This past Tuesday, a huge (and confusing) international police squad based in Sweden coordinated raids in 14 different countries, aiming to shut down one of the cores of piracy, known as The Scene. Three days later, the time has come to look around and evaluate the state of piracy–and it turns out, pretty much everything is just as it was.

Just about all of the major BitTorrent sites, including The Pirate Bay and BTJunkie, are back online, though What.cd, a private music site, is still out. Interestingly, though The Pirate Bay and What.cd either were down or remain down, leaders from both sites have commented that the downtime is unrelated to the raids. Specifics are vague (especially from What.cd, which currently sports a warning to “stop speculating” and little else), and The Pirate Bay claims they were merely upgrading servers. It’s pretty curious that these two major sites would just happen to go down for routine maintenance while an unrelated but massive piracy raid was happening, but that’s the information we have.

Users probably have noticed that their BitTorrent activity can continue just about as before–not much has changed, from the casual end-user perspective. But behind the scenes, the raid was surprisingly effective. Targeted specifically at members of The Scene, a shadowy nerd cabal of high-level pirates, the raid managed to take several key servers in Sweden, the Czech Republic, and The Netherlands offline, and at least ten people have been detained as a result.

What does that mean for you? Well, releases from The Scene are certainly likely to decrease in volume, which should make Microsoft, Adobe, and other makers of oft-pirated software happy. It could well be harder to snag an up-to-date pirated copy of Photoshop or Windows in this post-raid world. But if you’re trying to get this week’s episode of Top Chef, you probably won’t notice much difference in your illegal, morally reprehensible routine.

Are the raid’s effects permanent? Almost definitely not. Scratch that–definitely not. Check out this CNET article from 2001–some of the terms and specifics are different, but that nearly decade-old raid is very similar to what happened this week in Europe, and of course we know how piracy turned out. Piracy can’t be stopped by this kind of raid–it’ll make the lives of some top-level pirates pretty miserable, but it won’t stop the problem at its core. Maybe nothing can.

Dan Nosowitz, the author of this post, can be followed on Twitter, corresponded with via email, and stalked in Brooklyn (no link for that one–you’ll have to do the legwork yourself).

Intel CEO Paul Otellini sat down with the Wall Street Journal for a quick talk in which he touched on some of the more interesting projects and goings-on at the world’s biggest chip company. He glanced over the aqcuisition of mobile chipmaker Infineon, noting that smartphones with Intel chips will finally see release in 2011. More interesting, and more pressing, are his comments on Google TV.

Intel is a key partner of the Google TV project, along with Sony and Logitech–I dubbed them the A-Team in a post back in March, accompanied by some of my finest Photoshop work. Otellini even noted that “there’s roughly 10 million lines of code in there. Half of that comes from Intel; the other half comes from Google.”

So Intel is totally invested in Google TV, and it makes sense that Otellini would be asked to comment on Google TV’s chances against Apple TV. You might think he’s being diplomatic when he says, “I also believe there are probably households that one will appeal to and the other won’t,” but I actually agree with him. The two products are fundamentally different–as I’ve said before, Google TV is a supplement, while Apple TV is an addition.

He specifies that the Apple TV might appeal to technophobes due to its simplicity, aping the “Mom” example I used a few months ago, while the Google TV might appeal to his son, who might want more options.

Nobody has really seen how Google TV works in the day-to-day, so it’s hard to tell if he’s right. While Apple TV is something familiar (after all, it can’t do anything existing products like Boxee, XBMC, or Windows Media Center can’t already handle), Google TV is a big new paradigm for the living room. It might take off like Android, or fail due to lack of understanding, like Google Wave. But Intel, at least, appears to be confident.

Otellini also spilled the beans on a release date, specifying “this month” (meaning September). He didn’t mention in which form Google TV would first arrive–embedded inside Sony HDTVs seems likely–but even merely stating the release month is sort of surprising and sloppy. Google hasn’t announced a date yet–why is the Intel CEO mouthing off about it? Hopefully Google TV doesn’t succumb to the same sloppiness.

Dan Nosowitz, the author of this post, can be followed on Twitter, corresponded with via email, and stalked in Brooklyn (no link for that one–you’ll have to do the legwork yourself).

If you haven’t tried Google Instant yet, you’re either not much of a Net surfer or you live outside the U.S. (where it seems Instant is slow to roll out). It’s impressive, intuitive, and a little annoying, almost as if Google is trying to guess what’s going on inside your head. Google’s CEO Eric Schmidt hinted, back at the launch of real time Twitter integration, that Google’s ultimate goal was to achieve search at the speed of the mind–and Instant is pretty much as close as they’ll get for the moment.

Still, Google has one disadvantage when it comes to matching your brain. It relies
on millions of slices of silicon to do its basic search tasks. And Google Instant just makes its server burden much worse.

The idea is that you’ll save many thousands of seconds every year–a couple each time you access Google to look for something. Google serves up countless millions of search matches every second. Multiply that by a few seconds per user, and Google is potentially saving the world billions of dollars worth of work-hours.

But this effort inevitably costs Google. It costs a lot. Its entire search system has to work more swiftly, and serve up dynamically-changing lists of search results as you type into its query box–not only does it have to dig them out of its archive, but it also has to format them and push them to your browser in a time fast enough to be relevant (before you type the next letter is a good measure of this speed.) During the Instant presentation Ben Gomes explained that the server burden has risen by somewhere between 10 and 20 times. 

That’s likely to increase Google’s carbon footprint, not to mention its electricity bill. All that server power has to come from somewhere, even while Google uses tricks (like biasing its guesses towards words that’re more likely than others–guessing “snow” is more likely to follow when you type “s” than “syzygy”).

As for all those spare seconds that’ve just been given to you, you may well end up spending them on Google anyway. Why? Two reasons. Firstly, as Google Instant “guesses” search results that match your incomplete query, you’re likely to notice sites popping up that you wouldn’t have seen before (even if they’re only tangentially linked to your intended phrase).Human curiosity being what it is, you may well click on one of them.

Secondly, now that Google delivers things so very swiftly–often beating you to the punch–you do get a genuine feeling of satisfaction from using it. And that may be a gentle prompt for you to try out a few clicks on Google that you may never have tried beforehand–such as a quick image search.

If Instant does cause that kind of halo effect, Google’s server burden may be yet higher than the company suspects. And that’s not even accounting for any new Internet memes based around the real-time search results. Will Instant be the straw that broke the back of Google’s server farms?

To keep up with this news follow me, Kit Eaton, on Twitter.

For a hint at what the next generation of architects are working on, take a look at this year’s class of Enterprise Rose Architectural Fellows, all of whom are attempting to combine quality design and affordable housing. Each fellow spends three years working in an underserved community, interacting with locals, and coming up with ideas for green buildings that best serve the surrounding area.

The 2010 class is working toward some pretty ambitious goals. Juan Calaf is creating design standards in Puerto Rico that blend locally available sustainable materials with community planning principles. Joann Ware is working with the InterIm Community Development Agency in Seattle to incorporate health, intergenerational community-building and neighborhood engagement into sustainable building projects.

It will take years before these projects get off the ground, but a glimpse at the work of past fellows is encouraging.  Jess Wendover’s Eastside Cultural Center, Laura Shipman’s Parcel G Supportive Housing Development, and Nathaniel Corum’s Environmental Research Center are all examples of successful projects that changed disadvantaged communities for the better. All told, 31 Enterprise Rose fellows have designed over 46 buildings and produced 5,500 affordable, energy-efficient homes across the U.S. in the decade since the fellowship began. This year’s class of fellows has, in other words, a lot to live up to.

Ariel Schwartz can be reached on Twitter or by email.

Watch out, Toyota, Nissan, and Mitsubishi. Fellow Asian car company Hyundai is gunning for the growing electric vehicle market with an EV of its own.

Dubbed the BlueOn, Hyundai’s entrant in the all-electric market will have a maximum speed of 80.6 mph, travel 87 miles on a single charge, and fill its battery to 80% capacity in 25 minutes using a 380-volt fast-charge station. Just one catch: the vehicle will only be sold in South Korea.

Next month, Hyundai will deliver 30 prototypes of the vehicle to various South Korean governmental organizations. If all goes well, the company will make a mass market push. It hopes to deliver 2,500 BlueOns by 2012.

The BlueOn’s rival cars — Toyota Prius, Nissan Leaf, and Mitsubishi i-MiEV — should all be standing tall in the U.S. market by then (the Prius already is, of course). A Hyundai spokeswoman told the Associated Press that it was “too early too discuss potential export markets at the moment.” But the car company would be wise to consider the U.S. in the coming years, especially since electric vehicle charge company Ecotality plans to install 15,000 charging stations in 16 cities by next summer.
Once that happens, the U.S. will have multiple EV-ready highways just waiting for eager car companies to show off their wares.

Ariel Schwartz can be reached on Twitter or by email.

The United States has fallen from second to fourth place in The World Economic Forum (WEF)’s Global Competitiveness Report for 2010-2011. Switzerland seized the top spot, followed by Sweden, then Singapore. Germany came in 5th. The report indicates that deficits, debt, and loss of faith in public institutions torpedoed the U.S.’s ranking.

The rankings take into consideration 12 factors: “institutions, infrastructure, macroeconomic environment, health and
primary education, higher education and training, goods market
efficiency, labour market efficiency, financial market development,
technological readiness, market size, business sophistication, and
innovation,” according to the press release. The much-anticipated report comes ahead of the WEF meeting in Tianjin, China, next week.

A stable economy and strong culture of innovation helped Switzerland retain the top spot for the second year, according to the report. And China is a consistent mover, rising from No. 30 in 2008 to No. 29 last year and to 27 this year.

Japan took 6th. Hong Kong, in a heated battle with Singapore to be a major Asian economic hub, came in at No. 11. Singapore ranked third.

“Administrative shortcomings and problems in the financial market” caused South Korea to fall three points to 22nd place, and Saudi Arabia ranked ahead of South Korea, at 21st place.

In addition to analyzing publicly available data, the rankings are based on an opinion survey with over 13,000 business leaders in over 130 countries.

Timberland has initiated a massive stretch of innovative corporate social responsibility efforts and campaigns over the years, and the company has just announced its latest Earthkeepers product campaign, “Nature Needs Heroes.” With a microsite, online 3-D features, and in-store 3-D displays, the campaign appeals to customers who want to be immersed in the outdoors at all times, even inside a Timberland store.

Jim Davey, who came from Nickelodeon to the company in 2009 as Vice President of Global Marketing, is bringing a playful air to the campaign with in-your-face sensory-stimulating 3-D features, recycled 3-D glasses, recycled rubber in the products, extensive outdoor imagery used in the campaign, and the virtual forest application on Facebook. Davey tells Fast Company a little more about where this latest environmental marketing campaign fits in for the company’s do-good approach.

Timberland has engaged in a number of CSR initiatives over the years. How is this one different?This campaign is one way we ‘re storytelling around our environmental platform. Nature Needs Heroes highlights the environmental attributes of our products and encourages our consumers to do what they can, big and small, to improve the environment. In this sense, we’re putting the consumer at the center of the story.

Have you found that men or women or a specific age group are more receptive to your environmental marketing efforts?Our consumer is more about mindset than demographics. They love the outdoors. And because they love the outdoors, they want to do what they can to help protect it, so they and future generations can continue to enjoy it. But first they want product that performs and looks great—environmental features like recycled PET are the icing on the cake, that lets them feel good about their purchase and they are doing their bit for the environment. The key is that consumers don’t have to compromise–they can now [buy] more sustainable gear without sacrificing style, comfort, or performance.

Timberland has gone 3D and very multimedia-heavy for this campaign; what was the impetus for that and what’s the overarching vision for such choices?Our core promise is that we equip people for all their outdoor experiences. With 3-D, people can feel like they are actually part of that experience. We’re also making a concerted effort to connect with the twenty-something crowd so being everywhere is a necessity.

What’s the next frontier for innovation in CSR–not just for Timberland, but for businesses in general?One of the emerging spaces in CSR will be around companies empowering people to extend their awareness about environmental and social responsibility to their individual purchasing decisions. If consumers vote with their dollars to reward companies that are creating sustainable products, they’ll have incentive to create more products that respect the physical environment. The most innovative companies will take it even further—creating products that are built to last and then designed to be recycled and continually reused.

Did Universal Music Group make a mistake? Last month, the world’s largest record label announced that MTV.com would no longer be carrying its artists’ music videos; instead, the label would broadcast on Vevo, the Hulu-for-music-video platform that has been growing in popularity with help from YouTube. Vevo recently became the No. 1 online destination for music entertainment. But today, a new report from comScore shows that MTV has knocked Vevo from the top spot.

According to the report, MTV received more than 53 million unique visitors in August, a 165% uptick in traffic year-over-year. Vevo, on the other hand, garnered 49 million visitors last month.

“Amen, brother,” exclaims Van Toffler, president of MTV Networks’ music group. “It all seems to be clicking.”

What’s remarkable about these figures isn’t the difference in unique visitors, but more so how much MTV has climbed in such a short span. In February, when Vevo became the No. 1 music-enterainment network, MTV sat in fourth place behind MySpace and AOL Music. Since then, they’ve more than doubled their Web traffic, rocketing past all frontrunners. Vevo has certainly continued to grow, but with syndication from YouTube, it’s surprising they weren’t able to maintain their top spot.

Of course, the battle for online music-video supremacy is far from over. And it’s important to remember that while MTV received more visitors than Vevo, not all of the network’s content is devoted to music. Visitors might be more interested in, say, watching Jersey Shore’s The Situation hook up with grenades than watching music videos (sadly, there’s no real video for The Situation’s rap song on either site — MTV posted a YouTube clip of the audio, though). Vevo, on the other hand, is entirely devoted to music videos, a platform aimed at luring more advertisers with higher viewer engagement.

Still, 53 million unique visitors is a big loss of potential impressions, regardless of whether users only stumbled across an artist or music video accidentally while on MTV’s online properties. After all, that’s the same reason Vevo partners with YouTube–to gain access to the video site’s huge user-base.

For Universal, MTV’s increasing popularity indicates that the label may have acted too soon in choosing sides: While they’ve gained from partnering with Vevo, they’ve no doubt also suffered losses through cutting ties with MTV.com.

Asked whether the decision was looking like a mistake, a spokesperson for Universal declined to comment on the record.

“It’s apples to oranges,” says David Kohl, VP of sales and operations at Vevo, referring to the comparison between MTV Networks’ unique visitors and Vevo’s music-specific audience. Kohl said a report coming next week would paint a more accurate portrait
of Vevo’s business. “We’re 100% music-video and music-programming
content–and MTV is not. If someone is truly looking for original music
content, Vevo is by far still No. 1.”

“They didn’t say that in February,” says Toffler, noting that Vevo never raised objections to the very same “apples to oranges” comScore comparison when it was the top music-entertainment site. “There’s no denying the fact that the MTV Networks is now the No. 1 music site online.”

Meanwhile, Warner Music Group, which has been unable to strike a deal with Vevo, recently became full-fledged partners with MTV. In WMG’s last earnings call, chair Edgar Bronfman told investors that the company had signed a deal with MTV to sell ads for the label’s music videos across the network’s digital and mobile platforms. “MTV Networks allows us to monetize this strategy,” he said. Bronfman also stressed that MTV would help the label increase artist visibility online.

“We’re continually in conversations with Warner Music Group,” explains Kohl, of a potential partnership between Vevo and WMG. “I’m not sure why they chose MTV.”

Although labels more and more are taking sides in the Vevo-MTV battle, it’s still unclear who will come out on top. But MTV’s surge in traffic these past few months certainly indicates it’s becoming a worthy competitor.

ARM only just revealed its Coretex A9 chips, it seems–dual-core madness that’ll make next-year’s smartphones and tablet PCs serious competitors to laptops. And now here’s the A15. With four cores. And speeds up to 2.5GHz. “Wow” would seem like a good prediction for how you’ll react to the first smartphones sporting the silicon in 2013(ish).

ARM is pushing the innovations of this chip pretty aggressively: According to the press release, the A15 “MPCore” processor is the “highest-performance licensable processor the industry has ever seen,” offering “unprecedented processing capability, combined with low power consumption.” And where does ARM see its design finding a home? Pretty much everywhere, it seems: From “smartphones, tablets, mobile computing, high-end digital home” products to “servers and wireless infrastructure.” While these latter market segments are fascinating (the low-power chip/server industry is getting pretty exciting, and having powerful ARM chips in wireless systems could transform how we use wire-free Net products) it’s the very first two items in this list that’ll appeal to Joe Q. Consumer.

This is for one reason alone: ARM quotes the abilities of the A15 as enabling “five times the performance” of the current crop of smartphones, thanks to its speedier out-of-order CPU design, four processor cores, clock speeds of 2.5GHz (compared to today’s typical 1GHz) and better support for floating-point calculations and media–meaning it’ll excel at gaming with real-physics abilities and processing full-resolution HD video content. Meanwhile support for an enormous 1TB of RAM won’t affect the smartphone game, where memory price is still a significant factor, but will have big implications for desktop servers/supercomputer applications.

It’s due to be implemented ready for 2013, and Samsung is noted as a “lead licensee.” Since Samsung makes the A4 chip for Apple, and uses similar designs in its own smartphones and tablets, this means we can probably expect our 2013-era market-leading smartphones and tablets to have the following superpowers:

Full-HD video capture and in-device processingFull-HD video-out, possibly higher-resolution to monitorsReal-time 3-D CGi in games, with real physics simulations, and possibly full 3-D renderingDelay-free Web browsing, subject only to network speed limitsAdvanced in-device voice recognition, for either device control or content creationDesktop PC-capability in powerful apps

This is speculative, but reasonable given the current developments in smartphones. Since ARM already has a compelling lead in the mobile devices CPU marketplace, the news about the A15 is also an aggressive shot across the bows of both Intel and AMD. Each of these chip makers, legends in what may now be the “old” paradigm of desktop and portable computing, has fresh chip designs on the board that’re aimed squarely at the mobile and low-power server market–Intel with its future Atom silicon, and AMD with Bobcat.

To keep up with this news follow me, Kit Eaton, on Twitter.

The Jetsons-inspired future that we all dream of inched a little closer to reality today with news that the Terrafugia Transition, a flying car developed by MIT-trained aeronautical engineers and MBA’s, will begin limited production in late 2011. The vehicle will be produced in Woburn, Massachusetts–just down the road from company headquarters–with help from 50 lucky workers who will be able to say that they build the futuristic vehicles we were all promised as kids.

The Boston Herald reports that Terrafugia needs to deliver 30 aircraft each year to stay in the black. That’s not an easy feat for an entirely new breed of vehicle that costs up to $250,000 a pop. But Terrafugia already has 85 orders for the FAA-approved flying car, so the company can at least make a go of it.

It’s street-legal, remember, but that doesn’t mean any public road can be cleared for takeoffs and landings. Still, we’re a little wary of the Transition’s potential to wreak havoc on the roads. Drivers (or pilots) need to have a Sports Pilot license to operate the Transition, but that’s an easy requirement to fulfill–20 hours of flight time and a practical test are all that is needed to become certified. With a cruising speed of 115 mph and a 400 mile-range, there is plenty of room for pilots to enter dangerous airspace, either accidentally or on purpose. So here’s hoping that Terrafugia works out the logistical kinks of this thing before the first big flying car accident.

Ariel Schwartz can be reached on Twitter or by email.