bigmammoth writes "Xiph hackers have been hard at work improving the Theora codec over the past year, with the latest versions gaining on and passing h.264 in objective PSNR quality measurements. From the update: 'Amusingly, it also shows test versions of Thusnelda pulling ahead of h.264 in terms of objective quality as bitrate increases. It's important to note that PSNR is an objective measure that does not exactly represent perceived quality, and PSNR measurements have always been especially kind to Theora. This is also data from a single clip. That said, it's clear that the gap in the fundamental infrastructure has closed substantially before the task of detailed subjective tuning has begun in earnest.' Momentum is building with a major Open Video Conference in June, the impending launch of Firefox 3.5 and excitement about wider adoption in a top-4 web site. It's looking like free video codecs may pose a serious threat to the h.264 bait-and-switch plan to start charging millions for internet streaming of h.264 in 2010."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Earlier this year, we noted how the press got caught relying on Wikipedia when they reprinted an error (amusingly, those press clippings were then used to "verify" the info in Wikipedia). It appears to have happened again. Clay Shirky points us to the news that a student in Ireland added a fake quote to the Wikipedia page of Maurice Jarre, a French musician who died in March. The student added the fake (but potentially real-sounding) quote soon after Jarre died, and many reporters apparently included the quote in their obituaries/writeups about Jarre. Of course, Wikipedia-haters may use this to point out the horrible questionable nature of Wikipedia content, but that's missing the point. Everyone knows that Wikipedia content should be considered suspect since anyone can edit it. It's a known quantity. For the most part, then, if you're a reporter, it should never be used as a sole source on something, but for background info that can also be checked elsewhere. The real issue was that the press didn't do this -- and didn't do their jobs in actually confirming the info.

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John from the Free Software Foundation sez, "The Free Software Foundation announced a new internship program today, and is looking for interested students to apply by May 25. A wide variety of focus areas are possible, from campaign and community organizing (like DefectiveByDesign.org and LibrePlanet.org) to helping with free software licensing issues, and of course programming. We're really excited about being able to offer these positions and work with bright students interested in free software." Intern at the FSF (Thanks, John!)

Building on the original MintyBoost USB charger kit, this Instructables how-to will walk you through the steps of adding a Lithium Polymer battery pack and small solar cell. The extra capacity and added convenience of solar make this modification a must have for off-grid mobility.

MightyMintyBoost [via Gizmodo]

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youth68 writes "Australia is known around the world for its large and deadly creepy crawlies, but even locals have been shocked by the size of the giant venomous spiders that have invaded an Outback town in Queensland. Scores of eastern tarantulas, which are known as 'bird-eating spiders' and can grow larger than the palm of a man's hand, have begun crawling out from gardens and venturing into public spaces in Bowen, a coastal town about 700 miles northwest of Brisbane."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Kristina at Science News writes "As part of the announcement of its proposed fiscal year 2010 budget, the Obama administration released a summary (called 'Terminations, Reductions, and Savings: Budget of the US Government, Fiscal Year 2010') that includes which science-related programs are getting cut. Two big programs are the nuclear waste storage project at Yucca Mountain in Nevada and a second prototype airborne laser missile-defense weapon." Update: 05/07 23:03 GMT by T : On the other hand, reader Dusty writes, "The NASA budget for 2010 has been announced, up 5% on 2009. Human space flight plans to be reviewed."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Ummm... Err.... (Thanks, Tara McGinley!)

As the sentencing phase of the Lori Drew trial moves forward, prosecutors are asking for three years in jail, well beyond what she should get based on normal sentencing guidelines. So, why? It's not because of anything she actually did, but because of what she represents:

"Defendant has become the public face of cyberbullying. A probationary sentence might embolden others to use the Internet to torment and exploit children."

It's hard to have any more direct proof that this case has never been about what Lori Drew actually did and whether it was a crime, but about some grandstanding prosecutors looking to create a PR campaign. Even worse, the prosecutors seem to be focusing on the cyberbullying issue even though that's not what the trial was even about. She was convicted of computer fraud in giving a false name to MySpace, violating its terms of service. The actual "cyberbullying" isn't what she's on trial for at all. It's really rather despicable to see the legal process twisted, in a Salem Witch Trial type of show, in which the sentencing recommendation has no relation to the actual conviction.

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Artist Marion Peck's "Ladies & Clowns" show opens at Sloan Fine Art in NYC on Wednesday, May 13th, from 7 to 9 pm. Exhibition runs May 13 through June 13, 2009.

grepdisc writes "Newspapers in Boston are fawning over a report by the American Public Transportation Association that taking public transportation saves money over driving. How can one possibly save $12,600 per year, when the inflated estimates of 15,000 miles per year at only 23.4 miles and $2.039 per gallon costs only $1,310, and a high parking rate of $460 per month results in under $5600. Is the discrepancy made up of tolls, repairs, the cost of buying a car and ignoring train station parking fees?" Everyone's situation is different — and it's easy to have a chip on one's shoulder while estimating prices. But for those of you with the option, what kind of savings do you find (or would you expect) from taking one form of transport to work over another?

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

grepdisc writes "Newspapers in Boston are fawning over a report by the American Public Transportation Association that taking public transportation saves money over driving. How can one possibly save $12,600 per year, when the inflated estimates of 15,000 miles per year at only 23.4 miles and $2.039 per gallon costs only $1,310, and a high parking rate of $460 per month results in under $5600. Is the discrepancy made up of tolls, repairs, the cost of buying a car and ignoring train station parking fees?" Everyone's situation is different — and it's easy to have a chip on one's shoulder while estimating prices. But for those of you with the option, what kind of savings do you find (or would you expect) from taking one form of transport to work over another?

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

grepdisc writes "Newspapers in Boston are fawning over a report by the American Public Transportation Association that taking public transportation saves money over driving. How can one possibly save $12,600 per year, when the inflated estimates of 15,000 miles per year at only 23.4 miles and $2.039 per gallon costs only $1,310, and a high parking rate of $460 per month results in under $5600. Is the discrepancy made up of tolls, repairs, the cost of buying a car and ignoring train station parking fees?" Everyone's situation is different — and it's easy to have a chip on one's shoulder while estimating prices. But for those of you with the option, what kind of savings do you find (or would you expect) from taking one form of transport to work over another?

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Seen in the video above is Anaconda, a new system for harvesting energy from the ocean's waves. The 8-meter long, water-filled rubber "snake" is a prototype of a 200 meter version that the developers, Atkins Global, hopes will generate the energy required to power 1000 homes. The device is currently under testing in Gosport, UK and Checkmate Seaenergy hopes to bring it to market by 2014. I was surprised to learn that one of the big challenges to harvesting tidal wave energy is that the mechanical devices don't tend to last long because they get so abused by the ocean. From New Scientist:

(As the Anaconda moves, it forms "bulge waves") similar to those that pass through the human circulatory system and can be felt as the pulse in the wrist and neck, says Rod Rainey of Atkins Global, co-inventor of the Anaconda. When each bulge wave reaches the end of the snake it keeps a turbine spinning to generate electricity.

The snake is made from a rubber-based material similar to that used to make dracones – flexible containers that are filled with diesel or water and towed behind ships for quick and cheap transportation.

Other than the turbine, Anaconda has no moving parts and unlike other wave power devices it needs only one tether to the ocean floor. That lowers construction costs and reduces the need for maintenance – an expensive undertaking in offshore settings where corrosion and accessibility are problems, explains Rainey.

"Sea 'snake' generates electricity with every wave"

Someone has won an eBay auction to have their complete genome sequenced. The winning bid, and the only bid, was $68,000, the minimum set by the company Knome, Inc. The funds from the auction will go toward the Archin X Prize for Genomics, a $10 million challenge to decode 100 human genomes in 10 days. Scientific American has details on the auction, and also points to Harvard's Personal Genome Project that's seeking 100,000 volunteers. From SciAm:

"We don't know who the [auction's] winner is," says Knome's Ari Kiirikki. "We know it's a male and we know he's from Europe." But as soon as the payment goes through, probably within days, the company will learn his identity, he adds, and the unknown man will join about 20 others who have had their genes sequenced by Knome.

Normally, the service -- which includes an analysis by Knome's team of clinicians and geneticists so you can understand whether your genetic profile makes you susceptible to certain diseases, such as cancer or Alzheimer's -- costs $99,500. It takes about three months to complete the process, says Kiirikki, Knome's vice president of sales and business development.

"Single bidder pays $68,000 to sequence his genome on eBay"

As plenty of people have sent in, the Economist is running an online debate about copyright this week, kicked off with the opening statement "This house believes that existing copyright laws do more harm than good" and then allowing debaters to make the case both for and against the proposition. Defending the motion is Harvard Law professor William Fisher, who has long been a proponent of reforming copyright law to make it much more reasonable. Against the motion, and trying to make the case that copyright law does more good than harm is Cardozo Law professor Justin Hughes. To be honest, I'm a bit disappointed that they chose law professors for the debate, rather than economists, because you would think economists would be better situated to determine good and harm, rather than law professors.

Fisher does a decent job with the opening statement, though I think he could make the points more clear and much more forcefully by highlighting the value over time of the public domain on creativity. Hughes' opening statement, however, is a mess. Let's start with this:

Those of us who think copyright law is a good idea--that it does more good than harm--believe that free market economic incentives are needed for the production (and often distribution) of all kinds of valuable expression and information, whether we are discussing educational value, civic value, or entertainment value. There is no question that much expression would be produced without copyright: the landed gentry was writing poetry before copyright. But to get both the desired amount and mix of expression, properly calibrated copyright is the best tool. The words "properly calibrated" are important, because once the new expression or information is created, social welfare is usually increased by its widespread distribution.

This paragraph makes no sense to me. It claims the free market is best, but then suggests the only way to get a free market is to grant gov't-backed monopolies, which are the exact opposite of a free market. As if to drive home that contradiction, he goes on about "properly calibrating" this gov't system. Again, that's not a free market. If you're talking about properly calibrating, then you're talking about a government system. Now, it's perfectly reasonable to make a defense that one needs a gov't program -- but it's disingenuous to claim that we need a free market, and then discuss the gov't program as if that is a free market. It's not. If you want a gov't program, then explain why we need a gov't program and defend that. Don't claim it's a free market.

He then goes on to claim that content that is paid for is somehow of higher quality than content produced under some other model. But, the problem is he gets the details wrong and confuses correlation with causation. He insists that a creative class can only exist with copyright, but that's simply not true. We've seen business model after business model after business model that supports a "creative class" without relying on copyright to make money. Yes, having a creative class is important. And making sure they can earn money is important. But that doesn't require copyright. The fact that people like professionally produced content doesn't prove his point. It just shows that people like professionally produced content. It doesn't mean that you need copyright to produce it.

Next, he claims that copyright is not hindering free expression, because we've seen this "absolute explosion of expressive production and dissemination with little or no hindrance from copyright law" and then brushes off the "horror stories" of limitations, by claiming that these horror stories need to "be weighed against the enormous flourishing of non-commercial expression that has coexisted with the copyright system." That's totally missing the point. The fact that lots of content does get produced doesn't mean that copyright doesn't create massive limitations on more creativity. Again, he's confusing correlation with causation.

He then concludes with another mistake:

In truth, what we have now is a mixed economy for expression in which some expression is produced under a patronage model (foundation grants, universities), some expression is produced under the open source model (Linux, blogs), and some expression is produced under a profit/incentive model of copyright.

See what he did there? He claims that open source models are different than "profit/incentive" models. That's simply untrue. Plenty of people producing content under non-copyright models are doing it for profit. And that's the key point that many of us have been raising. There are plenty of other models to compensate creative professionals that don't rely on copyright. Hughes' entire argument seems to be based on the idea that the only model of compensation is copyright, and everything else is "open source" or "non-profit" or "amateur." He's wrong.

The debate site is allowing comments from the public (and votes on the motion, which have been trending in the wrong direction), so it would be good for more people to join in and express how copyright has done more harm than good, and how Professor Hughes seems to be basing his arguments on a faulty premise.

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suraj.sun writes with this excerpt from Mozilla Links "Mozilla has started a new project to make Firefox split in several processes at a time: one running the main user interface (chrome), and another or several others running the web content in each tab. Like Chrome or Internet Explorer 8 which have implemented this behavior to some degree, the main benefit would be the increase of stability: a single tab crash would not take down the whole session with it, as well as performance improvements in multiprocessor systems that are progressively becoming the norm. The project, which lacks a catchy name like other Mozilla projects (like TaskFox, Ubiquity, or Chocolate Factory) is coordinated by long time Mozillian, Benjamin Smedberg; and also integrated by Joe Drew, Jason Duell, Ben Turner, and Boris Zbarsky in the core team. According to the loose roadmap published, a simple implementation that works with a single tab (not sessions support, no secure connections, either on Linux or Windows, probably not even based on Firefox) should be reached around mid-July."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Douglas Rushkoff, the author of Life Inc., is a guest blogger.

Most people seem to think having written a book as stridently anti-corporate as mine qualifies me as a lefty. While I might be left-leaning, I find myself disagreeing with pro-market publications only about as often as I disagree with pro-labor or progressive ones. Pro-market advocates often forget that the corporations whose interests they're championing are actually the beneficiaries of government policies and rule sets developed to favor the activities of giant, centralized, conglomerates; they argue against regulation, when it's regulation that have built the monopolies preventing truly free commerce from taking place. Anti-market arguments, on the other hand, too often rely on the false promise of central planning or equally large institutional forces to address societal ills. They may hate corporations, but they see them as necessary employers of the masses. Or, like today's fiscal stewards, they fail to understand finance as a game with fixed rules, and their interventions as unfair to those who have come in expecting the rules they signed up for to be enforced by government, rather than rewritten. In today's Economist, however, the editors correctly dissect what is so misguided about the Obama administration's tactics in funding the automakers, particularly GM. The people who bought GM bonds over the past few years were bailing out GM's health plan for very low returns - but a high level of security. Now, as government continues to bail out the auto giant, those consumer-grade debtors are being pushed to the back of the line. They'll not only pay for GM's bailout through their bond investments, but through their taxes as well. But, as the Economist puts it, the bigger risk is to the sanctity (if we can put it that way) of the instrument formerly known as the bond:

America's government, keen to protect workers, is providing taxpayers' cash to keep the lights on at both firms. But in its haste it has vilified creditors and ridden roughshod over their legitimate claims over the carmakers' assets. At a time when many businesses must raise new borrowing to survive, that is a big mistake. Bankruptcies involve dividing a shrunken pie. But not all claims are equal: some lenders provide cheaper funds to firms in return for a more secure claim over the assets should things go wrong. They rank above other stakeholders, including shareholders and employees. This principle is now being trashed.

The Economist

Bob says:

Los Angeles area artists who like their life drawing mixed with theatrics, drinks and good company will be pleased to learn that Dr. Sketchy’s (the much celebrated cabaret/art salon created by artist Molly Crabapple in Brooklyn) is starting a branch in the city of angels this Sunday, May 10 at Billy Shire Fine Arts in Culver City. Fierce Couture will be showcasing latex fashions, alternative model Scar will be showcasing herself, a few lucky attendees will be showcasing their fresh breath courtesy of sweet prizes from Hint Mint, and big shots like Tim Biskup and Shag will be showcasing how neighborly they are when take up pads and pencils alongside fellow pros, students and art newbies. Get more info or RSVP Dr. Sketchy LA.

smooth wombat writes "With the end of the Cold War came warmer relations with old adversaries, increased trade and a world less worried about nuclear war. It also brought with it an unexpected downside: lack of nuclear fuel to power deep space probes. Without this fuel, probes beyond Jupiter won't work because there isn't enough sunlight to use solar panels which probes closer to the sun use. The fuel NASA relies on to power deep space probes is plutonium-238. This isotope is the result of nuclear weaponry and since the United States has not made a nuclear device in 20 years, the supply has run out. For now, NASA is using Soviet supplies, but they too are almost exhausted. It is estimated it will cost at least $150 million to resume making the 11 pounds per year that is needed for space probes."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

A few weeks back Make: Online did a post about an awesome project featuring a simple "plug and grab" method for copying media called the Kopimi Station

Our friend Jared Boone at Sharebrained Technology offered up his skills along with the talented Dorkbot PDX to create a similar device for the Make: television booth at Maker Faire, one that will allow anyone to grab any episode of Make: television.

We've decided to have a single, wide selection panel with four USB pods below. While one person is waiting for their transfer, the next person can plug in and make their choices. If they don't quite know what to do, the people waiting can help out. So there's this interesting "institutional knowledge" aspect.

We've opted for push-buttons, which makes the machine look more atomic age. These are big, vending machine style lighted pushbuttons. As selections are made, the buttons will light or go dark.

I'm presently designing a custom circuit board that will scan the buttons and light them up appropriately. This board interfaces with my mini-ITX Linux computer, which dispenses the media.

So Jared and the team are over a month into the project and has made some considerable progress. As any good project goes, they've run into some hurdles.

I had a very frustrating evening yesterday, bringing up the controller circuit for the front panel. I fried both of the (spendy) Atmel chips I bought for testing. I talked today with some friends about what might be going wrong. We're not sure, but I'm going to try a few things tonight, with some replacement parts I borrowed. I hope I don't fry them too.

Then, we heard:

I think I have a workable plan B. It's not pretty, but should work. Basically, I'm going to chop off the part of the board that doesn't work, and wire up a pre-fabbed microcontroller (Arduino) board to serve in place of my failed design. Desperate times require desperate measures... In any case, I took pictures and have diagrams if you still want to offer up the situation to the MAKE audience.

Any makers out there have a similar experience? Weigh in with comments or questions below. We'll be sure to document his progress.

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Douglas Rushkoff is a guest blogger. I spent a bit of time trying to convince Craig Newmark to develop an alternative currency with me for use, initially, on Craigslist called CraigBucks. Although he (perhaps wisely) has decided that it might be better for such a thing to arise independently of Craigslist proper, that hasn't stopped me from looking at how to take everything that works so well about transparent, local currencies (specifically, those of the LETS variety), and apply them to non-local communities with shared values.

The main trick is to have a currency that - unlike dollars, which are lent into existence by a bank - is instead worked into existence through an exchange. One person in the system is willing to be debited for what he gets from another. And everything stays completely transparent. Eventually (like in a file-sharing system) a person taking but not giving ends up in too much virtual debt to acquire more goods and services without finding something to do or trade with someone.

Coincidentally, then, I came across TipJoy, a pretty robust little system through which people can pay each other "tips" via the net, or even Twitter. Tie the TipJoy system to an alternative currency database instead of dollars, and the system should be able to work. The more transparent it is, the more people will be able to determine just what the unit of currency is worth to everyone else.

And as "Winston" suggested we call them over in a discussion at Rushkoff.com, why not call them NewMarks?

As you probably know, every three years, the Librarian of Congress gets to review requests for special "exemptions" to the DMCA. It's a ritual every three years, and every three years most people hoping to get rid of some of the worst abuses of the DMCA are disappointed. Back in 2003 very few exemptions were issued, and in 2006 it basically extended the exemptions and added a few very, very narrowly defined and specific exemptions -- and did nothing for consumers. This year, the process is going on again with a variety of requests for exemptions.

But, of course, the process also has some requests in the other direction as well... The entertainment industry, for example, would like fewer examples. Kevin alerts us to some video of a recent hearing, where the MPAA actually (you have to see it to believe it) demonstrates how to use a camcorder to videotape a movie off a TV: Why would the MPAA show this? Because it wants to remove the (very narrow) exemptions that were granted in 2006 to media professors who wanted to copy clips of movies from DVDs for the purpose of education. But the MPAA wants the Library of Congress to take away that exemption, and is using this demonstration to show that a media professor shouldn't need to break DRM on DVDs, when they can go through the cumbersome process of recording the DVD via the "analog hole" of playing it on a TV and capturing it with a video camera.

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"BroHogan" explains his "X10 Book - First Edition:"

A "hollowed out" book is used to house an Arduino which is interfaced to a PSC05/TW523 X10 module. The book will display the X10 signals on the power line using descriptive names. X10 type "macros" can be created and it will also send commands entered by the TV remote. Scheduled commands can be sent as well.

One or more of 8 LEDs and 4 relays can be set based on the "profile" of the command received. A tilt switch reorients the display so the book can be vertical or horizontal.

X10 Book - Case Mod

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nandemoari writes "Would-be Windows 7 users have been warned to change a default setting which could leave them vulnerable to attack via bogus files. As a result, Microsoft is taking flak for failing to correct a problem found in previous editions of Windows. The issue involves the way Windows Explorer displays filenames. In all editions of Windows after Windows 98, the default setting hides the filename extension (which identifies what type of file it is). This means that a Word file titled 'partyinvite.doc' will show up in Windows Explorer as simply 'partyinvite'. The only exception to this rule is if Windows does not recognize the file type. The reason for this setting is that it makes for a less cluttered look and avoids filling the screen with redundant detail. However, a flaw in the way it works leaves it liable to exploitation by hackers. They can take an executable file (which can do much more damage to a computer when opened) and disguise it by calling it 'partyinvite.doc.exe.'"

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Courtney Woolsey's multichannel video of her singing Lollipop, by The Chordettes, is a lot of fun.

wintersynth writes "I've posted a review of Virgin America's in-flight internet provided by Gogo. Here's the scoop: Avg. .90 megabits/sec DL, .283 megabits/sec UL, ping: 130.6 msecs, $12.95 for the duration of the flight. Verdict: AWESOME. In fact, I'm posting this from 36,000 feet right now. Skype did not work for voice, even though I'm pretty sure those stats are over the minimums. Any ideas from the slashdotters on what might be going on?"

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Let's just get two points out of the way here before getting on with this post, because they're important, and they're repeatedly ignored by journalists and newspaper folks who want to play the victim, rather than recognize the future (I'm not saying all newspaper folks are like this...):

• Advertising has been the real business model for newspapers for ages. Subscriptions have really only covered (maybe/barely) the cost of printing and delivering the paper.
• The biggest problem facing newspapers going into bankruptcy or shutting down these days is not a lack of subscriber revenue, or even a downturn in advertising (though, there has been a downturn), but the fact that they had massive debt, because they borrowed way too much money. Many, many, many newspapers are still quite profitable -- but not profitable enough to service the massive debt taken on by management.

You would think that these two points would be key to any discussion on the future of newspapers, but they didn't seem to get much attention as Congress held hearings about the newspaper industry. It's not at all clear why Congress needs to hold hearings on this, but it's the sort of thing Congress does. And, of course, the newspaper execs cried about how awful things are, and how they need help and even an antitrust exemption.

Oddly, David Simon was asked to speak. It's not clear why Simon was asked to speak. He hasn't worked in the newspaper business in 14 years, though he did write a fictional TV show, The Wire, about a newspaper. Somehow that makes him qualified to speak about the industry. Now, Simon's a smart, thoughtful guy, but when it comes to this subject, he consistently seems to get the details wrong, even to the point of disproving his own points. In his testimony before Congress (pdf) he lashes out at the internet, aggregators and blogs for no clear reason:

The internet is a marvelous tool and clearly it is the informational delivery system of our future, but thus far it does not deliver much first-generation reporting. Instead, it leeches that reporting from mainstream news publications, whereupon aggregating websites and bloggers contribute little more than repetition, commentary and froth. Meanwhile, readers acquire news from the aggregators and abandon its point of origin -- namely the newspapers themselves.

In short, the parasite is slowly killing the host.

First, Simon seems to be confusing a number of different things here. He's flat-out wrong that not much first-generation reporting is delivered online. Plenty of it is. It's almost silly to have to start pulling out examples. Second, "it" (being the internet) doesn't "leech" anything. "It" is just a delivery mechanism, just like "paper" is a delivery mechanism. Again, if the internet "leeches" reporting, that's no different (and no less ridiculous) than claiming that reporters "leech" off the people they write about. Third, while some bloggers and aggregators may just repeat stuff, not all of them do. Simon seems to be making the classic mistake that if lots of bloggers do one thing he doesn't like, then it means no bloggers do stuff he does like. That's a pretty basic logical fallacy that you would think such a "great thinker" on these issues wouldn't make. Fourth, even if many bloggers do just repeat stuff, that can actually be quite a valuable service in spreading the news and getting it more attention. Fifth, what's wrong with adding commentary? Isn't that what Simon himself is doing? Sixth, I think plenty of people would argue that the mainstream press is known for churning up plenty of froth itself. Seventh, aggregators send traffic to sites. People don't acquire the news directly at the aggregator, but through the aggregator. Eighth, it's not a "parasitic" relationship if the sites get something back (such as traffic).

See? It's amazing how much he gets wrong in three short sentences. And yet he's the expert?

You do not -- in my city -- run into bloggers... at City Hall, or in the courthouse hallways or at the bars and union halls where police officers gather. You do not see them consistently nurturing and then pressing sources. You do not see them holding institutions accountable on a daily basis.

Actually, I do see that all the time. Simon apparently doesn't know where to look. Perhaps it's true that not every city has that going on yet, but that's a huge opportunity for organizations to step in. We're seeing it all over the place.

Why? Because high-end journalism -- that which acquires essential information about our government and society in the first place -- is a profession; it requires daily, full-time commitment by trained men and women who return to the same beats day in and day out until the best of them know everything with which a given institution is contending.

First, how often is that actually true of newspaper reporters? Yes, there are some, but there are many reporters who don't actually seem to really know much about the beat they're covering or end up getting played by those they do cover.

But, more importantly, Simon still doesn't seem to be reading the right sites. There are some astounding blogs out there that are full-time jobs, that involve people returning to the same beat day in and day out until they know everything. He seems to once again be assuming that "journalist" can only mean "writes for a newspaper" and not "writes for a blog." It's just a delivery mechanism.

He goes on to repeat the myth that "new media" commentators believe that there is no need for professional journalists. I'm still waiting to find out who actually claims that. Almost everyone I know and read believes there's still plenty of room for professional journalists, but that they may be working in conjunction with others. The idea that jouralism or mainstream news organizations just die off is preposterous and no one is claiming that at all. It's just that they need to adapt, and if they don't, other organizations can and will take their place. Journalism will live on.

Yes, I have heard the post-modern rallying cry that information wants to be free. But information isn't. It costs money to send reporters to London, Fallujah and Capitol Hill, and to send photographers with them, and keep them there day after day. It costs money to hire the best investigators and writers and then back them up with the best editors. It costs money to do the finest kind of journalism. And how anyone can believe that the industry can fund that kind of expense by giving its product away online to aggregators and bloggers is a source of endless fascination to me. A freshman marketing major at any community college can tell you that if you don't have a product for which you can charge people, you don't actually have a product.

And... so we're back to myth number 1 at the top of the post. The news business does have a product for which it can charge people: that product is the community of readers it brings together, who it then sells to advertisers. That's always been the business of newspapers for as long as any of us have been alive. Repeating the myth that the newspaper industry is "giving its product away" doesn't make Simon sound smart. It makes it sound like he doesn't even understand the news business.

This kind of poorly reasoned logic is coming not just out of folks like Simon, but out of folks like the CEO of Forbes -- who recently blamed Google in one of the most poorly reasoned and factually incorrect statements around. I'd dismantle that as well, except that Danny Sullivan has already done it.

So one would hope that when Google was asked to present a counterpoint to Congress, it would lay out some of these issues. Unfortunately, the actual testimony (pdf) comes off as rather weak. It basically just says "Google is a friend, we help" but doesn't actually counter the myths and falsehoods put forth by those bemoaning the troubles facing the newspaper industry.

What we're seeing before Congress is a scripted play. It's not a real discussion about the problems facing the newspapers. It's not a real discussion on how journalism will work in the future. It's not a real discussion on the role of the press in the public discourse. It's a big scripted play put on by a bunch of bad business execs who made (and continue to make) bad business decisions, failed to embrace certain opportunities, and are now hoping for a government bailout for all the mistakes they made. They don't deserve it.

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CarnegieScience writes "Scientist calculate that, compared to ethanol used for internal combustion engines, bioelectricity used for battery-powered vehicles would deliver an average of 80% more miles of transportation per acre of crops, while also providing double the greenhouse gas offsets to mitigate climate change."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Our ol' Make: Online compadre Jonah Brucker-Cohen put together this event with Dorkbot Paris last April on the occasion of the Gakona exhibition at the Palais de Tokyo. [Sent to us by David Steinberg of Dorkbot Paris]

Palais de Tokyo : the Scrapyard Challenge

Scarpyard Challenge

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judgecorp writes "A new vendor group has promised a Gigabit wireless specification by the end of this year. The Wireless Gigabit (WiGig) spec is apparently 80 percent done and, since it is aimed at high-definition TV, it has to go at more than 3Gbps. There's around 7GHz of spectrum freely available in the 60GHz band, so it's technically feasible, and with all the major Wi-Fi silicon vendors on board (as well as Microsoft, Dell, Nokia and others) WiGig looks to have the political muscle too. They should be aware of the Sibeam-led WirelessHD group, though, already in the 60GHz space, and Ultrawideband (UWB) is not dead, as there are actual, real UWB products."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

(Download this video: MP4, or watch on YouTube)

In today's episode of Boing Boing Video (sponsored by WEPC.com, in partnership with Intel and Asus), Academy Award winning visual effects guru John Gaeta (Matrix, Speed Racer) offers a sneak peek inside his newest project, Ninja Assassin.

Along the way, we explore a broader realm of questions about the future of games, movies, and interactive entertainment. Will movies become more like games, offering new ways for us to insert ourselves inside the stories? Who will create them, using what tools, and how will the experience be different? Will computer-generated actors replace human actors, or stunt persons -- or will the two realms overlap in ways we can't yet predict? All of this we ask of the guy who invented "bullet time."

Due in theaters this fall, director James McTeigue's Ninja Assassin follows the story of Raizo (played by Asian mega-popstar Rain), one of the world's most deadly assassins. As Gaeta explains in this video, the movie merges blindingly badass Bruce-Lee-esque martial arts stunt work with tastefully integrated post processing work.

Below, and after the jump, a partial transcription of the longer conversation we had about the future of interactivity and "hybrid entertainment" -- and why Hollywood is, in Gaeta's words, "like a mule."

This interview took place during our live coverage of the 2009 Game Developers Conference, and many of the questions I pose were taken directly from our live chat audience.

---

Xeni Jardin: John, your involvement in "Ninja Assassin" was a little different than in "Speed Racer" and the "Matrix" films, where you were the lead visual effects designer.

John Gaeta: Ninja Assassin was directed by James McTeigue, who directed "V for Vendetta." It's sort of a family tradition of the Wachowskis to help James in parallel with other odd films. After "Speed Racer" was completed, we went back to Berlin and decided to make this super psycho horror ninja movie. Supremo stunts and martial arts. We're friends with the action design firm 87eleven, they've worked alongside Wu Ping for many years, after the "Matrix" Trilogy they did "Kill Bill," "300," they're fantastic. It was really their show. They were told they could be very creative and so they were. Lots of inventions!

Xeni: What was your role?

Gaeta: I didn't want to miss it because it seemed like it would be very fun. I was only helping out with some special unit directing, but no visual effects for me personally.

"Ninja" is surprisingly invisible on effects work, and intentionally so. No virtual humans in this one. The only real post processing comes from heavily stylistic color grading, think graphic tones like "Se7en," compositing and some CG weapons and blood augmentation. But this film shines brightest for the martial arts team. To put it another way -- it's old school.

There is far more going on in this movie with respect to "stunts technology" and innovation with respect to specialized and "next gen" rigs and flying machines.

Xeni: You are known for visual effects in motion pictures, but every time you and I have spoken, there's this idea of hybrid entertainment that comes up. Can you tell me more about what you're doing there?

Gaeta: I'm curious about possible destinations where there's crossover with regard to simulation cinema, "sim cinema," ways of creating elaborate trapdoors and portals between different mediums. Also, over the years, there are strange subgroups from the visual world like Douglas Trumbull -- I used to work for him many years ago -- their passion went beyond cinema to immersive content. Virtual reality, perhaps games, are a step toward that -- so are other methods of surrounding people with an experience. There are a lot of interesting progressions going on with immersive cinema, immersive entertainment, hybridizing the two.

(Interview continues after the jump)

Xeni: Is there anything you want to do in 3D cinema that you haven't yet?

Gaeta: We have James Cameron to thank for that. Sure, there's a lot of areas where I'd like to do highly immersive stereoscopic surround media. From Brian Eno's dream to something more aggressive. Stereo's cool, I often think about ways to design for -- I'm in my theater seat, and yes it's coming at you, but I'm more curious about the next stage of the home environment and how we have immersive media in our homes. Stereo would be great for that.

Xeni: Many in Hollywood would be horrified to hear you speak of a focus on home entertainment, the idea being that the movie industry must do whatever it takes to get people out of the homes and into theaters.

Gaeta: Theaters need to become more modern, and catch up with this generation. There are a lot of cool atmospheric augmentations one can do to a theater. Realtime gaming, realtime entertainment. I do think that's important. But -- right now we're pretty much slave to these rectangular screens, but at a certain point it's going to be possible to have more comprehensive projection capabilities. Taking over all your walls, taking the least popular room in your house and transforming it into the most transcendental room in your house. Great things are coming.

Xeni: a chat room participant asks if World of Warcraft and other immersive games could replace the passive experience of movies.

Gaeta: No. It's all going to keep running in parallel. It's all going to amalgamate in interesting ways. Hollywood is like a mule. It can carry a heavy load, but as soon as you want it to try to go to someplace new, it digs its hooves in.

But it is possible that in 10 years or so, the fidelity, the image quality of things you can make in real time will be viable for cinema. So, movies or portions of movies could be generated in real time, maybe even Pixar-level type work,and mingled with work from real actors -- the commingled work, you could generate that real time.If you've generated the universe of the cinema real time, you've universalized the world of the cinema with the interactive counterpart. You could potentially put a movie in a different type of projector, and have portals out of that environment where you can interact and play.

What makes a movie powerful is -- the singular vision of the director. It's a different beast than interactivity. You wouldn't make "Apocalypse Now" any differently than Coppola did, it's perfect as he envisioned and executed it. But if you could work with the entire universe surrounding "Apocalypse Now," if the director could deposit the sets and the environment in this universe, and we could step into that, a hybrid zone where you can perceive what he's directed with semi-interaction, expository exploration within his sculpted piece of content -- you have something new.

Xeni: A commenter asks where do you see movies going as an interactive medium? It's not about films replacing games, but games and movies evolving in tandem.

Gaeta: That conversation is tired, it's about coexistence and maximizing the power of those mediums in a common space. People talk about narrative with infinite variations, and that's interesting, but if I want to see what a great director thinks should happen, and I want the unexpected to come up through his mind, I don't want to contaminate that. Think about animated pictures, first. In 10, 20, 30 years -- when you have space and form and texture acquired by the camera, it is possible to conceive of a universalized format. A movie can exist within a dynamic, interactive place. You could crisscross movies, jump out the side door, go into the experience yourself.

Another thing that could be interesting -- because of the magic of compositing, it seems like it could be interesting to have movies that are both passive and interactive at the same time. Worlds surrounding the important moment, as sculpted by the director -- the moment, the acting, the story stays exactly as the director envisions it - but the world surrounding that moment is dynamic. So when I go to see the scene of the couple chatting by the seaside, the waves crash differently each time, and the world goes on a little differently each time, unobtrusively, around the carefully sculpted moment.

Xeni: Are we seeing movies move to a smaller scale, and technology enable movies to move away from large studios?

Gaeta: Game engines won't be game engines for long. They are content simulation engines, and they'll make it possible for your average 11-year-old to make a reasonably good movie.

Xeni: If time and money were no obstacle, what medium would you work in?

Gaeta: My ultimate dream project will probably be doable in 5-10 years. Things aren't quite ready yet, but they will be. I'm not obsessed with being the first to figure out technological innovation, but having the capability to acquire people, real people, real actors, and port them into simulation environments is a nice set of building blocks. I'm very intent on experimenting with hybridized passive and interactive entertainment, and I'm very intrigued by the idea of endless portals and trapdoors. We'll see. In 5 to 10 years, some very very cool stuff will be doable. # # #

---

Boing Boing Video: RSS feed for new episodes here, 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. (Special thanks to Boing Boing's video hosting partner Episodic).

---

Sponsor shout-out: This episode is sponsored by WEPC.com, in partnership with Intel and Asus. WePC.com is a site where users come together to "share ideas, images and inspiration about the ideal PC." Participants' designs, feature ideas and community feedback will be evaluated by ASUS and "could influence the blueprint for an actual notebook PC built by ASUS with Intel inside."

---

Previously:
* BB Video: GDC Out-take - Radiohead Fan-Dance-Off with Giant Katamari Damacy Heads.
* Music in Video Games, pt. 2, with Peter Kirn and Matt Ganucheau
* Music in Video Games, a conversation with Peter Kirn and Matt Ganucheau
* Social Games, and The Quest for Virtual Poo.
* 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

---

John Swansburg, Culture Editor for Slate, says:

We've got a quirky piece pegged to the Star Trek release that I thought Boing Boing readers might really like. It's a piece on Klingon, the language, by a linguist who studies invented language. It turns out that Klingon is really, really sophisticated, and incredibly hard to learn -- a combination of Hindi, Arabic, Yiddish, Turkish, and Mohawk.

Pretty much everyone is getting those telemarketing scam car warranty calls these days. They're the ones that start out "this is the second warning that the factory warranty on your car is about to expire...." Of course, it's not the second warning (in some cases it's the 100th) and it doesn't matter if your car warranty is about to expire or even if you own a car. They just call everyone. Last summer, the FTC announced that (partly in response to those calls), all prerecorded telemarketing calls were banned. But, considering these guys are scammers, that wasn't going to stop them. It looks like the folks over at Reddit got fed up and social engineered the phone numbers of the company out of a rep, and then the community just started calling repeatedly, overwhelming the company's phone lines. Of course, while it certainly has that poetic justice feel to it, it won't stop them. They'll change their phone number and get right back to it. What's not clear is why the Reddit folks could track down who was responsible while the FTC has been unable to do so...

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NewYorkCountryLawyer writes "In a Boston RIAA case, SONY BMG Music Entertainment v. Tenenbaum, the Court has issued a detailed protective order establishing strict protocols for the RIAA's requested inspection of the defendant's hard drive, in order to protect the defendant's privacy. The order (PDF) provides that the hard drive will be turned over to a computer forensics expert of the RIAA's choosing, for mirror imaging, but that only the forensics expert — and not the plaintiffs or their attorneys — will be able to examine the mirror image. The forensics expert will then issue a report which will describe (a) any music files found on the drive, (b) any file-sharing information associated with each file, and any other records of file-sharing activity, and (c) any evidence that the hard-drive has been 'wiped' or erased since the initiation of the litigation. The expert will be precluded from examining 'any non-relevant files or data, including ... emails, word-processing documents, PDF documents, spreadsheet documents, image files, video files, or stored web-pages.'"

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Trimpin is a Seattle-based sound artist who creates incredibly unusual and delightful kinetic musical sculptures. The bizarre mechanical contraptions often driven by computers. For example, he's built a six-story-high xylophone in a spiral staircase, a fire organ, a MIDI-controlled toy piano ensemble, and automated wooden shoes knocking in a pool of water. Peter Esmonde, who was my editor at several places in the early 1990s, recently directed a documentary about Trimpin, titled Trimpin The Sound of Invention. I haven't seen the film yet, but it has had terrific reviews. That's no surprise to me, as Peter was always great at telling stories at the intersection of art, science, and technology. Here's the Trimpin movie site and there are more clips at Vimeo.

I especially like the macro/angle framing. #

I’m perplexed. Either a whole swathe of my peers are confusing elastic and liquid layouts or I’m missing something fundamental.

#

A Zogby poll found that over half of American's favor the legalization of pot:

Voters were asked: "Scarce law enforcement and prison resources, a desire to neutralize drug cartels and the need for new sources of revenue have resurrected the topic of legalizing marijuana. Proponents say it makes sense to tax and regulate the drug while opponents say that legalization would lead marijuana users to use other illegal drugs. Would you favor or oppose the government's effort to legalize marijuana?"

Zogby Poll: Majority support legalization (Thanks Jonathan!)

harmonise writes "OpenOffice 3.1 has been released. According to the release announcement, this update received 'The biggest single change (half a million lines of code!) and the most visible is the major revamp of OpenOffice.org on-screen graphics.' See the OpenOffice 3.1 New Features page for a full list of changes."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

A string of "Drugstore Cowboy-esque robberies around Seattle, Washington have prompted one pharmacist to pack a Glock. Check out the surveillance video in this news report showing him chase off a robber. (via Dose Nation)

In our recent post about speed cameras, Matt pointed us to the news that a top exec at a speed camera company has been banned from driving for six months for (you guessed it) speeding. He was apparently going over 100 in a 70 mph zone in the UK. If that's not karma...

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MJackson writes "Europe has rejected plans to allow ISPs to disconnect users suspected of involvement with illegal file-sharing. In its final vote, the European Parliament chose to retain amendment 46 (138) of the new Telecoms Package by a majority of 407 to 57. Amendment 46 states that restrictions to the fundamental rights and freedoms of Internet users can only be put in place after a decision by judicial authorities. However, network neutrality remains unprotected."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

MPAA shows how to videorecord a TV set from timothy vollmer on Vimeo.

The Electronic Frontier Foundation's Fred von Lohmann sez, "Hearings for the DMCA triennial rulemaking are going on this week in DC, where the educational community is asking for an exemption to rip DVDs to take clips for classroom use. The MPAA responded with a video showing how to camcord (!) movies from a flat screen monitor, arguing that educators and students should do this instead of ripping DVDs. In the words of media literacy researcher Martine Courant Rife, that's like typing up a quote from a book, taking it outside, chiseling the words in a rock, photographing the rock, scanning the photo, and running OCR on it. And for what?"

MPAA shows how to videorecord a TV set (Thanks, Fred!)

The ruling against Lori Drew was quite problematic, because it twisted a computer hacking law to convict a woman who had done something else, which was distasteful, but not illegal (at the time). It looks like others are doing the same thing... and succeeding. An appeals court has upheld a hacking conviction against a man whose "hacking" seems to have consisted of uploading a naked photo of himself to the website Adult Friendfinder from his work computer. How is that "unauthorized use" of a computer under the statute in question? Well, the court says that it's unauthorized use because he was using the computer to solicit prostitution -- and that's a crime, therefore, it's unauthorized. By this rather troubling reasoning, just about anyone who commits a crime on a computer can now also get hit with this law against hacking, because their use, by definition, would be "unauthorized." About the only good thing in the decision is that the court tossed out the lower court's ruling that the guy had "stolen" money from his employer by using the computer for non-work purposes.

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Hugh Pickens writes "The 'hobbits', dubbed homo floresiensis, caused a worldwide sensation when they were discovered five years ago when some scientists claimed that the 18,000-year-old human-like fossils found on the Indonesian island of Flores represented an entirely new species. Now researchers at the Natural History Museum in London believe that the creatures' small brains could have developed to reduce the creatures' energy needs, crucial for surviving in an isolated area with limited resources. ""It could be that H. floresiensis' skull is that of a Homo erectus that has become dwarfed from living on an island, rather than being an abnormal individual or separately-evolved species, as has been suggested," says palaeontologist Dr Eleanor Weston. "Looking at pygmy hippos in Madagascar, which possess exceptionally small brains for their size, suggests that the same could be true for H. floresiensis, and the result of being isolated on the island." Although the phenomenon of dwarfism on islands is well recognised in large mammals, an accompanying reduction in brain size has never been clearly demonstrated before."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Artist and electronics hound Jon Cohrs made this tool for urban prospecting. He writes:

The project, called the Urban Prospector, is basically a modified metal detector outfitted with a combustible gas sensor that can be built for under 100 dollars. By scanning the surface of your neighborhood, you will be able to determine pockets of oil and other toxins. Until recently, oil prospecting has been a field left to the professionals because it requires sophisticated tools for detection. But in much the same way gold prospecting empowered people to find small nuggets of profit, urban prospectors now have the potential to find small nuggets of oil near oil spills, abandoned gas stations, and industrial sites. Given the current high cost of oil, these urban spills or potential gold mines are waiting to be tapped.

Check out his Instructable on converting an old metal detector to sense combustible gas.

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I just added Noah Vawter's 1-Bit Groove Box to my must-build list. The project uses an ATMega32 chip as an easily controlled one-bit synth/sequencer with built-in effects, featuring -

• Sounds good. Nostalgic algorithms updated.

• Lightweight.

• Don't need to look at it as you play it!

• Inexpensive. Designed to be built by musicians.

• Open Source Software, Hardware and Design

• Ring Modulator, Comb Filter, Two-Pole Filter, Arpeggiator, Vibrato, Tremolo

• Always running sequencer with jam mode

• Simple Interface- all buttons have only one function

• Built-in Power Source and Speaker for Spontaneous Use - no cables needed!

Schematics, code, and FAQ can be found on the project site.

A quick search of the youtubes turned up this demo of the project as built by the486kid -

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suraj.sun writes "Rupert Murdoch says having free newspaper websites is a 'flawed' business model. Rupert Murdoch expects to start charging for access to News Corporation's newspaper websites within a year as he strives to fix a "malfunctioning" business model. Encouraged by booming online subscription revenues at the Wall Street Journal, the billionaire media mogul last night said that papers were going through an "epochal" debate over whether to charge. "That it is possible to charge for content on the web is obvious from the Wall Street Journal's experience," he said."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Douglas Rushkoff, the author of Life Inc., is a guest blogger. I just had a great hour-long phone conversation with an old friend, Will Dana (now editor of Rolling Stone), who has strongly encouraged me to come up with one-liners that tell the truth about the economic/banking fiasco - but that do it in almost zen-koan fashion. He thinks this might be the only way to penetrate ongoing confusion and resistance to moving beyond our falsely held assumptions about money and business. So, I figured I'd start with the generally unrecognized fact that finance is America's biggest industry - our biggest business sector. How does banking make its money? In short - over-simplified, yes, but ultimately true - interest. It sells debt. And, like I'm arguing in my book, this whole scheme was arranged by 14th Century monarchs as a way of making money by having money, rather than providing value. So "Debt is not a good product" helps encourage that line of thinking, sound-byte style. Another one - I came up with as a way of pitching this same concept to Rolling Stone itself, was to apply the same basic principle to their area of interest: music can make money, but money can't make music. Which is just another way of explaining that money itself cannot fuel an economy (no matter what Obama currently believes). Only activity and value creation can fuel an economy. Do people have other ideas for easy-to-grasp, almost bumper-sticker-length statements that can help instigate good conversations, or force the unpacking of larger concepts about the fictional economy? Ways of helping people see that money is not a part of nature, but an invention? So far, it's worked a lot better than trying to get people to consider, say, "the biases of centralized currency," or "what metrics such as the GNP leave out." We tend to do better with things like "cancer is good for the GNP."

Recently on Offworld, One More Go columnist Margaret Robertson looked at Capcom's massively misunderstood ball-bruising brawler God Hand and what it means to have a game that -- instead of getting harder the worse you are at it -- gets harder the more you master it, and easier the more you fail to do so. We also took a lengthy look at the reactive and playable poetry of Daniel Benmergui's Today I Die, a fascinating bite-sized reduction of open world and meaningful-consequence design challenges taken on by bigger games like Far Cry 2 shrunk down to one delicate little 10 minute experience. Elsewhere we saw Fatboy Slim, Chemical Brothers, Prodigy, Justice, Mr. Oizo and more make their way into LittleBigPlanet, marveled at Pac-Man and Berzerk geo-physical graffiti, saw one man's attempt to bring Hieronymus Bosch to the Game Boy, and were taken a bit by surprise at how well Hand Circus's Rolando iPhone sequel is shaping up after watching its first trailer. Finally, Japan's ultra-hipster game/culture shop Meteor put up the nearly 60 pieces from this year's artist/designer-imagined 8-bit retro games exhibit Famicase, including Hawken King's ultra-subtle Bush Jr above, and the day's 'one shot's: real-life Mirror's Edge and David Mauro's hand painted MegaMan-as-Greek-theater pixel mural.

We've wondered in the past if it's really possible for Hulu to survive in the longterm, given its awkward position between consumers who want to watch content, and content providers who want to put massive limits on how people can access content. This got plenty of attention in the ridiculous (and totally unnecessary) fight to block Boxee. In that case, even Hulu admits that it would like to allow Boxee (which is nothing more than a different type of browser), but that its content providers won't allow it (despite the fact that anyone who uses Boxee can simply open up another browser and watch the same content).

One of the biggest complaints with Hulu is that its content is limited only to people in the US, so those trying to access it from elsewhere get a message saying "too bad." Of course, there have been rather simple workarounds, using proxy servers to access the content. A couple months ago, when I was in the UK, I wanted to watch something on Hulu, but was blocked because of the location. Luckily, I just logged into my VPN, and Hulu let me through. Yet, today that might not work. Apparently Hulu has started blocking various anonymous proxies, saying that to watch Hulu, you need to log out of the proxy/VPN and "prove" that you're really in the states. Beyond being ridiculous, this can be a security risk. Many of us use VPNs for security reasons.

Again, my guess is that this is due to pressure coming from Hulu content providers, rather than Hulu itself. It makes little to no sense for the company to waste time and resources blocking people from viewing their content. However, it's that ongoing split, whereby Hulu has to waste time and resources making its service worse that may eventually spell doom for the company. Those who are blocked are likely to just go elsewhere -- such as BitTorrent -- to find the content they want, and thus the content providers won't get any ad revenue, whereas on Hulu they do share in the ad revenue. It's difficult to see how it makes any sense. Sure, some might point out that there are "rights" questions involved -- since the content providers may not have licenses to display the content outside the US, but given the basic geographic restrictions the site has set up, you'd think that Hulu had passed a sufficient bar that no court would accuse the company or the content provider of willfully violating any license agreements.

There's a pretty simple maxim that Hulu may be unable to follow: if you have to spend time and money making your product worse, you're going to have a hard time surviving. I recognize that Hulu has been something of a success to date, but it's hard to keep that up when you keep screwing over your users.

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PLSQL Guy writes "Tests of the Windows 7 Release Candidate in a PC World Test Center found that while Windows 7 was slightly faster on our WorldBench 6 suite, the differences may be barely noticeable to users. The PCs tested were slightly faster when running Windows 7, but in no case was the overall improvement greater than 5 percent, considered to be a threshold for when an actual performance change is noticeable to the average user. One of the major complaints about Windows Vista was the fact that it was consistently slower than Windows XP. If Windows 7 can't significantly improve that situation, what chance does it have to convince people to move away from Windows XP?"

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

• Amazon unveils the big-screened Kindle DX.

• Legendary audiophile Michael Fremer responds to BBG's suggestion he must have supernatural powers.

• Q: How many Star Trek characters Twitter? A: Too many to follow.

• Lisa loses her Star virginity to JJ Abrams' prequel.

• What will happen if Apple buys Twitter?

• Star Trek creator's wife spends $4 million on her dogs!

• BB Video: ARPANET turns 40!

• Star Trek replicas that actually do something.

• Apple censors Nine Inch Nails iPhone app due to "objectionable content."

• A lazy bookworm's lounge chair with a wheel and built-in storage.

• Best worst Star Trek parodies.

• Why some Trekkies aren't too happy with the new Star Trek.

• A history of Star Trek porn [NSFW, but totally worth clicking].

Cati Vaucelle, Steve Shada and Marisa Jahn, three MIT students, created the WoWPod, a self-contained hut for WoW players to inhabit for very long stretches of time. Vaucelle is a "maxed out level warrior engineer" who thought he "should engineer a project based on this experience and environment." The Pod provides an environment for lengthy, distraction-free raiding.

The WOW Pod is an immersive architectural solution for the advanced WOW (World of Warcraft) player that provides and anticipates all life needs.

Inside, the gamer finds him/herself comfortable seated in front of the computer screen with easy-to-reach water, pre-packaged food, and a toilet conveniently placed underneath his/her custom-built throne.

When hungry, the gamer selects a food item ('Crunchy Spider Surprise', 'Beer Basted Ribs', etc.) and a seasoning pack. By scanning in the food items, the video game physically adjusts a hot plate to cook the item for the correct amount of time. The virtual character then jubilantly announces the status of the meal to both the gamer and the other individuals playing online: "Vorcon's meal is about to be done!" "Better eat the ribs while they're hot!" etc.

When the food is ready, the system automatically puts the character in AFK ('Away From Keyboard') mode to provide the gamer a moment to eat. When the player resumes playing, he/she might just discover his/her character's behavior is affected by the food consumed in real life -- sluggish from overeating or alternately exuberant and energetic.

WoW Pod

Update: Andrew sez, "The MIT Museum hosted WoWPod creators Cati Vaucelle, Steve Shada and Marisa Jahn a few weeks ago as part of the CMS Colloquium Series. Here's a great podcast available of the event." (via Make)

Anthony Mattox wrote some very excellent software for use with the ProtoDAC project I posted up a while back. Built using Processing, the software turns the simple digital-to-analog converter into a synth/sequencer using waveforms drawn by the user. He adds an amplifier and simple filter on the hardware end of things as well -

On the electronics side, my setup is quite similar to my reference, with the addition of a small amplifier using an LM386 op amp chip and a couple resistors and capacitors for some basic filtering. On the code side I’ve created a much more substantial instrument. Using Processing I built an interface to create a 32 sample waveform and a melody. The data is sent live to the Arduino which places the data into it’s waveform array and then using a timer writes each value sequentially to the DAC to create the sound.

So awesome to see such a simple project pushed so much further! Get all the relevant code plus detailed description over on Anthony's blog.


More:

MAKE:It - Proto-DAC shield for Arduino

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In this vid, Jeri shows off the optic mice she's stuffed into a Rubik's Cube and an old NES controller, bringing the 80s into the 90s, courtesy of the Aughts (or something like that).

Fat Man and Circuit Girl

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1sockchuck writes "It take most companies at least a year to build a new data center. Digital Realty Trust says it can build a new data center in just 20 weeks using standard designs and modular components that can be assembled on site. The company equates its "building blocks" approach to data centers to building with Legos — albeit with customized parts (i.e. the Millennium Falcon Lego kit). Microsoft is taking a similar approach, packaging generators, switchgear and UPS units into pre-assembled components for rapid assembly. Is this the future of data center design?"

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

An anonymous reader writes "Highly sensitive details of a US military missile air defense system were found on a second-hand hard drive bought on eBay. The test launch procedures were found on a hard disk for the THAAD (Terminal High Altitude Area Defense) ground to air missile defense system, used to shoot down Scud missiles in Iraq. The disk also contained security policies, blueprints of facilities and personal information on employees including social security numbers, belonging to technology company Lockheed Martin — who designed and built the system. First part of story. Scary that they did not wipe it to Department of Defense standards which I believe is wiping the whole disk and then writing 1010 all over it."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

An anonymous reader writes "Highly sensitive details of a US military missile air defense system were found on a second-hand hard drive bought on eBay. The test launch procedures were found on a hard disk for the THAAD (Terminal High Altitude Area Defense) ground to air missile defense system, used to shoot down Scud missiles in Iraq. The disk also contained security policies, blueprints of facilities and personal information on employees including social security numbers, belonging to technology company Lockheed Martin — who designed and built the system. First part of story. scary that they did not wipe it to Department of Defense standards which I believe is wiping the whole disk and then writing 1010 all over it."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Would this bike be illegal in ten states?

(And yes, this is, of course, stupidly dangerous)

[via adafuit industries]

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After the entertainment industry partially won its Supreme Court decision against Grokster, it didn't take long at all for the RIAA to start claiming the ruling said stuff it didn't. Specifically, the Supreme Court ruling said that a site could be found liable if it induced infringement by encouraging such uses. This was already quite surprising to many because the idea of an "inducement" standard for copyright is not found in the law (in fact, some in Congress had introduced an "INDUCE Act" to try to put it into the law -- suggesting that even Congress didn't think copyright law includes an inducement standard). However, the RIAA falsely started claiming that the Supreme Court ruling made all sorts of file sharing apps -- even those that did not encourage unauthorized copying -- guilty of infringing copyrights.

So, it should come as little surprise that the RIAA's international wing, the IFPI, appears to be doing the exact same thing with the recent Pirate Bay ruling (which, of course, is still being appealed and is highly disputed due to conflicts of interest with the judge in the case). The IFPI is apparently going around to web hosting firms who host other torrent trackers, and claiming that The Pirate Bay ruling makes them potentially criminally liable if they don't take down the tracker sites. But, of course, The Pirate Bay ruling was specific to the facts in that case, which are somewhat different from a random web host hosting a website for someone. Still, it just goes to show the lengths that the industry will go to in order to twist any legal ruling to try to shut down sites it doesn't like.

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I spent some time getting acquainted with the Gakken Premium Theremin and was pretty impressed with it, especially considering the relatively low price tag. Unlike most theremins this one runs off battery power, so an armband contact is used in place of an earth-ground reference.

The unit sports fine/coarse pitch & volume pots, 1/8" audio out jack, mounting thread for an instrument stand, built in speaker, and a master volume control. It's also worth noting that the antennae jacks are compatible with standard banana style plugs - which will likely come in handy for future experiments. The instrument is quite fun to use as is though I'm sure I'll open it up at some point for modding. If you've bent/modded/hacked a Theremin Premium, be sure to let us know in the comments or add a pic & info to the Flickr pool.


In the Maker Shed:


Gakken Theremin Premium

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coondoggie writes "I suppose its natural for Washington to try and wrap issues up in a tidy legislative package for bureaucratic purposes (or perhaps other things more nefarious). But one has to wonder if we really need another government-lead group, especially when it comes to the climate and all the sometimes controversial information that entails. But that's what's under way. Today the House Science and Technology Committee's Subcommittee on Energy and Environment held a hearing on the need for a National Climate Service, that could meet the increased demand for climate information, the committee said. The NCS would provide a single point of contact of information climate forecasts and support for planning and management decisions by federal agencies; state, local, and tribal governments; and the private sector."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Nothing says springtime like a green twig willow whistle. Put some garlands in your hair and dance around the maypole.

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YARB is a robotic blimp controlled using an Android phone. Images are sent over Wi-Fi from the blimp to the phone's display as it's maneuvered along using the tilt sensor inside the G1.

Source code for the control interface is hosted at code.google.com/p/srv1console/

The tilt sensors in the Android phone work quite nicely for rotor control - we have proportional steering so the amount of tilt controls the amount of power, and live video is displayed on the Android screen from the blimp's onboard Surveyor SRV-1 Blackfin camera, carried via the same radio channel that sends the control signals.

YARB robotic blimp controlled by Google Android G1 phone

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It's Useful to Have a Duck is the English translation of the delightful Spanish kids' board-book "Tener un patito es util," by Isol. It's an accordion-fold book that you can read from either end -- read from front to back, it tells the story of a boy who found a rubber duck that he loves but uses roughly, sitting on it, drying his ears with it and leaving it in the plug-hole when he's done with his bath. Read back to front, though, the story becomes "It's Useful to Have a Boy," and it tells the same story from the duck's perspective -- the boy "rubs my back," "waxes my beak" and when its all done, the duck finds "my little sleeping hole."

It's a really sweet little story with great illustrations, and it's also a fine example of empathy and seeing the other side of your actions. A great board-book for fat-fingered toddlers!

It's Useful to Have a Duck

After a last-minute scramble, the EU has been persuaded to kill the idea of forcing "3-strikes" copyright/internet legislation on European states. The "3-strikes" rule says that you can have your Internet connection taken away after a copyright holder accuses you of infringement three times -- but the rightsholder doesn't need to show any evidence that you've done anything wrong.

The entertainment industry has been lobbying around the world for the right to decide who gets to use the internet. In New Zealand, they managed to get Bill 92A, a 3-strikes rule, adopted by Parliament, but sustained, noisy activism from local geeks and artists forced the government to reverse its decision and go back to the drawing board on copyright. In France, Sarkozy pushed hard for a 3-strikes rule (his wife is a pop-star who is demanding more sweeping powers for entertainers over the internet), but was defeated. 3-strikes is a feature of the secret Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement, which the US, Canada, Japan, the EU and other rich countries are conducting behind closed doors.

The entertainment industry slipped 3-strikes into the EU through an amendment to the notorious "Telecoms Package," a huge, complex piece of legislation. To counter this, progressive MEPs wrote a set of "Citizens Rights" amendments that established that internet access was a fundamental right in Europe that cannot be taken away without judicial review and an actual finding of wrongdoing.

Activists went down to the wire this week, phoning and emailing their MEPs to ask them to vote to defend due process and citizens' rights, and it paid off. Yesterday, the citizens' rights amendments passed 407/57 -- and the EU banned Sarkozy from reintroducing his failed copyright proposal.

A formidable campaign from the citizens put the issues of freedoms on the Internet at the center of the debates of the Telecoms Package. This is a victory by itself. It started with the declaration of commissioner Viviane Reding considering access to Internet as a fundamental right1. The massive re-adoption of amendment 138/462 rather than the softer compromise negotiated by rapporteur Trautmann with the Council is an even stronger statement. These two elements alone confirm that the French 'three strikes' scheme, HADOPI, is dead already.

Amendment 138/46 adopted again. Internet is a fundamental right in Europe.

A group of Canadian copyfighters produced this mini-documentary, "C-61," about the proposed new Canadian copyright law, which the US government is pressuring Canada to pass (that's why the USA added Canada to a nonsensical list of pirate nations). Previous attempts to pass this bill have been a disgrace -- famously, former Industry Minister Jim Prentice refused to discuss the bill with Canadian record labels, artists, tech firms, or telcos, but did meet with American and multinational entertainment and software giants to allow them to give their input. In the bill's earlier incarnation as C-60, its sponsor, Sam Bulte, was caught taking campaign contributions from the same US and multinational entertainment companies, and went berserk at a town hall meeting when questioned about it, decrying "user-rights zealots and EFF members."

"C-61" does a good job of explaining what passing American-style copyright in Canada would mean and why it's a bad idea. I contributed some narration to it, as well!

C-61

Pete wrote in to alert us to yet another case of a lawyer taking an overly aggressive approach to a cease-and-desist... and, in doing so, drawing a lot more attention to the issue. This time it takes place in New Zealand, where a blogger who runs an entire blog called Editing The Herald, which criticizes stories in The New Zealand Herald, received a legal nastygram from The Herald claiming trademark infringement and giving the guy a day to remove his logo -- which was an edited version of The Herald's logo (basically putting the "Editing The" above the logo -- or it would take him to court. As is standard in these things (though, usually with no legal basis), the lawyer demanded that the blogger not publish the letter, which the blogger ignored.

Now, I don't know enough about New Zealand trademark law to comment on the merits, but the whole approach just seems backwards. Having been on the receiving end of a few too many legal nastygrams, it's never a pleasant experience, and there's really no reason to send them if you haven't first tried a more friendly approach. The blogger in this case did agree to remove the logo and is apparently working on a new one, but The Herald and its lawyers could have approached the site in a much more friendly manner, rather than appearing like massive bullies, and giving the blogger more ammo to draw even more attention to the site. Once again, it appears that there are a lot of lawyers out there who still think that sending such cease and desist letters is a good idea.

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PLSQL Guy writes "Duke Nukem Forever developer 3D Realms is shutting down, according to Shacknews. They cite 'a reliable source close to the company,' who said the developer is finished and employees have already been let go. It looks like all of the Duke Nukem Forever jokes are turning into reality; DNF might turn out to be the ultimate vaporware after all." 3D Realms' webmaster, Joe Siegler, confirmed the closing, saying that he didn't know about it even a day beforehand. Apogee and Deep Silver, who are working on a different set of Duke Nukem games (referred to as the Duke Nukem Trilogy) say they are not affected by the problems at 3D Realms.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

CNN reports that police are accused of having robbed at least 150 drivers in Tenaha, Texas. The amount stolen is close to $3 million, says a lawyer who has filed a class action suit against the town and police department there.

Some of the victims (who are mostly African American) said that when they complained to the police about the police, the police threatened to take the victims' children away.

In one case, the district attorney sent a couple who'd been robbed a form letter to sign that said, in exchange for forfeiting the $6000 that had been stolen from them, "...no criminal charges shall be filed...and our children shall not be turned over to [child protective services]."

The video is loaded with lots of other tragicomically sordid details.

Police In Texas Accused of Committing Highway Robberies

The UK-based musicians lobbying group Featured Artists Coalition has apparently released a report noting that very little independent music gets played on the radio. I imagine this should surprise... well... none of you. The report appears to suggest that the issue is payola -- the practice of record labels paying radio stations to get certain music aired. The FCC had cracked down on payola (for the umpteenth time) in 2007, but the report says the mix of indie vs. major label music on radio stations has barely budged.

I'm sure that's true, but I'm not at all sure it has anything to do with payola. I'd bet it has a lot more to do with two things: basic economics and the rise of alternatives such as the internet and satellite radio. Based on these things, and the limited number of radio stations out there in a given region, it only makes sense that those stations would gravitate towards music and formats that bring in the largest, most mainstream audience. That's just basic economics. Playing just indie music attracts a smaller audience, and it's tough enough to survive as is.

That said, it's not clear this is really a problem. Those of us who tend to like indie music more had already moved away from terrestrial radio long ago -- and thanks to the internet, podcasts, MP3 players and other alternatives, have no problem hearing the music we like. Yes, there are still a lot of people who listen to terrestrial radio, and those stations do still have some influence on what's popular, but it's hardly the cultural juggernaut it was not so long ago.

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Cati Vaucelle, Steve Shada and Marisa Jahn made this: the WoW Pod:

The WOW Pod is an immersive architectural solution for the advanced WOW (World of Warcraft) player that provides and anticipates all life needs. Inside, the gamer finds him/herself comfortable seated in front of the computer screen with easy-to-reach water, pre-packaged food, and a toilet conveniently placed underneath his/her custom-built throne. When hungry, the gamer selects a food item (‘Crunchy Spider Surprise’, ‘Beer Basted Ribs’, etc.) and a seasoning pack. By scanning in the food items, the video game physically adjusts a hot plate to cook the item for the correct amount of time. The virtual character then jubilantly announces the status of the meal to both the gamer and the other individuals playing online: “Vorcon’s meal is about to be done!” “Better eat the ribs while they’re hot!” etc.

It's on view now at the MIT Museum in Cambridge, MA.

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Bridgette Steffen writes "In attempt to slow down desertification, a student at London's Architectural Association has proposed a 6000 km sandstone wall that will not only act as a break across the Sahara Desert, but also serve as refugee shelter. Last fall it won first prize in the Holcim Foundation's Awards for Sustainable Construction, and will use bacteria to solidify the sandstone."

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It seems like a popular topic in 2009 is how modern technology is opening up public access to courtrooms... if only judges would allow it. We've had numerous stories about things like Twitter and webcasting from a courtroom. To date, most stories are about judges banning as much as possible, but Michael Geist points out that in a case up in Canada a judge has barred television cameras, but allowed Twitter. Of course, since the specifics of the ruling do allow mobile devices to gather and disseminate news... what about someone using the camera on their mobile phone to stream the proceedings? That's not the same as a full sized TV camera that the judge rejected...

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The folks over at Evil Mad Scientist Labs outfitted a Peggy 2 with 2x2 super-pixels consisting of red, green, blue, and white 10mm LEDs. The result is a super low-res, but still extremely cool, programmable LED matrix. Windell also shows how you can put a diffusing plastic over the display to create a continuous-tone animated color display. Trippy, man.

Peggy 2 RGB

From the pages of MAKE:

MAKE, Volume 18, ReMake America
Peggy is our lovely spokeslight on the cover of MAKE, Volume 18, the ReMake America issue. The Table of Contents for Volume 18 is now available for perusing here.

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MarkDennehy writes "The Broadcasting Bill 2009 (currently in the last stages of becoming the Broadcasting Act 2009 and then being commenced into law in Ireland) has thrown up a rather unpleasant little nugget for broadband users in Ireland. It now defines a television set as being an electronic apparatus able to receive TV signals or "any software or assembly comprising such apparatus" which would mean that even if you haven't got a television set, even if you don't watch streaming content from RTE.ie (the state broadcaster's website), you'd still have to pay 160 euro a year for a television license for your iPhone, or netbook, or laptop or desktop if you have fixed or mobile broadband."

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Just as many in the US are arguing that ridiculously high statutory fines for copyright infringement are at odds with any sense of fairness, it looks like the UK may be going in the other direction. Specifically, it's set to increase fines for criminal infringement by a factor of 10, from £5,000 to £50,000. The only good thing is that the government rejected the idea that jailtime should be an option too. However, the process by which it came up with the new fines is pretty questionable as well. It asked for comments, and (of course) industry reps pushed for fines as high as possible. Since the general public doesn't pay nearly as much attention to such things, there was very little opposition -- though some pointed out that rather than setting a statutory rate, wouldn't it make sense to actually set fines based on how much actual damage is done. That seems like a good idea, but apparently it's easier to just use huge fines.

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"You could buy a dinky, ready-made kit with a short zip line for the kids, but why not make your own industrial strength zip line that will support the heaviest of neighbors? It's a fun project you can tackle in a weekend. You can order all the parts on the web for less than $300." Thus begins this blast from the past, the Backyard Zip Line project from our Geek Outdoors issue, MAKE Volume 05.

Got a slope on your property? Need a fun toy for summertime? Pick out your 2 trees, order supplies, clear the path, and get your build on. Here's the article in our Digital Edition so you can check out how author Dave Mabe set his up and get started planning your own.

And for infinitely more fun in the Geek Outdoors, pick up a copy of MAKE Volume 05 in the Maker Shed. You'll learn how to make high-powered water rockets, electricity-generating windmills, a jet engine in a jam jar, and oh-so-much more.

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I've been programming like a bat out of hell, in one of my most hectic spurts of creativity in a very long time. Not much time for blogging.

One of the results is a site where you can view the tweets of the 100 most-followed people and corporations on Twitter. These really reflect the friendships and choices of Twitter the company, pretty sure they're all on the SUL. But they're using Twitter, and it's fascinating to see how. Esp to see this as a benchmark, a beginning. What will the tweeting of the top 100 look like in a year? Already you can see it's very competitive.

It's coool. There's a lot more coming, if any of the other stuff I'm working on reaches fruition.

I'm singing a happy song! I love the work I'm doing.

I'm thinking of Mick Jagger and the band, warming up, and some drunken asshole is yelling at him from the audience. Jagger says, in his inimitable Jagger style: "Everything okay up there in the critics section?" And then they swing into a great rock and roll song, which I could remember which one.

Steve Gillmor, writing in TechCrunch says RSS is dead. He has a nice picture of the Beatles in what must be their last year as a group. RSS ain't like the Beatles, Steve, it's more like the Stones. Rough and passionate. And still with us after all these years.

As I said in the comments on Steve's post, with some irony, RSS is as dead as HTTP and SMTP, which is to say it's alive and kicking. These protocols get widely implemented, are so deeply ingrained in the infrastructure they become part of the fabric of the Internet. They don't die, they don't rest in piece. They become the foundation for everything that follows.

When you reboot your computer, whether it's a Mac or Linux machine or Windows box or netbook, probably even your cellphone, they all first load some ancient code written in the 70s by some guy no one remembers. That's the way software works.

Mick Jagger didn't say Muddy Waters or Chuck Berry are dead. He loved those guys. Their work lived on in his music, and he was good to them. It's time for the tech biz to learn about love, Steve. Open your heart and sing happy birthday to RSS. It's been very good to you. You should be good to RSS, though god knows most of the icons of tech have been really unappreciative at the gifts RSS brought them. It's really sad what grumpy pissy jerks these guys are.

There are bursts of inspiration with wide open fields in front of you, huge memory spaces, and then things get crowded and we move on, looking for new frontiers to explore. The early years of the web, the early-mid 90s were like that. It was in that environment that RSS sprouted, after a few failed attempts with too much hype. I feel like we're there again, and it's not like the 70s, it's like the 30s. The film industry of today is still refining the art that was invented in that period as the next decades will be spent building and revising that which was defined in the last few decades.

That's why I love Joan Crawford, btw -- she's one of the very few stars of the silent era to blossom in the talkies. You can see her in this clip from The Hollywood Revue of 1929, along with many of the stars who didn't make the transition. Can you see the charm in the young Joan Crawford, and why it worked so well in both the new and old media?



PS: Just got a funny DM from Anil Dash. He says: "Just call their bluff! Anybody who thinks RSS is dead should stop publishing their feeds or shut up. Easy!" Hmmm. That's a good point.

Douglas Rushkoff is a guest blogger.

It's thesis week at ITP, where you can go through Friday to watch students present the projects they've been working on - some of them for many years. One of my favorites, first launched by Kacie Kinzer in one of my classes and then expanded, is called Tweenbots.

The concept is pretty simple, and evident in the movie clip above. In Kinzer's words: "Tweenbots are human-dependent robots that navigate the city with the help of pedestrians they encounter. Rolling at a constant speed, in a straight line, Tweenbots have a destination displayed on a flag, and rely on people they meet to read this flag and to aim them in the right direction to reach their goal."

Of course, the whole thing becomes a really interesting study in human cooperation, machine-human relationships, as well as how a piece of technology's cuteness is a big determining factor in whether it gets what it wants.

One of the biggest problems with most of the proposed "three strikes" laws out there (the entertainment industry likes to call them "graduated response laws," but I prefer Bill Patry's recent description of calling them "the digital guillotine") is that it works based on accusations rather than actual conviction. This is a pretty significant issue if you believe in innocent until proven guilty -- combined with the rather long and detailed history of the entertainment industry falsely accusing people of file sharing. The EU Parliament has rejected the various three strikes laws as civil rights violations in the past, but the issue keeps coming up again (especially considering France is still insisting such a law is necessary. However, in the latest vote, the EU Parliament has said that no one should be kicked offline without a court order, meaning that a court would need to review any accusation, rather than just the ISP being told to kick those accused of file sharing offline.

No restriction may be imposed on the fundamental rights and freedoms of end users, without a prior ruling by the judicial authorities … save when public security is threatened...

Your move, France.

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Hugh Pickens writes "A quote attributed to French composer Maurice Jarre was posted on wikipedia shortly after his death in March and later appeared in obituaries in mainstream media. 'One could say my life itself has been one long soundtrack. Music was my life, music brought me to life, and music is how I will be remembered long after I leave this life. When I die there will be a final waltz playing in my head, that only I can hear,' Jarre was quoted as saying. However, these words were not uttered by the Oscar-winning composer but written by Shane Fitzgerald, a final-year undergraduate student, who said he wanted to show how journalists use the internet as a primary source for their stories. Fitzgerald posted the quote on Wikipedia late at night after news of Jarre's death broke. 'I saw it on breaking news and thought if I was going to do something I should do it quickly. I knew journalists wouldn't be looking at it until the morning,' The quote had no referenced sources and was therefore taken down by moderators of Wikipedia within minutes. However, Fitzgerald put it back up a few more times until it was finally left up on the site for more than 24 hours. While he was wary about the ethical implications of using someone's death as a social experiment, he had carefully generated the quote so as not to distort or taint Jarre's life, he said. 'I didn't expect it to go that far. I expected it to be in blogs and sites, but on mainstream quality papers? I was very surprised.'"

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

$1500 buys you this model train set in a briefcase.