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Monthly Archives: February 2010
Music organisations only protect their own pockets
The RIAA, the PRS, BUMA/STEMRA – all organisations claiming to exist for the benefit of musicians (who never see the money collected) are now showing – yet again – how self serving they are: The STEMRA decided they wanted to grant a pan-European musical license to beatport.com, so they wouldn’t have to go through each individual country. The PRS (British RIAA) went ballistic and sued STEMRA. Higher courts have denied the STEMRA. So instead of being able to easily pay for the rights of the artists so that they could be heard all over Europe on the web, the PRS has shot its’ artists in the foot and told them NO WAY do they want people to listen to them all over Europe… Unless, of course, the PRS gets some of the action. Instead of the artists, through another organisation.
Does that sound like mafia to you?
Emerce – Business nieuws: Voorlopig geen Pan-Europese muzieklicentie.
Don’t work for an internet company in Italy
The Italians will sue your sorry arse for things you never did, didn’t know of and tried to fix as soon as you did know of them!
In late 2006, students at a school in Turin, Italy filmed and then uploaded a video to Google Video that showed them bullying an autistic schoolmate. The video was totally reprehensible and we took it down within hours of being notified by the Italian police. We also worked with the local police to help identify the person responsible for uploading it and she was subsequently sentenced to 10 months community service by a court in Turin, as were several other classmates who were also involved. In these rare but unpleasant cases, that's where our involvement would normally end.
But in this instance, a public prosecutor in Milan decided to indict four Google employees —David Drummond, Arvind Desikan, Peter Fleischer and George Reyes who left the company in 2008. The charges brought against them were criminal defamation and a failure to comply with the Italian privacy code. To be clear, none of the four Googlers charged had anything to do with this video. They did not appear in it, film it, upload it or review it. None of them know the people involved or were even aware of the video's existence until after it was removed.
via Official Google Blog: Serious threat to the web in Italy.
F-35 Delayed Again
well well well, not that we didn’t expect it – it’s now delayed by a year and development costs are $100m over budget allready.
Now if only the Netherlands had bought something like Eurofighter or Rafale.
F-35 Delayed Again | Defense Tech.
Rafale vs Raptor
Looks like the Rafale provides a lot more bang for buck than the F-22, at least in close range…
In those six engagements, the F-22 scored one gun kill, but the other five dogfights ended in a draw, Air & Cosmos says. Another sources tells the magazine the F-22 scored two gun kills, with four nulls.
via UAE missile demands and more Rafale v. Raptor rumors – The DEW Line.
2010 CWE/SANS Top 25 Most Dangerous Programming Errors
Be lucky – it’s an easy skill to learn
My research revealed that lucky people generate good fortune via four basic principles. They are skilled at creating and noticing chance opportunities make lucky decisions by listening to their intuition create self-fulfilling prophesies via positive expectations and adopt a resilient attitude that transforms bad luck into good.
I wondered whether these four principles could be used to increase the amount of good luck that people encounter in their lives. To find out I created a “luck school” – a simple experiment that examined whether people s luck can be enhanced by getting them to think and behave like a lucky person.
I asked a group of lucky and unlucky volunteers to spend a month carrying out exercises designed to help them think and behave like a lucky person. These exercises helped them spot chance opportunities listen to their intuition expect to be lucky and be more resilient to bad luck.
One month later the volunteers returned and described what had happened. The results were dramatic 80 per cent of people were now happier more satisfied with their lives and perhaps most important of all luckier. While lucky people became luckier the unlucky had become lucky. Take Carolyn whom I introduced at the start of this article. After graduating from “luck school” she has passed her driving test after three years of trying was no longer accident-prone and became more confident.
via Be lucky – it’s an easy skill to learn – Telegraph.
Facial Recognition Augmented Reality App
Barcelona, Spain (February 15, 2010) – Face.com has powered the first-ever “Social Augmented Reality” app, developed by Comverse,
Harnessing Face.com’s superior facial recognition algorithms and its enormous database of faces, the “Social Augmented Reality” app functions in multiple capacities:
* Friends: When two friends are together and one wants to see the other’s photos, the software will recognize the friend and offer direct links to his or her profile and pictures.
* Business: At the office, a colleague might request that you remind him or her about a report that is due. A quick scan and the app will identify the individual, allowing you to message him or her without ever looking through your address book.
* Acquaintances: The app has the potential to connect people before they even know each other’s names. If you bump into someone who you met before and he or she looks familiar but you can’t remember why, the app will locate that person’s online profile to put a name to the face.
“Augmented reality was the first step to bridging the gap between on- and off-line worlds; now our technology takes it further,” said Gil Hirsch, CEO, Face.com. “The Comverse app, utilizing Face.com facial recognition technology, closes the loop by merging face-to-face with virtual social communication.”
So it’s a little like having a name whisperer on your phone, then?
Flexible, low weight solar cells
A team of US research scientists have made a startling breakthrough in solar-cell development, creating flexible wire-based cell substrates that use just one per cent of the silicon needed for brittle and comparatively heavy conventional cells.
Solar cells made from this material would not only be less expensive than current photovoltaics, but due to their low weight and bendable structure the could be used in a wide variety of applications.
The trick in this new method is to bundle one-micrometer-thick silicon wires and embed the resulting array vertically in a flexible polymer. Thus bundled, the paper claims, the array could capture and transmit up to 96 per cent of light in peak conditions while requiring only one per cent of the silicon needed by conventional cells.
via US lab births flexy, stingy solar cells • The Register.
Climategate admitted – sort of
Professor Jones [NB the guy who sent all the wierd emails that were uncovered revealing that data was spurious and that he’d hammer into the ground all global warming sceptic scientists] also conceded the possibility that the world was warmer in medieval times than now – suggesting global warming may not be a man-made phenomenon.And he said that for the past 15 years there has been no ‘statistically significant’ warming.
HUD Ski goggles
The Zeal Optics Transcend googles feature a head mounted display with GPS, speed, altitude, vertical odometer, stopwatch / countdown timer, temp, time, anti fog and a whole lot more and have 3 buttons on the side to switch between the modes and functions in a coverflow type of fashion. Unfortunately either $350,- or $450,-.
Flying aircraft carriers
The US Navy had 2 flying aircraft carriers – zeppelins, which launched and recovered biplanes using a skyhook. The USS Akron and the USS Macon The Sparrowhawk aircraft had their landing gear removed and had to hit a hook that slung them in a corner in and out of the ship. No arrestor cable, no launch rail and a better safety record than current carriers. The end of the airship era ended the project, unfortunately.
Wreck of 1930s flying aircraft carrier dubbed ‘historic’ • The Register.
Chip and PIN broken
Cambridge University security researchers have demonstrated how it might be possible to trick the card into thinking it’s doing a chip-and-signature transaction while the terminal thinks it’s authorised by chip-and-PIN. The flaw creates a means to make transactions that are “Verified by PIN” using a stolen uncancelled card without knowing the PIN number. Fraudsters would insert a “wedge” between the stolen card and terminal tricking the terminal into believing that the PIN was correctly verified
via Chip and PIN security busted • The Register.
ABL finally shoots down something
Boeings airborne laser has had its’ first shootdown – a short range ballistic missle, which was destroyed in the boost phase: the earliest stage in flight a missle has been shot down to date.
Airborne Laser hits 16-year-old goal — extremely quietly [Updated w/video] – The DEW Line.
WWF finds vegetarianism is bad for the environment
Aside from vegetarians killing more animals than meat eaters (sounds strange? Consider how much random killing a combine harvester does), they are also worse for the environment as they require more arable land and the processing of the foods creates way more greenhouse gasses.
Being vegetarian does more harm to the environment than eating meat | Mail Online.
Google Liquid Galaxy
Google has a setup of 8 LCDs and a commercial space mouse thing which allows you to fly through Google Earth and use Streetview in an immersive environment.
YouTube – Google Liquid Galaxy live demo at TED.
Holodeck
Buy coloured diamonds online
You can buy from a huge selection of diamonds, prices ranging from pretty low to pretty huge. Polished, rough, you can even create your own jewel on the site.
Langerman Diamonds – the natural color diamond shop.
IBM develops graphene resistors: allready > 50% faster
The experimental graphene resistor they’ve built goes at 100 GHz, quite a bit faster than the ~40GHz of silicone resistors. They can still improve on the technology, so they’re expecting higher speeds.
UK men targetted by Child Maintenance and Enforcement Commission
Yup, being a man sucks if you have a child. If you don’t make your payments, they will freeze your assets and sell your house. If you don’t get to see your child, however, you’re basically fucked.
Child maintenance agency moves to seize 340 non-payers’ homes | Society | guardian.co.uk.