AmigaMMC writes "A man who lost his sight 30 years ago says he can now see flashes of light after being fitted with a bionic eye. Ron, 73, had the experimental surgery seven months ago at London's Moorfield's eye hospital. He says he can now follow white lines on the road, and even sort socks using the bionic eye, known as Argus II. I wouldn't go as far as claiming he regained his sight, but this certainly is a biotechnological breakthrough."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Stats out of the UK say that the number of students taking IT and computer courses is falling. Fewer students are taking IT courses at the GSCE level, or at ages 13-16, and consequently fewer are studying and getting qualifications in it at sixth-form level, or when they're 16-18, and the country's Office for Standards in Education says this is cause for concern given the importance of IT skills in adult working life. It is certainly true that modern, advanced economies demand workers with computer skills, but perhaps the growing pervasiveness of home computers means that students are getting sufficient hands-on training, and don't have as great a need for dedicated computer coursework as they once did? Also, the Office says that the schools doing the best job of teaching IT and computer skills are those that spread computer resources across multiple subjects, and don't use them solely in specific IT courses. One would imagine that students' general computer skills have risen across the board over the last several years, and they pick them up through their other coursework, and of course, their personal lives. Curriculum should adjust to reflect this, and if there is less call for general computer skills, IT coursework should be refocused to provide students interested in IT careers the best base possible from which to work.

Carlo Longino is an expert at the Insight Community. To get insight and analysis from Carlo Longino and other experts on challenges your company faces, click here.

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coondoggie writes with an excerpt from Network World: "Software that for the first time lets users run native copies of the Windows operating systems on a mainframe will be introduced Friday by data center automation vendor Mantissa. The company's z/VOS software is a CMS application that runs on IBM's z/VM and creates a foundation for Intel-based operating systems. Users only need a desktop appliance running Microsoft's Remote Desktop Connection (RDC) client, which is the same technology used to attach to Windows running on Terminal Server or Citrix-based servers. Users will be able to connect to their virtual and fully functional Windows environments without any knowledge that the operating system and the applications are executing on the mainframe and not the desktop."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Ridiculous copyright policies strike again. Phill writes in to let us know that officials from Rail Corporation NSW, a government-run organization that manages the trainlines in Sydney, Australia, are threatening an independent developer who created a super popular train schedule app for the iPhone. The group is claiming that the train schedule is copyrighted information, under Crown copyright, which (for no good reason at all) allows the government to claim copyright on things. This same issue recently came up when Crown copyright was used (abused, actually) to stop Google from providing relevant info on the deadly brushfires in Australia.

This case may be even more ridiculous. The guy created a useful app that many people want. Rather than recognizing the demand for such an app, the railroad is threatening him. Their reasoning? The app might not be accurate. Well, if that was a problem, then people would stop using it. Plus, there are easy solutions: give him access to the real-time data and/or create your own damn iPhone app.

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ThinkGeek and Instructables are running a contest: use any ThinkGeek product to create something wondrous, publish it on Instructables, and enter to win a $250 ThinkGeek gift certificate for the best mod. Two first prize winners will each win a $50 gift certificate and an Instructables Robot t-shirt. Runners-up will win an Instructables t-shirt. Deadline is March 29th.

ThinkGeek Hacks Contest

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bugs2squash writes "Some of the parents of kids at my son's elementary school would like to set up a robotics club for the children. I see that Lego has a new line of robotics bricks called wedo (PDF) and that seems to be the path of least resistance to doing something. But I wanted to ask: What experience do all y'all have of running a robotics club for this age group (5 thru 10 years old) and what factors made it a success (or failure)? Did you use a commercial kit of parts or brew something from scratch? What kind of projects work well with kids this age? I was thinking maybe making robot flowers (yes, I know they'd all rather build robotic sharks with lasers)." (Here's another page about Wedo.)

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

I really want to stop writing stories about clueless newspaper folks making braindead statements about the industry, but it just never stops. The latest is that the former editor of the Scotsman, in Edinburgh (where I'm heading next week), is claiming that democracy can't exist without newspapers. He's upset that the Scotsman has gone downhill apparently -- and that may be the case, but that has little to do with whether or not democracy can or can't exist without a newspaper. The mistake, again (and we keep hearing this) is this weird assumption that without newspapers, it means all news reporting goes away. But that's simply not true.

In fact, we're seeing new reporting startups pop up pretty much every day. The Columbia Journalism Review has a great feature piece written by a long-time foreign correspondent for a variety of newspapers who has built a brand new reporting service that is providing news both on its own site and to a number of other news sources (including some of the newspapers who used to employ him). The fact that newspapers might go away hardly means that journalism goes away -- and it certainly doesn't mean that watchdog efforts go away.

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Flash video embed above, click "full" icon inside the player to view it large. You can download the MP4 here. Our YouTube channel is here, you can subscribe to our daily video podcast on iTunes here. Get Twitter updates every time there's a new ep by following @boingboingvideo, and here are the archives for Boing Boing Video.

---

A disclaimer for the capitalist entertainment pellet above: This Boing Boing Video episode is a paid ad for Cheetos. This is also the 5th in a 6-part series (only one more left!) of security bulletins from the long-lost Communist enclave of Soviet Unterzoegersdorf.

IN THIS EPISODE:

Analysis completed. Agents realize they've been duped. Destruction commences.

(Archival footage note: footage in this episode includes a brief clip from 'Cartoon Control Room," an '80s public access show created by a guy named Tim Arnold. This footage is public domain, via archive.org. )

Hugh Pickens writes "California Assemblyman Joel Anderson plans to introduce a bill to force Google Earth and similar services to blur images of so-called 'soft targets' like schools, hospitals, churches and government buildings to protect them from terrorists. 'All I'm trying to do is stop terrorists,' said Anderson. 'I don't want California to be helping map out future targets for terrorists.' Concerns that detailed satellite imagery and photographs available on Web services could help terrorists plan attacks are not new, with reports that terrorists have used such imagery to carry out attacks in Iraq and Israel, and an Indian court is considering a ban on Google Earth following reports that its imagery played a part in the Mumbai terrorist attacks."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

SPOILER ALERT! Hitler finds out about new Watchmen ending (YouTube, thanks, Coop!)

neilticktin writes "MacTech performed an exhaustive set of benchmarks comparing Parallels Desktop 4 to VMWare Fusion 2 to run Windows on a Mac. To tackle this problem, MacTech undertook a huge benchmarking project starting in December — over 2500 tests by stopwatch. The goal was to see how the recent versions of VMWare Fusion and Parallels Desktop performed on different levels of Mac hardware, using XP, Vista, 64-bit, multi-procs, games, etc. ... As usual, results vary by what's important to you."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Mike C. writes "Hasbro is at it again. I've been a reader of Randy Cassignham's This is True for several years now. Among other things, he offers a "Get Out of Hell Free" card - a parody of the Monopoly Get Out of Jail Free card. Back in 2000, he received a cease & desist (postage due!) and after some discussion, altered the card to include a "not endorsed by Hasbro" line. At that time, they decided not to pursue the matter any further. Fast forward to 2009 and they "recently became aware that you are offering for sale "Last Chance - Get Out of Hell Free" cards and stickers on your website." Wait, recently?? I guess times are tough for the Hasbro lawyers and they're looking to drum up some more business. Randy has been kind enough to post the full story to his website starting with the original action in 2000 and ending with the 2009 cease and desist."

It seems pretty clear that Hasbro's lawyers have a bit too much free time on their hands (perhaps now that they're done killing off interest in online Scrabble). You would think, at some point, management at Hasbro would recognize that sending their lawyers off on such wild goose chases not only increases the legal bill, but also does tremendous damage to the Hasbro brand.

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eldavojohn writes "There's no lack of news surrounding the settlement of Google's controversial move to digitize books — but how do you even start this endeavor? A New York Times story reveals the obstacles they face just to get the word out that they want to settle with publishers and authors everywhere. They turned to a world-wide ad campaign to start the $125 million settlement process and they're spending $7 million to $8 million in paper print ads and telephone hot-lines (handling 80+ languages) to reach as many people as possible. From the article: 'We looked at how many books were published in various areas and we knew from the plaintiffs and Google that 30 percent were published in the U.S., 30 percent in industrialized countries. The rest of the world is the rest.' That's quite the herculean task! Hopefully Google's efforts in digitizing books will breathe new life and revenue into authors and publishers the world over."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Massive gallery of Robots - The Big Picture @ Boston.com....

Robotic systems continue to evolve, slowly penetrating many areas of our lives, from manufacturing, medicine and remote exploration to entertainment, security and personal assistance. Developers in Japan are currently building robots to assist the elderly, while NASA develops the next generation of space explorers, and artists are exploring new avenues of entertainment. Collected here are a handful of images of our recent robotic past, and perhaps a glimpse into the near future.

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CooksDen wanted to know whether organic food really does taste better. To prevent bias, they used Hammy the Hamster as a test subject. The video is darn cute. Follow the link for the results of the experiment. "Hammy the Hamster Goes Organic" (via Geek Dad, thanks Shawn Connally!)

KentuckyFC writes "In 1987, a physicist called Joe Weber claimed to have detected gravitational waves at the same time that other scientists spotted a supernova called SN1987A. His claims were largely ignored because of calculations showing that gravitational waves could not be strong enough to be picked up by Weber's equipment, a set of giant aluminium cylinders designed to vibrate as the waves passed by. But these calculations were based on first order effects in the way spacetime can be distorted. Now a new analysis shows that second order effects can enhance gravitational waves by four orders of magnitude, but only when certain asymmetries are present. It turns out that SN1987A possesses just the right kind of asymmetries to make this enhancement possible because the supernova wasn't entirely spherical. Which means that Weber, who died in 2000, may have been the first to see gravitational waves after all."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

GamePolitics alerts us to the rather ridiculous situation in Nebraska, where state officials were investigating some librarians for buying a PlayStation 2 and Rock Band set for use in the library. Considering all of the questions over the past few years about keeping libraries relevant in an age of computers and the internet, attracting kids with a fun game seems like a pretty good idea... but not to Nebaska's state auditor. In fact, the very point that it was fun for kids was seen as a bad thing:

The purchase of gaming equipment is a questionable use of public funds. It is common knowledge that children enjoy games and toys, so there appears to have been little need to purchase the games.

Instead, public funds should apparently only be used on things that kids hate and that won't get them interested in coming to the library at all!

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Earlier this year, Larry Emanuel Whitfield of Charlotte, North Carolina broke into a woman's home and literally scared her to death. Mary Parnell, 79, died of a fear- and stress-induced heart attack. Scientific American asked Martin A. Samules, chairman of the neurology department at Brigham and Women's Hospital in Boston, to weigh in on the story. From SciAm:

How does that (someone get scared to death)?
The body has a natural protective mechanism called the fight-or-flight response, which was originally described by Walter Cannon [chairman of Harvard University's physiology department from 1906 to 1942]. If, in the wild, an animal is faced with a life-threatening situation, the autonomic (involuntary) nervous system responds by increasing heart rate, increasing blood flow to the muscles, dilating the pupils, and slowing digestion, among other things. All of this increases the chances of succeeding in a fight or running away from, say, an aggressive jaguar. This process certainly would be of help to primitive humans, but the problem, of course, is that in the modern world there is very limited advantage of the fight-or-flight response. There is a downside to revving up your nervous system like this...

What other emotional states besides fear could lead to these fatal heart rhythms? Any strong positive or negative emotions such as happiness or sadness. There are people who have died in intercourse or in religious passion. There was a case of a golfer who hit a hole in one, turned to his partner and said, "I can die now"—and then he dropped dead. A study in Germany found an increase of sudden cardiac deaths on the days that the German soccer team was playing in the World Cup. For about seven days after the 9/11 terrorists attacks on the World Trade Center and Pentagon there was an increase of sudden cardiac death among New Yorkers.

"Can a person be scared to death?" (SciAm)
"Suspect in case of Gaston County woman 'scared to death' pleads not guilty, faces federal trial" (Gaston Gazette)

carusoj writes "The folks at iRobot apparently have plenty of time on their hands. They created a prototype wireless, robotic vacuum cleaner... powered by a hamster running inside a spinning ball. The rodent's movements with the ball are fed to and analyzed by a complex set of sensors, which then guide the actual vacuum device to mimic the animal's speed and direction. You can see where this is going: it's a clever ploy to then get you to buy a second robot that would automatically feed, water, and clean up after the hamster in the first robot."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Here's a smart, easy, and fun reconfigurable marble course, made from PVC plumbing pipe, magnets, and a framed metal board. Kids can change the track shapes as they please.

Sent to us by Jack McKee of Hands-on Books.

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Tom says:

When I bought my house last summer, this sticker was on the front door. I never bothered to actually read it until I decided to replace the door.

Sure, I knew it was a possibility, but I never thought they'd be so blatant about it!

I really like this clever graffiti found in Bristol. Oysterism posted this one and several more from the always-great Wooster Collective site. "As Seen On The Streets"

The Black Rock Arts Foundation is accepting grant proposals from now through March 13th. To give you an idea of the types of projects they fund, here are some words from the site:

"We fund interactive art. We fund art that is accessible to the public, civic in scope and prompts the viewer to act. We like art that can be experienced in more ways than visually. We are fans of art that is meant to be touched, heard or experienced, as well as viewed. We prioritize funding art that involves the audience in its creation and presentation.

Black Rock Arts Foundation gives grants to individual artists or artist collectives that create interactive artworks destined for communities in the world at large; there are no geographic restrictions placed on those who can apply."

Pictured above is 2008 grant winner The Giving Tree by Archaic Customs. Other 2008 winners include the Sanlun Yishu by Lee Somers and Elisabeth Pellathy:

More information and forms are available on the BRAF site.

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MAKE presents: The Capacitor from make magazine on Vimeo.

Collin Cunningham of MAKE made this terrific video that explains what a capacitor is and how to make your own.

In January, Collin produced a similar video about LEDs.

(Via Why, That's Delightful!)

Technorati Tags: Animals

Tomorrow, Antiquorum Auctioneers will put some of Mahatma Gandhi's few personal possessions on the auction block, including his eyeglasses, pocket watch, and sandals. Naturally, India wants the items for public display and if eleventh-hour negotiations with the collector don't end well, the country might bid on the objects. From the AFP:

"We have asked our embassy in Washington and Consulate General of India in New York to do everything that is required through the bidding process or otherwise," junior foreign minister Anand Sharma said.

Antiquorum has insisted the sale will go ahead and put an estimate of 20,000 to 30,000 dollars on the items, which will sell as a single lot.

The final price is expected to be considerably higher, partly thanks to the publicity generated by the row in India over the sale.

"Indian diplomats work to secure Gandhi auction items"

Well, this is neat. About the video above, one of our viewers/readers writes:

My name is Nick Harmer and I play the bass guitar in Death Cab for Cutie. I'm writing to you because Bill Barminski of Walter Robot fame just informed me that you'd be posting something about the video they recently completed for our song "Grapevine Fires" on Boing Boing.

Nick is right, and that amazing video is embedded above. Feast your eyes, mutants! I asked Nick to talk with us a little more about how the video came to be, and he very kindly obliged. He continues,

I couldn't be more excited that you might post something about our video, because, actually, to be completely honest, you are responsible for pairing Death Cab for Cutie with Walter Robot in a cupid sort of way, whether you know it or not.

I personally am a avid reader of Boing Boing while off the road and on the road, and seriously, you and the Boing Boing gang are responsible for many, many smiles in my life, thank you for that.

Last November you posted an item on Boing Boing tv about the Walter Robot video for Gnarls Barkley's Mystery Man and when I saw that clip, I knew that Walter Robot was the answer. Especially for our song "Grapevine Fires." So thank you again and again, Xeni, for not only enriching my life on personal level but on a professional level too. I'm not sure I would have discovered Walter Robot without your help.

Wow. I'm a massive fan of Death Cab, as are my fellow bloggers and Boing Boing video production colleagues, so -- Nick, you just blew my/our minds. Thank you! He continues:

During our last album, entitled Plans, I got frustrated with the amount of sometimes suffocating input that bands and labels felt they needed to give to filmmakers making videos, so along with my friend, director Aaron Stewart-Ahn, we came up with a concept to have 11 different filmmakers direct a video for each song on our album. The set up was simple, a lower budget with complete creative control. We held the line that no matter what you make as a filmmaker we will stand behind as a band. The "Directions" project as it was called turned out beautifully and the videos that were made surpassed anything we could have hoped for. So it made sense to keep this hands off philosophy for the videos for our newest album Narrow Stairs as well.

After seeing the Mystery Man video on Boing Boing (and other Walter Robot shorts, too) I just had a hunch that Walter Robot's style would be a perfect fit for our song "Grapevine Fires." When I first spoke with Bill and Christopher, I really had no specific direction in mind. I told them that I felt like we would have to match the lyrics somehow, without being too literal and that I really wanted their animation style to remain fragile and delicate amidst such a tragic song. At first I was worried about how they would walk the line that the song holds.

(Nick's email continues after the jump! - XJ)

Sure the song is ostensibly about the imminent threat of a wildfire, but it also about hope, about moving forward and carrying on despite the chance of destruction. I think Ben's lyrics really capture that feeling of hope-despite-tragedy and that is a tricky thing to depict visually without going way over the top or straying into cliche and even more tricky to capture with animation. So I have to give all the credit to Walter Robot team for not only coming up with a compelling unique story but a story that doesn't pull the sentiment of the song too far from it's original expression either. They really did strike the perfect balance between giving emotional weight and being too heavy handed.

I had my initial conversations about direction, mood, and tone with the Walter Robot guys in late November/ early December but after that first round of basically telling them what we didn't want, I didn't hear from them until late January when then shared a snippet of what they had been working on.

I about cried. It was so beyond what I could have ever hoped for, like the best ever birthday present I didn't even know I wanted. There is always some level of gamble when you give someone complete creative freedom, and I was so relived that Walter Robot nailed it.

To be honest, it wasn't a unanimous celebration, I do remember in that first snippet there were the first appearances of the words floating through the scenes. There was some debate at the label about the use of words in the video, about whether they detracted from the song or had too much personality, but ultimately, our philosophy from the Directions project held. If Walter Robot wants words, then the band wants words too. And really, I see them as vital to the overall tone and mood of this video.

Our manager Jordan Kurland and I were so excited about the snippet that we didn't even send it along to the rest of the band members to see. We wanted Walter Robot to finish it completely and then show everyone the final version in one sitting.

So really, this was the perfect collaboration. We made the music and Walter Robot made the video, and the two expressions married together beautifully, everyone on the band side of things could not be happier, this video is truly amazing and it is an honor that the Walter Robot team made it for us.

narramissic writes "Patent reform legislation was introduced yesterday (PDF), which, if it passes, would be the first major overhaul of US patent law in more than 50 years. (It should be noted that the new legislation is very similar to the Patent Reform Act of 2007, which died on the Senate floor last year.) The legislation would bring US patent law in line with global laws, and introduce 'reasonable royalty' provisions, which change the way damages are calculated and would reduce the likelihood of massive payouts for some patent holders. Representatives from Google, HP and Intel were quick to say that the changes would cut down on frivolous patent lawsuits. But the Innovation Alliance, a group representing patent-holders that oppose the legislation, said that it would 'devalue all patents, invite infringement — including from companies in China, India and other countries — and generate more litigation that will further strain the courts.'"

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Enjoy these audio recordings of a Florida woman who repeatedly called 911 to report a problem with a Chicken McNuggets order at a McDonalds restaurant.

Told McDonald’s was out of Chicken McNuggets after paying for a 10-piece meal, a local woman called 911.

Three times.

“This is an emergency, If I would have known they didn’t have McNuggets, I wouldn’t have given my money, and now she wants to give me a McDouble, but I don’t want one,” Latreasa L. Goodman told police. “This is an emergency.”

Latreasa L. Goodman has been charged with misuse of the 911 service and must appear in court.

UPDATE: Woman who called 911 in McNuggets flap to get refund, free meal

Fort Pierce woman calls 911 three times when McNuggets run out (Via Arbroath)

A California politician has introduced some legislation that would require companies like Google that offer "street view" photographs of certain areas to blur images of certain buildings, including schools, gov't buildings, churches and hospitals. The argument is that such photos allow terrorists to plan attacks. Next up, we're wondering if Assemblyman Joel Anderson will also demand that we blur reality. Anyone can walk by these buildings in public (like Google did) and take a photo. Unless he's going to force all cameras to take blurry images, it seems pretty ridiculous to think that this law makes sense. If terrorists are going to attack a building, they'll figure out a way to do so whether or not some of the images are online (and, as some have pointed out, most of these buildings have photos online already... on their own websites). It's really getting ridiculous seeing politicians freak out about a technology just because it could be used for terrorism.

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James Hamilton of Econbrowser puts a trillion dollars into perspective this way:

A trillion dollars is about the total amount collected in [individual] income taxes by the U.S. federal government in fiscal year 2006-- $1.04 trillion, if you're curious to use the exact number. That gives me a simple rule of thumb for personalizing these numbers. If I want to know what an additional trillion dollars in government borrowing or spending will mean for me, I just imagine what it would be like to pay twice as much in federal income taxes for one year.

So, for example, with the President's proposed budget calling for deficits of $1.75 trillion for 2009 and an additional $1.17 trillion for 2010, after 3 years of paying twice as much as I paid in 2006, I'd have about paid off my share of the bill for the first two years of the proposal.

But a commenter on his site has another way of looking at it:

I think this is really misleading since it assumes you would double all equal tax rates equally and pay for the whole thing in 1 year -- which is downright silly.

The top tax bracket is 35% - it was 92% in 1952. A tiny change in the top tax bracket (like 3%... I mean we are talking about adjusted gross income over $357K) would generate $1 trillion in revenue in only a few years. I mean you should know this since that's how we got rid of our > $1 trillion surplus. Or alter corporte income tax accounting rules to raise a miniscule amount from corporations.

How much is a trillion?

PMA 2009: General Imaging has introduced nine new cameras at PMA. Top of the line is the 12.2 megapixels X3 with 12x optical zoom (33-396mm equiv), 2.7" LCD and Image stabilization. Next we have the waterproof G3WP with a 12.2Mp sensor and 2.7” LCD. Then come the E1255W, E1250TW and image stabilized E1276W; all with 28mm lenses, 12.2 Mp sensors and 3 inch LCDs (touch screen in the E1250TW). Lastly, we have the A950, A1050, A1035 and A1250 budget cameras with 9.1, 10.1, 10.1 and 12.2Mp sensors respectively and 2.5" LCDs. The cameras include new features including Blink, Smile and Face detection, Scene Recognition and In-camera red-eye removal.

TechForensics writes "Outliers, by Malcolm Gladwell, is subtitled "the story of success". It is a book that purports to explain why some people succeed far more than others. It suggests that a success like Bill Gates is more attributable to external factors than anything within the man. Even his birth date turns out to play a role of profound importance in the success of Bill Gates and Microsoft Corporation." Look below for the rest of Leon's review.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

A man was checking out a new wallet at a Cape Cod Walmart on Saturday but was surprised to find 10 human teeth inside. One of the teeth had a filling. The man informed the store and then left. How silly! He could have gotten 10 free teeth for the price of the wallet! The company is investigating. From the Cape Cod Times:

The wallet still had the original tags on it, but police said they cannot perform DNA tests because there was no blood and no gum tissue on the teeth...

Police are hoping the unidentified male shopper comes forward to answer questions. Anyone else with information regarding the teeth can contact Falmouth police Det. James Pires at...

"Man discovers human teeth in new wallet" (via Fortean Times)

I've recently come across two separate studies concerning file sharing -- that seem to come to vastly different conclusions. The first, as pointed out by Michael Scott, is a very long (128 pages), but very thorough research report analyzing pretty much everything having to do with file sharing in the Netherlands, commissioned by the government. It studies the economic angles, the legal angles, the cultural angles -- and then compares the local results to international results. While you might quibble with some of the methodology here or there, the overall conclusions of the report are pretty strong and clear: file sharing is not a problem for the overall industry. File sharing has, in fact, created a net benefit to the economy and society in both the short and long term, and that will likely continue. The direct impact on sales of file sharing is minimal (though it depends on the category). In fact, the only areas actually in trouble right now may be the sale of plastic discs (CDs and DVDs), but much of the damage has nothing to do with file sharing, and there are indications that the "lost" money can be made up in other ways. The report recommends moving away from criminalizing user activities, and focusing instead on encouraging new business model development. A quick excerpt from the conclusions:

The short-term net welfare effects of file sharing are strongly positive given that it is practised by consumers whose demand is driven by a lack of purchasing power. To the extent that file sharing results in a decline in sales, we see a transfer of welfare from operators/producers to consumers, with no net welfare effect.

The market for CDs and the market for DVD/VHS rentals are the only sectors of the entertainment industry that are suffering from a slump in sales. Whereas this may be attributed in part to file-sharing activity, file sharing is not solely to blame for the decline. The markets for DVDs and console games continued grow impressively after P2P services were introduced, and the cinema market showed sustained growth between 1999 and 2007. The total entertainment market has remained more or less constant, suggesting budget competition among the various products.

As long as the markets for games and films are on the rise or remain stable, there is little reason for concern that the diversity and accessibility of content is at stake. File sharing has significantly enhanced access to a wide and diverse range of products, albeit that access tends not to have the approval of the copyright holders.

In other words, pretty much everything that plenty of folks around here have been saying for a better part of a decade is pretty much true. File sharing isn't damaging -- and, in fact, can represent a net economic improvement, and the business troubles faced by a few small parts of the industry are really business model challenges, rather than legal ones. The report makes it clear that focusing on legal solutions to dealing with file sharing is a big mistake that tends to only backfire and seems to be totally misdirected.

So, what's the other study? It's also quite long, but is full of fear mongering about piracy. It just so happens to be funded by the movie studios claiming that piracy is helping to promote terrorism -- and because of that, the US government needs to devote stunning levels of new resources to stopping piracy at all costs. So what does this report recommend?

• Fully funding and implementing the PRO-IP Act (PL 110-403), which toughens civil and criminal laws against counterfeiting and piracy, provides enhanced IP enforcement and prosecutorial resources, and improves IP coordination within the executive branch.
• Supporting the introduction, passage and enactment of a Customs and Border Protection Reauthorization bill to better address trafficking in illicit goods.
• Supporting the Baucus-Hatch legislative improvements to the USTR's Special 301 process to help deal with other countries that fail to live up to their international IP obligations.
• Concluding negotiations for a substantive and enforceable Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement (ACTA) with major trading partners.
• Pursuing trade agreements with strong global IP protections.
• Expanding U.S. leadership on IP protection within the G8, the Security and Prosperity Partnership for North America, and other bilateral and multilateral frameworks.
• Building coalitions in favor of strong IP protections at international organizations, such as the World Health Organization, World Intellectual Property Organization, and U.N. Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC).
• Engaging Beijing to improve China's IP legal and regulatory regimes through the implementation of new patent, trademark and copyright laws.
• Pursuing reforms on data exclusivity, incremental innovation and optical discs legislation in India.
• Working towards improved retail and copyright enforcement in Russia, as well as the successful implementation of IP reform through Part IV of its Civil Code. 

Which of the two reports is more credible? Which do you think will have more impact on government policy in the next year or so? The answers to both questions are unfortunately obvious and extremely disappointing.

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While many of us wish we lived in the world promised to us by the sci-fi movies and shows we grew up with, so far, here in the 21st century, we have a robot that sort of vacuums an uncluttered living space and runty humanoid toybots that make fart jokes. Hey, it's a start.

But for those of us with vivid imaginations, and a few handily-available tech-savvy pals, we can at least build replicas of the bots we grew up with. In a group, you'll feel slightly less ashamed as you find yourself carrying on conversations and imagine intergalactic adventures with your home-built mock-ups of R2D2 and the Dalek mutants from Dr. Who.

You obviously don't need to be part of a club to build a sci-fi robot replica, but it's more fun that way. And most every robot that you'd care to make: R2D2, Daleks, B9 from Lost in Space, Wall-E -- they all have avid building clubs. Some of these clubs are virtual, online communities that share technical help, building tips, parts, and support, others are local and meet in person. As usual, for exploring what resources are available to you, an Internet search engine is your best friend. Here are some of the builder clubs that we're aware of.

R2D2 Builder Clubs

One of the more professional bot builder clubs out there is Astromech, a club where members build all of the Astromechs in the R-series, as seen in the Star Wars movies and in other Star Wars media. It's all in good fun, but these geeks take their bot building very seriously. If you've ever seen any of these bots in person, they are alarmingly realistic and it's hard not to relate to them like they're the "real" thing. Astromech even puts out a slick downloadable PDF magazine, called R-Series, though they've only produced three issues in four years (but then, most of the information in them remains useful).

Astromech: The Official Website of the R2-D2 Builders Club

While the folks at Astromech do get together for face to face gatherings, the club attracts an international membership. An example of a local R2D2 club is the Washington DC Metro Area R2D2 Builders Club. Like a lot of R2 and other bot building clubs, members also build other sci-fi bots, like the popular B9 from Lost in Space. And like most such clubs, they show off their bots at public, science and technology, and charity events. Turns out, robots make excellent public service ambassadors.

Washington DC Metro Area R2D2 Builders Club

B9 Builders Clubs

The first sci-fi robot clubs I ever heard about were for building the wacky and wise-cracking B9 robot from Irwin Allen's series Lost in Space. When I was a kid, I wanted to interact with the real B9 so bad, it hurt. I would've been just as happy to have one of the facsimiles these builders lovingly construct. The B9 Builders Club boasts hundreds of members worldwide. Like a lot of these clubs, many of the builders sell or barter parts or kits with other builders, and all of that negotiating is mediated through the club's website.

BTW: Sci-fi robot geeks will want to check out the interview on the B9 Robot Builder's Club site with Robert Kinoshita, designer of the B9 (and Robbie the Robot), who is now his mid 90s. BTW: He called the B9 "Blinky."

B9 Robot Builder Club

Robbie the Robot Builders Clubs

Sadly, there actually are no Robbie the Robot building clubs, but there are Robbie builders. Many of the B9 clubs also build Robbies, as Robbie the Robot was also designed by Robert Kinoshita.

Dalek Builders Clubs

DalekCity is home to the UK-based Dalek Builders Guild. The site offers Dalek plans, building tips, build diaries from club members, a showcase of member's robots, all sorts of other goodies. This is a great place to start if you decide you want to build one of these Kaled mutant exo-skeletons.

DalekCity

Project Dalek is another amazingly well-done site of information and resources related to Dalek Building. They even offer a free downloadable manual in PDF format that details everything you need to know to build The Time Lord's arch nemesis.

Project Dalek

Wall-E Builders Clubs

It seemed like within days of Pixar's Wall-E premiering in theaters, Wall-E robot builds were starting to pop up on the Web. Like a lot of the bots covered here, it's great character within the robot that makes people relate so strongly and want to bring these machines to life. Wall-E offered appealing character in spades.

Wallebuilders bill themselves as the original Wall-E Builders Club. It's a Yahoo Group. They also maintain a YouTube Channel as well detailing various aspects of building Wall-E replica robots.

Wallebuilders

---

Editor's note: We're extremely pleased that Cheetos is a sponsor on MAKE! Each week we have a fun "Take a Break with Cheetos" sponsored post for part of the day, only the links below are part of the campaign - we're having fun with this! This week, we geek out with robot toys for grown-up girls and boys! - Gareth

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While many of us wish we lived in the world promised to us by the sci-fi movies and shows we grew up with, so far, here in the 21st century, we have a robot that sort of vacuums an uncluttered living space and runty humanoid toybots that make fart jokes. Hey, it's a start.

But for those of us with vivid imaginations, and a few handily-available tech-savvy pals, we can at least build replicas of the bots we grew up with. In a group, you'll feel slightly less ashamed as you find yourself carrying on conversations and imagine intergalactic adventures with your home-built mock-ups of R2D2 and the Dalek mutants from Dr. Who.

You obviously don't need to be part of a club to build a sci-fi robot replica, but it's more fun that way. And most every robot that you'd care to make: R2D2, Daleks, B9 from Lost in Space, Wall-E -- they all have avid building clubs. Some of these clubs are virtual, online communities that share technical help, building tips, parts, and support, others are local and meet in person. As usual, for exploring what resources are available to you, an Internet search engine is your best friend. Here are some of the builder clubs that we're aware of.

R2D2 Builder Clubs

One of the more professional bot builder clubs out there is Astromech, a club where members build all of the Astromechs in the R-series, as seen in the Star Wars movies and in other Star Wars media. It's all in good fun, but these geeks take their bot building very seriously. If you've ever seen any of these bots in person, they are alarmingly realistic and it's hard not to relate to them like they're the "real" thing. Astromech even puts out a slick downloadable PDF magazine, called R-Series, though they've only produced three issues in four years (but then, most of the information in them remains useful).

Astromech: The Official Website of the R2-D2 Builders Club

While the folks at Astromech do get together for face to face gatherings, the club attracts an international membership. An example of a local R2D2 club is the Washington DC Metro Area R2D2 Builders Club. Like a lot of R2 and other bot building clubs, members also build other sci-fi bots, like the popular B9 from Lost in Space. And like most such clubs, they show off their bots at public, science and technology, and charity events. Turns out, robots make excellent public service ambassadors.

Washington DC Metro Area R2D2 Builders Club

B9 Builders Clubs

The first sci-fi robot clubs I ever heard about were for building the wacky and wise-cracking B9 robot from Irwin Allen's series Lost in Space. When I was a kid, I wanted to interact with the real B9 so bad, it hurt. I would've been just as happy to have one of the facsimiles these builders lovingly construct. The B9 Builders Club boasts hundreds of members worldwide. Like a lot of these clubs, many of the builders sell or barter parts or kits with other builders, and all of that negotiating is mediated through the club's website.

BTW: Sci-fi robot geeks will want to check out the interview on the B9 Robot Builder's Club site with Robert Kinoshita, designer of the B9 (and Robbie the Robot), who is now his mid 90s. BTW: He called the B9 "Blinky."

B9 Robot Builder Club

Robbie the Robot Builders Clubs

Sadly, there actually are no Robbie the Robot building clubs, but there are Robbie builders. Many of the B9 clubs also build Robbies, as Robbie the Robot was also designed by Robert Kinoshita.

Dalek Builders Clubs

DalekCity is home to the UK-based Dalek Builders Guild. The site offers Dalek plans, building tips, build diaries from club members, a showcase of member's robots, all sorts of other goodies. This is a great place to start if you decide you want to build one of these Kaled mutant exo-skeletons.

DalekCity

Project Dalek is another amazingly well-done site of information and resources related to Dalek Building. They even offer a free downloadable manual in PDF format that details everything you need to know to build The Time Lord's arch nemesis.

Project Dalek

Wall-E Builders Clubs

It seemed like within days of Pixar's Wall-E premiering in theaters, Wall-E robot builds were starting to pop up on the Web. Like a lot of the bots covered here, it's great character within the robot that makes people relate so strongly and want to bring these machines to life. Wall-E offered appealing character in spades.

Wallebuilders bill themselves as the original Wall-E Builders Club. It's a Yahoo Group. They also maintain a YouTube Channel as well detailing various aspects of building Wall-E replica robots.

Wallebuilders

---

Editor's note: We're extremely pleased that Cheetos is a sponsor on MAKE! Each week we have a fun "Take a Break with Cheetos" sponsored post for part of the day, only the links below are part of the campaign - we're having fun with this! This week, we geek out with robot toys for grown-up girls and boys! - Gareth

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An anonymous reader writes "A small software company is claiming that Red Hat's JBoss open source middleware violates one of its patents and is asking a court to stop Red Hat from distributing the product. Software Tree LLC claims that JBoss infringes on its database patent for "exchanging data and commands between an object oriented system and a relational system." Software Tree's partners include Microsoft, and that the suit was filed in Eastern Texas, which is known as a plaintiff's paradise for patent actions."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Issue #7 of FLURB, Rudy Rucker's astoundingly awesome free sf zine, has just hit the net, with a collection of stories from some of my favorite authors, including a collaboration between Rudy and John Shirley, and work by Madeline Ashby and Terry Bisson. Also, a great story from Richard Kadrey, "Trembling Blue Stars."

I was sitting at the counter, drinking espresso and smoking Gauloises at the Hellas Basin Cafe on Rozhdestvenka Street in Moscow.

The day before, we’d been riding the veer, ferrying supplies to an ASEAN research facility deep in the Oort Cloud. It was pleasant to be back on Earth. During each veer run, when time-space turned psychotic and the heavy rad poured in, we would go null and let our guests do the driving. These petit morts moments were necessary for deep space travel. Dying wasn’t such a bad thing if you knew that cigarettes and strong coffee would be waiting for you when it was over.

A woman walked up behind me and said, “Those black lines across your knuckles and the backs of your hands. I know what those tattoos mean.”

FLURB

Can you identify this? The Stanford UNiversity School of Medicine posted a "Medical Mysteries" set to Flickr. These are photos that the Lane Medical Archive has no information about: what/who is seen in the photos, what exactly they're doing, etc. Can you help?
"Medical Mysteries"

A 42-year-old man in Chatham-Kent, Ontario, Canada called police to report that he had been robbed of almost an ounce of pot. From the North Bay Nugget:

The man has a certificate from the federal government to possess and use marijuana for medicinal purposes.

He told officers that he noticed his drugs were missing after a number of friends left his home.

"Man asks cops: Please find my marijuana"

Discussing immigration policy around here is something of a "third rail" item. No matter how many times we explain the importance of bringing smart, educated immigrants into the US, we end up getting a long stream of ignorant comments from people who mistakenly claim that these foreign workers "steal jobs." This is not true. In fact, the opposite is true. Jobs are not a zero sum game. A smart, highly skilled worker helps create new jobs. And... if we hinder them from getting jobs in this country, they end up going to (or staying in) another country, where they compete with American companies, often causing a much greater job loss, as business moves to that foreign company rather than the American company. And yet too many people who can't see past the first move in the chain of events insist that bringing highly skilled foreigners into this country is bad.

Well, they should celebrate, because a growing number of those highly skilled foreigners are going back to their home countries from the US. Despite the fact that these are the folks most likely to create jobs by making companies more successful and starting their own companies, some seem to think it's a good thing that these folks are, instead, creating those jobs and those successful companies elsewhere. If they thought about it, they would realize that by keeping these highly skilled individuals out (or pushing them to leave when they're here) that we're actually destroying American jobs. We're encouraging job creation to happen elsewhere rather than in the US, just because some short-sighted individuals think only about a single job opening, rather than about how job creation and economic growth occurs.

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palmsolo writes "The Amazon Kindle 2 just started shipping last week, but Amazon surprised everyone late on March 3rd by placing the Amazon Kindle software for the iPhone in the Apple App Store. With the Whispersync technology you can now keep your Kindle and iPhone ebooks in sync and read everywhere you go. Readers on the iPhone also now get access to over 200,000 ebook titles on the Amazon Kindle storefront. Check out the hands-on image gallery and video of the Amazon Kindle software on the iPhone and Kindle 2."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

An anonymous reader writes "I am a trek fan and excited about the new movie, but this is too much. From the Trek Movie Article: 'Genki Wear, known for its licensed science fiction jewelry and perfumes, has produced what might be the most unusual Star Trek product ever: Star Trek colognes and perfume based on the original 1960s television show. ... There are three fragrances planned for 2009 with the monikers 'Tiberius," "Red Shirt" and "Ponn Farr."'" Are they telling us we stink?

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

We're bringing a mini Maker Shed to O'Reilly's Emerging Technology Conference next week (March 9-12, 2009) in San Jose, with kits, demos, and more. Conference attendees will be getting a t-shirt with plenty of blank space, and they can drop into the Maker Shed and apply some of the transfers we'll have available. We'll also have the LilyPad Arduino for sale and the LilyPad E-Sewing Kit, so you can take this whole modding thing as far as you want.

Also, there's a big old stackable discount you can apply to ETech: early bird pricing is in effect until March 8, and you can get 40% off that already low price if you register with the code et09ffd (this code is only good until Sunday, March 8).

Maker Shed @ ETech

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YouTube user lovelikerobots added lights to a neck-warmer a friend made for him and used a LilyPad Arduino and light sensor to make the lights blink when it's dark. He's got warmth, instant bike safety, not to mention style. Via Fashioning Technology.

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Marilyn sends us this, a trailer for "Megumi Sasaki's award-winning documentary about the Vogels, who used Dorothy's librarian salary for living expenses and Herb's postal clerk salary to buy art, amassing a collection of 4,000 important works. They plan to distribute 2,500 pieces of the collection, sending 50 works to each of 50 states."

Update: Aurelie sez, "the clip you've posted on the Vogels is misattributed: it is not Sasaki's trailer, but is from the Indianapolis Museum of Art."

Herb and Dorothy Vogel (Thanks, Marilyn!)

In the first nine episodes of Make: television, we've profiled photographers, visual artists, pyrotechnic sculptors, kinetic wave sculptors, bicyclists, steampunkers, musicians, and conservationists.

Check out the Maker Profile on Make: television this weekend, March 7th, to see Syuzi Pakhchyan and some of her amazing wearable creations. Syuzi is one of the very first Makers of electric fashion, and her space age clothing explorations capture the best of DIY and the Maker spirit.

Learn more about Syuzi Pakhchyan and high-tech fashion at SparkLab.

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Aggy from Amnesty UK sez,

1 in 10 women in Britain experience rape or other violence and one in four local authorities leave female victims of violence without the specialised support they need.

This is just an example of some pretty shocking statistics revealed by the new report 'Map of Gaps 2', launched by The End Violence Against Women coalition and the Equality and Human Rights Commission.

As International Women's Day is coming up this week, Amnesty UK is rallying online communities to do something about this disgraceful lack of services simply by asking thousands of you on Facebook and Myspace to update your avatars and statuses at 1:10 on Friday 6th March.

The status update is: Each year, 1 in 10 women in Britain experience rape or other violence. Act now. http://www.oneten.org.uk

On Twitter, change your profile picture to the oneten avatar and use #1in10 to spread the message. The idea is that once you've updated your status, your mates will click on the link and take action for women in Britain. Then they will change their statuses, their mates will click through and take action, and before you know it there will enough services for women across Britain.

Each year, around 1 in 10 women in Britain experience rape or other violence (Thanks, Aggy!)

This is hardly a surprise, as it's been expected for quite a while, but the same folks who have been pushing a patent reform bill in the past have reintroduced essentially the same legislation that has been unable to advance far enough in previous Congresses. As in past years, supporters of the bill insist this is the year it will get passed. While there are plenty of good things in the bill, there's also an awful lot of bad things as well.

Unfortunately, the stuff that I think is good and necessary in the bill, such as limiting damages to the actual contribution of the patented technology, are what's considered "controversial," whereas many of the things I think are bad, such as switching from a "first to invent" to a "first to file" system aren't being considered that controversial at all. On the whole, this bill would solve some problems, while creating plenty of other problems, so I have a lot of trouble supporting it.

I can see why some big tech companies are supporting it, as it would definitely help some of the problems those companies face, but I don't think it does very much to fix the overall system. That said, it's pretty amusing to see the patent maximalists insisting that this bill will be the downfall of the American economy. There's nothing in the bill that would indicate that's true at all. It might cause some trouble for some firms that don't do anything in the marketplace, but about the only parts of the economy that will be harmed are a few patent attorneys (and some patent hoarders).

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Matt_dk writes "Using ESO's Very Large Telescope, astronomers have gained valuable new insights about the atmosphere of the dwarf planet Pluto. The scientists found unexpectedly large amounts of methane in the atmosphere, and also discovered that the atmosphere is hotter than the surface by about 40 degrees, although it still only reaches a frigid minus 180 degrees Celsius. These properties of Pluto's atmosphere may be due to the presence of pure methane patches or of a methane-rich layer covering the dwarf planet's surface."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Nikon has posted a firmware update for it's 13.5 megapixel Coolpix P6000. The revised firmware v1.2 resolves an occasional file corruption problem when shooting in RAW + JPEG with distortion correction enabled, and promises to lower the power consumption of the camera. It also addresses a few other minor issues.

From the MAKE Flickr pool

While working on a new board mightyohm grabbed some footage of his reflow soldering process -

My AVR HV Rescue Shield has a 5V to 12V step up converter, constructed with surface mount parts (all 0805's and one SOIC). This video shows the board being reflowed on my hot plate, as seen through the eyepiece of my stereo microscope.

The video subject is a high voltage shield for Arduino - handy for reprogramming those chips which refuse to listen to 5V.

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One of my favorite blogsports for the last couple of years is pondering what Twitter is. Here are some of the things I've come up with:

1. Personal notepad.

2. Coral reef.

3. Publishing platform.

4. River of news.

I'm sure there are others, and as I think of them I'll add to the list.

But one thing I never thought of Twitter as was Poor Man's Email, which is how Google CEO Eric Schmidt described it to analysts yesterday.

My first inclination was to shout out something about Schmidt, but I held on to it, instead deciding to give it some thought and let other people go first. Surprisingly, there hasn't been much reaction.

Schmidt has a PhD, and a long track record in the industry before he went to Google. I have a postulate that if very few people do something then it must be hard, and therefore whoever is doing it must be smart. So when people say Steve Ballmer is dumb, I don't buy it. Same with Schmidt. So I wonder how calculated the statement is, or if I'm missing something -- because it never, ever occurred to me that Twitter was any kind of email, rich man's, poor man's or middle class.

I couldn't imagine two things being more different, Twitter and email.

1. Twitter is primarily one-to-many, where email is primarily one-to-one.

2. Twitter is by default public, where email is by default private.

3. Could you use email to implement something Twitter-like? Yes. Could you use Twitter to implement something email-like? Yes. But neither is the same as the other.

Schmidt talks about software the way I think about it. Once you have a base set of features it's an interesting puzzle to decide how to evolve it. There's no doubt Twitter has a tricky evolution in front of it. No matter what it does, it's likely to upset users, just as every Facebook move inspires an uprising. If Twitter had established a history of quick feature upgrades it would be a different story, but there were no new features in 2008, and so far none in 2009. That's a long time between changes. At some point they're going to add new features, if only to keep even with the competition that is sure to come. What they choose to do will set expectations for what's to come. The longer they wait, the harder it becomes.

So Schmidt laid it out.

The key question is -- does the basic unit of Twitter change and if so, how? Is the 140-character limit sacred (my guess is yes). What metadata will accompany a twit? This is where it gets interesting. It's hard to imagine Twitter passing on the temptation to add location data to each message. What about the URL? Would they consider moving the link out of the 140 character space and making it part of the package? What about incorporating "re-tweets" into the architecture, instead of forcing users to invent new language, and using up another 20 characters of the 140 (by convention). They could make a lot of improvements if they added more structure to a tweet. I'm sure there are people of both minds inside the Twitter company.

Another takeaway from this is that Google is watching. If Google is preparing their own Twitter, what will it look like? Will it have a different, incompatible API? (My guess, probably. Google will make their own play for developers.) Will it have the same limits as Twitter? (Probably not. This is a very easy way to put pressure on Twitter, even when they have the installed base advantage. Users will say "If Google can do it, why can't Twitter?")

In Marketing Warfare, Ries & Trout tell the story of how Pepsi got a slice of Coke's market in the 1930s based on bottle size (page 119). Coke had a huge installed base of machines that could only serve 6.5-ounce nickel bottles, which they thought of as the perfect size for a cola drink. Pepsi thought 12-ounce bottles were better, so they came at Coke with the larger bottle. Coke was wrong, but it took a long time to figure it out. Eventually they threw out their machines and bottles and matched Pepsi.

Pepsi-Cola hits the spot. Twelve full ounces, that's a lot. Twice as much for a nickel, too. Pepsi-Cola is the drink for you!

This is why Google is likely to have a 160 character limit. (People who said Schmidt was in error didn't consider the possibility that it was a deliberate misstatement.) And it seems likely Google's Twitter will be based on GMail. (Paul Bucheit, a founder of FriendFeed, could probably comment on the likelihood of this working.)

Finally, I couldn't help but notice how similar Google's reaction to Twitter is to the reaction of all market leaders to initially successful upstarts. It's the same reaction Alta Vista and Yahoo had to Google when they were young. "Search is only part of a portal," they sniffed. You can make a hugely long list of BigCo's that failed to understand the threat presented by upstarts, and lived to regret it. It's hard to think of a a single example of a BigCo that took a threat seriously when it (based on historical hindsight) needed to. Maybe this is because people like Schmidt, while they are educated, and intelligent, weren't there when their company was the upstart, and neither were most of the people there now. The institutional memory fades, and as it does, it creates the opportunity for the next generation? Perhaps. We'll get a chance to find out soon enough.

Ripit writes "President Obama on Tuesday nominated Julius Genachowski as the nation's top telecommunications regulator, picking a campaign adviser who has divided his career between Washington, D.C., political jobs and working as an Internet executive. Genachowski is likely to continue the Democratic push for more Net neutrality regulations, which are opposed by some conservatives and telecommunications providers. He was a top Obama technology adviser and aided in crafting a technology platform that supported Net neutrality rules."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

JJ sent in yet another story of intellectual property claims getting in the way of what actually makes sense. At the NBA all-star event, 5'7" NBA player Nate Robinson surprised a lot of people by winning the slam dunk competition, which brought a lot of attention to his "alter-ego" Krypto-Nate, something of a play on another player dressing up as Superman. The NBA (reasonably so) thought it would be fun to offer special t-shirts, in the color green, with the "Krypto-Nate" name on the back... until issues surrounding potential fights with DC Comics, owners of certain IP around Superman, came into play. The story isn't entirely clear concerning who made the final decision to back down from the promotion -- and, it may have just been folks at the NBA hoping to do future deals with DC Comics -- but the planned promotion was clearly shelved and worries about IP issues were the apparent reason. It's not clear that DC Comics would have had any actual legal claim on such a shirt, but just the fact that IP worries over such an obvious and reasonable promotion caused it to be killed (once again) highlights the ridiculous impact of IP laws gone nuts.

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Dan B. writes "The Guardian has a nice piece wrapping up the trial in Sweden for the co-defendants in the P2P trial-of-the-decade, that of The Pirate Bay. 'Today, the defense lawyers summed up. It was a short trial and not a particularly merry one, but it could have far-reaching effects.' Surprisingly, when the defendants hit the stand they didn't bash copyright or take a libertarian approach; it all came back to the tried and tested formula for criminal defense, 'I am not responsible.'"

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Ben Heck shows us how to trigger Guitar Hero 4's kick drum switch by mouth -

I had a request to build an alternative to the GH4 drum
kit’s kick pedal for a person who uses a wheelchair. Tour apart the kick pedal and a few hours later came up with this:
[…]
Basically this turns the kick pedal into an air pressure diaphragm. You can now “kick” the bass drums by blowing into a tube.

Since the controller uses a basic piezo disc, it would be easy to apply this technique to a variety of other hackery - even for creating some digital 'wind instruments. Read on for more of the step-by-step. [via Hack a Day]

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Flickr user solipsistnation created this rather awesome sample sequencer using Meggy Jr. and an Arduino WaveShield -

The Meggy Jr RGB from Evil Mad Science running MeggySeq, driving a Wave Shield from Lady Ada. MeggySeq is a pattern-based drum machine sequencer. It has 8 patterns of 16 steps each and each step can play one of 8 samples (the colors are hard to tell apart on the video). Next steps: Saving patterns to the eeprom, sending MIDI (currently it just sends single characters over serial to the WaveShield) and possibly syncing to external clock sources. Or, you know, changing the tempo at all.

Agh - such coolness! No sign of source code as of yet, but the setup apparently uses another Arduino along with the aforementioned WaveShield.


In the Maker Shed:

Meggy Jr. RGB Kit



Arduino WaveShield Kit

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On the Vintage Computer Festival website, they document a number of builds of replica computers from the history of computer science. This gallery shows progress pics from the recreation of a DEC PDP-8, the first commercially-successful minicomputer. This is a non-working replica, BTW. To get the look of the Flip-Chip Module Arrays inside, photocopies of original modules were made and glued onto plastic card.

Bare Frame
I started out with the basic bare frame of the replica. I used 2x2 fastened together with construction brackets. I needed to fatten the width of the vertical frame support so I glued 1/4" thick slats onto either side. The trim edge around the top of the base is dense particle board.

Painted Frame Next to Original
The frame has been painted with a textured spraypaint that gives it a hammered metal look to match the original.

Original Cover Next to Replica
The original cover on the left was replicated using standard acrylic. The bending was done by the plastics shop where the acrylic was purchased. A groove was routed into the underside of the top piece for the main body to fit into.

Completed Replica

PDP-8 Replica Project

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Last month, a court totally dismissed the lawsuit filed by Aaron and Christine Boring, who had complained about Google's Street View images of their home, suggesting that the company had driven onto their private driveway to get the photos. The court pointed out, correctly, that the Borings had no case because they could have availed themselves of the simple mechanism on Google to remove the images. Still, the Borings are now appealing, and turning this into quite the epic battle of small guy vs. big company:

"Whether the trespass is by a foreign king, or the royalty of big business, does not matter. The Borings, such as our American forefathers in millennia past, are entitled to proclaim, 'Google, Don't Tread On Me.'"

That seems to be overplaying their hand just a bit. As is the claim that the original ruling made them "Google slaves":

"This Court tells Google that it is okay to enter onto a person's private property without permission. I would not teach that rule to my child. This Court's ruling makes our private property a Google Slave; our property is no longer our own: it is forced to work for another, against its will, without compensation, for the profit of another. The Federal Court should free slavery, not create it."

It's not like Google took over their property or anything. The Google Maps car looks like it pulled into, and backed out of their driveway -- which it may have confused as another road. It did no damage, and the end result -- the photo -- could have been easily removed by the family. This is hardly a case of a massive trampling of anyone's rights.

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My friend Tom O'Neill got to hacking yesterday and created an uber-useful Twitter tool called HashTweeps. The idea is that you enter a hash tag, and HashTweeps will dig through Twitter's search results and return a concise list of all the Twitter users who have tweeted with that tag. It's a handy way to track down who's been talking about a particular topic or event.

HashTweeps

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M3rk sends an excerpt from an opinion piece on Gametopius discussing what it takes for an open game world to be successful. Interesting stories and characters are important, but they must be balanced by varied and entertaining gameplay. The lack of either will be a limiting factor in how many people return to play once the primary plot is completed. Quoting: "A game like GTA IV takes itself and its fiction very seriously. It spends a lot of time, effort, and gameplay resources convincing you that the world you are traveling through is the same world that the story and cutscenes take place in. It may not be a game that allows you to own or control property to the degree seen in Burnout Paradise or Saints Row II, but it wants its world to be cohesive, not divided. ... While GTA IV's game systems almost serve its plot, Saints Row II and Burnout Paradise live for their game mechanics. Sure, these worlds are fun to look at and explore, but any exploration and discovery that the player enjoys merely drives them to these games' raison d'être: fun systems to play with."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Last year, when MySpace won an uncollectable judgment against well-known spammer Stanford "Spamford" Wallace, part of the punishment was that he wasn't allowed to set up any more MySpace profiles. Mike noted at the time that it didn't say anything about Facebook, speculating that's where Spamford might pop up next. So guess who Facebook's just sued for sending spam Facebook messages? Yep, ol' Spamford and a couple of his pals. Facebook alleges they used phishing attacks to break into users' accounts, then sent messages to their contacts. It sounds pretty similar to the previous MySpace case, and it's hard to imagine it won't end up the same way: Wallace disappearing, Facebook getting a default judgment with an uncollectable judgment, and Spamford moving on to the next big social site.

Carlo Longino is an expert at the Insight Community. To get insight and analysis from Carlo Longino and other experts on challenges your company faces, click here.

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This is a great example of the power and flexibility of the Arduino. The project uses a hacked alarm clock and an Arudino to automatically set the wake time based on a Google calendar. This is such a great solution for anyone with a schedule that varies from day to day. Check out the link for a lot more information about the build, including the source code.

Every night, the alarm gets set to a different time. Sometimes there's an errand in the morning, sometimes an early meeting. On weekends, the alarm usually isn't needed, unless something's going on. And then in the morning, I need to set the clock again for my wife's own set of daily scheduling variables.

More about Larmie: The Arduino alarm scheduler

In the Maker Shed:


Make: Arduino

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While we've been wondering why publishers would agree to lock themselves into Amazon's ebook system via DRM, one possible dampener was the high price of the Kindle device itself. At $359... you need to read a lot of books to make that a worthwhile purchase. And, plenty of people have been asking whether other platforms -- most notably the iPhone -- might start to eat into the Kindle's market. It might not be quite as nice for reading books, but it's a device people already carry around. So, rather than denying that the competition existed, just weeks after introducing the second generation Kindle, Amazon will now allow Kindle books to be purchased for reading on an iPhone. The process is a little cumbersome, and the experience isn't quite as good, but you have to hand it to Amazon for recognizing that it's better to try to co-opt the competition rather than let it take you over (if only other businesses could learn that same lesson). Yet, if I'm a book publisher -- again, this is a bad sign. It gives Amazon even more power in the market and more leverage in the future. Giving Amazon lock-in via DRM may turn out to be the dumbest move some publishers ever made. If they had focused on open standards then there might be real competition and a lot more interest in ebooks.

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Doran sez, "A retired barber named Joe Godlewski wasn't happy with all that 'Kosher salt' TV chefs use, so he's selling sea salt, blessed by an Episcopalian priest and marketing it as 'Christian Salt'. Of course, most chefs use Kosher salt because of its properties, and not because of any blessing which may have been given by a rabbi."

Oh, sure, but what if you're not an Episcopalian? What about Mormons, Baptists, Catholics and Scientologists? Where's their salt?

Christian salt seller hopes to shake up market

Locus Magazine's just posted my latest column for them, "In Praise of the Sales Force," a look at the things that publishers can do for authors that the Internet can't replace (yet, anyway!).

Hardly a day goes by that I don't get an e-mail from someone who's ready to reinvent publishing using the Internet, and the ideas are often good ones, but they lack a key element: a sales force. That is, a small army of motivated, personable, committed salespeople who are on a first-name basis with every single bookstore owner/buyer in the country, people who lay down a lot of shoe-leather as they slog from one shop to the next, clutching a case filled with advance reader copies, cover-flats, and catalogs. When I worked in bookstores, we had exceptional local reps, like Eric, the Bantam guy who knew that I was exactly the right clerk to give an advance copy of Snow Crash to if he wanted to ensure a big order and lots of hand-selling when the book came in (He also made sure that I got ARCs of every Kathe Koja and Ian McDonald novel — Eric, if you're reading this, thanks!).

This matters. This is the kind of longitudinal, deep, expensive expertise that gets books onto shelves, into the minds of the clerks, onto the recommended tables at the front of the store. It's labor-intensive and highly specialized, and without it, your book's sales only come from people who've already heard of it (through word of mouth, advertising, a review, etc.) and who are either motivated enough to order it direct, or lucky enough to chance on a copy on a shelf at a store that ordered it based on reputation or sales literature alone, without any hand-holding or cajoling

In Praise of the Sales Force

An anonymous reader writes "A fireball streaked over Austin, Texas on February 15 producing sonic booms and startling people for hundreds of miles. The video of the event was shown on national television and viewed by thousands of people on the Net. The first news reports speculated that the fireball might have been debris from a February 13th collision between two satellites over Siberia but space experts said that the object was probably a meteor. Now this has been confirmed: experienced meteorite hunters located a strewnfield about 120 miles north of the filming site of the Austin cameraman and have recovered over 100 freshly fallen meteorites."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

onehitwonder writes in with a CIO opinion piece arguing that potential employees need to stand up to employers who snoop the Web for insights into their after-work activities, often disqualifying them as a result. "Employers are increasingly trolling the web for information about prospective employees that they can use in their hiring decisions. Consequently, career experts advise job seekers to not post any photos, opinions or information on blogs and social networking websites (like Slashdot) that a potential employer might find remotely off-putting. Instead of cautioning job seekers to censor their activity online, we job seekers and defenders of our civil liberties should tell employers to stop snooping and to stop judging our behavior outside of work, writes CIO.com Senior Online Editor Meridith Levinson. By basing professional hiring decisions on candidates' personal lives and beliefs, employers are effectively legislating people's behavior, and they're creating an online environment where people can't express their true beliefs, state their unvarnished opinions, be themselves, and that runs contrary to the free, communal ethos of the Web. Employers that exploit the Web to snoop into and judge people's personal lives infringe on everyone's privacy, and their actions verge on discrimination."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Still think that if you're innocent, you have nothing to fear from surveillance and control laws? Have a look at this news-video about Stephen Clarke, a man who was accused to taking pictures of sewer-gratings in Manchester and arrested. Though the police couldn't find any photos of sewer-gratings on his phone (and even though "what a sewer grating looks like" isn't a piece of specialized terrorist intelligence), he was held on suspicion of planning an act of terror, imprisoned for two days while the police searched his home, his phone and his computer. When they couldn't find anything suspicious, they released him, but kept his DNA on file, as the biometric of someone who had been accused of plotting a terrorist act.

what happened to me

British ISP BT is apparently "updating" some of its business customers' WiFi hubs and turning them into part of its OpenZone hotspot network. Sounds great, until you realize they're simply pushing the software update onto some 200,000 or so customers' hubs, and leaving them to opt out if they don't want them to be used as public hotspots. What's even greater is the commercial arrangement, if business owners should decide they want to utilize the "service": they buy prepaid vouchers from BT, then can either give them away or sell them. That's right: they pay BT for their bandwidth, then have to buy vouchers to resell or give away, in essence paying for the bandwidth a second time. There's no mention of how the customers could offer a free hotspot, beyond the double-billing scheme. But hey, that's a crazy idea for a business owner, anyway, so BT's doing its customers a further favor by precluding it as an option.

Carlo Longino is an expert at the Insight Community. To get insight and analysis from Carlo Longino and other experts on challenges your company faces, click here.

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Recently on Offworld, by a small act of fate, we managed to get that first look at PopCap's upcoming tower defense/strategy game Plants vs. Zombies (above) which -- as it's repeatedly been pointed out -- features a grand total of zero actual flora and instead is rife with fungi, though presumably that's down to the developer being unable to land the rights to call it Lawn of the Dead. Either way, it looks wicked. We also got another exclusive listen to Daniel Pemberton's soundtrack for LittleBigPlanet as the original score goes up for its BAFTA award, watched the latest preview of Infinite Ammo's ever more brilliant looking iPhone puzzler Heroes & Villains, and saw the Contra 4 DS devs taking on another cult hit property, this time David 'Pitfall' Crane's underdog NES platformer A Boy and His Blob for the Wii. Finally, we saw an early, fully playable build of Russian developer GSC's excellent post-apocalyptic shooter Stalker officially released for free, saw two iPhone games getting the first stirrings of further social/multiplayer functionality, voted for the Independent Games Festival's audience award, and listened to an EP length soundtrack for Flashbang's just released deep sea tentacle-whipper Blush.

Instructables user cheft made a greenhouse from old windows gathered from houses being torn down in the neighborhood. Looks pretty impressive!

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Selection from the Glitch Art Flickr pool (glitch art refers to art inspired by computer crashes and digital errors in a site).

Glitch art Flickr pool

More:
Glitch Art

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Pickens writes "Paleontologists recently discovered the world's oldest brain nestled within a 300-million-year-old fish fossil of one of the extinct relatives of modern ratfishes, also known as 'host sharks' or chimaeras. These chimaera relatives, called iniopterygians, represented bizarre beasts that sported massive skulls with huge eye sockets, shark-like teeth in rows, tails with clubs, huge pectoral fins that were placed almost on their backs, and bone-like spikes or hooks tipping the fins. The brain shows details such as a large vision lobe and optic nerve stretching to the proper place on the braincase, which fits with the fish's large eye sockets. The ear canals of the extinct fish only exist on a horizontal plane so the fish could only detect side-to-side movements, and not up or down. 'There is nothing like this known today; it is really bizarre,' said John Maisey, paleontologist at the American Museum of Natural History in New York City. 'But now that we know that brains might be preserved in such ancient fossils, we can start looking for others. We are limited in information about early vertebrate brains, and the evolution of the brain lies at the core of vertebrate history.'"

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

With Congress' latest attempt to force data retention on anyone who operates a network (including home users), some are realizing that other parts of the government have been equally adamant about getting these same folks to destroy the very same information for the sake of keeping people's data private. It does seem like we're on a crash course between privacy on the one hand, and the demands of law enforcement, the entertainment industry and a few others who want all data to be kept for as long as possible. A few years back, when stories of how the government was misusing data that it got access to were revealed, we had hoped that it would lead politicians to recognize the downsides of data retention. But, of course, that's not quite how Washington DC works.

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One of the better decisions to come out of the FCC during Kevin Martin's reign was the decision to free up the "white spaces" spectrum that lies in between TV broadcasts for other uses. The white spaces are unused spectrum that sit in between TV broadcasters' signals. They were important in analog broadcasts to keep stations' signals from interfering with each other, but they are less crucial in digital broadcasts (like the ones the US will eventually switch to). White spaces proponents say that they can effectively be reused by unlicensed devices that can seek out empty spectrum and use it to communicate, without interfering with licensed broadcasts, and the FCC concurred -- and, of course, made that a key part of its approval of the technologies. But as ever, the National Association of Broadcasters disagrees, and has sued to block usage of the white spaces, arguing it will interfere with their members' broadcasts.

We might be more sympathetic to the NAB's claim if it didn't have such a long and glorious history of trying to stifle anything that competes with incumbent broadcasters, and have such an annoying way of doing it. The FCC has put significant stipulations in place to ensure that white space devices don't cause interference, and despite the NAB's contention, the prototypes that failed in the testing process didn't do so. The FCC got it right by approving use of the white spaces with the restrictions and rules it put in place to tame interference; the NAB has once again got it wrong by trying to stifle innovation, and perhaps competition.

Carlo Longino is an expert at the Insight Community. To get insight and analysis from Carlo Longino and other experts on challenges your company faces, click here.

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An anonymous reader writes "Ars Technica has a very thorough post of some of the technologies that Microsoft researchers showed off at TechFest last week. 'The exact number of projects that were demonstrated at TechFest 2009 is not clear, but here's a quick rundown of about 35 research projects that haven't received much coverage, accompanied by links that will let you further explore if your interest is piqued. Remember that these are concepts and prototypes, not finished products, and they may never end up becoming anything significant.'" While Microsoft has been criticized for squandering a fortune on R&D, there can be no doubt that they are showing off some cool tech here.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

We were pretty shocked that it took until just last summer for the LA Times to realize that it didn't make sense to have separate digital and print newsrooms, yet it seems that some other industries are just now learning the same lesson. Universal Music has had a reorganization, where it's finally admitting that digital and physical sales should be in the same group. This is the sort of thing that should have happened at least five years ago, if not ten. The fact that they're just coming around to this realization now suggests how out of touch the major record labels remain.

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We are now accepting entries for Maker Faire, which will take place May 30 and 31 at the San Mateo County Expo Center. This year's focus is Re-Make America, inspired by President Obama's call for all of us to participate in remaking America. We're looking to showcase "the risk-takers, the doers, the makers of things."

The try-outs are on Sunday, March 8, at The Tech Museum of Innovation in San Jose, Calif.

Here are the details

olddotter writes "A 24-page paper on a reverse brain drain from the US back to home countries (PDF) is getting news coverage. Quoting: 'Our new paper, "America's Loss Is the World's Gain," finds that the vast majority of these returnees were relatively young. The average age was 30 for Indian returnees, and 33 for Chinese. They were highly educated, with degrees in management, technology, or science. Fifty-one percent of the Chinese held master's degrees and 41% had PhDs. Sixty-six percent of the Indians held a master's and 12.1% had PhDs. They were at very top of the educational distribution for these highly educated immigrant groups — precisely the kind of people who make the greatest contribution to the US economy and to business and job growth." Adding to the brain drain is a problem with slow US visa processing, since last November or so, that has been driving desirable students and scientists out of the country.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.