Cracking the Smartcards [Slashdot]

More on the issue I mentioned yesterday regarding accusations of two pay TV giants duking it out in court.

9:48:58 AM    

US Army seeks nanotech suits. A new MIT institute aims to produce fabrics with morphing camouflage, that can also store energy to increase the wearer's strength [New Scientist]

Cool! While there is whole lot of "could" in this article, I think it's great that someone is finally starting to work on these technologies for the military. This means that about 10-12 years from the time that it is first deployed for the military, we'll see something similar for civillians. Probably for police and rescue workers first, with "inflatable" nanotube casts for immediate isolation of limbs that may be broken.

I seem to recall reading somewhere that armor in the middle ages was made to weigh no more than 47 pounds, as that was the most weight that someone could carry all day and still be able to get up in the morning and do it all over again. Britannica seems to differ, putting the weight of plate mail around 60 lbs. According to the above article, soldiers today are carrying somewhere in the neighborhood of 140 lbs into battle. Land Warrior [PDF] is going to add to that quite a bit. having some type of self powered armor would be great, as long as when it fails, it does not inhibit the ability of the soldier wearing to to move.

9:44:36 AM    

Consumer Technology Bill of Rights? [Slashdot]

This is a good idea, someone to work for the consumer. Wall Streeet Journal article here. Nice counterpoint to my sarcastic comments earlier.

9:16:42 AM    

Piracy, or Innovation? It's Hollywood vs. High Tech. Hollywood studios and record companies are putting pressure on the makers of consumer electronics to come up with technology to prevent the playing of copyrighted material. [New York Times: Technology]

"But Mr. Chernin of the News Corporation suggested that matters might be different if the tables were turned. "Let's say I decide to broadcast on my network the code for how to make Intel chips or Microsoft software," he said. "I think they'd find a way to stop it."[link]

Well, gosh Mr. Chernin, someone already handed out the code for an OS, it's called Unix and it seems to be doing just fine.

Golly, there is a correllary between people buying more entertainment product and people being able to pirate it... But they feel that they are being robbed of revenue, even though record sales TANKED after Napster was shut down.

I'd love to see one, just ONE, company buck the trend and open up their content. I know that Rage Against The Machine did it with their music, and sales of the record still did great. I'd like to see more artists take that chance.

9:10:37 AM