Jus think what Google can do with detailed logs of individual WWW traversal: Google tool to speed Web surfing

A beta, or test version, of Web Accelerator was introduced via the Google Labs technology incubation site late Wednesday. The tool, which must be downloaded, will tap into the power of Google’s global computer network and thus help sites load faster, according to the company.

Web Accelerator works by sending URL requests through company servers designated specifically for speeding site downloads. The application also can compress site data before sending it to computers.

[...] Web Accelerator marks the latest effort by Google to flaunt the enormous computing power of the worldwide network of servers used to support its market-leading search engine.

A site that passes out MP3s of concert bootlegs: Bootleg Browser. A Salon blog asks:

I’m interested to know how readers feel about the ethics of concert bootlegs. Personally, unless an artist has specifically stated that they don’t want their concerts to be recorded and traded, I have a hard time understanding why anyone would object. There’s no real way that bootleg trading can hurt an artist, and plenty of ways that it can help.

Anticopying fight mars mobile music

For more than a year, the mobile industry has been converging on a standard set of antipiracy technologies, which could help avoid the fragmentation that separates Microsoft and Apple Computer products in the PC world. But now patent holders including Sony and others have put a price tag on that technology, and some of the biggest phone companies say it’s too expensive.

The carriers have threatened to look elsewhere–a development that could help rival copy-protection developers such as Microsoft–even if it slows down the release of their services and leads to incompatible products.

See also OMA washes its hands of MPEG LA licensing arrangements