Popular Science Names Xbox 360 Top Tech Home Entertainment Innovation of 2005 – Xbox
Free Culture
DC Court Ruling Spawns HDTV Cards
The Broadcast Flag was struck down and now companies are beginning to
flood the market with HDTV tuners for PCs! This is good for all.
Read who’s putting out cards here.
NASA – Managing Murphy’s Law on Mars
This from Science@NASA is a risk analysis for a human mission to Mars. Very interesting.
NASA – Managing Murphy’s Law on Mars
IGN: Sony Announces PSP Giga Pack
IGN: Sony Announces PSP Giga Pack
That’s right. This November, the PSP will be available for purchase at $270 with everything that the current PSP bundle comes with plus, drumroll please…………………
A 1GB MEMORY STICK!
Microsoft Announces Company’s First Cross-Platform Gaming Controller
Microsoft Announces Company’s First Cross-Platform Gaming Controller – Xbox
Teamxbox.com reported today that Microsoft’s soon-to-be-released Xbox 360 will feature a controller with a USB connector that will be interchangable with PCs running Windows XP.
Bomb Proof Trucks
New trucks that are extremely resistant to IEDs are replacing Humvees in Iraq. These are honkin’ pieces of equipment.
Grokster Ruling Could Effect Apple
“…The Grokster ruling in June was just the latest example. The Court decided that “one who distributes a device with the object of promoting its use to infringe copyright … is liable for the resulting acts of infringement by third parties.” Pundits bathed the Court in praise for its “sensible balance” between the demands of Hollywood and the pleas of technologists. The pundits are idiots. The Grokster case revealed the worst in Supreme Court ivory towerism. Astonishingly, hardly anyone noticed…
…Apple has sold about 15 million iPods, each capable of holding between 1,000 and 15,000 songs. Its iTunes music store has sold about 500 million songs for 99 cents each. That works out to only 30 songs or so per device. Does this surprise Apple? Did it really expect that people would buy a 60-gig iPod for $400 and then put $14,850 of music in it? No. Apple expected precisely what it advertised – that people would “Rip. Mix. Burn.” music from CDs to iTunes and, in turn, to their iPods. After all, as the ads say, “It’s your music.”
Well, is it? That’s still unclear. Congress passed a law to give consumers the right to copy music to analog devices – cassette tapes. But courts have held that that law does not extend to digital devices – iPods.And if it took a law (rather than the principle of fair use) to give you the right to make a mix tape, then, as many have argued, it takes a law to authorize transferring songs to an iPod…”
Lawrence Lessig’s Supreme Showdown
Wired 10.10: Lawrence Lessig’s Supreme Showdown
Lawrence Lessig helped mount the case against Microsoft. He wrote the book on creative rights in the digital age. Now the cyberlaw star is about to tell the Supreme Court to smash apart the copyright machine.
Once a “right-wing lunatic,” he’s become a fire-breathing defender of Net values.
You’re Gonna Do WHAT?!?!
In case you don’t follow gaming news religiouly, as I do, I’m going to bring you up to speed on how Nintendo has been pushing their next-gen platform, codenamed “Revolution.” They say that they don’t want to be part of the console war that Sony and Microsoft are in. They want to be unique and have innovative gameplay. Now, don’t get me wrong, there is absolutely nothing wrong with that. Innovation is great. However, one thing that Nintendo claimed to be their show-stopper at E3 (Electronic Entertainment Expo) in May, is the controller for the new system. They wouldn’t say how, nor show anyone what the controller looked like.
Well, the Tokyo Game Show is happening as this is being written and Nintendo has just revealed their “amazing” new controller.
Ta Dah!!
I’m sorry if you disagree, but I think that is the dumbest thing that I have ever seen!! Nintendo wanted a revolution, but I think they got stuck half way around and ended up going backwards. The company has successfully ruled out ANY third-party support for their console because it is just going to be too damn hard to control the games. It’s just a glorified, wireless NES controller for God’s sake!
Now to their credit, it does have certain functionality in which the player can point the controller at the screen and the game responds accordingly. In one demo the player actually turned the controller sideways and held it like a model plane, using the tilt of the controller to steer a plane on screen. But can a franchise be built off of a novelty item?
As far as I am concerned, Nintendo got what they wanted. They are nowhere near Sony and Microsoft. They’ve gone the way of Apple and created a perfectly impracticle yet expensive device that their niche consumers will eat up with a spoon while most people pass without a second thought. One IGN editor put it best when he simply stated, “I’m not playing Legend of Zelda on that.”
Blu-ray and PS3
I am personally going to buy a PS3 for the sole purpose of playing Blu-ray discs. If you want to have a Blu-ray player one should consider this option. The first players are going to be around $1,500 while the PS3 is going to be around $350. Sounds like a good deal to me. By the way, I’m an XBOX person. I don’t like PS games, but I do admire Sony as an electronics maker and I believe Blu-ray will succeed as the HD video format. Here is a little something I found on Blu-ray.
Blu-ray.com
Samsung to Develop Dual HD DVD, Blu-ray Disc Player
Samsung to Develop Dual HD DVD, Blu-ray Disc Player
“We would welcome a unified standard but if this doesn’t come, which looks likely, we’ll bring a unified solution to market.”
The Future of Media
ComingSoon.net
“Video Business reports that 20th Century Fox Home Entertainment and Lucasfilm will release Star Wars: Episode III Revenge of the Sith, expected to be one of the fourth quarter’s top sellers, on DVD only. “Star Wars” will be the first major new release to skip VHS, some say a move that is unsurprising because of its heavy DVD audience.”
In related news, “NEC announced at the IFA 2005 in Berlin that the world’s first 5 1/4 inch HD DVD PC drive, the NEC HR-1100A, will be available this October.”
DVDs have barely become standard, but the next-gen media is already here.
Vista Set To Restrict Your Media
Cnet has reported that Windows Vista will have new far reaching restrictions on digital music and video. The article suggests that some monitors or tv’s that only have analog inputs will not display high quality videos or that Vista will downgrade the video when sending to the monitor. I believe this is outrageous that Microsoft is going this far to confine consumers. They should be making robust operating systems that are consumer friendly. I was so peeved by the article that I sent the EFF an email to inform them if they didn’t already know.
Once everything switches to digital there will be no stopping the large companies from implementing restrictions like these. We need to continue to produce some analog systems which cannot be controlled. I have considered starting a website dedicated to preserving and advocating the continuance of analog.
China Hacks Major US Networks
I found this story on Time’s website. Some guy from Sandia Labs tracked Chinese hackers for months and logged their exploits under the direction of the FBI. Now the FBI is investigating him and not following up on the real threat.
Contrary to what most of you believe, the Chinese government is not our friend. They consider us a threat.
Entrepreneurs in the War Zone
It’s a typical morning at Camp Anaconda, the giant US military base 50 miles north of Baghdad – light breeze, temperatures heading to 100 degrees, scattered mortar fire. Ryan Lackey is getting ready for today’s assignment: installing a pair of satellite Internet connections at Camp Warhorse about 30 miles away.
Lackey, 26, is founder and CTO of Blue Iraq, a war zone startup that has operated out of Anaconda since December. It’s a bootstrap operation – three employees, tent accommodations, Army chow – that has been profitable from its first day. “The military’s a great market,” he says. “They have lots of money, and they know what they want.” His customers are mostly base commanders and DOD contractors, plus the occasional group of soldiers who chip in to get Internet access.
Appeals Court Preserves Email Privacy
EFF News
Appeals Court Preserves Email Privacy
Massachusetts – In a long-awaited decision, the full First Circuit Court of Appeals today overturned a First Circuit panel decision that had allowed an email service provider to secretly monitor the content of users’ incoming messages without violating federal wiretap law. The Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) and other privacy organizations submitted briefs in the case urging that the earlier decision be reheard by all seven First Circuit judges.
Wired News: TSA Data Dump Leads to Lawsuit
Following accusations last month that the Transportation Security Administration violated the Privacy Act in testing its new airline passenger-screening program, four individuals sued the agency Thursday.
They want the TSA to dig deeper for commercial data records it may have collected on each of them to test the Secure Flight program, and to hand over those records. The individuals also filed a motion to prevent the agency from destroying records before the lawsuit is resolved.