Originally passed by Congress and signed into law in 1998, COPA was supposed to protect children from “harmful” Internet content.  The wording of the law was very broad and would have required website operators to implement a number of measures to enforce “contemporary community standards,” reports Ars Technica.  According to the ACLU blog, it would have even barred adults from seeing material that was not appropriate for a child and would have affected, among other things, the online availability of sexual health information.

The law has been struck down again and again and never enforced in its 10 years of existence.  For instance, in 2007, the District Court ruled it unconstitutional.  It found that COPA violated the First and Fifth Amendments to the Constitution, ruling that “COPA prohibits much more speech than is necessary to further Congress’ compelling interest.”  The government appealed once again, bringing us to yesterday’s development.

“In a unanimous decision, the court ruled (PDF) that COPA was ‘not narrowly tailored’ enough to serve the government’s goal of protecting children from content on the Internet, it was not the least restrictive means available, and was substantially overbroad.

The government now has the same decision to make as it has many times in the past: whether to appeal to the Supreme Court (again), or let it die.  It wouldn’t be a huge surprise to see the case appealed one last time.”  Enough already!

Another new feature for Google Maps: get walking directions for fairly short trips and Google Maps will try to find you a route that’s direct, flat, and uses pedestrian pathways when they know about them.

The app is in Beta since there are naturally some unknowns, such as whether sidewalks or pedestrian bridges are available.  You are reminded to use caution.  But there is an advantage in many places because driving directions will attempt to guide you the right way when one-way streets exist.  That is a factor that walkers don’t need to consider.

Google Operating System Blog offers this tip:  if you only see driving directions, copy the permalink of the page by clicking on “Link to this page”, append &dirflg=w and paste the new URL in the address bar.

Directions can be printed, emailed, bookmarked or embedded in a site.  You can also save them as a custom map,  just click on “Link to this page”, copy the link, add &output=kml at the end and then create a new map in the My Maps tab by importing the KML file.

If you’ve been watching the development of free online office suites but haven’t left your desk-top based product (e.g., Microsoft Office) yet, you’ll find Computerworld’s reviews of three popular online office suites instructive.  Office suites typically include at least word processing, spreadsheet, and presentation apps.

Three major competitors in the field — Google Docs, ThinkFree, and Zoho — have all made major moves in recent months, significantly improving the products by adding more applications, features, and functionality.

But how do they shape up against desktop suites like Microsoft Office, known primarily for Word, Excel and PowerPoint applications?

“While Google Docs, ThinkFree and Zoho vary in the breadth of the applications they offer, their features and their usability, they are all capable of doing real, useful work. They do what you expect of productivity apps — create documents, spreadsheets and presentations — in sophisticated fashion,” says reviewer David DeJean.  Developments in open source, AJAX, and browsers have helped online suites to compete.

A really big advantage is that all three are free and offer free storage space, as well. Since they work in a Web browser, they also work across different platforms.  It doesn’t matter whether you create, view, or use them with PCs, Mac’s, or a Linux box. Since they are designed with collaboration and sharing in mind, that is especially important.

Computerworld reviews the three online suites’ capabilities as word processors, spreadsheets, presentations, and how they “leverage the web.”  Each product has its strengths, although they have developed from different points of view.

There is no clear winner here, but the reviewer concludes, “Web-based productivity suites have made a transition. While at first they simply imitated desktop applications in a Web browser, the current versions add features that begin to integrate the social computing features of the Web. At the same time, they’ve begun to grow away from simply imitating Microsoft Office to developing personalities of their own.”  Check out the article for details.  [via Slashdot]

Offline support for Gmail, GCal
Gmail and Google Calendar are expected to join Google Reader and Google Docs with offline support in about 6 weeks, according to Google Operating System blog.  Offline support is achieved with Google Gears.

Google Docs adds fullscreen mode
Now there is a fullscreen editing mode for Google Docs without the need for a Greasemonkey script.  Check out the “View” menu.

Lifehacker says that combined with Firefox 3’s serious fullscreen capabilities and GDocs’ fixed-width page view, “you can turn the online office suite into a no-distraction writing environment.” Zoho Writer also has a similar “Maximize editor” function.

Google Docs templates
There are an amazing number (>300) of templates for all kinds of document needs that can be found at the new Google Docs directory.  Try the “preview” link to see what your document, presentation or spreadsheet would look like.

“Each template has boilerplate content and preset design styles that are meant to be reused. (…) You can then edit the document, replacing boilerplate text and images with your own,” explains Google.

The option to use a template is available in Google Docs when you click on New > From template and the list of templates that you’ve recently used will appear.

The New York Times is reporting today that Amazon is about to take on a new venture, introducing an online store of TV shows and movies called Amazon Video on Demand.  The service, which will allow people to stream entertainment to their computers without long waits for file downloads, will be rolled out to a selected group first for testing, then given wider release later this summer.

Amazon customers using the new store will be able to start watching any of 40,000 movies and television programs immediately after ordering them because they stream.

“For the first time, this is drop dead simple,” said Bill Carr, Amazon’s vice president for digital media. “Our goal is to create an immersive experience where people can’t help but get caught up in how exciting it is to simply watch a movie right from Amazon.com with a click of the button.”

Amazon is also pursuing the technology and media world’s “holy grail” — an Internet pipeline to the TV.  It has struck a deal with Sony Electronics to place its Internet video store on the Sony Bravia line of high-definition TVs.

In the meantime, if you want to curl up on the couch with your laptop — or watch on your big screen monitor — you will soon be able to catch a show from Amazon’s collection.  It will be interesting to see how this venture competes with Netflix’s “watch instantly” movies, and its recently introduced set-top box.  Currently Netflix’s collection is much smaller than what may be available from Amazon, but is available as a free addition to many subscribers.

CrunchGear reports that an Amazon insider leaked the news that two new Amazon Kindle models will be ready for the holiday season, possibly as early as October.

One model is expected to be an updated version of the current Kindle, but with a vastly improved interface.  According to the source, the interface improvement leaps ahead 3 or 4 generations.

The second new Kindle is considerably bigger than the current one, more along the size of an 8 1/2″ X 11″ piece of paper.  Expect both models to come in a choice of colors.  No word on price.  Amazon fairly recently reduced the cost to $359.

Idee Multicolor Search Lab has a color matching search engine for 3 million “interesting” Flickr images, as well as a front end for Alamy Stock Photography if you are in need of royalty-free images.

Check out the FAQ for more information.  [via Lifehacker]

In a Seattle P-I technology briefing, I saw a blurb (scroll down) about Comcast teaming with Vonage Holdings Corp., the leading independent in the Internet telephony business, to ensure smooth Internet calling.  It attracted my eye because I just decided to switch from my regular phone company to Comcast Digital Voice service.

Apparently Internet telephone traffic is particularly sensitive to delays, making it vulnerable to both congestion and traffic management, and the collaboration with Vonage will ensure that its new network management techniques balance congestion-fighting with the need to ensure that Internet calling services like Vonage function.

I’ll be interested to see how well it works.  It certainly offers many features and functions I don’t have at the moment — one of which is the ability to access my voice mail via the Internet.  And I can keep my current phone number and phones.

I was very interested in this article, Electronic Papyrus: The Digital Book, Unfurled, in the New York Times about the Readius, a new type of digital reader anticipated for an early 2009 availability in the U.S.

The mobile device is being designed for reading books, magazines, newspapers and email, and is the size of a standard cellphone. “Flip it open, though, and a screen tucked within the housing opens to a 5-inch diagonal display.  The screen looks just like a liquid crystal display, but can bend so flexibly that it can wrap around a finger.”

The Readius is pocket-sized, but has a generous, supple screen, and “people with five minutes to spare in a taxi, bus or subway can use the dead time to open it, read a page or two of a book and then return the device to a shirt pocket,” said Karl McGoldrick, the chief executive of Polymer Vision, the company in Eindhoven, the Netherlands, that created the device.  The Readius will be introduced in England, Italy and Germany this fall.

Anyone who has used the Amazon Kindle will recognize the same easy to read E Ink technology on the Readius.  It will display about 22 lines of a book page, depending on the font, and changes from page to page in half a second at the touch of a thumb.  The rechargeable battery provides 30 hours of reading.

The new flexible screen technology of the Readius is anticipated in other products, as well.  “It’s an exciting example, but there are going to be a slew of other devices coming soon, too,” said Shawn O’Rourke, director of engineering at the Flexible Display Center at Arizona State University at Tempe, which focuses on the technology’s future commercialization.

Mr. O’Rourke says flexible displays are unlike today’s cell phones and laptops with their traditional glass backings.  “These displays are thin, lightweight and rugged — and they bend,” he said. The underlying substrates that support the display are typically either plastic or metal foil.

Flexible displays will mean “easy, relatively inexpensive and safe shipping and handling, compared with conventional rigid screens, and are expected to spawn a new generation of portable devices that are mobile, but also have compelling user interfaces,” said Jennifer Colegrove, an analyst at the iSuppli Corporation, a market research firm in El Segundo, Calif.

Check out the interesting array of Readius features, including Global wireless connectivity, with the greatest coverage of any eReader (Tri Band/3.5G HSDPA), supporting ActiveSync and USB mass storage (USB FS),and allowing communication with accessories and other devices (Bluetooth 2.0).

The Readius weblog  says the device is the portal through which readers can select and manage content — some free, some subscription, some one-time purchases.  Content partners will be listed this fall and content can be downloaded to a PC, or transferred over-air, not requiring a computer.

Pricing has not been announced, but is expected to be more than the Kindle’s $359.

Google Calendar redesign
This redesign by Globex Designs (get it here) of Google Calendar looks great and it’s easy to make the change.  Found on Lifehacker.

Firefox 3 reaches Guiness World Record download day
Mozilla announced the record-setting 8,002,530 downloads for Firefox 3’s first day.

“As the arbiter and recorder of the world’s amazing facts, Guinness World Records is pleased to add Mozilla’s achievement to our archives,” said Gareth Deaves, Records Manager for Guinness World Records. “Mobilizing over 8 million internet users within 24 hours is an extremely impressive accomplishment and we would like to congratulate the Mozilla community for their hard work and dedication.”

Mapstraction for Map Mashups
If you’re a developer who loves to build map mashups, then you have to check out the library provided by Mapstraction, advises Read/WriteWeb.

Mapstraction provides a common API for various existing mapping APIs which allows developers to build a mashup that supports nine of the major mapping providers including Google Maps, Microsoft’s Virtual Earth, Yahoo Maps, and more.  See the demos at the RWW site.