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## In this issue
* It's not the Gates, it's the bars
* Act on ACTA!
* Fight the Canadian DMCA!
* Rhapsody and Naxos go DRM free
* Refusing Digital Monitoring Policies
* 5 reasons to avoid iPhone 3G
* autonomo.us activist group to focus on freedom in network services
* identi.ca is autonomo.us
* GNU spotlight with Karl Berry
* Richard Stallman's speaking schedule
* Take action!
"The 5 real reasons to avoid iPhone 3G:
** iPhone completely blocks free software. Developers must pay a tax to Apple, who becomes the sole authority over what can and can't be on everyone's phones.
** iPhone endorses and supports Digital Restrictions Management (DRM) technology.
"This project is for the use of the average bloke (yes, you), who would like to further help and promote the use of your favorite free format. The MailOgging is a strategy to get the attention of hardware and software vendors who do not know the Ogg family, do not care about it, or do not know how many people care about it.
Read more »"...As some of you Neuros old timers may recall, we were the first to port the Ogg Vorbis audio codec to a portable HDD audio player. Now it's time, hopefully, to do the same with the Ogg Theora video codec..."
Read more »"According to this, the ISO are now calling a "standard" the Microsoft Office format (which is cynically called "Office Open XML"). [...] What is interesting is that TeX, LaTeX, OGG/Vorbis, OGG/Theora, Perl, Python, PHP, Ruby, OCaml, are not standardized by any organization.
Read more »
"...I would like to take this opportunity to talk about one of the greatest things to ever happen to Theora: the Theora Sea website. Really! And I just found out about it now, today, a hour ago. Think of it as a mix of YouTube and Digg for Ogg video only..."
Read more »"...'Ogg' is a wrapper that ties together 'Theora' encoded video and 'Vorbis' encoded sound. Together, Ogg Theora+Vorbis give users a way to see movies on your computer. Ogg Vorbis+Theora are not known to be encumbered by any patents (the only applicable patent on Theora’s predecessor, called 'VP3', was licensed for everyone to use in any way they want).
Read more »HTML5 spec is expected to introduce new audio and video capabilities into the HTML language. However, it seems that Nokia and Apple have succeeded in removing Ogg Vorbis and Theora support from the current draft which decision has caused lots of heated political discussion. Some critics claim that the decision is mostly based on reluctance to back a standard that has no provision for including DRM, while others have mentioned potential patent uncertainties as the main reason not to back Ogg Vorbis and Theora.
Read more »"...Ogg is professional-grade media format. Ogg Vorbis encodes audio and Ogg Theora encodes video. [...] The companies that control the software design it to restrict the users and spy on them. If you choose Ogg Vorbis and Ogg Theora, you can listen to audio and stream video using many different media players, including free software that respects your freedom..."
Read more »"Those who haven’t left the planet in the last year have at some point heard of HTML 5, the new improved language that will likely power the Web in the coming years. One of the many great features it sports, which will be of interest to free formats enthusiastics, is the multimedia elements: 'video' and 'audio'..."
Read more »The Xiph.Org Foundation, creators of Vorbis, FLAC, and others, has launched an initiative to promote existing Open Media formats, theirs or otherwise. The project states that Free Software can only succeed by supporting Open Media formats. Let's promote this initiative!
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