digi-quest

Internet

Danyll Wills

Published: 12:00am, 28 Oct 2007

Why you can trust SCMP

I have been trying to listen to Los Angeles-based radio station 102.7 KIIS-FM on the internet but have had no luck. It used to work perfectly until about three months ago, when it said it couldn't broadcast outside of the United States. Is there anyway around this issue through a proxy server? If that can't be done, is there any website where I can listen to US radio streaming on the internet?

Anil Panjabi, Hong Kong

DQ: A few weeks ago, the subject of internet radio was discussed here, but was aimed at those wanting to listen to foreign-language broadcasts. In the country that invented the internet, one would think online radio would be a big thing - it is, but with some oddities.

The Recording Industry Association of America earlier this month won its lawsuit against Jammie Thomas, a Minnesota woman accused of illegally downloading and sharing copyrighted music tracks over the internet. She has appealed against the verdict, which requires her to pay US$220,000 in fines to the association. This case means radio stations in the US are guarding against online broadcasts to internet protocol addresses outside the country.

That ought to be sufficient information for anybody who knows how to set up a proxy server. Set up one in the US so you can listen to radio streaming here and you could easily become the target of a lawsuit. I am not certain it is worth the trouble. However, you can write to the US radio station and complain. Better yet, find a different station to listen to. At www.live-radio.net/us.shtml, thousands of internet radio sites are listed (at least so it claims). You might find what you are looking for there.

I have just seen something about Buzzword? I am told it is an internet-based word processor from Adobe Systems and will finally kill off Microsoft Office. Is this true?

Name and address supplied

DQ: On September 30, Adobe Systems purchased an 11-person start-up called Virtual Ubiquity. It is the company that created Buzzword, a Web-based word processor that works with Flash Player, Adobe's extremely successful multi-platform Web-animation software.

I have played with Buzzword and it is a lot of fun, save for some limitations. Although the program was first developed for use by students and schools, its acquisition reinforces Adobe's collaborative software services business - which directly competes against Microsoft, Google and other Web-application providers.

I believe a great deal of our personal technology needs will be answered by the internet. Microsoft is already becoming a little more internet savvy, developing products that run on multiple systems, not just Windows. I do not expect this competition between Adobe, Microsoft and Google to become serious for quite a few years, but we are certainly at the beginning.

Post