also want to give a nod back to another item I’ve talked about here: Science Debate 2008.  We’ve got a list of policies and action-items promised to us from pre-president-elect Obama in the realm of technology.  I’ll be saving a copy and keeping score for the next four to eight years.

Along the same lines is Obama’s “Blueprint for Change” video on technology issues.  Maybe you missed it?  Don’t feel bad; for whatever reason, this wasn’t released until the night before the election, effectively burying it in the rest of the 11th hour buzz.

Hi-Tech Election Day Coverage

Election night itself was a grand display of technology as well.  CNN debuted it’s new “hologram” technology – much to the chagrin of pocket protector pencil neck purists who are still complaining two days later that the effect isn’t actually a hologram.  “True” hologram or not, I personally found it a bit silly.  We’ll see if CNN or others bother with this technique down the road.

Ratings speak volumes though, and CNN enjoyed second place of 14 major networks covering the event with 12.3 million viewers.  ABC was the victor, at just over 13 million viewers.  In all, it’s estimated about 71 million viewers tuned in on Tuesday to watch the results unfold.  As impressive at it sounds, it’s still over 25 million shy of this year’s past Super Bowl.  Apparently the world’s couch potatoes are still more interested in the Patriots than in patriotism. (Nielsen’s complete ratings here.)

Nielsen also kept an eye to the web to gauge coverage ratings in cyberspace.  There’s a comprehensive list here if interested; CNN, MSNBC and Yahoo! News being the top three destinations for surfers on Tuesday. The official campaign sites also received a boost on Tuesday, with Obama’s site receiving 1.2 million unique visitors, and McCain’s site receiving 479,000 unique visitors.

The Future

Lastly, let’s look ahead to some new developments that will affect us going forward.

While not related to presidential politics per se, this is still a governmental policy decision that flew under the radar with all the elections buzz, that could mean huge developments in the wireless arena.  On Tuesday, the FCC approved a measure to free up “white spaces” for unlicensed (read: free but regulated) use.  In short, this means unused areas of the wireless spectrum in the general area of digital TV transmissions can be used by consumer devices.  This coveted piece of intangible mathematical electromagnetic real estate means higher bandwidth (faster) transmission of information to and from consumer devices, at greater distances than the current public bands allow.  It’s been a long fought battle mostly centered around issues of interference with licensed bands (at least, that’s the PR friendly argument – it’s probably been a long fought battle because telecommunications companies have sunk billions into competing technologies that may have just been rendered obsolete.)  To appease the interference complaints (some of which are probably valid), devices will have to be extremely smart: they’ll be required to be GPS aware, and to communicate over the Internet with a central database to announce their position and ask permission for an interference free frequency.  There’s a loophole for less intelligent devices, though they’ll have to pass some pretty rigorous interference tests.  You can read more here.  Dell claims to have laptops with “white space radio” already in the works that you can learn about here.

The last “bit” we have to pass on is some news about some technology related appointments to the Obama transition team.  Named to the team include Google philanthropy officer Sonal Shah, and Julius Genchowski who is a former IAC executive and former chief council to former FCC chairman Reed Hundt.  Rumors abound about Google CEO Eric Schmidt may be in the running for U.S. Chief Technology Advisor as well.

The Register is reporting the investigation may be relatively easy to conclude.  The attacker attempted to cover their tracks using ctunnel.com, a proxy service.  This way, when Yahoo searches their logs, the visits would have appeared from ctunnel.com, rather than the address information of the person(s) who had broken in to the account.  It just so happens that ctunnel.com logs connections for situations such as this, and thanks to screen shots showing a large portion of the ctunnel.com URL in the address bar of the web browser, it’s going to be pretty easy to match that to the log files.

Anyway, now that the dust has settled some, I thought maybe I’d take a few moments to respond to the slew of comments and hatemail about the Pailin e-mails.  It doesn’t seem many understand the nature of the situation, and mainstream media is having a field day with spin and framing the story for whoever candidate they’re biased to.  So here’s my thoughts:

… on anonymous

First, a little background on who “anonymous” is.  They’re often referred to as a “group,” but they’re more like an Internet counter-culture.  There is NO organization, agenda, or leadership.  It’s just a bunch of individuals acting on their own that wear the label.  Their main playground is the 4chan.org website, though there are dozens of other spin-off sites.  The site, and others like it, are based on “imageboard” software, which is like a message board, but puts emphasis on posting images over posting discussion.  Those who post on any of the 4chan boards are not required to sign up for an account, and are not required to leave any identifying information – hence “anonymous.”  Threads on the board only last as long as they’re being actively being replied to, and otherwise will fade away and are automatically removed from the system when visitors have moved on to more “interesting” topics.

It originally started for those with interest in Japanese culture, anime cartoons, and that sort of thing.  It contains different categories, one of which being “Random,” or the /b/ board.  This was an anything-goes area of the website that’s grown virally to enormous proportions. The /b/ board is basically the armpit of the Internet, where people post photos and jokes of all sorts (often spreading beyond their confines as viral “memes” – if you use the web, you’ve probably seen some of these “memes” without even realizing) – including copious amounts of pornography, gore, and racist material – and it’s cultural norm there to find it funny, no matter the content or context.  Some of the postings are actually still related to Japanese culture, though few and far between.  /b/ loosely organizes on occasion to play pranks; their spoils being screen shots or photographs of their pranks, that they then in turn post onto the board to poke more fun at.  Pranks (or “raids” as they call it) have run the gamut from making fun of people with eating disorders on on-line support groups, inserting pornography and racist imagery into on-line children’s games, breaking into MySpace and Facebook accounts, prank calling talk shows, and all the way up to “real-life” pranks as serious as bomb threats.  Even the much famed Scientology protests organized by “anonymous” wasn’t so much about an ethical, religious, or moral stance against the group – it was simply to annoy them, grab 15 minutes of fame, and get a few laughs.

All in all, these folks aren’t activists.  They’re an immature bunch (probably because most are teenagers), simply seeking attention and make mischief to get it.  Sometimes that mischief is rather high profile, like yesterday, and it gets them high profile attention.  The Internet to them, is a mere playground. Take one glance at their website, and you’ll see what I mean (but do so only if you’re prepared to be offended and thoroughly disgusted on every level humanly possible.  That’s NOT an exaggeration.  You’ve been warned.)

… on how it all went down

This description was posted to the 4chan board yesterday, by a person going by the nickname “rubico.”  I’ll stress, there’s no way to confirm this, because again, people are allowed to post whatever they want anonymously.  It does seem to jive with how things played out however.  Red text is my “translation” for you, for those who don’t speak “Internet”.

rubico 09/17/08(Wed)12:57:22 No.85782652

Hello, /b/ as many of you might already know, last night sarah palin’s yahoo was “hacked” and caps were posted on /b/, i am the lurker who did it, and i would like to tell the story.

In the past couple days news had come to light about palin using a yahoo mail account, it was in news stories and such, a thread was started full of newfags (somebody relatively new to the website) trying to do something that would not get this off the ground, for the next 2 hours the acct was locked from password recovery presumably from all this bullshit spamming.

after the password recovery was reenabled, it took seriously 45 mins on wikipedia and google to find the info, Birthday? 15 seconds on wikipedia, zip code? well she had always been from wasilla, and it only has 2 zip codes (thanks online postal service!)

the second was somewhat harder, the question was “where did you meet your spouse?” did some research, and apparently she had eloped with mister palin after college, if youll look on some of the screenshits that I took and other fellow anon have so graciously put on photobucket you will see the google search for “palin eloped” or some such in one of the tabs.

I found out later though more research that they met at high school, so I did variations of that, high, high school, eventually hit on “Wasilla high” I promptly changed the password to popcorn and took a cold shower…

>> rubico 09/17/08(Wed)12:58:04 No.85782727

this is all verifiable if some anal /b/tard wants to think Im a troll (if a “regular visitor” thinks I’m lying), and there isn’t any hard proof to the contrary, but anyone who had followed the thread from the beginning to the 404 (when the discussion topic expired) will know I probably am not, the picture I posted this topic with is the same one as the original thread.

I read though the emails… ALL OF THEM… before I posted, and what I concluded was anticlimactic, there was nothing there, nothing incriminating, nothing that would derail her campaign as I had hoped, all I saw was personal stuff, some clerical stuff from when she was governor…. And pictures of her family

I then started a topic on /b/, peeps asked for pics or gtfo (aka “prove it”) and I obliged, then it started to get big

Earlier it was just some prank to me, I really wanted to get something incriminating which I was sure there would be, just like all of you anon out there that you think there was some missed opportunity of glory, well there WAS NOTHING, I read everything, every little blackberry confirmation… all the pictures, and there was nothing, and it finally set in, THIS internet was serious business, yes I was behind a proxy, only one, if this shit ever got to the FBI I was fucked, I panicked, i still wanted the stuff out there but I didn’t know how to rapidshit all that stuff (post to a file sharing site, rapidshare.com), so I posted the pass on /b/, and then promptly deleted everything, and unplugged my internet and just sat there in a comatose state

Then the white knight fucker came along, and did it in for everyone, I trusted /b/ with that email password, I had gotten done what I could do well, then passed the torch , all to be let down by the douchebaggery, good job /b/, this is why we cant have nice things

… on spin and conspiracy theories

We don’t yet know for sure who’s responsible, as the above account can’t be confirmed.  Given the description above and armed with some general knowledge as to how this “group” behaves, it is totally likely that whoever perpetrated it acted alone. These are teens and adolescents that for a large part would rather be trading pornography than be involved in a political scandal.  There’s a chance the perpetrator isn’t even old enough to vote.

At any rate, when you hear labels like “extreme left wing activist group” attributed to anonymous in the media, it’s time to change the channel.  That’s simply not true, and is way off base.  There’s no particular affiliation; they’re a bunch of individuals, acting individually, though under the same guise.

It’s been interesting to see both sides spin it with their theories.  We have republicans angered, claiming it’s nothing but liberals or “Obama operatives” relentlessly digging for dirt.  We have democrats claiming this was done intentionally as a publicity stunt.  We have others yet with really twisted conspiracies that say Palin faked the hacking of her e-mail in order to have cover to delete the accounts.  (News for that theory, Yahoo has probably just “disabled” the account, leaving its contents in tact.  Even if it was “deleted,” a company such as Yahoo surely has back-ups.)  So again, all of these ideas are stretching it.  It was basically a prank.  Even despite the language above about “derailing the campaign,” the goal was probably a notoriety grab.  The more attention and drama a prank stirs up, the more its “lulz” value rises – how funny it is to them.  They would do the same to any candidate; it just so happens the Palin compromise was easy to pull off.

… on posting the material

I’m really disappointed with all the threats I’ve received as a result of this – disappointed that so few of us know our own rights.  I guess it’s hard to know any more these days with the ways our constitution has been trampled the past few years, but we can still cling on to the first amendment for the most part.  I admit, I had to double check for myself to be sure, but found nothing that suggests it’s in the wrong to have posted these.  If you’re still not sure, you might want to read about a 2001 Supreme Court decision, Bartnicki v. Vopper, which bears quite a resemblence to this situation.  Even further back, take a history lesson on the Pentagon Papers, where the courts sided on free speech in spite of illegally obtained, classified documents with supposed national security implications were published by the New York Times.  The EFF has also posted an analysis of the situation, and citing the same case I mention, comes to quite the same conclusion.  Even the McCain campaign statement was “we hope that anyone in possession of these e-mails will destroy them” – notice, it wasn’t “we demand these e-mails be destroyed.”  With all due respect to the campaign, there’s only a little material here, it is of public concern, it is newsworthy, and isn’t remotely damning to your candidate.  It’s public knowledge now, for better or worse.  I of course don’t condone or reccomend anybody even attempting to violate anybody else’s privacy; it’s dispicable and cowardly regardless the situation.  In the wake of the incident, some sites *have* taken it too far in my humble opinion – Gawker having posted Bristol Palin’s cell phone number so that folks could call it – even leaving a recording of her voicemail message on their website – is definitely crossing the line, and I’ll join in on saying “shame on you, Gawker.”

… lastly, on political slant, and this blog

After being called all sorts of names and accused of being all sorts of things, I did also want to remind anybody who had read the story here yesterday that I didn’t make political commentary one way or the other.  I try to cover topics relating to technology, the Internet, and science on this little corner of the web.  As such, the incidence was reported because it was a high profile breach in security on a popular e-mail service.  That’s all, it was Internet related news to me just as much as it was political news.  The posting wasn’t an attack on Palin, or on anybody for that matter.

When all is said and done, there really wasn’t anything incriminating or even all that INTERESTING found in these e-mails.  Rebpulicans can relax knowing their gal won’t be incriminated by what was found, and democrats can relax knowing the truth will come out that this wasn’t an attack lobbed from their side either.  As for any lingering conspiracy theorists, please understand this probably took all sides by complete surprise.  The rest of us?  Consider it a tounge-in-cheek stock tip: beat the down markets and economic crisis by investing in tinfoil hats.

So this had me thinking – if Wilmington is already there, where does Buffalo stand?

There’s millions of dollars allocated to raise public awareness on the switch in the coming months – so expect to hear more about it.  There’s also over a billion dollars allocated to help you cope… and a lot of them have gone un-spent so far.

Here’s a couple tips and things you want to know if you haven’t gotten up to speed on the switch to digital yet.

Q: Do I need to take any action?

A: If you’re a subscriber to a paid service like cable or dish, you’re all set already.  Your cable box or dish tuner is digital capable, and perhaps has been for years.  If you’ve purchased a new television in the past few years, you’re probably OK too.  Just about every HDTV manufactured is digital (DTV) capable – but not ALL – so if you jumped on board the HDTV bandwagon early on, you may wish to double check the manual if its DTV capable.  Lost the manual?  Try Google – there’s lots of people asking the same questions.  To to those of you with an older TV who receive your programming via antenna: YOU will need to act to keep watching TV.

Q: Wait, is DTV the same thing as HDTV?

A: No.  DTV stands for “digital television.”  HDTV stands for “high definition television.”  All HDTV is also DTV, but not all DTV is HDTV.  The switch here isn’t entirely about HDTV – its about the way the signals are actually transmitted from station, through the air, to your home.  The signals are now going to switch from basic analog to digitally encoded and compressed for transmission – much like your computer receives video over the Internet, or like how video is written to a DVD disc.  Also much like a computer, you need to have some processing power at the receiving end to turn these digital streams back into something you can actually watch.  That’s why cable boxes, dish tuners, and new televisions solve this: they already do that converting.  Your older analog television doesn’t have the “brains” to interpret these new signals though, so you need to get a converter box to act as a middle man between the digital world and your analog TV.  As for the HDTV issue, some stations will (and already have begun) broadcasting in DTV-HDTV, but you will need an HD television to watch these in full quality.  Though, if you have an older “standard definition” television, you should notice a marked improvement in the picture and sound quality on DTV.

Q: OK, so I have to buy a converter box to continue getting free TV with my rabbit ears?

A: Yes, you will.  Luckily, this is where that “over a billion dollars” I mentioned earlier comes in.  The government & FCC is offering a $40 coupon for qualifying converter boxes.  It’s our lucky day because guess what?  Basic converter boxes don’t cost much more than $40 (and lots of places on-line are selling them for exactly $40), so there’s really no major investment to worry about – other than a little time to pick one up, and set it up.  You can apply for your coupon by calling 1-888-388-2009, or you can do it on-line at dtv2009.gov.  The website explains which converters are covered, and helps you locate where to buy them as well.  There’s a catch with the coupons: you can only ask for one, and if you don’t use it within 90 days, it expires.  So only ask for one once you’re ready to use it!  If you have multiple TVs, you will need multiple boxes – but each family member may request a coupon in their name.

Q: What about antennas?  How does the reception work?

A: This will be one area where you’ll notice a difference with DTV.  With analog television if you tune into a weak signal, you might experience a fuzzy or “snowy” picture.  If you don’t mind the “snow,” you can watch the channel.  With DTV, it’s more of an all or nothing situation.  Either you get the picture tuned in at perfect picture quality and sound, or you don’t get it at all.  The only in-between that occurs is kind of like watching a video clip on the Internet over a slow connection.  The video might skip, jump around, and freeze up.  As for antennas, the vast majority (and so far ALL stations in the Buffalo area) are using the UHF spectrum to broadcast – so if you want the best reception possible and are looking at picking up an antenna, be sure to focus on its UHF performance.  As a basic rule of thumb though, if you’re located in the city, or near by, and already pick up a decent picture on an analog station, it’s likely going to work just fine in DTV.  If you’re further out and watch those snowy pictures on a regular basis, you may be out of luck picking up a DTV signal without the help of an antenna upgrade.

Q: So what actually happens on February 17, 2009?

A: There will not be any more analog television, plain and simple.  Some channels may stop before the deadline, as they did in Wilmington, but February 17th is the absolute deadline.  If you didn’t get your converter box yet and fall into the group that needs one, you won’t be able to pick up a single channel, period.  The only possible catch might be for emergency broadcasts – if there is a major emergency in the near future, you might still see and hear about it on the analog airwaves.  That’s not an episode of must-see-TV I’d look forward to though.

Q: Do I have to wait until February 17 to start using DTV?

A: Nope!  The following stations in Buffalo are already broadcasting in digital:

• WUTV FOX, digital channel 14, UHF
• WNLO UPN, digital channel 32, UHF
• WGRZ NBC, digital channel 33, UHF
• WKBW ABC, digital channel 38, UHF
• WIVB CBS, digital channel 39, UHF
• WNED PBS, digital channel 43, UHF

There’s a lot more information available on the web if you’d like to read even more:

• DTVTransition.org
• dtv2009.gov’s frequently asked questions
• Q&A from the FCC
• SiliconDust’s DTV database (See *all* the channels that are possible to pick up in your area, both analog and digital.  Note: This includes low power stations and signals, so don’t expect to necessarily tune in to all of these unless you have some heavy duty antenna & amplifier equipment!)

Lastly, if there’s any readers out there who have already picked up their converter box (or has a DTV capable set) and is picking up digital stations via broadcast, what has been your experience?  What’s your approximate location and what’s the reception there like?  Are there any other channels you’ve been able to tune in besides the ones mentioned above?  Any tips for the rest of us?  Please share in the comments below!

P.S. Don’t forget, if you’re at a computer with a broadband Internet connection, you could be watching Artvoice TV right now, converter box free! (yep, a shameless plug!)

Well folks, the first of many TV spots is up on YouTube.  Check it out.  It’s a commercial about nothing.

Am I alone when I say… “uhhhhhh”….?  Windows is moist and delicious?  This is the hip new advertising campaign supposed to sway Apple-curious consumers who are intrigued by the “Mac vs. PC” ads?

What kind of weed do you think they have in Redmond?  I think the marketing team got into the programmer’s stash.

It’s common for news agencies to prepare obituaries ahead of time for prominent public figures, so that all the biographical background work is done – just slap a date and cause of death on there and they’re good to go. It’s NOT common however, to publish them before the person actually dies!  Ooops!

Bloomberg retracted the obituary rather quickly, but if you’re curious about what the press will have to say about Jobs when he does actually die, you can take a peek at a saved copy here.