Two Articles About Technology

I have two worthwhile articles I found today that I'd like to share.

http://pandodaily.com/2012/01/17/confessions-of-a-publisher-were-in-amazons-sights-and-theyre-going-to-kill-us/

The printed book is in trouble. It has been for a while, but I expect things to speed up in the next few years. I posted yesterday about how technology marches on, and that's happening in the world of books right now. Above is a link to an article that includes an email from an anonymous insider in the publishing industry. Their failure to innovate or adapt to new technology has cost them big time, and the company set to steamroll the industry is none other than Amazon, the most popular shopping website in existence.

http://torrentfreak.com/white-house-petitioned-to-investigate-mpaa-bribery-120122/

Some of you may be sick and tired of all the posts I've been making about internet censorship and I apologize if I sound like a broken record, but it's been a very hot topic this week and it's one near and dear to me. If you read the above article you'll find a link to the very cool White House petition site, We The People. One of Barack Obama's neatest ideas, We The People allows users to make petitions that are reviewed directly by White House staff and given public responses. It's a great way to bring issues to national attention, and it played a big part in the fight against SOPA and PIPA. This petition seeks to strike back at Hollywood by getting the MPAA looked into for bribery charges. With the Internet blackout still fresh, it's a good time to get the pendulum swinging the other way and seeing if the Internet can pull off a counterattack. I signed the petition (this whole SOPA mess made me a bit of an advocate, as you may have noticed), and they need just 548 more signatures to meet the minimum 25,000 required to force a response from the White House. The more signatures, the more power the petition has, so feel free to join in!