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Tuesday, May 21, 2002 |
Another Fun Use of the DCMA
"Phil Zimmermann wrote the encryption program PGP, and nearly went to jail over it. He sold his company to Network Associates, which barely seemed interested in marketing the program. Now NAI has not decided to stop selling PGP, but now NAI Tells Sites To Remove PGP, under threat of prosecution under the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (the DCMA). [Source: Slashdot]
Seems to me that NAI has the right to do with PGP what it wants; it owns it, and can sell it or not as it so wishes. It also can insist that other people not distribute it. The techology is out there, however, and other people have built software based on the PGP algorithm. You should use it.
Here's what Zimmermann himself has to say about NAI's non-promotion of his program. Keep in mind that he's not a lawyer, and the page doesn't directly address the current question. But it's interesting nonetheless." [Over the Edge]
Weird, because we were just talking about this tonight in Jim's class! Perhaps the student was reading his aggregator and knew more than the teachers...!
11:59:20 PM Permanent link here
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Eldred v. Ashcroft
"This site collects material related to the constitutional challenge of the Sonny Bono Copyright Term Extension Act, which extended by 20 years both existing copyrights and future copyrights.
Eric Eldred is the lead plaintiff on the case (for other plaintiffs, click here), and on May 20, 2002, opening briefs were filed in the Supreme Court. Arguments will be heard in the fall (the date is not yet set), and a decision is expected next spring. Watch here for the latest news, and click on "how you can help" to join our (e) campaign."
Keep up-to-date on the case via this site.
11:52:05 PM Permanent link here
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Best Science Fiction Titles
"I recently read Wired's top Sci-Fi Movies and thought, hey, maybe it would be useful to have the same for books. I am sure I will leave off someone's personal favorite (to those individuals, my apologies), but at least it is a place for those new to sci-fi to start.
- Farenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury
- A Stranger in a Strange Land by Robert Heinlein
- I, Robot by Issac Asimov
- Foundation by Issac Asimov
- Dune by Frank Herbert
- The Ship who Searched by Anne McCaffrey and Mercedes Lackey
- The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy by Douglas Adams
- City of Golden Shadow by Tad Williams
- The Time Traders by Andre Norton (1958 ed.)
- Snow Crash by Neal Stephenson"
[It's All About Books!]
Good one, Teri! I'll have to think on this tomorrow after re-fueling the brain cells.
Addendum: Teri, I think we should go for a top 20 because in addition to the comments folks have left, my Dad points out that no list could be complete without Arthur C. Clarke's Childhood's End, and I have to agree on that one.
I think it would also be interesting to post a list of top 10/20 guilty sci fi pleasures. If I have time, I'll start making up my list. :-)
11:49:35 PM Permanent link here
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A Brief History of the Future of Libraries: An Annotated Bibliography
"As we enter a new millennium, librarianship and other information professions are swept up in a period of rapid, almost frantic, change. But while there is widespread recognition that libraries in the future will be vastly different from what we know today, precisely how this will occur is and always has been a matter of considerable speculation. To this end, Gregg Sapp has analyzed library-based predictions made between 1978, the year F.W. Lancaster published Toward Paperless Information Systems, and 1999;and compares them with seminal works published since 1876, the publication of the first issue of American Library Journal. Includes [between 500 and 700] annotated entries." [Library Stuff]
Thanks, Steven - duly noted! I will indeed be ordering this one! More light summer reading....
11:40:26 PM Permanent link here
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"You've got to hand it to AT&T Broadband: The software it provides customers to filter out e-mail spam does work. Maybe too well.
'If there is a silver lining, it appears our spam-filtering system works so well that it even deletes mass e-mails from our own company,' spokesman Steve Kipp quipped yesterday....
He couldn't say how many customers were in that situation. The company plans to resend the notice." [Seattle Times]
1:44:22 PM Permanent link here
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Yay Librarian of Congress!
"On February 20, 2002, the Copyright Arbitration Royalty Panel (CARP) reported its determination to the Librarian of Congress in the above-captioned proceeding. In accordance with 17 U.S.C. 802(f), the Librarian is given 90 days from date of delivery of a CARP report to review the determination and issue a decision setting forth the final royalty fee and terms of payment. However, if the Librarian rejects the CARP's determination, section 802(f) provides an additional 30 days for the Librarian to render his final determination.
The Register of Copyrights recommends, and the Librarian agrees, that the CARP's determination must be rejected. A final decision will be issued no later than June 20, 2002."
12:45:25 PM Permanent link here
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If you feel like you missed out on the beginnings of the MP3 revolution, here's your chance to be an early adopter for the coming MP4 one (and I do mean early adopter).
PoGo Products Flipster
" We've been waiting for a device that does for portable video what the MP3 player did for portable audio, especially now that so many video files are being traded online. Watching reruns on the bus would be great, and the PoGo Products Flipster is one of the first devices we've seen that is dedicated to such a pursuit....
While its main selling point is the ability to play video files, the Flipster, which features a 206MHz 32-bit RISC processor and Windows CE at its core, also makes a great MP3 player (AAC and WMA audio files also supported). After all, what other MP3 player has a full-color onscreen spectral analysis? And forget about carrying photos around in your wallet, because the Flipster also displays most standard image formats, even if they do sometimes appear a bit distorted after being condensed to fit its 160 x134-pixel display. Another plus: You can record WAV memos that can be uploaded to your computer, then played back or e-mailed. And in the future, PoGo Products says that it will offer such accessories as a digital-camera module, a TV tuner, and wireless connectivity....
In the end, while the Flipster is a groundbreaking product of sorts and is clearly a work in progress, it doesn't have quite enough merits to justify its fairly lofty price tag ($400 for this 64MB model or $450 for the 128MB version). We liked its design and strong MP3-playback skills, but its video capabilities are undercut by the lack of available content. That said, it's unclear why someone would purchase this device instead of a Pocket PC, which not only offers similar features but adds additional functionality. Panasonic also sells a similar device, the SV-AV10, that also adds recording capability. We hope that PoGo Products figures out a way to make this device more compelling, but as it stands, we're not quite ready to give it our blessing." [Electronics.cnet.com]
There are other problems with the device, too, but I thought I'd highlight it to show that yes indeedy, companies are thinking about portable video devices. Visit PoGo's web site and read other reviews from EdgeReview and TechTV for more information. I wonder if the next generation of this device will include a video camera, which would make "taping" movies in theaters that much easier.
Counting down to the MPAA lawsuit - 5... 4... 3...
9:26:27 AM Permanent link here
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"One balloon that is 30 meters (about 100 feet) in diameter displaces 14,137,000 liters, so it can lift 14,000 kilograms (about 31,000 pounds) -- this is roughly the size of a large blimp." [How Stuff Works: Question of the Day]
I knew you would be as curious as I was.
8:48:37 AM Permanent link here
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"Toshiba is claiming a world first - a large, flexible liquid crystal display which "opens the way to the display on curved screens". The display can be flexed in all directions and bent to form a curve with a radius of curvature as high as 20cm, Tosh says.
The new flexible LCD is a full colour active-matrix TFT-LCD, and it supports SVGA. It measures 8.4in in diameter, it's super-slim, less than 0.4mm deep, and weighs less than 20g. This is 20-25 per cent the weight of other similar-sized screens built using low-temperature polysilicon, the material used for this screen....
Tosh's new technology is a stepping stone towards to foldable LCDs, a long-term goal, the company says.
The curved LCD gets its first outing in Boston this week at the Society for Information Display 2002. But it's not expected to go into mass production until after financial year 2004 - Toshiba has to develop the production technology first.
And what about applications? Toshiba names just two: TVs with curved screens which can mounted in public; and information displays in trains and buses." [The Register]
Fits right in with last week's France Telecom announcement of Communicating Clothes, and it could make ebooks more interesting.
8:44:36 AM Permanent link here
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"John Scalzi is relying on readers to determine what his science-fiction e-book is worth. He's offering Agent to the Stars free from his website as shareware and asking for donations through Paypal. He's publicizing his offer with an advertisement at Penny Arcade, a site that's popular with video game fans.
In just a few days, more than 1,000 people have downloaded the book and those who have hit the Paypal button have paid on average $3.80 -- almost four times more than the suggested dollar amount the author requests. Authors with New York publishing houses get an average royalty of $2.50 on an e-book sale." [Wired News]
More BigCos (in this case, BigPubs) being cut out of the picture (and the profits).
8:39:35 AM Permanent link here
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Learning Circuits: Cheap E-mail Games
"Quote: "Email games provide low-cost, low-tech alternatives to complex and costly approaches. The games can result in effective learning and problem solving because the technology disappears into the background. Most important, email games are built on the belief that resourcefulness has more value than resources."
Comment: Nice list of different games you can play for learning. [Serious Instructional Technology]
Interesting idea. A precursor to an education future with high-speed, always-on internet access in portable devices?
Also check out David's link to PocketClassroom:
"Quote: "PocketClassroomTM is new proprietary software developed by the Research and Development team in Information Systems at Wake Forest University. It turns a PocketPC equipped with a wireless card into a web server, a presentation controller, and a feedback device for a classroom instructor or for any speaker making a presentation to an audience. By incorporating all these functions into one program, it allows you to 'put class in the palm of your hand' as you move freely around the classroom. "
Comment: via OLDaily. I have thought that an instant polling system would be easy to create for a classroom that had the right equipment, i.e. student computers. I've always been leery of proprietary hardware solutions."
7:13:22 AM Permanent link here
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"A first today... I ripped a CD onto my hard drive and threw away the physical disk. I couldn't find the case for it, and a caseless CD just seemed to be more trouble than it was worth. It's the first time I've ended up with purchased music only in the form of bits on my hard drive. On the other hand, the record company's position is probably that I own the CD, not the music itself, so I shouldn't have done what I did. Tough. It's a new world, you folks who work at the labels; you'd better get used to it and help make it even better for people like me, or we'll replace you. [Gary Robinson's Rants, via ...useless miscellany]
7:06:51 AM Permanent link here
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World Cup Sets Stage for Mobile Phone Showdown
"The soccer teams of World Cup co-hosts South Korea and Japan may never meet on the playing field, but the one-month tournament will be a golden opportunity to showcase their prowess in advanced mobile technology.
The race to create a mobile World Cup has hotted up between mobile operators in South Korea and Japan, with both countries offering an array of services to allow visitors keep in touch with home.
Visitors coming to Korea for soccer's premier event can be contacted by the GSMmobile phone numbers they use at home by inserting removable thumbnail-sized plastic SIM card into a roaming phone, which can be rented at the airport for just $1.00 per day.
'We have signed a roaming service agreement with 53 mobile carriers in 32 countries using the GSM mobile service system,' said Chang Sung-soo, an official of the international roaming team at Korea's top mobile carrier, SK Telecom Co.
KTF Co, Korea's second largest mobile carrier, has signed a roaming service pact with 37 GSM carriers in 30 countries, including China's biggest cellular firm China Mobile....
The weakest link is a lack of full roaming services between Japan and Korea -- ironic for countries so close that their coastal regions receive each other's television broadcasts....
The high level of travel between Japan and South Korea, to be boosted further by the World Cup, was expected to provide an ideal testing ground for international 3G roaming, the cutting edge of CDMA technology....
'For seamless roaming, Japanese carriers need to upgrade their networks, which is costly and takes more than a year,'' said Chang.
SK Telecom subscribers who enjoy automatic roaming service in all of the world's CDMA service regions, including the U.S. and China, need special dual-band roaming handsets in Japan due to the difference in the frequency bands between Korea and Japan.
Japan's DoCoMo subscribers can rent mobile phones that allow automatic roaming services at airports before leaving for Korea and then use them in Korea as if they were in Japan....
KTF is involved in negotiations to get a FIFA license to provide breaking World Cup news and video images over mobile phones, said Ha Tae-sook, head of KTF's World Cup communications team.
'Soccer fans who don't have the ticket will be able to watch vivid video clips of winning goals on their mobile phones with color screens,'' he said.
KTF, an official 2002 World Cup sponsor, plans to replay streaming videos of World Cup highlights on mobile phones using third generation (3G) technology that promises data speeds of up to 2.4 megabits per second (Mbps).
'When you watch a movie, a run of 30 frames per second makes you feel a movement is natural. Our 3G technology is more than enough to support a data transmission speed equivalent to that of 10 frames per second, which I think is not that bad,'' said Ha." [NY Times: Technology]
Is "hotted up" really a valid conjugation? Maybe they're making up new ones to match all of the hype surrounding 3G in Asia. I'd l-o-v-e to get 3G videos during March Madness, although I'd rather get them on my PDA, which has a larger screen. Of course, someday I'll see them through my eyeglasses.
7:03:28 AM Permanent link here
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Announcing Radio for Lawyers.
"You're welcome to join Ernie, Rory and me in a little experiment. A few weeks ago, the good folks at Userland released a new tool for Radio called 'multi-author weblog tool'. (There's something to be said for descriptive terms, eh?) A tool, in Radio terms, is a plug-in that expands the core Radio functionality.
Well, we're trying it out. The idea is cool: take a weblog (frequently written by just one author) and make it a group effort. Radio needs one person to be the editor - the other contributors simply post a weblog item just as they would. The editor's copy of Radio monitors those posts and aggregates them into one site.
We're not quite sure how we're going to use it just yet. We certainly want to see more lawyers 'get' Radio - and we're each coming from different parts of the profession: Rory's in the courts, Ernie's in a firm, and I'm on the technology side. But we're also generally interested in the same issues - how will the technology affect the law (and vice versa). So feel free to stop by, let us know what works (and what doesn't), and keep in touch." [tins ::: Rick Klau's weblog]
Excellent! Maybe Bruce will finally download Radio now. :-)
It's good to keep the number of participants small and their objectives focused. Otherwise, you don't have committed contributors, without which the project dies. A major obstacle for K-logging, although I do think there are ways to overcome this. The fact that Ernie, Rick, and Rory are already bloggers and they're voluntarily collaborating should mean success for their experiment.
First thing we do, we blog all the lawyers....
12:27:24 AM Permanent link here
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"Stephen Jay Gould, the evolutionary theorist at Harvard University whose research, lectures and prolific output of essays helped to reinvigorate the field of paleontology, died today at his home in Manhattan. He was 60.
The cause was adenocarcinoma of the lung, according to his wife, Rhonda Roland Shearer.
One of the most influential evolutionary biologists of the 20th century and perhaps the best known since Charles Darwin, Dr. Gould touched off numerous debates, forcing scientists to rethink sometimes entrenched ideas about evolutionary patterns and processes. He is credited with bringing a forsaken paleontological perspective to the evolutionary mainstream." [NY Times]
12:10:21 AM Permanent link here
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© Copyright 2004 Jenny Levine.
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