The next installment in the Fonera router family is set to make its debut in a couple of weeks, and the additions to the hardware are relatively impressive. Promising full support for networked storage, automatic downloads, sharing of a USB 3G connection, and a few other perks in addition to the normal range of functionality found in the Fonera routers this package packs quite a punch. "Like the original Fonera and Fonera+ routers, the principals of this hippie-love-in-styled product still apply. You buy the router and hook it up to your internet connection as normal. The trick is that the router shares a part of your bandwidth on a public-facing connection. Other Fon owners can log in and use this public network for free. In turn, you — as a Fonera owner — can travel the world and use other Fon hotspots. It's a neat idea and everybody wins, except the money-grabbing telcos."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

One of our big complaints with the various lawsuits filed over companies buying ads in search engines based on trademarks of their competitors was the idea that somehow the search engines themselves were liable as infringers. That made little sense. The purpose of trademark law is to avoid consumer confusion, not give the mark holder total control over the mark. If the ad itself is confusing, then you could see a reason to sue the company that created the ad -- but it's ridiculous to blame Google or Yahoo, who had no part in actually creating the ad. A variety of lawsuits had agreed -- and, in fact, most of the recent lawsuits on this topic that we'd seen involved companies suing whoever took out the actual ad.

Unfortunately, it looks like that's about to change.

Eric Goldman has an analysis of a new Second Circuit ruling that found that Google is potentially liable for ads bought on trademarked terms, overturning a lower court ruling that made sense. Goldman points to some factual errors made by the court in making this decision, but the oddest bit of reasoning is that the court actually took on a point that we often raise here in discussing these types of cases: no one thinks there's any trademark infringement because a supermarket places multiple brands of soda in the same spot. The supermarket knows that people may be looking for Coca-Cola, but may be tempted to buy the off-brand cola that's on sale. That's not trademark infringement against Coca-Cola and certainly not the store's liability.... or is it. In this ruling, the court noted:

It is not by reason of absence of a use of a mark in commerce that benign product placement escapes liability; it escapes liability because it is a benign practice which does not cause a likelihood of consumer confusion. In contrast, if a retail seller were to be paid by an off-brand purveyor to arrange product display and delivery in such a way that customers seeking to purchase a famous brand would receive the off-brand, believing they had gotten the brand they were seeking, we see no reason to believe the practice would escape liability merely because it could claim the mantle of "product placement."

That implies that Google's placement of search ads somehow tricks users into believing when they click on, say, an ad for Avis, they're actually going to the Hertz website. Yet, there doesn't seem to be any evidence presented that users are regularly fooled by such ads. Most users recognize that ads are ads.

The ruling pins liability on Google because Google "suggests" terms that may be relevant, and since it suggests trademarked terms at times, that dumps the liability onto Google. But, again, that makes little sense. Nothing that Google does is specifically causing confusion. Simply suggesting a trademark isn't confusing anyone. Unfortunately, though, as the EFF points out in its analysis of the ruling, this is likely to lead to a lot of new bogus lawsuits against Google, and (most likely) Google scaling back some of its AdWords tools and programs, giving consumers less ability to find out about competitive offers when we search.

Permalink | Comments | Email This Story

From Wired:

Your next piece of designer furniture could cost less than an Ikea chair--as long as you're willing to make it yourself. Taking a cue from the Linux community and file-sharing services, Berlin-based design guru Ronen Kadushin has started a furniture free-for-all he calls Open Design. It allows crafty consumers to download the instructions, photos, and AutoCAD files needed to knock off his work.

Mod That Table: High-End Furniture Goes Open Source [via EMS Labs Twiiter feed]

Read more | Permalink | Comments | Read more articles in Open source hardware | Digg this!

CNet is reporting that Sony Pictures may be in talks with YouTube to license full length movies to the video sharing site. Set to post nearly a half a billion dollars in losses this year, YouTube could certainly use some juice to combat sites like NBC-owned Hulu which already has an array of movies for streaming. "sources familiar with the negotiations told CNET News. Details about what a final agreement could look like are sparse, but any partnership between the two powerhouses would likely benefit both. Representatives from both companies declined to comment. Word of the negotiations comes a week after Disney announced it had licensed short-form content to YouTube. Those clips will come from a range of Disney brands, including ABC and ESPN. For YouTube, obtaining short-form clips from Disney is an important step but still doesn't provide what YouTube needs most."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

8bitar Hero procedurally generates Rock Band patterns for you to play from the sounds made by someone else playing an NES game emulator. Brandon has the details and video over at Boing Boing Offworld. 8bitar Hero: procedurally generated Rock Band from real-time NES audio

The head of a company that makes cell phone jammers says mobile operators should hand over all the revenue they make from prisoners using contraband phones in jail. Apparently there is a "growing epidemic of inmates using cell phones in prisons", and the guy says that the "millions of dollars" in question should be given to jail officials to pay for more guards to search for phones. "Nobody should profit from criminals," he says -- except, of course, his company, which wants jammers to be made legal so it can sell some to prisons to combat this "growing epidemic". This is the same company that argued a few years back that the laws banning jammers are unconstitutional; at that point, it was targeting selling jammers to cops to block the use of phones as remote detonators. Maybe basing your business model on getting federal law changed isn't the wisest idea, eh guys?

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.

Permalink | Comments | Email This Story

An anonymous reader writes "Oxford University Press has a blog post listing nine words used in science and technology which were actually dreamed up by fiction writers. Included on the list are terms like robotics, genetic engineering, deep space, and zero-g. What other terms are sure to follow in the future?"

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

(Click images for enlargement)

Last week, I visited the Soho store of the design firm Droog and spotted these vibrobots and other hand-made toys on display there. I don't know how much they cost (the tags said "pricing on request" and I forgot to ask), but considering how expensive everything else was in the store, these toys probably sell for at least $1000 each.

I met this man in New York's Central Park. He was playing an electrified one-stringed instrument he had built himself. He couldn't speak English very well, but I showed him a photo of my 3-stringed dronestick, and he nodded in approval. I want to make one!

According to a recent report, 97 of the top 100 classified sites are just localized versions of Craigslist, up from 88 just last year. Combine that with a massive rise in traffic to classified sites in general and you have a recipe for one raging behemoth. "Craigslist isn't just crushing the newspaper industry and crowding out other classified sites. It's also taking an increasing slice of total U.S Internet traffic: the site's market share in February was up 90% year over year, accounting for about 2.5% of total US Web site visits."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

There have been a lot of stories recently about the rise of "sexting" (kids sending naked photos of themselves via mobile phones) and how its leading to child porn charges. It's quite clear that this is an overreaction to the law. Kids definitely need to be educated about doing such things, but charging them with child pornography is highly questionable. Even more ridiculous is the idea of slapping recipients of such photos with child pornography charges, even if they didn't request the images. This is just one problem (of many) with current child pornography laws. Since possession alone is considered a crime, if you want to make someone guilty of a crime, you just need to send them illegal photos.

That leads to even more ridiculous situations, like the story in Wired about an assistant principal, Ting-Yi Oei, at a high school in Virginia. After rumors were spreading about "sexting" happening at the school, he was asked by the principal to investigate. In the course of the investigation, a male student showed him a photo he had received of the torso of a woman wearing a bra and covering her breasts with her arms. The principal told Oei to preserve a copy of the image. Not being very computer literate, he asked the student with the photo how to get a copy himself. The student sent it to Oei's phone and told him how to email it to his own computer, which Oei did. After investigating the matter, Oei did not believe the student in the photo went to the school, and informed the principal about everything.

Later, due to a variety of other events, the original student who had the photo was suspended. In anger, his mother called the police, telling them about the photo, which resulted in the police investigating Oei... and charging him with "failure to report suspicion of child abuse." Of course, he had reported everything to the principal (what was legally required) and it wasn't clear that there was actually any child abuse. And, finally, the fact that he couldn't identify the student meant that he had no way of actually reporting who was abused.

But, rather than drop the charges, prosecutors kept on going. They added more charges, including possession of child porn (a felony, rather than the misdemeanor) and then later adding charges of "contributing to the delinquency of a minor" for asking the original student to send him the photo (which, remember, the principal had told him to archive).

Oei's name was all over the news, accused of child pornography. He was stripped of his job since he couldn't be seen at the school around students. He had to raise money to fight the charges and is now in tremendous debt. Last week, a court finally tossed out the charges, noting that the photo itself isn't even pornographic (let alone all the other problems with the lawsuit).

Child porn is a very real and very serious issue that needs to be dealt with. But we seem to have put together a set of laws that allow for massive reputation-destroying witch hunts, rather than actually tackling the real issues. This story should horrify anyone who thinks that current child porn laws make sense.

Permalink | Comments | Email This Story

Over on the O'Reilly mothership, Artur Bergman writes:

In an editorial for Forbes, Tim called for the the opening of the Kindle, else it will slowly turn obsolete. Since I love my Kindle, I am happy that my friend, Jesse Vincent, a long time open source contributor and OSCON speaker, is trying to open the Kindle. (You might remember him as the guy who discovered Amazon's USB-network easter-egg in the Kindle 2 last month.)

He is developing Savory, the first native Kindle application. Savory is an open source epub and PDF converter that actually runs natively on the Kindle. While it doesn't add anything that you couldn't do from a desktop, it streamlines the process, allowing you to copy epubs and PDFs to your Kindle over USB or download them from the web, and immediately read them offline.

Savory: Native Kindle epub and PDF Converter

Read more | Permalink | Comments | Digg this!

Hugh Pickens writes to mention that Italian scientist Giampaolo Giuliani, a researcher at the National Physical Laboratory of Gran Sasso, recently gave warning about an earthquake that was to happen on March 29th of this year near L'Aquilla. Based on radon gas emissions and a series of observed tremors he tried to convince residents to evacuate, drawing much criticism from the city's mayor and others. Giuliani was forced to take down warnings he had posted on the internet. The researcher had said that a 'disastrous' earthquake would strike on March 29, but when it didn't, Guido Bertolaso, head of Italy's Civil Protection Agency, last week officially denounced Giuliani in court for false alarm. 'These imbeciles enjoy spreading false news,' Bertalaso was quoted as saying. 'Everyone knows that you can't predict earthquakes.' Giuliani, it turns out, was partially right. A much smaller seismic shift struck on the day he said it would, with the truly disastrous one arriving just one week later. 'Someone owes me an apology,' said Giuliani, who is also a resident of L'Aquila. 'The situation here is dramatic. I am devastated, but also angry.'"

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

(Click images for enlargement)

I grabbed this bottle of Claire Brightwater water at a Whole Foods on Columbus Circle in Manhattan and when I sat down to drink it, I read the copy on the label. It makes more sense than a Dr. Bronner's screed, but just barely.

This water has been programmed with music, crystals & prayers for good health, happiness, creative energy & prosperity.

Here's an excerpt from a 2007 New York Times article about Brightwater's "programming" technique:

It is a complicated process. Once the bottles arrive from their source near Saratoga Springs, N.Y., Ms. Brightwater said, she lays out tumbled stones that she has “programmed for love, health and prosperity” around and on top of each case.

She burns sage and sweet grass, herbs used by the Native Americans, to clarify and purify the energy of the water, and prays for its drinkers to experience good health, good luck and prosperity. She said she then asks “the Great Spirit to help feed the hungry children, keep the waters clean and to protect the two- and four-legged on this planet.”

She plays CDs of Native American and Buddhist healing chants for 12 hours a day, until the cases of water are delivered.

Ms. Brightwater has found a powerful distribution channel for her water: two Whole Foods Markets in the city have started carrying it this year. Bottled water, measured in units, is the company’s top-selling item, and she said she is already hearing from appreciative shoppers. “So many people have e-mailed me to tell me they can feel the energy flowing through them when they drink the water,” she said. “I’m astounded.”

Join me in welcoming Lisa Katayama and Steven Leckart to the Boing Boing fold. They'll be coming aboard with Rob and I to work on BBG, although I wouldn't be surprised to see them contributing to Boing Boing and Offworld just every now and again, as well. You'll get to know them through the blog-o-squawk soon enough, but it'd be a shame to waste such bona fides as our two new contributors have collected. Lisa you guys will know as a former guestblogger at Boing Boing, as well as her blogging about Japanese culture and tech at her blog Tokyo Mango. She's also contributed to WIRED, Popular Science, and the The New York Times Magazine. (There's a big feature coming up there, isn't there, Lisa? Can you talk about that yet?) And of course she's the author of Urawaza: Secret Everyday Tips and Tricks from Japan. She has two min-pins named Malcolm and Ruby (no relation to my car), as per the requirements for BBG contributors. She's @tokyomango and will be her first name at boingboing.net once I figure out how we actually do our email forwards here. Steven's work has been seen at WIRED, DVICE, GOOD (and was the founder of ALL CAPS MAGAZINE), as well as the editor of our friend Kevin Kelly's Cool Tools. He also helped Chris Anderson with the books The Long Tail and the upcoming Free as a writing assistant. He has a pug named Gus, as per the requirements for BBG contributors. He's @stevenleckart on Twitter and will be his first name at boingboing.net once I get off my ass and set up that email account. [photo by Jonathan Snyder] Come on over to BBG and slap them around a little! And welcome, you two! I've stoked to have you aboard our undulating tanker ship of bubbling mutant goo.

Our pal, and MAKE contributor, RU Sirius, editor of h+ (Humanity Plus) magazine, sent us word of this interview, by mathenaut and sci-fi icon Rudy Rucker, of Stephen Wolfram, of Mathematica fame, talking about his upcoming Wolfram Alpha search engine. Here's the intro to Rudy's interview:

Stephen Wolfram has warped my life three times, and now here comes a fourth.

When I first interviewed him in 1984, he converted me to his belief that everything in the world resembles a certain kind of parallel computation called a cellular automaton, (or a CA for short). I became obsessed with studying CAs--which produce hypnotic computer graphical outputs akin to light shows. And this led to me riding the wave of computer science for twenty years as a professor at San Jose State University.

In 1988 Stephen developed the powerful Mathematica software that lets a computer manipulate mathematical expressions in an intelligent way. My first consulting job outside of academia involved writing Mathematica demos for the design tools company, Autodesk, where I also worked on a number of other science software projects--until the tanking market of the early 1990s sent me back to teaching CS again.

In 2002 Stephen published his magnum opus, A New Kind of Science, (called NKS for short.) The NKS system is based on the observation that each process which we find in nature can be regarded as a computation that has a very simple underlying rule. Given the world's apparent complexity, it seems counterintuitive that the world could be based on simple rules. But computer scientists like Wolfram have amply demonstrated that simple rules can in fact generate complex behavior. An example: a simple rule describes how billiard balls bounce off each other, but if you set a bunch of balls in motion, the resulting patterns are quite intricate.

I became so fascinated by this set of ideas that I retired from my teaching job to have time to write my own tome on the subject: The Lifebox, the Seashell, and the Soul. The side effect was that I was finally off the teaching treadmill, and free to spend more time with my first love, writing science fiction.

And now, in 2009, a new kind of browser search engine called Wolfram|Alpha is about to appear. The other day I talked to Stephen on the phone for about two hours, and he demonstrated some of Wolfram|Alpha's powers via a web-conferencing hook-up. In the following, I'll be paraphrasing his words, based on my notes, my memory, and an audio recording of our conversation. If you want to delve further, we've placed a slightly condensed podcast of the conversation online at http://hplusmagazine.com/media/sw_alphapodcast.mp3.

Wolfram|Alpha: Searching for Truth

Read more | Permalink | Comments | Read more articles in Science | Digg this!

One of the most amazing things to me about those who think that we need stronger copyright laws or that the music industry will "die" if we don't enforce copyright laws more stringently is what they're really saying about fans: they're saying that fans don't want to support artists. However, as we've seen over and over and over again, that's simply not true. Fans have no problem supporting musicians, if those musicians make an effort to connect. The idea that fans will suddenly stop supporting artists is shown to be false over and over again. The latest example comes from Amanda Palmer -- who's been on something of a crusade to get out of her record label contract with a subsidiary of Warner Music, Roadrunner Music. In an email to Bob Lefsetz, she talks about the support her fans are giving (voluntarily) as well as how she's better connecting with her fans via Twitter (despite the record label saying Twitter wasn't worth bothering with):

it's a lesson in how the future of music is working - fans are literally (and i mean that....literally) lining up at the signing table after shows and HANDING me cash, saying "thank you".

i had to EXPLAIN to the so-called "head of digital media" of roadrunner australia WHAT TWITTER WAS. and his brush-off that "it hasn’t caught on here yet" was ABSURD because the next day i twittered that i was doing an impromptu gathering in a public park and 12 hours later, 150 underage fans - who couldn't attend the show - showed up to get their records signed.

no manager knew! i didn't even warn or tell her! no agents! no security! no venue! we were in a fucking public park! life is becoming awesome.

also interesting: i brought a troupe of back-up actors/dancers on the tour (we were only playing 300-1000 seaters) and had no money to pay them, so we passed the hat into the crowd every night. each performer walked from each show with about $200 in cash. the fans TOOK CARE OF THEM. they brought us dinner every night, gave us places to sleep. (i couldn't afford to put up that many people in hotels). all sans label, all using email and twitter. the fans followed the adventure. they LOVED HELPING.

so?

the times they are a-changing fucking dramatically, when pong-twittering with trent reznor means way more to your fan-base/business than whether or not the record is in fucking stores (and in my case, it ain't in fucking stores).

twitter is EVERYTHING that you explain in your rants: it is a MAINLINE insta-connection with the fans. there is ZERO middleman. my fans hung out with me all day on twitter today while i unpacked weird tour shit, fan art, gifts and paraphernalia that usually just ends up in my closet or in the trash and took pictures of it for them.

Connect with your fans. Give them a reason to buy and they'll support you. This doesn't require DRM, lawsuits, collective licensing, blanket licensing or even copyright. It's a model that works today and works well for musicians of all stripes (though, you actually have to be good... no new model works that well for bad musicians).

Permalink | Comments | Email This Story

Do you have a photo of your unabashed riot nrrrd childhood? Boing Boing Gadgets is seeking to celebrate our shared geekdom through the BBG Flickr pool. Tag your photo "dorkyearbook"! At top is our own Joel Johnson proud of his X86 hackery achieved over his 7th grade summer. The kid in the thin leather tie is yours truly, age 14, with my science fair-winning automated plant waterer. (Apologies for the bad photo quality.) I wrote an assembly language program for my Apple ][e to control a solid state relay circuit that I designed and connected to the RS232 port. The relay then triggered a solenoid that opened a valve for water to flow into the plant. I could set the program I wrote to water the plant on a regular schedule when I wasn't home. At the science fair, there was no faucet nearby so my dad got me a saline drip from his work that I used instead. But the salt water killed the plant. More on the Dork Yearbook at Boing Boing Gadgets.

nandemoari writes "T-Mobile is planning to use Google's open source operating system 'Android' on devices that blur the line between cellphone and home PC. In addition, Samsung says they will also produce Android phones, but need to work out the kinks first. Both announcements come shortly after HP revealed that it is investigating the idea of using Android to power some of its low-cost netbook computers in place of Windows."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

nandemoari writes "T-Mobile is planning to use Google's open source operating system 'Android' on devices that blur the line between cellphone and home PC. In addition, Samsung says they will also produce Android phones, but need to work out the kinks first. Both announcements come shortly after HP revealed that it is investigating the idea of using Android to power some of its low-cost netbook computers in place of Windows."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Andy Mangold's beautiful custom leather-bound accordian fold style book. He explains, "I went through all 900+ fonts on my computer and selected what I find to be some of the most interesting, beautiful, or historically significant ampersands" (via). #

Bits4Tots is a charity that seeks to bring a hands-on learning experience about making and robotics to kids who otherwise might not have the opportunity. A $25 donation buys a robot kit and a child's participation in a bot-building workshop at Robot City, a robot store (that's right, a robot store!) in Lakeview, IL.

Bots4Tots

Read more | Permalink | Comments | Read more articles in Kids | Digg this!

Richard Metzger was the Boing Boing guest blogger It was great fun posting here these past two weeks --really, you have no idea how much f'ing fun this is-- and thank you to everyone who commented (except the dude who said I should be denounced for my "Marx was right!" post. Who died and made you Joe McCarthy, buddy?). I learned a lot from all of you (except for that guy). [Jacobian, the link to Kapitalism 101 was tres cool, thanks for that!] I applaud my friends the Happy Mutants for their playful, yet purposeful entrepreneurial spirit --doing something you love and getting paid for it is a difficult and delicate thing to engineer-- and the necessary cultural explorations they perform for the readers and that the Boing Boing readers reflect back to them. It's a job well done on both ends. Paraphrasing somebody or something: If Boing Boing did not exist, it would be necessary to invent it! I'd say parting is such sweet sorrow and all of that, but you're actually not getting rid of me so darned fast. In fact, I'll be around every once in a while now moving forward as a correspondent for Boing Boing video, working with Xeni. This is very exciting news for me. There's already an interview with Douglas Rushkoff previewing his new book, "Life Inc" in the can ready to go and I posted an interview with Charles Hugh Smith here. I hope you'll give it some of your time, I believe Charles says some import things in these videos that you won't hear anywhere else. I particularly enjoyed being able to discuss music that I love here. With the closing of many/most of the record stores in this country, the fine art of BS'ing about music tends to happen on music blogs now. If I was able to introduce a few of you to the joys of Yabby You, Tuxedomoon, Snatch, Jobriath, Faust and "The Scene" (and my last time here, PJ Proby, Brett Smiley and mini-skirted 70s minx, Jeannie C. Riley) I am filled with rock snob satisfaction. If any of you will be watching Jam, Nighty Night, or The Trailer Park Boys, on my advice, I'm happier still. Speaking of BS'ing about music, a few weeks ago I was having lunch with BB pal Coop and we were talking about musicians or groups that we'd overlooked. My own list shamefully included Magazine and Joni Mitchell, who I now consider a god. Coop mentioned that Edwin Pouncey (AKA Savage Pencil) revered the music of Alice Coltrane above all else, and as I'd just watched Edwin on DVD the night before speaking authoritatively on Kraftwerk in a new documentary, I decided to follow up on that lead. Oh WOW. It was like having an orgasm in your head. I was blown away. You might be too, hopefully. So here then is my final post for you fine people, a link to a radio/DJ set of Alice Coltrane's gorgeous, spacey. lushly feminine take on jazz. Timeless. Deep. Mystical. Unlike anything else. And what you'd be hearing if you were sitting right where I am sitting now typing these words. A Tribute to Alice Coltrane with DJ Kirk Degiorgio It's been a tremendous pleasure! Have fun Lisa and Steven! Richard PS Add me on Facebook.

Upstart online brokerage site Zecco had an unfortunate April Fool's day snafu that they are claiming was an honest mistake. Users logged on to find larger balances than they should have, sometimes millions of dollars extra, and many of those users started trading with the nonexistent money. Happy April Fool's Day. "... when Zecco realized it, the company apparently started to force sell, even at a loss, charging the losses to the customers along with a '$19.99 broker-assisted trading fee.' Oops."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

At one point, it seemed like Rupert Murdoch was all on board with moving away from newsprint and towards an online world where content was free. After all, way back in 2005 he declared that newsprint was on the way out, and then, prior to taking over the Wall Street Journal, he hinted that he thought the WSJ could do even better by making its content entirely free. However, after taking over Dow Jones, folks who run WSJ.com convinced him otherwise -- and now it sounds like he's gone entirely over to the other side. In a talk at a cable industry event, he reportedly said: "The question is, should we be allowing Google to steal all our copyright ... not steal, but take. Not just them, but Yahoo."

Well, at least he corrected himself (sort of) on calling it "stealing" -- though, even then it's not right. First off, it would be the content, not the copyright that's being used. And it wouldn't be either "taken" or "stolen." But, even more to the point, if Murdoch doesn't want Google or Yahoo linking to his properties, that's easy. He can just ask them to stop and they will. So, to claim that it's somehow unfair that Google and Yahoo are "taking" that content is flat-out wrong. News Corp. hasn't blocked the crawlers, so obviously the company feels it gets some benefit from Google and Yahoo.

Then he moved on to the question of free content:

"People reading news for free on the web, that's got to change."

That's about 180 degrees from what he said just a year and a half ago, when he noted:

"We are studying it and we expect to make that free, and instead of having 1 million [subscribers], having at least 10 million to 15 million in every corner of the earth.... Will you lose $50 million to $100 million in revenue? I don't think so. If the site is good, you'll get much more."

Perhaps Murdoch of today should go talk to Murdoch of 2007.

Or, he should go talk with Martin Langeveld who actually tried to do the math on subscriptions vs. the loss in advertising from a much smaller base, and has a lot of trouble finding any model of paid content that would offset the loss in advertising. In fact, the more he looked, the worse it seemed, as the loss in advertising revenue from putting most content behind a paywall is significantly more than any subscriber revenue.

Permalink | Comments | Email This Story

On Wednesday last week I got an invite to visit FriendFeed headquarters on Thurs to see a demo of their new user interface. I declined -- it's a lot of travel from Berkeley to Mountain View, and for a few days advantage, I didn't think it was worth it.

A number of people including Steve Gillmor, Robert Scoble and Mike Arrington did go, presumably because they care more, and because they live closer. I might have gone if it was a BART ride away in San Francisco. Or if I had a business reason to be there.

Where I'm at with FF. It's in the chrome of my browser (Firefox) and it's part of my regular rotation, including GMail, Twitter, FOD, Top25. It's where I go during pauses in my daily work to see what's up. I don't leave it open and let my eyes drift over there for a distraction while working on other stuff. If I did, I'd never be able to concentrate.

Right now, in April 2009, I'm looking for a way out of Twitter. I don't like the way the company is managing it. Reading the tea leaves, which is all I have to go on, it looks like they're either going to become the current day equivalent of a TV network, or acquire or be acquired by a TV network. I might have been interested in this last year, when I was watching MSNBC 12-by-7 (gotta sleep and eat) to keep up on the election news. This year, I never watch the news. I can't even be bothered to watch the Sunday news talk. Too much nonsense, it's all too irrelevant to everything.

But I still believe in the idea of twitter (note the lowercase) even if I don't like where Twitter™ is taking it. So my number one priority is choice. I want lots of twitters, so the market approximates a Ouija board, so the ideas of a handful of tech icons can't determine our future, but they can influence it. Big diff. That's my roadmap and it's not the same road that Ev, Biz et al are on. If FriendFeed wanted to get on that road, I'd be down in Mountain View, or Bumfuck, Egypt, with bells on, at my expense, yesterday. To see another iteration of their creation, that's as irrelevant as Olbermann. I just don't frakin care.

I still want a toolkit to make twitters, so we can try out lots of ideas without having to build and run a back-end. Given the state of the economy, it's pretty clear not many people are going to get the chance to build one, and Bret and Paul know how to, and I wish they'd swallow their pride, and get to work on the ultimate twitter toolkit.

There's still a chance that's what they're doing, as far as I know they haven't revealed any changes to the API to go with the UI changes. When they do I'll probably have more to say.

GhostX9 writes "Tom's Hardware recently interviewed Dino A. Dai Zovi, a former member of Sandia National Labs' IDART (the guys who test the security of national agencies). Although most of the interview is focused on personal computer security, they asked him about L0pht's claim in 1998 if the Internet could still be taken down in 30 minutes given the advances on both the security and threat sides. He said that the risk was still true."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

In the comments after my post about the MOOG-laden TV commercial for Schaefer Beer, TORLEY points us to this fantastic video for pioneering electronic musician Jean-Jacques Perrey's catchy tune "EVA." It opens with a sample of Timothy Leary. I love Perrey's grin.

Well here's a little nugget of information that show you just how dominant Craigslist has become in the online classifieds space. A new report suggests that 97 of the top 100 online classified sites are localized versions of Craigslist (i.e., dallas.craigslist.org, sfbay.craigslist.org, etc.). Not sure who the other three are, or where they fall on the chart... but (once again) it shows how the 10 lines of code fallacy comes into play. Over the years, plenty of people have brushed aside Craigslist as not being very pretty or complex -- and noting that it would be easy to copy. But, the value of Craigslist isn't in the code (though, these days, having robust and scalable code is a big deal considering the traffic) but in the users. And you can't just copy that with 10 lines of code.

Permalink | Comments | Email This Story

Wired compiled a list of what they deem the "10 Best Geeky Last Words." Here are my favorites:

How were the circus receipts today at Madison Square Garden?
—P. T. Barnum

Try LSD, 100 mm intramuscular.
—Aldous Huxley

Death Metal writes to tell us that a growing tide of complaints are being piled at Google's feet in response to a far-reaching settlement that some feel will grant the giant too much power over the "orphan books" they have been scanning into digital format. The settlement could give Google near-exclusivity with respect to the copyright of orphan works — books that the author and publisher have essentially abandoned. They are out of print, and while they remain under copyright, the rights holders are unknown or cannot be found. "Critics say that without the orphan books, no competitor will ever be able to compile the comprehensive online library Google aims to create, giving the company more control than ever over the realm of digital information. And without competition, they say, Google will be able to charge universities and others high prices for access to its database. The settlement, 'takes the vast bulk of books that are in research libraries and makes them into a single database that is the property of Google,' said Robert Darnton, head of the Harvard University library system. 'Google will be a monopoly.'"

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Download the MP4 here. Flash video above, click "fullscren" icon inside player to view large. YouTube channel here, subscribe on iTunes here. Get Twitter updates every time there's a new ep by following @boingboingvideo, and here are blog post archives for Boing Boing Video.

---

Today on Boing Boing Video, Playfish Games founder Sebastien de Halleaux joins us for a conversation about games developed for social networks. The Playfish game "Pet Society" is currently the most popular game on facebook, with millions of participants per day. Sebastien reveals an odd, unintended subculture that developed out of this game -- you feed these visrtual pets in the game, and eventually they poop, so fans began to "farm" poo, and compete to see who could cultivate the most. The game's developers in turn responded by creating high score poo variants, like the coveted rainbow poo, and the ultra-high-score golden poo. Playfish has other popular games on MySpace, Facebook, Bebo, and the like, including another one where you manage a restarurant with your friends. This episode is an excerpt from our marathon live streaming coverage of the Game Developer Conference.

Previously:

* Doctor Popular's Awesome Yo-Yo Stylings
* Hideo Kojima on Metal Gear Solid Touch (games)
* Jane McGonigal on Emotion, Gaming, and Dance.
* Jane McGonigal - Games Can Change the World.
* Jane McGonigal's Game Developers' Conference talk on Making Your Own Reality
* BBV @ GDC live stream archives, at Ustream.tv
* Boing Boing Video and Offworld.com Live at GDC09: offworld.com archive
* Boing Boing Video and Offworld.com Live at GDC09: boingboing.net archive

---

[ Special thanks to Hugo van Tilborg. BBV Live @GDC09 credits and thanks: Production Team -- Jolon Bankey, Derek Bledsoe, Daniela Calderon, Eddie Codel, Xeni Jardin, Allison Kingsley, Matty Kirsch, Alice Taylor, Wesly Varghese. Special thanks to Wayneco Heavy Industries (accommodation and studio facilities), Virgin America Airlines (air travel), Celsius (thermogenic energy beverage), Ustream.tv (streaming video host). Moral support, production assistance, additional talent, and good vibes provided by: Domini Anne, Scott Beale, T.Bias, Jeremy Bornstein, Brandon Boyer, Chris The Van Guy, Peter S. Conrad, Marque Cornblatt, Wayne, Bre, and the entire de Geere family, Marcy DeLuce, Cory Doctorow, Joel Johnson, Kourosh Karimkhany, Jim Louderback and the Revision 3 team, Karen Marcelo, Rocky Mullin, Alicia Pollak, Jackie Mogol, Taylor Peck, David Pescovitz, Micah Schaffer, and Teal. ]

Details for Maker Faire Africa have been announced. The event takes place this August in Accra, Ghana. I don't know if I'll be able to go myself, but I really want to. Sounds absolutely amazing, and there are great people involved. (thanks, Emeka Okafor)

An anonymous reader writes "Microsoft's long-awaited integrated security suite, codenamed Stirling, has been delayed by months and will now not be available until the fourth quarter 2009. According to Microsoft, the delay is due to the further development of the firm's behaviour based technology, the Dynamic Signature Service "to help deliver more comprehensive endpoint protection for zero day attacks", and efforts to add interoperability with third party solutions, as per customer requests. When completed, the suite will combine a number of tools such as the ISA Serever and multiple Forefront products."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Last week, we discussed why it looked like movie studio 20th Century Fox was overreacting to the leak of a workprint copy of the upcoming movie Wolverine. The studio could have easily used the leak to get good publicity. Instead, it's freaking out and rushing around trying to blame everyone. The latest person caught in the crossfire? A columnist for Fox News who downloaded the leaked copy and wrote a review... Since both 20th Century Fox and Fox News are owned by News Corp., the studio flipped out and the writer, Roger Friedman, has supposedly been fired. For what? For actually admitting that the movie was out there? It's not like it hasn't been all over the news. For calling more attention to the fact that the movie can be downloaded? Firing Friedman seems to be getting a lot more attention than the review actually did. Once again, just because you have the legal right to do something about infringement, doesn't mean it makes any sense. Here's yet another case of a Hollywood studio letting its legal rights override common sense, and because of that, it's harming its own reputation.

Permalink | Comments | Email This Story

This weeks code refresh has added a number of really irritating story display bugs that we're working on. But it also added a number of cool optimizations that should improve performance for a lot of readers. Tap that link below to read a brief description of them, and also a few serious notes about the achievement system we launched last wednesday.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

snydeq writes "InfoWorld's Dan Tynan offers up 7 'even dirtier IT jobs' in a follow-up of last year's 7 dirtiest jobs in IT. Number four? Zombie console monkey. 'Wanted: Individuals with low self-esteem and high boredom threshold willing to spend long hours poring over server logs and watching blinking lights on a network console.'"

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Power Glove 20th Anniversary Edition -- Build Video from Matt Mechtley on Vimeo.

Matt Mechtley is responsible for this maker's dream project: getting a classic Nintendo Power Glove to work with custom games by replacing it's brain with an arduino, implanting an accelerometer for motion detection, and using a bluetooth modem for wireless connectivity. He's outdone himself with downloadable code, schematics, this awesome video, and an Instructable to top it off. You may remember Matt from my asphalt mosaics video, or from the many appearances of the video games he works on around the internet. Matt writes:

I always loved the Nintendo Power Glove. Not because it was a fun or useful peripheral -- it wasn't. In fact it wasn't bad, as Lucas asserted, it was absolutely terrible. Only two games were ever made to work with it -- Super Glove Ball and Bad Street Brawler. You could use it with other NES games of course, but it was just an obfuscated controller. Plus, it was horribly imprecise, and since it required a sensor bar to find its orientation, you had to hold your hand at shoulder level all the time. No, I loved the Power Glove for what it represented -- a precursor to virtual reality, a way for humans to directly manipulate computers, like an artifact from some sort of alternate future Earth.

I realized one day that we're actually living in that future. It doesn't look the same as we imagined it, but the necessary elements are all there. It's been 20 years now since Mattel released the Power Glove, in 1989. Especially in the last few years, the availability of sophisticated sensing equipment to hardware hackers has grown by leaps and bounds. Technology like programmable microcontrollers, accelerometers, and Bluetooth are readily available -- and cheap. In short, the time is ripe to re-make the Power Glove -- and make it right.

digg_url = 'http://blog.makezine.com/archive/2009/04/updated_power_glove_with_bluetooth.html'; Read more | Permalink | Comments | Read more articles in Gaming | Digg this!

Sean Ragan writes:

I've recently developed an interest in scientific glassblowing and have been in the process of cobbling together the necessary equipment for about a month now. Besides an oxy-fuel torch, serious glass-blowing requires a torch holder to keep the torch flame stationary relative to the bench while both hands are used to manipulate the work. Commercial torch-holders sell for $70 and up, but it seemed like such a simple device that I decided to try junking one together. And this is the result. It's based around a marble trophy base I nicked from my High School band hall when I was, like 17, and have been carrying around ever since. That's a pack rat for you.

Read more | Permalink | Comments | Read more articles in Toolbox | Digg this!

It seems like a lot of musicians really do think of copyright as a welfare system. Recently, in the UK, there was a launch of a new lobbying group, the Featured Artists Coalition, who we had mentioned last year, when it was first announced. The group has always said that one of its goals was to get musicians to retain their copyright, so perhaps it's not surprising that the group has now come out in favor of copyright extension, but with a twist. They're saying that copyright should be extended... but that the extension should go to the musician, rather than any other copyright holder (such as a record label). So it looks like my initial fear about this group is coming true: that rather than look at innovative models, it would simply look at new protectionist schemes to benefit its members at the expense of everyone else. It's hard to come up with any fathomable explanation for extending copyright and handing it to someone else unless you truly believed that copyright is a welfare system, rather than an incentive to create.

Permalink | Comments | Email This Story

If you're lucky enough to own one of the SERB robot kits from Oomlout, you'll likely be interested in this Instructable, which shows you how to add a simple touch-switch bump sensor to the front of your bot.

Add Obstacle Detecting Whiskers to Your Robot

More:
Review: SERB Robot kit
SERB robot with Wii Nunchuck control

In the Maker Shed:

Arduino Controlled Servo Robot Kit
Our Price: $175.00
The Arduino Controlled Servo Robot Kit, also know as SERB, is a great open source project that includes everything you need to begin experimenting with robots and Arduino microcontrollers. Just assemble the precision laser-cut parts and you are off and running, no additional hardware is needed. It even comes with a demo program pre-loaded onto the Arduino.

The SERB has a built in breadboard that sits on the top of the robot. This allows for easy access for additional sensors and electronics. It couldn't be easier to prototype on the fly with this amazing robot.

Read more | Permalink | Comments | Read more articles in Robotics | Digg this!

A user on Reddit pointed out that Richard "rick752" Petnel, maintainer of one of the most popular filter lists for Ad Block Plus, has passed away at age 56. In an article last year Petnel described a bit of what he was up against in the ad world. "'I'm playing against some pretty big players,' he said, explaining his reluctance to step forward. 'I don't want to be harassed. . . . I don't want to be bribed. I started it because I was frustrated with getting my computer infected from ads -- malware and spyware and all that stuff,' he said. 'I kind of went overboard with it. But you have to admit, it's pretty amazing, right?'" Update 15:05 GMT by SM: updated to reflect Rick's status as maintainer of the most popular Ad Block Plus filter as opposed to Ad Block Plus itself.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

From the MAKE Flickr pool

Flickr member My Blue Van turned a couple of power pole insulator caps into stylish LED desk lights. Looks like a great way to display these highly collectible items -- perhaps routing multiple to a central power supply and switch. Check out more pics in the relevant Flickr set.

Read more | Permalink | Comments | Digg this!

Hugh Pickens writes "Roger Friedman, an entertainment columnist for FoxNews.com, discovered over the weekend just what Rupert Murdoch means by 'zero tolerance' when it comes to movie piracy. On Friday, the film studio 20th Century Fox — owned by the News Corporation, the media conglomerate ruled by Mr. Murdoch — became angry after reading Friedman's latest column, a review of 'X-Men Origins: Wolverine,' a big-budget movie that was leaked in unfinished form on the Web last week. Friedman posted a mini-review, adding, 'It took really less than seconds to start playing it all right onto my computer.' The film studio, which enlisted the FBI to hunt the pirate, put out a statement calling Friedman's column 'reprehensible' while News Corporation weighed in with its own statement, saying it had asked Fox News to remove the column from its Web site. 'When we advised Fox News of the facts,' the statement said, 'they promptly terminated Mr. Friedman.'"

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Recently on Offworld there's been a lot of art appreciation as we watched LittleBigPlanet artist Rexbox serve up against Made In England designer Cookie in Coudal's game of Layer Tennis, and saw "I Can Read Movies" artist Spacesick create an 8-bit title screen for a NES game never made. We also saw Olly Moss's goomba/invader/zombie firing range target design Shoot the Baddies (right) finally go into print, watched Tea and Cheese create an 8-bit water slide in real life, and gawked at the I Am 8-Bit related T-shirt/print/sticker designs rolled out for Nintendo's Los Angeles DSi launch party. Finally, we watched the first cinematic for ngmoco's 3D spherical iPhone tower defense game and watched Mega64 show no mercy for the un-indie, saw Uniqlo's new games-related T-shirt designs, coveted the best Noby Noby Boy sneakers you'll ever see, and, best of all, downloaded both volumes of the brilliant reality-enhancing iPhone app RjDj for free, in celebration of their new social updates -- don't miss your chance to get them now.

Why let a cramped design ruin a good instrument? James Haskin writes in with his recipe for a highly playable Kaossila-tar

Last christmas my girlfriend got me a Korg Kaossiltor. The only thing I wasn't in love with was the button layout. I had to cross hands to record and arpeggiater was a paint to use due to it awkward position. So I wired it into a Guitar Hero Controller.

James cites Wayne Coyne's double necked mash-up as inspiration. Curious minds can reap all the handy DIY data via the projects instructable page.

More:

Wayne Coyne's guitar hero mash-up axe

Read more | Permalink | Comments | Digg this!

Well here's an idea that must have sounded good at one point. Upstart online brokerage Zecco (already known for pulling attention-grabbing stunts) had the bright idea for April Fool's Day to load up users' balances with much more money than they actually had -- sometimes millions more. Except... it looks like they never bothered to make sure people couldn't use that money. So plenty of users started making trades with the fake money... and when Zecco realized it, the company apparently started to force sell, even at a loss, charging the losses to the customers along with a "$19.99 broker-assisted trading fee." Oops.

Permalink | Comments | Email This Story

BobB-nw writes "A new cloud storage vendor is entering the market, promising an enterprise-class file system with snapshots, replication, and other features designed to simplify adoption for existing users and applications. Zetta, founded in 2007 by veterans of Netscape, has $11 million in funding and is coming out of stealth mode Monday with Enterprise Cloud Storage, a Web-based storage platform that will compete against Amazon's Simple Storage Service and a growing number of cloud vendors. Zetta's goal was to build a Web-based storage system that would be accepted by enterprise IT professionals for storing primary data. 'Data growth rates are staggering. In businesses you see growth rates of 40 to 60 percent year over year,' says CEO Jeff Treuhaft, a Zetta cofounder and formerly one of Netscape's first employees. Another Zetta cofounder is Lou Montulli, an early Netscape employee who invented Web cookies."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

The guys at Lumenlabs lost a little sleep offer the critical comments made about their new micrRo CNC robot. (You mean there are actual people on the other side of the monitor glass, with feelings that can actually be hurt? I had no idea.) They made a series of videos that show the bot cutting a 1/2 piece of aluminum stock and then carving the name micrRo in it. Hit the link below to see the entire series of videos.

Lumenlab

More:
The MicRo CNC from Lumenlab

Read more | Permalink | Comments | Read more articles in Robotics | Digg this!

Bill Thompson spotted this keyboard fossil "on the pavement in Norwich, at the bottom of St Peter's Street."

IMG_0051 (via BillBlog)

Just posted! Our new lens review featuring the Tokina AT-X PRO SD 12-24mm F4 ED (IF). Continuing our series examining ultra-wideangle zooms, we take a look at Tokina's five year old offering in this popular category. Can it still compete with newer designs, or does its relatively narrow angle of view compared to 10mm zooms rule it out of serious contention?

Just posted! Our new lens review featuring the Tokina AT-X PRO SD 12-24mm F4 ED (IF). Continuing our series examining ultra-wideangle zooms, we take a look at Tokina's five year old offering in this popular category. Can it still compete with newer designs, or does its relatively narrow angle of view compared to 10mm zooms rule it out of serious contention?

Limor gives a video overview of her recipe for twittering personal power via the hacker-friendly ASUS WL-520gU wireless router. Cited as reference is MightyOhm's wifi radio tutorial. Hmmm … anyone for a third antennae? Read more of the project over at Adafruit Industries.

Read more | Permalink | Comments | Digg this!

newtley writes "SafeNet paid $20 million for MediaSentry in 2005, but has just sold it to rival MediaDefender for a paltry $136,000, with a promise of more later. MediaSentry's new owner says the combination will allow it to 'dramatically expand its effectiveness.' Is it time for an official government inquiry into MediaSentry and the RIAA? A Chicago student said she was planning on killing herself because the RIAA promised her she'd land in court unless she paid almost $10,000 to 'settle' an alleged copyright infringement. She 'couldn't sleep, couldn't study, couldn't live a normal life because of the worry.' The RIAA 'evidence' came from MediaSentry, accused of operating illegally."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Tara Hunt's The Whuffie Factor is a quick, insightful update to books like The Cluetrain Manifesto, the seminal work that described the means by which conversations were conducted online and advised companies on how to join the conversation without seeming smarmy or patronizing. As Hunt points out, Cluetrain preceded the rise of blogging, not to mention Twitter, social networking services, and all the other key elements of modern online conversation.

Hunt's book is a lot shorter on theory and manifesto than Cluetrain and a lot longer on practicalities, devoting a lot of space to explaining how all these tools work and citing examples of different commercial and charitable organizations that have used them to good effect (as well as citing cautionary examples of companies that bungled things badly, usually by being caught out in deceit of one kind or another). Because of this, Whuffie Factor is probably easier to put into effect as soon as you crack the cover, but it's also likely to go stale more quickly, as the specific technologies cited wane (Cluetrain may have pre-dated blogging, but it had enough theory-stuff that it's still worth reading today, ten years later). On the other hand, if Hunt's book does well, she'll have a nice side-line in producing annual updated editions.

Hunt's central thesis is that participating in community and gaining social capital is the fastest, most reliable way to attain success for products, services, causes and movements than advertising and marketing are, and she sets out to re-educate executives and marketing people who haven't cottoned on to this. There's something of a holy mission in explaining the networked, twenty-first century reality to successful but out-dated people, if only so that execs get enough religion to give excited junior people rein to do experimental and exciting things online.

Hunt's book only suffers slightly from having been written before the econopocalypse (writing business books just before a global economic catastrophe is a tricky business), having a very faint air of the commercial excess of the golden days of 2008. But in the final analysis, using conversation and community to succeed is ultimately more frugal and Depression-ready than buying a lot of big, loud, glitzy Superbowl ads.

I've been tracking the progress of this book for a year or so, ever since I got wind of the title. "Whuffie," of course, is the social currency used by the characters in my novel Down and Out in the Magic Kingdom, which was incidentally the first novel released under a Creative Commons license, a book that relied quite a lot on community and conversation for its success (I've lost track of how many printings the book's gone through now -- I think it's in its ninth edition). I was flattered to hear that Hunt wanted to use the word in her title, and now that I've read the book, I'm very pleased to have my little neologism attached to such a fine read.

The Whuffie Factor: Using the Power of Social Networks to Build Your Business

My friend Thomas Edwards writes:

Everyone seems to be using OpenSound Control (OSC), so I figured I'd try controlling pd (aka Pure Data) on my MacBook from my iPhone using the TouchOSC app.

He shows you how he set it up on his blog.

Tech Art Blog

Read more | Permalink | Comments | Read more articles in iPhone | Digg this!

A whole bunch of people have been submitting this story all weekend, about how designer Jon Engle is is accused of copyright infringement for his own designs. The site is down right now, but Google cache has it. Basically, the story is that a stock art site claims that it owns the copyright on 65 logos that this guy created for clients -- and is demanding he pay $275 for each one (which is actually somewhat low, given what they could demand). He's not sure how the images got on the stock art site, but it looks like someone just took the images of logos from a showcase site, removed the text, and uploaded the icons themselves. He explained this to them, but instead of an embarrassed apology:

When I refused to pay the bill they hired a law firm specializing in copyright infringement. The attorney called and offered a settlement of $18,000. How is that any different than the bill? I refuse to pay THEM for work I created. That is the epitomy of ridiculous. The attorney didn't like my response. He threatened to sue. I say BRING IT ON! I have no doubt I can win in court.

So what did the lawyers do? They started going after all of Engle's clients, telling them that their images infringe on its copyright and that Engle is "being investigated for copyright infringement."

However, the new tactic I discovered this morning is so much harder to fight. They are calling or emailing every one of my clients they can find. They inform the client that I'm being investigated for copyright infringement and that the logo I designed for them may have been stolen from their client. After discovering my ban from Design Outpost I began contacting clients to see exactly who they've been in touch with. So far, I've heard back from three. In every case so far my client is furious with me. They took the lawyer's warning at face value without bothering to contact me. I understand their reaction to an extent. I'm sure they're worried that they may be sued as well for using 'stolen' artwork and the best thing they can do is distance themselves from me.

I feel like this is nothing more than an underhanded campaign meant to demoralize me and destroy my reputation. If you read through their website you can see they work on contingency. This means they don't get paid if their client doesn't get paid. I've also made it very clear there's no way in hell that I'll ever pay up. I'll declare bankruptcy and go to work for McDonald's before that happens. Are they thinking they can beat me into submission? Do they think I'll agree to a settlement to make it all go away? Guess again. I have the truth on my side and I will NEVER pay a rip-off artist or their extortionist lawyers.

Nice to see copyright law "protecting" the artist again.

Permalink | Comments | Email This Story

All the reference information anyone needs on virtually any subject is right at the fingertips in this handy pocket-sized guide. Its tables, charts, drawings, lists, and formulas will be especially useful for contractors, students, travelers, electronics hobbyists, craftspeople, and engineers and technicians in virtually every field.

More about Thomas J. Glover Pocket Reference

Read more | Permalink | Comments | Read more articles in Maker Shed Store | Digg this!

Another weekend goes by and another old school newspaper guy writes a long screed condemning Google as a menace hellbent on destroying all that is good and right in the news business. This one, by Henry Porter in The Guardian is particularly amusing due to the logical inconsistencies within. It starts out, first, with a rehashing of the misguided attack on Scribd, where Porter seems to blame Scribd for actions of its users (who knew it was so difficult to separate out the drivers from the automakers). To him, Scribd is pure evil:

it still allows individuals to advertise services for delivering pirated books by email, which must make it the enemy of every writer and publisher in the world. In effect it has turned copyright law on its head: instead of asking publishers for permission, it requires them to object if and when they become aware of a breach.

Yes, that's why many authors and publishers are using Scribd to help promote their books. Apparently the fact that Scribd might be useful never occurred to Porter. It's the same complaint by plenty of folks who refuse to even think about new business model possibilities, to immediately condemn any useful new service as killing off any hope of a business model even as those willing to embrace the technology are finding it enhances rather than diminishes their opportunities.

Then, right after he complains that Scribd isn't doing enough to prevent books from getting online, he complains about Google for the exact opposite thing:

Google presents a far greater threat to the livelihood of individuals and the future of commercial institutions important to the community.... When the Performing Rights Society demanded more money for music videos streamed from the website, Google reacted by refusing to pay the requested 0.22p per play and took down the videos of the artists concerned.

This is the very next paragraph. So, let me get the logic straight: Scribd is a problem because it allows books to be posted online without permission and doesn't do enough to take them down. Google, on the other hand, is a problem because it has taken down music videos rather than leaving them up and simply paying.

So, apparently, the lesson of the day is that content creators should be able to demand a specific amount of money from any service provider for actions done by their users (not the service provider itself), and if that service provider can't pay up, too bad. Oh, and then, of course, there's the popular claim of the content creator that Google adds no value:

Google is in the final analysis a parasite that creates nothing, merely offering little aggregation, lists and the ordering of information generated by people who have invested their capital, skill and time.

Fair enough. If it adds no real value, then remove your works from Google, Mr. Porter. But, the truth is Mr. Porter is wrong and he knows it deep down inside. If Google "created nothing" and offered no value, no one would use it. But the fact is that it creates tremendous value, hence all of the usage, including some that drives traffic to Mr. Porter's weakly argued, poorly reasoned rant. The fact that Mr. Porter or his bosses are somehow unable to capitalize on that traffic is their fault alone, not Google's.

Permalink | Comments | Email This Story

An anonymous reader writes with a snippet from the Telegraph: "A European Union directive, which Britain was instrumental in devising, comes into force which will require all internet service providers to retain a href="http://www.telegraph.co.uk/scienceandtechnology/technology/technologynews/5105

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Stagueve sez, "Ben Heck just finished his new project, a gorgeous Commodore 64 Laptop:"

This project somehow has the distinction of being both the longest and fastest portable electronics project I have ever done. I originally started making a C64 laptop in the fall of 2006, and kept pecking away at it every so often. Finally, a few weeks ago, I said "screw it" and started over.

Commodore 64 Original Hardware Laptop (Thanks, Stagueve!)

Here's Michael Tamblyn, the CEO of BookNet Canada, presenting six technology initiatives that could radically alter the course of publishing for the better. It's a refreshing presentation, focused on selling more paper books using better technology that improves workflow and marketing, while acknowledging that there's lots of room for improvement in ebook readers as well.

Michael Tamblyn - 6 Projects That Could Change Publishing for the Better (via Beyond the Beyond)

The US House subcommittee on Financial Services is agitating to legalize payday loans with 391% APRs. Key committee members have received large campaign contributions from the "payday" industry, and the committee chairman, Luiz Gutierrez (who also received contributions from the payday people) says the reason he's offering the industry this sweetheart deal after being on record as opposing this sort of thing is that their powerful lobbying has left him powerless to resist them: "...[T]hey're very powerful. Their influence should not be underestimated."

After watching members of the military fall prey to exorbitant payday loans, Congress in 2006 capped the interest rates for military payday loans at 36%. Fifteen states have similar caps or outright bans.

Congressman Gutierrez is competing with Congressman Joe Baca to see who can author the biggest giveaway. Baca's legislation would allow rollovers, higher fees for online banks, and would pre-empt state laws banning payday loans.

House Preparing To Legalize Payday Loans With 391% APRs

GreennMann writes "An ice bridge linking a shelf of ice the size of Jamaica to two islands in Antarctica has snapped. Scientists say the collapse could mean the Wilkins Ice Shelf is on the brink of breaking away, and provides further evidence or rapid change in the region. Sited on the western side of the Antarctic Peninsula, the Wilkins shelf has been retreating since the 1990s. Researchers regarded the ice bridge as an important barrier, holding the remnant shelf structure in place. Its removal will allow ice to move more freely between Charcot and Latady islands, into the open ocean."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Congressman "Hollywood" Howard Berman (who once proposed legislation that would allow rightsholders to hack American net-users' PCs if they believed the machines were involved in infringement, but excused them from liability if they targeted the wrong machine) is holding "piracy" hearings in LA later today (Monday), and the speaker's list consists of nothing but representatives of giant studios and theater chains, as well as someone from the "Global Intellectual Property Strategy Center."

If you're a copyfighter and you're around Van Nuys today, why not attend the meeting and see if you can't ask an impertinent question or two?

On Monday, April 6, Congressman Howard L. Berman will chair a field hearing of the House Foreign Affairs Committee to assess the financial impact of global intellectual property piracy. The public is welcome to attend this hearing, which will be held in the City Council Chambers at the Van Nuys Civic Center, 14410 Sylvan Street, from 10 a.m. to noon...

Witnesses will be: Steven Soderbergh, National Vice President of the Directors Guild of America; Richard Cook, Chairman of The Walt Disney Studios; Michael F. Miller, Jr., International Vice President of the International Alliance of Theatrical Stage Employees (IATSE); Zach Horowitz, President and Chief Operating Officer of Universal Music Group; and Timothy P. Trainer, President of Global Intellectual Property Strategy Center, P.C.

Congressional Hearing in Van Nuys Will Explore How to Sink the Copyright Pirates (Thanks, Lewis!)

Here's a gallery of elaborate shanty-houses, hanging at L.A.Galerie in Frankfurt. They're from Peter Bialobrzeski and Oliver Boberg, and the exhibition's called "Case Studies." It's hanging until May 23. Bialobrzeski's photos come from the Bataan Shipyard Corporation Compound, a squatter camp located at the mouth of the River Pasig near the Port of Manila, in February 2008. 70,000 people live there, and 45% of Greater Manila live in a camp like it.

Case study homes, 2008 (via Beyond the Beyond)

From the Oxford University Press's blog, "Nine Words You Might Think Came from Science but Which Are Really from Science Fiction."

4. Deep space. One of the other defining features of outer space is its essential emptiness. In science fiction, this phrase most commonly refers to a region of empty space between stars or that is remote from the home world. E. E. "Doc" Smith seems to have coined this phrase in 1934. The more common use in the sciences refers to the region of space outside of the Earth's atmosphere.

5. Ion drive. An ion drive is a type of spaceship engine that creates propulsion by emitting charged particles in the direction opposite of the one you want to travel. The earliest citation in Brave New Words is again from Jack Williamson ("The Equalizer", 1947). A number of spacecraft have used this technology, beginning in the 1970s.

6. Pressure suit. A suit that maintains a stable pressure around its occupant; useful in both space exploration and high-altitude flights. This is another one from the fertile mind of E. E. Smith. Curiously, his pressure suits were furred, an innovation not, alas, replicated by NASA.

7. Virus. Computer virus, that is. Dave Gerrold (of "The Trouble With Tribbles" fame) was apparently the first to make the verbal analogy between biological viruses and self-replicating computer programs, in his 1972 story "When Harlie Was One."

Nine Words You Might Think Came from Science but Which Are Really from Science Fiction (via Beyond the Beyond)

Maker/artist Mister Jalopy was featured on Kurt Anderson's Studio 360 radio program last week.

Says Jalopy: "Kurt Andersen is a sterling gent, a real class act. Our conversation brought us to topics I had not really thought about or connected before."

The video above is just a small excerpt from the show. In the same episode, there's a great story about the origins of Devo and an interview with the jilted boyfriend of artist Cindy Sherman.

Mister Jalopy on Studio 360 radio program

Photo from adcurtin

This tip came in from the comments:

Here's my mod from back in the day before GH3 for x360 (I preferred the sg to the xplorer):

He goes on:

I hate the X-plorer with a passion, mostly the fret buttons, but the whammy bar and the part that gets in the way when I strum are also problems. I decided to get rid of all those issues by doing a total conversion. Since I do custom songs on PS2 and didn't want to lose the ability to do co-op on PS2 and didn't want to buy a new guitar, I decide to do a two-way conversion.

Nice work combining guitar controllers to get what you want before the corporations decide you need it.

Thanks Mike!

Read more | Permalink | Comments | Read more articles in DIY Projects | Digg this!

An anonymous reader writes "In a move that would make the old eastern German Stasi green with envy, the Thai government has modernized a system that allows citizens to snitch on fellow citizens. 'Internet users are being urged to show their loyalty to the king by contributing to a new website called protecttheking.net, which has been set up by a parliamentary committee. On the site's front page it is described as a means for Thai people to show their loyalty to the king by protecting him from what it calls misunderstandings about him. It calls on all citizens to inform on anyone suspected of insulting or criticising the monarchy.' An large unknown population of political prisoners are currently being held for 3 to 15 years in Thai prisons for being interpreted as insulting the monarchy."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Richard Metzger is the current Boing Boing guest blogger And now for my promised video interview with Charles Hugh Smith, author of the new e-book, "Survival+." Part 1: We discuss "Survival+" and the current economic crisis. Part 2: We discuss why socialism in the USA is inevitable (and why this is a good thing), Karl Marx and more. Part 3: More on socialism in America and Niall Ferguson calling for America to repudiate its debt in the pages of TIME magazine. Part 4: Charles and I discuss Cory's BB post about squatters on his block and why it's important for culturally influential people to create feedback loops for humane and dignified solutions to the economic crisis. Produced by Bradley Novicoff and Tara McGinley I'd like to give a way huge, massive thank you to my longtime friend Jason Calacanis, the CEO of Mahalo and the hardest working person I have ever met in my entire life. He's a 5000 watt bulb, let me tell you people. It was Jason's kind offer of his brand new studio --it was actually more like a challenge than an offer, he dared me to do it!-- that allowed this to happen. The studio's newest toy, the fantastic Tri-caster, was still being set-up the day we recorded and we just winged it --next time I'll have a teleprompter!-- but I think it turned out pretty well and I'm happy to be able to give my good friend Charles Hugh Smith the kind of wide exposure that Boing Boing offers. I think it's important that people hear what he has to say. I'd also like to thank Jason Krute, Mahalo's studio manager, Tyler Crowley from Mahalo, Ryan Scott from Causecast and Kenny Chen, who edited the piece and who was such a big help in several ways. Thanks also to Charles' wife's cousin for the use of her Skype account and laptop!

An anonymous reader writes "Remember the Intercontinental Ballistic Missile launch by the North Koreans last night? You know, the one that went over Japan and supposedly put a 'communications satellite' into orbit. Well, according to the US Northern Command and NORAD it has been a complete and utter failure, with the second stage and payload 'falling in the Pacific.'"

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Try to shake it awake by shift-refreshing the homepage to get a fresh cookie. Some folks report that they can't get in until they clear the old ones and empty the cache: in Firefox and IE, head to the Tools menu and the delete/clear history option. In Safari, it's under the Safari menu, as "Reset Safari." (We're still working on some of the tail-end issues, so don't panic if you still can't get in! Lots of stuff in old posts will be broken--links to profiles, for example--until we give the all-clear on the upgrades and hit "epic republish" on many years of posts.)