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Here's one company that has the RIAA a little upset--DEMO (www.d-e-m-o.com). It started certifications last year for music sales over the internet. At last, perhaps someone has beaten the RIAA at their own game! >(www.d-e-m-o.com).

HP also has a recycling program which was promoted recently on ScreenSavers. According to the HP representative they had on the show, they do much of the same as what was described in the main article above.

from my blog: Tonight I read about a new online music service called "BuyMusic.Com" for the first time. It is billed as a "iTunes for PC users" and this is a conspicuously empty niche in the music business at the moment. I've looked at other services such as Pressplay and MusicNet, but so far they have all sucked in terms of sound quality, value and ridiculous limitations on what you can do with the music that you legitimately purchase. Is BuyMusic any better? Let's find out. I found the link on the front page of Google news. It was attributed to an article from TechTV.com which comes off as both a commercial for the new service and a fairly harsh dig at Apple and iTunes. They make the point that the tracks are slightly less expensive at BuyMusic ($.79 as opposed to $.99) and the obvious problem that only people who own Macs are currently capable of accessing iTunes. They also make a big deal about the service's music catalog which stands at around 300,000 tracks. So I go to the BuyMusic site. The home page is fairly well designed, with top 100 singles and top album listings front and center. At first glance the selection is about what I would expect - Norah Jones is here, as well as Justin Timberlake, Shania Twain and 50 Cent. Okay, so it's not my favorite music but this is what sells so I can't blame them for putting it up front. The real test will come when I try to find some of my favorite music - in other words, something a music fan (as opposed to a 12 year old girl) might actually want to buy. There are some ads on the page, but nothing too intrusive. One is for Windows Media Player 9, which is interesting because it contains an implementation of Microsoft's latest Digital Rights Management technology. WMP9 is also notable for its very open-ended End User License Agreement (EULA) which means basically that if you install this software then you also give Microsoft the legal right to download and install updates to your computer at any time and without asking for your permission. Maybe I'm paranoid, but I just never liked the sound of that. I wonder if it is a required download to use the service. Yep. That makes the other ad somewhat ironic - it is for a Nomad 20GB MP3 Jukebox. Ironic because regular MP3s don't have any DRM built in and a good DRM system would probably prevent the user from transferring legitimately purchased music onto the player. I have yet to find out exactly what format of music this service is actually selling... Are they MP3s or Microsoft Media Player files or some other proprietary format like the one that Apple is using? Time to forge on and find out... So I begin to look around the page for the catalog navigation buttons. Off to the left is a list of genres... Looking down the list I notice that although there is a separate category for "Blues" there is no category at all for "Dance Music." Weh oh. Not a good sign. So I click on Pop/Rock which I figure is the closest thing to dance music they have listed here. Although it lists twenty-something variations on Pop/Rock such as "Teen Pop" and "Experimental Rock" there is still no indication of dance music. Scrolling down the page I do find an album I like however - John Mayer's "Room for Squares." The album price is listed as $12.69. Not too bad, I tell myself. Clicking onto the album info page I encounter my first harsh truth about BuyMusic: They don't have everything that's listed in their catalog. For example, even though the album price was given as $12.69, a note on the album's page says "For Sale as Individual Tracks Only." Furthermore, only four of the twelve tracks can be downloaded, for $.99 each. The first single

Well this blows the good old "kids can't buy nasty things on the internet" excuse the online cigarette resellers use. (As seen recently on TechTV's Unscrewed interview with the owner of Freedom Tobacco.)

Technology really does make all things possible, unfortunately government and most people believe they are safe because "it can't be done now".

Jonah Hex

It saves the repeat visits to the store returning devices that will only do 1/2 of what they lead you to believe they do.

Sega is on it's way out. They know it, I know it . One or two of their franchises still do well for them, like Virtua Fighter, but in the grand scope any profits they've reaped on those titles are imediately spent on gigantic failures like the costly Shenmue series, some new Sonic game that won't sell 100,000 copies, or even their sports titles with the extremely costly licences.

I remember watching the X-Play special on E3 where they tried to hype some of the most pathetic games i've ever laid eyes on. The VP of something or other blathering on about how Billy Hatcher and the Giant Egg is some revolutionary game simply because you have a projectile weapon. A quick stop to pick the demo disc up the other week confirmed my suspicions about the dubious quality of Sega's latest offerings. Don't get me wrong, the demo disc is worth it for Viewtiful Joe alone, even if it comes with a mountain full of suck.

You can hire all the advertising agencies you want to create fake user interest, but in the end the people you want to purchase your products are no longer interested in what you have to offer. A new look, ESPN in this case, will not change that simple fact. Maybe whomever the CEO is this week will realize that.

Sega is on it's way out. They know it, I know it . One or two of their franchises still do well for them, like Virtua Fighter, but in the grand scope any profits they've reaped on those titles are imediately spent on gigantic failures like the costly Shenmue series, some new Sonic game that won't sell 100,000 copies, or even their sports titles with the extremely costly licences.

I remember watching the X-Play special on E3 where they tried to hype some of the most pathetic games i've ever laid eyes on. The VP of something or other blathering on about how Billy Hatcher and the Giant Egg is some revolutionary game simply because you have a projectile weapon. A quick stop to pick the demo disc up the other week confirmed my suspicions about the dubious quality of Sega's latest offerings. Don't get me wrong, the demo disc is worth it for Viewtiful Joe alone, even if it comes with a mountain full of suck.

You can hire all the advertising agencies you want to create fake user interest, but in the end the people you want to purchase your products are no longer interested in what you have to offer. A new look, ESPN in this case, will not change that simple fact. Maybe whomever the CEO is this week will realize that.

Tech TV's Anime Unleashed is trying really hard and getting out the Channel for IT Nerds image.

The SciFi Channel is fast becoming 'The place bad programing goes to die'

Marc Saltzman is a total, for the lack of better words, asshat.

I've read many of his articles, seen him on tv, heard him on the radio and even bought one of his shitty books. This guy knows absolutely nothing about games and nothing about editing.

All he does is email some people he knows and asks them to write an article about getting into the gaming business and then he staples them together and calls it a book. I have "Game Design: Secrets of the sages" (or something like that) from him and it's a total piece of shit.

You'd think it would go into great detail about things since its quite a hefty book but it definately does not. Just about every second page is a new letter from a different person and 90% of the content is the same in each letter. A proper editor would of compressed the useful information of this book into a backpocket paperback.

This guy knows nothing about computers, he's just a guy who can talk infront of a camera and somehow get people to write books for him and get away with him.

He's almost as much of a poser as Kevin Rose.

Phew.

so I'm sure it's doable..

TechTV article about Metricom modems
next

If Sony makes it easier to get the shock going they will have something. At which point, I'm sure some geek will combine this with the shocking jacket and the shocking controller. Imagine the hours of fun.

You can download a program to do it, or you can edit the registry:

Hive: HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE
Key: System\CurrentControlSet\Control\Keyboard Layout
Name: Scancode Map
Data Type: REG_BINARY
Value: 00000000000000000300000000005BE000005CE000000000

You will probably need to create this value, as it is not present by default. You may wish to cut and paste the value from this page to guard against typos. A reboot may be necessary for it to take effect. Of course, use caution and frequent backups whenever you edit the Registry.

Theres a poll on TechLive, Tell them what you thinkTechlive Poll

How about ads that are so fast you don't need to fast-forward through them?

Rumors out of Europe tell of Eminem dressing his hotel room in tinfoil in order to thwart people from eavesdropping on his cellphone calls.

Pogo Radio Your Way

According to the review it's not there quite yet, but it's on the way.

On the OLED note: This might be a rant but here it goes. I was stoked when I heard about OLED. It was supposed to squash LCD because it was not only flexible/bendable but capable of better pictures (esp. at odd angles), smaller sizes, and required less electricity (for one because it apparently was able to hold an image w/o a constant signal of that image, so unchanged parts didn't need to have current sent to them to keep them on; sorry for the crude description). So, I was stoked, and the technology that was available has not been delivered (except a couple of cell phones and cd players).

So they have cheap portable LCDs. I want cheap portable OLED displays. PLEASE... It's time.

Here is a link to Yoshi's Submersion Cooling Case. They used hydrofluoroether (HFE) from 3M.

Yoshi DeHerrera of TechTV has an article about how to use HFE from 3M to build a submerged cooling system for a computer. Find it here.

Yoshi DeHerrera of TechTV has an article about how to use HFE from 3M to build a submerged cooling system for a computer. Find it here.

More info on the 3M liquid here.

this guy was on techtv a little while ago. He does tons of these videotaped tutorials all for free. If you don't have braodband he will burn a copy for you and mailit to you for free. An amazing ammount of work that he is doing all for free.

EDRs are not found in all cars with airbags. Since all new cars have airbags, wouldn't this mean there's an EDR in every new car? I don't know where you got that idea. For now, GM is pretty much the only company installing them.

This guy Looks a little nervous and as if he is backing his head away from somthing, so I assume somone is in front of him trying to make him test it.

From TechTV, Overclockers and Tweak3D may provide you with some information.

source

So how is this the room of the future? This all sounds like stuff that's around already. The only part that's somewhat unusual is the biometric safe -- but when there are already biometric PDAs on the market, it's just not as impressive.

The Hotel Room of the Rich, maybe, but not Future. Sounds like Lasky was desperate to add some hype to a story.

A Hotel Room of the Future should be something that attempts to guess and then mimic how future innovations would tie in with the setting. (mimic being the keyword, because the object here is to show what hasn't been produced yet)

For instance, a room where the fabric-upholstered walls were made of ultra-thin flexible LCD sheets, and displayed a database of exotic settings. (faked for display with a simple projector) And a AI assistant that could order food from various restaurants, book theater tickets, or call a cab. (faked for display with a pre-recorded sequence) And a three-dimensional television set. (faked for display with iMax technology, requiring the use of glasses for demonstration)

Then I would be convinced that I was in a room of the future, or at least a mockup room of the future.

.

From my rejected post late last night:

Today TiVo begins selling information about its customers' viewing habits to advertisers and others. Two years ago TiVo admitted it had plans to sell subscriber information - it looks like that day is finally here. This should be interesting if only due to the new TiVo hacking book about to be published.

Tack on a CDR, and you've just made yourself a laptop with a tiny screen.

Although, Steve Jobs is justifiably wary about PDAs with the failure of the Newton, which I still think is an awesome device.

Knowledgable criminals can ditch their printers and get new ones, but the average person won't. Given that this isn't something that is likely to affect most people, I can see it getting slipped in without public complaint. Most people aren't aware cars have black boxes in them either, but if they found out they bought a car that stored information that could be used against them in court I bet it'd bother them at least a little bit.

I've gotten into so many arugments with people about privacy and it usually boils down to trust: They trust, I don't.

They trust safeway to be kind and gentle when collecting all their iformation on every item they have ever purchased, they trust bars to maintain privacy when scanning a person's license to enter a bar. But that is folish.

[Shamelessly copied from latimes...]

http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-celebs8apr 08,1,1932749.story?coll=la%2Dheadlines%2Dcaliforni a

Officer's Star Searches Raise Liability Worries
City studies possible legal fallout from use of police computer to get data on celebrities.

April 8, 2003
By Wendy Thermos, Times Staff Writer

For six years, Officer Kelly Chrisman used Los Angeles Police Department computers to look up confidential law enforcement records on celebrities and other high-profile people, including Sharon Stone, Courteney Cox Arquette, Sean Penn and Halle Berry.

Chrisman says he was just carrying out orders from superiors, but a lawsuit recently settled by the city for nearly $400,000 alleged that the officer had accessed the records to sell the information to tabloids.

Now Los Angeles officials are assessing the city's potential liability.

According to internal LAPD documents, between 1994 and 2000 Chrisman tapped computer files on scores of celebrities, including Meg Ryan, Kobe Bryant, O.J. Simpson, Larry King, Drew Barrymore, Dionne Warwick, Farrah Fawcett, Cindy Crawford, Elle Macpherson and Berry Gordy.

[Shamlessly copied from techtv]


http://www.techtv.com/cybercrime/privacy/story/0 ,2 3008,3387549,00.html
Top 10 List of Police Database Abuses

Law enforcement officers are supposed to protect and serve, but some cops misuse police databases to get dates and more.

By James Hamilton, Web producer
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Email this story

Your address, telephone number, Social Security number, date of birth, criminal record -- all this data and more can be accessed by police officers if they have basic information about you. Some cops, however, use their database access for less-than-honorable reasons. This week on "CyberCrime" we show you how some cops used police databases to harass exes and even get telephone numbers of women they see in cars.

These abuses happen in law enforcement departments around the world. Here's 10 stories about cops who have abused their information privileges in police departments in Michigan, California, Ohio, and even as far away as Australia.

Cop Suspected of Using Database to Plan Murder of Ex-wife

A State Police detective whose estranged wife was shot dead at a Michigan zoo admitted using the Law Enforcement Information Network (LEIN) to check on his wife and her acquaintances, according to Lansing police search warrant requests. Although the detective is not suspected of pulling the trigger, the Lansing, Michigan, police department says it believes he knows who shot his wife a month after she filed for divorce. Read the story.

Rookie Cop Checks on 'Potential Girlfriends': 6,900 Database Searches in Only Two Months

An Australian constable new to the beat used the police database to check on potential girlfriends. In just over two months the then 20-year-old policeman performed an unprecedented 6,900 searches on the police database. The counsel assisting the case says that of those 6,900 searches at least 300 weren't connected to official duties. Read the story.

FBI Files Sold to Mob and International Criminals by Nevada Attorney General's Office Employee and Former FBI Agent

Dubbed the "Secrets for Sale Scandal" by the Las Vegas media, an attorney general's office worker and a former FBI agent we

Honestly people, a Quick Google Search will reveal All

Most people seem to be focusing on the "paper" or energy use aspect (often in conjunction with paper/recycling), but are ignoring the chemical factor of computers. Every computer takes hundreds of different types of deadly chemicals and chemical products to produce, most of which goes strait into the environment. Those who don't, go inot the computer components that are quickly finding their way back into landfills, causeing just as much polution. Also, unlike naturally produced things like paper, computer components cannot be easily or cost effectivly recycled (some components, often the most dangerous ones cannot be recycled at all). This is causing very serious environmental damage. for more info, Google, or:
Cleaning Up Computer Trash - TechTV
Silicon Valley Toxics Coalition Web site
Virtual Ecology: A Brief Environmental History of Silicon Valley
Computers in a Sustainable Society
The next revolution in computers: Think Green

TechTV has a decent guide on bitrates... maybe this will help. Hope that helps...

• Crewmember on the USS Enterprise
• Codes and maintains his own website
• Uses Linux instead of Windows on his home machines
• Worked on the Video Toaster
• Obsessive blogger
• Posts on Slashdot
• Free Speech activist
• Frequent (but not frequent enough) guest and sometimes guest host of The Screen Savers
• Host of Arena on G4
• Gamer, both video and role-playing

• Crewmember on the USS Enterprise
• Codes and maintains his own website
• Uses Linux instead of Windows on his home machines
• Worked on the Video Toaster
• Obsessive blogger
• Posts on Slashdot
• Free Speech activist
• Frequent (but not frequent enough) guest and sometimes guest host of The Screen Savers
• Host of Arena on G4
• Gamer, both video and role-playing

• Crewmember on the USS Enterprise
• Codes and maintains his own website
• Uses Linux instead of Windows on his home machines
• Worked on the Video Toaster
• Obsessive blogger
• Posts on Slashdot
• Free Speech activist
• Frequent (but not frequent enough) guest and sometimes guest host of The Screen Savers
• Host of Arena on G4
• Gamer, both video and role-playing

I'm thinking more GW BASIC, APPLE & IBM PC[jr]. On all of those platforms, it was available. Also, on the ATARI I seem to recall the same, though at the time I did more assembler than BASIC programming. I didn't do much with the TI or CoCo computers. I've never used Visual BASIC so couldn't respond there.

It may be that the versions you've worked with were lacking the keyword or that you just never used it? Do you have references to documentation for those versions that list their completely keyword set?

Some references available online:

• same code
• more code

Now for the fun part, actually USING that bandwidth. I hate M$ to, but the best way to play whatever you need at any location is with a modded Xbox and Xbox Media Player Website. This spliffy piece of software can play just about any media format you can think of, from VOB, DivX, Mp3, Ogg, and many many more obscure formats. It can play them from the harddrive, dvd drive, or over the network with SMB (Windows) shares, Shoutcast for your internet radio, and tons of other options. Divx plays just fine over a 10mbit connection, so switched 100mbit aught to be a dream. Here is a review of XBMP on TechTV with videos of it in action. Picture slideshows, playlists, this piece of software just keeps getting better and better. Fully controllable with a standard controller or the DVD remote you can purchase separately. (I recommend the Logitech RF wireless controller if you can justify the extra money. Solid contruction, flawless performance.) Its all about the wireless, baby.

Even better, no expensive modchip or chip installation required. Some people figured out how to run code without a chip, and some others figured out how to flash a BIOS on the Xbox with this technique. No chips, just shorting two easy points on the motherboard. Check on the #xbins channel of Efnet for information; look for the 007 agent under fire package with raincoat. You'll need a friend with a modded Xbox to get the savegame on a memory card, but once done, Xbox is a cinch to crack.

As a perk, you could even get a few room-to-room Halo/Unreal/RTCW/Doom 3 games going on.

The multimillion-dollar deal is a milestone for the game industry, which traditionally has paid to use other companies' logos in their games.

Sony Corp., for example, has paid tens of thousands of dollars to car manufacturers such as Honda Motor Co. to use real-world race cars in its driving games

Real life product brands have been featured in video games increasingly since Pole Position, but this [inclusion of McDonald's and Intel logos in The Sims] is being hailed as the first time a company has paid to have its products placed in a game. It's also being hailed as the latest step the video game market has made towards the lucrative product-placement schemes that are common in the Hollywood film industry.

Until now, video game makers have taken it upon themselves to add corporate brands to their games to add authenticity. Believe it or not, video game makers say they have even paid outside companies for the use of recognizable logos inside their games.

...product placement is relatively new to games....

While video game companies traditionally have had major brand names in their games, usually those brands have been licensed for a fee by the publishers, rather than the brands paying to be placed in the game.

The main argument for using recognizable products is that they lend a realistic flavor to gameplay.

What gamers may not know, however, is that this kind of brand exposure doesn't necessarily bring developers rolls of cash. More likely, companies swap advertising, as with the "Super Monkey Ball" deal.

Most of the time that you see a product in a Sega game no money has changed hands.

But although commercial products have appeared in games in the past--mostly as "Easter egg" surprises buried in the games (such as the Coke cans that rolled out of a vending machine in the game Half Life), or as authentic touches (such as the Pennzoil ads on cars in NASCAR racing games)--there have been no cases of paid product placement, or at least none that a survey of game publishers can recall. And it's not that developers haven't tried.

sorry about the link Here it is.

based on the same technology?? like these products are?? Here and if so.. what does this mean for the market that is flooded w/ these products... oh wait.. people will still buy them

the polygraph is not a lie detector. A polygraph actually records a number of different signals. Respiration, persperation... A polygraph only detects your output, not your internal processes. That may eventually change with walk-through brain scanners at the airports...

The polygraph operator may be thoroughly trained to interpret this data, or they might simply have bought a polygraph and hired themselves out immediately. Training and certification varies greatly from state to state. It's claimed that they measure 'deceptive reactions' pretty well, (bear in mind that they also run on Windows..No, i'm not kidding.) If you really believe what you're saying, a polygraph won't pick that up. But on the other hand, it might. I would say that the jury's out on their effectiveness, but they don't let polygraph results anywhere near a jury. (we'll get to that.) Dweceptive behaviour is not the same as lying. If you give a patently false answer to every question, it messes with the baseline. If you give honest answers that mislead, it may or may not pick them up. If you tell the truth but think about something bad you've done lately, you might get a false positive. It's that messy.

Voice analysers promise similar results- the ability to pick up changes in a person's voice, microtremors, when deceptive intent creeps in... but have also been shown to be faulty. And then shown to be fine. And then faulty again. And so on.

The supreme court has ruled that polygraph tests can be administered- but that the data may not be used as evidence in court. Although it is illegal to make a polygraph test part of the private industry hiring practice, the feds can do this all they want, and are expanding their activities in this regard as more sophisticated, digital equipment becomes available.

It's more likely that brain imaging will evolve to replace the polygraph- and even then, it probably won't be 100%. There will always be those who can believe what they are saying to be true. It's all about confidence. So to answer the question- yes, they could try, but they might not be able to get anything useful from it, and if you know enough about how they work, you could give them enough false positives that they'd never work it out. Then they'd simply get a court order to bug your keyboard instead, out of sheer frustration. Unless you were deemed a REAL threat to national security- in which case they import you to egypt for 'questioning...'

sorry if i sound pessimistic. But the answer is that if it's that important, they'll use something more proven than a polygraph....

Yoshi's box featured quiet electronics, sound proofing, and testing in Dolby Labs quiet room. His homebrew quiet computer registered 8 to 14dB. Humans start hearing things at 10dB! For reference, a typical PC creates 38dB.

Check out the link fro some practical ideas on how to make your PC quiet.

does TechTV use the micros~1 windows media player format? Hell, even the video clip for building a hard disk switcher for easy dual-booting uses WMP!!

Macs rule, as we all know. Rumors blow. So enough already with the speculation! Wait for the broadcast, and get it from the big man himself.

the question is, will Apple broadcast it in QuickTime, will TechTV pick it up?

Of course TechTV will pick it up. The Screensavers know everything! I hope Leo Laporte didn't hear you say that! And I'm sure someone will get it out there in Quicktime. Unless, of course, if whacking QT is what this broadcast is all about. But I don't want to start any rumors.

I just got through seeing this on TechTV and was going to submit the story, but I guess I am too slow. :)

Anyway, here's a TechTV link

here and here seem to have some interesting examples of this, but I guess you already know this, since you already did a google search? :)

As they mention on their site, TechTV did a short story about it (it's the last item on the list).

You mean it isnt?