Biometrics for Personal Data on Palm OS Available. Signature verification app enables access to confidential info on Palm OS devices. [allNetDevices Wireless News]

Your sig is one of the hardest things in the world to fake, especially if the biometric device is noting pressure as well as the rythym of the writer. You might be able to match the look, you might even get the ebat of it, but I doubt anyone could accurately get the pressure that a person uses down pat.

5:37:34 PM    

U.S. congressman wants changes to copyright law [IDG InfoWorld]

The last two paragraphs of this tie in with the library copy machine as a copyright abuse, that The Shifted Librarian was on about earlier. Fair use is at issue here, and being able to reproduce material for research and academic purposes is key, as is the ability to loan materials to friends.

5:32:46 PM    

Sometime in 2002 we should have a conference with premeditated (not ad hoc) bloggability. On stage four bloggers in a panel. In the audience bloggers with tables, power strips, laptops. A microphone on every desktop. Projected on screen the blog of one of the people in the audience, the designated official blogger. That's a hard job, btw. Doc is good at it. I found out I'm not particularly good at it. I write too much. I get too distracted. I talk too much too. When I'm in the audience I'm a lean-over-and-whisper type guy. Occasionally I'm willing to line up at a mike (I did it once at this week's conference). To continue the fantasy, we'd all get in free, and our hotel bill would be paid, by sponsors who want to sell us stuff. This year it would be a bit of a gamble for them. Next year, a sure bet. If you've got a product to sell you want the bloggers to know about it. Even better, you want to listen to the bloggers to find out what kinds of products they want. A rule. It would be off-topic to talk about how the entertainment industry is going to make money. That's their problem.  [Scripting News]

Dave is talking about the blogging equivelent of a LAN party. Maybe getting in touch with a group that does large LAN parties who is willing to have you come in and either test the network with the bloggers subbing for gamers, or going in afterwards and helping to clean up in exchange for using the facility, which is already set up to network, including pwer requirements.

The biggest such event I know of is QuakeCon, which takes place in Texas every year. Maybe getting in touch with the folks from id and finding out how they set it up would be a start.

4:36:14 PM    

Broadcast Copy Protection Cartel Freezes Out Public [Dan Gillmor's eJournal]

Fun with the new broadcast copy protection standard.

1:14:14 PM    

Your Pocket PC and MP3 Player Can Talk to You. A PPC text-to-speech app for managing schedules and a program for irock! MP3 players that lets you listen to any text file. [allNetDevices Wireless News]

Isn't this technically a copright violation? It's a conversion/reading of the work without the permission of the holder. I wonder if they will waste time fighting this as well.

1:08:11 PM    

Making Copy Right for All. A new nonprofit group will provide an alternative to traditional copyrights by making it easier for artists, musicians and programmers to share their works with the public. By Kendra Mayfield. [Wired News]

I really hope that Creative Commons succeeds. Copyright law in the US is out of control.

8:41:09 AM    

Business briefs: May 16. The Air Force is considering adding "significant" new funding to its EELV program, Space News... [spacetoday.net]

EELV is not the way to lower the cost of getting into space. Additionally, the program's outline calls for a %25 reduction in the cost of getting into space. WRONG. We need the cost to get down by a factor of at least %75 in order to make launches commercially viable. Not for launching more satellites, but for getting people up there. Tourism is the surest way to reduce the costs of getting anywhere. While it currently costs millions to get one person up, tourism will drive the cost down, especially when combined with vehicles that are built for carrying large groups of people, instead of cargo plus a very small crew.

8:38:08 AM    

But Can It Translate Dilbert-Speak in Meetings?.

Upstream: Programmable Chips

"Late for an appointment, you grab your 'personal information appliance.' Prompted by your uttering the words 'cell phone,' the small gadget awakens and instantly programs itself for a mobile phone call. Done with the call, you say 'translator,' and the device rewires itself to translate the latest business news from Tokyo. Issue the command 'map,' and it reconfigures itself again to take a GPS reading and display your location in real time.

One reason that this type of versatility is not possible today is that handheld gadgets are typically built around highly optimized specialty chips that do one thing really well. These chips are fast and relatively cheap, but their circuits are literally written in stone—or at least in silicon. A multipurpose gadget would have to have many specialized chips—a costly and clumsy solution. Alternately, you could use a general-purpose microprocessor, like the one in your PC, but that would be slow as well as expensive. For these reasons, chip designers are turning increasingly to reconfigurable hardware—integrated circuits where the architecture of the internal logic elements can be arranged and rearranged on the fly to fit particular applications." [Technology Review - Computers and Electronics]

If that "personal information appliance" was an OQO, with VKB projection capabilities, a Bluetooth headset, and if I could see the screen in my eyeglasses, I'd be in heaven!

This abstract is all that is available for free, but it definitely piqued my interest. I'll probably be getting a copy of the full article from the databases we have available at work, but you can contact your local public library to get one for yourself. Check your library's web site - they might even have databases available for searching via the web 24/7. If not, call or email them and they'll be happy to get it for you!

[The Shifted Librarian]

The programmable chip is a nice idea, but a somewhat silly one at the same time. A large part of why various electronics has dropped in price is because they can use the same parts for assembly, which serves to drop cost of goods, as well as standardizing systems with the main difference being the software feature set.  This gave us the sudden rush of all in one systems that are so prevalent today. [link]

A better solution would be to let a company like Flextronics or SCI Systems approach the issue, as they have the design experience to put a solution together for you, based off your design needs. You will still need to develop the software and programming to get everything to work together, you'll need to specify your voice recognition chip, for example, but they'll help you make the product.

I just got a Sony PEG NR70V. It is a color Palm powered PDA, MP3 player, and has an integrated 320x240 digital camera. Built in Memory stick slot for moving stuff around, including the MP3 files. The only things that it lacks are: Cell phone, voice recorder, and wireless access. But since I hae a cell phone that has an integrated voice recorder, that knocks two items off the list, and I can get a cable that will let me hook my Clie to the phone, so I can get email via the Imode that provider offers.

The new device is about 5/8" wider than my Handspring Visor Deluxe, and 1/8" taller. Plus it has an li-ion battery, which allows me to do away with the AAs that I have been using. OK, I'm bragging, I admit it, but the point is still there, while it would be nice to have this all in one device, I like being able to choose what I'm going to use in a given situation, and if I lose one, I'm not totally out of luck.

8:20:56 AM