China has given itself another black eye while the country is still on the world’s biggest stage. So far, China’s Olympic journey to the west has featured the Great Firewall, lip-syncing and gymnast age scandals, fake buildings . . . and now China is reported to have blocked its populace’s access to iTunes.

The lockout began Monday, a day after the album “Songs for Tibet - The Art of Peace” was released on iTunes. The album, obviously problematic for Chinese nationalists, includes songs by Sting, Alanis Morisette, Dave Mathews, and Garbage, as well as a 15-minute speech by the Dalai Lama.

Michael Wohl, executive director of the Art of Peace Foundation believes that its album is responsible. “We issued a release saying that over 40 (Olympic) athletes downloaded the album in an act of solidarity, and that’s what triggered it. Then everything got blocked.” (more…)

It seems the only thing the smartphone has yet to replace is cash. That might soon change if a newly launched Japanese initiative, headed by government and industry representatives and aimed at expanding Japan’s international cell phone market presence, is successful.

Headlining this technology is the popular wallet phone (osaifu keitai). A FeliCa chip, developed by Sony, embedded in the phone allows users to use the phone like a cash card, paying for items at in-store or vending-machine reader devices. Wallet phones can also be used as membership cards, rewards cards, concert tickets, and . . . door keys. Japanese users can even use the wallet phone to check in at the airport.

Money can be put on the phone through in-store machines, or can be tied into a credit card account; transaction histories and account balances are available on the phone’s display. (more…)

U.S. broadband is thirty times slower than Japan’s.  If American speeds keep growing as slowly as they are now, it will take the U.S. 100 years to reach Japan’s current level, according to the Communications Workers of America’s second annual Speed Matters survey.

“The United States has not made significant improvement in the speeds at which residents connect to the Internet. Our nation continues to fall far behind other countries.” (more…)

It appears that in a country where over 90 percent of the downloaded music is illegally pirated, if you can’t beat them, join them. Google, Inc. has launched a free and legal music download service that is available exclusively to internet users in China. The plan is for the Web site to sustain on advertising revenue, which will be split among Google, a Chinese music company named Top 100.cn, and the participating music record labels. The move symbolizes a potential shift in strategy against piracy, which is also a significant problem— albeit much less pervasive—in America and other countries. The International Federation of the Phonographic Industry estimates that the music industry loses hundreds of millions in dollars as a result of piracy. (more…)

Several newly launched initiatives in the U.S. and other countries aim to allow governments to mine our personal data at border crossings. Legislation in the U.S. and Australia would give governments great freedom to search – and in some cases seize – our personal electronic devices.

U.S. Homeland Security can now seize laptops and other electronic devices taken across the border and hold them for an indefinite period, copying hard drives without need of warrants or probable cause. Officials are authorized to deep-scan hard drives to detect terrorists, drug smugglers, and copyright infringers. (more…)

The future of cloud computing currently abounds in hypotheticals, but we’re coming closer to a concretized reality, as HP, Intel, and Yahoo, along with members of government and academia, are joining forces to create a multi-continent cloud-computing research center. The Cloud Computing Test Bed will operate six data centers on three continents.

“The goal of the initiative is to promote open collaboration among industry, academia and governments by removing the financial and logistical barriers to research in data-intensive, Internet-scale computing,” says HP’s press release. (more…)

Most viral marketing on YouTube tends towards pomo chic or the cynical, like an extension of “America’s Funniest Home Videos” hosted by a Mission hipster. But Matt Harding’s “Dancing Man” videos – underwritten by the gum company, Stride – are a reminder that simple is not always stupid, that beauty and innocence are not always naïve. Now, after dancing his way across the world and becoming one of the most-viewed YouTube stars, Harding is committing his efforts to charity, raising money for laptops for children in Rwanda.

According to Reuters, Harding, “met United Nations officials this month and talked to the sponsor of his video, Stride, about raising money to buy and donate laptops to the poor in Rwanda where he danced with locals and plans to go to teach them himself.” (more…)

eBay [EBAY] has announced that it will ban the sale of dog and cat fur on their German-language sites in Germany, Austria, and Switzerland, beginning Tuesday. This is in response to complaints from animal rights groups, who claim that vendors are selling fur and faux-fur products made from the pelts of dogs and cats.

eBay attracted the attention of animal rights groups when a cat-fur coat was posted for sale on their French site in February. Dog and cat fur, produced mainly in China and distributed primarily in the U.S. and Europe, is sold in unlabeled or mislabeled fur products. Millions of cats and dogs – many domestic – are killed for their fur each year. (more…)

A new study reports that Canadians lead the world in the frequency of online bank visits.

According to the Internet media metrix company, 67.1 percent of Canadian Internet users banked online in April 2008 – 15.5 million out of Canada’s nearly 24 million internet users. This is a significantly higher percentage than the U.S., which had 44.4 percent. Other English-speaking countries were also lower that Canada, as in the U.K. 49.5 percent of internet users banked on line, and in Australia, 41.7. Canadians also led the world in online banking frequency, with an average of 8 usage days and 10.5 online banking visits per visitor in April, spending an average of 46 minutes, viewing approximately 121 pages per visitor. The leading bank in usage growth is Bank of Montreal [BMO]. (more…)

For the first time fiber-optic broadband Internet is more popular than cable, although most of the growth is taking place overseas, says a new report from British research firm Point Topic.

According to the company, nearly double the amount of customers registered with fiber-optic Internet services than with cable providers—4.2 million customers versus 2.5 million customers in the first fiscal quarter of 2008.

Unsurprisingly, the majority of the new subscribers are in Asia, the fastest-growing region of Internet users in the world. (more…)