Tuesday, October 15, 2002

Does That Mean We Can Call This The Digital Cold War?. Alan Graham is still on a roll about the current music industry and their proposed laws versus consumers and their fair uses, as well as a few other things. Exhibits A and B: "Digital McCarthyism Definition: 1. verbal and legislative assaults characterized by sensational tactics and unsubstantiated accusations towards consumers in regards to digital rights management. 2. the presumption that all consumers are thieves and cannot be trusted with technology..... It occurred to me that in order to keep music industry lawyers at bay, Apple did not include a two-way path for the data. They built the MP3 equivalent of the Roach Motel, files go in, but don't come out. And although they did this, what does get Apple kudo points from me is that the iPod wasn't locked down with some freakish encryption monster that tied the tunes to the device." "Predictions Within two years we'll see individual privacy insurance policies. Your identity will be a tangible commodity, just like any property found in your home. Within five years the problem of identity theft will become such a scourge of humanity that the gov't will allow you to purchase a new identity so that you may start from scratch. There will be software applications sold in every Staples store that help you hot sync the old identity with the new.... Within the next 20 years, we'll see example of the next step in human evolution, the Intro-Extravert. A socially interactive individual who can travel in public, yet is completely removed from the crowd. This person only communicates with others who are connected to their wireless "social chain." This chain of individuals are connected to each other 24/7, regardless of location or time. Space-time becomes irrelevant and the concept of private thought no longer exists. Shared thought and experience are the norm. Copyrights mean nothing." [via The Doc Searls Weblog] Paging Howard Rheingold on this last one.... Speaking of Mr. Graham, you'll recall that he first proposed sending a book that is glued shut to our legislators to illustrate the point of public domain and fair use. My pointer to his proposal generated some interesting suggestions in my comments section, so feel free to add your own nomination (although the YACCS commenting service does seem to be down temporarily). Although he didn't leave it in the comments, Richard Allan Baruz suggests Uncle Tom's Cabin. Maybe we need an official vote on this topic? [The Shifted Librarian] Sounds like a premis for a bad bad sci-fi novel. 11:43:45 PM

Warcarving. This Hallowe'en, why not warcarve your pumpkin and let your neighbors know about your open wireless network? Link Discuss (via Warchalking) [Boing Boing Blog] I'm going to have to do this, just to see how many of my neighbors ask me what the hell it means. 11:33:52 PM

Russian cyberpunk: news or fiction?. The Moscow Times is running a strange little cyberpunk techno-thriller vignette -- it's not clear to me whether this is news, a serialized novel, or a columnist with heavy sleepdep, but the prose is great: Chrome was telling us how some bug hacker got into the helmet frequency one day and flooded their gourds with Donny Osmond songs. Four hours of it. What could you do? You couldn't take the helmet off or you'd over-geiger like the morons. Nearly drove them crazy. "And they call it puppy love." Chrome was crooning, laughing, riding high. He'd just bagged Laila, the one who used to be on TV here -- half a week's pay, but they said get her now because some wheel at CentComm was about to privatize her. Then he stepped outside with Dietrich and was gone. Link Discuss (Thanks, Pat!) [Boing Boing Blog] Interesting, but what is it?  Is there more? 11:32:06 PM

Because tiny devices need tiny batteries.. A University of Florida research team is developing nano-batteries that could enable smaller, smarter, feature-packed mobile devices, as well as truly tiny power sources for "microelectromechanical" devices (aka MEMS): "In the first year of a five-year collaborative effort with three other institutions funded by a $5 million grant from the U.S. Office of Naval Research, the research is showing progress toward its goal of creating a three- dimensional, millimeter-sized battery – considerably smaller than the centimeter-sized hearing aid batteries that are the smallest batteries on the market today. The new technology could improve cell phones and other portable electronics, which use lithium-ion batteries. These batteries are made of composites of small particles. Their ability to produce power depends on lithium ions diffusing throughout these particles. While microscopic, the particles are large enough to be measured in microns, or millionths of a meter. The nano-battery approach seeks to replace these particles with particles measured in billionths of a meter, which would enhance power storage and production because the lithium ions would have less distance to travel as they diffuse." Image: synthetic membranes containing a parallel collection of nanotubes, with inside diameters of molecular dimension greater than 1 nanometer. Photo (c) Department of Chemistry, U of FL. Link Discuss [Boing Boing Blog] More power, less mass.  My dream of the credit-card PC may yet be upon us. 6:52:57 PM