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Thursday, February 21, 2002 |
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Point-'n'-Shoot Sound Makes Waves. New transmitters can aim sound waves so that only individuals in a crowd can hear them. The U.S. military sees a weapon in the making. By John Gartner. [Wired News]
Commentary: Cool tech, especially for the ability to have different people in the same room hear different sounds at the same time. no more fighting over the volume when my wife is listening to Jazz and I'm watching a movie, all without the need for headphones.
9:07:00 AM 
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Webcasters Learn Cost of Music. The U.S. Copyright Office says webcasters must pay the recording industry .0014 cents per song. Doesn't sound like much, but online broadcasters worry that it's too much. By Brad King. [Wired News]
Abstract: Webcasters are to pay .14 cents per song, per listener to play tracks over the internet. Radio stations will pay .07 cents per song, per listener.
Commentary: This is only half the story, as thre is considerably more detail here. Additionaly, webcasters have to track the following information about their listeners:
- The name of the service or listener
- The channel or program
- The date and time that the user logged in (in the users timezone)
- The date and time that the user logged out (in the users timezone)
- he time zone wehre the signal was recieved (user)
- Unique user identifier
- The country in which the user recieved the transmissions
I forsee this as the end of webcasting as we know it, unless folks set up pirate stations.
8:56:16 AM
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Do You Like Your Job? [Slashdot]
Abstract: Programmer gets fired for refusing to take on a project in the allotted timeframe. Wants to know how to deal with bad managers, and how to feel good about what he is doing.
Commentary: Currently my job is maintaining this blog, playing video games, watching movies, and updating my resume, so my answer is, YES! (Now the trick is to figure out how to get paid for this...)
5:27:55 AM
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Robot care bears for the elderly. Robot teddy bears are just one of the ways digital technology is being used to care for the elderly in Japan. [BBC News: sci/tech]
Commentary: Pretty cool use of tech to help keep track of how the elderly are doing a nursing home run by Matsushita. Yes, Panasonic's parent company. Currently the bears are wired into the network, but I am sure a wireless solution is on the way. The bears are used to monitor how the patients are doing, including noting how long it takes for the patients to respond to questions.
Looking at the advances made by Honda and Sony with their robot systems, both bipedal and quadraped respectively, I can see a point in time where people will have a robotic companion, equipped with a built in GPS and cell phone. Owners can then call for help when needed, take their medication on time, be tracked if they tend to wander off, and get directions should they get lost. This could work for kids as well.
5:15:23 AM
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A federal appeals court yesterday nullified two long-standing government rules limiting the size of the world's largest media companies, opening the door to a new wave of mergers among cable television conglomerates and broadcast companies. [Washington Post] Deregulation in media industries always takes place when politicians need their media outlets to be loyal. Usually around election time or during wartime. Be wary of what you see on TV. [Adam Curry: CurryDotCom]
4:58:52 AM
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© Copyright 2003 Ryan Greene.
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