So Apple updated the Mac mini today. It seems it’s pretty much everything the rumor sites were saying, and I can’t help being disappointed.

In my look at the various rumors, one thing I stated was that the price was out of line. I based this on the value of the machine, not the usual ramblings from pundits about the economy. In my view, the mini is overpriced and the upgrades — which only make the machine more modern after nearly a year of stagnation — wouldn’t be enough. Oh, and thanks Apple for pulling the remote from the package, I’d probably just lose it anyway.

Unfortunately, there was no price change, and Apple did nothing beyond the updates to bridge the value gap. The base mini comes with 1GB of memory and a 120GB hard drive. That’s laughable. In a day when even the old, white plastic MacBook comes with 2GB, the base mini is still left stuck at one. Apple has all but admitted that 1GB isn’t enough and yet, there’s the mini, sitting there under-performing. A desktop, machine no less.

It’s probably just as well, since the base mini only has a 120GB hard drive. Geez, Apple, mini or not this is a desktop machine, save the 120GB drives for your base laptop, but a desktop machine deserves more. Thanks for including FireWire, so I can fill up the drive in about 10 minutes.

So, six hundred bucks gets me a 1GB machine that won’t hold much data. Six. Hundred. Dollars. Want a great keyboard or mouse? When you buy an iMac these are included (albeit now without a keypad), so moving to the wireless version of both is only $50. For the mini? Well, they’ll set you back $100, and that’s not even wireless; kick in another $30 for that.

Apple, did it never occur to you that even though this is a BYODKM (bring your own display, keyboard, and mouse) system, you might have, you know, encouraged people to buy your keyboard and mouse? A hundred bucks? Are you drunk? The potential new Mac user sucked in by the supposed low price of the mini, perhaps even thinking Apple’s not so expensive after all, is going to get a shock. I’m not suggesting a wholesale lowering of prices, but rather simply selling a bundle dirt cheap for new mini buyers at the time of purchase.

Finally, yes, you can get the 2GB of memory the machine deserves, and a decent hard drive (320GB), and it’ll only set you back another $200. Eight hundred bucks and you now have a desktop machine that’s at least in the ballpark. Of course, at that price the 2.0GHz processor seems a bit weak but, hey, only another $150 is needed to bump it up to 2.26GHz! Woo hoo! I have a decent machine now, and it’s only $950, though I still have to dig a keyboard and mouse out of the garage.

Apple, barring a reduction in price on machines that do not compete at all, you should have at least tossed in some things to increase the value proposition. The cheap keyboard/mouse bundle as mentioned above, a remote, and maybe a copy of iWork, perhaps. Oh, and that second GB of memory. At $600 I might feel better about that baseline machine. As it is, it’s difficult to recommend the mini to anyone. I’d push the MacBook, but then maybe that’s what you wanted.

It’s hard to think that Apple looks at the potential mini buyer with anything but a bit of disdain. How else would you describe taking a year to update a machine that wasn’t competitive, and replacing it with something even less so? I get the feeling mini sales are just brisk enough that Apple can’t kill the thing, though that would probably be their preference. It appears they’d sooner run Windows Vista on their corporate machines than make the mini a good value.

Oh well, guess I’ll focus on the new iMacs next, those look like a great deal.

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Obama/Biden Ticket:

Obama’s alternative energy plan entails doling out $150 billion over 10 years to fund projects in a broad swath of cleantech sectors. Obama’s overarching environmental goal is to reduce America’s greenhouse gas emissions to 80 percent below our 1990 levels by 2050, and he wants to institute a cap-and-trade system to manage carbon emissions where 100 percent of the credits will be auctioned off, ensuring that all polluters pay for all of their pollution.

On the individual green issues, Obama is a strong advocate of biofuels (some say too strong), backs clean coal (though Palin says he wants to bankrupt coal) and is generally supportive of nuclear. Obama wants to improve vehicular greenhouse gas emission standards by 5 percent in 2015 and 10 percent in 2020. He says that by boosting the corporate automobile fuel economy (CAFE) standard to 43 miles per gallon we could cut out the need for all of the oil we import from the Middle East. Here’s our FAQ on his energy plan.

Obama’s VP pick, Delaware senator Joseph Biden, is a good one to boost his energy policies. Biden has a three-decade senate record that includes a solid history of establishing climate change and energy policies, and as Chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, he has a perspective on how those policies will jive with the international community.

McCain/Palin Ticket: McCain co-authored some of the first proposed legislation in the Senate for mandatory greenhouse gas reductions, and seeks to reduce carbon emissions to 2005 levels by 2012, to 1990 levels by 2020 and then to 60 percent below 1990 levels by 2050. That’s slightly less aggressive than Obama. But like Obama he supports a cap and trade system, though he hasn’t described exactly how he wants those credits allocated.

On the individual clean energy issues McCain is very aggressive when it comes to nuclear and has called for 100 new nuclear power plants, 45 of which he wants built by 2030. When it comes to biofuels, McCain does not support subsidizing ethanol, nor tariffs on imported sugarcane-based biofuels, but isn’t against biofuels as a technology. McCain has also said he will offer a $300 million prize for development of the best green car battery.

McCain’s VP pick of Sarah Palin, who has been busy stumping (for oil drilling) at cleantech startups, is an interesting and controversial one for energy issues. While Palin has a lot of hands-on experience with Alaska’s energy iniatives, she has said she doesn’t attribute climate change solely to the action of man.

A Voter’s Guide to California’s Cleantech Propositions:

Proposition 1A: This proposition calls for a high-speed rail system that would cost $9.95 billion in state bonds, would need $19.4 billion to pay off, with payments that average $647 million per year for more than 30 years. Bullet trains are crucial parts of public transportation throughout the world, but this project has been in the works for years and has been prohibitively expensive.

Proposition 7: The “Solar and Clean Energy Act” calls for the California Renewable Portfolio Standard (RPS), which currently says utilities have to generate 20 percent of their power from renewable sources by 2010, to be raised to 40 percent by 2020 and 50 percent by 2025. The proposition also says the RPS should be broadened to include public utilities, too. Ratepayers could see a 3 to 10 percent hike in their energy bill, but the proposition would allow contracted, as well as installed, renewable energy to count toward meeting the RPS. Opponents (including big utilities, small cleantech startups, environmental organizations and the California Chamber of Commerce) are concerned that the proposal says that installations less than 30 megawatts wouldn’t qualify for fast-tracked certification.

Proposition 10: The California Renewable Energy and Clean Alternative Fuel Act is backed by T. Boone Pickens and Aubrey McClendon, CEO of Chesapeake Energy. Wonder why? While the proposition calls for $2.88 billion for alternative fuel vehicle rebates for natural gas, electric and hydrogen-powered vehicles, and $1.25 billion for renewable energy R&D, opponents says natural gas vehicles will likely get the bulk of the support.

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But those were simply viral videos and two-hour events coming straight from the official debate stream. For election night, the fun starts early and could continue all night. There will be red and blue states to call, voter fraud to police, polling lines to record, partisan parties to tune into, and pundits, pundits, pundits. For those who want more detail, perspective or partisanship than TV broadcasts offer — or for the election-obsessive looking to build a multi-platform election night command center — we’ve sniffed out a few of the election night options to choose from. Continue Reading..

Image credit: CNN. This article also appeared on BusinessWeek.com.

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The Electronic Frontier Foundation today made a reasonable attempt to resolve a conflict between YouTube, political campaigns, television networks, and the law, all of which are at odds over online video spots made by the McCain and Obama campaigns that use snippets of TV news broadcasts.

The EFF sent a letter to YouTube asking that it immediately review users’ protests about unfair copyright claims on their videos and restore videos that are clear cases of fair use, and to review all later takedown notices sent to that same account. The digital rights advocacy group also sent a letter to TV networks asking them to stop sending bogus takedown notices for election-related videos.

And last week Public Citizen wrote to Obama and McCain directly, asking them to reform the Digital Millennium Copyright Law, which governs such issues (and which McCain voted for along with the rest of the Senate, which passed it unanimously in 1998). It asked for the end of immediate takedowns being required after copyright claims are made, immunity for hosts if the uploader sends a counter-notice to the claim, the requirement of notice being sent to an uploader before a takedown occurs, and a public database for takedown notices.

Backstory time. Biiiig backstory time: The McCain campaign asked that YouTube specially review any takedown notices for political YouTube accounts; the video-sharing site declined, saying it isn’t equipped to do so and doesn’t want to make special exceptions for certain groups of users. The McCain letter was in regard to multiple spots that the campaign placed on YouTube that included portions of Fox News and CBS broadcasts (Obama got in trouble for a spot that used NBC footage). The TV networks disliked the spots because they don’t want to be portrayed in a political light. They used copyright as an excuse to demand that YouTube take the clips down. The McCain campaign argued that their use of news broadcasts falls under fair use, however once YouTube suspects that something is pirated content, it follows the letter of the law to make sure that it doesn’t face liability, removing the video in question and waiting for 10-14 days before reinstating it, even if a valid counternotice is filed. That speed is too slow for politics, McCain’s campaign said.

Nice as they both sound, neither Public Citizen’s nor the EFF’s letters are likely to make any difference. Public Citizen wants a legislative proposal that will change few if any voters’ minds, so it’s probably best to think of it as a nice idea for the time being. The EFF’s proposal is a more nuanced and reasonable version of McCain’s, but it seems unlikely YouTube will adopt it. The Google-owned video site had responded to the McCain campaign that it does not have sufficient information about the sources of the pieces of any video on its site to determine whether it is fair use, and furthermore that fair use has not been not well-enough agreed upon to make it feel comfortable making judgment calls. It probably still feels the same way a week later. The next big thing looming on the horizon: the outcome of the YouTube-Viacom lawsuit, which could drastically redefine how the DMCA is followed today.

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McCain was especially funny, cracking jokes like “I’m told that at the first sign of a recovery, [Obama] will suspend his campaign and fly immediately to Washington to address the crisis,” and “Maverick I can do but messiah is above my paygrade,” and making an awful lot of fun of Bill Clinton. McCain closed with a well-delivered bit about setting up Obama (who spoke second) to fall flat due to unreasonably high expectations of “non-stop hilarity.”

Obama joked around about McCain being old, his own wishes to perform in a stadium with a backdrop of pillars, his “palling around” with senators and other politicians, and the perils of celebrity what with juggling the paparazzi, his soy chai latte, and his shih tzu. Quotes: “If I had to name my greatest strength, I guess it would be my humility. My greatest weakness? I guess it’s that I am a little too awesome.” Also: “I got my middle name from somebody who obviously didn’t think I’d ever run for president.

To the videos!

McCain part 1:

McCain part 2:

Obama part 1:

Obama part 2:

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Both the McCain and the Obama campaign have had their videos removed by YouTube after news organizations complained via takedown notice that their broadcasters’ images and words are being used for political purposes. However, the McCain campaign is saying such videos fall under fair use, and contending that YouTube is complying too readily with undeserved takedown notices.

The uses at issue have been the inclusion of fewer than ten seconds of footage from news broadcasts in campaign ads or videos, as a basis for commentary on the issues presented in the news reports, or on the reports themselves. These are paradigmatic examples of fair use, in which all four of the statutory factors are strongly in our favor: 1) the uses are non-commercial and transformative; 2) they are factual, not fictional; 3) they are extremely brief; and 4) they have no conceivable effect on the market for the allegedly infringing works.

YouTube quickly takes videos offline after receiving takedown notices, however, it does allow video uploaders to file counternotices. But the site does not repost a video until 10-14 days after receipt of a counternotice — too late in the land of politics, says the McCain campaign. It also does not allow users to repost an edited version of a video under the same URL on which it was originally hosted.

It has become regular practice for politicians to upload spots on the web, where they generate attention for free, with little or no intent to pay to show them on TV. Both campaigns are pushing the limits with these edgier, off-the-cuff ads. Obama’s campaign recently got NBC upset by mashing up its newscasts to portray a fictional future in which McCain had won the election. McCain’s campaign has previously gotten in trouble with Warner Music Group for unauthorized use of the song Can’t Take My Eyes Off of You in an anti-Obama ad, with CBS for using a snippet of a quote by Katie Couric about sexism, and with Fox News for using one of its correspondent’s voices in a clip about the financial crisis.

While the suggestion that takedown notices should be more carefully reviewed is something many have championed, most prominently the Electronic Frontier Foundation, given his position as a powerful U.S. legislator, McCain’s request for special treatment is somewhat ironic. The takedown notice procedures are defined by the Digital Millennium Copyright Act, which McCain voted for along with the rest of the Senate, which passed the bill by unanimous vote in 1998.

But this particular issue is moving at the speed of campaigns, not legislative bodies. The McCain letter argues, “[N]othing in the DMCA requires a host like YouTube to comply automatically with takedown notices, while blinding itself to their legal merit (or, as here, their lack thereof).” Still, as Mike Masnick suggests at Techdirt, McCain should promise to push for a change to the DMCA that protects sites like YouTube for keeping content up after receiving takedown notices that they’ve determined are not warranted.

The full letter is embedded below:

Update: YouTube denied McCain’s request, explaining that it would not be feasible to fully review all takedowns and it would be unfair to make an exception.

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A video titled The McCain-Palin Mob is the No. 3 most-discussed video on YouTube today, with more than 675,000 views since it was posted Wednesday. In the clip, Ohio rally-goers tell blogger Tim Russo (who’s behind the camera) they have reason to believe Obama is a terrorist. Russo’s questioning is clearly aimed at putting his subjects on the defensive, but they take it to another level, in particular one woman who keeps pushing her way back on camera. Viewership of the video is partisan as well, but on the other side of the spectrum, with more than 130,000 views coming from the Huffington Post and many more from other liberal blogs.

Another, separate video from a Pennsylvania rally has McCain supporters calling Obama a “commie faggot” among other epithets, and is the No. 25 most-discussed YouTube clip today.

In a campaign where off-hand remarks by candidates regularly become leading nightly news items, citizens with video cameras wield a lot of journalistic power. And so it’s a bit hard to take Russo’s point of view, in that his disdain for his subjects is so clear (see some unprintable, for us, comments he makes about them on his blog). But at the same time, the mocking response he evokes from the woman at the McCain rally, which would have never aired at length (or at all) on TV, made its way out into the world. We live in interesting times!

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When the moderator Tom Brokaw asked what the fastest and most positive way to bail people out of economic ruin was, McCain’s first response was:

“I have a plan to fix this problem and it has got to do with energy independence. We’ve got to stop sending $700 billion a year to countries that don’t want us very — like us very much.”

Later on in the debate, McCain emphasized that energy independence, specifically “drilling offshore and nuclear power,” are fundamental ways to get the economy moving again.

When Brokaw asked the candidates to rate in order their priorities of health care, energy, and entitlement reform, Obama put energy at the top:

“Energy we have to deal with today, because you’re paying $3.80 here in Nashville for gasoline, and it could go up. And it’s a strain on your family budget, but it’s also bad for our national security, because countries like Russia and Venezuela and, you know, in some cases, countries like Iran, are benefiting from higher oil prices. So we’ve got to deal with that right away.”

McCain dodged picking one priority over another, saying they could all be done at once; he also delivered his basic energy plan:

“We can work on nuclear power plants. Build a whole bunch of them, create millions of new jobs. We have to have all of the above, alternative fuels, wind, tide, solar, natural gas, clean coal technology. All of these things we can do as Americans and we can take on this mission and we can overcome it.”

Later on in the debate, McCain said nuclear was the best way to fix climate change and called nuclear power “safe,” “clean,” and able to create “hundreds of thousands of jobs.”

Unlike McCain, Obama isn’t emphasizing nuclear or offshore drilling as more important solutions, and he said:

“We can’t simply drill our way out of the problem. And we’re not going to be able to deal with the climate crisis if our only solution is to use more fossil fuels that create global warming.”

Later on, Obama said, “I favor nuclear power as one component of our overall energy mix.”

McCain had the chance to answer the most interesting question of the night for the cleantech industry, also from Brokaw: “Should we fund a Manhattan-like project that develops a nuclear bomb to deal with global energy and alternative energy or should we fund 100,000 garages across America, the kind of industry and innovation that developed Silicon Valley?”

McCain’s answer was truncated and didn’t display much knowledge as to how technology innovation works in Silicon Valley. He said:

“I think pure research and development investment on the part of the United States government is certainly appropriate. I think once it gets into productive stages, that we ought to, obviously, turn it over to the private sector.”

No wonder the cleantech industry backs Obama over McCain so heavily.

But overall, both McCain and Obama both emphasized the fact that the creation of cleantech will be a major driving force in remaking the U.S economy:

McCain: We can move forward, and clean up our climate, and develop green technologies, and alternate — alternative energies for — for hybrid, for hydrogen, for battery-powered cars, so that we can clean up our environment and at the same time get our economy going by creating millions of jobs.

Obama: “It [an energy economy] can be an engine that drives us into the future the same way the computer was the engine for economic growth over the last couple of decades…We’re going to have to come up with alternatives, and that means that the United States government is working with the private sector to fund the kind of innovation that we can then export to countries like China that also need energy and are setting up one coal power plant a week. We’ve got to make sure that we’re giving them the energy that they need or helping them to create the energy that they need.”

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