What you may not realize just by reading the article is that in Japan it is normal for men and women to continue to live with their parents until they get married, and after marriage one of the children (and that child's spouse) are expected to continue to live in the parents' house. It is only recently that things have started to change such that more college graduates are starting to move out of their parents' house. But that's not typical at all yet. The typical scenario is to live at home all through college (commuting to school each day) and then continue to live at home after graduating and joining a corporation (because the men can't cook for themselves and don't know how to do laundry, and the women generally aren't expected to get high paying jobs--they are expected to get married). So it is common to meet people who are 28 or older, unmarried, and still living at home with their parents.
I think you should use the computers to enable the students to watch anime with or without subtitles, as well as movies. Also, more important than that, is having the students watch real dialogues that you have recorded. I mean, real situations where people are using Japanese in a store or at the post office or someplace. You have to get the feel for the language and how it's used, which happens more easily if you can see it in action in a native environment.
The interesting aspect of JS's statement is that if he can get the market to equate Linux with Red Hat and not think about any other distribution or vendor, then by attacking Red Hat they can attack Linux at the same time. By reducing their opponents they make life easier for themselves. Normally Linux is thought of as a variety of distributions, but that's too difficult to fight. So, they need one opponenet, one corporation (one face) to represent all of Linux and then fight that. That's what it seems like they are doing. Also, Red Hat makes the most sense because they have enterprise sales aspirations, so probably they are seen as the biggest corporate distribution and hance the biggest threat by Sun execs.
Maybe it also explains the provision in their agreement with SUN that allows MS to sue them over StarOffice/OpenOffice.
Regardless, it's ominous for OSS/FS and programmers who might work on similar projects.
Office software project maintainers need to be very careful about what contributions they accept from now on. They need to be sure to vet the sources contributing the code and document all contributions and the name and contact info of the contributor, perhaps requiring the contributor to sign some legal statement affirming the code they are contributing is all original or otherwise free code.
Furthermore, couldn't this type of thing be done simply by filtering by domain name plus authentication credential (e.g., PGP key) at the Sendmail level? Nobody can send to or receive files from anyone who doesn't meet the two criteria:
1) same domain 2) PGP authenticated (to prevent address spoofing)
I'm sure there are corporations that are already doing something like this.
Disclaimer: I've only read a little bit of their web site.
From what I've read and can guess, this sounds like a private version of an online service. Think 1990's AOL, only on a micro-scale: to access the private network, you must have the correct network addresses and be an approved member. The network doesn't allow messages originating from outside the network, nor I imagine, can you send messages to external addresses. (Anyone with more specifics, feel free to correct me.)
"a secure messaging system which was instantaneous and able to transfer large files rapidly."
Sounds like they have some encryption and allow direct downloads within the private circle of members
"there is a Patent Pending on the process of digital mail"
Eh? This sounds extremely fishy. I'm sure the technologies being implemented here are nothing new.
"dmail is server-based, operates with a back-end SQL database, supports html text only and does not have an interface with email. In fact, it is a completely closed system which can be accessed from anywhere in the world on any web-enabled PC, handheld or mobile device. It is a safe and secure platform which can not be penetrated by unwanted visitors or observers."
Sounds like you are in a private country club and are only playing with other people who can enter the club. Nobody gets in and nobody leaves... including telephone calls or anything else... it's like the outside world no longer exists once you enter, and for those in the outside world, it's as though the private country club doesn't exist... and ne'er the two shall meet.
Seems to me that this is analogous to Closed Circuit TV but just running over the existing broadcast spectrum in encrypted form (or something along those lines).
But practically speaking, isn't this like operating your own version of Jabber, but crippling it with a "feature" that prevents you from contacting (receiving from and sending to) anyone who's not listed in your buddies list and also using the exact same version of Jabber client?
In what way is this movie's creation and/or television broadcast akin to "short-circuiting the democratic process"??!!
Creating or broadcasting a movie is not the same thing as when the Supreme Court decides who gets to be the next president as they did in 2000.
A movie such as F-9/11 is an act of speech and as such is contributing to the democratic process of debate, something Americans don't engage in critically enough.
If this movie engenders any response in viewers that leads them to the voting booth (no matter which candidate they choose) then this movie is strengthening the democratic process, which has been weak and in decline for decades.
This movie cannot be considered "overt political manipulation" until the movie reaches out and starts bribing people or otherwise coercing them to behave a certain way. However, it certainly does try to influence people's opinions about what has been going on for the last four years, just like any other newspaper or magazine editorial.
This movie is not propaganda:
To denigrate this as propaganda is either naive or perverse, forgetting (deliberately?) what the last century taught us. Propaganda requires a permanent network of communication so that it can systematically stifle reflection with emotive or utopian slogans. Its pace is usually fast. Propaganda invariably serves the long-term interests of some elite.
This single maverick movie is often reflectively slow and is not afraid of silence. It appeals to people to think for themselves and make connections. And it identifies with, and pleads for, those who are normally unlistened to. Making a strong case is not the same thing as saturating with propaganda. Fox TV does the latter; Michael Moore the former.
I have only seen one person watching TV on their phone here in Tokyo in the past 10 months. I went to the Vodafone store in Shibuya and demo'd a few models, watching live TV and all that, as well as movies. It's cool, but on the other hand, the screen is even smaller than the one in the back of the seat on Virgin Atlantic flights.
More exciting for me was the new phone that has a 2 megapixel camera with movie ability, excellent-sounding digital music playback, and movie playback. They use SD cards for storage. The cost is around $300, IIRC. I'm waiting for my one-year mark to pass to upgrade my phone even cheaper. I hate carrying around a separate camera, phone, and music player to events. I want them all in one device, damnit.
Baystar isn't going to help IBM because Baystar wants a return on their investment in SCO. I.e., SCO must win the lawsuits in order for Baystar to profit; therefore, Baystar isn't going to help IBM.
IBM might have targetted some of the listed companies because they are willing to help IBM, and some of the companies because they are not going to put up much resistence.
At first, I wondered what the hell this post was doing on/. Then I realized it: a true geek treasure hunt.
However, I'm not sure 500 Euros is worth the effort. It's already been a few weeks. It's unlikely the car is still in one piece. Maybe someone can get lucky and locate the laptop (or at least the ethernet card). I'd be shocked if the car and laptop were both found together.
This is a great technology for those studying media and culture. It reminds me a bit of the HP technology that tracks the spread of stories on web logs. What would be interesting is a combination of the following:
the information and utility of Newsmap.
the tracking of the HP blog project.
the ability to track the author, source, and parent company of each article.
It is interesting to see how much press a given story is picking up, but it is even more interesting to track what media giant is publishing that story in as many of its subsidiaries as it can. This would allow people to see just how much control each conglomerate has over what news the public is allowed to consume. By the same token, what stories are seeing the least coverage? What potentially important news is being "obscured by shit"?
Who publishes the news first? What companies merely follow stories that others have already broken?
I'm not sure what exactly you are responding to in my post. What advertisers can afford to do or not do on a given train line is irrelevant to what I'm talking about. My point is about active vs. passive consumption of media, and is just as relevant to other major international cities as it is to Tokyo; however, Tokyo is far and away the most full of visual stimuli.
My point is that the TV phones allow you to make an active choice in what you consume. It is another alternative to reading books or the massive amount of advertising staring you in the face (waiting to be passively or actively consumed) as you sit on the train.
Presence of media and consumption go hand-in-hand. Consumption of media occurs at a conscious and subconscious level; i.e., you can be a passive consumer of media. An example would be the unavoidability of seeing these advertisements. You may be able to tune out a majority of them, but you cannot tune out all of them. If you ever think you are succeeding in tuning out all of them, you are merely fooling yourself, because you are so used to seeing them that the ads that get through your "tune-out shield" are handled subconsciously. This is the same whether it is NYC, Tokyo, Boston, Montreal, Munich, Berlin, Amsterdam, or London.
Yes, my point is that the TVness of the phone is not new because Vodafone has it already. What Samsung is developing will be yet another TV phone, only this time it will receive satellite broadcasting. The satelliteness of the phone is news.
Here in Tokyo, we use our mobile phones all the time to send and receive email and play video games, especially while riding the train. The three most common things to see on the train: people sleeping, people reading, and people typing on their phones.
Watching TV on your phone is a logical next step. The only problem being the size of the screen. It's hard to watch something that small for a long period of time. However, for the short period of time most people will want to watch it (say the 10 or 20 minutes between Nishi-Nippori and Ikebukuro), it is a perfect distraction.
Consumption of media in Japan is huge. It is a highly visual culture. Look out of any window in a metropolitan area and you will see billboards and neon in any direction. The stations and trains are no different: advertisements are plastered not only to the sides above the seats, but hang from the ceiling inside the train. Some of the trains on the Yamanote line have video screens placed in the cars which show brief videos of the weather and commercials.
Having your own TV reception in the phone at least allows those people addicted to visual stimuli to choose their own poison.
What will be truly interesting is how long before these TV phone models are offered for free to new subscribers. Note: each year, the previous year's models are given away for anywhere from 0 to 100 Yen to new subscribers (or those who are willing to change their phone numbers). 100 yen = $0.97
In Japan, Vodafone sells a NEC phone that has a built-in TV tuner. Go to Vodafone's Japanese site (English link) to check it out (and their other awesome models).
The advertisements for this phone show two businessmen standing on the train platform. One of them is using an older DoCoMo style phone, and is standing alone on the right side of the picture. On the left side of the picture stands a younger businessman with one of the NEC TV phones: he is surrounded by lots of people peering over his shoulder at the phone. He has a huge grin on his face. The older man on the right side of the picture is looking sad and alone as he holds his phone out in front of him and looks enviously over at the younger man.
From what I can gather from Google, it seems one of their projects was a set of Java libraries designed to work with Apple's Rendezvous service. Here is a link: http://chrisheller.org/blog/archives/000048.html But, I think this was only a side project... since it seems that development is now moved to Sourceforge: http://sourceforge.net/projects/jmdns/
Okay, I see your point, but it just seems to me that even if the owner knows his key, the owner override program would be considered illegal under the DMCA or some such crap.
True, informing people is an important component in getting anyone to do anything about any issue. Will the general public ever understand waht Trusted Computing is? I doubt it. Will a small population of technology specialists understand it? Of course. Can those technology specialists mount a campaign to educate the media who can then educate the general public, or educate the legislators who might change preserve the fair use rights of end users? Maybe, but it will be a hard battle that is by no means guaranteed. That's all I'm saying. Should we just give up without a fight? Hell no. But be under no illusions that simply because we believe our cause to be just, the powers that be will give up on their money-grubbing schemes to limit the freedoms of end-users. It may be that we win in the end. It may be we lose. Only time will tell. The pessimist in me suspects that we will be on the short end of the stick, but is willing to fight anyway.
With regard to your law enforcement example, I think it's a good idea, but only friendly legislators/legislation will give everyone the right to the special data recovery techniques you so idealistically developed for the government. Why should they make it legal for Joe Enduser to have access to decryption technology just because the government does?
I say continue to develop hardware/software projects that liberate us from Trusted Computing. Such efforts will benefit all members of society. Good luck.
I agree in principle; I should be able to "vote" with my dollars for whichever technological solution I prefer. In fact, I can and do. However, the note of dismay present in my post reflects my resignation to the fact that no amount of voting with dollars is going to prevent DRM from being implemented by the major corporations like Sony and Philips or whoever. Sure, 5 years from now when ever consumer device is DRMed there may still be a handful of independent online or hardware based vendors offering non-DRM products, but it's going to be a rare thing and an uncertain climate for those vendors.
Voting with dollars in the case of DRM hasn't been working so far, and there is no reason to think that it will succeed in stemming the tide of legislation or manufacturer implementations.
One could theorize on the reasons for this, such as the fact that ultimately Capitalism isn't about doing what's "fair", "right", or "best for the consumer" -- it's about doing what makes a company the most money: and so far, companies perceive potential and imagined lost revenue caused by P2P etc. to be far greater than lost revenue resulting from a few idealistic Slashdot readers buying competitors' non-DRMed products or using competitors' non-DRMed services. In the minds of large corporations, those competitors are tiny small fry that can be safely ignored for now, or can be easily purchased or crushed later if they become a threat.
I do not purchase DRM products or use DRM services out of principle, and I will continue not to do so, but I am skeptical of how long such options will exist and whether my "vote" will make any difference at all in the end. My guess is "not long" and "not much", respectively. However, as an idealistic individual, I'll try anyway.
Well, it seems like this issue is definitely not going away, despite what many might wish. Naturally, it will be implemented and at first some people will whine about the annoyances, but nobody will actually do anything to stop the widespread adoption of DRM (who could possibly succeed?).
Looks like Sony and Philips will bring the noise with their InterTrust acquisition. What technology was InterTrust developing? How might it be implemented in electronics? Are we going to see some sort of digital signature type of authentication or encryption occuring between devices (e.g., a DVD player and a computer)? Or between a HDTV and a DVD recorder or PVR?
The code that detects the currency was given to Adobe as a black-box binary (presumably with APIs so Adobe's engineers could hook into it...it's probably not as obvious as a separate DLL; was it given as object code to be linked into the final binary of Photoshop CS?)
To legally obtain high-res, uncrippled banknote images from the U.S. Bureau of Engraving and Printing, a graphic designer must request it in writing from the director of the bureau, entailing an average two-week wait for a reply.
While it is nice that Adobe and Jasc and presumably other companies are voluntarily trying to be "good citizens" by crippling their software, I regret their actions. This is yet another example of companies restricting the abilities of end-users. It is similar to the restrictions of DRM in software or hardware, being unable to copy digital music off of a Mini-Disc or MP3 player onto a computer, etc.
I am not passing judgement, I am not crying "Adobe is infringing our rights" (do people have a legal right to digitally manipulate images?), I am not even whining. However, it is an observation and one that seems to resonate with the bizarre convergence of technology restrictions that are cropping up all over the place. As someone wrote on a website I can't find at the moment: I'm not one to hold truck with conspiracy theorists, but there are a lot of individual efforts out there to solve separate problems using technological restrictions that, when taken together in a big picture, result in a completely different computing landscape.
IT managers and and other executive decision makers who have been nervous about all the warning shots fired between the battleships in this war of words can finally feast their eyes on tangible evidence demonstrating the untennable position of Darl McBride.
In particular I point to the letter dated 12 Jun 2003 from Novell to SCO regarding the Asset Purchase Agreement between the Santa Cruz Operation, Inc. and Novell, Inc., September 19, 1995.
In this letter, Jack Messman pretty clearly identifies the absurdity of Darl's claims be referring to very specific portions of the Asset Purchase Agreement, which give IBM "irrevocable" rights, and states that Novell also retains certain rights, over which SCO has no say.
Darl, I don't think this is even a close call. You and I both understand the Asset Purchase Agreement deal: SCO acquired certain assests from Novell but acquired thos assets subject to certain rights of Novell. You can't have one without the other.
[...] Novell takes its contractual commitments seriously. When we enter into or amend a license to make it "irrevocable," we mean what we say, and we expect our customers to be able to rely on what we say. We ask you to do the same.
Now, I ask you, does this not sound like a man who is sure of his position and the position of his company? It seems to me that Linux users (corporate, individual, or those who've ascended to the next plane of existence) should be well in the clear from the majority of any claims SCO might possibly level. This evidence combined with the confidence exhibited by multi-million dollar legal defense funds set up to help those who might be the target of SCO legal action will go a long way to reassuring executives.
Now, if only the judges in this case would hurry up and slap SCO back into the last century, where they should have stayed...
It seems that this is just a slightly different implementation of an old idea. The only really interesting thing is that they are searching for RFIDs using the same redundancy as DNS.
What are the similarities between CueCat and the EPC Directory project? It seems to me that the only difference is the scale of the implementation.
Slashdot Mirror
What you may not realize just by reading the article is that in Japan it is normal for men and women to continue to live with their parents until they get married, and after marriage one of the children (and that child's spouse) are expected to continue to live in the parents' house. It is only recently that things have started to change such that more college graduates are starting to move out of their parents' house. But that's not typical at all yet. The typical scenario is to live at home all through college (commuting to school each day) and then continue to live at home after graduating and joining a corporation (because the men can't cook for themselves and don't know how to do laundry, and the women generally aren't expected to get high paying jobs--they are expected to get married). So it is common to meet people who are 28 or older, unmarried, and still living at home with their parents.
I think you should use the computers to enable the students to watch anime with or without subtitles, as well as movies. Also, more important than that, is having the students watch real dialogues that you have recorded. I mean, real situations where people are using Japanese in a store or at the post office or someplace. You have to get the feel for the language and how it's used, which happens more easily if you can see it in action in a native environment.
The interesting aspect of JS's statement is that if he can get the market to equate Linux with Red Hat and not think about any other distribution or vendor, then by attacking Red Hat they can attack Linux at the same time. By reducing their opponents they make life easier for themselves. Normally Linux is thought of as a variety of distributions, but that's too difficult to fight. So, they need one opponenet, one corporation (one face) to represent all of Linux and then fight that. That's what it seems like they are doing. Also, Red Hat makes the most sense because they have enterprise sales aspirations, so probably they are seen as the biggest corporate distribution and hance the biggest threat by Sun execs.
Maybe it also explains the provision in their agreement with SUN that allows MS to sue them over StarOffice/OpenOffice.
Regardless, it's ominous for OSS/FS and programmers who might work on similar projects.
Office software project maintainers need to be very careful about what contributions they accept from now on. They need to be sure to vet the sources contributing the code and document all contributions and the name and contact info of the contributor, perhaps requiring the contributor to sign some legal statement affirming the code they are contributing is all original or otherwise free code.
Furthermore, couldn't this type of thing be done simply by filtering by domain name plus authentication credential (e.g., PGP key) at the Sendmail level? Nobody can send to or receive files from anyone who doesn't meet the two criteria:
1) same domain
2) PGP authenticated (to prevent address spoofing)
I'm sure there are corporations that are already doing something like this.
Disclaimer: I've only read a little bit of their web site.
From what I've read and can guess, this sounds like a private version of an online service. Think 1990's AOL, only on a micro-scale: to access the private network, you must have the correct network addresses and be an approved member. The network doesn't allow messages originating from outside the network, nor I imagine, can you send messages to external addresses. (Anyone with more specifics, feel free to correct me.)
Sounds like they have some encryption and allow direct downloads within the private circle of members
Eh? This sounds extremely fishy. I'm sure the technologies being implemented here are nothing new.
Sounds like you are in a private country club and are only playing with other people who can enter the club. Nobody gets in and nobody leaves... including telephone calls or anything else... it's like the outside world no longer exists once you enter, and for those in the outside world, it's as though the private country club doesn't exist... and ne'er the two shall meet.
Seems to me that this is analogous to Closed Circuit TV but just running over the existing broadcast spectrum in encrypted form (or something along those lines).
But practically speaking, isn't this like operating your own version of Jabber, but crippling it with a "feature" that prevents you from contacting (receiving from and sending to) anyone who's not listed in your buddies list and also using the exact same version of Jabber client?
In what way is this movie's creation and/or television broadcast akin to "short-circuiting the democratic process"??!!
This movie is not propaganda:
(The beginning of history, by John Berger, The Guardian, August 24, 2004.)Could this technique be what brings us one step closer to the material needed for developing the space elevator?
I have only seen one person watching TV on their phone here in Tokyo in the past 10 months. I went to the Vodafone store in Shibuya and demo'd a few models, watching live TV and all that, as well as movies. It's cool, but on the other hand, the screen is even smaller than the one in the back of the seat on Virgin Atlantic flights.
More exciting for me was the new phone that has a 2 megapixel camera with movie ability, excellent-sounding digital music playback, and movie playback. They use SD cards for storage. The cost is around $300, IIRC. I'm waiting for my one-year mark to pass to upgrade my phone even cheaper. I hate carrying around a separate camera, phone, and music player to events. I want them all in one device, damnit.
Baystar isn't going to help IBM because Baystar wants a return on their investment in SCO. I.e., SCO must win the lawsuits in order for Baystar to profit; therefore, Baystar isn't going to help IBM.
IBM might have targetted some of the listed companies because they are willing to help IBM, and some of the companies because they are not going to put up much resistence.
I hope IBM kicks ass and takes names.
1) Microsoft wins by getting people to develop their software for free.
2) Microsoft wins by getting "good press" for having released something in their Shared Source Initiative program.
3) Microsoft wins more "good press" by placing the released application on SourceForge (the well-known bastion of Open Source developers).
4) Microsoft wins because it persuades people it is playing nice, people let their guard down, and then Microsoft slowly spreads their foul seed....
Can an 800 pound gorilla known for deceit and the ability to subtly infiltrate and influence almost any industry it touches really be trusted?
According to my (possibly incorrect) conversion, 500 euros is about $617.
1 EUR = 1.23508 USD
Or perhaps you were being sarcastic?
At first, I wondered what the hell this post was doing on /.
Then I realized it: a true geek treasure hunt.
However, I'm not sure 500 Euros is worth the effort. It's already been a few weeks. It's unlikely the car is still in one piece. Maybe someone can get lucky and locate the laptop (or at least the ethernet card). I'd be shocked if the car and laptop were both found together.
This is a great technology for those studying media and culture. It reminds me a bit of the HP technology that tracks the spread of stories on web logs. What would be interesting is a combination of the following:
- the information and utility of Newsmap.
- the tracking of the HP blog project.
- the ability to track the author, source, and parent company of each article.
It is interesting to see how much press a given story is picking up, but it is even more interesting to track what media giant is publishing that story in as many of its subsidiaries as it can. This would allow people to see just how much control each conglomerate has over what news the public is allowed to consume. By the same token, what stories are seeing the least coverage? What potentially important news is being "obscured by shit"? Who publishes the news first? What companies merely follow stories that others have already broken?I'm not sure what exactly you are responding to in my post. What advertisers can afford to do or not do on a given train line is irrelevant to what I'm talking about. My point is about active vs. passive consumption of media, and is just as relevant to other major international cities as it is to Tokyo; however, Tokyo is far and away the most full of visual stimuli.
My point is that the TV phones allow you to make an active choice in what you consume. It is another alternative to reading books or the massive amount of advertising staring you in the face (waiting to be passively or actively consumed) as you sit on the train.
Presence of media and consumption go hand-in-hand. Consumption of media occurs at a conscious and subconscious level; i.e., you can be a passive consumer of media. An example would be the unavoidability of seeing these advertisements. You may be able to tune out a majority of them, but you cannot tune out all of them. If you ever think you are succeeding in tuning out all of them, you are merely fooling yourself, because you are so used to seeing them that the ads that get through your "tune-out shield" are handled subconsciously. This is the same whether it is NYC, Tokyo, Boston, Montreal, Munich, Berlin, Amsterdam, or London.
Yes, my point is that the TVness of the phone is not new because Vodafone has it already. What Samsung is developing will be yet another TV phone, only this time it will receive satellite broadcasting. The satelliteness of the phone is news.
Here in Tokyo, we use our mobile phones all the time to send and receive email and play video games, especially while riding the train. The three most common things to see on the train: people sleeping, people reading, and people typing on their phones.
Watching TV on your phone is a logical next step. The only problem being the size of the screen. It's hard to watch something that small for a long period of time. However, for the short period of time most people will want to watch it (say the 10 or 20 minutes between Nishi-Nippori and Ikebukuro), it is a perfect distraction.
Consumption of media in Japan is huge. It is a highly visual culture. Look out of any window in a metropolitan area and you will see billboards and neon in any direction. The stations and trains are no different: advertisements are plastered not only to the sides above the seats, but hang from the ceiling inside the train. Some of the trains on the Yamanote line have video screens placed in the cars which show brief videos of the weather and commercials.
Having your own TV reception in the phone at least allows those people addicted to visual stimuli to choose their own poison.
What will be truly interesting is how long before these TV phone models are offered for free to new subscribers. Note: each year, the previous year's models are given away for anywhere from 0 to 100 Yen to new subscribers (or those who are willing to change their phone numbers). 100 yen = $0.97
In Japan, Vodafone sells a NEC phone that has a built-in TV tuner. Go to Vodafone's Japanese site (English link) to check it out (and their other awesome models).
The advertisements for this phone show two businessmen standing on the train platform. One of them is using an older DoCoMo style phone, and is standing alone on the right side of the picture. On the left side of the picture stands a younger businessman with one of the NEC TV phones: he is surrounded by lots of people peering over his shoulder at the phone. He has a huge grin on his face. The older man on the right side of the picture is looking sad and alone as he holds his phone out in front of him and looks enviously over at the younger man.
From what I can gather from Google, it seems one of their projects was a set of Java libraries designed to work with Apple's Rendezvous service. Here is a link: http://chrisheller.org/blog/archives/000048.html
But, I think this was only a side project... since it seems that development is now moved to Sourceforge: http://sourceforge.net/projects/jmdns/
Okay, I see your point, but it just seems to me that even if the owner knows his key, the owner override program would be considered illegal under the DMCA or some such crap.
True, informing people is an important component in getting anyone to do anything about any issue. Will the general public ever understand waht Trusted Computing is? I doubt it. Will a small population of technology specialists understand it? Of course. Can those technology specialists mount a campaign to educate the media who can then educate the general public, or educate the legislators who might change preserve the fair use rights of end users? Maybe, but it will be a hard battle that is by no means guaranteed. That's all I'm saying. Should we just give up without a fight? Hell no. But be under no illusions that simply because we believe our cause to be just, the powers that be will give up on their money-grubbing schemes to limit the freedoms of end-users. It may be that we win in the end. It may be we lose. Only time will tell. The pessimist in me suspects that we will be on the short end of the stick, but is willing to fight anyway.
With regard to your law enforcement example, I think it's a good idea, but only friendly legislators/legislation will give everyone the right to the special data recovery techniques you so idealistically developed for the government. Why should they make it legal for Joe Enduser to have access to decryption technology just because the government does?
I say continue to develop hardware/software projects that liberate us from Trusted Computing. Such efforts will benefit all members of society. Good luck.
I agree in principle; I should be able to "vote" with my dollars for whichever technological solution I prefer. In fact, I can and do. However, the note of dismay present in my post reflects my resignation to the fact that no amount of voting with dollars is going to prevent DRM from being implemented by the major corporations like Sony and Philips or whoever. Sure, 5 years from now when ever consumer device is DRMed there may still be a handful of independent online or hardware based vendors offering non-DRM products, but it's going to be a rare thing and an uncertain climate for those vendors.
Voting with dollars in the case of DRM hasn't been working so far, and there is no reason to think that it will succeed in stemming the tide of legislation or manufacturer implementations.
One could theorize on the reasons for this, such as the fact that ultimately Capitalism isn't about doing what's "fair", "right", or "best for the consumer" -- it's about doing what makes a company the most money: and so far, companies perceive potential and imagined lost revenue caused by P2P etc. to be far greater than lost revenue resulting from a few idealistic Slashdot readers buying competitors' non-DRMed products or using competitors' non-DRMed services. In the minds of large corporations, those competitors are tiny small fry that can be safely ignored for now, or can be easily purchased or crushed later if they become a threat.
I do not purchase DRM products or use DRM services out of principle, and I will continue not to do so, but I am skeptical of how long such options will exist and whether my "vote" will make any difference at all in the end. My guess is "not long" and "not much", respectively. However, as an idealistic individual, I'll try anyway.
Well, it seems like this issue is definitely not going away, despite what many might wish. Naturally, it will be implemented and at first some people will whine about the annoyances, but nobody will actually do anything to stop the widespread adoption of DRM (who could possibly succeed?).
Looks like Sony and Philips will bring the noise with their InterTrust acquisition. What technology was InterTrust developing? How might it be implemented in electronics? Are we going to see some sort of digital signature type of authentication or encryption occuring between devices (e.g., a DVD player and a computer)? Or between a HDTV and a DVD recorder or PVR?
from the article include:
The code that detects the currency was given to Adobe as a black-box binary (presumably with APIs so Adobe's engineers could hook into it...it's probably not as obvious as a separate DLL; was it given as object code to be linked into the final binary of Photoshop CS?)
To legally obtain high-res, uncrippled banknote images from the U.S. Bureau of Engraving and Printing, a graphic designer must request it in writing from the director of the bureau, entailing an average two-week wait for a reply.
While it is nice that Adobe and Jasc and presumably other companies are voluntarily trying to be "good citizens" by crippling their software, I regret their actions. This is yet another example of companies restricting the abilities of end-users. It is similar to the restrictions of DRM in software or hardware, being unable to copy digital music off of a Mini-Disc or MP3 player onto a computer, etc.
I am not passing judgement, I am not crying "Adobe is infringing our rights" (do people have a legal right to digitally manipulate images?), I am not even whining. However, it is an observation and one that seems to resonate with the bizarre convergence of technology restrictions that are cropping up all over the place. As someone wrote on a website I can't find at the moment: I'm not one to hold truck with conspiracy theorists, but there are a lot of individual efforts out there to solve separate problems using technological restrictions that, when taken together in a big picture, result in a completely different computing landscape.
IT managers and and other executive decision makers who have been nervous about all the warning shots fired between the battleships in this war of words can finally feast their eyes on tangible evidence demonstrating the untennable position of Darl McBride.
In particular I point to the letter dated 12 Jun 2003 from Novell to SCO regarding the Asset Purchase Agreement between the Santa Cruz Operation, Inc. and Novell, Inc., September 19, 1995.
In this letter, Jack Messman pretty clearly identifies the absurdity of Darl's claims be referring to very specific portions of the Asset Purchase Agreement, which give IBM "irrevocable" rights, and states that Novell also retains certain rights, over which SCO has no say.
Now, I ask you, does this not sound like a man who is sure of his position and the position of his company? It seems to me that Linux users (corporate, individual, or those who've ascended to the next plane of existence) should be well in the clear from the majority of any claims SCO might possibly level. This evidence combined with the confidence exhibited by multi-million dollar legal defense funds set up to help those who might be the target of SCO legal action will go a long way to reassuring executives.
Now, if only the judges in this case would hurry up and slap SCO back into the last century, where they should have stayed...
It seems that this is just a slightly different implementation of an old idea. The only really interesting thing is that they are searching for RFIDs using the same redundancy as DNS.
What are the similarities between CueCat and the EPC Directory project? It seems to me that the only difference is the scale of the implementation.
Is that accurate?