Category: Interesting Reads

Before he disagreed with French gov’t, Jobs suggested the same

(via BoingBoing)

Recently the French government, in an unusually intelligent display of government doing the right thing, proposed a law which would require all companies which restrict music portability to license their DRM technologies to any company that wants to build a music player.  In response to this, Apple, via Steve Jobs, has criticised the French government, saying this would result in customers filling their iPods with “pirate” music and videos.  Of course, Apple does not want to license their DRM, as that would make it possible for other companies to get iTunes protected tunes to play on non-iPod devices.  The funny thing is, in 2002 Steve Jobs said consumers needed the right to play any licensed music on whatever device they chose.

Apple CEO Steve Jobs offered a critical view of the recording industry in an interview, following Apple’s acceptance of a technical Grammy award from the National Academy of Recording Arts and Sciences last week. As reported by Don Clark of The Wall Street Journal, Jobs suggested that recording labels need to make it easier for consumers to use their own music however they want.

“If you legally acquire music, you need to have the right to manage it on all other devices that you own,” said Jobs.

So back when iTunes/iPod technologies were starting and not the dominant force, Apple was a consumer advocate saying music legally acquired should be playable on the device of the customers’ choosing.  Now, music should be restricted to the device permitted by the music download provider?   Hmmmmm.
[tags]Apple, Steve Jobs, DRM[/tags]

Marvel/DC try to trademark “Superhero”, LA Times says “Bad company”

(via BoingBoing)

Marvel and DC comics have tried to jointly trademark the term “Superhero.”  Given that this term is used all over the place, and not unique to Marvel and DC comics, this would be a bad trademark, if granted.  This is a generic term, and not something that any company or companies should be granted trademark protection on.  This week, the LA Times ran an editorial chastizing these companies and the science museum which is involved in this.

In trademark law, the more unusual a term, the more it qualifies for protection. We would have no quarrel with Marvel and DC had they called their superheroes “actosapiens,” then trademarked that. But purely generic terms aren’t entitled to protection, at least in theory. The reason is simple: Trademarks restrict speech, and to put widely used terms under private control is an assault on our language.

Once a trademark is granted, it remains in effect until someone proves to the feds that the term has lost its association with a specific brand, as happened with “cellophane” and “linoleum.” That’s why Johnson & Johnson sells “Band-Aid brand adhesive bandages,” not simply Band-Aids(TM).

[tags]Trademarks, Marvel comics, DC comics[/tags]

MAKE blog link dump

As I’ve done before, I’ve gotten behind on reading and posting all kinds of interesting content out there. In an effort to catch up, I’m making a large link-dump style posting instead of putting each of these in their own article. The following links/stories are all from recent MAKEzine blog posts.

  • Run an NES emulator on your XBox 360 via MCE.Xexter in the Maxconsole forums figured out how to run a NES emulator on an Xbox 360 using a Media Center, no sound – but the games run at full speed, nice! – “Found a way to add a menu for the roms list so you will have to edit the nes.htm and change to whatever Nes rom you want to play. I’ve included a Public Domain rom for testing but have verified Zelda1-2, Excitebike, and TecmoBowl and all worked.”
  • Learn HOW-TO use an oscilliscope“An oscilloscope is easily the most useful instrument available for testing circuits because it allows you to see the signals at different points in the circuit. The best way of investigating an electronic system is to monitor signals at the input and output of each system block, checking that each block is operating as expected and is correctly linked to the next. With a little practice, you will be able to find and correct faults quickly and accurately.”
  • Stop-motion video via LEGO bricksCalazon Enterprises made a fun stop motion LEGO movie, with an unhappy ending for a frog. When will the frog abuse craze end?
  • LEGO soccer arenaAs stated on the MAKE blog: “What you’re looking at isn’t an arena filled with thousands of people, it’s an insanely detailed arena, made out of LEGO.”lego-arena2.jpg

    lego-arena1.jpg

  • Another LEGO PCThis is not unique. But at the same time, LEGO PCs are not very common. Being in to case mods, I always enjoy seeing these.

    legopc-1.jpg

  • How hearing aids are made
  • Make your own projector
  • Build your own generator“The key to this design is that it will require a horizontal shaft motor, which can be found on old drum style lawnmowers, roto-tillers, and lawn edgers. The most common motor size you will find on the used market will be a 3 or 3.5 horse power model. Larger motors are harder to find because most of them are snapped up for building go-carts or mini bikes. “
  • Build a plexiglass PC casePlexi-PC1.jpg

[tags]MAKEzine, MAKE blog, DIY projects[/tags]

“Intellectual property”‘s worst excesses

(via BoingBoing)

Mother Jones, a left-wing magazine, has published a Harpers-Index-style guide to copyright’s worst excesses; it’s notable that this week both they and their ideological opponents at the libertarian Cato Institute have both published material supporting the copyfight. It’s truly a nonpartisan fight:

  • A DAY AFTER Senator Orrin Hatch said “destroying their machines” might be the only way to stop illegal downloaders, unlicensed software was discovered on his website.
  • BILL GATES had the 11-million-image Bettmann Archive buried 220 feet underground. Archivists can access only the 2% that was first digitized.
  • AMONG THE 16,000 people thus far sued for sharing music files was a 65-year-old woman who, though she didn’t own downloading software, was accused of sharing 2,000 songs, including Trick Daddy’s “I’m a Thug.” She was sued for up to $150,000 per song.
  • MICROSOFT UK held a contest for the best film on “intellectual property theft”; finalists had to sign away “all intellectual property rights” on “terms acceptable to Microsoft.”

By the way, I ripped this entirely from BoingBoing. None of that is my writing. I don’t want anyone to think I’m pretending this is my work. But I couldn’t do a better job writing it up. I’ll get back up to serious posting in the next couple of days. I’ve been too busy to keep up to date the past couple of days.

[tags]IP, Intellectual Property[/tags]

Can facts be patented?

(via The Consumerist)
I did not know this.  Apparently Metabolite has a patent on the fact “The level of an amino acid called homocysteine is measured in a patient’s blood or urine and, if elevated, it can be correlated with a deficiency of folic acid, or B12.”  And there is a lawsuit against the company Laboratory Testing Company for violating this patent.  Also, supposedly I’ve broken the law by quoting that fact.
The Supreme Court has to decide the following question:

if a doctor looks at a patient’s test results and even thinks that sentence, has he broken the law?

I don’t have much faith in our courts to make a good decision here, but we’ll see.

[tags]Patents, Metabolite[/tags]

Newly announced Internet Explorer vulnerability

(via Computer World)

This appears to be very new, and hasn’t spread very far yet on the web.  There is a just announced security vulnerability in IE 6.0 that allows an attacker to run an HTML application without requesting user permission.  The Dutch Web developer who discovered the problem contacted Microsoft first, at least, so hopefully there aren’t many attacks out there yet.  On the other hand, who knows how long the attackers have known about this?  It wouldn’t be the first time an attack is discovered and announced only for us to find out that the underground was already passing around info and code about/for the vulnerability.

Last week I found a (to my knowledge) new vulnerability in the Internet Explorer 6.0 browser.

With this vulnerability it is possible to run an hta-file without the users permission.

[tags]Microsoft, Internet Explorer, web security[/tags]

Metareview of Dungeons and Dragons Online: Stormreach

This directly from Joystiq.  I want to make some comments here, too.  I want to try DDO:Stormreach.  I’m a longtime D&D gamer, and the thought of teaming online with hopefully easy to assemble teams sounds promising.  But I can’t handle the thought of an MMO with almost no single-player content and no reward until quest completion.

I know, MMO is massively multi-player, which many people assumes means you have to team.  But I don’t always have the time to wait during team building and then run a full mission/quest.  In DDO:Stormreach, you don’t get experience until the end of the mission.  That means if I can’t commit to an hour or two, I can’t advance.  If I wait for team building, I could easily eat up 30+ minutes of my play time.  If the mission takes an hour, I’m usually over my gametime budget then.  In DDO:Stormreach, that means I gain nothing.

So DDO:Stormreach is clearly not built for a casual gamer like me.  I had a similar problem with Diablo II when it came out.  Sometimes, I can go days or weeks with no more than 10-15 minutes play time at any time.  In Diablo II, that meant I couldn’t finish the game (and often couldn’t even complete some quests or reach certain checkpoints) until I have a long block of game time available.  In DDO:Stormreach that means I shouldn’t even start the game unless I have a long block of time.  In Diablo II, at least I earned experience for my game time, so I made some progress in my limited time in game.

Now, having said that, let’s just see a quick blip of what Joystiq showed in their metareview:

Hit the links for more details, and be sure to read the full Joystiq article for their comments, as well.

[tags]DDO, DDO:Stormreach, MMORPG, Dungeons and Dragons Online[/tags]

Better lighting for better gaming

(via Joystiq)

A British company, Geomerics, has published some information on their work with geometric algebra which apparently will lead to better lighting, and therefore improved visual realism in gaming.  Certainly of no interest to most of the world’s population, but a big w00t announcement for many gamers.  Gameplay is what matters, sure, but improved visuals are almost always welcome, too.

Currently, lighting in games is a toss-up between three elements: in real life, light often changes position (e.g. as the sun moves across the sky); objects cast shadows, which are often quite subtle; and depending on your viewpoint, you can sometimes see light sources reflected in other objects. The usual method is to pre-calculate the shadows in a scene and paint them on the ground, but this means the light source must stay fixed. Thanks to next-gen computing power, spherical harmonic lighting can be used to generate soft, lifelike shadows from moving light sources, but without any of the shiny surface effects that complete the picture and add realism.

[tags]Gaming, Geomerics, Geometric Algebra[/tags]

Cell phone has cool disabled feature – there’s an easy fix

(via MAKE blog)

The Sanyo MM-7500 and MM-9000 come with a feature that allows you to save GPS locations along with the pictures you take. Phonescoop has details on how to take advantage of this.

the mm7500 (and the mm9000) can add gps data to the exif file when you take a picture. these are the first phones in the US with this capability. cdma phones in japan have been doing this for years and they have some really neat photo services over there that let you organize your photos by where you took them.

Of course, right now, we don’t have these services to take advantage of this right now.  But I’m sure there’s tools available somewhere.  I may even try to find them.  If you turn some up, please leave a comment so the rest of us can get them.

[tags]Sanyo, GPS tagging, mm-7500, mm-9000[/tags]

Another fact to make you dislike DRM

(via The Consumerist)

DRM is bad for consumers.  Don’t believe the companies cramming this garbage down our throats.  DRM restricts your rights, and prevents you from doing things you are legally allowed to do, like rip your CDs to MP3 format to put on your ipod/Zen/whatever player.

Now, unsurprisingly, we find through testing that DRM reduces your portable music device’s battery life as well.

Those who belong to subscription services such as Napster or Rhapsody have it worse. Music rented from these services arrive in the WMA DRM 10 format, and it takes extra processing power to ensure that the licenses making the tracks work are still valid and match up to the device itself. Heavy DRM not only slows down an MP3 player but also sucks the very life out of them. Take, for instance, the critically acclaimed Creative Zen Vision:M, with a rated battery life of up to 14 hours for audio and 4 hours for video. CNET tested it at nearly 16 hours, with MP3s–impressive indeed. Upon playing back only WMA subscription tracks, the Vision:M scored at just more than 12 hours. That’s a loss of almost 4 hours, and you haven’t even turned the backlight on yet.

We found similar discrepancies with other PlaysForSure players. The Archos Gmini 402 Camcorder maxed out at 11 hours, but with DRM tracks, it played for less than 9 hours. The iRiver U10, with an astounding life of about 32 hours, came in at about 27 hours playing subscription tracks. Even the iPod, playing back only FairPlay AAC tracks, underperformed MP3s by about 8 percent. What I’m saying is that while battery life may not be a critical issue today, as it was when one of the original hard drive players–the Creative Nomad Jukebox–lasted a pathetic 4 hours running on four AA nickel-metal-hydride rechargeables (and much worse on alkalines), the industry needs to include battery specs for DRM audio tracks or the tracks we’re buying or subscribing. Yet, here’s another reason why we should still be ripping our music in MP3: better battery life, the most obvious reason being universal device compatibility.

The article continues by pointing out that Sony, of all companies, actually points out the conditions under which their player gets the advertised battery life and how playing under non-ideal conditions can impact that.

[tags]DRM, mp3, battery life[/tags]

How to make your own boarding pass

(via Schneier on Security)

Make your own boarding pass, and fly when you want.  It even works if you are on the no-fly list. The author doubts this can be used to actually get on a flight, but Bruce Schneier has written about this before, and it seems at the very least, you can trade tickets with someone.  So you can probably work your way on to a flight without even being actually booked for the flight.  Just something to think about next time you have any delusions about the effectiveness of so-called airport security systems.

[tags]Fake boarding pass, airport security[/tags]

Thoughtful write-up concerning airport security failure

Here’s a good article by Bruce Schneier concerning how bad airport security is.  In particular, good security systems fail gracefully.  Airport security fails catastrophically.  What does this mean?  Well, when airport security fails, entire terminals have to be evacuated and re-screened.  I’m not saying I have a better solution, but it’s clear that this isn’t a good failure method.

Security systems can fail in two ways. They can fail to defend against an attack. And they can fail when there is no attack to defend. The latter failure is often more important, because false alarms are more common than real attacks.

Aside from the obvious security failure — how did this person manage to disappear into the crowd, anyway — it’s painfully obvious that the overall security system did not fail well. Well-designed security systems fail gracefully, without affecting the entire airport terminal. That the only thing the TSA could do after the failure was evacuate the entire terminal and rescreen everyone is a testament to how badly designed the security system is.

[tags]Schneier, security, airport security[/tags]