A Google street trike: the company is under pressure in France after being criticised by the country's privacy regulator

Good luck to Web Reservations International veteran Ray Nolan who's relaunching website Worky in a move that seems aimed at taking on Linkedin, the US website that is setting up its European headquarters in Dublin at present.
Nolan's new site will offer many of the same features as its rival, including work profiles, online networks and a mobile application. It also has details of two million available jobs in 22 countries. Worky.com was launched last year and aimed to match jobs to candidate skills but it is now being repositioned. Based in Grand Canal Quay, Worky employs 10 people.


The YouTube rich list
Research by TubeMogul, an analytics and internet advertising company, has revealed that at least 10 performers, writers and producers earned more than $100,000 each over the past 12 months from their short films which have achieved popularity largely through word of mouth.
Under a partnership deal with the site, owned by search engine Google, content creators are able to generate advertising revenues from their work and enjoy the same promotional benefits as more established stars. YouTube splits the revenue from banner ads 50-50 with its partners.
Nine of those who appeared in the top 10 are comics. Shane Dawson, 22, a committed Christian who eschews sex before marriage, drugs and alcohol, was number one, having earned an estimated $315,000 in the past 12 months from his near-the knuckle satirical videos.
Apple to rent TV shows?
Apple, seeking to fend off rivals such as Netflix and Hulu, is in advanced talks with News Corporation to let iTunes users rent TV shows for 99 cents.
Viewers would be able to rent programmes from News Corp's Fox for 48 hours, said three sources. CBS, NBC Universal and Walt Disney, where Apple chief executive Steve Jobs is a board member and the largest shareholder, are also are in talks about joining the effort, the sources say.
The content deals would give Apple users access to some of the most-watched shows on TV and increase the appeal of its devices, including the iPad, iPhone and iPod Touch. Adding programming also would build on iTunes' role as the biggest retailer of music and mobile applications, and help Apple ward off companies such as Netflix , Amazon.com and Hulu, which offer their own online video services.
"This is a smart move by everyone," said David Bank, an analyst at RBC Capital Markets in New York. "Something like this a la carte rental service is an incremental opportunity."
Episodes will be available to Apple's rental service within 24 hours of their air dates and will be ad-free, one of the sources said.
Apple plans to hold an event in San Francisco this week, just three weeks ahead of the new US prime-time TV season, and sources said this is where Apple will unveil the service and an updated line of entertainment products.
Apple will introduce a new version of the Touch with a higher-resolution screen – similar to the display featured on the iPhone 4 – and a $99 version of its three-year-old Apple TV set-top box, one person said. The new Apple TV, which will have a smaller hard drive than the earlier version, is aimed at letting people stream content from iTunes, the source said.
Bloomberg


Google Street View pulled over
A car used by Google to collect data for its Street View mapping service was stopped and searched last week near Paris, less than a week after France's privacy regulator criticised the company.
The inspection was a result of Google resuming photographing French streets before officials decided whether the company complied with orders to limit Street View's data collection, said Yann Padova, secretary general of the National Commission for Computing and Civil Liberties.
The search "was done especially to verify that they stopped collecting wifi data," Padova said in an interview last week. The regulator called the company's move "premature".
Google, owner of the world's largest search engine, is the subject of probes from data-protection regulators in Germany, Spain, Italy and the Czech Republic over concerns the Street View programme violates privacy rights. Earlier this month, South Korean police raided Google's Seoul office as part of a Street View investigation. Google's privacy practices are also being scrutinised by Canada and the US Federal Trade Commission.
Google will play it safe with European regulators as it seeks to continue Street View data collection in Europe, Sam Hart, an analyst at Charles Stanley in London, said.
"They're already very aware of the potential damage perceived privacy violations could do to the Google reputation and brand," Hart said. "I would expect them to proceed extremely cautiously.'
Street View allows Google users to click on maps to see photographs of roadsides, and is already available for most major French cities.
CNIL, as the French regulator is known, has received complaints since the programme began, initially over the lack of digital masking of people's faces. One couple told CNIL they found photos on the service showing the interior of their apartment, including their four-year-old daughter without clothes on. That complaint was one of the catalysts that prompted the review, Padova said.