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LED Bike Spoke Messages This is nearly too geeky, even for us: Hokey Spokes make up a set of LED blades that attach to your bicycle's spokes and spell out words and poor images while you ride about town, keenly aware of precicely how idiotic they make you look. The perfect compliment for your favorite pair of bicycle shorts, the blades communicate with each other using infrared and are actually programmed with your Palm, so you can make changes while on the run. I wouldn't be surprised if an entrepreneuring bike courier in New York started selling his spoke space for ads, really. Actually, for only $30-$40, the images they can create look pretty damn cool. On a computer screen. And not in "real life". Product Page (Available now.) [hokeyspokes via I4U - cardinal (editor@gizmodo.com) [Gizmodo] 8:45:33 AM

Supreme Court Justices Grill Both Sides at Copyright Hearing. MGM v. Grokster Raises Questions About Innovation and Litigation Washington, DC - The Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) was heartened to hear the Justices of the United States Supreme Court engage in a lively debate Tuesday about whether technology manufacturers should be held liable for the infringing activities of consumers. At stake is nothing less than the future of innovation in the United States ¡V if vendors are held responsible for what people do with their products, even tech giants like Intel say they'd have to fire engineers and hire lawyers. MGM and nearly a dozen other entertainment companies argued that peer-to-peer software manufacturers Grokster and StreamCast had built their businesses by distributing "infringing machines." But counsel for the entertainment industry, Donald B. Verrilli Jr. of the law firm Jenner & Block, scarcely finished his opening statements before the Justices interrupted with pointed questions about how his arguments would impact technological innovation. Justice Antonin Scalia asked how the industry would protect nascent technologies from "out-of-the-box lawsuits," and Justice Stephen Breyer pushed him to explain why MGM's argument wouldn't also apply to the iPod, Xerox machines, and even Gutenberg's printing press. Richard G. Taranto of the law firm Farr & Taranto, who represented respondents Grokster, Ltd., and StreamCast Networks, Inc., replied that it was crucial for the Court to reaffirm its 21-year-old Betamax ruling, which held that companies should not be barred from selling products that may be used for copyright infringement if there is a potential for significant legal uses. Taranto also pointed out some of the many noninfringing uses for peer-to-peer software, including genomics research, archiving works in the public domain, and distributing new media whose creators use open copyright or Creative Commons licenses. "The Justices asked all the right questions," said EFF Senior Staff Attorney Fred von Lohmann, lead attorney for StreamCast. "They were clearly worried about how this ruling would affect the future of technological invention. As Justice David Souter said, we shouldn't hang a sword of Damocles over the heads of America's innovators." The Court will likely issue a decision in late June or early July. More about MGM v. Grokster. Contact: Fred von Lohmann Senior Intellectual Property Attorney Electronic Frontier Foundation fred@eff.org [EFF: Breaking News] 8:35:42 AM

BBC audio streams demand reaches 6.8 mln hours in February 2005. British Broadcasting Corporation served more than 6.8 mln hours of recorded audioshows to the Web users in February 2005. In January 2005 5 mln hours of audio were streamed off the Internet site. BBC is experimenting with making online streams of its audioprograms available online, and so far 4.4 mln users took the company up on its offer. BBC doesn't offer any data on demographics and origins of the listeners, making it hard to see whether the online users are just time-shifting their... [AlwaysOn Network] 8:28:39 AM

Hitachi Deskstar 7K500: First 500GB Drive Hitachi's Deskstar 7K500 offers two flaps of firsts, being not only the first to hit half a terabyte in a single drive, but one of the very first to use the SATA II interface¡Xthat means more data at faster speeds. If you don't have an SATA II interface in your PC, though, Hitachi will be offering a $500 version with an 8MB buffer and a parallel ATA interface (the long, flat, ribbon cable kind). If you want the SATA II offering, it's just 20 bucks more¡Xplus you get a bigger 16MB cache. Not exactly a great value, but the biggest sizes never are. Also, probably not actually available in yellow. Project Page [PCWorld via Botros] - lev (tips@gizmodo.com) [Gizmodo] 8:26:55 AM