bizwriter writes "A recent patent application from Google describes a way to provide 'the collaborative generation of interactive features for digital videos, and in particular to interactive video annotations enabling control of video playback locations and creation of interactive games.' Get into the description and you find it's about building games on top of video submissions, making it sound that Google plans to extend its YouTube site into an associated gaming site."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

The big news in security circles this week is the fact that a security researcher claims to have cracked the encryption used to keep GSM mobile phone calls private. It looks like he and some collaborators used a brute force method. He admits that it requires about $30,000 worth of equipment to de-crypt calls in real-time, but that's pocket change for many of the folks who would want to make use of this. What's much more interesting (and worrisome) is the GSM Association's (GSMA) response to this news:

"This is theoretically possible but practically unlikely," said Claire Cranton, an association spokeswoman. She said no one else had broken the code since its adoption. "What he is doing would be illegal in Britain and the United States. To do this while supposedly being concerned about privacy is beyond me."

There are so many things wrong with that statement it's hard to know where to begin. First, claiming it's "theoretically possible, but practically unlikely" means that it's very, very possible and quite likely. To then say that no one else had broken the code since its adoption fifteen years ago is almost certainly false. What she means is that no one else who's broken the code has gone public with it -- probably because it's much more lucrative keeping that info to themselves. Next, blaming the messenger by announcing that cracking the code is "illegal in Britain and the United States" is not what anyone who uses a GSM phone should want to hear. They should want to know how the GSMA is responding and fixing the problem -- not how they're responding to the public release. Finally, if it's "beyond" her why cracking a code used for private conversations and showing that it's insecure is all about being concerned about "privacy" -- she should be looking for a different job. This has everything to do with privacy. The GSMA claims that the code is secure for private conversations, and this group of folks is showing that it is not. That seems to have everything to do with privacy.

Permalink | Comments | Email This Story

An anonymous reader writes with an extract from this Associated Press story, as carried by The Globe and Mail: "Nokia is broadening its legal fight with Apple , saying almost all of the company's products violate its patents, not just the iPhone. Nokia Corp. said Tuesday that it has filed a complaint against Apple Inc. with the U.S. International Trade Commission. The Finnish phone maker says Apple's iPhone, iPods and computers all violate its intellectual property rights."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

It's no secret that I'm a supporter of allowing more skilled immigrants into the US. The arguments against it make little sense and are usually thinly veiled racism against foreigners. Plenty of studies have shown that skilled immigrants help create new jobs rather than take them away. And barring skilled immigrants from coming into the US just means that they end up working for non-US competitors, rather than helping US companies grow. It's hard to fathom a reason to be against increasing skilled immigration, other than being racist or economically illiterate. Now, that said, it's also no secret that the H-1B process that is one of the main (though not only) routes for skilled technology foreigners to work in the US has some serious flaws and is often abused. But the response should not be to end the H-1B program, but to fix the abuses.

All that said, I'm somewhat horrified at the reports (which a whole bunch of you are sending in) about a judge ordering three anti-H-1B websites be taken totally offline. I disagree heavily with those three sites, and think that they are misleading in the extreme, but the order to take them offline goes way overboard. The judge even went further and ordered Facebook to disable the Facebook page of one of the sites.

At issue are libel and copyright charges from a company named Apex, which these sites accuse of abusing the H-1B process. Given that I'm very much against the abuses, I'm all for exposing those who abuse the process. Now here's where things get weird. The main issue is that these sites posted a copy of what's supposedly an employment agreement from Apex, and the discussion "alleges that employees will find it difficult to leave Apex because of its contract terms." Apex claims that this is defamatory, and notes that it had three "consultants" refuse to report for employment because of it. Yet... it also claims that it holds the copyright on the documents. In other words, it admits that the documents are real and legitimate. Otherwise it wouldn't hold the copyright. Thus, it's hard to see how the two charges can stand together. Either the documents are false and defamatory, or there's (potential) copyright infringement and the documents are accurate in portraying Apex's contract terms. So which is it?

Unfortunately we don't know, because the judge has shut down everything.

What's not at all clear is why the judge would completely shut down all three websites and the Facebook page. If there are problems with just this document, order an injunction against that document. Completely shutting down all three websites goes way too far, and seems to go well beyond what either defamation law or copyright law should allow.

Permalink | Comments | Email This Story

What were your favorite project in the magazine this past year? All of the major projects are listed below. Vote for your faves. And PLEASE tell us know in comments if you actually built any of projects and what your experience was, if you were happy with the results, etc.

What is your favorite MAKE magazine project of 2009?(answers)

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

Instructables user brainparts built this acoustically-isolated microphone mounting ring for his kick drum using bungee cords and a short slice of 6" aluminum pipe, all for about $20. He says if he were to do it again, he'd just use PVC pipe for the ring.

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

Stone soup for online crowdsourcing DIYers! This month, the folks at Instructables.com launched a pilot for creating a working restaurant (or a fun dinner party) using crowdsourcing. The whole thing is a collection of other Instructables on the site. Arne Hendriks says:

This means not only the food but also the lights, the furniture, the decoration etc. Of course everything in the place comes with full credits and instructions so people leave the restaurant knowing how to re-create all the things they used and ate.

Make an Instructables Restaurant (Thanks, Arne!)

An anonymous reader writes "I am an IT worker in a mid sized company with approximately 500 employees. There are 30 people on the IT staff, 6 of which are on the help desk. Our help desk does have significant visibility in the company, and most people know us by face (some by name). Recently the idea has been floated up the management chain to have these help desk workers wear IT department branded shirts. The idea is to promote visibility and unity. Wearing of these shirts would be mandatory Monday through Thursday. The shirts would not be identical (there would be several styles offered). We would be the only department with specific garments outside of the normal business casual dress code. Is management out of line with the industry in promoting this sort of policy change? Is the singling out of 6 employees as 'the IT guys' a step in the right direction, or does it detract from the professionalism that we are trying to display as a department?"

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

SoundExchange, the collections group in charge of collecting and distributing money to musicians from a variety of different services (radio, satellite, webcasting, etc.), is technically a "spinoff" of the RIAA, but as many people who have dealt with SoundExchange will tell you, it's still tied at the hip with the RIAA. In fact, I was recently talking with someone who told the story of "negotiating" with SoundExchange, and was surprised to discover at the meeting that there was an RIAA representative who did all the talking. The SoundExchange guy stayed quiet.

Why the government has granted exclusive rights to this industry group to collect and distribute money to musicians is troubling enough. But it's made worse by the fact that if SoundExchange "can't find" musicians to give the money to, it gets to keep the money. Thus, for years there's been a struggle over the fact that SoundExchange seems to have incredible trouble finding musicians -- including some huge rock stars, and that means that SoundExchange, officially a non-profit, is holding on to a ton of cash (currently somewhere around $200 million). There are also questions about how SoundExchange has violated the law that created it, in order to lobby for even more rights to collect money from radio stations.

Based on all this, we've always had trouble taking SoundExchange seriously, so consider us skeptical now that the organization claims that it's going to be much more open and communicative and has launched a new website to help be more open. Only problem? The big list of artists that SoundExchange can't find has gone missing. In the link above to P2Pnet, entertainment lawyer Fred Wilhelms goes through a variety of questions that SoundExchange hasn't answered, and he asks what happened to that list (while also noting how the list almost never seemed to change):

The new website is a lot cleaner and easier to use, but there's one thing the old site had that the new site doesn't; the unregistered artist list.

As of now, there's no way for anyone outside the organization to assist in the effort to locate artists that SoundExchange has been unable to register since 2006. Despite your glowing reports on how many artists SoundExchange has been finding, you and I both know that, before the list disappeared, no names had been removed from the published list in over seven months, and only a couple dozen in the last 18 months. I'll take your subsequent assertion that the full and updated list will appear on the website at face value. Is there any schedule for that? Please don't tell me "soon." That's a devalued coin in the SoundExchange treasury.

Wilhelms also notes that for all of SoundExchange's claims to be "open" it's also conveniently not explaining how it determines who gets paid:

There's another thing that is missing from the new website which was repeatedly promised to me by John Simson and Neeta Ragoowansi; an explanation of how SoundExchange uses samples to determine which artists get what share of the royalty revenue when complete census data is not available. I was told two years ago that this information would be provided on the website, but I find that, not only is sampling not mentioned, SoundExchange continues to say things like "Get Paid When You Get Played." That's the header on the Featured Registered Artist page.

I have clients who have gotten a lot of play, but haven't gotten paid, and they've been told it was because their plays were not in the sample playlists provided by the webcasters who play them. Perhaps you can explain why SoundExchange has decided not to mention sampling on the website. I come back to related problems later on in this letter, but I would like to know if SoundExchange is ever going to explain how it samples, or even that it relies on sampling at all.

This is a big issue. As we've seen over and over again, many of these collections societies use sampling and counting methods that greatly overvalue big stars (who need the money less) at the expense of up-and-coming artists. It's like the poor get to pay the rich.

From there, Wilhelm's letter goes on in great detail responding to claims from SoundExchange and debunking them one by one. SoundExchange claims that they're now going to be much more open and respond to these types of questions. We'll be interested to see what they have to say.

Permalink | Comments | Email This Story

Interested in learning how to program, or know someone who is? Then you might want to check out Al Sweigart's free book, Invent Your Own Computer Games with Python. Now in it's second edition, the Creative Commons-licensed book was written to help anyone, young or old, learn to program in the powerful Python language.

From the introduction:

Programming isn't hard. But it is hard to find learning materials that teach you to do interesting things with programming. Other computer books go over many topics that most newbie coders don't need. This book will teach you how to program your own computer games. You will learn a useful skill and have fun games to show for it!

This book is for:

• Anyone who wants to teach themselves computer programming, even if they have no previous experience programming.
• Kids and teenagers who want to learn computer programming by creating games. Kids as young as 9 or 10 years old should be able to follow along.
• Adults and teachers who wish to teach others programming.
• Anyone, young or old, who wants to learn how to program by learning a professional programming language.

It looks like it could be a great place for a budding programmer to start, and since it available online for free, why not check it out? [via O'Reilly Radar]

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

omlx contributes this link to LinuxCrunch's short review of Google Chrome on Linux, writing: "The summary of it is that although Google Chrome is in a beta stage, it is fast, stable, and has a simple, clean, and effective GUI design. On other side, Google Chrome has a small number of extensions, doesn't support RSS, lacks integration with KDE, and doesn't support complex scripts very well. Personally, I didn't succeed in using Flash Player on Google Chrome beta 1 (I am using OpenSUSE 11.2) and I wonder how the quality of Google Chrome OS will be, especially if it's based on Linux and Google Chrome."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

uncadonna writes "According to activist group The Yes Men, the government of Canada has shut down two parody websites criticizing Canada's poor environmental policy. The article goes on to claim that'"In response to Environment Canada's request, Serverloft immediately turned off a whole block of IP addresses, knocking out more than 4500 websites that had nothing to do with the parody sites or the activists who created them. Serverloft was shown no warrant, and never called the web hosting company about the shutdown.'"

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

It's been pointed out before how much Microsoft has benefited from having its operating system and office suites "pirated," in that it helped make Microsoft a de facto standard, that created lock-in and network effects, that helped make Microsoft into the massively successful company it is today. Even Bill Gates has famously said:

"And as long as they're going to steal it, we want them to steal ours. They'll get sort of addicted, and then we'll somehow figure out how to collect sometime in the next decade."

Except... of course, Microsoft has been pushing hard to "stop" that kind of "piracy" in China, and it may be having an unintended effect. Slashdot points us to the news that a group that had been offering pirated copies of Windows is now offering a copy of Ubuntu Linux, designed to look just like Windows XP. So, congrats, Microsoft, in "stopping" some piracy in China, you may just be driving users to Linux instead.

Permalink | Comments | Email This Story

MikeChino writes with this snippet from Inhabitat: "Researchers at Stanford University recently announced that they have developed a new artificial retina implant that uses photovoltaic power and could help the blind see. The problem with previous implants was that there was no way send power to the chip in order to process light and data inside the eye, so the new device uses miniature photovoltaic cells to provide power the chip as well as to transmit data through the eye to the brain. The new device has great promise to help people afflicted by the loss of photoreceptor cells by using the power of the sun."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Velcroman1 writes "Windows got less annoying. Smartphones became smarter. The Internet continued to change entertainment for the better. All in all, it was a good year for technology and the folks who use it. Harry McCracken, the brains behind Technologizer and the former editor-in-chief of PC World, reveals his picks and pans for the most interesting tech stories of the year."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

I'm working on a felt electronics control panel. It has two knobs and four pushbuttons. I first needle felt a little cylinder, then bore out a channel in which to fit a standard button or knob. They're delightfully fuzzy, yet firm to the touch. See more at my Flickr.

More:

Big Fluff Pi vs. Music-Industrial Complex

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

By way of Alden Hart at HacDC comes this amazing computer-controlled analog piano that speaks, *almost* comprehensible English, when a frequency spectrum of a child reading the text of the Proclamation of the European Environmental Criminal Court is transferred to robot fingers that press the piano's keys. Creepy. Cool. [Thanks, Alden!]

Speaking Piano - Now with (somewhat decent) captions!

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

Back in May, we wrote about the effort to get a Right to Repair bill passed for automobiles: So far, thanks in part to lobbying by automakers, that bill hasn't gone very far. Reader MR sends in this article exploring both the bill and how automakers have been abusing intellectual property law to force you to pay more. Basically, as cars become more sophisticated and computerized, automakers are locking up access to those computers, and claiming that access is protected by copyrights. Mechanics are told they can only access the necessary diagnostics if they pay huge sums -- meaning that many mechanics simply can't repair certain cars, and car owners are forced to go to dealers, who charge significantly higher fees.

There is no legitimate basis for this at all. It's a clear misuse of intellectual property laws -- which were never designed for this sort of thing -- to prevent independent auto mechanics from repairing newer cars. But it's the end result of the increasing creep of intellectual property rights, and the growing computerization of everything. It allows manufacturers to extend "IP" rights to physical goods, and create all sorts of new monopolies. In a perfect world, this wouldn't need a separate law. It would be a clear violation of antitrust laws. But, we don't live in a perfect world, and for the time being you're probably paying a lot more money to repair your car because of it.

Permalink | Comments | Email This Story

the4thdimension writes "Bruce Schneier has an opinion piece on CNN this morning that illustrates his view on airport security. Given that he has several books on security, his opinion carries some weight. In the article, Bruce discusses the rarity of terrorism, the pitfalls of security theater, and the actual difficulty surrounding improving security. What are your thoughts? Do you think that we can actually make air travel (and any other kind of travel, for that matter) truly secure?"

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

I'm digging the way you turn on this fiat lux lamp by designers Constance Guisset and Grégory Cid. In place of the standard light switch, you place an orb under the lamp, which then (presumably) uses a magnetic field to hold it in place. When you are done, you simply pull it away and the light goes out.

I think it would be awesome to make this into a timer for the light- the lamp could have a control system that slowly lowers the orb, until it gets far enough away that it drops to the floor and shuts off the light. Anyone want to try it? [via notcot]

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

An anonymous reader writes "Adobe Systems' Flash and Acrobat Reader products will become the preferred targets for criminal hackers [pdf] in 2010, surpassing Microsoft Office applications, a security vendor predicted this week. 'Cybercriminals have long picked on Microsoft products due to their popularity. In 2010, we anticipate Adobe software, especially Acrobat Reader and Flash, will take the top spot,' security vendor McAfee said in its '2010 Threat Predictions' report (PDF). 'We have absolutely seen an increase in the number of attacks, around Reader in particular and also Flash Player to some extent,' CTO Kevin Lynch told reporters at the Adobe Max conference in October. 'We're working to decrease the amount of time between when we know about a problem and when we release a fix. That used to be a couple of months; now it's within two weeks for critical issues.'"

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Pedro Mealha was inspired by those 3D plywood dinosaur kits when he designed this lamp, called rhizome, the armature of which is a great example of the emerging "router aesthetics" Bruce Sterling wrote about back in MAKE Volume 11. I also like the wooden race and exposed ball-bearings that let it pivot at the base. Now if we can just persuade him to post the DXF files on Thingiverse... [via Evil Mad Scientist Laboratories]

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

I've never understood book price fixing laws in Europe, that require books to be sold at the same price. Economically challenged individuals claim that this helps independent booksellers who aren't forced to undercut prices of other book chains. Except, of course, forcing higher prices on everyone actually leads to fewer books purchased, less innovation and less opportunity for those independent bookstores to offer something better. These laws have caused trouble for Amazon in the past. Over in France, Amazon's famous free shipping promotions were deemed illegal for being an effective "price discount" on books. And now a bookseller is suing Amazon in Germany for supposedly violating fixed prices on books as well (found via Michael Scott). In this case, the bookseller is sick of people showing up with printouts from Amazon, and wants to force Amazon to offer higher prices, because apparently consumers must suffer.

Permalink | Comments | Email This Story

ABC News has published an "exclusive" series of photographs identified as the customized undergarments of a fellow who tried to blow up a Detroit-bound plane over the holidays with the explosive PETN. Above, an image identified on abcnews.com as "UNDERWEAR WITH EXPLOSIVE PACKET." I wonder how they obtained these images, and from whom?

The photo series also includes separate detail shots of explosive powder packet, and the syringe which, according to reports, contained some sort of acid that was to aid in the detonation process—thankfully, it failed. A quick YouTube search yields several videos of questionable origin with titles like "PETN 40" and "PETN 50 UNDERWATER," presumably X grams of the explosive being detonated. If the videos and quantities are legit, it really is frightening to imagine what 80 grams in the dude's drawers could have done if he'd succeeded.

This is the creepiest wide-distribution media image I can remember seeing for many years. What distasteful internet parodies and fetish riffs may yet come?

What better way to round out this scorched and shitty decade than to gaze thoughtfully into the charred, soiled underpants of a stranger. A troubled young man who seems to have hated America only as much as he hated his own junk.

EXCLUSIVE: Photos of the Northwest Airlines Flight 253 Bomb (ABC NEWS)

longacre writes "Apple CEO Steve Jobs won over 30% of the vote in an online poll published by personal finance and investing news site SmartMoney.com, enough to earn their "Person of the Decade" title by a solid margin over luminaries such as Warren Buffett (17%), Ben Bernanke (13%) and Google founders Sergey Brin and Larry Page (12%). From the article, 'Certainly, Jobs accomplished more than probably any other CEO since he returned to Apple in the late 1990s: Not only did he revive sales at the failing computer company, he led the stock to a more than 700% increase in value, and forever changed the way people buy and listen to music.'"

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

I have newfound respect for online moderators who slog through potentially problematic user content all day. They get a real glimpse into the downside of humanity.

Facebook developers recently initiated me into Facebook Community Council, a secret shadow organization of vigilantes who destroy the content of ne'er-do-wells and miscreants. Our Council's blood oath: "To harness the power and intelligence of Facebook users to support us in keeping Facebook a trusted and vibrant community."

There's a whiff of McCarthyism or worse to the whole notion of people in a community reporting others for un-Facebookian activities. I signed up immediately. Immediately after I passed a tutorial and got certified, I got a long hard look at the seamy underbelly of Facebook and the nebulous concept of "community standards."

Turns out Facebook Community Council is less like vigilantism and more like beta-testing a crowdsourced tagging system where you are limited to one of eight options each time. Four are self-explanatory: Spam, Acceptable, Skip, Not English. The other four are the key problem areas, and I saw plenty of all of the specified naughtiness over time:

-Nudity (such as "visibility of pubic hair or genitalia, the display of sex toys, and solicitation of cybersex")

-Drugs (especially promotion or use of "drugs illegal in the United States... This includes depictions of marijuana plants/leaf logos. This does not include the use of alcohol or tobacco...")

-Attacking ("direct attacks on non public figures")

-Violence (such as "visible mutilation of humans (including self-harm) or sadistic violence against animals... images of urine, feces, vomit, and semen.")

Yum! Your tags are then compared to other Community Council members', and if there's enough of a match, some sort of action is apparently taken. It's strangely hypnotic, like Google Image labeler, mainly because you want to see how bad the next reported page or group is.

The majority are acceptable, reported by some overly sensitive person. The main categories of reported pages are:

• Pointwhoring for networks within the network: Mafia Wars, Farmville, etc.


• Regular whoring (escorts, nude models, sex workers, etc.)


• Middle and high school teachers who suck


• Middle and high school students who suck


• Soccer teams and players who suck


• TV talent show competitors who suck


• Bands and hip-hop artists who suck


• Religions that suck


• Hate groups masquerading as pride groups (lots of "white pride", etc.)


• Gingers


• Chavs


• Ginger chavs

Whew! That was a lot of detail! If that bugs you, I recommend joining a flagged Facebook group I marked Acceptable:

i hate it when people go into detail about everything.

Instructables user mrfixits writes:

This Tesla Tornado is made using a Subaru blower fan motor, complete with its 3-position speed switch mounted on the base. The blower motor has a flywheel fabricated out of Lexan with 6 neodymium magnets mounted in it. It magnetically couples with 6 magnets in the Tesla Pump disc pack, which is inside the vortex tube. The Tesla pump discs are magnetically driven by the blower motor flywheel magnets, so there is no direct connection. The pump disc pack is self-centering, and there is no rotating shaft, shaft bearings, or seals required.

Because nothing says xmas like the slurp of that water pump! Great walkthrough of the building of this Tesla Tornado.

Read more | Permalink | Comments | Read more articles in Holiday projects | Digg this!

This may be one of those moments like the time when the guy put peanut butter on chocolate and came up with Reese's peanut butter cups.

Maybe a kind of breakthrough.

So here's the peanut butter -- a screen shot of the River2 aggregator. You can see at the top there's a big logo doing nothing, and below it is a list of new articles. This is what I call the River of News, it's what Twitter does so nicely. Or more precisely it's one-half of what Twitter does so nicely.

And here's the chocolate -- a screen shot of Twitter.

Where I have my logo it has a small text box for entering a 140-character message.

And here's the new idea.

What if you took the text box from Twitter and put it at the top of the River?

Where would the text go? Ahhh that's easy -- a Realtime RSS feed. And from there it could flow into other RSS rivers and of course into Twitter or Facebook or anything else that likes streams of 140-character messages.

I'm going to do this in the next couple of days and see how it feels.

Via That Kevin Smith (who has had his own share of run ins with the MPAA over bizarre ratings) comes the story of how the MPAA decided the romantic comedy It's Complicated deserved an "R" rating, because it has one scene that involves two characters (played by Steve Martin and Meryl Streep) who smoke marijuana... and then giggle. Specifically, the MPAA appears to be upset that there are "no negative consequences" to the two characters smoking pot.

Now, I've never smoked marijuana (or ingested it in other forms either), but I'm at a loss to see how this makes something deserving of an R rating. The NY Times article quotes someone from the Parents Television Council -- the group famous for bombarding the FCC with bogus indecency complaints -- who says "The last I checked, smoking pot was still illegal, illicit behavior." Indeed. But, then again, so is blowing up Los Angeles, and "last I checked," the movie 2012 got a PG-13 rating.

The larger point, of course, is just how incredibly out of touch the MPAA is beyond just its laughable ratings system. This is a group that's still trying to break your TV because it can't figure out how to release movies on TV in a reasonable amount of time without doing so (even though its own studios have figured it out). This is the same group that argues that blames tech companies for its own inability to recognize and embrace what technology allows. This is the same group that insists that piracy is "killing" the movie industry as the industry scores yet another box office record. This is the same group that insists that ACTA is necessary, but won't share what its own lobbyists helped write.

The NY Times article admits that the decision to rate this particular movie "R" is more of a political move from an organization that doesn't want to be attacked during the next elections -- and even that should be troubling. This is an organization that will do amazingly dumb things just to stay in the good graces of our politicians, so that it can continue to push through protectionist laws. One simple rating may not seem like a huge deal (and, by itself, it is not), but it's yet another sign in how out of touch the MPAA really is, and how its actions are entirely about protecting its political power and helping its members get favors from the government, rather than anything else.

Permalink | Comments | Email This Story

Barence writes "PC Pro has rounded up the most howlingly awful examples of ads churned out by Microsoft over the past decade. The selection includes the cringe-worthy Gates & Seinfeld ads — where Gates looks like he’s delivering his lines with the help of a cattle prod — to the terrible Windows 7 party ads (an 'F1 key for social inadequates,' according to PC Pro), to the one that got away: an excellent in-house training video produced by The Office's Ricky Gervais."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

MAKE subscriber Joe Kerman sent us a link to this video about how mechanical controllers for traffic lights work. This is from a Canadian kid's TV show from the late 80s (I think), called the Acme School of Stuff. I watched a number of other episodes on YouTube and found them pretty engaging and educational. [Thanks, Joe!]

Traffic Signals

Read more | Permalink | Comments | Read more articles in How it's made | Digg this!

Because of its classic sounds & serial-controllability, the Commodore 64's Sound Interface Device (SID) chip is much sought after by many synth DIYers. Instead of plucking one from a vintage piece of computing history, Christoph recreated the SID's functionality in firmware using an ATMega8 chip. The resulting emulator can be controlled via serial protocol - an Arduino shield was even designed to do just that.

Read more | Permalink | Comments | Digg this!

theodp writes "Computerworld reports that a NJ Superior Court Judge ordered hosting firms to shut down three Web sites that oppose the H-1B visa program and seeks information about the identity of anonymous posters. GoDaddy, Network Solutions, Comcast and DiscountASP.Net were ordered to disable ITgrunt.com, Endh1b.com, and Guestworkerfraud.com. Facebook Inc. was also ordered to disable ITgrunt's Facebook page. The judge's order was made in response to a libel lawsuit filed by Apex Technology Group Inc., which is citing its copyright ownership as it seeks the identity of the poster of a since-removed Apex employment agreement on Docstoc.com, which drew critical comments on U.S. and India websites."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

It's giving me insane visions of a Star Wars starring Dirk Benedict and Mr. T. [via @mistercharlie] More: The creator's Star Wars-Airwolf mashups are even better: rebel and imperial.

So you may recall that last week, the story spread about how Demi Moore's lawyers flipped out and sent ridiculous (laughably so) legal threats to a few blogs that were discussing whether or not Moore's photo on the cover of W magazine had been digitally retouched and, if so, how poor a job the retouching was. Most specifically, there was the point that her hip looked out of place. None of the conversation (which had mostly died out a month before Ms. Moore's lawyers got involved) suggested anything even remotely negative about Ms. Moore herself -- but about the potentially poor editing job on the photo itself.

Of course, once the story was pushed back into the news by Moore's lawyers, a second look at the evidence suggested quite clearly that the image had, in fact, been retouched (not that there's anything wrong with that). And, now, the story gets even more bizarre. Anthony Citrano, one of the bloggers being threatened by Moore's lawyers -- and who has (reasonably) demanded a complete retraction and apology from Moore's lawyers -- got in touch to let us know that the Korea edition of W magazine just happened to have fixed the hip problem on their cover version of the same photo.

As Citrano points out, this leads to one of two possibilities:

1. Citrano was correct all along that the version with the funky hip a bad image edit or...
2. By Moore's own lawyer's explanation, W in Korea had defamed Demi Moore by editing her image (which the lawyers insisted needed no editing)

Either way, at least one of those images was apparently edited, and Citrano's still waiting for that apology and retraction...

Permalink | Comments | Email This Story

This thing is called the "Slauerhoffbrug," and it lives in Leeuwarden in the Netherlands. The road section is lifted on a single massive counterbalanced arm up to 90 degrees in the air. There's a good photo gallery, including aerial views, over on frozenly.com. [via Neatorama]

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

Foochee noted that specs have leaked for an alleged new Google NetBook. Coupling this with the HTC Google Phone, and it really appears that Google is going to be pushing into new spaces in the next few years.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Zimoun's art makes use of motors and other machine hardware en masse to create some strange and quite elegant installations. [via EMSL]

Read more | Permalink | Comments | Digg this!

ScuttleMonkey writes "China’s emerging aviator class is spreading its wings with a plethora of approaches, from the ramshackle to the sophisticated to the potentially revolutionary. They’re using everything imaginable, from old motorcycle engines to electric motors to even their own legs, like Mao Yiqing and his human-powered airplane. You could easily plot these adventurous innovators on a graph, with the X axis showing their skill and the Y axis their financial means."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Illustration: =Em-j-akahana Avatar doesn't have a bad story, but its unswerving direction does make it a predictable one. Since the internet's already hashed out the cultural angles of James Cameron's splendid epic, let's take a look at the storytelling mechanics--something he approached with a caution only $400M buys. What risks could Cameron have taken to add some surprise, without spiking the straightforward narrative? Here's five ideas to get us started...

1. Jake actually betrays the Na'vi

Our hero's journey is smooth sailing: Jake so badly needs his destination that there's never much ambivalence about the journey. This lack of internal conflict manifests when the Na'vi tribe rejects him: his only betrayal of them is the plain fact of his original mission, which he'd had abandoned in any case. Wasn't it obvious that he might be telling others what he'd learned about the tribe? As the first "warrior" dreamwalker, no less.

If Jake instead pursued an explicit and timely opportunity to betray his new friends, his 'going native' afterward would have been a powerful moral turning point rather than a faint point on a 'character arc.'

2. Give his rival some balls

In Dune, off-worlder Paul Atreides is forced to kill to gain acceptance with the locals when his own kind finally forces him into the wilds. In Avatar, however, Jake only has to show up on a fancy ride. Instead of becoming a nonentity after their earlier aikido warmup, Na'vi chief-to-be Tsu-tey could have drawn a line in the moss: I represent the caution and tradition of my people, and you'll have to beat me down to change and lead us. If Jake has to defeat, even kill an ally who hates him, it tarnishes his character--but Pandora is red in tooth and claw, after all, and it is what he's fighting for.

3. The savages show how smart they are

Jake masters the bow and horse. Why not let one of the Na'vi surprise everyone by getting to grips with some of that weird sky-people tech? And perhaps even do a little betrayal of his or her own.

4. Show the colonel's hidden depths

You can't just let Steven Lang take a role like that and then bury him in cartoon villainy. Colonel Quaritch is evidently a spiritually blasted former soldier who went private-sector after tiring of fighting dirty wars. As Lang says in an interview, "I didn't play a villain; I played a man who is doing his job the best way that he can." But he isn't given much space for that nuance by the script. For example, he knows that his brief is to protect a blood diamond operation, not patriotic duty, and yet in his climactic battle with Jake, he asks him how he could betray his people. What he really means is, "How could you not be a soldier, son?"

In the movie, Jake simply snarls. A retort would be sweeter. "Is that what they told you when you quit Venezuela?" does the the trick. The Colonel knows he's lost, after all, and getting irony thrown in his face offers him a chance to choose his own doom--without any need for the leaden pathos that often comes with such turnarounds. Consider the many suggestions that Quaritch is the only human on Pandora to feel at home there in his own body--he is much more like the Na'vi than he'd like to admit.

5. Kill Carter Burke

That brings us to the disinterested corporate apparatchik in charge of the whole show. He's the real villain of the piece, who gives the natives none of the respect offered them by his soldiers and scientists, at least until his decisions' moral consequences are thrown in his face by Ripley.

Wait... wrong movie. In any case, Mr. Cameron had the right idea the first time around. Kill the slimeball--or better yet, let an alien do it.

Back in October, we wrote about how the Philadelphia Eagles were trying to stop radio stations from doing promotional giveaways of tickets they had legally purchased. The team basically claims that the terms (which no one reads nor technically "agrees" to) on the back of the ticket forbid such uses of the tickets. Instead, clearly, the Eagles wanted to sell the rights to do promotional giveaways. Now there's a similar lawsuit involving Major League Soccer and FIFA. JJ points us to a lawsuit in which the organization that handles marketing for both soccer organizations is quite upset at Black & Decker for doing ticket giveaway promotions. The reason why they're so upset? B&D competitor Makita is "the official power tool" of both soccer leagues in the US. In this case, they're arguing trademark infringement and breach of contract, though both seem questionable. If it's an accurate promotion, such that B&D is literally giving away legally purchased tickets and merchandise, then as long as it doesn't suggest endorsement from the soccer leagues, there shouldn't be much confusion. As for the breach of contract, if B&D never agreed to the contract, it's hard to see how they can be held to it.

Permalink | Comments | Email This Story

Alpay Kasal's Twitter-enabled "Twistmas" twee tree responds to specific keyword mentions by lighting corresponding ornaments -

After designing a Twitter based installation for GE Healthcare, I looked forward to putting some Arduino’s and LED’s to work on a personal project. While speaking with Psytek, a founder of a hackerspace in Brooklyn called AlphaOneLabs, we decided an interactive Christmas tree would be a lot of fun. He bought a tree. I hunted for clear ornaments to stick the led’s into, and after coming up dry, we set out to make our own. I thought this would be the easy part, it wasn’t, I underestimated the elusive nature of ornaments in the wild. Eventually I found “golf display cases” at The Container Store.

Read more of the story over at LitStudios and check out a live feed of the tree in action at Alpha One Labs

Read more | Permalink | Comments | Digg this!

eldavojohn writes "Landry Walker (alternative comics creator of X-Ray Studios) has a brief opinion piece at Elder Geek asserting that all he wants for Christmas is more realistic game violence. While he acknowledges the world probably isn't ready for it, he wishes that getting shot in a video game was a bit more like getting shot in real life. From his piece: '... that's my problem with video game violence. Bullets are something we shrug off. Point blank fire with a machine gun is something that a tiny bit of flexible body armor and 20 seconds sitting on a magic invisibility inducing gargoyle can cure. Time and time again, I've heard people claim that they want to see a greater degree of realism in video games. But that's a lie. We don't want realism. We want fantasy. We want unlimited ammo and we want rapid respawns. We want to jump out of second story windows without a scratch. We want to dodge bullets and shake off mortal wounds without pause.' What say you, reader? Would this bring a new level of impossibility to video games or would there be a way to balance this out?"

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

We've written in the past how Thomas Edison -- who is often held up by patent hoarders as the perfect example of why patents are necessary -- didn't actually invent any of the stuff he's famous for "inventing." Instead, he's most famous for taking the work of others and innovating around it just slightly, to find a good market -- but then also patenting the work of others and blocking anyone else from entering the market. I admire his innovative side and his marketing prowess, but find his abuse of patents to be unfortunate. Reader Michael points to a recent story in Wired which highlights how this worked with the incandescent lightbulb.

The story highlights how the incandescent lightbulb was really a function of progressive innovation, with different people adding little bits here and there:

English chemist Humphry Davy connected two wires to a battery in 1809 and inserted a charcoal strip between the other ends of the wires. The strip glowed, making it the first electric lamp.

Inventor Warren De la Rue about 10 years later enclosed a platinum coil in an evacuated tube and passed electric current through it to make it glow.

From there, it details how Joseph Swan built the first real "electric lamp" building on those concepts. Swan did get a patent on his work, but it didn't actually work all that well. Edison's revelation was to make a minor tweak to Swan's work, making the incandescent bulb last much longer. It wasn't an "invention" at all. It was a minor tweak on top of it, and then a massive promotional campaign. Of course, Edison originally couldn't do as much with his better lightbulb, because Swan held that patent... so eventually Edison ended up merging with Swan's company... and took all the credit for the incandescent bulb. And from then on, he used patents to keep everyone else out for as long as possible.

Permalink | Comments | Email This Story

Make, mod, hack, and bend your own analog noise monster with the new Thingamagoop 2 kit from the Maker Shed! It's a great kit for beginners, since it includes detailed instructions and photos of each step of the build. Advanced users can taking advantage of the Arduino integration, control voltage in and out, or just bend it like crazy!

Features

• Analog VCO controlled by analog or digital signal from Arduino. (A separate Arduino board is not required)
• Sample and hold, Arpeggios, noise, and bit crush effects with open source code so you can program your own sounds!
• All the analog sounds of the original Thingamagoop.
• Controllable LEDacle - Ramp and random waveforms with rate control.
• New modulators - Square wave amplitude modulator and triangle wave pulse width modulator.
• Tough, stomp box type body with silk screened graphics in 3 different styles.
• Easy to access battery - No more screws!
• Much fuller and louder speaker
• CV in and out
• Arduino Programmer jack. Easily hook an Arduino board up to the Thingamagoop 2
• Kit now comes with a pre-drilled enclosure

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

It's no secret that many ISPs prefer to have a monopoly. We've seen it over and over again in efforts to block competitors from getting into the space, while at the same time they lobby the government for more rights of way and other benefits. The latest example is CenturyLink (a combination of CenturyTel and Embarq) in North Carolina. The company has made it clear that it won't provide DSL to certain "low density" areas. And if that's what it wants to do, fine. But, it shouldn't then try to block those who do want to offer broadband, such as Electronic Solutions Inc., which Broadband Reports notes has applied for federal broadband stimulus funds to offer wireless broadband services in those areas. Yet, CenturyLink has filed a complaint with the government saying that because it offers broadband in "some or all" (see what it did there?) of the areas ESI wants to provide service in, CenturyLink is suggesting that the feds shouldn't give ESI the money it's asking for.

Now, this is a case where accurate data on broadband penetration might be helpful, but when Connected Nation keeps winning contracts to provide such maps -- and Connected Nation is set up by the same broadband incumbents who don't want competition, guess how accurate those maps will be?

Permalink | Comments | Email This Story

Wowsers writes "An article in The Times states that UK consumers will be hit with an estimated £500m ($800m US) bill to tackle online piracy. The record and film industries have managed to convince the government to get consumers to pay for their perceived losses. Meanwhile they have refused to move with the times, and change their business models. Other businesses have adapted and been successful, but the film and record industries refuse to do so. Surely they should not add another stealth tax to all consumers."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Kim Peek, the savant who inspired the film Rain Man, died from a heart attack on December 19. He was 58. From the New York Times (image from Wikimedia Commons):

"He was the Mount Everest of memory," Dr. Darold A. Treffert, an expert on savants who knew Mr. Peek for 20 years, said in an interview.

Mr. Peek had memorized so many Shakespearean plays and musical compositions and was such a stickler for accuracy, his father said, that they had to stop attending performances because he would stand up and correct the actors or the musicians.

"He'd stand up and say: 'Wait a minute! The trombone is two notes off,' " (his father) Fran Peek said.

Mr. Peek had an uncanny facility with the calendar.

"When an interviewer offered that he had been born on March 31, 1956, Peek noted, in less than a second, that it was a Saturday on Easter weekend," Dr. Treffert and Dr. Daniel D. Christensen wrote about Mr. Peek in Scientific American in 2006.

They added: "He knows all the area codes and ZIP codes in the U.S., together with the television stations serving those locales. He learns the maps in the front of phone books and can provide MapQuest-like travel directions within any major U.S. city or between any pair of them. He can identify hundreds of classical compositions, tell when and where each was composed and first performed, give the name of the composer and many biographical details, and even discuss the formal and tonal components of the music. Most intriguing of all, he appears to be developing a new skill in middle life. Whereas before he could merely talk about music, for the past two years he has been learning to play it."

"Kim Peek, Inspiration for 'Rain Man,' Dies at 58" (Thanks, Bob Pescovitz!)

Over at Orange Crate Art, Michael Leddy spotted old print issues of that bastion of great journalism, The Weekly World News, archived on Google Books! I want to believe! Weekly World News on Google Books

Two rather successful venture capitalists, Brad Feld and Fred Wilson, have been at the forefront of bucking the ridiculous claim that VCs only invest in companies that have patents, as both have spoken out about how patents tend to stifle innovation, and how their portfolio companies are often held back by patents, rather than helped by them. It looks like both of them are also quite aware of how copyright gets in the way of basic innovation as well. Brad Feld has a post up about how he created a Pandora station based on Fred's blog post detailing his top albums of the decade. Pretty cool, right?

Well, the problem is that Brad sent Fred an invite to this "station," and Fred is traveling for the holidays in Argentina with his family. So, because of ridiculous demands from copyright holders that make it so Pandora is only available in the US, Brad gets informed that Fred cannot access the station that Brad created for Fred solely due to ridiculous copyright holder demands. Yes, even though Fred almost always accesses Pandora from the US, but just happens to be in Argentina this week, Pandora says he can't listen to the station that Brad created for him. Brad makes a good point, that any human can understand why this situation is silly, but computers still can't quite figure it out, noting: "The level of interaction of human and machine is high, although the level of sophistication is pretty low." As for Fred's summation of the situation? "Rights holders fuck everything up." Indeed.

Permalink | Comments | Email This Story

wilsone8 writes "The New York Times includes an op-ed today arguing for Search Neutrality: 'Today, search engines like Google, Yahoo and Microsoft's new Bing have become the Internet's gatekeepers, and the crucial role they play in directing users to Web sites means they are now as essential a component of its infrastructure as the physical network itself. The F.C.C. needs to look beyond network neutrality and include search neutrality: the principle that search engines should have no editorial policies other than that their results be comprehensive, impartial and based solely on relevance.'"

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Jeff writes in with a quickie solar project...

I recently purchased two remote control cars for my nephews from a dollar store.  The cars came with three rechargeable AA batteries and also a cheap AC charger that connects to the car, but unfortunately grew hot when plugged in (a classic wall wart). So I’m giving them the cars with a solar panel and withholding the AC chargers. The best part is how easy it was to make it all work as I piggy-backed on the car’s built-in charging circuit.

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

China's largest search engine, Baidu, has had a reputation from very early on as being a source for downloading infringing music and movies. In fact, in 2005 when the company went public, many in China claimed that the availability of music and movies was why Baidu was so popular. In fact, we wondered if by going public, it would put pressure on the company to block those links. Later evidence suggested that Baidu was heavily involved in promoting unauthorized content (potentially even hosting it itself). And while the company has promised to remove links, they seem to reappear almost immediately (and only indexed by Baidu). Not surprisingly, Baidu has been sued many times for copyright infringement.

However, one such case, brought in the US was recently dismissed for lack of jurisdiction. The plaintiff claimed that Baidu could be sued in the US because it was listed on NASDAQ, but the court found nothing to support that and dismissed the entire complaint.

Permalink | Comments | Email This Story

Today is the birthday of Linus Torvalds. Linus is the creator of Linux, the free software kernel that helped make the open source software revolution happen. Happy birthday, Linus!

In addition to being a grandmaster hacker, he also has a great sense of humor:

GFDL-licensed image from Wikipedia

Second image by Picasa user Chris.

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

Hugh Pickens writes "The NY Times reports that German encryption expert Karsten Nohl says that he has deciphered and published the 21-year-old GSM algorithm, the secret code used to encrypt most of the world's digital mobile phone calls, in what he called an attempt to expose weaknesses in the security system used by about 3.5 billion of the 4.3 billion wireless connections across the globe. Others have cracked the A5/1 encryption technology used in GSM before, but their results have remained secret. 'This shows that existing GSM security is inadequate,' Nohl told about 600 people attending the Chaos Communication Congress. 'We are trying to push operators to adopt better security measures for mobile phone calls.' The GSM Association, the industry group based in London that devised the algorithm and represents wireless operators, called Mr. Nohl's efforts illegal and said they overstated the security threat to wireless calls. 'This is theoretically possible but practically unlikely,' says Claire Cranton, a GSM spokeswoman, noting that no one else had broken the code since its adoption. 'What he is doing would be illegal in Britain and the United States. To do this while supposedly being concerned about privacy is beyond me.' Simon Bransfield-Garth, the chief executive of Cellcrypt, says Nohl's efforts could put sophisticated mobile interception technology — limited to governments and intelligence agencies — within the reach of any reasonable well-funded criminal organization. 'This will reduce the time to break a GSM call from weeks to hours,' Bransfield-Garth says. 'We expect as this further develops it will be reduced to minutes.'"

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

This post is part of the IT Innovation series, sponsored by Sun & Intel. Read more at ITInnovation.com. Of course, the content of this post consists entirely of the thoughts and opinions of the author.

Rik alerts us to a recent Wired Magazine article that goes through Larry Ellison's failed attempts at building a cheap computer (the network computer -- or NC) that would mainly be used for internet access. That history is pretty well known. Ellison -- in large part inspired by jealousy of Bill Gates -- declared that the PC was dead, and in its place people would prefer to use a stripped down computer with everything on the internet instead. It got a ton of buzz, and lots of people expressed interest. But the product was a flop. A massive flop. And yet... here we are today, and more and more applications are online only, and the success of cheap netbooks have more than matched some of the original vision of the network computer. As the article explains:

We tend to think of technology as a steady march, a progression of increasingly better mousetraps that succeed based on their merits. But in the end, evolution may provide a better model for how technological battles are won. One mutation does not, by itself, define progress. Instead, it creates another potential path for development, sparking additional changes and improvements until one finally breaks through and establishes a new organism.

That is the process of innovation. And yet, we tend to only celebrate the invention -- the first idea -- rather than all the evolutionary process that it takes to make something successful. Things like patents tend to block that evolutionary process by limiting the pace at which those mutations and developments can occur. They slow down innovation, rather than letting it flow, by putting an arbitrary wall around each new step, rather than letting the evolution proceed uninhibited. We may get the innovation eventually, but at a much slower pace than we might otherwise.

Permalink | Comments | Email This Story

National Geographic is reporting that the migration of Earth's magnetic pole has accelerated again and is now racing in Russia's direction at a blazing 40 miles per year. This movement began in earnest around 1904 at about 9 miles per year and has been accelerating since. "Geologists think Earth has a magnetic field because the core is made up of a solid iron center surrounded by rapidly spinning liquid rock. This creates a "dynamo" that drives our magnetic field. Scientists had long suspected that, since the molten core is constantly moving, changes in its magnetism might be affecting the surface location of magnetic north. Although the new research seems to back up this idea, Chulliat is not ready to say whether magnetic north will eventually cross into Russia. 'It's too difficult to forecast,' Chulliat said. Also, nobody knows when another change in the core might pop up elsewhere, sending magnetic north wandering in a new direction."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

It's probably no surprise to anyone who hangs out here that we love what we do at Maker Media and we're always looking to do it better, to reinvent ourselves, to grow and expand, while staying creative and true to our mission, which is, ultimately, to serve YOU, the greater maker community. We're now in the process of planning what we want to do on Make: Online for 2010.

Since one of our internal themes for the year is "Maker Community," and how we can expand our relationships with individuals and groups in the wider maker/hacker/DIY communities, we thought we'd ask all of you to help us brainstorm the year. What would YOU like to see more of on Make: Online in 2010?

Here are a few of the things we already have in the pipeline:

* A redesign of the website
* More guest author stints (who would you like to see guest-author?)
* More guest columns, a la George Hart's Math Mondays
* Expansion of the Make: Science Room, with more, exciting projects, videos, etc.
* More in-depth how-tos in Make: Projects
* More instructional videos, a la MAKE Presents, perhaps a series on mechanical engineering
* Support for Make: Electronics, with instructional videos, step-by-step projects, kits in the Shed, etc.

Now, tell us about YOUR ideal Make: Online in 2010...

(We'll choose three posters and give them a free Maker's Notebook, so they can sketch out their year in DIY.)

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

In Tokyo yesterday, I bought three packs of Japanese space food at a science museum. Pictured here are a pack of daigaku imo (candied sweet potatoes) and takoyaki (balls of batter with octopus in them). I tried takoyaki, chocolate cake, and pudding. They were all pretty decent, but the pudding — advertised as not too sweet, with a smooth, melting texture — was the only one that I could actually see myself wanting to eat again. For six bucks, though, I think I'll stick to real food as long as I'm on earth.