Mittwoch, 22. Dezember 2004

Napster's all-you-can download monthly subscription plan. If you[base ']re going to DRM the crap out of music downloads, you may as well make them super-cheap, right? It looks like Napster is going to be the first to take the plunge and use Microsoft[base ']s new digital rights management system (codenamed Janus) that lets online music stores rent, rather than sell, downloads to people. We know what you[base ']re thinking, and honestly, we don[base ']t like the idea of renting music either, but this time you can[base ']t mess with the price[~]for fifteen bucks a month you can download as many songs from Napster as you want and copy them on your MP3 player as long as you keep paying the monthly fee (or someone figures out how to hack the DRM). Have a 40GB MP3 player that can hold 10,000 songs? It[base ']d cost $10,000 to fill it with music from the various online music stores (not that anyone would actually do that), but for $180 a year you can fill it[~]and refill it[~]with as much music as you want (and you[base ']d basically be paying $0.0015 per song per month). [base "]Napster to Go[per thou] won[base ']t formally launch until early next year, and it[base ']ll only work with players that are PlaysForSure-certified (a small, but growing number), but this[base ']ll only work if Microsoft can make sure that the process of downloading songs, transferring them to a player, and all the other rights management garbage involved isn[base ']t a huge headache. It[base ']s at least somewhat encouraging that they aren[base ']t trying to charge people fifty bucks a month or anything outrageous like that. Fifteen a month we can handle. Maybe twenty or twenty five. But anything more than that and we[base ']d be back to doing things the, uh, old-fashioned way (and we don[base ']t mean buying CDs in stores). We hate to say it, but they might actually be on to something here. Weblogs, Inc. RSS feeds brought to you by iPod®. Meet Bose. Introduce your iPod® to Bose, then listen to the new SoundDock[dot accent]. [Engadget] 10:56:24 AM    comment []

CallABike hacked by mischievous Germans. It started as a crunchy, environmentally-friendly service called CallABike that allowed Germany city-dwellers to rent bikes and leave them locked wherever when done. It ended as an IT war that has resulted in hackers turning the rental bikes into HackABikes with backdoor access for a select few. The hackers were so intent on gaining free access to these things that they abused several bikes to the point of paying for them until they figured out how to re-flash the EEPROM. Now that they know how to do this, they claim they have hacked roughly 10% of the 1700 rental bikes in the city of Berlin. The backdoor code supposedly allows them to rent the bikes for free. As it should be. Free bikes. For hackers. Yeah. [Via Slashdot] Weblogs, Inc. RSS feeds brought to you by iPod®. Meet Bose. Introduce your iPod® to Bose, then listen to the new SoundDock[dot accent]. [Engadget] 10:53:53 AM    comment []

SMS BOOK PUBLISHED FREELY ONLINE | A book compiled.... SMS BOOK PUBLISHED FREELY ONLINE | A book compiled from the comments people sent in SMS in Antwerp and Leeds has been freely published online. The STADSchromosomen (CITYchromosomes) project invited people in Antwerp (Belgium) to write a biography of the City through SMS. In September, a book collecting these SMS was released under Creative Commons license. Author of CITYchromosomes Eric Antonis sees the book as an important contribution to the debate about cultural participation. "The sms messages present an interesting insight into how residents and visitors feel about Antwerp" he says. |Textually| [Eyebeam reBlog] 10:48:39 AM    comment []

Germany Builds Solar Energy Power Plant. A California company, PowerLight Corp., has built a 30-acre solar power generating facility in Bavaria, in southern Germany. If successful, the plant would serve as a model for generating renewable energy. The plant went online just this month, and is capable of generating 10 megawatts of electricity, or enough to power 9,000 German homes. All while creating zero pollution. Germany is the world's leading producer of wind power, and the second-largest producer of solar energy (after Japan). German law allows producers of renewable energy to sell that power back to the electricity grid at premium rates, leading to a boom in solar farms and windmills among landowners. These, however, are proving to be controversial, as many see them as eyesores. All these elements provide lessons for the resto of the world to learn about the pros and cons of renewable energy. [Eyebeam reBlog] 10:47:34 AM    comment []