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Twenty-three France Telecom employees have committed suicide during its massive reorganization, leading the company to set-up an employee suicide hotline, as reported by Adam Sage at Times Online.

The company's CEO was even summoned to meet with France's President and Labor Minister, to explain how the company plans to address this problem.

I haven't faced this situation in my career, so I've been following this story and thinking about what recommendations I would make to leadership. Thoughts?

After three illegal downloads, an Internet user's connection will be cut and the customer "blacklisted" under legislation passed by the French Parliament, as reported by Reuters [via France 24], Leigh Phillips at EUobserver, Peter Sayer at IDG News Service [via PC World], and the Electronista blog.

Offenders will also be fined up to 300,000 Euros (442,000 US Dollars) and face up to two years in prison. The new law also requires all Internet subscribers to prevent authorized use of their wi-fi hot spots.

An earlier version of the law was struck down by France's Constitutional Court, because Internet access would be cut automatically. The revised legislation requires a judge to sign the termination order.

Opponents may find fertile ground for a repeal, as the European Parliament recently declared Internet access a fundamental utility, such as electricity, gas or water.

Similar legislation is already in effect in Sweden [see story by David Landes at The Local Sweden], and is being debated in the UK [see story by Alexandra Topping at The Guardian].

If you really want to know which technologies will become mainstream, you should forget the cliché of watching teenagers and watch a tech journalist instead, according to Charles Arthur, technology editor at The Guardian.

Why? Because they are the typically one the first group of non-engineer adults to actually understand and use emergent technologies on a daily basis. Arthur cites Facebook, Gmail, Skype, RSS feeds, Twitter and YouTube among his examples.

Arthur also cited Steve Rubel, director of insights at Edelman, who listed his favorite tech journalists and bloggers to watch, with the explanation: "When I worked for CMP Media in the 1990s, then one of the big three tech trade publishers, I learned that if you follow certain reporters closely you can be early in spotting trends."

Arthur then added: "[T]echnology is the second-fastest changing field in news (after fashion). You'd watch what the fashion writers are wearing to find out what's going to be in next season."

Looking for some tangible proof points on the reach of social media in B2B tech marketing? ScoopDog blogger Jon Carlson has some quick facts on exactly how several major B2B tech vendors, media outlets and industry analyst firms are engaging in social media platforms, as well as the extent of the audience. I plan to cite this blog post in upcoming client presentations.

More than a third of British tech PR agencies said new business pitch processes were 'flawed' according to research by agency search consultancy Technology PR Services, as reported by Peter Hay at PR Week UK. The unsatisfied agencies said weak RFPs ultimately caused problems in successfully launching client programs. However, PR Week reader Steve Antoniewicz pointed out that meant the majority of agencies were in fact "happy with the process."

When Amazon discovered it had inadvertently sold works by George Orwell illegally to Kindle users, it surreptitiously deleted the offending files, as reported by Bobbie Johnson at The Guardian.

While necessary and legal, the secretive and unilateral nature of its actions drew a chorus of comparisons to Big Brother and Orwell's 1984.

Johnson theorized that's because users hadn't fully appreciated the implications of digital rights management software and cloud computing: in essence, contemporary consumers are renters not buyers of content.

Perhaps vendors need to communicate more effectively about license terms?

The communications approach surrounding the acquisition of online retailer Zappos by Amazon is earning some industry kudos.

"I really like how Zappos and Amazon handled this announcement; so few companies put themselves out on a limb like this," wrote Online Spin blogger Dave Morgan, who is also CEO of Simulmedia:

Specifically, Tony Hsieh, the CEO of Zappos, posted a letter for all employees, the press and the public to read, with a very direct and honest assessment of what the acquisition will mean and how it came about. Embedded within is a wonderful eight-minute video from Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos explaining his philosophy and commitment to the customer-service culture of Zappos.

In today's online, connected world, I can appreciate the totally direct and integrated approach as well.

Need a fairly simple way to help get your inbox volume under control? Gmail users now have a potentially quicker way of getting themselves off email newsletter lists, as reported by Elinor Mills at CNET News.com.

When users click "report spam" Gmail will ask if they actually want Gmail to unsubscribe them from the email list, or just flag it as junk mail.

Mills noted the new feature won't work for all email lists, and Gmail won't provide the option "for lists that are known to be spammers so that you don't get more spam from them by accidentally verifying that your address is legitimate."

Pondering the ubiquity of free content on the Internet and the struggles of "traditional" media, Alan Cowell at The New York Times asked a couple weeks ago, who will invest in quality journalism in digital media age? Perhaps his readers.

Currently free, the paper is considering charging print subscribers $2.50 per month and online-only subscribers $5.00 for access to all content on NYTimes.com, as reported by Greg Bensinger at Bloomberg News and Matthew Shaer at the Christian Science Monitor.

So, should media be free?

Antonia Senior at The Times, wrote that in Chris Anderson's new book, "Free: The Future of a Radical Price," the Wired Editor makes the case for free as the online business model. [You can hear Anderson discuss the book with Aleks Krotoski on The Guardian's Tech Weekly Podcast and read an excerpt on NPR.org.]

That drew a fairly scathing review from author Malcolm Gladwell in The New Yorker, who more or less argued there's no such thing as free.

And John Gapper at the Financial Times debated Anderson on his blog.

Let the debate continue.

If you're shopping for an Internet connection in France, Douglas Carlson at TresFrench.com has a helpful comparison guide (in English), covering price, performance and some key vocabulary.

Please take the World Refugee Day Quiz: it will take you 3 minutes tops, and the IRC will receive $1 to support its aid programs in Congo, Darfur, Kenya, Kosovo, Iraq, Pakistan and other crisis zones around the world.

Three interesting Twitter-related posts to check-out:

(1) Harry McCracken at Technologizer on how Twitter is both counterproductive rumor-central and source of legitimate news leads;

(2) Rory Cellan-Jones at BBC News on how "things" are now tweeting: your electricity meter, home alarm system, drawbridges, the RFID tag on a shipping container; and,

(3) John C. Abell at Wired on how Dell has made $3 million via its "Twitter outlet store."

Online data backup service providers have long been touting the ability to recover important files, but there's potentially another benefit.

As Elinor Mills at CNET News.com wrote, "[a] Berkeley, Calif., man recently recovered his stolen laptop after seeing photos the thief took of himself with the built-in camera via his Internet-based data backup program." Police then tracked down and arrested the thief.

Maybe vendors can add this feature to their online control panel... "click here to find out, where is my laptop right now?"

TomTom has introduced a portable GPS auto navigation device for women, reported Natasha Cloutier and Branko Collin at 24 Oranges [via GlobalPost].

Of course, it costs 49 to 79 Euros (approx. US$70 to 115) more than the company's other versions, but "[t]he White Pearl has a matching silk pouch that fits easily into a handbag. It has a 'Help Me!' menu and even tells you what lane to be in when things get hairy."

Personally, I'm waiting for the Hello Kitty version to come out.

Sony Ericsson is launching green handsets, which have 15 percent less of a carbon footprint during manufacturing and distribution, as reported by Alok Jha at The Guardian.

The biggest reductions come from more efficient packaging and the use of electronic product documentation (instead of a paper manual). The charger for one of the new models, the Naite, "will come with a new low-power charged that operates at 30 milliwatts (mW), where currently the chargers are rated at 100mW," Jha wrote.

The company also said it wants to reduce its total carbon emissions by 20 percent by 2015, and collect one million phone annually for recycling by 2011.

Now this is progress!

A court in Amsterdam ruled that the housing search site Miljoenhuizen.nl libeled the Dutch car dealer Zwartepoorte on Google, wrote Natasha Cloutier and Branko Collin at 24 Oranges [via GlobalPost].

Miljoenhuizen.nl optimized a page so that the word "Zwartepoorte" and the Dutch word for "bankrupt" appeared together on high-ranking Google search results, even though the words were in reality unrelated. The site refused to revise its coding and now must pay damages, although it plans plans to appeal the ruling.

Google was apparently not part of the proceedings and was not required to alter its search results.

Marguerite Reardon at CNET News.com posted a nifty primer on international wireless roaming, which includes the link for CNET's quick world phone guide posted by Kent German.

Google hardly seems to be under threat from Wolfram Alpha, the new "computational knowledge engine," as reviewed by Konrad Lischka and Matthias Kremp at SPIEGEL ONLINE.

The magazine said the "Wolfram Alpha 'answer machine' is meant to show us how to get there by doing much the same thing as Google -- only better." The reviewers gave Wolfram Alpha, currently in beta, high marks for design but cited its weak database content.

For example, during test searches, Wolfram Alpha made several false assumptions about search terms, provided unhelpfully brief answers to many questions, failed to provide any sources for several answers, and didn't provide any answers at all for topics such as the 2008 U.S. Presidential Elections and the Star Trek films.

This year will see the death of print newspapers, predicted Jeff Jarvis, buzzmachine blogger and associate professor at City University of New York, in an interview with SPIEGEL ONLINE.

Jarvis said traditional media outlets wanting to charge for online content was an "emotional" response. "News outlets need to think distributed, they must collaborate with bloggers or social networking sites," he said.

Jarvis also predicted online media will facilitate the growth of hyperlocal journalism and an increase in investigative reporting, citing recent events with the Huffington Post and Washington Post.

As for print outlets receiving government subsidies or Internet access fees? "Get over it."

You may now actually be able to leave your laptop behind during business travel and meetings.

Research In Motion and HP this week previewed "CloudPrint," a service that lets BlackBerry users find and use nearby printers (even non-HP printers), as reported by Marin Perez at InformationWeek and Mark Hachman at PC Magazine.

CloudPrint will let users print documents, photos and webpages, without special drivers, reported Hachman. The companies will announce availability at a later date, but said the service will be available to both BlackBerry Enterprise and Internet customers.

Love it.

Just when you thought the "green datacenter" hype was dead and buried... turns out the need for energy efficiency is greater than ever, according to The Guardian's Bobbie Johnson.

With the explosion of online content and connected services such as cloud computing, VoIP and IPTV, the number of data centers is continuing to grow and each one is requiring an increasing amount of energy.

Johnson reported that Microsoft researchers had effectively experimented with deploying systems designed for laptops (which of course are designed to extend battery life) in data center environments.

Let the hype cycle's leeward trough ascension begin!

"How can we use the cloud to help us during a pandemic of any real severity?," asked Scott McPherson at Computerworld.com. He invited readers to discuss the what's and when's, and how effective and reliable the cloud might actually be in times of crisis.

I'm not sure the swine flu changes anything about cloud computing. Providers will still offer you better redundancy and scalability than most IT departments / users could do for themselves. But whatever concerns about accessibility, flexibility and security you have will remain pretty much unchanged.

However, there's no time like a crisis to experiment and streamline.

Research firm IDC said Southeast Asia's telecoms market -- consisting of Indonesia, Malaysia, the Philippines, Singapore, Thailand and Vietnam -- will grow by 10 percent this year, as reported by EE Times Asia.

IDC predicted carriers will focus on growth in the SME market, and in fixed and wireless Internet connectivity -- partly fueled by strengthening minibook sales in the region. It also said there would be increased opportunities for managed datacenter services.

However wireless voice and data services will come under pressure as "[e]nd users will select low-end and mid-end mobile devices over high-end familiar brands. There will be added interest in new brands that provide cheaper options."

The firm's Southeast Asia telecoms report webcast (registration required) can be found here.

Libelous statements, copyright infringements and just plain stupid behavior... are some of the Internet-related legal issues expected to froth over the next few years, according to Michael Songer, partner at the law firm of Crowell & Moring, in Washington, D.C., in a guest post on CNET News.com.

Songer also said the ban on Internet access, bandwidth and email taxes might come under review before it expires in 2014.

What would happen if states tried to impose a per-Tweet or per-Facebook photo upload tax onto your mobile phone bill?

Want easy access to your critical medical information while you travel? Patients of the Kaiser Permanente health system can now get key elements of their electronic health records downloaded onto an encrypted and password-protected USB drive, reported Lucas Mearian at Computerworld.

The drive costs patients $5 and can only be obtained in-person, Mearian wrote.

Kaiser's press release said updating the read-only flash drive was free, and that the medical information was "in a format that virtually any physician with access to a computer can open and read."

If the patient is unconscious, hopefully the USB contains some un-encrypted information on how to connect with their regular doctor.

In a move to boost Internet royalties, the European Parliament has voted to extend music recording rights from 50 to 70 years, according to Honor Mahon at EUobserver.

If the legislation is approved, the market will have a chance to see if this approach actually benefits producers and/or artists, as Mahon reported that "MEPs asked the commission to make an assessment of how the law is working three years after it comes into force, particularly concerning the digital market."

The law now has to be reviewed by EU member states.

Believe it or not, the U.S. government is ahead of the environmental curve. Well, in one building anyway. As William Dowell at GlobalPost reported, this week the United States Mission to the United Nations in Geneva, "officially launched its new 225-ton 'MagLev' chiller," which is manufactured by Multistack LLC.

Dowell also reported that in 2005 "the building was covered with elegant blue solar panels. The panels now generate enough electricity to power a city block." So in effect, the new AC system is powered for free with zero carbon emissions.

Nice.

Google is starting to promote Google Profiles, as reported by Seth H. Weintraub at Computerworld.com. The company is apparently trying to occupy both the business social networking ground (a la LinkedIn) and personal social networking ground (a la Facebook).

I have to think it will be successful, considering how many people have Google set as their home page; use its Blogger, Gmail, YouTube, etc.; and whatever the company has learned from Orkut.

You know who should also move into this space? Microsoft. They already have the footprint on consumer and business PCs. But the real leg-up would be the company's connected devices, and I'm thinking mainly of XBOX right now. That's a dimension Facebook and Google simply wouldn't bring to the table.

THE WEEK has a quick round-up of commentary on the launch of Google Voice.

World Wide Web founding father Tim Berners-Lee told a British parliamentary hearing, "they should not allow third parties, including commercial companies, to snoop on people's internet browsing," reported Alan Travis at The Guardian.

He was referring to companies such as BT and Phorm, as reported extensively in The Guardian; and Sense Networks, Nokia and Google Latitude, as reported by Stephen Baker at BusinessWeek.

Time for a bit of proactive communication from these companies, I reckon.

The Guardian launched "an open platform designed to offer third parties free access to its content and data, in exchange for carrying the publication's advertising," reported Dawn Kawamoto at CNET News.com. This seems like a clever way of playing to a newspaper's strengths on the Internet, so definitely an initiative to watch.

The choice of Julius Genachowski as the new head of the FCC is generally being well received by both industry groups, as reported by Declan McCullagh at CNET News.com, Monta Monaco Hernon at Communications Technology, Roy Mark at eWeek, Jonathan Spalter at Huffington Post, Chloe Albanesius at PC Magazine, Kim Dixon at Reuters, Ira Teinowitz at Television Week, and by Ryan Singel at Wired News. Genachowski has been an advocate for Net neutrality.

Ultra low-cost carrier Ryanair is the latest airline to introduce in-flight voice services, as described on Economist.com's Gulliver blog:

Passengers will be able to make and receive calls for €2-3 ($2.5-3.8) per minute, send and receive text messages (50c plus) and use e-mail (€1-2). “It is expensive," said Michael O’Leary, the company's boss, "but it’s your choice whether you want to use it or not.”

The trouble is, of course, that it's precisely not your choice whether or not your neighbour uses his phone. Railway carriages are grimmer places when the phone yappers are out in force, and it is hard to envisage planes being different. Thankfully current technology will only allow six people on any flight to use their phones at the same time, but that will rise to 12 next year.

Best reader comment comes from Doug Pascover: "I am fine with this if they'll also rent baseball bats for €5."

It turns out my earlier posting was quite wrong: not all Europeans want to chat on-board.

Eurojust, the European Union's law enforcement cooperation agency, said it will lead an effort in making VoIP services "wiretap-able" by European police, reported Valentina Pop at EUobserver.com:

Skype, an Danish-Swedish business developed by Estonian programmers that was sold to E-Bay in 2005 and has over 350 million customers worldwide, is said to be un-spyable by intelligence services.

In its press release, Eurojust says that "Skype has so far refused to share its encryption system with national authorities."

However, Skype claims that it has "extensively debriefed Eurojust on our law enforcement programme and capabilities."

"Skype cooperates with law enforcement where legally and technically possible. Skype remains interested in working with Eurojust despite the fact that they chose not to contact us before issuing this inaccurate report," Brian O'Shaughnessy, head of corporate communications at Skype said in a statement.

The article also said, "Bavarian authorities allegedly also attempted to wiretap Skype conversations and commissioned an IT firm to do this, but were not successful, according to documents obtained by Piraten Party, a movement promoting Internet freedom."

The move comes at the request of Italian police, who said they are no longer able to monitor criminals' conversations. (Italy's government and parliament are currently taking Internet companies to task for hosting "offensive" content.)

Pardon my skepticism, but if this was truly necessary, wouldn't there be legal mechanisms similar to landline and mobile phone companies' regular compliance with judicial warrants? Oh, trick question.

An Irish cheerleader association mistakenly registered itself on the European Union's voluntary lobbyist registery, reported Leigh Phillips at EUobserver.com.

According to the piece, "[t]he Cheerleading Federation of Ireland last December signed up to the European Commission's lobbying registry in the mistaken hope that doing so would give it some recognition at the European level in order to win funding for the body."

Phillips also wrote, "[t]he group thought the lobby registry, which is supposed to track lobbyists who try to influence decision-makers on EU legislation, was instead some sort of grant application form."

According to its website, the Register of Interest Representatives was established to:

[l]et citizens know which general or specific interests are influencing the decision-making process of the European Institutions and the resources mobilized to that end. Registrants have the opportunity to demonstrate their strong commitment to transparency and the full legitimacy of their activities. While registering, interest representatives commit themselves to the elements of the Code of Conduct.

Launched last June, the registry has been widely criticized for its completely voluntary nature. The EUobserver article said an estimated 15,000 lobbyists and 3,000 lobbying organisations were located in Brussels. However, the registry's website said "there were 1033 interest representatives in the register" as of this writing.

On the other hand, during a quick browsing of the registry, I found quite clear, open and relevant listings for the not-for-profit group Friends of the Earth Europe; public affairs/public relations firm Hill & Knowlton [disclosure: a former employer and client]; and telecoms concern Hutchison.

Not a bad start folks.

Italy's government and parliament are taking Internet companies to task for hosting "offensive" content, as reported by Mark Scott at BusinessWeek.com:

According to reports, Google's Paris-based Global Privacy Counsel Peter Fleischer -- one of the execs currently facing criminal charges – was confronted by five Italian law enforcement officials while he was on his way to give a speech at the University of Milan.

Scott also wrote that proposed legislation would require Internet companies to remove "criminal content" within 24 hours or face fines of up to US$320,000.

Ah, the rich tapestry of conflicting cross-border data regulations continues to spin itself in knots.

The mobile industry group GSM Association (GSMA) announced at the Mobile World Congress in Barcelona that a "universal charger" for mobile devices will be widely available starting later this year, reported Richard Wray at the Guardian:

Not only will it mean phone users no longer have to go hunting around for the right charger for their handset, but the specifications for the new device include a 50% reduction in standby energy consumption.

One of the best ideas ever.

With IT budgets (and data center floor space) under ever-increasing pressure, will cloud computing be an effective way for larger organizations to stretch spending? IBM thinks so, having created a new cloud computing division that reports directly to the company's chairman and CEO, reported Richard Waters at the Financial Times (article also accessible via Yahoo! UK & Ireland).

To kick-start its Blue Cloud initiative, IBM introduced, in partnership with Juniper Networks, "a new service that would let customers automatically switch some of their computing tasks over to IBM’s datacentres at times when their own resources are stretched, creating what IBM called an 'overflow cloud' for corporate IT."

Google's PowerMeter may actually help you save money (and the environment). Check out the round-up by Richi Jennings at Computerworld's IT Blogwatch.

Speaking of HDTV and just in time for the Super Bowl, Robert Heron at PC Magazine posted some tips on "how to pick the perfect HDTV."

U.S. airline passengers really do not want in-flight voice service, whereas Europeans (and people from most parts of the world) really do want to talk, according W. David Gardner at InformationWeek:

British Airways, will bring OnAir service to the shores of the United States in twice-daily flights between London City Airport and New York's JFK Airport. The European OnAir service will enable passengers to stay connected during the flights using their mobile phones to access the Internet to send and receive text messages and e-mails, and, yes, to send and receive voice messages, too.

Gardner also wrote:

From its earliest beginnings, OnAir has been committed to supplying cell phone voice service to its customers, initially in Europe and later globally. U.S. airlines and in-flight messaging providers and passengers have viewed in-flight voice services as something akin to the bubonic plague, in which talking is strictly forbidden.

OnAir's website also lists customers in Asia, Europe, the Middle East and South America -- but none in North America.

Perhaps like the metric system, this is one of those Techno-Cultural divides that won't be bridged between the U.S. and the rest of the world.

Economist.com reported that more than a billion people are using the Internet as of December 2008, according to research firm comScore World Metrix.

About one in six of them (or about 180 million) live in China, displacing the U.S. (with about 162 million) as the country with the most Internet users.

The Top 5 countries are rounded out by Japan (about 60 million), and Germany and the UK (each with nearly 37 million users).

Preston Gralla at Computerworld said netbook sales are "killing" Microsoft [because they frequently run on Linux, the company misses out on Windows and Office sales; and when they do ship with Microsoft software, the company has to charge less]; and told us "Why Apple disdains netbooks" [there simply isn't enough margin to sell premium product line].

But fellow Computerworld blogger Mike Elgan said, "[n]o, mobile computing is NOT killing the desktop PC" [mobility is simply becoming a ubiquitous feature like video on a PC or cameras on mobile phones].

One of the touted benefits of the changeover to digital television (DTV) is high definition television (HDTV). However, only about half of US households with an HDTV set are watching HDTV programming, according to recent research by In-Stat. The firm's press release said:

"In the US, there are more than 39 million households with an installed HDTV set," according to Mike Paxton, an In-Stat analyst. "However, only 22 million of those are HDTV households, meaning that 17 million US households with an installed HDTV set are not watching HD programming."

The release also noted the majority of current HDTV households are in the US and Japan.

As In-Stat found, "[c]able and satellite TV service providers provide HD programming to almost 80% of all HDTV households," these low figures weren't a reason to delay the DTV transition in the US from this February to June [see coverage by John Eggerton at Broadcasting & Cable, Stephen Wildstrom at BusinessWeek, and Marguerite Reardon at CNET News].

I was a bit surprised to read these statistics on HDTV uptake, given the prominent promotion during televised sporting events. Don't sports fans love watching the game in HD?

If the US government is handing out coupons for DTV converter boxes, why doesn't the industry hand out coupons for HDTV programming on DirecTV?

The vast majority of mobile phone users said setting-up a new handset is much too complicated, according to research by mobile software firm Mformation, as reported by BBC News:

[T]he survey found 85% of users reporting they were frustrated by the difficulty of getting a new phone up and working.

Of the 4,000 people questioned, 95% said they would try more new services if phones were easier to set up.

The article also said:

Some 61% of those questioned said they stopped using an application if they could not get it working straight away.

The piece also quoted analyst Geoff Blaber at CCS Insight as saying easier configuration is a key priority for carriers, to help boost services revenue as voice and text revenue stagnate.

Mformation has some interesting background reading on the topic here and here.

This is one of those times I wish I knew much, much more about user interface R&D and design.

Grid and cloud computing continue to be hot industry buzzwords. However, video streaming service Filmon and its vendor Digital Utilities have done a great job illustrating how the technology is relevant for consumers, as reported by BBC News.