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The commercial and pay TV networks have banned an LG ad that sells a new TV that can skip ads. It’s basically the same time shifting technology that any DVD recorder with a hard drive has. They’ve had to recut it so the ad focuses on a different message. I can understand the commercial free to air channels and their dinosaurus ostrich head in the sand ways but pay tv already is selling something that lets you skip the ads when you replay, their Foxtel IQ settop box makes it dead easy to program shows to record (it’s like a Tivo, it gives you a schedule for the next week or so, you just have to select them with your remote). Of course, when you replay them, you can fast forward the ads. In fact, it’s the same as VHS video, if you prerecord something, why would you hang around watching the ads? It’s not saying you can just fast forward the ads if you watch it as it’s broadcasting. So we all know everyone does it, you’re just not allowed to say it. So weird.

Networks balk at ad for ad-skipping TV - SMH

The ad that you will see tomorrow night for a plasma TV with a built-in digital recorder will be very different from the one electronics firm LG had in mind. The original ad featured a line that would have had universal appeal to TV viewers: “When you replay, you can skip the ads.” But after the commercial and pay TV networks refused to run it LG recut it to include the considerably less catchy line: “And when you replay, you can skip straight back to the action.”

Why are you and I surrounded by Idiots (In fact, sometimes I’m not sure about you….) - it’s a website - relaid a couple of reports from security lab F-Secure. Apparently in Japan, “McDonald’s Japan shipped 10,000 MP3 players as prizes in a competition they organized with Coca-Cola” which “were also preloaded with a variant of the QQPass password-stealing trojan” [link]. Bingo, you’ve won your life savings being stolen from you through your online banking.

The other report was that Apple managed to install the RavMonE.exe virus on a “small percentage” of their ipods in the factory. I wonder if it was anything like the “small percentage” of ipods that Apple said had battery and hard drive problems (when I had to return my first one within months because of refusal to charge, the Apple techie said that it was by no means an uncommon problem even though Apple insisted it was only a small number of units that had been affected). Anyway, it’s reported on the Apple website, as F-Secure point out, it is constantly referred to as a “Windows virus” as if somehow the blame lies with Microsoft for creating such a sensitive creature in the first place rather than their own clear negligence.

Roche has published a press release announcing their new advertising relationship with the animated film “Happy Feet”:

Happy Feet presents a wholesome storyline in a wintry backdrop that serves as an ideal platform for communicating to consumers, especially moms, about the flu,” said McGuire. “The Flu Facts campaign represents a new approach for the industry, combining disease awareness and education with pop culture and creativity.” Roche is the only pharmaceutical company partnering with Warner Bros. to feature the Happy Feet characters in advertising. The Happy Feet stars will appear in unbranded Flu Facts print ads beginning in November magazines, with national television ads starting October 23. The television ads include :30 and :60 second spots, which will air on all major networks and cable stations… Happy Feet is slated to hit theatres on November 17, just around the time when cold and flu season begins in the U.S…. Antivirals can help prevent flu following exposure to an infected person, and as a treatment, they reduce the duration of illness. [link]

Of course, Roche manufactures those antivirals. Backup to this campaign is the Flu Facts website, down the bottom there is a Roche logo, but how many people would be scrolling down? If it’s such an important message, why aren’t they just upfront about who is doing it, rather than relying on subconcious associations? Do they think that maybe we won’t trust it because they have a vested interest in us buying more drugs? Hmmm…

They did a similar thing in Australia, where the regulating body allowed them to run these unbranded ads prompting you to talk to your pharmacist about weight loss pills and because there was no brand name, it actually looked like a public health service announcement. It was tagged “Lose Weight Gain Life” which is not that different from our government sponsored “Life Be In It” campaigns. Strangely, there was a lot of green and white and later unbranded green and white packs started turning up in the windows of pharmacies. Lo and behold, Xenical has green and white packaging. Oh wow, I’ve just got all these subliminal impulses to trust it. This is despite criticism from the Dietician’s Association of Australia and the consumer advocate, Choice. Much like the Flu Facts campaign, the campaign had a “Lose Weight Gain Life” website. It now just redirects to the Xenical brand page, but here’s what Pharma Watch had to say about the campaign at the time:

Roche has conducted an extensive advertising campaign for orlistat, which is marketed for weight loss. The campaign included television advertisements, advertisements in magazines, glossy brochures displayed in community pharmacies, a free call number and a web site (www.loseweightgainlife.com.au). In this campaign the public was told the story of ‘Linda’ who took a ‘life-changing decision’ and states ‘I spoke to my doctor about modern innovative approaches to weight loss. That was 18kg ago!’. Other advertisements showed photos of Linda at the swimming pool and stated ‘Two years on and Linda is 30 kilos lighter and a whole lot wiser’. Concurrent mailings to doctors inform them about the ‘Lose Weight Gain Life Program’ which is in its ‘3rd successful year’ and includes reproductions of consumer advertisements and a letter with the logo ‘Xenical Lose Weight. Gain Life’. The advertisements to consumers do not mention the name of the drug and so are not banned under the current Medicines Australia Code of Conduct. The benefits of orlistat are exaggerated as a systematic review of the clinical effectiveness of orlistat found that the mean weight loss observed with orlistat was only 3.2 kg more than with placebo after two years.5The advertising campaign does not link with national initiatives, such as Active Australia, which encourage participation in physical activity. This campaign may raise false hopes in many people and may put general practitioners under great pressure to prescribe orlistat even if not clinically appropriate. [link]

Friends4Days is a sweet little site where you get matched with someone and you can converse for four days and then decide whether you want to keep them as a friend (presumably it has to be mutual) and then you get another friend in your inbox. I’m imagining that for the most part if the other party isn’t there for dodgy reasons, you’ll probably hang on to them as friends. Hope the right people and not spammers and network marketers get attracted to it.

SixApart makers of MovableType and LiveJournal have just released Vox, a social media sharing network (yspace/youtube/delicious), their big selling point is that they let everyone plug in to them so no barring of youtube videos a la myspace.

You might like make a video of yourself to send your new friend or stick on Vox, but Premiere is too expensive. Well there’s a whole heap of online video editors popping up that will do simple editing and let you use some cool effects. Most notable has been JumpCut because they recently got bought by Yahoo. But if there was an award for cutest logo, it has to be Eyespot, esp the one for sharing. Love it!

Just been blogged this at boymeetsgame: No Japanese Games for Europe. A HK website has been banned from selling Japanese Playstation/PSP stuff to the whole of EU. Don’t know too much about their bans on parallel importing but the judge saw no difference between the site operating from HK or operating from the EU. I don’t know if they have exceptions for products that aren’t available in the UK, I’m assuming not. Our rules on parallel imports are a lot more liberal but I think we still ban parallel imports of computer software (which should include games). It’s all a little dodgy how the law supports such anti-competitive policies. If you want to find out more on parallel imports, this site has some a lot links to articles. Also check out the press release on the HK company’s website, they had a little rant about Sony:

“Fighting multiple lawsuits in different countries at the same time and paying high premiums to expensive lawyers is an overwhelming situation for a small company like Lik Sang. Launching separate court actions with separate claims and different judges is completely unnecessary, except for the fact that it helps reaching one single target: outspend Lik-Sang to death. Pay beyond”, said Pascal Clarysse, Marketing Manager of Lik-Sang.com, clearly annoyed by the unfair situation. “And contrary to their claim, I don’t believe they are suffering ‘losses and damages’ through Lik-Sang’s activity”.

It does make me think what rights should we have to information, to hear or see original sources be they games, movies, mashups, youTube videos or books. If a game/movie/book only is released in one country, what rights do people in other countries have to access it?

[Edit, since this post Lik-Sang have posted notice that they are CLOSING DOWN which really really sucks. Here’s a copy of their press release:

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE - OUT OF BUSINESS NOTICE

Hong Kong, October 24th of 2006 - Lik-Sang.com, the popular gaming retailer from Hong Kong, has today announced that it is forced to close down due to multiple legal actions brought against it by Sony Computer Entertainment Europe Limited and Sony Computer Entertainment Inc. Sony claimed that Lik-Sang infringed its trade marks, copyright and registered design rights by selling Sony PSP consoles from Asia to European customers, and have recently obtained a judgment in the High Court of London (England) rendering Lik-Sang’s sales of PSP consoles unlawful.

As of today, Lik-Sang.com will not be in the position to accept any new orders and will cancel and refund all existing orders that have already been placed. Furthermore, Lik-Sang is working closely with banks and PayPal to refund any store credits held by the company, and the customer support department is taking care of any open transactions such as pending RMAs or repairs and shipping related matters. The staff of Lik-Sang will make sure that nobody will get hurt in the crossfire of this ordeal.

A Sony spokesperson declined to comment directly on the lawsuit against Lik-Sang, but recently went on to tell Gamesindustry.biz that “ultimately, we’re trying to protect consumers from being sold hardware that does not conform to strict EU or UK consumer safety standards, due to voltage supply differences et cetera; is not - in PS3’s case - backwards compatible with either PS1 or PS2 software; will not play European Blu-Ray movies or DVDs; and will not be covered by warranty”.

Lik Sang strongly disagrees with Sony’s opinion that their customers need this kind of protection and pointed out that PSP consoles shipped from Lik-Sang contained genuine Sony 100V-240V AC Adapters that carry CE and other safety marks and are compatible world wide. All PSP consoles were in conformity with all EU and UK consumer safety regulations.

Furthermore, Sony have failed to disclose to the London High Court that not only the world wide gaming community in more than 100 countries relied on Lik-Sang for their gaming needs, but also Sony Europe’s very own top directors repeatedly got their Sony PSP hard or software imports in nicely packed Lik-Sang parcels with free Lik-Sang Mugs or Lik-Sang Badge Holders, starting just two days after Japan’s official release, as early as 14th of December 2004 (more than nine months earlier than the legal action). The list of PSP related Sony Europe orders reads like the who’s who of the videogames industry, and includes Ray Maguire (Managing Director, Sony Computer Entertainment Europe Ltd), Alan Duncan (UK Marketing Director, Sony Computer Entertainment Europe Ltd), Chris Sorrell (Creative Director, Sony Computer Entertainment Europe Ltd), Rob Parkin (Development Director, Sony Computer Entertainment Europe Limited), just to name a few.

“Today is Sony Europe victory about PSP, tomorrow is Sony Europe’s ongoing pressure about PlayStation 3. With this precedent set, next week could already be the stage for complaints from Sony America about the same thing, or from other console manufacturers about other consoles to other regions, or even from any publisher about any specific software title to any country they don’t see fit. It’s the beginning of the end… of the World as we know it”, stated Pascal Clarysse, formerly known as the Marketing Manager of Lik-Sang.com.

“Blame it on Sony. That’s the latest dark spot in their shameful track record as gaming industry leader. The Empire finally ‘won’, few dominating retailers from the UK probably will rejoice the news, but everybody else in the gaming world lost something today.”

Well it’s saved me heaps of money, was seriously considering getting a PSP just to play Loco Roco. Was also thinking of getting another PS2 (the first one broke not long after the end of warranty). There’s no way that’s going to happen anytime soon. Stupid Sony. Who will sell me my navy blue DS Lite now? ]

The technology now exists for you to have your own face on characters that you play in games. I blogged about it briefly on Andrew’s blog. It’s a new frontier in technology, but also a new frontier in the effect on gamers’ psyches. It’s all a bit scary, but too cool. I hate that with technology, things you could only dream about are starting to become real possibilities and actualities which rocks but they also come with lots of new ethical dilemmas which really sucks. Ah the tradeoffs, I feel for those beetles.

This is a great video from Dove on our perceptions of beauty. At a time when even young children have growing rates of eating disorders, we should be looking at the responsibility that advertising and the media should take for the growing dissatisfaction in our physical self-perception much in the way advertising of obesity causing foods is now being criticised. It’s great to see an ad like this that highlights how the images that we are supposed to aspire to are often figments of illusion. Actresses get in body models, lenses are vaselined, cellulite is airbrushed out, legs are stretched, pimples disappear… but the end result perfect images are all presented as the norm and any deviations are faults. At the very least, there should be a disclaimer that a particular image has been Photoshop-ed*.

Though you have to remember, Dove is not a standalone company, it is housed by Unilever which includes brands like Lynx that feature impossibly good looking women who probably do get Photoshop-ed (but I do find their ads hilarious, even if it’s just the thought that a naff deoderant can suddenly make some guy irresistable). And Unilever, like most big companies, is far from squeaky clean. So it does make you think how much of it really is just their brand differentiation as opposed to any real desire for ethical good. Like with the amazing success of pink branding to help breast cancer fundraising, social conscience can be a very profitable brand. I did find it a little ironic that substances that research has suggested possible carcinogenic links like artificial pink strawberry fillings (Tim Tams) and PET packaging (bottled water) were included in the list of fundraising products. Back to Dove though, despite questions to their motives, it is great to see people of different weights, ages and looks being represented because there is so little variety in advertising and ads. Hopefully, this will make commercial sense and other companies will be tempted to try out “real” people as models.

*both photoshoped and photoshopped look really weird to me. Maybe it should be “Photoshop’ed”? Argghhhhhh!!!

Google’s billions have come from selling keyword searches. So I can pay $X to come up in their list of advertisers whenever someone searches for “blogging”, “cats”, “Sydney” etc, no one really has a problem with that. However, what Google also does is use trademarks as keywords. So if you were Sony you can pay to have your ad come up everytime someone searches for “Panasonic”. This has annoyed some people in recent years and resulted Google being sued for a variety of various trademark/consumer law infringements.

I’ve always thought it incredible that anyone could possibly find the use of keywords in a search engine “trademark use” or in any reasonable way, deceptive, but the world’s a funny place. Google has already lost a couple of cases in France: One against Louis Vuitton for “trademark counterfeiting, unfair competition and misleading advertising” and one against a chain of hotels. Trademark counterfeiting! How incredible is that? Anyway, at least a judge in the US has seen fit to dismiss a trademark/keyword case against Google last month.

Apparently there’s “very little chance” of reaching an agreement on a unified format but NEC is creating a multiformat DVD player that will play both Blu-ray and HD-DVD. Not that I’m convinced that we really are so desperate for HD, especially when a whole chunk of the extra capacity goes to housing DRM (even Bill Gates labels the extra lengths taken by Blu-Ray as “anti-consumer”… apparently why he’s supporting HDTV not Microsoft’s desire to screw Sony in their “battle for the living room”). But while this is good for consumers in the short term in that they don’t have to choose between formats, it just means prolonging the war and is unlikely to encourage people to switch their movie collections wholesale because one or none may win out rendering that investment as useless as your video collection is now. If there’s no incentive for a wholesale upgrade then it is unlikely that the sweet spot of demand will be reached to bring the prices down which is necessary to make the market viable. And while we’re all waiting round for a decision to be made and prices to come down, someone will come up with a better technology. Here’s hoping anyway, it would serve them all right.

The European Office of Trade Marks and Designs has knocked back the application from Hormel, the maker of the ham in a can Spam, to trademark “spam” with regards to “services to avoid or suppress unsolicited emails”, and the “creation and maintenance of computer software; technical consultancy, particularly in combination with network services; [and] providing of expertise, engineering services and technical consulting services [related to junk email]”.

The company has been embroiled in a string of trademark disputes over the matter in the United States and elsewhere, fighting product names such as SpamBop, Spam Arrest, and Spam Cube. “We do not object to use of this slang term to describe (unsolicited commercial email),” the company said on its website, “although we do object to the use of the word “spam” as a trademark and to the use of our product image in association with that term.” [Spam-maker loses bid to trademark ’spam’ - smh.com.au]

While I’m happy about the outcome as “spam” has been generified for unsolicited correspondence, can’t really them blame trying though, as Hormel point out:

“Ultimately, we are trying to avoid the day when the consuming public asks, ‘Why would Hormel Foods name its product after junk email?’” [SMH link again]

Shall be interesting to see how they fare in other jurisdictions and what implications that has for Apple’s recent clampdown on “pod” (like five years too late!)

[Edit Spambop claims to be the first EU trademark using spam for this use].