Warning: This website can trigger an obsessive search for comets.
In offices, dens and dorm rooms around the world, a geeky band of hunters are desperately scouring the site for comets. A German student likened his interest to addiction. A father of three in Britain, who has found 132 comets, is reluctant to admit just how much time he spends on his quest.
The unknown comets are turning up in the background of photos of the sun taken from the Solar and Heliospheric Observatory, or SOHO, a satellite in orbit around the sun. Dozens of amateur astronomers from around the world scour the images for the wispy tail of a comet, racing to be the first human to ever lay eyes on a particular glowing ball of ice hurtling toward the sun.
Sebastian Hoenig constantly pores over the SOHO images, sometimes for 16 hours a day. Since he started visiting the SOHO website in December 2000, he has found 18 comets and he's gunning for more.
"Searching for comets has become like addiction," said Hoenig, who studies astronomy and physics at Ruprecht-Karls University in Heidelberg, Germany. A competitive speed skater, he compared discovering a comet to victory in sports. "When you realize that no one else has ever seen it before, it's like winning the gold medal: great feeling."
Launched in 1995, the SOHO observatory is a joint project of NASA and the European Space Agency. The primary purpose of the mission is to study solar activity. The discovery of hundreds of new comets -- more than 400 have been found so far -- has been an unexpected perk.
The undisputed champion among amateur SOHO comet hunters is Mike Oates, 45, a father of three from Manchester, Great Britain, where he runs an electroplating business. With 132 comet discoveries to his name, his tally is nearly triple that of second-ranked Xavier Leprette of France, who has found 50 comets.
Oates, possessed with the same compulsive thirst for discovery that drives Hoenig, has spent more hours looking for comets than he cares to admit.
"I would not like to give any exact figures," he said. "But at my peak, I have my computer downloading images for at least 12 hours a day, with about half that spent directly image processing and searching."
When Oates started plowing through the SOHO archives to find images taken before the website went live -- a clever tactic his rivals hadn't thought of -- he really started to pile on the comet credits. He considers these archival finds particularly satisfying. "There is just that little extra thrill of discovering comets that have been missed by the professionals," he said.
Doug Biesecker, a scientist who works on the SOHO project, said his team didn't plan on amateur astronomers playing such a huge role in picking comets out from the chronograph images. But when they started posting the images on the Web in 1999, the e-mails started to roll in.
Nearly all the messages came from people who had mistaken a star, or planet, or imperfections in the photos for comets. But a few people were really onto something. "They started to find objects we were missing," Biesecker said. "We realized (help from amateurs) was an important tool we could use."
Biesecker set up a special website and reporting log for the comet spotters. Once Biesecker verifies a discovery, he reports the new comet and its discoverer to the Central Bureau for Astronomical Telegrams at Harvard, the world's official recorder of celestial discoveries.
Amateurs looking at the SOHO images on the Web have found 76 percent of the 428 new comets that have turned up in SOHO images. Of the 31 people who have discovered comets, 21 of them are amateurs. They come from 10 different countries, including Australia, Great Britain, Germany and China.
The comet hunters agree that the spirit of competition is a big part of the allure. Nearly all the comets they find are tiny shards of rock and ice, doomed to evaporate in the sun's atmosphere days after they are spotted.
"There's not great science coming out of us discovering these comets," said Rob Matson, a systems engineer from Newport Beach, California. "But there's a thrill of the hunt." Matson has yet to bag his first comet, but he spends about ten hours a week trying.
But the competition is friendly. Hoenig has built a website to help newbies get the hang of comet spotting and comet-master Oates has one too.
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Page 1 2 Unintended Consequences: Three Years Under the DMCA 1 v. 1.0 (May 3, 2002) for latest version, visit www. eff. org
Unintended Consequences: Three Years under the DMCA 1. Executive Summary Since they were enacted in 1998, the "anti-circumvention" provisions of the Digital Millennium
Copyright Act (" DMCA"), codified in section 1201 of the Copyright Act, have not been used as Congress envisioned. Congress meant to stop copyright pirates from defeating anti-piracy protections added to copyrighted works, and to ban "black box" devices intended for that purpose. 1
In practice, the anti-circumvention provisions have been used to stifle a wide array of legitimate activities, rather than to stop copyright piracy. As a result, the DMCA has developed into a serious threat to three important public policy priorities: Section 1201 Chills Free Expression and Scientific Research.
Experience with section 1201 demonstrates that it is being used to stifle free speech and
scientific research. The lawsuit against 2600 magazine, threats against Princeton Professor Edward Felten's team of researchers, and prosecution of Russian programmer Dmitry Sklyarov have chilled the legitimate activities of journalists, publishers, scientists, students, programmers, and members of the public. Section 1201 Jeopardizes Fair Use. By banning all acts of circumvention, and all technologies and tools that can be used for
circumvention, section 1201 grants to copyright owners the power to unilaterally eliminate the public's fair use rights. Already, the music industry has begun deploying "copy-protected CDs" that promise to curtail consumers' ability to make legitimate, personal copies of music they have purchased. Section 1201 Impedes Competition and Innovation.
Rather than focusing on pirates, many copyright owners have chosen to use the
DMCA to hinder their legitimate competitors. For example, Sony has invoked section 1201 to protect their monopoly on Playstation
video game consoles, as well as their "regionalization" system limiting users in one country from playing games legitimately purchased in another.
This document collects a number of reported cases where the anti-circumvention provisions of the DMCA have been invoked not against pirates, but against consumers, scientists, and legitimate competitors. It will be updated from time to time as additional cases come to light. The latest version can always be obtained at www. eff. org.
2. DMCA Legislative Background Congress enacted section 1201 in response to two pressures. First, Congress was responding to the
perceived need to implement obligations imposed on the U. S. by the 1996 World Intellectual Property Or-ganization (WIPO) Copyright Treaty. Section 1201, however, went further than the WIPO treaty required. 2 The details of section 1201, then, were a response not just to U. S. treaty obligations, but also to the concerns of copyright owners that their works would be widely pirated in the networked digital world. 3
Section 1201 contains two distinct prohibitions: a ban on acts of circumvention, as well as a ban on the distribution of tools and technologies used for circumvention. The first prohibition, set out in section 1201( a)( 1), prohibits the act of circumventing a technological
measure used by copyright owners to control access to their works (" access controls"). So, for example, this provision makes it unlawful to defeat the encryption system used on DVD movies. This ban on acts of circumvention applies even where the purpose for decrypting the movie would otherwise be legitimate. As a result, if a Disney DVD prevents you from fast-forwarding through the commercials that preface the feature presentation, efforts to circumvent this restriction would be unlawful.
Second, sections 1201( a)( 2) and 1201( b) outlaw the manufacture, sale, distribution or trafficking of tools and technologies that make circumvention possible. These provisions ban not only technologies that defeat access controls, but also technologies that defeat use restrictions imposed by copyright owners, such as copy 1 1 Page 2 3 Unintended Consequences: Three Years Under the DMCA 2 controls. These provisions prevent technology vendors from taking steps to defeat the "copy-protection" now appearing on many music CDs, for example. Section 1201 also includes a number of exceptions for certain limited classes of activities, including
security testing, reverse engineering of software, encryption research, and law enforcement. These exceptions have been extensively criticized as being too narrow to be of real use to the constituencies who they were intended to assist. 4 A violation of any of the "act" or "tools" prohibitions is subject to significant civil and, in some
circumstances, criminal penalties.
3. Free Expression and Scientific Research Section 1201 is being used by a number of copyright owners to stifle free speech and legitimate scientific
research. The lawsuit against 2600 magazine, threats against Princeton Professor Edward Felten's team of researchers, and prosecution of the Russian programmer Dmitry Sklyarov have imposed a chill on a variety of legitimate activities. For example, online service providers and bulletin board operators have begun to censor discussions of
copy-protection systems, programmers have removed computer security programs from their websites, and students, scientists and security experts have stopped publishing details of their research on existing security protocols. Foreign scientists are also increasingly uneasy about traveling to the United States out of fear of possible DMCA liability, and certain technical conferences have begun to relocate overseas.
These developments will ultimately result in weakened security for all computer users (including, ironically, for copyright owners counting on technical measures to protect their works), as security researchers shy away from research that might run afoul of section 1201. 5
Professor Felten's Research Team Threatened In September 2000, a multi-industry group known as the Secure Digital Music Initiative (SDMI) issued a
public challenge encouraging skilled technologists to try to defeat certain watermarking technologies intended to protect digital music. Princeton Professor Edward Felten and a team of researchers at Princeton, Rice, and Xerox took up the challenge and succeeded in removing the watermarks.
When the team tried to present their results at an academic conference, however, SDMI representatives threatened the researchers with liability under the DMCA. The threat letter was also delivered to the researchers' employers, as well as the conference
organizers. After extensive discussions with counsel, the researchers grudgingly withdrew their paper from the conference. The threat was ultimately withdrawn and a portion of the research published at a subsequent conference, but only after the researchers filed a lawsuit in federal court.
After enduring this experience, at least one of the researchers involved has decided to forgo further research efforts in this field. Pamela Samuelson, "Anticircumvention Rules: Threat to Science," 293 SCIENCE 2028,
Sept. 14, 2001. http:// www. sciencemag. org/ cgi/ reprint/ 293 /5537/ 2028 Letter from Matthew Oppenheim, SDMI General Counsel, to Prof. Edward Felten,
April 9, 2001. http:// cryptome. org/ sdmi-attack. htm
Dmitry Sklyarov Arrested Beginning in July 2001, Russian programmer Dmitry Sklyarov was jailed for several weeks and detained for
five months in the United States after speaking at the DEFCON conference in Las Vegas.
Prosecutors, prompted by software goliath Adobe Systems Inc., alleged that Sklyarov had worked on a software program known as the Advanced e-Book Processor, which was distributed over the Internet by his Russian employer, ElcomSoft Co. Ltd. The software allowed owners of Adobe electronic books (" e-books") to convert them from Adobe's e-Book format into Adobe Portable Document Format (" pdf") files, thereby removing restrictions embedded into the files by e-Book publishers.
Sklyarov was never accused of infringing any copyrighted e-Book, nor of assisting anyone else to infringe copyrights. His alleged crime was working on a software tool with many legitimate uses, simply because third parties he has never met might use the tool to copy an e-Book without the publisher's permission.
In December 2001, under an agreement with the Department of Justice, Sklyarov was allowed to return home. The Department of Justice, however, is continuing to prosecute his employer, ElcomSoft, under the criminal provisions of the DMCA. Lawrence Lessig, "Jail Time in the Digital Age," N. Y. TIMES at A7, July 30, 2001.
Jennifer 8 Lee, "U. S. Arrests Russian Cryptographer as Copyright Violator," N. Y. TIMES at C8, July 18, 2001. 2 2 Page 3 4 Unintended Consequences: Three Years Under the DMCA 3 Scientists and Programmers Withhold Research Following the legal threat against Professor Felten's research team and the arrest of Dmitry Sklyarov, a
number of prominent computer security experts have curtailed their legitimate research activities out of fear of potential DMCA liability. For example, prominent Dutch cryptographer and security systems analyst Neils Ferguson discovered a
major security flaw in an Intel video encryption system known as High Bandwidth Digital Content Protection (HDCP). He declined to publish his results and removed all references on his website relating to flaws in HDCP, on the grounds that he travels frequently to the U. S. and is fearful of "prosecution and/ or liability under the U. S. DMCA law." Neils Ferguson, "Censorship in Action: Why I Don't Publish My HDCP Results," Aug. 15,
2001. http:// www. macfergus. com/ niels/ dmca/ cia. html Neils Ferguson, Declaration in Felten & Ors v R. I. A. A. case, Aug. 13, 2001.
http:// www. eff. org/ IP/ DMCA/ Felten_ v_ RI AA/ 20010813_ ferguson_ decl. html
Lisa M. Bowman, "Researchers Weigh Publication, Prosecution," CNET NEWS, Aug. 15, 2001. http:// news. cnet. com/ news/ 0-1005-200- 6886574. html Following the arrest of Dmitry Sklyarov, Fred Cohen, a professor of digital forensics and respected
security consultant, removed his "Forensix" evidence-gathering software from his website, citing fear of potential DMCA liability. Another respected network security protection expert, Dug Song, also removed content from his
website for the same reason. Mr. Song is the author of several security papers, including a paper describing a common vulnerability in many firewalls. Robert Lemos, "Security Workers: Copyright Law Stifles," CNET NEWS, Sept. 6, 2001.
http:// news. com. com/ 2100-1001-272716. html
In mid-2001 an anonymous programmer discovered a vulnerability in Microsoft's proprietary e-Book digital rights management code, but refused to publish the results, citing DMCA liability concerns.
Wade Roush, "Breaking Microsoft's e-Book Code," TECHNOLOGY REVIEW at 24, November 2001. http:// www. technologyreview. com/ articles/ i nnovation11101. asp
Foreign Scientists Avoid U. S. Foreign scientists have expressed concerns about traveling to the U. S. following the arrest of Russian
programmer Dmitry Sklyarov. Some foreign scientists have advocated boycotting conferences held in the U. S. and a number of conference bodies have decided to move their conferences to non-U. S. locations. Russia has issued a travel warning to Russian programmers traveling to the U. S.
Highly respected British Linux programmer Alan Cox resigned from the USENIX committee of the Advanced Computing Systems Association, the committee that organizes many of the U. S. computing conferences, because of his concerns about traveling to the U. S. Cox has urged USENIX to hold its annual conference offshore. The International Information Hiding Workshop Conference, the conference at which Professor Felten's team intended to present its original paper, has chosen to hold all of its future conferences outside of the U. S. following the SDMI threat to Professor Felten and his team.
Will Knight, "Computer Scientists boycott US over digital copyright law," NEW SCIENTIST, July 23, 2001. http:// www. newscientist. com/ news/ news. jsp ?id= ns00001063 Alan Cox of Red Hat UK Ltd, declaration in Felten v. RIAA, Aug. 13, 2001.
http:// www. eff. org/ IP/ DMCA/ Felten_ v_ RI AA/ 20010813_ cox_ decl. html
Jennifer 8 Lee, "Travel Advisory for Russian Programmers," N. Y. TIMES at C4, Sept. 10, 2001. http:// www. nytimes. com/ 2001/ 09/ 10/ techn ology/ 10WARN. html? searchpv= past7days IEEE Wrestles with DMCA The Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE), which publishes 30 per cent of all computer
science journals worldwide, recently was drawn into the controversy surrounding science and the DMCA. Apparently concerned about possible liability under Section 1201, the IEEE in November 2001 instituted a policy requiring all authors to indemnify IEEE for any liabilities incurred should a submission result in legal action under the DCMA. After an outcry from IEEE members, the organization ultimately revised its submission policies, removing
mention of the DMCA. According to Bill Hagen, manager of IEEE Intellectual Property Rights, "The Digital Millennium Copyright Act has become a very sensitive subject among our authors. It's intended to protect digital content, but its application in some 3 3 Page 4 5 Unintended Consequences: Three Years Under the DMCA 4 specific cases appears to have alienated large segments of the research community." IEEE press release, "IEEE to Revise New Copyright Form to Address Author Concerns," April 22, 2002. http:// www. ieee. org/ newsinfo/ dmca. html
Will Knight, "Controversial Copyright Clause Abandoned," NEW SCIENTIST, April 15, 2002. http:// www. newscientist. com/ news/ news. jsp ?id= ns99992169
2600 Magazine Censored The Universal City Studios v. Reimerdes case 6 illustrates the chilling effect that section 1201 has had on the
freedom of the press. In that case, eight major motion picture companies brought a DMCA suit against 2600 magazine seeking to
block it from publishing the DeCSS software program, which defeats the encryption used on DVD movies. 2600 had made the program available on its web site in the course of ongoing coverage of the controversy surrounding the DMCA. The magazine was not involved in the development of software, nor was it accused of having used the software for any copyright infringement.
Notwithstanding the First Amendment's guarantee of a free press, the district court permanently barred 2600 from publishing, or even linking to, the DeCSS software code. In November 2001, the Second Circuit Court of Appeals upheld the lower court decision. In essence, the movie studios effectively obtained a "stop the presses" order banning the publication of
truthful information by a news publication concerning a matter of public concern-- an unprecedented curtailment of well-established First Amendment prin-ciples.
Carl S. Kaplan, "Questioning Continues in Copyright Suit," N. Y. TIMES, May 4, 2001. http:// www. nytimes. com/ 2001/ 05/ 04/ techn ology/ 04CYBERLAW. html
Simson Garfinkel, "The Net Effect: The DVD Rebellion," TECHNOLOGY REVIEW at 25, July/ Aug. 2001. http:// www. technologyreview. com/ articles/ g arfinkel0701. asp Xenia P. Kobylarz, "DVD Case Clash-- Free Speech Advocates Say Copyright Owners
Want to Lock Up Ideas; Encryption Code is Key," S. F. DAILY JOURNAL, May 1, 2001.
Microsoft Threatens Slashdot In spring 2000, Microsoft invoked the DMCA against the Internet publication forum Slashdot,
demanding that forum moderators delete materials relating to Microsoft's proprietary implementation of an open security standard known as Kerberos. In the Slashdot forum, several individuals alleged that Microsoft had changed the open, non-proprietary
Kerberos specification in order to prevent non-Microsoft servers from interacting with Windows 2000. Many speculated that this move was intended to force users to purchase Microsoft server software. Although Microsoft responded to this criticism by publishing its Kerberos specification, it conditioned access to the specification on agreement to a "click-wrap" license agreement that expressly forbade disclosure of the specification without Microsoft's prior consent. Slashdot posters responded by republishing the Microsoft specification. Microsoft then invoked the
DMCA, demanding that Slashdot remove the republished specifications.
In the words of Georgetown law professor Julie Cohen, "If Microsoft's interpretation of the DMCA's ban on circumvention technologies is right, then it doesn't seem to matter much whether posting unauthorized copies of the Microsoft Kerberos specification would be a fair use. A publisher can prohibit fair-use commentary simply by implementing access and disclosure restrictions that bind the entire public. Anyone who discloses the information, or even tells others how to get it, is a felon."
Julie Cohen, "Call it the Digital Millennium Censorship Act - Unfair Use," THE NEW REPUBLIC, May 23, 2000. http:// www. thenewrepublic. com/ cyberspace /cohen052300. html AVSforum. com Censors TiVo Discussion The specter of DMCA litigation has chilled speech on smaller web bulletin boards, as well. In June 2001,
for example, the administrator of AVSforum. com, a popular forum where TiVo digital video recorder owners discuss TiVo features, censored all discussion about a software program that allegedly permitted TiVo users to move video from their TiVos to their personal computers. In the words of the forum administrator, "My fear with this is more or less I have no clue what is a protected system on the TiVo box under copyright (or what-have-you) and what is not. Thus my fear for the site."
Lisa M. Bowman, "TiVo Forum Hushes Hacking Discussion," CNET NEWS, June 11, 2001. 4 4 Page 5 6 Unintended Consequences: Three Years Under the DMCA 5 http:// news. cnet. com/ news/ 0-1005-200-6249739. html 4. Fair Use Under Siege "Fair use" is a crucial element in American copyright law-- the principle that the public is entitled, without
having to ask permission, to use copyrighted works so long as these uses do not unduly interfere with the copyright owner's market for a work. Fair uses include personal, noncommercial uses, such as using a VCR to record a television program for later viewing. Fair use also includes activities undertaken for purposes such as criticism, comment, news reporting, teaching, scholarship or research.
While stopping copyright infringement is an important policy objective, Section 1201 throws out the baby of fair use with the bathwater of digital piracy. By employing technical protection measures to control access to and use of copyrighted works, and using section 1201 litigation against anyone who tampers with those measures, copyright owners can unilaterally eliminate fair use, re-writing the copyright bargain developed by Congress and the courts over more than a century.
Copy-protected CDs The introduction of "copy-protected" CDs into the marketplace illustrates the collision between fair use
and the DMCA. Record labels are aggressively incorporating "copy-protection" on new music releases. Over 10 million copy-protected discs are already in circulation, according to Midbar Technology Ltd, one of the vendors of copy-protection technology. Sony claims that it has released over 11 million copy-protected discs worldwide. Universal Music Group has stated that all of its music CDs will incorporate copy-protection by mid-2002. Whatever the impact that these copy protection technologies may have on online infringement, they are
certain to interfere with the fair use expectations of consumers. For example, copy-protected discs will disappoint the hundreds of thousands of consumers who have purchased MP3 players, despite the fact that making an MP3 copy of a CD for personal use is a fair use. Making "mix CDs" or copies of CDs for the office or car are other examples of fair uses that are potentially impaired by copy-protection technologies.
Companies that distribute tools to "repair" these dysfunctional CDs, restoring to consumers their fair use privileges, run the risk of lawsuits under section 1201's ban on circumvention tools and technologies.
Rep. Rick Boucher, "Time to Rewrite the DMCA," CNET NEWS, Jan. 29, 2002.
http:// news. com. com/ 2010-1078-825335. html Dan Gillmor, "Entertainment Industry's Copyright Fight Puts Consumers in Cross Hairs," SAN JOSE MERCURY NEWS, Feb. 12, 2002. http:// www. siliconvalley. com/ mld/ siliconvall ey/ 2658555. htm
Gwendolyn Mariano, "Copy-Protected CDs Slide Into Stores," CNET NEWS, Feb. 12, 2002. http:// news. com. com/ 2100-1023- 835841. html Jon Iverson, "Every New CD to be Restricted?," STEREOPHILE, Oct. 1, 2001.
Jon Iverson, "A Universal CD Problem?," STEREOPHILE, Feb. 12, 2002. http:// www. stereophile. com/ shownews. cgi? 1 261
Fair Use Tools Banned We are entering an era where books, music and movies will increasingly be "copy-protected" and
otherwise restricted by technological means. Whether scholars, researchers, commentators and the public will continue to be able to make legitimate fair uses of these works will depend upon the availability of tools to bypass these digital locks. The DMCA's anti-circumvention provisions, how-ever, prohibit the creation or distribution of these tools,
even if they are crucial to fair use. So, as copyright owners use technology to press into the 21st century, the public will see more and more fair uses whittled away by digital locks allegedly intended to "prevent piracy." Perhaps more importantly, no future fair uses will be developed-- after all, before the VCR, who could have imagined that fair use "time-shifting" of television would become common-place for the average consumer? Copyright owners argue that these tools, in the hands of copyright infringers, can result in "Internet piracy."
But the traditional answer for piracy under copyright law has been to seek out and prosecute the infringers, not to ban the tools that enable fair use. After all, photocopiers, VCRs, and CD-R burners can also be misused, but no one would suggest that the public give them up simply because they might be used by others to break the law. 5 5 Page 6 7 Unintended Consequences: Three Years Under the DMCA 6 DeCSS and DVD Copy Plus Fair use tools have already been yanked off the market. In the Universal v. Reimerdes case, discussed
above, the court held that section 1201 bans DeCSS software. This software decrypts DVD movies, making it possible to copy them to a PC. In another case, a company has filed a declaratory judgment action in San Francisco after being threatened with DMCA liability by the MPAA for distributing DVD Copy Plus, which enables DVD owners to make copies of DVD content. There are lots of legitimate reasons to copy DVDs. Once the video is on the PC, for example, lots of fair
uses become possible-- film scholars can digitally analyze the film, travelers can load the movie into their laptops, and parents can fast-forward through the commercials that open Disney films. Without the tools necessary to copy DVDs, however, these fair uses become impossible.
Matthew Mirapaul, "They'll Always Have Paris (and the Web)," N. Y. TIMES at E2, March 16, 2002. Steven Bonisteel, "Firm Sues Movie Studios To Defend DVD-Copying Software,"
Newsbytes, April 23, 2002. http:// www. newsbytes. com/ news/ 02/ 17608 0. html Advanced e-Book Processor and e-Books The future of fair use for books is at issue in the criminal prosecution of Dmitry Sklyarov and
ElcomSoft. As discussed above, ElcomSoft produced and distributed a tool called the Advanced e-Book Processor, which translates e-books from Adobe's e-Book format to Adobe's Portable Document Format (" PDF"). This translation process removes the various restrictions (against copying, printing, text-to-speech processing, etc.) that publishers can impose on e-Books. The program is designed to work only with e-Books that have been lawfully purchased from sales outlets.
The Advanced e-Book Processor allows those who have legitimately purchased e-Books to make fair uses of their e-Books, which would otherwise not be possible with the current Adobe e-Book format. For instance, the program allows people to engage in the following activities, all of which are fair uses:
. read it on a laptop or computer other than the one on which the e-Book was first downloaded; . continue to access a work in the future, if the particular technological device for
which the e-Book was purchased becomes obsolete;
. print an e-Book on paper; . read an e-Book on an alternative operating system such as Linux (Adobe's format
works only on Macs and Windows PCs); . have a computer read an e-Book out loud using text-to-speech software, which is
particularly important for visually-impaired individuals.
EFF, Frequently Asked Questions re U. S. v. Sklyarov. http:// www. eff. org/ IP/ DMCA/ US_ v_ Sklyar ov/ us_ v_ sklyarov_ faq. html
Time-shifting and Streaming Media As more consumers receive audio and video content from "streaming" Internet media sources, they will
demand tools to preserve their settled fair use expectations, including the ability to "time-shift" programming for later listening or viewing. As a result of the DMCA, however, the digital equivalents of VCRs and cassette decks for streaming media may never arrive.
Start-up software company Streambox developed exactly such a product, known simply as the Streambox VCR, designed to time-shift streaming media. When competitor RealNetworks discovered that Streambox had developed a competing streaming media player, it invoked the DMCA and obtained an injunction against the Streambox VCR product. RealNetworks, Inc. v. Streambox, Inc., 2000 WL 127311 (W. D. Wash. Jan. 18, 2000).
The DMCA has also been invoked to threaten the developer of an open source, noncommercial software application known as Streamripper that records MP3 audio streams for later listening.
Cease and desist letter from Kenneth Plevan on behalf of Live365. com to John Clegg, developer of Streamripper, April 26, 2001. http:// streamripper. sourceforge. net/ dc. php
embed and Fonts In January 2002, typeface vendor Agfa Monotype Corporation threatened a college student with DMCA
liability for creating "embed," a free, open source, noncommercial software program designed to manipulate TrueType fonts. According to the student: "I wrote embed in 1997, after discovering that all of my fonts disallowed
embedding in documents. Since my fonts are free, this was silly-- but I didn't want to take the time to... change the flag, and then reset all of the extended font 6 6 Page 7 8 Unintended Consequences: Three Years Under the DMCA 7 properties with a separate program. What a bore! Instead, I wrote this program to convert all of my fonts at once. The program is very simple; it just requires setting a few bits to zero. Indeed, I noticed that other fonts that were licensed for unlimited distribution also disallowed embedding.... So, I put this program on the web in hopes that it would help other font developers as well."
Attorneys for Agfa Monotype nevertheless have threatened the student author with DMCA liability for distributing the program. According to Agfa, the fact that embed can be used to allow distribution of protected fonts makes it contraband under Section 1201, notwithstanding the fact that the tool has many legitimate uses in the hands of hobbyist font developers.
Tom Murphy, "embed: DMCA Threats." http:// www. andrew. cmu. edu/~ twm/ embed/ dmca. html
5. A threat to innovation and competition The DMCA is being used to hinder the efforts of legitimate competitors to create interoperable products.
For example, Vivendi-Universal's Blizzard video game division invoked the DMCA in an effort to intimidate the developers of a software product derived from legitimate reverse engineering. Sony has used the DMCA to threaten hobbyists who created competing software for Sony's Aibo robot dog, as well as to sue makers of software that permits the playing of Playstation games on PCs. In each of these cases, the DMCA was used to deter a marketplace competitor, rather than to battle piracy.
Sony Sues Connectix and Bleem Since the DMCA's enactment in 1998, Sony has used DMCA litigation to pressure competitors who created
software that would allow PC owners to play games intended for the Sony Playstation video game console. In 1999, Sony sued Connectix Corporation, the manufacturer of the Virtual Game Station, an emulator program which allowed Sony Playstation games to be played on Apple Macintosh computers. Sony also sued Bleem, the leading vendor of Playstation emulator software for Windows PCs.
In both cases, the Sony competitors had created their products by engaging in legitimate reverse engineering, which has been recognized as noninfringing fair use in a series of Ninth Circuit cases. Connectix, in fact, ultimately won a Ninth Circuit ruling that its reverse engineering was indeed fair use. 7 Both Connectix and Bleem, however, were unable to bear the high costs of litigation against Sony and ultimately were forced to pull their products off the market. Whatever the merits
of Sony's position may have been under copyright, trademark, patent, or other legal theories, the competitive efforts of Connectix and Bleem certainly were at a far remove from the "black box" piracy devices that Congress meant to target with section 1201.
Pamela Samuelson, "Intellectual Property and the Digital Economy: Why the Anti-Circumvention Regulations Need to be Revised," 14 BERKELEY TECHNOLOGY L. J. 519, 556 (1999) (discussing the Connectix case). http:// www. sims. berkeley. edu/~ pam/ papers. html
Testimony of Jonathan Hangartner on behalf of Bleem, Library of Congress, Hearing on DMCA, Stanford University, May 19, 2000, pp. 221-28. http:// www. loc. gov/ copyright/ 1201/ hearing s/ 1201-519. pdf
Sony Threatens Aibo Hobbyist Sony has also invoked the DMCA against a hobbyist who developed custom programs for Sony's Aibo
robotic "pet" dog. The hobbyist cracked the encryption surrounding the source code that manipulates the Aibo to reverse engineer programs that allow owners to customize voice recognition by their Aibos. The hobbyist revealed neither the decrypted source code nor the code he used to defeat the encryption, freely distributed his custom programs, and made no profit. Nevertheless, Sony claimed that the act of circum-venting the encryption surrounding the source code violated the DMCA and demanded that the hobbyist remove his programs from his website. Responding to public outcry, Sony ultimately permitted the hobbyist to repost some of his programs
(on the understanding that Sony will have the rights of commercial development in the programs). The incident, however, illustrated Sony's willingness to invoke the DMCA in situations with no relationship to "piracy." David Labrador, "Teaching Robot Dogs New Tricks," SCIENTIFIC AMERICAN, Feb. 12,
2002. http:// www. sciam. com/ explorations/ 2002/ 0 12102aibo/ Blizzard Pursues bnetd. org Section 1201 has been brandished by Vivendi-Universal's Blizzard Entertainment video game division
in an attempt to intimidate a group of volunteer game enthusiasts who created open source server software called "bnetd" that provides Internet gaming 7 7 Page 8 9 Unintended Consequences: Three Years Under the DMCA 8 enthusiasts with an alternative to the servers operated by Blizzard. The bnetd software permits owners of Blizzard games to play multiplayer games against each other over the Internet. Blizzard runs its own servers, known as "Battle. net," which it makes available free of charge to allow its games to be played across the Internet. The group of volunteer programmers decided to create bnetd to overcome difficulties that they had experienced in attempting to use Battle. net. The bnetd software is freely distributed, open source, and non-commercial.
In February 2002, Blizzard invoked the DMCA in an effort to have bnetd pulled off the Internet. Blizzard sent a "cease and desist" letter to the ISP that hosts the bnetd website, claiming that the bnetd software violated section 1201. Blizzard contends that the bnetd software has been used by some to permit networked play of pirated
Blizzard games. Whether or not that contention is true, the developers are not using the software for that purpose, nor was the software designed for such a purpose. The software has numerous legitimate uses for owners of Blizzard games. As a result, whatever else may be said about the bnetd software, it is plainly not a "black box" piracy device. Ultimately, Blizzard filed suit in St. Louis to bar distribution of bnetd. Tellingly, however, Blizzard
chose not to press a DMCA claim in the lawsuit, opting instead for traditional copyright and trademark claims. (EFF is representing the bnetd developers.) Blizzard's willingness to use the DMCA in pre-litigation threats, however, demonstrates its chilling potential in the hands of copyright owners intent on hindering competitors, rather than stopping piracy. David Becker, "Group Backs ISP in Online Gaming Dispute", CNET NEWS, March 12,
2002. http:// news. com. com/ 2100-1040- 858414. html Legal correspondence on bnetd website. http:// www. bnetd. org/ case_ letters. php
Sony's Attack on Playstation "Mod Chips" Apart from using the DMCA against vendors of personal computer emulators of Sony's Playstation,
Sony has sued a number of manufacturers of so-called "mod chips" for alleged circumvention under the DMCA. In doing so, Sony has been able to enforce a system of geographical regional restrictions that raises significant anticompetitive issues. So-called "mod chips" are after-market accessories that modify Playstation consoles to permit games
legitimately purchased in one part of the world to be played on a games console from another geographical region. Sony has sued mod chip manufacturers in the U. S., the U. K., and Australia. In the U. S., Sony sued Gamemasters, Inc., distributor of the Game Enhancer peripheral device, which allowed U. S. Playtstation users to play games purchased in Japan and other countries. Although there was no infringement of Sony's copyright, the court granted an injunction under the DMCA's anti-circumvention provisions, effectively banning the use of a technology that would permit users to use legitimately-purchased non-infringing games from other regions. Recognizing the anti-competitive potential of the region playback control system, the Australian anti-trust
authority, the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission (ACCC), has intervened in a lawsuit that Sony is pursuing against an Australian mod chip manufacturer under the Australian equivalent of the DMCA's anti-circumvention provisions. The ACCC argues that Australian consumers should be permitted to use personally imported games discs not otherwise available in Australia, or available only at a significantly higher price. Sony has argued that mod chips can also be used to enable the use of unauthorized copies of Playstation
games. But most Playstation mod chips are not "black box" devices suitable only for piracy. The potential illegitimate uses must be weighed against legitimate uses, such as defeating Sony's region coding system to play games purchased in other countries. "Sony Playstation ruling sets far-reaching precedent," NEW SCIENTIST, Feb. 22, 2002
Sony Computer Entertainment America Inc. v. Gamemasters, 87 F. Supp. 2d 976 (N. D. Cal. 1999). Australian Competition and Consumer Commission Press Release, "ACCC Defends
the Rights of Playstation Owners," Feb. 8, 2002. (http:// 203.6. 251.7/ accc. internet/ digest/ view _media. cfm? RecordID= 595).
6. Conclusion Three years of experience with the "anti-circumvention" provisions of the DMCA demonstrate
that the statute reaches too far, chilling a wide variety of legitimate activities in ways Congress did not intend. As an increasing number of copyright works are wrapped in technological protection measures, it is likely that the DMCA's anti-circumvention provisions will be applied in further unforeseen contexts, 8 8 Page 9 Unintended Consequences: Three Years Under the DMCA 9 hindering the legitimate activities of innovators, researchers, the press, and the public at large. 1 For examples of Congress' stated purpose in enacting the DMCA's anti-circumvention provisions, see 144 Cong. Rec. H7093, H7094-5 (Aug. 4, 1998); Senate Judiciary Comm., S. Rep. 105-190 (1998) at 29; Judiciary Comm., H. Rep. 105-551 Pt 1 (1998) at 18; House Commerce Comm., H. Rep. 105-551 Pt 2 (1998) at 38.
2 See WIPO Copyright Treaties Implementation Act and Online Copyright Liability Limitation Act: Hearing on H. R. 2281 and H. R. 2280 before the House Subcomm. on Courts and Intellectual Prop., 105th Cong., 1st sess. (Sept. 16, 1997) at 62 (testimony of Asst. Sec. of Commerce and Commissioner of Patents and Trademarks Bruce A. Lehman admitting that section 1201
went beyond the requirements of the WIPO Copyright Treaty). 3 For a full description of the events leading up to the enactment of the DMCA, see Jessica Litman, DIGITAL COPYRIGHT 89-150 (2000). 4 See Pamela Samuelson, Intellectual Property and the Digital Economy: Why the Anti-Circumvention Regulations Need to be Revised, 14 BERKELEY TECHNOLOGY L. J. 519, 537-57 (1999) (http:// www. sims. berkeley. edu/~ pam/ papers. html) 5 See Professor Ross Anderson, Cambridge University, Declaration in Felten v. RIAA (Oct. 22, 2001), describing ways in which the DCMA is suppressing research into security weaknesses in SDMI watermarking technology: (http:// www. eff. org/ IP/ DMCA/ Felten_ v_ RIAA/ 20011022_ anderson_ decl. pdf).
6 111 F. Supp. 2d. 294 (S. D. N. Y. 2000), aff'd 273 F. 3d 429 (2d Cir. 2001). 7 Sony Computer Entertainment, Inc. v. Connectix Corporation, 203 F. 3d 596 (9th Cir. 2000). 9
ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. -- Tungsten-filament bulbs -- the most widely used light source in the world -- burn hands if unscrewed while lit. The bulbs are infamous for generating more heat than light.
Now a microscopic tungsten lattice -- in effect, a tungsten filament fabricated with an internal crystalline pattern -- developed at the Department of Energy's Sandia National Laboratories has been shown to have potential to transmute the majority of this wasted infrared energy (commonly called heat) into the frequencies of visible light.
This would raise the efficiency of an incandescent electric bulb from 5 percent to greater than 60 percent.
By doing so, it would greatly reduce the world's most vexing and important power problem -- the required excess electrical generating capacity and costs to homeowners caused by inefficient lighting, as well as the environmental damage accompanying unnecessary power generation.
The advance also opens the possibility of increased efficiencies in thermal photovoltaic applications (TPV). Photovoltaics work best when they are provided with energy from heat-generators with energy emission wavelengths transposed into the most optimal frequencies. (Using a tungsten lattice as an emitter at desirable frequencies, model calculations showed that the TPV conversion efficiency reached 51 percent compared with 12.6 percent efficiency with a blackbody emitter.)
The first step toward this goal, achieved at Sandia by Shawn Lin and Jim Fleming, is reported in the May 2 Nature.
Fabrication of the device was accomplished by an extension of well-known MEMS (microelectromechanical systems) technologies that themselves have been derived from mature semiconductor technologies. As a result, fabrication of such devices could be cheap and easy.
History of photonic lattices
Since the existence of photonic crystals was postulated by Eli Yablonovitch of UCLA more than a decade ago, the most common idea for their use was based on their capability to transmit beams of light at selected frequencies and bend their paths without losing any energy. The structures, most often made out of silicon, consist of tiny bars fabricated to sit astride each other somewhat like Lincoln Logs at regular pre-set distances and angles that form in effect an artificial crystal. Spacing of the bars allows passage of only certain wavelengths; other wavelengths too big for the rafters, so to speak, cannot pass through. Desirable wavelengths not only pass through but also can be changed in direction by creating defects in the artificial crystal that cause the light to follow the defect along like a car passing through a curving tunnel. This meant photonic crystals had potential in optical communications, in which light beams currently carrying telephone messages and data must be converted to electrons -- an expensive process -- for certain tasks.
Meltdown? Apparently not
A further question considered by Lin and Fleming, with assistance from colleagues Ihab El-Kady, Rana Biswas, and Kai-Ming Ho at Ames Laboratories in Iowa, shifted emphasis from a photonic lattice's ability to guide light to its capability of stopping other frequencies from passing through it. What happens to these other energies that enter the interior of a three-dimensional crystal? If the crystal were built of tungsten -- fabricated by creating a structure of polysilicon, removing some silicon and using chemical vapor deposition to deposit tungsten as a kind of backfill in the mold -- the metal could handle quite high temperatures and have a large and absolute photonic band gap in the visible range where it is already known to emit light. But what would happen to the other, lower-wavelength energies brought in by an electric current? Would the structure melt through the buildup of heat? Or, more desirably, would the thermally excited tungsten atoms somehow prefer to reinforce emissions at higher wavelengths, such as in the visible frequency range?
Energy at the edge of the photonic band was observed to undergo an order-of-magnitude absorption increase, or enhancement. This meant that energy was being preferentially absorbed into a selected frequency band. Meanwhile periodic metallic-air boundaries led to an extraordinarily large transmission enhancement. Experimental results showed that a large photonic band gap for wavelengths from 8 to 20 microns proved ideally suited for suppressing broadband blackbody radiation in the infrared and has the potential to redirect thermal excitation energy into the visible spectrum.
The imaginative work seems logical in retrospect, though the theory for the effect -- re-partitioning energy between heat and visible light -- remains unexplained. "It's not theoretically predicted," says Fleming. "Possible explanations may involve variations in the speed of light as it propagates through such structures."
The work was performed with a photonic crystal operating in the mid-infrared range, but no theoretical or practical difficulties are known to exist to downsizing the structure into the visible light range.
All work was performed on commercially available, monitor-grade 6-inch silicon wafers. These photonic devices were fabricated in Sandia's Microelectronics Development Laboratory using modifications of the standard CMOS processes originally developed for Sandia's radiation-hardened CMOS (complementary metal-oxide semiconductor) technologies.
The work was funded by the Laboratory-Directed Research and Development program through project manager James Gee. Co-principal investigator Jim Moreno modeled.
Re:Alert: Don't reward the page-widening troll.
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I'm performing this as a public service. I already have positive karma, but due to the bitchslap my account receive long ago, I will forever post at -1!
In case gamespot is slashdotted, too!
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Tron 2.0 Game
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We get an early look at this upcoming action game, which is based on the classic sci-fi film.
We had the chance to take an early look at Tron 2.0, the upcoming first-person action game from Monolith and Disney Interactive. Tron 2.0 will be an action game inspired by the events in the classic 1982 motion picture, and the game's story will actually follow the plot of the movie. Programmer Allan Bradley (Bruce Boxleitner's character in the movie) has advanced to a senior engineering position at the company that had created the evil Master Control Program 20 years ago, and he uncovers a secret plot on the part of the company to abuse a new form of technology. Bradley's son Jet becomes involved in the plot and eventually ends up on the other side, traveling through the world of Tron as a program. Players will play as Jet in the game, and the developer is making sure to create a fully developed "real world" that will help advance the story through cinematics--but most of the game will take place within the computer-generated world. As a program, Jet will have opportunities to revisit the mainframe--where the events in the original movie took place--but will also be able to explore the inner workings of PDAs, desktop computers, and firewalls. Over the course of the game, he'll have occasion to disrupt the digital structures around him (known as performing an "illegal operation" in the game), in which case he'll have to deal with ICPs--intrusion countermeasure programs--burly humanoid programs that are the digital equivalent of guards. He'll also be able to visit lightcycle courses--the developers will include both the classic look of the original lightcycles from the movie, as well as an updated version, which will be designed by artist Syd Mead, the creator of the original lightcycles. And he'll have the opportunity to fight duels in disc arenas, as in the classic arcade game; among other things, discs can be hurled as weapons, set to explode in order to damage enemies or used as shields to absorb or deflect attacks.
Even at this early stage, Tron 2.0 looks very impressive. The art team has made good use of alpha-mask environment mapping, which helps create the pulsating veins of light that commonly line the walls and ceilings of the game's digital world. Tron 2.0 will make use of LithTech's powerful Triton engine, which will, among other things, include an edge generator that adds the colorful glowing edges to the game's walls and structures--a much better way of re-creating the look of the film than simply stacking textures. Tron 2.0 will be colorful but will make use of simple, clean color palettes--the areas and characters we saw were generally of a single, glowing color, with subtle variations on that color, to help reproduce the neon light effect from the film.
Tron 2.0 is currently scheduled for release in the fall of 2003, but the game will be on display at this year's Electronic Entertainment Expo later this month. We'll have more information and coverage on Tron 2.0 from the show.
In case it's slashdotted!
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May 02, 2002 - It's hard to believe that it's been 20 years since TRON hit theatres. It makes me feel a little old that I was totally into something that happened that long ago. Sheesh. Even so, the movie does bring back good memories of a magical black-lit world where computer programs led lives in a warped mirror of our own society and had theological beliefs about the users that created them. It was a incredibly interesting idea with a look that will forever remain distinctly TRON. And it's a world and a look that will be pretty easy to fall back into and enjoy judging by the early info and art we received when Frank Rooke, lead designer at Monolith and Disney Interactive's director of marketing, Jamie Berger dropped by the office today give us a sneak peak at TRON 2.0 before E3.
While the bit they shared with us was restricted to a slide show of screens and concept art, the glimpse was real enough that they certainly piqued my interest. The look of the game follows the look of the movie 20 years ago pretty closely, but has even been moved forward a bit with more curved structures (apparently this was impossible when they originally made the movie) and more complex areas than we saw before. But the style is unmistakable. To make sure that was the case, Disney and Monolith hired on Syd Mead, who was one of the artists that helped give TRON that famous look.
To follow natural progression, the story of TRON 2.0 will mirror our own world and progress 20 years into the future. TRON destroyed the master control program with the help of the user Flynn and the mainframe computer went back to a peaceful existence and life continued as normal. But with the loss of the MCP, the research on digitizing real world matter and inserting it into a digital plane was lost. Alan Bradley, the creator of the TRON program, made it his life to bring that research back up to speed after the incident. After twenty years of finding errors in the process causing real world matter to be corrupted in the transfer, Alan succeeded. Any matter, including people, can now be inserted into a computer unlocking both incredible bounties and unlimited opportunity for crime if the technology was to come in contact with evil people. Darn you evil! Always having to poke your nose into things.
And then the inevitable happened. An Internet company known as fCon learned of the technology and decided that it would be best used by them in order to infiltrate government and military systems giving them near limitless powers over pretty much everybody in the world. In order to do this, they decided to digitize specially trained humans into the datastream called Data Wraiths.
As you also may have figured, not everyone thinks this is such a good idea, mainly Alan, who promptly disappears. Enter Jet, Alan's son. A twenty-year-old programmer for the same company his father has spent his life with. Jet's a little different from his dad however. He's a gamer. He's a partier. He's not the stiff that his father is. Regardless, Jet gets a little concerned after the disappearance and digitizes himself into the mainframe to hunt his wayward father down.
Throughout the adventure in the digital world, you, as Jet, will be treated to the first hand experience that many fans of the movie have been hoping for since the original TRON and Discs of TRON games came out into arcades. Disney and Monolith had thought to include some bit of the old games somewhere in the product, but have decided for gameplay considerations, the want to move forward with the technology and time, and some license issues to leave those out in favor of a new experience. This doesn't mean that you won't find some of the best parts of the fiction in the game somewhere. Be sure that you'll get the chance to zoom around on lightcycles and throw the discs around with abandon. You'll also see some of the greats like the.byte programs (even though they can say more than yes and no for the most part) and the old Recognizers that have been retired into tugboat and trash duty. The world has changed because technology in the real world has changed. Computer architecture is different, programs are faster and more powerful, and the stream is open beyond the confines of the mainframe.
In your travels, you'll find yourself moving beyond the boundaries that held TRON and Flynn in the movie and out into the Internet and the world beyond. You'll visit PDAs, lab servers, personal computers, routers, and Internet city hub, a really cool looking firewall, and databases as well as meet some other important characters along the way like security programs name ICPs and a the game's hot little piece of code, Mercury. All of the locations and characters will have unique looks that fit with the locale including different color palettes. But for the sake of grounding the digital world as a living and breathing society of its own, some old favorites like the Game Grid and the ancient mainframe will be waiting for a visit as well.
In fact, you'll begin your journey in the Game Grid as you begin to get used to the controls of the game. While we have yet to see this all in action, the game itself will be played in the first person mode. But unlike many games that are in this perspective, you won't be strafing and peppering everything in sight with a machine gun. You'll have to take your time with the combat using the various weapons used by the different factions in the game.
Your main weapon, which you'll have from the beginning of the game is your disc. It pretty much would have been unthinkable to write these out of the script. At the beginning of the game, your disc will act pretty much along the lines that you might expect. It flies straight. If it hits the target, good, if it doesn't hit the target, there's not much you can do about it. Later on in the game you'll upgrade your weapon with "sub-routines". These will add specific attributes such as giving you the power to bend the path of your disc and control its course to some extent. You'll be able to guide the disc to hit enemies around corners and the like. Or you could go for upgrades that cause your disc to burst around enemies hurting everything in the area before recombining and returning to your hand. But for those that are scared of being hurt like me, it's nice to know that the discs are also used as defense. When the disc is on your arm, it'll prevent some damage, when it's in your hands it'll act more like a shield. But you can also swing it to hit weapons like other discs that were tossed your way, it will get reflected away to maybe hit something else. Just be careful because you're defenseless without your disc.
You twitchy shooters out there that need a machine gun to hit a target (yes, the pathetic ones that complain about sniper rifles and rocket launchers... you know who you are) will need to take some time and get used to the more thought provoking combat that a disc provides. Frank Rooke seemed very proud of the effort his team is putting into the AI routines for enemies and nuetrals alike. They won't just run at you and attack. They'll defend. They'll deflect. They'll recognize and react accordingly. The intelligence isn't restricted to combat AI however. Each individual in the game will have its own goals and purpose. They'll each have their own priorities for tasks. Disturbances around them will affect their priorities causing them to attack or run or a number of other things. This organic decision making AI will never give you the sense that you ran across some invisible line on the ground that triggers an event.
Monolith realized that only having discs as weapons wouldn't have given enough variety, so they've included several other weapons that are "native" to certain factions in the system. Being a user, you won't have the restrictions these programs do so you'll be able to use all of the different kinds of weapons. Each of the basic weapons are considered primitive. Like the Game programs that will have the rod primitive, which can be upgraded into different types of weapons from sniper weapons to hand to hand combat weapons. You can also expect Data Wraith weapon types as well as corrupt program types.
Which is another side to the story. Corrupted files will be found throughout the game and actually make up another side plot to the bigger story. It seems that one user named Thorne digitized himself into the system before the errors had been fixed causing him to be corrupted upon insert. Now he's running around corrupting other programs gaining mass amounts of power. You'll need to deal with him and his ever growing number of "cultist" religious fanatics that have been corrupted and are following him.
These guys are not only a danger to your health, but also to your systems. If you're hit by a corrupted file (kind of like being dry humped by Tal), then you have the chance of having your sub-routines and inventory programs corrupted. You'll either need to ditch them altogether or run a cleaner file on them at that point.
In order to give players the feeling of advancement and achievement as they move through the game world, Monolith has decided to include some small RPG elements. Don't expect a Baldur's Gate kind of number crunching here, but you can expect to perform upgrades on your character that will give him more health, better accuracy, more energy, sneakier stealth, and the ability to use processes faster and more efficiently.
Along with that aspect, there is also the inventory and sub-routine upgrade system that I briefly hit on before. When you begin the game, you have a certain amount of memory in your inventory system. Each of the items you pick up will take up a certain amount of memory. But when you add the sub-routines onto an item, it gives that item an upgrade but also makes it more efficient making whatever item it is take up less memory in your inventory. It's a clever system that really makes you make some choices in your character's progression.
And of course, a game like this almost begs for multiplayer action. With the game so early in production, Monolith is still kicking around a lot of ideas, but you can be assured that there will be plenty of team-based games such as capture the flag (I'm personally hoping for some objective based missions like we saw in Wolfenstein) and some of those disc games that were so freaking cool when the movie originally came out. One thing we won't see at this point are lightcycle multiplayer games however. This is something they really wanted to do right from the start, but have found that the current networking technology available just wouldn't be able to handle the mode. Lag issues would just cause havoc in a game that would need extremely fast reaction times from all parties. Sure, it's a little disappointment, but one that I'm pretty sure I can get used to if the rest of the game shapes up to be as good as I'm thinking it could.
Monolith has a good track record when it comes to games like this (No One Lives Forever) so we're all pretty stoked to see it firmly in their capable hands. There's still a ton to be done on TRON 2.0 at this point. But we will finally get to see the game in action at the big show this May, which I'm more than a little excited about. Actually seeing this world that held my fascination way back in grade school come to life will be a treat. Until then, make sure to take a look at the early screens and soak in the TRONiness of it all.
Here is the email (it came from a nothingreal.com mail server with an apple.com email address):
Subject: Shake platform roadmap
I am very happy to forward on to you the news regarding platform support for Shake.
Apple does not usually disclose future product plans, but we believe it is important to provide Shake customers with a platform roadmap as we integrate Nothing Real. We are excited by the positive response we received after previewing Shake on OS X at NAB, and we are looking forward to delivering another industry-leading application on OS X soon. In addition to OS X, Apple will continue to develop, support and sell Shake on Irix and Linux through the end of 2003, but the upcoming Shake 2.5 will be the last version we release on Windows. Beyond 2003, we will continue to evaluate market requirements for Shake and will strive to provide the best product for our customers.
Thank you for your support and patience over the last few months.
By David Becker Staff Writer, CNET News.com May 2, 2002, 4:30 PM PT
Software maker Adobe Systems won its lawsuit Thursday claiming that rival Macromedia infringed on the company's patents. Adobe filed the suit in August 2000, alleging that the user interface of Macromedia's Flash Web animation tool infringed on Adobe's patent for "tabbed palettes," a feature that allows users of design software to rearrange the work space on the PC screen.
A jury in the U.S. District Court of Delaware agreed with Adobe and awarded the company $2.8 million in damages. Adobe said in a statement that it also expects a judicial injunction preventing Macromedia from selling the infringing software.
A trial is scheduled to begin in the same court Monday regarding Macromedia's first countersuit, charging that Adobe's Photoshop image-editing software and its GoLive Web design software infringe on two patents that Macromedia holds for editing tools. A second Macromedia countersuit, filed last year in U.S. District Court for Northern California, is not yet scheduled for trial.
"While we would have preferred to settle this issue out of court, we are satisfied that the validity of this key innovation has been upheld," said Bryan Lamkin, senior vice president of Adobe's graphics business unit.
Macromedia did not say if it would appeal the decision.
"It is unfortunate, and we believe wrong, that Adobe has chosen this field to compete," CEO Rob Burgess said in a statement. "Ultimately, it is our customers, and particularly our mutual customers, that will be harmed."
SonicBlue ordered to track ReplayTV users' viewing choices By Dawn C. Chmielewski Mercury News
A federal magistrate in Los Angeles has ordered SonicBlue to spy on thousands of digital video recorder users -- monitoring every show they record, every commercial they skip and every program they send electronically to a friend.
Central District Court Magistrate Charles F. Eick told SonicBlue to gather ``all available information'' about how consumers use the Santa Clara company's latest generation ReplayTV 4000 video recorders, and turn the information over to the film studios and television networks suing it for contributing to copyright infringement.
``We've been ordered to invade the privacy of our customers,'' said Ken Potashner, SonicBlue's chairman and chief executive. ``This is something that we find personally very troubling.''
Privacy advocates condemned the ruling which came during the pre-trial discovery process of a series of lawsuits against SonicBlue.
Last October, the studios and networks accused SonicBlue of permitting copyright-infringement with its latest digital video recorder. The machines work like a VCR but record to a hard drive instead of video tape.
The plaintiffs asked SonicBlue to turn over information on how individuals use the recording devices. SonicBlue said it does not track that information. The magistrate, who is supervising discovery, ordered the company to write software in the next 60 days that would record every ``click'' from every customer's remote control.
Four separate lawsuits focus on a pair of features on the ReplayTV 4000: an ``AutoSkip'' function that allows the device to bypass commercials while recording a program and a high-speed Internet port that allows users to download programs from the Internet or send them to other ReplayTV 4000 users.
The suits allege these features effectively deprive networks of the means of paying for their programs -- advertising revenue. And they allow people who paid for premium programming -- say HBO's ``Six Feet Under'' -- to send it to consumers who haven't.
A Disney spokeswoman accused SonicBlue of a ``deliberate and completely misleading'' characterization of the court's order. The studios and networks are merely seeking access to the same kind of anonymous data that SonicBlue's privacy policy says it is entitled to collect about its users, she said.
Attorneys for the studios say they need this information to determine the extent to which the ReplayTV 4000 allows consumers to steal copyrighted movies and television shows.
``None of the data the plaintiffs are seeking identifies any individuals,'' said Michelle Bergman, the Disney spokeswoman. ``We respect viewer privacy and the order we obtained respects that important right. We are simply protecting our copyrighted content and all whose livelihoods are dependent on it.''
SonicBlue said it stopped collecting anonymous user data in May 2001, after a furor erupted over competitor TiVo's practice of secretly gathering information about its users' viewing habits. TiVo's machine would collect viewing data and send it over a phone line back to the company.
The ruling requires SonicBlue to conduct the kind of surveillance it never anticipated in the privacy policy it outlined to its subscribers, said Laurence Pulgram, the San Francisco attorney representing SonicBlue.
Court documents, which Pulgram provided, show that SonicBlue would be required to document which shows users copy, store and view; what commercials they skip and which programs they send to other users, through the ``Send Show'' feature.
The court ruling also requires SonicBlue to track individual users -- not by name, but through ``unique identification numbers.''
``The concern is once you collect information about an individual, the individual may be concerned that he or she could be linked to that information at some time,'' said Pulgram.
Privacy advocates said the ruling is a more egregious invasion of privacy than TiVo committed. In that case, TiVo collected aggregated data that was purposefully separated from personal details about the viewer. And consumers could opt-out, keeping their viewing habits from being collected.
ReplayTV users won't have that choice.
`It's an incredible invasion of privacy,'' said Fred von Lohmann, an intellectual property expert for the Electronic Frontier Foundation. ``But second -- and equally important -- is what the Electronic Frontier Foundation and others have been saying was going to happen now for some time. Basically, under the guise of copyright laws, courts are going to be put in a position of telling technology companies how to build their products.''
Pulgram said SonicBlue plans to ask the federal district court trial judge to review the magistrate's ruling.
``We respect Judge Eick's decision on this and on numerous issues he had before him at the time,'' said Pulgram. `But in our view, it is an unprecedented intrusion into the privacy of TV viewers.''
Waste from sewage plants could be transformed into clean hydrogen fuel with high efficiency using new processing technology devised in Europe.
The process involves extracting hydrogen from "wet" waste, i.e. that which contains large amounts of water, such as sewage or paper mill waste. Although this sort of waste is abundant, extracting hydrogen from has required a large amount of energy, making it inefficient.
But researchers in the Process Technology Group at Warwick University, UK, as well as a number of European companies, claim they have dramatically improved the efficiency.
Warwick's Ashok Bhattacharya says the new system could be twice as energy-efficient as existing systems, which are typically around 20 per cent efficient. "We're able to get much more hydrogen out," Bhattacharya says.
John Brammer, at Aston University, UK, agrees that most existing techniques are not efficient at extracting hydrogen: "An improvement of that order would be worth having. It would address the main problem in hydrogen production."
However, the method has so far only been tested in the laboratory. Bhattacharya admits that its real energy-efficiency will not be known until a prototype has been developed. The group has just received £2.5 million of European funding to do this.
Natural gas
Hydrogen can be used to generate energy cleanly and efficiently through "fuel cells". These could eventually provide an alternative to fossil fuels for powering cars and homes.
The new process begins with turning waste "biomass" into hydrogen, methane, water, carbon monoxide and carbon dioxide, using standard gasification techniques that involve heat and pressure. But further hydrogen is then produced by also breaking down the methane and water, says Bhattacharya, with the aid of a nanocrystalline catalyst.
The process can be run continuously because pure hydrogen is extracted through a palladium-coated ceramic semi-permeable membrane that blocks other gases. If the hydrogen was not removed the reaction would reach equilibrium and stop. Bhattacharya adds that the heat efficiency of the new system has also been significantly improved.
The team expects to have constructed the first prototype, with the capacity to generate as much fuel as a petrol "gas" station, by 2005.
(AP) -- By implanting electrodes in rats' brains, scientists have created remote-controlled rodents they can command to turn left or right, climb trees and navigate piles of rubble -- and maybe someday, with the rats outfitted with tiny video cameras, use to search for disaster survivors.
"If you have a collapsed building and there are people under the rubble, there's no robot that exists now that would be capable of going down into such a difficult terrain and finding those people, but a rat would be able to do that," said John Chapin, a professor of physiology and pharmacology at the State University of New York in Brooklyn.
The lab animals aren't exactly robot rats. They had to be trained to carry out the commands.
Chapin's team fitted five rats with electrodes and power-pack backpacks. When signaled by a laptop computer, the electrodes stimulated the rodents' brains and cued them to scurry in the desired direction, then rewarded them by stimulating a pleasure center in the brain.
The rats' movements could be controlled up to 1,640 feet away, the length of more than five football fields.
The findings appear in Thursday's issue of the journal Nature.
Other researchers said the work is interesting but is an engineering feat, not an advance in animal neuroscience.
Randy Gallistel, a professor of psychology and cognitive science at Rutgers University, said it's basically the same thing, with a twist, that scientists found they could do almost 50 years ago by stimulating the reward-sensing area of a rat's brain.
"Without the gee-whizery, without the remote-control and so on, that this kind of thing was possible has been obvious for decades," he said.
Could save humans The experiments used three implanted electrodes -- one in the brain region that senses reward or pleasure, and one each in areas that process signals from the rat's left and right whisker bundles.
Electrodes implanted in rats' brains create remote-controlled rodents that scientists say could eventually be used in search and rescue efforts. Chapin's team trained the rats in a maze by signaling the left and right whisker-sensing regions. When a rat turned in the correct direction, its reward-sensing region was stimulated.
Activating only the reward region caused the rodents to move forward, the team found.
After training, the rats were tested in a variety of environments and remotely guided through pipes and across elevated runways. They were compelled to climb trees and ladders and to jump from varying heights.
The rodents could even be commanded to venture into brightly lit, open areas -- environments they normally would avoid.
Howard Eichenbaum, a professor of psychology at Boston University, said the research, while not a major advance, is "clever" and holds the promise of using animals as humans' "eyes" or as couriers to reach trapped victims.
Ethical concerns? Aside from the technological challenges, he said there may be ethical concerns about turning animals into "intelligent robots" serving humans.
"It's one thing to see a rat running around like this, people don't get too emotional about that, but as soon as you get into dogs or work animals, people start getting real excited," he said.
The potential of using such implantable electrodes to control humans -- which a Tulane University researcher tried during the 1960s, with unclear results -- is something Chapin said he opposes so strongly he believes it should be illegal.
Kate Rears, a policy analyst at the Electronic Privacy Information Center in Washington, said technological advances mean human-control technology can no longer be dismissed as far-fetched.
"I think that a lot of people are very wary of that sort of thing and understandably so," Rears said. "I don't think it's a sign of paranoia to react against this because it is very odd. It's Brave New Worldish."
In the next few days I will be meeting with my Congresswomen to discus the effects of a Sen. Hollings CBDTPA on your average customer/techie. I have read tens (if not hundreds) of comments on the various OSDN sites explaining the very obvious reasons why the CBDTPA would cause a great deal of harm to the technology sector as well as consumers. Unfortunately the only postings/articles I have seen which offer a resolution to online piracy have been limited to ways in which the entertainment industry needs to change its business model. While this may be a valid argument, it does not provide a legislative alternative (something which many on Capitol Hill are scratching for). Therefore my question to the slashdot community is what new legislation would you support which would make those who engage in online piracy easier to track? Most internet users are familiar with the fact that someone with an intermediate amount of network knowledge can tap into data which is sent from one location to another. Vice President Al Gore was the first to link the internet to the idea of the 'information superhighway.' Since Americans are already used to this term, what would the effects of the creation of a kind of 'net traffic cops;' i.e. a law enforcement type of agency which monitors web traffic and fines individuals which break laws, i.e. distribute copyrighted information?
By Eliot Van Buskirk Senior editor (4/26/02) When a regular reader of my column e-mailed me to say that he could set up an interview with Rep. Rick Boucher (D-Virginia), I admit that I was a bit skeptical. After all, this is the Internet, where people e-mail you with seemingly impossible opportunities everyday. But soon enough, I was on the phone for half an hour with Rep. Boucher, who called fresh from a vote on the House floor to talk with me about a variety of pressing online music issues--most specifically, our right to the fair use of the content that we buy. This constitutional right, which is closely related to free speech, has already been severely damaged by the DMCA (Digital Millennium Copyright Act) and could be obliterated by a new bill introduced by Sen. Ernest "Fritz" Hollings (D-South Carolina). Boucher thinks that you should be able to burn mix CDs, but due to the lobbying efforts by the record industry in Washington, many others in Congress don't see things in the same proconsumer light. Here's what Rep. Boucher had to say in this first of two installments.
Note: This first section of the interview can be downloaded for free as an MP3 file, under the EFF's Open Audio License. That means you can legally download this interview to a shared folder and distribute it on any file-sharing network, but you cannot alter the file itself or remove attribution. Download and listen to the first half of MP3 Insider's interview with fair-use advocate Rep. Boucher.
MP3 Insider: So I really liked your article on CNET News.com, and it seems like we agree with each other on a lot of these issues.
Rep. Boucher: Yeah.
M: I'm wondering, just to start things off, do you use a computer to download or stream music?
I defend peoples' right to [download music from the Web] in a lawful manner, but I have not undertaken that practice myself. B: I actually use a computer a lot. I have three computers that I use on a regular basis--one is on my desk top in my Washington office, another is at home, and I have my laptop that I use when I'm traveling. However, I'm not in the habit of downloading music from the Web. I defend peoples' right to do that in a lawful manner, but I have not undertaken that practice myself.
M: OK. So how long would you say that you've been online?
B: I have been online since the early '90s. The first legislation that I produced relating to the Internet was a bill to overturn a restriction inside of the law that prohibited the Internet backbone from being used for anything other than research and scientific and educational communication.
M: Interesting.
B: The effect of that restriction, which was known as the acceptable-use policy, prohibited electronic commerce, and the first Internet-related legislation that I sponsored, which was in 1992, repealed the acceptable-use policy and thereby enabled the Internet to be used for electronic commerce. So I have been involved in Internet-related policy for approximately one decade, and I have been using the Internet myself for almost that period of time.
M: Excellent, so you definitely know the area fairly well.
B: Yes.
M: OK, so now into some more specifics. You've gone on the record as a vocal opponent of the DMCA, the anticircumvention clause especially, and I remember Orrin Hatch, who's a Republican, making statements in support of file sharing back during the Napster hearing. I'm wondering if you could tell me, how do you think the two parties line up overall, in terms of consumers' digital rights in the Internet age?
B: Well, I think what you're seeing is that among the handful of members of Congress who are involved in intellectual-property policy today, House and Senate, you are seeing those members basically divide into two camps. One of those camps staunchly defends all of the provisions of the DMCA, staunchly defends the 20-year extension of copyright terms, staunchly defends the content community's copyright interests, against all efforts to enhance the rights of the users of intellectual property--that's one camp. The other camp is the other side of the equation, and that other camp is members who believe that the historical balance between the rights of copyright owners and the rights of the users of copyrighted material has been dramatically altered in favor of the owners of copyrights at the expense of the rights of the users of copyrighted material.
M: Right.
B: I am in that camp [the second one].
M: Good.
B: I think that the balance needs to be restored, and I would note that in the camp in which I am in, one finds libraries, universities, the Internet industry, the manufacturers of digital media, and consumers.
M: Speaking of the consumers, I know the MPAA and RIAA are fairly well organized in terms of their efforts. Are there any kind of consumer-advocacy groups getting involved? I mean, I sometimes get the feeling that people--consumers--don't know what's at stake here, really.
[The MPAA and RIAA], by virtue of their long-standing knowledge of Congress and relationships with many key members of Congress, would appear to have the upper hand. B: Well I think that's true. I think this debate is just beginning, and in the early stages of any debate, oftentimes the external stakeholders appear to be somewhat lopsided in terms of their ability to influence the process, and I would grant you that at the present time, the Motion Picture Association [of America] and the Recording Industry Association of America, by virtue of their long-standing knowledge of Congress and relationships with many key members of Congress, would appear to have the upper hand. On the other hand, I think a lot has changed since 1998, when the DMCA was passed by Congress. We now have the formation of a number of groups that are dedicated to user rights. I would include among those the Digital Media Association (DiMA), which represents Webcasters. They were not a part of the debate in 1998. I would also include the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF), the Center for--what is it called, Electronic Democracy, something along that line? All of these groups have come to the scene since 1998 and are now here, expressing the concerns of people who are users of intellectual property.
M: Right.
B: I think there's also a growing body of scholarship that suggests that what I said previously is true, and that is that the balance, which we always respected in our law, between the rights of intellectual-property owners and the rights of the users of that property has now been dramatically shifted, and that the balance now lies on the side of the owners of copyright, and that that shift has occurred at the expense of the rights of copyright owners. It has certainly occurred at the expense of the fair-use rights, which underpins our right to speak freely in society. That growing body of scholarship includes a number of prominent law professors and writers on the West Coast.
M: Are you familiar with Lawrence Lessig and his work [Code & Other Laws of Cyberspace and The Future of Ideas ]?
B: Yes, I am. I've read his work, and I applaud it. I think he's exactly on target.
M: Right. I get letters from people all the time, I mean they read my column when I tell them what these laws say they can't do, and I think more people who have CD burners now, and the average person is starting to understand this a little more, maybe, we'll see...
Millions of Americans have now become accustomed to using their CD burners at home in order to perform a completely lawful act. B: Well I think we will, and you're absolutely right in saying that the attempt by the labels to introduce copy-protected CDs into the U.S. market is going to have a profound effect on this debate. Millions of Americans have now become accustomed to using their CD burners at home in order to perform a completely lawful act. And that is to take music that they have purchased at the store and rearrange the tracks on those CDs on a CD they've compiled themselves, so that they have on that self-manufactured CD, exactly the music they want to hear in the order in which they want to hear it. And that is a classic exercise of Constitutionally protected fair-use rights.
M: Right.
B: And to the extent now that people are frustrated in being able to perform that legal act, I think you're going to see millions of Americans complain to their members of Congress that something is amiss when they go to the store, buy a CD, and then take it home and find that they can't space-shift from that CD onto another CD they want to create for their own personal use.
M: Right, do you think the Sony vs. Betamax case is going to stand up as sort of a precedent that reinforces our right to fair use?
Interview with a congressman--part one (continued) B: Well, the Sony vs. Betamax decision is a very valuable decision. It was rendered 20 years ago. To a large extent it was reversed by the DMCA. What the Sony vs. Betamax decision held is that any time technology can be used for two purposes--a minimum of two, but two anyway, one of which is infringing, and another I have very serious problems with punishing the technology. And that is precisely what the DMCA seeks to do. of which is noninfringing, that the technology is lawful technology as long as it has a substantial noninfringing use. And the court analyzed the Betamax and found that because it allowed time-shifting, it had a substantial noninfringing use (time-shifting is fair use), and therefore Betamax was found to be lawful technology. That's a very valuable legal principle: The presence of a substantial noninfringing use renders the technology to be lawful. Now unfortunately, the DMCA essentially reversed that, because it says that if the technology, even though it has substantial noninfringing uses, was primarily intended by the manufacturer to be used for an infringing purpose, then the technology is unlawful. Now the problem is, nobody's going to know at the outset what a court is going to rule about the intent of the manufacturer. How do you determine that extent? How does a court subsequently determine what was in the manufacturer's mind at the time that he produced technology that could be used both for infringement and also had noninfringing purposes? And so the Sony vs. Betamax principle was severely weakened by that provision of the DMCA. And then, of course, anybody who traffics in a device which is declared to be an infringing technology--such as Mr. Sklyarov from Russia--can be arrested for criminal conduct.
M: Right.
B: And I have very serious problems with punishing the technology. And that is precisely what the DMCA seeks to do. We should punish people who engage in acts of piracy. We should not punish the technology which can be used for infringing purposes but also for substantial noninfringing purposes.
M: So along those lines, I just came across a very interesting quote from John Ippolito of the Guggenheim, and he's talking about Senator "Fritz" Hollings's bill, the CBDTPA, and Ippolito says about that bill, "To disable the Internet to save EMI and Disney is the moral equivalent of burning down the library of Alexandria to ensure the livelihood of monastic scribes."
B: (laughs) Well, it's artful...(laughs) Well, without being quite that eloquent, let me endorse the general idea that he expresses. I think that Senator Hollings's bill is wrongheaded. It is inappropriate for the government to establish technical standards to be applied to digital media. The government is not a very good standards-developing body.
M: Mmm-hmm.
B: I do agree that we need to take some steps to assure that material which is, for example, broadcast across digital-television equipment should be protected in such a way as to disallow unauthorized copying and disallow uploading to the Internet. I actually endorse the idea of doing that. But I think that should be done in a collaborative process that involves the manufacturers of equipment and also involves the motion- It is inappropriate for the government to establish technical standards to be applied to digital media. The government is not a very good standards-developing body. picture studios. And that very process is underway. That group has already achieved an agreement that will protect television content--broadcast and digital format--and received in the home by either cable television or by satellite. What they have not achieved is an agreement in regard to material that is broadcast over the air for receipt by an antenna or by "rabbit ears." But they're working to do that, and we expect that within another six weeks there will be a private-sector agreement that produces a standard for protecting that content as well. Now, at the end of that process, after the equipment manufacturers are satisfied that the standard is workable, after the motion-picture studios are satisfied that it offers sufficient protection, after the various consumer groups that are also working in this process are content that the employment of that standard will enable people to continue to exercise their fair-use rights for appropriate home recording of the material--after all of those tests are met, there may be a role for Congress to require that equipment respond to that particular standard, and all of the external stakeholders will have endorsed the standard and say that this technology works, and that consumer rights are protected. Now, at that point, I would be willing to entertain a proposal that Congress act and require that equipment respond. The Senator Hollings's bill is way ahead of all of that. Senator Hollings's bill would require that all digital media immediately respond to a standard that the government would wind up setting. There would be no assurance that consumer rights would be protected. There would be no assurance that the fair-use right to home recording of digital content would be preserved. There would be no assurance that the technology as applied to consumer-electronics products and information-technology products would allow those products to function effectively. And I'm convinced that if his bill becomes law, which I don't think it will, but if it were to become law, I think it would probably inhibit the introduction of a lot of useful new technology.
M: Exactly. I mean it seems to me that in fact it would incent people to buy used computer equipment from before the legislation were enacted...
B: Absolutely.
M:...which is ironic because it's called the promotion of broadband and digital television, promotion of sales [Editor's note: The law is actually called the Consumer Broadband and Digital Television Promotion Act], it seems to me that the exact opposite is true.
B: I think that's right.
M: Right. OK, so since the Internet is international, then there's the aspect of will the DMCA become the basis for worldwide copyright law, and do you think that's realistic?
B: Well, that's a big problem. You put your finger on a major concern there. Note: Check back in two weeks for the second half of the MP3 Insider's interview with Rep. Boucher.
TITLE 17 > CHAPTER 1 > Sec. 117. Prev | Next Sec. 117. - Limitations on exclusive rights: Computer programs
(a) Making of Additional Copy or Adaptation by Owner of Copy. -
Notwithstanding the provisions of section 106, it is not an infringement for the owner of a copy of a computer program to make or authorize the making of another copy or adaptation of that computer program provided:
(1)
that such a new copy or adaptation is created as an essential step in the utilization of the computer program in conjunction with a machine and that it is used in no other manner, or
(2)
that such new copy or adaptation is for archival purposes only and that all archival copies are destroyed in the event that continued possession of the computer program should cease to be rightful.
(b) Lease, Sale, or Other Transfer of Additional Copy or Adaptation. -
Any exact copies prepared in accordance with the provisions of this section may be leased, sold, or otherwise transferred, along with the copy from which such copies were prepared, only as part of the lease, sale, or other transfer of all rights in the program. Adaptations so prepared may be transferred only with the authorization of the copyright owner.
(c) Machine Maintenance or Repair. -
Notwithstanding the provisions of section 106, it is not an infringement for the owner or lessee of a machine to make or authorize the making of a copy of a computer program if such copy is made solely by virtue of the activation of a machine that lawfully contains an authorized copy of the computer program, for purposes only of maintenance or repair of that machine, if -
(1)
such new copy is used in no other manner and is destroyed immediately after the maintenance or repair is completed; and
(2)
with respect to any computer program or part thereof that is not necessary for that machine to be activated, such program or part thereof is not accessed or used other than to make such new copy by virtue of the activation of the machine.
(d) Definitions. -
For purposes of this section -
(1)
the ''maintenance'' of a machine is the servicing of the machine in order to make it work in accordance with its original specifications and any changes to those specifications authorized for that machine; and
(2)
the ''repair'' of a machine is the restoring of the machine to the state of working in accordance with its original specifications and any changes to those specifications authorized for that machine
This is our first official monitor review, and what a monitor we chose to do the review on. The NEC MultiSync LCD 2110 XtraView is a 21.3" (measured diagonally) LCD monitor. The monitor currently retails for about $3,800 which is quite a hefty price tag, but we managed to find it online for around $3,500. While the price does seem steep, LCD prices have come down quite a bit as the monitor originally had a $6,000 price tag on it back in September of 2001. As more and more larger sized LCD screens start coming out, we hope to see the price of the 2110 come down even more as even the 22" Apple Studio Displays are priced around $2,500, and the 23" at $3,500.
Why don't we just delve right into the review.
Specs
LCD Module: 21.3-inch (21.3" viewable image size), active matrix, thin film transistor (TFT), liquid crystal display (LCD), 0.27 mm dot pitch, XtraView® technology, RGB vertical stripe color filter arrangement, 200 cd/m2 white luminance typical, 300:1 contrast ratio - typical
General Limited Warranty: 3-Year Parts and Labor, 3-Year backlight
Power Management: VESA DPMS, EPA Energy Star
User Controls: Power, Brightness, Contrast, Vertical and Horizontal Position, Auto Adjust, Image Adjust, AccuColor® Control System, OSM(TM) Lock Out, OSM Horizontal Position, All Reset, Horizontal Size, Fine
Regulatory Approvals: UL/C-UL or CSA, TUV/GS, CE, FCC Rules Part 15 Class B, Canadian DOC, TUV/ERGONOMIE, MPRII, TCO '99, Ctick, VCCI Class B
Plug and Play: VESA DDC1, DDC2B
A couple of things to take a look at here. The contrast ratio on an average LCD monitor is 200:1, the LCD 2110 is capable of outputting 300:1 so it can get much brighter. Also note that while there are many resolutions supported, the only one in which the image looks really good is at 1600x1200 so we would definitely recommend setting your display at that. We're glad that the 1600x1200 resolution was supported on such a large monitor, as many LCD's have a maximum resolution of 1024x768. This also helps applications that are mainly used with this monitor (graphic designers, hospitals, etc) view more data in one screen.
NuCycle Plastic: A special silicone compound for PC resin, being extremely flame-retardant, safe and environmentally friendly.
XtraView Wide Viewing Angle Technology: Allows the user to be able to see the monitor from any angle (170 degrees) from any orientation - Portrait or Landscape. Provides full 170 degrees viewing angles from either up, down, left or right.
Analog Advantage: Capable of displaying unlimited colors in a continuous spectrum, providing a truer representation of color. The monitor's high contrast LCD enhances color vibrancy and improves focus with no geometric distortion.
Wider Compatibility: Because the MultiSync LCD monitor is analog through and through, it does not require special analog to digital display or interface cords but can accept RGB input directly.
Reduced Footprint: Provides the ideal solution for environments requiring a superior image quality but with size and weight limitations. The monitor's small footpring and low weight allow it to be moved or transported easily from one location to another.
AccuColor Control System: Allows you to adjust the colors on your screen and customize the color accuracy of your monitor to a variety of standards.
OSM (On-Screen Manager) Controls: Allow you to quickly and easily adjust all elements of your screen image via simple to use on-screen menus.
ErgoDesign Features: Enhance human ergonomics to improve the working environment, protect the health of the user and save money. Examples include OSM controls for quick and easy image adjustments, tilt/swivel pivot stand for preferred angle of viewing, small footprint and compliance with MPRII guidelines for lower emissions.
Plug and Play: The Microsoft solution with the Windows 95/98 operating system facilitates setup and installation by allowing the monitor to send it capabilities (such as screen size and resolutions supported) directly to your computer, automatically optimizing display performance.
IPM (Intelligent Power Manager) System: Provides innovative power-saving methods that allow the monitor to shift to a lower power consumption level when on but not in use, saving two-thirds of your monitor energy costs, reducing emissions and lowering the air conditioning costs of the workplace.
Multiple Frequency Technology: Automatically adjusts monitor to the display card's scanning frequency, thus displaying the resolution required up to 160x1200.
FullScan Capability: Allows you to use the entire screen area in most resolutions, significantly expanding image size.
VESA Standard Mounting Interface: Allows users to connect their MultiSync monitor to any VESA standard third party mounting arm or bracket. Allows for the monitor to be mounted on a wall or an arm using any third party compliant device.
BNC/D-SUB: Offers dual inputs, allowing you to connect the monitor to one system via a BNC cable and another system via a standard D-SUB cable. You can easily switch between computers with a touch of a button on the up-front control panel.
Lets first discuss the design of the monitor. The monitor is the normal beige color, unlike most of NEC's other LCD's, there is no black option. The actual display has a widescreen format which is very nice for portrait mode. You have the option of either using the stand that is provided with the monitor or taking it off and attaching it on the wall or an arm via any third party compliant device.
We used the stand, which we found to work really well. First off, you have a lot of space underneath the monitor to put stuff. While this seems like a really small thing to worry about, it really does make a difference. The monitor essentially takes up practically no space at all, one of the major benefits to and LCD.
On the bottom of the stand there is also a wheel which allows you to move the monitor in a 360 degree motion very easily:
The stand also allows you to do things like change the rotation of the monitor to portrait mode:
Aside from that, you can move the monitor up and down, the stand allows you to go pretty high up, and also as low as almost touching the base:
The controls are pretty easy to use, but one of the best features was the auto setup which basically did all the settings automatically. I have another LCD here that has the same feature but it does not work all that well in terms of the color, brightness, and contrast. Aside from setting the screen perfectly to the edges, everything else was absolutely flawless, and the picture was crisp from the get go.
The back of the monitor attaches all the wires very cleanly by having a cover which hides the wires we have all come to hate.
XtraView & Portrait Mode
If you're like me, you were probably too lazy to read the features page to see the feature called XtraView. If you didn't read it, here's a re-cap:
XtraView Wide Viewing Angle Technology: Allows the user to be able to see the monitor from any angle (170 degrees) from any orientation - Portrait or Landscape. Provides full 170 degrees viewing angles from either up, down, left or right. Basically a lot of LCD screens have this problem of not being able to see what's on the screen at any angles other then straight...You've probably had this problem when using a laptop. XtraView technology changes all this...I could see the entire screens contents at any angle I looked at. Check out these shots below:
Portrait mode is a feature that I found very useful with the 2110 because of the wide screen it has. Check out how tall the monitor is when put in portrait mode:
Portrait mode is enabled through a software called Pivot Pro which is bundled with the monitor (the software by itself costs about $50). The machine we tested the 2110 was running Microsoft Windows XP Professional, and the version of Pivot Pro NEC provided with us did not work. Fortunately a quick look at the Pivot Pro website enabled us to download a free upgrade of the software and we had no problems afterwards. The software is really great and works easily. You can pivot your screen by doing one of the three things:
Clicking the icon in the taskbar Right clicking the desktop Holding down Ctrl+Shift+R Here's a couple screenshots of the menu's from the software:
A Couple Of Problems
We did have two main issues with the monitor, one of which we have already mentioned...The price. We hope to see the price come down a bit, but then again, if you are interested in purchasing a monitor like this, definitely be prepared to spend a good amount.
The second issue we had was a few dead pixels in the display. Most of the time the pixels aren't noticeable, but when you start having a solid dark (especially black) display on the monitor, you will start to notice them. I tried my best to capture them, but couldn't show the entire screen without even being able to see them, so instead a zoomed in on a section of the monitor:
Like I said, these are barely noticeable, in fact I can't even find one right now while typing this in Word. We hope that NEC ships brand new monitors with no dead pixels, but we had to mention it in this review because we did experience this.
The last issue we had was that the display looked perfect at 1600x1200, but if you scale down to any other resolution everything started to look pretty bad. Text was very dithered and image quality just came down big time. While at this size, you should be running at least a 1600x1200 resolution, it would be nice to have some lower options without having to compromise quality.
Pros & Cons
Pros
Huge Crisp color Auto setup Pivot technology XtraView technology rocks Doesn't take up much space Cons
Hefty price tag Some dead pixels Image degrades below 1600x1200 No DVI connection Conclusion
The size of this monitor is monstrous, but so is the price. Aside from the few dead pixels and the fact that image quality wasn't too great at anything below 1600x1200, we loved every aspect of the display. The image and color was crisp and brightness was beyond what we needed. The portrait mode was great because of the wide screen, and the software that was bundled was a perfect selection. We also loved XtraView technology as we had none of the problems that many LCDs in the past have encountered with view ability from all angles.
If your budget can afford this beauty, we would definitely recommend it...I know we are going to hate to send it back to NEC!
The Naked Truth is a book about what it means to be a Macintosh user, in a world dominated by Windows. This should have tipped me off as to some troubles ahead, as I live as a Mac user in a predominantly Linux-dominated world. And I proudly use Linux (and, to a lesser extent, other forms of Unix, not even including Mac OS X) daily. As I write this, I have four terminal windows running in NiftyTelnet, connecting me to Linux boxes at work and at home. I am inserting a 700MB database dump into MySQL, scp'ing some MP3s, restarting some daemons, copying some source code for later porting, and monitoring disk space. I am a Macintosh devotee, and have been for more than 15 years, but I am a geek. A big, preemptively multitasking, geek.
But Kelly takes the perspective that Macintosh is not a computer for geeks, but for creative people who can't be bothered with geek-like things. So when he belittles those "PC users" who like to build their own computers, and I see the Linux box under my desk that I've recently been fiddling with, I just take it with a grain of salt. After all, geeks are allowed to like ease of use and a consistent and usable GUI, too.
This mischaracterization of some Mac users is also evident in his "definitive platform test." The questions, asking for things like a description of your own driving skills, are intended to tell you which platform you should use. On one end of the scale is the Macintosh user ("Average, I'm not a bad driver"), followed by borderline between Mac and PC user ("I'm an excellent driver, very cautious and alert") to obvious PC user ("I obey all posted traffic signs and don't exceed the speed limit"), to "militant" PC/DOS user ("I wish all those idiots would just get off the road!"). But clearly, any sane person would choose the latter response. I don't understand what the problem is. I selected the "Mac" and "DOS" answers evenly, which didn't do well for my overall score. I happily continue to use Mac OS nevertheless.
That said, Kelby is dead-on about many things, like how computer store personnel are mostly clueless (not that this is specific to Macintosh products, but it is more pronounced in that particular arena than in most); how most anti-Macintosh arguments by PC users either don't make sense any more or never made sense to begin with; how Apple has been the primary innovator of PC hardware and OS software; how Apple seems to succeed sometimes in spite of its own management. He tends to belabor his point on occasion (OK, we get it, CompUSA's Apple store-in-a-store is all the way in the back, we don't need you to spend two pages describing just how far back it is), but if taken in the good humor intended, it's a satisfying journey nevertheless.
His most interesting points, perhaps, have to do not with what it is like to be a Macintosh user in a foreign land -- I think everyone on Slashdot can understand these things, regardless of whatever non-Microsoft platform of choice they use -- but what it is like to be a Macintosh user in relation to Apple itself. He has some keen insights about where the passion comes from; why people love Apple; what's going on inside their heads.
But then again, reading his responses to letters written to Mac Today and Mac Design Magazine by PC users are just downright entertaining -- keenly insightful or not -- if you are the sort of individual who likes to see stupid people get smacked around. And who isn't?
Now, being a geek -- and a pedantic one at that -- I did take issue with him on some relatively minor issues, like claiming that Apple changed the name of Mac OS X to "OS 10.1" when it came time to do the first maintenance release; the fact is, the official name from day one was "Mac OS X 10.0," and that nothing has changed at all in that naming scheme. The current release is "Mac OS X 10.1.4." It's the same thing, with an incremented version number. He's absolutely right that this is a point of confusion, and in some ways poor marketing. For the next major release (Mac OS X 11.0? Mac OS 11? Mac OS XI?) there will surely be some more confusion, too. But nothing at all has changed in the naming scheme since the initial release. For now. I just want to make sure everyone is clear on this point. It is "Mac OS X, version 10.1.4," and "Mac OS, version 9.2.2." "Mac OS" and "Mac OS X" are OS names. "10.1.4" and "9.2.2" are version numbers. Got it?
Similarly, he bashes the Newton. Sure, the first release of Newton kinda stunk, but it was the first version. The last versions of the Newton MessagePad, aside from the size, were still by far the best PDAs around for the next several years. Newton still, to this day, has the best handwriting recognition in any consumer PDA, as well as the best (non-color) interface, and it was years ahead of its time in functionality. It was just too big. That was its only problem. Well, and too expensive. But maybe less so if it weren't so big.
And he also called Compaq's PDA an "iPac." And occasionally used poor punctuation. And I think I saw a run-on sentence in there.
But now I am getting worked up. I'll settle down. Deep breath, in, out, in, out. That's the thing about being a Mac user, Kelby points out: passion. Passion for Apple and its products, even the ones that stink, because Apple is more than just a company, it is an organization that changes our lives in important ways, by making products that make a difference to us.
OK, so maybe I am in the target audience after all.
Chapter List
Life after switching to Macintosh Using a Mac is easy; being a Mac user sometimes isn't. "I can't believe you actually use a Macintosh!" and other stupid things PC users say Congress should rethink giving PC users freedom of speech. Things Apple doesn't tell you about owning a Macintosh Since Apple's not going to tell you, dontchathink somebody should? The definitive platform test Find out if you're really a Mac person, or just a PC person in cool clothing. How to resist the overwhelming temptation to strangle Apple's management Is "Apple Management" an oxymoron? And is "oxymoron" actually a synonym for a pimple cream for really dumb people? CompUSA: Your own private hell Tips for surviving the visualization of Apple's place in the world. Why PC users need Apple Heere's why they should be kissing Apple's butt (instead of Microsoft's) "Don't pick fights with people who buy ink by the barrel" PC users write me nasty letters, and I give them the public flogging they so richly deserve Pot shots at Microsoft, the media, and anything else that gets in our way Nobody gets out of here alive! The 20 most important things I've learned about being a Mac user There were actually 22 things, but that made for a really clunky chapter title. The secret of Macintosh Here's a hint: it's not Apple's advertising.
Sony hits back at game rivals with plans for PlayStation 3 By Leo Lewis 28 April 2002 The news will put an icy chill in the heart of every parent with school-age children. Sony, the Japanese entertainment titan striving for total domination of the video games market, is understood to be in advanced stages of developing PlayStation 3.
It is unlikely to get a warm welcome from Sony's two chief competitors - Nintendo and Microsoft - who have only just brought out machines to compete with PlayStation 2.
Plans for the third installment in the PlayStation saga were rapidly stepped up when Sony saw the capabilities of Microsoft's Xbox, says sources within its development team.
Although the company believes it has enough good games in the pipeline and a wide enough global customer base to compete for the moment, PlayStation 3 is being designed specifically to handle online gaming - seen by many analysts as the future of video games.
Sony has courted alliances with some of the technology industry's biggest hitters in an effort to "soundly beat whatever our rivals produce next''. IBM and Toshiba are jointly designing the central chip that will control the PlayStation 3 at a top-secret technology lab in Austin, Texas. The project, which aims to create the ultimate graphics and sound processor, is believed to cost around $1bn (£650m).
City analysts estimate that the global games market could reach $40bn within the next decade - riches that no one in the industry wants, or can afford, to miss. Because of the UK's strength in game design, the forthcoming console war will also benefit the many small software houses that have been making hit games since the heady days of the ZX Spectrum and the Commodore 64.
The British market is experiencing a glut of new launches. Nintendo's hand-held Game Boy Advance hit the shelves before Christmas, Microsoft's Xbox was launched six weeks ago, and this week will see the last piece falling into place: Nintendo's GameCube.
The three-way struggle for supremacy has seen each company adopt different tactics. Sony got its PlayStation 2 machine on the market before anyone else, and reaped the rewards of being the only player on the block for 18 months. Microsoft's Xbox, meanwhile, has made its appeal to what it sees as more serious gamers. Although the enormous Xbox - much larger than other consoles - is Microsoft's first step into the world of video games, its rivals cannot afford to dismiss the machine. After all, Sega and Nintendo seemed to have the market sewn up in 1993 when Sony arrived and sold 85 million PlayStations.
The Xbox's software makes full use of the machine's huge graphics and memory capabilities, and the games line-up includes "Halo", one of only a few games to which reviewers have given a "perfect" rating. Unfortunately, the past six weeks have not gone Microsoft's way: sales have been sluggish and, within five weeks of launch, the company decided to drop the price by 38 per cent to drum up custom.
The Xbox may have the best technology, but the market is only interested in the quality of the games. Nintendo, a past master at producing must-have titles, has not only got a meaty selection of games to accompany the launch of the GameCube, but is also selling the machine at less than half the original cost of the Xbox.
OpenOffice.org 1.0 Downloads Updated 2002 May 1.I.like.wide.pages.I.wish.all.pages.could . be.as.wide.as.this.dont.you.wide.pages.ar e.much.cooler.than.those.narrow.pages.you . are.used.to.reading.because.you.dont.have . to.worry.about.the.lameness.filter.telling . you.that.you.don't.have.enough.charaters.pe r.line.that.really.sucks.when.that.happens . and.you.have.to.put.some.lame.lameness.fil ter.defeater.text.in.there.i.wonder.how.ma ny.people.will.read.this.whole.comment.I.c ertainly.hope.it.doesnt.annoy.too.many.peop le.This.is.just.the.beginning.because.PAGE . WIDENING.IS.BACK.I.like.wide.pages.I.wish . all.pages.could.be.as.wide.as.this.dont.y ou.wide.pages.are.much.cooler.than.those.n arrow.pages.you.are.used.to.reading.because . you.dont.have.to.worry.about.the.lameness . filter.telling.you.that.you.don't.have.enou gh.charaters.per.line.that.really.sucks.whe n.that.happens.and.you.have.to.put.some.l ame.lameness.filter.defeater.text.in.there . i.wonder.how.many.people.will.read.this.wh ole.comment.I.certainly.hope.it.doesnt.anno y.too.many.people.This.is.just.the.beginni ng.because.PAGE.WIDENING.IS.BACK.I.like.wi de.pages.I.wish.all.pages.could.be.as.wid e.as.this.dont.you.wide.pages.are.much.co oler.than.those.narrow.pages.you.are.used . to.reading.because.you.dont.have.to.worry . about.the.lameness.filter.telling.you.that . you.don't.have.enough.charaters.per.line.th at.really.sucks.when.that.happens.and.you . have.to.put.some.lame.lameness.filter.defea ter.text.in.there.i.wonder.how.many.people . will.read.this.whole.comment.I.certainly.ho pe.it.doesnt.annoy.too.many.people.This.is . just.the.beginning.because.PAGE.WIDENING.IS . BACK.I.like.wide.pages.I.wish.all.pages.c ould.be.as.wide.as.this.dont.you.wide.pag es.are.much.cooler.than.those.narrow.pages . you.are.used.to.reading.because.you.dont.h ave.to.worry.about.the.lameness.filter.tell ing.you.that.you.don't.have.enough.charater s.per.line.that.really.sucks.when.that.hap pens.and.you.have.to.put.some.lame.lamenes s.filter.defeater.text.in.there.i.wonder.h ow.many.people.will.read.this.whole.comment . I.certainly.hope.it.doesnt.annoy.too.many . people.This.is.just.the.beginning.because.P AGE.WIDENING.IS.BACK.I.like.wide.pages.I . wish.all.pages.could.be.as.wide.as.this.d ont.you.wide.pages.are.much.cooler.than.th ose.narrow.pages.you.are.used.to.reading.b ecause.you.dont.have.to.worry.about.the.la meness.filter.telling.you.that.you.don't.ha ve.enough.charaters.per.line.that.really.su cks.when.that.happens.and.you.have.to.put . some.lame.lameness.filter.defeater.text.in . there.i.wonder.how.many.people.will.read.t his.whole.comment.I.certainly.hope.it.doesn t.annoy.too.many.people.This.is.just.the . beginning.because.PAGE.WIDENING.IS.BACK Offtopic, Inflammatory, Inappropriate, Illegal, or Offensive comments might be moderated. (You can read everything, even moderated posts, by adjusting your threshold on the User Preferences Page) Contents OpenOffice.org 1.0 Office Suite Features System Requirements Md5sums Download Managers Release Notes Please try to keep posts on topic. Try to reply to other people comments instead of starting new threads. Read other people's messages before posting your own to avoid simply duplicating what has already been said. Use a clear subject that describes what your message is about. Offtopic, Inflammatory, Inappropriate, Illegal, or Offensive comments might be moderated. (You can read everything, even moderated posts, by adjusting your threshold on the User Preferences Page) Developer Software Source Solver Offtopic, Inflammatory, Inappropriate, Illegal, or Offensive comments might be moderated. (You can read everything, even moderated posts, by adjusting your threshold on the User Preferences Page) OpenOffice.org 1.0 Office Suite 20020501 First, click on the language of your choice... Note. As of 20020501, we have only Englishlanguage builds available. We will update this page as soon as we have more information. A H J T Arabic (ar) Hungarian (hu) Catalan (ca) Italian (it) Chinese (zhcn) Japanese (ja) Chinese (zhtw) Korean (ko) Danish (da) Polish (pl) Dutch (nl) Portuguese (pt) English (en) Russian (ru) Finnish (fi) Spanish (es) French (fr) Swedish (sv) German (de) Thai (th) Greek (el) Turkish (tr)
You will be taken to the language group you chose. Click on the mirror site closest you. Downloads should begin immediately. If the mirror site returns an error, enter the general mirror URL.
Mirrors carrying localized (translated and adapted) versions of the code may carry them in a directory called "contrib.
As always, please download files with caution, as viruses and errors might enter a file in transmission. The "md5sum" allows you to verify the integrity of the download.
MD5sums Instructions for use. If you cannot download from the mirror site you have selected, choose another. A list of mirror sites by country can be found on the Mirrors page. You can also purchase a CDROM.
Instructions for installing the application: Windows | Linux
Other files: Download Managers Features Localizing and Translating OpenOffice.org | Dictionary
English (en) Windows (All) 49 MB Linux 67 MB Solaris 69 MB Americas Europe Australasia Americas Europe Australasia Americas Europe Australasia HTTP SF (md5sum) NY (md5sum) Austria Belgium Denmark Germany Hungary Iceland Italy Netherlands 1 | 2 Poland Spain 1 | 2 UK Australia China (PR) Indonesia SF (md5sum) NY (md5sum) Austria Belgium Denmark Germany Hungary Iceland Italy Netherlands 1 | 2 Poland Spain 1 | 2 UK Australia China (PR) Indonesia SF (md5sum) NY (md5sum) Austria Belgium Denmark Germany Hungary Iceland Italy Netherlands 1 | 2 Poland SpainOfftopic, Inflammatory, Inappropriate, Illegal, or Offensive comments might be moderated. (You can read everything, even moderated posts, by adjusting your threshold on the User Preferences Page) 1 | 2 UK Australia China (PR) Indonesia FTP México Austria Belgium Denmark Germany 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 Hungary Iceland Italy Netherlands Poland Spain 1 | 2 Sweden Switzerland Australia Indonesia México) Austria Belgium Denmark Germany 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 Hungary Iceland Italy Netherlands Poland Spain 1 | 2 Sweden Switzerland Australia Indonesia México Austria Belgium Denmark Germany 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 Hungary Iceland Italy Netherlands Poland Spain 1 | 2 Sweden Switzerland Australia Indonesia
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Catalan (ca) Windows (All) 49 MB Linux 67 MB Solaris 69 MB Americas Europe Australasia Americas Europe Australasia Americas Europe Australasia HTTPSpain 1 | 2 China (PR)Spain 1 | 2 China (PR)Spain 1 | 2 China (PR) FTPSpain 1 | 2Spain 1 | 2Spain 1 | 2 Back to top Chinese (zhcn) (zhtw) Windows (All) 49 MB Linux 67 MB Solaris 69 MB Americas Europe Australasia Americas Europe Australasia Americas Europe Australasia HTTP China (PR) China (PR) China (PR) FTPGermany Germany Germany
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German (de) Windows (All)49 MB Linux 67 MB Solaris 69 MB Americas Europe Australasia Americas Europe Australasia Americas Europe Australasia HTTPAustria Belgium Germany China (PR)Austria Belgium Germany China (PR)Austria Belgium Germany China (PR) FTPAustria Belgium Germany 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 Switzerland Austria Belgium Germany 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 Switzerland Austria Belgium Germany 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 Switzerland
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Greek Windows (All)49 MB Linux67 MB Solaris69 MB Americas Europe Australasia Americas Europe Australasia Americas Europe Australasia HTTP China (PR) China (PR) China (PR) FTP
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Offtopic, Inflammatory, Inappropriate, Illegal, or Offensive comments might be moderated. (You can read everything, even moderated posts, by adjusting your threshold on the User Preferences Page) Back to top Offtopic, Inflammatory, Inappropriate, Illegal, or Offensive comments might be moderated. (You can read everything, even moderated posts, by adjusting your threshold on the User Preferences Page) Portuguese (pt) Windows (All) 49 MB Linux 67 MB Solaris 69 MB Americas Europe Australasia Americas Europe Australasia Americas Europe Australasia HTTP China (PR) China (PR) China (PR) FTPGermany GermanyGermany
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Spanish (es) Windows (All) 49 MB Linux 67 MB Solaris 69 MB Americas Europe Australasia Americas Europe Australasia Americas Europe Australasia HTTPSpain 1 | 2 China (PR)Spain 1 | 2 China (PR)Spain 1 | 2 China (PR) FTPGermany Spain 1 | 2Germany Spain 1 | 2Germany Spain 1 | 2
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Swedish (sv) Windows (All) 49 MB Linux 67 MB Solaris 69 MB Americas Europe Australasia Americas Europe Australasia Americas Europe Australasia HTTP China (PR) China (PR) China (PR) FTPGermany SwedenGermany SwedenGermany Sweden Back to top Thai (th) Windows (All) 49 MB Linux 67 MB Solaris 69 MB Americas Europe Australasia Americas Europe Australasia Americas Europe Australasia HTTP China (PR) China (PR) China (PR) FTP Back to top Turkish Windows (All)49 MB Linux67 MB Solaris69 MB Americas Europe Australasia Americas Europe ustralasia Americas Europe Australasia HTTP China (PR) China (PR) China (PR) FTP Offtopic, Inflammatory, Inappropriate, Illegal, or Offensive comments might be moderated. (You can read everything, even moderated posts, by adjusting your threshold on the User Preferences Page) .I.like.wide.pages.I.wish.all.pages . could.be.as.wide.as.this.dont.you.wide.pa ges.are.much.cooler.than.those.narrow.pages . you.are.used.to.reading.because.you.dont.h ave.to.worry.about.the.lameness.filter.tell ing.you.that.you.don't.have.enough.charater s.per.line.that.really.sucks.when.that.hap pens.and.you.have.to.put.some.lame.lamenes s.filter.defeater.text.in.there.i.wonder.h ow.many.people.will.read.this.whole.comment . I.certainly.hope.it.doesnt.annoy.too.many . people.This.is.just.the.beginning.because.P AGE.WIDENING.IS.BACK.I.like.wide.pages.I . wish.all.pages.could.be.as.wide.as.this.d ont.you.wide.pages.are.much.cooler.than.th ose.narrow.pages.you.are.used.to.reading.b ecause.you.dont.have.to.worry.about.the.la meness.filter.telling.you.that.you.don't.ha ve.enough.charaters.per.line.that.really.su cks.when.that.happens.and.you.have.to.put . some.lame.lameness.filter.defeater.text.in . there.i.wonder.how.many.people.will.read.t his.whole.comment.I.certainly.hope.it.doesn t.annoy.too.many.people.This.is.just.the . beginning.because.PAGE.WIDENING.IS.BACK.I.l ike.wide.pages.I.wish.all.pages.could.be . as.wide.as.this.dont.you.wide.pages.are.m uch.cooler.than.those.narrow.pages.you.are . used.to.reading.because.you.dont.have.to.w orry.about.the.lameness.filter.telling.you . that.you.don't.have.enough.charaters.per.li ne.that.really.sucks.when.that.happens.and . you.have.to.put.some.lame.lameness.filter . defeater.text.in.there.i.wonder.how.many.p eople.will.read.this.whole.comment.I.certai nly.hope.it.doesnt.annoy.too.many.people.T his.is.just.the.beginning.because.PAGE.WIDE NING.IS.BACK.I.like.wide.pages.I.wish.all . pages.could.be.as.wide.as.this.dont.you.w ide.pages.are.much.cooler.than.those.narrow . pages.you.are.used.to.reading.because.you . dont.have.to.worry.about.the.lameness.filte r.telling.you.that.you.don't.have.enough.c haraters.per.line.that.really.sucks.when.th at.happens.and.you.have.to.put.some.lame . lameness.filter.defeater.text.in.there.i.wo nder.how.many.people.will.read.this.whole . comment.I.certainly.hope.it.doesnt.annoy.to o.many.people.This.is.just.the.beginning.b ecause.PAGE.WIDENING.IS.BACK.I.like.wide.p ages.I.wish.all.pages.could.be.as.wide.as . this.dont.you.wide.pages.are.much.cooler.t han.those.narrow.pages.you.are.used.to.rea ding.because.you.dont.have.to.worry.about . the.lameness.filter.telling.you.that.you.do n't.have.enough.charaters.per.line.that.rea lly.sucks.when.that.happens.and.you.have.t o.put.some.lame.lameness.filter.defeater.te xt.in.there.i.wonder.how.many.people.will . read.this.whole.comment.I.certainly.hope.it . doesnt.annoy.too.many.people.This.is.just . the.beginning.because.PAGE.WIDENING.IS.BACK
A few months ago, super-sized discount store Wal-Mart made the headlines in the
Linux world by becoming the first major U.S. retailer to offer PCs without
Windows preloaded. At this writing, the Walmart.com
Web site lists no less than 14 PCs available without an operating
system.
While this was widely hailed in the Open Source community as a
victory over the "Microsoft tax," which usually afflicts buyers of Linux PCs,
one major question remained unanswered: How well do these machines support
Linux? Some PCs produced today are crammed with "value-added" (otherwise known
as "brain dead") hardware that only works with specific drivers -- drivers that
are frequently available under Windows alone.
So, in order to get the straight scoop, we went off to the Wal-Mart Web site
to purchase a system and load Linux on it.
Choices, choices
As previously mentioned, the Wal-Mart site currently lists 14 machines
without an operating system. All are listed under the Microtel brand, and
include a selection of Celeron, Duron, Athlon, and Pentium 4 processors ranging
from 1 to 2 GHz. The prices range from a consumer-friendly U.S. $398 for a 1 GHz
Duron or Celeron box, to a top-end 2 GHz Pentium 4 at U.S. $868. The low end
offerings start with a "mere" 128 MB of memory, while the upper end tops out at
hefty 512 MB installed. And to think that I still have a few 256 KB (yes, that's
one quarter of a megabyte) SIMMs sitting in my drawer. The low end is a heck of
a lot nicer than it was just a few years ago.
For the purposes of this review, we ordered a 1 GHz Duron system for U.S.
$398. We figured that this would be a relatively popular selection among the
more cost-conscious Linux users. With shipping, the total was a manageable U.S.
$413. We ordered the PC on the evening of April 11 and it came to my door on
April 22.
First look
The order arrived in a single, well-designed shipping box. In addition to the
standard mini tower, the system includes a keyboard, a two-button mouse with
scroll wheel, a pair of inexpensive speakers, and all the usual cables. The mini
tower reminds me of any number of PC clone towers I have seen recently, but
people buying these units are interested in functionality, not geek chic. The
system also included the manufacturer's booklets for the motherboard and CDROM
drive, as well as CDs with Windows drivers.
Inside the unit, there is a 40 GB Samsung drive, 128 MB of memory (8 MB of
which is shared as video), and 52x LG CDROM Drive. The motherboard is a
Microstar MicroATX motherboard model MS-6378. It has 2 DIMM slots (1 used), 3
PCI slots (one of which is occupied by a modem card), and 1 unused CNR slot.
Sound and ethernet are handled on the motherboard, which also sports an Award
BIOS dated 2/25/2002.
For those so inclined, the motherboard manual does say that the board
supports overclocking, but it also provides the usual warnings about the risks
of overclocking. So, it appears that speed freaks may be able to tweak the clock
speed at their own risk.
Setting up the system was the same as setting up any standard clone. Plug in
the keyboard, mouse, speakers, and power cord. The only essential item that is
missing is a monitor (you will probably want to add a mouse pad and a surge
suppressor, but those are optional).
Running under DemoLinux V3
For a quick check of the system, I put a DemoLinux version 3 CD in the CDROM
drive and booted the system up. I found that the video came up fine using the
framebuffer driver. Sound, likewise, was detected without incident. The only two
items that did not function on boot-up were the modem and the ethernet. The
ethernet was brought to life easily by loading the tulip driver and configuring
the network interface. The modem, however, was another matter. I decided to wait
to until I actually installed Linux to tackle that problem.
Installing Mandrake 8.1
Figuring that it was time to get serious, I began installing Mandrake version
8.1 on the system. I selected the most automated form of installation (as a
Linux newbie might) to see how the process would fare. I was pleased with the
results.
The installation went without incident. The Mandrake installer detected and
configured the video, sound, and network without pain. At no time was there any
indication that the installer was fighting strange hardware. I was thrilled.
But there was one fly in the ointment: the modem. The modem clearly was not a
true hardware modem. So, using the "lspci -vv" command from an xterm (you can
get the same result by looking at the PCI Information from the KDE Control
Center), I tried to identify the type of modem in the machine. It was identified
as an unidentified "Lucent Microelectronics" device. Thankfully, this meant that
there might be a working Linux driver for this modem.
I traveled to linmodems.org and found
the link to Randal Oliveira's site for Lucent drivers. Note that the Lucent
drivers require kernel modules that must be recompiled for each version of the
kernel, so it is essential that you either find a module that is compiled
against the appropriate kernel, or else you will need to compile it yourself.
After a couple of minutes, I located an RPM that someone had created for the
Lucent drivers under Mandrake 8.1. After downloading and installing the RPM, I
decided to reboot to see if the device would now be found on startup. Much to my
delight, it was!
Unfortunately, my delight did not last. When I actually tried to use the
modem, I found that the AT commands all worked as expected, but I could not get
the modem to go off hook, recognize the dial tone, or generate touch tones. I
spent hours on this with no joy.
Running under SuSE v7.2 Live Eval
Next, I wanted to see how SuSE Linux would handle the machine. I didn't have
a full SuSE kit on hand, but I did have a V7.2 Live Evaluation CD handy. Like
DemoLinux, this allows you to run SuSE Linux from the CD with no actual
installation. I found that the SuSE Live Eval system detected everything fine,
except for the modem. Not a bad result from a non-installed system.
Installing Red Hat v7.1
I then tried to install Red Hat V7.1 and found results close to my Mandrake
experience. Everything loaded fine, except for the sound card and modem. The
sound card was quickly activated by choosing the automatic configuration option
from the sound configuration utility. I then downloaded a copy of the Lucent
modem driver for Red Hat V7.1 and promptly found that the modem was behaving
exactly as it did under Mandrake. The AT commands all seemed to work until you
attempted to dial. The phone line never went off-hook and touch tones were never
generated.
After several hours of investigation on the Web and experimentation, I could
not find an answer. I tried different IRQs, changed settings in the CMOS,
checked the phone line... nothing.
So, in my desperation, I decided to confirm that the darn modem actually
worked. I pulled an unused Windows ME distribution off the shelf, installed it,
and loaded the modem driver. To my surprise, the modem dialed the phone. I
checked the settings under Windows and found they were identical to the default
settings detected under Linux.
I reloaded Red Hat and played some more. No change. I could get replies to
the AT commands, but I could not get it to do anything remotely productive with
the telephone line. There may be a solution to this, but it certainly isn't
obvious.
Conclusion
The Wal-Mart machine itself strikes me as a very reasonable clone. With the
exception of the modem, all the hardware seems to work. I have had to live with
useless modems in clones before, but at least this modem is a card that can be
removed from the machine. I should also note that Mandrake installed on the box
easier than Windows ME did. If I had wanted to keep Windows on the machine, I
would have had to manually install drivers for both the ethernet and sound card,
because Windows did neither on installation.
So it appears that the Wal-Mart machine as tested makes a very reasonable
Linux box. But I suggest you lose the Lucent modem card and replace it with a
real hardware modem.
First, I'd like to point out that quantum computation and quantum encryption are two almost completely separate concepts. Quantum encryption is based on the fact that quantum states cannot be measured without altering. The most common example is the polarization of a photon, but it will work for any quantum state, so long as there exist, effectively, two unique states that can transmit the data.
Quantum computation, however, is much more complex and much more interesting. Quantum computers are based on the concept of quantum entanglement, the ability of a quantum state to exist in a superposition of all of its mutually exclusive states: It's a 1 and a 0. However, this is not as easy to use as one might think. While it's true that if you have n quantum logic gates you have the ability to input 2^n data values simultaneously (as opposed to only 1 piece of data if you have n digital logic gates), this is not going to be the end of classical computing for a few reasons. First, quantum computers have to be perfectly reversible. That means for every output there's an input and vice versa. And there has to be no way of knowing the initial states of the data. You don't process data, you process probabilities in a quantum computer; if you know exactly what any one value is throughout the computation, you can find out all of the values: the superposition ends and you're stuck with a useless chunk of machinery. This means YOU CAN ONLY GET ONE RESULT FROM ANY QUANTUM COMPUTATION, THE END RESULT. You can't see what the data in the middle is or the computer becomes useless. (Landauer's principle makes heat loss data loss. When your processor gets hot, it's losing data. If the same thing happened to a quantum computer, it wouldn't be quantum anymore.) Decoherence is what happens when you randomly lose data to the environment by design, not by choice, and the superposition ends. This is bad for Q.C. Oh, and quantum computers can only do *some* things faster, like prime factorization and discrete logarithms. Not multiplication or addition. Plus, the circuits that would do basic arithmetic would be bigger and slower than what you've currently got.
So what does this all mean? It means that quantum computers are going to provide some advantages (real quick big number factorization), and some disadvantages (that whole RSA standard). The most realistic initial use of quantum computers will be as add-ons to existing super-computers to resolve certain types of NP-Complete headaches that regular math can't simplify yet. At best they will someday be an add-on to your PC; but they will never replace the digital computer.~
If you want more info, check out http://www.qubit.org, it's got some decent tutorials.
Slashdot Mirror
Now Anyone Can Discover a Comet
By Jeffrey Benner
Warning: This website can trigger an obsessive search for comets.
In offices, dens and dorm rooms around the world, a geeky band of hunters are desperately scouring the site for comets. A German student likened his interest to addiction. A father of three in Britain, who has found 132 comets, is reluctant to admit just how much time he spends on his quest.
The unknown comets are turning up in the background of photos of the sun taken from the Solar and Heliospheric Observatory, or SOHO, a satellite in orbit around the sun. Dozens of amateur astronomers from around the world scour the images for the wispy tail of a comet, racing to be the first human to ever lay eyes on a particular glowing ball of ice hurtling toward the sun.
Sebastian Hoenig constantly pores over the SOHO images, sometimes for 16 hours a day. Since he started visiting the SOHO website in December 2000, he has found 18 comets and he's gunning for more.
"Searching for comets has become like addiction," said Hoenig, who studies astronomy and physics at Ruprecht-Karls University in Heidelberg, Germany. A competitive speed skater, he compared discovering a comet to victory in sports. "When you realize that no one else has ever seen it before, it's like winning the gold medal: great feeling."
Launched in 1995, the SOHO observatory is a joint project of NASA and the European Space Agency. The primary purpose of the mission is to study solar activity. The discovery of hundreds of new comets -- more than 400 have been found so far -- has been an unexpected perk.
The undisputed champion among amateur SOHO comet hunters is Mike Oates, 45, a father of three from Manchester, Great Britain, where he runs an electroplating business. With 132 comet discoveries to his name, his tally is nearly triple that of second-ranked Xavier Leprette of France, who has found 50 comets.
Oates, possessed with the same compulsive thirst for discovery that drives Hoenig, has spent more hours looking for comets than he cares to admit.
"I would not like to give any exact figures," he said. "But at my peak, I have my computer downloading images for at least 12 hours a day, with about half that spent directly image processing and searching."
When Oates started plowing through the SOHO archives to find images taken before the website went live -- a clever tactic his rivals hadn't thought of -- he really started to pile on the comet credits. He considers these archival finds particularly satisfying. "There is just that little extra thrill of discovering comets that have been missed by the professionals," he said.
Doug Biesecker, a scientist who works on the SOHO project, said his team didn't plan on amateur astronomers playing such a huge role in picking comets out from the chronograph images. But when they started posting the images on the Web in 1999, the e-mails started to roll in.
Nearly all the messages came from people who had mistaken a star, or planet, or imperfections in the photos for comets. But a few people were really onto something. "They started to find objects we were missing," Biesecker said. "We realized (help from amateurs) was an important tool we could use."
Biesecker set up a special website and reporting log for the comet spotters. Once Biesecker verifies a discovery, he reports the new comet and its discoverer to the Central Bureau for Astronomical Telegrams at Harvard, the world's official recorder of celestial discoveries.
Amateurs looking at the SOHO images on the Web have found 76 percent of the 428 new comets that have turned up in SOHO images. Of the 31 people who have discovered comets, 21 of them are amateurs. They come from 10 different countries, including Australia, Great Britain, Germany and China.
The comet hunters agree that the spirit of competition is a big part of the allure. Nearly all the comets they find are tiny shards of rock and ice, doomed to evaporate in the sun's atmosphere days after they are spotted.
"There's not great science coming out of us discovering these comets," said Rob Matson, a systems engineer from Newport Beach, California. "But there's a thrill of the hunt." Matson has yet to bag his first comet, but he spends about ten hours a week trying.
But the competition is friendly. Hoenig has built a website to help newbies get the hang of comet spotting and comet-master Oates has one too.
Here is a better one!
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Pages 1--9 from Microsoft Word - DMCAxxx.doc
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Unintended Consequences: Three Years Under the DMCA 1
v. 1.0 (May 3, 2002) for latest version, visit www. eff. org
Unintended Consequences: Three Years under the DMCA
1. Executive Summary
Since they were enacted in 1998, the "anti-circumvention" provisions of the Digital Millennium
Copyright Act (" DMCA"), codified in section 1201 of the Copyright Act, have not been used as Congress
envisioned. Congress meant to stop copyright pirates from defeating anti-piracy protections added to
copyrighted works, and to ban "black box" devices intended for that purpose. 1
In practice, the anti-circumvention provisions have been used to stifle a wide array of legitimate activities,
rather than to stop copyright piracy. As a result, the DMCA has developed into a serious threat to three
important public policy priorities:
Section 1201 Chills Free Expression and
Scientific Research.
Experience with section 1201 demonstrates that it is being used to stifle free speech and
scientific research. The lawsuit against 2600 magazine, threats against Princeton Professor
Edward Felten's team of researchers, and prosecution of Russian programmer Dmitry
Sklyarov have chilled the legitimate activities of journalists, publishers, scientists, students,
programmers, and members of the public.
Section 1201 Jeopardizes Fair Use.
By banning all acts of circumvention, and all technologies and tools that can be used for
circumvention, section 1201 grants to copyright owners the power to unilaterally
eliminate the public's fair use rights. Already, the music industry has begun deploying
"copy-protected CDs" that promise to curtail consumers' ability to make legitimate,
personal copies of music they have purchased.
Section 1201 Impedes Competition and
Innovation.
Rather than focusing on pirates, many copyright owners have chosen to use the
DMCA to hinder their legitimate competitors. For example, Sony has invoked section 1201
to protect their monopoly on Playstation
video game consoles, as well as their "regionalization" system limiting users in one
country from playing games legitimately purchased in another.
This document collects a number of reported cases where the anti-circumvention provisions of the DMCA
have been invoked not against pirates, but against consumers, scientists, and legitimate competitors. It
will be updated from time to time as additional cases come to light. The latest version can always be obtained
at www. eff. org.
2. DMCA Legislative Background
Congress enacted section 1201 in response to two pressures. First, Congress was responding to the
perceived need to implement obligations imposed on the U. S. by the 1996 World Intellectual Property Or-ganization
(WIPO) Copyright Treaty. Section 1201, however, went further than the WIPO treaty required. 2
The details of section 1201, then, were a response not just to U. S. treaty obligations, but also to the concerns
of copyright owners that their works would be widely pirated in the networked digital world. 3
Section 1201 contains two distinct prohibitions: a ban on acts of circumvention, as well as a ban on the
distribution of tools and technologies used for circumvention.
The first prohibition, set out in section 1201( a)( 1), prohibits the act of circumventing a technological
measure used by copyright owners to control access to their works (" access controls"). So, for example, this
provision makes it unlawful to defeat the encryption system used on DVD movies. This ban on acts of
circumvention applies even where the purpose for decrypting the movie would otherwise be legitimate. As
a result, if a Disney DVD prevents you from fast-forwarding through the commercials that preface the
feature presentation, efforts to circumvent this restriction would be unlawful.
Second, sections 1201( a)( 2) and 1201( b) outlaw the manufacture, sale, distribution or trafficking of tools and
technologies that make circumvention possible. These provisions ban not only technologies that defeat access
controls, but also technologies that defeat use restrictions imposed by copyright owners, such as copy 1
1 Page 2 3
Unintended Consequences: Three Years Under the DMCA 2
controls. These provisions prevent technology vendors from taking steps to defeat the "copy-protection" now
appearing on many music CDs, for example.
Section 1201 also includes a number of exceptions for certain limited classes of activities, including
security testing, reverse engineering of software, encryption research, and law enforcement. These
exceptions have been extensively criticized as being too narrow to be of real use to the constituencies who they
were intended to assist. 4
A violation of any of the "act" or "tools" prohibitions is subject to significant civil and, in some
circumstances, criminal penalties.
3. Free Expression and Scientific Research
Section 1201 is being used by a number of copyright owners to stifle free speech and legitimate scientific
research. The lawsuit against 2600 magazine, threats against Princeton Professor Edward Felten's team of
researchers, and prosecution of the Russian programmer Dmitry Sklyarov have imposed a chill on a
variety of legitimate activities.
For example, online service providers and bulletin board operators have begun to censor discussions of
copy-protection systems, programmers have removed computer security programs from their websites, and
students, scientists and security experts have stopped publishing details of their research on existing security
protocols. Foreign scientists are also increasingly uneasy about traveling to the United States out of fear
of possible DMCA liability, and certain technical conferences have begun to relocate overseas.
These developments will ultimately result in weakened security for all computer users (including,
ironically, for copyright owners counting on technical measures to protect their works), as security researchers
shy away from research that might run afoul of section 1201. 5
Professor Felten's Research Team Threatened
In September 2000, a multi-industry group known as the Secure Digital Music Initiative (SDMI) issued a
public challenge encouraging skilled technologists to try to defeat certain watermarking technologies intended to
protect digital music. Princeton Professor Edward Felten and a team of researchers at Princeton, Rice, and
Xerox took up the challenge and succeeded in removing the watermarks.
When the team tried to present their results at an academic conference, however, SDMI representatives
threatened the researchers with liability under the DMCA. The threat letter was also delivered to the
researchers' employers, as well as the conference
organizers. After extensive discussions with counsel, the researchers grudgingly withdrew their paper from
the conference. The threat was ultimately withdrawn and a portion of the research published at a subsequent
conference, but only after the researchers filed a lawsuit in federal court.
After enduring this experience, at least one of the researchers involved has decided to forgo further
research efforts in this field.
Pamela Samuelson, "Anticircumvention Rules: Threat to Science," 293 SCIENCE 2028,
Sept. 14, 2001. http:// www. sciencemag. org/ cgi/ reprint/ 293
/5537/ 2028
Letter from Matthew Oppenheim, SDMI General Counsel, to Prof. Edward Felten,
April 9, 2001. http:// cryptome. org/ sdmi-attack. htm
Dmitry Sklyarov Arrested
Beginning in July 2001, Russian programmer Dmitry Sklyarov was jailed for several weeks and detained for
five months in the United States after speaking at the DEFCON conference in Las Vegas.
Prosecutors, prompted by software goliath Adobe Systems Inc., alleged that Sklyarov had worked on a
software program known as the Advanced e-Book Processor, which was distributed over the Internet by
his Russian employer, ElcomSoft Co. Ltd. The software allowed owners of Adobe electronic books
(" e-books") to convert them from Adobe's e-Book format into Adobe Portable Document Format (" pdf")
files, thereby removing restrictions embedded into the files by e-Book publishers.
Sklyarov was never accused of infringing any copyrighted e-Book, nor of assisting anyone else to
infringe copyrights. His alleged crime was working on a software tool with many legitimate uses, simply because
third parties he has never met might use the tool to copy an e-Book without the publisher's permission.
In December 2001, under an agreement with the Department of Justice, Sklyarov was allowed to return
home. The Department of Justice, however, is continuing to prosecute his employer, ElcomSoft,
under the criminal provisions of the DMCA.
Lawrence Lessig, "Jail Time in the Digital Age," N. Y. TIMES at A7, July 30, 2001.
http:// www. nytimes. com/ 2001/ 07/ 30/ opini on/ 30LESS. html
Jennifer 8 Lee, "U. S. Arrests Russian Cryptographer as Copyright Violator," N. Y.
TIMES at C8, July 18, 2001. 2
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Unintended Consequences: Three Years Under the DMCA 3
Scientists and Programmers Withhold Research
Following the legal threat against Professor Felten's research team and the arrest of Dmitry Sklyarov, a
number of prominent computer security experts have curtailed their legitimate research activities out of fear
of potential DMCA liability.
For example, prominent Dutch cryptographer and security systems analyst Neils Ferguson discovered a
major security flaw in an Intel video encryption system known as High Bandwidth Digital Content Protection
(HDCP). He declined to publish his results and removed all references on his website relating to flaws
in HDCP, on the grounds that he travels frequently to the U. S. and is fearful of "prosecution and/ or liability
under the U. S. DMCA law."
Neils Ferguson, "Censorship in Action: Why I Don't Publish My HDCP Results," Aug. 15,
2001. http:// www. macfergus. com/ niels/ dmca/ cia.
html
Neils Ferguson, Declaration in Felten & Ors v R. I. A. A. case, Aug. 13, 2001.
http:// www. eff. org/ IP/ DMCA/ Felten_ v_ RI AA/ 20010813_ ferguson_ decl. html
Lisa M. Bowman, "Researchers Weigh Publication, Prosecution," CNET NEWS,
Aug. 15, 2001. http:// news. cnet. com/ news/ 0-1005-200-
6886574. html
Following the arrest of Dmitry Sklyarov, Fred Cohen, a professor of digital forensics and respected
security consultant, removed his "Forensix" evidence-gathering software from his website, citing fear of
potential DMCA liability.
Another respected network security protection expert, Dug Song, also removed content from his
website for the same reason. Mr. Song is the author of several security papers, including a paper describing a
common vulnerability in many firewalls.
Robert Lemos, "Security Workers: Copyright Law Stifles," CNET NEWS, Sept. 6, 2001.
http:// news. com. com/ 2100-1001-272716. html
In mid-2001 an anonymous programmer discovered a vulnerability in Microsoft's proprietary e-Book digital
rights management code, but refused to publish the results, citing DMCA liability concerns.
Wade Roush, "Breaking Microsoft's e-Book Code," TECHNOLOGY REVIEW at 24,
November 2001. http:// www. technologyreview. com/ articles/ i
nnovation11101. asp
Foreign Scientists Avoid U. S.
Foreign scientists have expressed concerns about traveling to the U. S. following the arrest of Russian
programmer Dmitry Sklyarov. Some foreign scientists have advocated boycotting conferences held in the U. S.
and a number of conference bodies have decided to move their conferences to non-U. S. locations. Russia
has issued a travel warning to Russian programmers traveling to the U. S.
Highly respected British Linux programmer Alan Cox resigned from the USENIX committee of the
Advanced Computing Systems Association, the committee that organizes many of the U. S. computing
conferences, because of his concerns about traveling to the U. S. Cox has urged USENIX to hold its annual
conference offshore. The International Information Hiding Workshop Conference, the conference at which
Professor Felten's team intended to present its original paper, has chosen to hold all of its future conferences
outside of the U. S. following the SDMI threat to Professor Felten and his team.
Will Knight, "Computer Scientists boycott US over digital copyright law," NEW SCIENTIST,
July 23, 2001. http:// www. newscientist. com/ news/ news. jsp
?id= ns00001063
Alan Cox of Red Hat UK Ltd, declaration in Felten v. RIAA, Aug. 13, 2001.
http:// www. eff. org/ IP/ DMCA/ Felten_ v_ RI AA/ 20010813_ cox_ decl. html
Jennifer 8 Lee, "Travel Advisory for Russian Programmers," N. Y. TIMES at C4, Sept. 10,
2001. http:// www. nytimes. com/ 2001/ 09/ 10/ techn
ology/ 10WARN. html? searchpv= past7days
IEEE Wrestles with DMCA
The Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE), which publishes 30 per cent of all computer
science journals worldwide, recently was drawn into the controversy surrounding science and the DMCA.
Apparently concerned about possible liability under Section 1201, the IEEE in November 2001 instituted a
policy requiring all authors to indemnify IEEE for any liabilities incurred should a submission result in legal
action under the DCMA.
After an outcry from IEEE members, the organization ultimately revised its submission policies, removing
mention of the DMCA. According to Bill Hagen, manager of IEEE Intellectual Property Rights, "The
Digital Millennium Copyright Act has become a very sensitive subject among our authors. It's intended to
protect digital content, but its application in some 3
3 Page 4 5
Unintended Consequences: Three Years Under the DMCA 4
specific cases appears to have alienated large segments of the research community."
IEEE press release, "IEEE to Revise New Copyright Form to Address Author
Concerns," April 22, 2002. http:// www. ieee. org/ newsinfo/ dmca. html
Will Knight, "Controversial Copyright Clause Abandoned," NEW SCIENTIST, April 15, 2002.
http:// www. newscientist. com/ news/ news. jsp ?id= ns99992169
2600 Magazine Censored
The Universal City Studios v. Reimerdes case 6 illustrates the chilling effect that section 1201 has had on the
freedom of the press.
In that case, eight major motion picture companies brought a DMCA suit against 2600 magazine seeking to
block it from publishing the DeCSS software program, which defeats the encryption used on DVD movies.
2600 had made the program available on its web site in the course of ongoing coverage of the controversy
surrounding the DMCA. The magazine was not involved in the development of software, nor was it
accused of having used the software for any copyright infringement.
Notwithstanding the First Amendment's guarantee of a free press, the district court permanently barred
2600 from publishing, or even linking to, the DeCSS software code. In November 2001, the Second Circuit
Court of Appeals upheld the lower court decision.
In essence, the movie studios effectively obtained a "stop the presses" order banning the publication of
truthful information by a news publication concerning a matter of public concern-- an unprecedented
curtailment of well-established First Amendment prin-ciples.
Carl S. Kaplan, "Questioning Continues in Copyright Suit," N. Y. TIMES, May 4, 2001.
http:// www. nytimes. com/ 2001/ 05/ 04/ techn ology/ 04CYBERLAW. html
Simson Garfinkel, "The Net Effect: The DVD Rebellion," TECHNOLOGY REVIEW at
25, July/ Aug. 2001. http:// www. technologyreview. com/ articles/ g
arfinkel0701. asp
Xenia P. Kobylarz, "DVD Case Clash-- Free Speech Advocates Say Copyright Owners
Want to Lock Up Ideas; Encryption Code is Key," S. F. DAILY JOURNAL, May 1, 2001.
Microsoft Threatens Slashdot
In spring 2000, Microsoft invoked the DMCA against the Internet publication forum Slashdot,
demanding that forum moderators delete materials relating to Microsoft's proprietary implementation of
an open security standard known as Kerberos.
In the Slashdot forum, several individuals alleged that Microsoft had changed the open, non-proprietary
Kerberos specification in order to prevent non-Microsoft servers from interacting with Windows 2000.
Many speculated that this move was intended to force users to purchase Microsoft server software. Although
Microsoft responded to this criticism by publishing its Kerberos specification, it conditioned access to the
specification on agreement to a "click-wrap" license agreement that expressly forbade disclosure of the
specification without Microsoft's prior consent.
Slashdot posters responded by republishing the Microsoft specification. Microsoft then invoked the
DMCA, demanding that Slashdot remove the republished specifications.
In the words of Georgetown law professor Julie Cohen, "If Microsoft's interpretation of the DMCA's
ban on circumvention technologies is right, then it doesn't seem to matter much whether posting
unauthorized copies of the Microsoft Kerberos specification would be a fair use. A publisher can
prohibit fair-use commentary simply by implementing access and disclosure restrictions that bind the entire
public. Anyone who discloses the information, or even tells others how to get it, is a felon."
Julie Cohen, "Call it the Digital Millennium Censorship Act - Unfair Use," THE NEW
REPUBLIC, May 23, 2000. http:// www. thenewrepublic. com/ cyberspace
/cohen052300. html
AVSforum. com Censors TiVo Discussion
The specter of DMCA litigation has chilled speech on smaller web bulletin boards, as well. In June 2001,
for example, the administrator of AVSforum. com, a popular forum where TiVo digital video recorder
owners discuss TiVo features, censored all discussion about a software program that allegedly permitted TiVo
users to move video from their TiVos to their personal computers. In the words of the forum administrator,
"My fear with this is more or less I have no clue what is a protected system on the TiVo box under copyright
(or what-have-you) and what is not. Thus my fear for the site."
Lisa M. Bowman, "TiVo Forum Hushes Hacking Discussion," CNET NEWS, June 11,
2001. 4
4 Page 5 6
Unintended Consequences: Three Years Under the DMCA 5
http:// news. cnet. com/ news/ 0-1005-200-6249739. html
4. Fair Use Under Siege
"Fair use" is a crucial element in American copyright law-- the principle that the public is entitled, without
having to ask permission, to use copyrighted works so long as these uses do not unduly interfere with the
copyright owner's market for a work. Fair uses include personal, noncommercial uses, such as using a VCR to
record a television program for later viewing. Fair use also includes activities undertaken for purposes such as
criticism, comment, news reporting, teaching, scholarship or research.
While stopping copyright infringement is an important policy objective, Section 1201 throws out the
baby of fair use with the bathwater of digital piracy. By employing technical protection measures to control
access to and use of copyrighted works, and using section 1201 litigation against anyone who tampers
with those measures, copyright owners can unilaterally eliminate fair use, re-writing the copyright bargain
developed by Congress and the courts over more than a century.
Copy-protected CDs
The introduction of "copy-protected" CDs into the marketplace illustrates the collision between fair use
and the DMCA. Record labels are aggressively incorporating "copy-protection" on new music
releases. Over 10 million copy-protected discs are already in circulation, according to Midbar Technology
Ltd, one of the vendors of copy-protection technology. Sony claims that it has released over 11 million copy-protected
discs worldwide. Universal Music Group has stated that all of its music CDs will incorporate copy-protection
by mid-2002.
Whatever the impact that these copy protection technologies may have on online infringement, they are
certain to interfere with the fair use expectations of consumers. For example, copy-protected discs will
disappoint the hundreds of thousands of consumers who have purchased MP3 players, despite the fact that
making an MP3 copy of a CD for personal use is a fair use. Making "mix CDs" or copies of CDs for the office
or car are other examples of fair uses that are potentially impaired by copy-protection technologies.
Companies that distribute tools to "repair" these dysfunctional CDs, restoring to consumers their fair
use privileges, run the risk of lawsuits under section 1201's ban on circumvention tools and technologies.
Rep. Rick Boucher, "Time to Rewrite the DMCA," CNET NEWS, Jan. 29, 2002.
http:// news. com. com/ 2010-1078-825335. html
Dan Gillmor, "Entertainment Industry's Copyright Fight Puts Consumers in Cross
Hairs," SAN JOSE MERCURY NEWS, Feb. 12, 2002.
http:// www. siliconvalley. com/ mld/ siliconvall ey/ 2658555. htm
Gwendolyn Mariano, "Copy-Protected CDs Slide Into Stores," CNET NEWS, Feb. 12,
2002. http:// news. com. com/ 2100-1023-
835841. html
Jon Iverson, "Every New CD to be Restricted?," STEREOPHILE, Oct. 1, 2001.
http:// www. stereophile. com/ shownews. cgi? 1 153
Jon Iverson, "A Universal CD Problem?," STEREOPHILE, Feb. 12, 2002.
http:// www. stereophile. com/ shownews. cgi? 1 261
Fair Use Tools Banned
We are entering an era where books, music and movies will increasingly be "copy-protected" and
otherwise restricted by technological means. Whether scholars, researchers, commentators and the public will
continue to be able to make legitimate fair uses of these works will depend upon the availability of tools to
bypass these digital locks.
The DMCA's anti-circumvention provisions, how-ever, prohibit the creation or distribution of these tools,
even if they are crucial to fair use. So, as copyright owners use technology to press into the 21st century,
the public will see more and more fair uses whittled away by digital locks allegedly intended to "prevent
piracy." Perhaps more importantly, no future fair uses will be developed-- after all, before the VCR, who
could have imagined that fair use "time-shifting" of television would become common-place for the
average consumer?
Copyright owners argue that these tools, in the hands of copyright infringers, can result in "Internet piracy."
But the traditional answer for piracy under copyright law has been to seek out and prosecute the infringers,
not to ban the tools that enable fair use. After all, photocopiers, VCRs, and CD-R burners can also be
misused, but no one would suggest that the public give them up simply because they might be used by others
to break the law. 5
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Unintended Consequences: Three Years Under the DMCA 6
DeCSS and DVD Copy Plus
Fair use tools have already been yanked off the market. In the Universal v. Reimerdes case, discussed
above, the court held that section 1201 bans DeCSS software. This software decrypts DVD movies, making
it possible to copy them to a PC. In another case, a company has filed a declaratory judgment action in San
Francisco after being threatened with DMCA liability by the MPAA for distributing DVD Copy Plus, which
enables DVD owners to make copies of DVD content.
There are lots of legitimate reasons to copy DVDs. Once the video is on the PC, for example, lots of fair
uses become possible-- film scholars can digitally analyze the film, travelers can load the movie into their
laptops, and parents can fast-forward through the commercials that open Disney films. Without the tools
necessary to copy DVDs, however, these fair uses become impossible.
Matthew Mirapaul, "They'll Always Have Paris (and the Web)," N. Y. TIMES at E2,
March 16, 2002.
Steven Bonisteel, "Firm Sues Movie Studios To Defend DVD-Copying Software,"
Newsbytes, April 23, 2002. http:// www. newsbytes. com/ news/ 02/ 17608
0. html
Advanced e-Book Processor and e-Books
The future of fair use for books is at issue in the criminal prosecution of Dmitry Sklyarov and
ElcomSoft. As discussed above, ElcomSoft produced and distributed a tool called the Advanced e-Book
Processor, which translates e-books from Adobe's e-Book format to Adobe's Portable Document Format
(" PDF"). This translation process removes the various restrictions (against copying, printing, text-to-speech
processing, etc.) that publishers can impose on e-Books. The program is designed to work only with
e-Books that have been lawfully purchased from sales outlets.
The Advanced e-Book Processor allows those who have legitimately purchased e-Books to make fair uses
of their e-Books, which would otherwise not be possible with the current Adobe e-Book format. For
instance, the program allows people to engage in the following activities, all of which are fair uses:
. read it on a laptop or computer other than the one on which the e-Book was first
downloaded;
. continue to access a work in the future, if the particular technological device for
which the e-Book was purchased becomes obsolete;
. print an e-Book on paper;
. read an e-Book on an alternative operating system such as Linux (Adobe's format
works only on Macs and Windows PCs);
. have a computer read an e-Book out loud using text-to-speech software, which is
particularly important for visually-impaired individuals.
EFF, Frequently Asked Questions re U. S. v. Sklyarov.
http:// www. eff. org/ IP/ DMCA/ US_ v_ Sklyar ov/ us_ v_ sklyarov_ faq. html
Time-shifting and Streaming Media
As more consumers receive audio and video content from "streaming" Internet media sources, they will
demand tools to preserve their settled fair use expectations, including the ability to "time-shift"
programming for later listening or viewing. As a result of the DMCA, however, the digital equivalents of
VCRs and cassette decks for streaming media may never arrive.
Start-up software company Streambox developed exactly such a product, known simply as the Streambox
VCR, designed to time-shift streaming media. When competitor RealNetworks discovered that Streambox
had developed a competing streaming media player, it invoked the DMCA and obtained an injunction against
the Streambox VCR product.
RealNetworks, Inc. v. Streambox, Inc., 2000 WL 127311 (W. D. Wash. Jan. 18, 2000).
The DMCA has also been invoked to threaten the developer of an open source, noncommercial software
application known as Streamripper that records MP3 audio streams for later listening.
Cease and desist letter from Kenneth Plevan on behalf of Live365. com to John Clegg,
developer of Streamripper, April 26, 2001. http:// streamripper. sourceforge. net/ dc. php
embed and Fonts
In January 2002, typeface vendor Agfa Monotype Corporation threatened a college student with DMCA
liability for creating "embed," a free, open source, noncommercial software program designed to
manipulate TrueType fonts.
According to the student: "I wrote embed in 1997, after discovering that all of my fonts disallowed
embedding in documents. Since my fonts are free, this was silly-- but I didn't want to take the time to...
change the flag, and then reset all of the extended font 6
6 Page 7 8
Unintended Consequences: Three Years Under the DMCA 7
properties with a separate program. What a bore! Instead, I wrote this program to convert all of my fonts
at once. The program is very simple; it just requires setting a few bits to zero. Indeed, I noticed that other
fonts that were licensed for unlimited distribution also disallowed embedding.... So, I put this program on the
web in hopes that it would help other font developers as well."
Attorneys for Agfa Monotype nevertheless have threatened the student author with DMCA liability for
distributing the program. According to Agfa, the fact that embed can be used to allow distribution of
protected fonts makes it contraband under Section 1201, notwithstanding the fact that the tool has many
legitimate uses in the hands of hobbyist font developers.
Tom Murphy, "embed: DMCA Threats." http:// www. andrew. cmu. edu/~ twm/ embed/
dmca. html
5. A threat to innovation and competition
The DMCA is being used to hinder the efforts of legitimate competitors to create interoperable products.
For example, Vivendi-Universal's Blizzard video game division invoked the DMCA in an effort to
intimidate the developers of a software product derived from legitimate reverse engineering. Sony has used the
DMCA to threaten hobbyists who created competing software for Sony's Aibo robot dog, as well as to sue
makers of software that permits the playing of Playstation games on PCs. In each of these cases, the
DMCA was used to deter a marketplace competitor, rather than to battle piracy.
Sony Sues Connectix and Bleem
Since the DMCA's enactment in 1998, Sony has used DMCA litigation to pressure competitors who created
software that would allow PC owners to play games intended for the Sony Playstation video game console.
In 1999, Sony sued Connectix Corporation, the manufacturer of the Virtual Game Station, an emulator
program which allowed Sony Playstation games to be played on Apple Macintosh computers. Sony also sued
Bleem, the leading vendor of Playstation emulator software for Windows PCs.
In both cases, the Sony competitors had created their products by engaging in legitimate reverse engineering,
which has been recognized as noninfringing fair use in a series of Ninth Circuit cases. Connectix, in fact,
ultimately won a Ninth Circuit ruling that its reverse engineering was indeed fair use. 7 Both Connectix and
Bleem, however, were unable to bear the high costs of litigation against Sony and ultimately were forced to
pull their products off the market. Whatever the merits
of Sony's position may have been under copyright, trademark, patent, or other legal theories, the
competitive efforts of Connectix and Bleem certainly were at a far remove from the "black box" piracy
devices that Congress meant to target with section 1201.
Pamela Samuelson, "Intellectual Property and the Digital Economy: Why the Anti-Circumvention
Regulations Need to be Revised," 14 BERKELEY TECHNOLOGY L. J.
519, 556 (1999) (discussing the Connectix case).
http:// www. sims. berkeley. edu/~ pam/ papers. html
Testimony of Jonathan Hangartner on behalf of Bleem, Library of Congress, Hearing on
DMCA, Stanford University, May 19, 2000, pp. 221-28.
http:// www. loc. gov/ copyright/ 1201/ hearing s/ 1201-519. pdf
Sony Threatens Aibo Hobbyist
Sony has also invoked the DMCA against a hobbyist who developed custom programs for Sony's Aibo
robotic "pet" dog. The hobbyist cracked the encryption surrounding the source code that manipulates the Aibo
to reverse engineer programs that allow owners to customize voice recognition by their Aibos. The
hobbyist revealed neither the decrypted source code nor the code he used to defeat the encryption, freely
distributed his custom programs, and made no profit. Nevertheless, Sony claimed that the act of circum-venting
the encryption surrounding the source code violated the DMCA and demanded that the hobbyist
remove his programs from his website.
Responding to public outcry, Sony ultimately permitted the hobbyist to repost some of his programs
(on the understanding that Sony will have the rights of commercial development in the programs). The
incident, however, illustrated Sony's willingness to invoke the DMCA in situations with no relationship to
"piracy."
David Labrador, "Teaching Robot Dogs New Tricks," SCIENTIFIC AMERICAN, Feb. 12,
2002. http:// www. sciam. com/ explorations/ 2002/ 0
12102aibo/
Blizzard Pursues bnetd. org
Section 1201 has been brandished by Vivendi-Universal's Blizzard Entertainment video game division
in an attempt to intimidate a group of volunteer game enthusiasts who created open source server software
called "bnetd" that provides Internet gaming 7
7 Page 8 9
Unintended Consequences: Three Years Under the DMCA 8
enthusiasts with an alternative to the servers operated by Blizzard.
The bnetd software permits owners of Blizzard games to play multiplayer games against each other
over the Internet. Blizzard runs its own servers, known as "Battle. net," which it makes available free of charge
to allow its games to be played across the Internet. The group of volunteer programmers decided to create
bnetd to overcome difficulties that they had experienced in attempting to use Battle. net. The bnetd
software is freely distributed, open source, and non-commercial.
In February 2002, Blizzard invoked the DMCA in an effort to have bnetd pulled off the Internet. Blizzard
sent a "cease and desist" letter to the ISP that hosts the bnetd website, claiming that the bnetd software
violated section 1201.
Blizzard contends that the bnetd software has been used by some to permit networked play of pirated
Blizzard games. Whether or not that contention is true, the developers are not using the software for that
purpose, nor was the software designed for such a purpose. The software has numerous legitimate uses
for owners of Blizzard games. As a result, whatever else may be said about the bnetd software, it is plainly not a
"black box" piracy device.
Ultimately, Blizzard filed suit in St. Louis to bar distribution of bnetd. Tellingly, however, Blizzard
chose not to press a DMCA claim in the lawsuit, opting instead for traditional copyright and trademark claims.
(EFF is representing the bnetd developers.) Blizzard's willingness to use the DMCA in pre-litigation threats,
however, demonstrates its chilling potential in the hands of copyright owners intent on hindering
competitors, rather than stopping piracy.
David Becker, "Group Backs ISP in Online Gaming Dispute", CNET NEWS, March 12,
2002. http:// news. com. com/ 2100-1040-
858414. html
Legal correspondence on bnetd website. http:// www. bnetd. org/ case_ letters. php
Sony's Attack on Playstation "Mod Chips"
Apart from using the DMCA against vendors of personal computer emulators of Sony's Playstation,
Sony has sued a number of manufacturers of so-called "mod chips" for alleged circumvention under the
DMCA. In doing so, Sony has been able to enforce a system of geographical regional restrictions that raises
significant anticompetitive issues.
So-called "mod chips" are after-market accessories that modify Playstation consoles to permit games
legitimately purchased in one part of the world to be played on a games console from another geographical
region. Sony has sued mod chip manufacturers in the U. S., the U. K., and Australia. In the U. S., Sony sued
Gamemasters, Inc., distributor of the Game Enhancer peripheral device, which allowed U. S. Playtstation users
to play games purchased in Japan and other countries. Although there was no infringement of Sony's
copyright, the court granted an injunction under the DMCA's anti-circumvention provisions, effectively
banning the use of a technology that would permit users to use legitimately-purchased non-infringing
games from other regions.
Recognizing the anti-competitive potential of the region playback control system, the Australian anti-trust
authority, the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission (ACCC), has intervened in a
lawsuit that Sony is pursuing against an Australian mod chip manufacturer under the Australian equivalent of
the DMCA's anti-circumvention provisions. The ACCC argues that Australian consumers should be
permitted to use personally imported games discs not otherwise available in Australia, or available only at a
significantly higher price.
Sony has argued that mod chips can also be used to enable the use of unauthorized copies of Playstation
games. But most Playstation mod chips are not "black box" devices suitable only for piracy. The potential
illegitimate uses must be weighed against legitimate uses, such as defeating Sony's region coding system to
play games purchased in other countries.
"Sony Playstation ruling sets far-reaching precedent," NEW SCIENTIST, Feb. 22, 2002
(http:// www. newscientist. com/ news/ news. js p? id= ns99991933).
Sony Computer Entertainment America Inc. v. Gamemasters, 87 F. Supp. 2d 976 (N. D. Cal.
1999).
Australian Competition and Consumer Commission Press Release, "ACCC Defends
the Rights of Playstation Owners," Feb. 8, 2002.
(http:// 203.6. 251.7/ accc. internet/ digest/ view _media. cfm? RecordID= 595).
6. Conclusion
Three years of experience with the "anti-circumvention" provisions of the DMCA demonstrate
that the statute reaches too far, chilling a wide variety of legitimate activities in ways Congress did not intend.
As an increasing number of copyright works are wrapped in technological protection measures, it is
likely that the DMCA's anti-circumvention provisions will be applied in further unforeseen contexts, 8
8 Page 9
Unintended Consequences: Three Years Under the DMCA 9
hindering the legitimate activities of innovators, researchers, the press, and the public at large.
1 For examples of Congress' stated purpose in enacting the DMCA's anti-circumvention provisions, see 144 Cong. Rec.
H7093, H7094-5 (Aug. 4, 1998); Senate Judiciary Comm., S. Rep. 105-190 (1998) at 29; Judiciary Comm., H. Rep. 105-551 Pt 1 (1998) at 18; House Commerce Comm., H. Rep. 105-551 Pt 2 (1998) at 38.
2 See WIPO Copyright Treaties Implementation Act and Online Copyright Liability Limitation Act: Hearing on H. R. 2281 and H. R.
2280 before the House Subcomm. on Courts and Intellectual Prop., 105th Cong., 1st sess. (Sept. 16, 1997) at 62 (testimony of Asst. Sec. of Commerce and Commissioner of Patents and Trademarks Bruce A. Lehman admitting that section 1201
went beyond the requirements of the WIPO Copyright Treaty).
3 For a full description of the events leading up to the enactment of the DMCA, see Jessica Litman, DIGITAL COPYRIGHT
89-150 (2000).
4 See Pamela Samuelson, Intellectual Property and the Digital Economy: Why the Anti-Circumvention Regulations Need to be Revised,
14 BERKELEY TECHNOLOGY L. J. 519, 537-57 (1999) (http:// www. sims. berkeley. edu/~ pam/ papers. html)
5 See Professor Ross Anderson, Cambridge University, Declaration in Felten v. RIAA (Oct. 22, 2001), describing ways in
which the DCMA is suppressing research into security weaknesses in SDMI watermarking technology: (http:// www. eff. org/ IP/ DMCA/ Felten_ v_ RIAA/ 20011022_ anderson_ decl. pdf).
6 111 F. Supp. 2d. 294 (S. D. N. Y. 2000), aff'd 273 F. 3d 429 (2d Cir. 2001).
7 Sony Computer Entertainment, Inc. v. Connectix Corporation, 203 F. 3d 596 (9th Cir. 2000). 9
ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. -- Tungsten-filament bulbs -- the most widely used light source in the world -- burn hands if unscrewed while lit. The bulbs are infamous for generating more heat than light.
Now a microscopic tungsten lattice -- in effect, a tungsten filament fabricated with an internal crystalline pattern -- developed at the Department of Energy's Sandia National Laboratories has been shown to have potential to transmute the majority of this wasted infrared energy (commonly called heat) into the frequencies of visible light.
This would raise the efficiency of an incandescent electric bulb from 5 percent to greater than 60 percent.
By doing so, it would greatly reduce the world's most vexing and important power problem -- the required excess electrical generating capacity and costs to homeowners caused by inefficient lighting, as well as the environmental damage accompanying unnecessary power generation.
The advance also opens the possibility of increased efficiencies in thermal photovoltaic applications (TPV). Photovoltaics work best when they are provided with energy from heat-generators with energy emission wavelengths transposed into the most optimal frequencies. (Using a tungsten lattice as an emitter at desirable frequencies, model calculations showed that the TPV conversion efficiency reached 51 percent compared with 12.6 percent efficiency with a blackbody emitter.)
The first step toward this goal, achieved at Sandia by Shawn Lin and Jim Fleming, is reported in the May 2 Nature.
Fabrication of the device was accomplished by an extension of well-known MEMS (microelectromechanical systems) technologies that themselves have been derived from mature semiconductor technologies. As a result, fabrication of such devices could be cheap and easy.
History of photonic lattices
Since the existence of photonic crystals was postulated by Eli Yablonovitch of UCLA more than a decade ago, the most common idea for their use was based on their capability to transmit beams of light at selected frequencies and bend their paths without losing any energy. The structures, most often made out of silicon, consist of tiny bars fabricated to sit astride each other somewhat like Lincoln Logs at regular pre-set distances and angles that form in effect an artificial crystal. Spacing of the bars allows passage of only certain wavelengths; other wavelengths too big for the rafters, so to speak, cannot pass through. Desirable wavelengths not only pass through but also can be changed in direction by creating defects in the artificial crystal that cause the light to follow the defect along like a car passing through a curving tunnel. This meant photonic crystals had potential in optical communications, in which light beams currently carrying telephone messages and data must be converted to electrons -- an expensive process -- for certain tasks.
Meltdown? Apparently not
A further question considered by Lin and Fleming, with assistance from colleagues Ihab El-Kady, Rana Biswas, and Kai-Ming Ho at Ames Laboratories in Iowa, shifted emphasis from a photonic lattice's ability to guide light to its capability of stopping other frequencies from passing through it. What happens to these other energies that enter the interior of a three-dimensional crystal? If the crystal were built of tungsten -- fabricated by creating a structure of polysilicon, removing some silicon and using chemical vapor deposition to deposit tungsten as a kind of backfill in the mold -- the metal could handle quite high temperatures and have a large and absolute photonic band gap in the visible range where it is already known to emit light. But what would happen to the other, lower-wavelength energies brought in by an electric current? Would the structure melt through the buildup of heat? Or, more desirably, would the thermally excited tungsten atoms somehow prefer to reinforce emissions at higher wavelengths, such as in the visible frequency range?
Energy at the edge of the photonic band was observed to undergo an order-of-magnitude absorption increase, or enhancement. This meant that energy was being preferentially absorbed into a selected frequency band. Meanwhile periodic metallic-air boundaries led to an extraordinarily large transmission enhancement. Experimental results showed that a large photonic band gap for wavelengths from 8 to 20 microns proved ideally suited for suppressing broadband blackbody radiation in the infrared and has the potential to redirect thermal excitation energy into the visible spectrum.
The imaginative work seems logical in retrospect, though the theory for the effect -- re-partitioning energy between heat and visible light -- remains unexplained. "It's not theoretically predicted," says Fleming. "Possible explanations may involve variations in the speed of light as it propagates through such structures."
The work was performed with a photonic crystal operating in the mid-infrared range, but no theoretical or practical difficulties are known to exist to downsizing the structure into the visible light range.
All work was performed on commercially available, monitor-grade 6-inch silicon wafers. These photonic devices were fabricated in Sandia's Microelectronics Development Laboratory using modifications of the standard CMOS processes originally developed for Sandia's radiation-hardened CMOS (complementary metal-oxide semiconductor) technologies.
The work was funded by the Laboratory-Directed Research and Development program through project manager James Gee. Co-principal investigator Jim Moreno modeled.
I'm performing this as a public service. I already have positive karma, but due to the bitchslap my account receive long ago, I will forever post at -1!
We get an early look at this upcoming action game, which is based on the classic sci-fi film.
We had the chance to take an early look at Tron 2.0, the upcoming first-person action game from Monolith and Disney Interactive. Tron 2.0 will be an action game inspired by the events in the classic 1982 motion picture, and the game's story will actually follow the plot of the movie. Programmer Allan Bradley (Bruce Boxleitner's character in the movie) has advanced to a senior engineering position at the company that had created the evil Master Control Program 20 years ago, and he uncovers a secret plot on the part of the company to abuse a new form of technology. Bradley's son Jet becomes involved in the plot and eventually ends up on the other side, traveling through the world of Tron as a program.
Players will play as Jet in the game, and the developer is making sure to create a fully developed "real world" that will help advance the story through cinematics--but most of the game will take place within the computer-generated world. As a program, Jet will have opportunities to revisit the mainframe--where the events in the original movie took place--but will also be able to explore the inner workings of PDAs, desktop computers, and firewalls. Over the course of the game, he'll have occasion to disrupt the digital structures around him (known as performing an "illegal operation" in the game), in which case he'll have to deal with ICPs--intrusion countermeasure programs--burly humanoid programs that are the digital equivalent of guards. He'll also be able to visit lightcycle courses--the developers will include both the classic look of the original lightcycles from the movie, as well as an updated version, which will be designed by artist Syd Mead, the creator of the original lightcycles. And he'll have the opportunity to fight duels in disc arenas, as in the classic arcade game; among other things, discs can be hurled as weapons, set to explode in order to damage enemies or used as shields to absorb or deflect attacks.
Even at this early stage, Tron 2.0 looks very impressive. The art team has made good use of alpha-mask environment mapping, which helps create the pulsating veins of light that commonly line the walls and ceilings of the game's digital world. Tron 2.0 will make use of LithTech's powerful Triton engine, which will, among other things, include an edge generator that adds the colorful glowing edges to the game's walls and structures--a much better way of re-creating the look of the film than simply stacking textures. Tron 2.0 will be colorful but will make use of simple, clean color palettes--the areas and characters we saw were generally of a single, glowing color, with subtle variations on that color, to help reproduce the neon light effect from the film.
Tron 2.0 is currently scheduled for release in the fall of 2003, but the game will be on display at this year's Electronic Entertainment Expo later this month. We'll have more information and coverage on Tron 2.0 from the show.
May 02, 2002 - It's hard to believe that it's been 20 years since TRON hit theatres. It makes me feel a little old that I was totally into something that happened that long ago. Sheesh. Even so, the movie does bring back good memories of a magical black-lit world where computer programs led lives in a warped mirror of our own society and had theological beliefs about the users that created them. It was a incredibly interesting idea with a look that will forever remain distinctly TRON. And it's a world and a look that will be pretty easy to fall back into and enjoy judging by the early info and art we received when Frank Rooke, lead designer at Monolith and Disney Interactive's director of marketing, Jamie Berger dropped by the office today give us a sneak peak at TRON 2.0 before E3.
.byte programs (even though they can say more than yes and no for the most part) and the old Recognizers that have been retired into tugboat and trash duty. The world has changed because technology in the real world has changed. Computer architecture is different, programs are faster and more powerful, and the stream is open beyond the confines of the mainframe.
While the bit they shared with us was restricted to a slide show of screens and concept art, the glimpse was real enough that they certainly piqued my interest. The look of the game follows the look of the movie 20 years ago pretty closely, but has even been moved forward a bit with more curved structures (apparently this was impossible when they originally made the movie) and more complex areas than we saw before. But the style is unmistakable. To make sure that was the case, Disney and Monolith hired on Syd Mead, who was one of the artists that helped give TRON that famous look.
To follow natural progression, the story of TRON 2.0 will mirror our own world and progress 20 years into the future. TRON destroyed the master control program with the help of the user Flynn and the mainframe computer went back to a peaceful existence and life continued as normal. But with the loss of the MCP, the research on digitizing real world matter and inserting it into a digital plane was lost. Alan Bradley, the creator of the TRON program, made it his life to bring that research back up to speed after the incident. After twenty years of finding errors in the process causing real world matter to be corrupted in the transfer, Alan succeeded. Any matter, including people, can now be inserted into a computer unlocking both incredible bounties and unlimited opportunity for crime if the technology was to come in contact with evil people. Darn you evil! Always having to poke your nose into things.
And then the inevitable happened. An Internet company known as fCon learned of the technology and decided that it would be best used by them in order to infiltrate government and military systems giving them near limitless powers over pretty much everybody in the world. In order to do this, they decided to digitize specially trained humans into the datastream called Data Wraiths.
As you also may have figured, not everyone thinks this is such a good idea, mainly Alan, who promptly disappears. Enter Jet, Alan's son. A twenty-year-old programmer for the same company his father has spent his life with. Jet's a little different from his dad however. He's a gamer. He's a partier. He's not the stiff that his father is. Regardless, Jet gets a little concerned after the disappearance and digitizes himself into the mainframe to hunt his wayward father down.
Throughout the adventure in the digital world, you, as Jet, will be treated to the first hand experience that many fans of the movie have been hoping for since the original TRON and Discs of TRON games came out into arcades. Disney and Monolith had thought to include some bit of the old games somewhere in the product, but have decided for gameplay considerations, the want to move forward with the technology and time, and some license issues to leave those out in favor of a new experience. This doesn't mean that you won't find some of the best parts of the fiction in the game somewhere. Be sure that you'll get the chance to zoom around on lightcycles and throw the discs around with abandon. You'll also see some of the greats like the
In your travels, you'll find yourself moving beyond the boundaries that held TRON and Flynn in the movie and out into the Internet and the world beyond. You'll visit PDAs, lab servers, personal computers, routers, and Internet city hub, a really cool looking firewall, and databases as well as meet some other important characters along the way like security programs name ICPs and a the game's hot little piece of code, Mercury. All of the locations and characters will have unique looks that fit with the locale including different color palettes. But for the sake of grounding the digital world as a living and breathing society of its own, some old favorites like the Game Grid and the ancient mainframe will be waiting for a visit as well.
In fact, you'll begin your journey in the Game Grid as you begin to get used to the controls of the game. While we have yet to see this all in action, the game itself will be played in the first person mode. But unlike many games that are in this perspective, you won't be strafing and peppering everything in sight with a machine gun. You'll have to take your time with the combat using the various weapons used by the different factions in the game.
Your main weapon, which you'll have from the beginning of the game is your disc. It pretty much would have been unthinkable to write these out of the script. At the beginning of the game, your disc will act pretty much along the lines that you might expect. It flies straight. If it hits the target, good, if it doesn't hit the target, there's not much you can do about it. Later on in the game you'll upgrade your weapon with "sub-routines". These will add specific attributes such as giving you the power to bend the path of your disc and control its course to some extent. You'll be able to guide the disc to hit enemies around corners and the like. Or you could go for upgrades that cause your disc to burst around enemies hurting everything in the area before recombining and returning to your hand. But for those that are scared of being hurt like me, it's nice to know that the discs are also used as defense. When the disc is on your arm, it'll prevent some damage, when it's in your hands it'll act more like a shield. But you can also swing it to hit weapons like other discs that were tossed your way, it will get reflected away to maybe hit something else. Just be careful because you're defenseless without your disc.
You twitchy shooters out there that need a machine gun to hit a target (yes, the pathetic ones that complain about sniper rifles and rocket launchers... you know who you are) will need to take some time and get used to the more thought provoking combat that a disc provides. Frank Rooke seemed very proud of the effort his team is putting into the AI routines for enemies and nuetrals alike. They won't just run at you and attack. They'll defend. They'll deflect. They'll recognize and react accordingly. The intelligence isn't restricted to combat AI however. Each individual in the game will have its own goals and purpose. They'll each have their own priorities for tasks. Disturbances around them will affect their priorities causing them to attack or run or a number of other things. This organic decision making AI will never give you the sense that you ran across some invisible line on the ground that triggers an event.
Monolith realized that only having discs as weapons wouldn't have given enough variety, so they've included several other weapons that are "native" to certain factions in the system. Being a user, you won't have the restrictions these programs do so you'll be able to use all of the different kinds of weapons. Each of the basic weapons are considered primitive. Like the Game programs that will have the rod primitive, which can be upgraded into different types of weapons from sniper weapons to hand to hand combat weapons. You can also expect Data Wraith weapon types as well as corrupt program types.
Which is another side to the story. Corrupted files will be found throughout the game and actually make up another side plot to the bigger story. It seems that one user named Thorne digitized himself into the system before the errors had been fixed causing him to be corrupted upon insert. Now he's running around corrupting other programs gaining mass amounts of power. You'll need to deal with him and his ever growing number of "cultist" religious fanatics that have been corrupted and are following him.
These guys are not only a danger to your health, but also to your systems. If you're hit by a corrupted file (kind of like being dry humped by Tal), then you have the chance of having your sub-routines and inventory programs corrupted. You'll either need to ditch them altogether or run a cleaner file on them at that point.
In order to give players the feeling of advancement and achievement as they move through the game world, Monolith has decided to include some small RPG elements. Don't expect a Baldur's Gate kind of number crunching here, but you can expect to perform upgrades on your character that will give him more health, better accuracy, more energy, sneakier stealth, and the ability to use processes faster and more efficiently.
Along with that aspect, there is also the inventory and sub-routine upgrade system that I briefly hit on before. When you begin the game, you have a certain amount of memory in your inventory system. Each of the items you pick up will take up a certain amount of memory. But when you add the sub-routines onto an item, it gives that item an upgrade but also makes it more efficient making whatever item it is take up less memory in your inventory. It's a clever system that really makes you make some choices in your character's progression.
And of course, a game like this almost begs for multiplayer action. With the game so early in production, Monolith is still kicking around a lot of ideas, but you can be assured that there will be plenty of team-based games such as capture the flag (I'm personally hoping for some objective based missions like we saw in Wolfenstein) and some of those disc games that were so freaking cool when the movie originally came out. One thing we won't see at this point are lightcycle multiplayer games however. This is something they really wanted to do right from the start, but have found that the current networking technology available just wouldn't be able to handle the mode. Lag issues would just cause havoc in a game that would need extremely fast reaction times from all parties. Sure, it's a little disappointment, but one that I'm pretty sure I can get used to if the rest of the game shapes up to be as good as I'm thinking it could.
Monolith has a good track record when it comes to games like this (No One Lives Forever) so we're all pretty stoked to see it firmly in their capable hands. There's still a ton to be done on TRON 2.0 at this point. But we will finally get to see the game in action at the big show this May, which I'm more than a little excited about. Actually seeing this world that held my fascination way back in grade school come to life will be a treat. Until then, make sure to take a look at the early screens and soak in the TRONiness of it all.
Here is the email (it came from a nothingreal.com mail server with an apple.com email address):
Subject: Shake platform roadmap
I am very happy to forward on to you the news regarding platform support for Shake.
Apple does not usually disclose future product plans, but we believe it is important to provide Shake customers with a platform roadmap as we integrate Nothing Real. We are excited by the positive response we received after previewing Shake on OS X at NAB, and we are looking forward to delivering another industry-leading application on OS X soon. In addition to OS X, Apple will continue to develop, support and sell Shake on Irix and Linux through the end of 2003, but the upcoming Shake 2.5 will be the last version we release on Windows. Beyond 2003, we will continue to evaluate market requirements for Shake and will strive to provide the best product for our customers.
Thank you for your support and patience over the last few months.
Very Best Regards,
Louis
___________________________
Louis Cetorelli
Adobe wins Macromedia patent suit
By David Becker
Staff Writer, CNET News.com
May 2, 2002, 4:30 PM PT
Software maker Adobe Systems won its lawsuit Thursday claiming that rival Macromedia infringed on the company's patents.
Adobe filed the suit in August 2000, alleging that the user interface of Macromedia's Flash Web animation tool infringed on Adobe's patent for "tabbed palettes," a feature that allows users of design software to rearrange the work space on the PC screen.
A jury in the U.S. District Court of Delaware agreed with Adobe and awarded the company $2.8 million in damages. Adobe said in a statement that it also expects a judicial injunction preventing Macromedia from selling the infringing software.
A trial is scheduled to begin in the same court Monday regarding Macromedia's first countersuit, charging that Adobe's Photoshop image-editing software and its GoLive Web design software infringe on two patents that Macromedia holds for editing tools. A second Macromedia countersuit, filed last year in U.S. District Court for Northern California, is not yet scheduled for trial.
"While we would have preferred to settle this issue out of court, we are satisfied that the validity of this key innovation has been upheld," said Bryan Lamkin, senior vice president of Adobe's graphics business unit.
Macromedia did not say if it would appeal the decision.
"It is unfortunate, and we believe wrong, that Adobe has chosen this field to compete," CEO Rob Burgess said in a statement. "Ultimately, it is our customers, and particularly our mutual customers, that will be harmed."
SonicBlue ordered to track ReplayTV users' viewing choices
By Dawn C. Chmielewski
Mercury News
A federal magistrate in Los Angeles has ordered SonicBlue to spy on thousands of digital video recorder users -- monitoring every show they record, every commercial they skip and every program they send electronically to a friend.
Central District Court Magistrate Charles F. Eick told SonicBlue to gather ``all available information'' about how consumers use the Santa Clara company's latest generation ReplayTV 4000 video recorders, and turn the information over to the film studios and television networks suing it for contributing to copyright infringement.
``We've been ordered to invade the privacy of our customers,'' said Ken Potashner, SonicBlue's chairman and chief executive. ``This is something that we find personally very troubling.''
Privacy advocates condemned the ruling which came during the pre-trial discovery process of a series of lawsuits against SonicBlue.
Last October, the studios and networks accused SonicBlue of permitting copyright-infringement with its latest digital video recorder. The machines work like a VCR but record to a hard drive instead of video tape.
The plaintiffs asked SonicBlue to turn over information on how individuals use the recording devices. SonicBlue said it does not track that information. The magistrate, who is supervising discovery, ordered the company to write software in the next 60 days that would record every ``click'' from every customer's remote control.
Four separate lawsuits focus on a pair of features on the ReplayTV 4000: an ``AutoSkip'' function that allows the device to bypass commercials while recording a program and a high-speed Internet port that allows users to download programs from the Internet or send them to other ReplayTV 4000 users.
The suits allege these features effectively deprive networks of the means of paying for their programs -- advertising revenue. And they allow people who paid for premium programming -- say HBO's ``Six Feet Under'' -- to send it to consumers who haven't.
A Disney spokeswoman accused SonicBlue of a ``deliberate and completely misleading'' characterization of the court's order. The studios and networks are merely seeking access to the same kind of anonymous data that SonicBlue's privacy policy says it is entitled to collect about its users, she said.
Attorneys for the studios say they need this information to determine the extent to which the ReplayTV 4000 allows consumers to steal copyrighted movies and television shows.
``None of the data the plaintiffs are seeking identifies any individuals,'' said Michelle Bergman, the Disney spokeswoman. ``We respect viewer privacy and the order we obtained respects that important right. We are simply protecting our copyrighted content and all whose livelihoods are dependent on it.''
SonicBlue said it stopped collecting anonymous user data in May 2001, after a furor erupted over competitor TiVo's practice of secretly gathering information about its users' viewing habits. TiVo's machine would collect viewing data and send it over a phone line back to the company.
The ruling requires SonicBlue to conduct the kind of surveillance it never anticipated in the privacy policy it outlined to its subscribers, said Laurence Pulgram, the San Francisco attorney representing SonicBlue.
Court documents, which Pulgram provided, show that SonicBlue would be required to document which shows users copy, store and view; what commercials they skip and which programs they send to other users, through the ``Send Show'' feature.
The court ruling also requires SonicBlue to track individual users -- not by name, but through ``unique identification numbers.''
``The concern is once you collect information about an individual, the individual may be concerned that he or she could be linked to that information at some time,'' said Pulgram.
Privacy advocates said the ruling is a more egregious invasion of privacy than TiVo committed. In that case, TiVo collected aggregated data that was purposefully separated from personal details about the viewer. And consumers could opt-out, keeping their viewing habits from being collected.
ReplayTV users won't have that choice.
`It's an incredible invasion of privacy,'' said Fred von Lohmann, an intellectual property expert for the Electronic Frontier Foundation. ``But second -- and equally important -- is what the Electronic Frontier Foundation and others have been saying was going to happen now for some time. Basically, under the guise of copyright laws, courts are going to be put in a position of telling technology companies how to build their products.''
Pulgram said SonicBlue plans to ask the federal district court trial judge to review the magistrate's ruling.
``We respect Judge Eick's decision on this and on numerous issues he had before him at the time,'' said Pulgram. `But in our view, it is an unprecedented intrusion into the privacy of TV viewers.''
Sewage turned into hydrogen fuel
17:54 29 April 02
NewScientist.com news service
Waste from sewage plants could be transformed into clean hydrogen fuel with high efficiency using new processing technology devised in Europe.
The process involves extracting hydrogen from "wet" waste, i.e. that which contains large amounts of water, such as sewage or paper mill waste. Although this sort of waste is abundant, extracting hydrogen from has required a large amount of energy, making it inefficient.
But researchers in the Process Technology Group at Warwick University, UK, as well as a number of European companies, claim they have dramatically improved the efficiency.
Warwick's Ashok Bhattacharya says the new system could be twice as energy-efficient as existing systems, which are typically around 20 per cent efficient. "We're able to get much more hydrogen out," Bhattacharya says.
John Brammer, at Aston University, UK, agrees that most existing techniques are not efficient at extracting hydrogen: "An improvement of that order would be worth having. It would address the main problem in hydrogen production."
However, the method has so far only been tested in the laboratory. Bhattacharya admits that its real energy-efficiency will not be known until a prototype has been developed. The group has just received £2.5 million of European funding to do this.
Natural gas
Hydrogen can be used to generate energy cleanly and efficiently through "fuel cells". These could eventually provide an alternative to fossil fuels for powering cars and homes.
The new process begins with turning waste "biomass" into hydrogen, methane, water, carbon monoxide and carbon dioxide, using standard gasification techniques that involve heat and pressure. But further hydrogen is then produced by also breaking down the methane and water, says Bhattacharya, with the aid of a nanocrystalline catalyst.
The process can be run continuously because pure hydrogen is extracted through a palladium-coated ceramic semi-permeable membrane that blocks other gases. If the hydrogen was not removed the reaction would reach equilibrium and stop. Bhattacharya adds that the heat efficiency of the new system has also been significantly improved.
The team expects to have constructed the first prototype, with the capacity to generate as much fuel as a petrol "gas" station, by 2005.
(AP) -- By implanting electrodes in rats' brains, scientists have created remote-controlled rodents they can command to turn left or right, climb trees and navigate piles of rubble -- and maybe someday, with the rats outfitted with tiny video cameras, use to search for disaster survivors.
"If you have a collapsed building and there are people under the rubble, there's no robot that exists now that would be capable of going down into such a difficult terrain and finding those people, but a rat would be able to do that," said John Chapin, a professor of physiology and pharmacology at the State University of New York in Brooklyn.
The lab animals aren't exactly robot rats. They had to be trained to carry out the commands.
Chapin's team fitted five rats with electrodes and power-pack backpacks. When signaled by a laptop computer, the electrodes stimulated the rodents' brains and cued them to scurry in the desired direction, then rewarded them by stimulating a pleasure center in the brain.
The rats' movements could be controlled up to 1,640 feet away, the length of more than five football fields.
The findings appear in Thursday's issue of the journal Nature.
Other researchers said the work is interesting but is an engineering feat, not an advance in animal neuroscience.
Randy Gallistel, a professor of psychology and cognitive science at Rutgers University, said it's basically the same thing, with a twist, that scientists found they could do almost 50 years ago by stimulating the reward-sensing area of a rat's brain.
"Without the gee-whizery, without the remote-control and so on, that this kind of thing was possible has been obvious for decades," he said.
Could save humans
The experiments used three implanted electrodes -- one in the brain region that senses reward or pleasure, and one each in areas that process signals from the rat's left and right whisker bundles.
Electrodes implanted in rats' brains create remote-controlled rodents that scientists say could eventually be used in search and rescue efforts.
Chapin's team trained the rats in a maze by signaling the left and right whisker-sensing regions. When a rat turned in the correct direction, its reward-sensing region was stimulated.
Activating only the reward region caused the rodents to move forward, the team found.
After training, the rats were tested in a variety of environments and remotely guided through pipes and across elevated runways. They were compelled to climb trees and ladders and to jump from varying heights.
The rodents could even be commanded to venture into brightly lit, open areas -- environments they normally would avoid.
Howard Eichenbaum, a professor of psychology at Boston University, said the research, while not a major advance, is "clever" and holds the promise of using animals as humans' "eyes" or as couriers to reach trapped victims.
Ethical concerns?
Aside from the technological challenges, he said there may be ethical concerns about turning animals into "intelligent robots" serving humans.
"It's one thing to see a rat running around like this, people don't get too emotional about that, but as soon as you get into dogs or work animals, people start getting real excited," he said.
The potential of using such implantable electrodes to control humans -- which a Tulane University researcher tried during the 1960s, with unclear results -- is something Chapin said he opposes so strongly he believes it should be illegal.
Kate Rears, a policy analyst at the Electronic Privacy Information Center in Washington, said technological advances mean human-control technology can no longer be dismissed as far-fetched.
"I think that a lot of people are very wary of that sort of thing and understandably so," Rears said. "I don't think it's a sign of paranoia to react against this because it is very odd. It's Brave New Worldish."
In the next few days I will be meeting with my Congresswomen to discus the effects of a Sen. Hollings CBDTPA on your average customer/techie. I have read tens (if not hundreds) of comments on the various OSDN sites explaining the very obvious reasons why the CBDTPA would cause a great deal of harm to the technology sector as well as consumers. Unfortunately the only postings/articles I have seen which offer a resolution to online piracy have been limited to ways in which the entertainment industry needs to change its business model. While this may be a valid argument, it does not provide a legislative alternative (something which many on Capitol Hill are scratching for). Therefore my question to the slashdot community is what new legislation would you support which would make those who engage in online piracy easier to track? Most internet users are familiar with the fact that someone with an intermediate amount of network knowledge can tap into data which is sent from one location to another. Vice President Al Gore was the first to link the internet to the idea of the 'information superhighway.' Since Americans are already used to this term, what would the effects of the creation of a kind of 'net traffic cops;' i.e. a law enforcement type of agency which monitors web traffic and fines individuals which break laws, i.e. distribute copyrighted information?
Interview with a congressman--part one
...which is ironic because it's called the promotion of broadband and digital television, promotion of sales [Editor's note: The law is actually called the Consumer Broadband and Digital Television Promotion Act], it seems to me that the exact opposite is true.
By Eliot Van Buskirk
Senior editor
(4/26/02)
When a regular reader of my column e-mailed me to say that he could set up an interview with Rep. Rick Boucher (D-Virginia), I admit that I was a bit skeptical. After all, this is the Internet, where people e-mail you with seemingly impossible opportunities everyday. But soon enough, I was on the phone for half an hour with Rep. Boucher, who called fresh from a vote on the House floor to talk with me about a variety of pressing online music issues--most specifically, our right to the fair use of the content that we buy. This constitutional right, which is closely related to free speech, has already been severely damaged by the DMCA (Digital Millennium Copyright Act) and could be obliterated by a new bill introduced by Sen. Ernest "Fritz" Hollings (D-South Carolina). Boucher thinks that you should be able to burn mix CDs, but due to the lobbying efforts by the record industry in Washington, many others in Congress don't see things in the same proconsumer light. Here's what Rep. Boucher had to say in this first of two installments.
Note: This first section of the interview can be downloaded for free as an MP3 file, under the EFF's Open Audio License. That means you can legally download this interview to a shared folder and distribute it on any file-sharing network, but you cannot alter the file itself or remove attribution.
Download and listen to the first half of MP3 Insider's interview with fair-use advocate Rep. Boucher.
MP3 Insider: So I really liked your article on CNET News.com, and it seems like we agree with each other on a lot of these issues.
Rep. Boucher: Yeah.
M: I'm wondering, just to start things off, do you use a computer to download or stream music?
I defend peoples' right to [download music from the Web] in a lawful manner, but I have not undertaken that practice myself.
B: I actually use a computer a lot. I have three computers that I use on a regular basis--one is on my desk top in my Washington office, another is at home, and I have my laptop that I use when I'm traveling. However, I'm not in the habit of downloading music from the Web. I defend peoples' right to do that in a lawful manner, but I have not undertaken that practice myself.
M: OK. So how long would you say that you've been online?
B: I have been online since the early '90s. The first legislation that I produced relating to the Internet was a bill to overturn a restriction inside of the law that prohibited the Internet backbone from being used for anything other than research and scientific and educational communication.
M: Interesting.
B: The effect of that restriction, which was known as the acceptable-use policy, prohibited electronic commerce, and the first Internet-related legislation that I sponsored, which was in 1992, repealed the acceptable-use policy and thereby enabled the Internet to be used for electronic commerce. So I have been involved in Internet-related policy for approximately one decade, and I have been using the Internet myself for almost that period of time.
M: Excellent, so you definitely know the area fairly well.
B: Yes.
M: OK, so now into some more specifics. You've gone on the record as a vocal opponent of the DMCA, the anticircumvention clause especially, and I remember Orrin Hatch, who's a Republican, making statements in support of file sharing back during the Napster hearing. I'm wondering if you could tell me, how do you think the two parties line up overall, in terms of consumers' digital rights in the Internet age?
B: Well, I think what you're seeing is that among the handful of members of Congress who are involved in intellectual-property policy today, House and Senate, you are seeing those members basically divide into two camps. One of those camps staunchly defends all of the provisions of the DMCA, staunchly defends the 20-year extension of copyright terms, staunchly defends the content community's copyright interests, against all efforts to enhance the rights of the users of intellectual property--that's one camp. The other camp is the other side of the equation, and that other camp is members who believe that the historical balance between the rights of copyright owners and the rights of the users of copyrighted material has been dramatically altered in favor of the owners of copyrights at the expense of the rights of the users of copyrighted material.
M: Right.
B: I am in that camp [the second one].
M: Good.
B: I think that the balance needs to be restored, and I would note that in the camp in which I am in, one finds libraries, universities, the Internet industry, the manufacturers of digital media, and consumers.
M: Speaking of the consumers, I know the MPAA and RIAA are fairly well organized in terms of their efforts. Are there any kind of consumer-advocacy groups getting involved? I mean, I sometimes get the feeling that people--consumers--don't know what's at stake here, really.
[The MPAA and RIAA], by virtue of their long-standing knowledge of Congress and relationships with many key members of Congress, would appear to have the upper hand.
B: Well I think that's true. I think this debate is just beginning, and in the early stages of any debate, oftentimes the external stakeholders appear to be somewhat lopsided in terms of their ability to influence the process, and I would grant you that at the present time, the Motion Picture Association [of America] and the Recording Industry Association of America, by virtue of their long-standing knowledge of Congress and relationships with many key members of Congress, would appear to have the upper hand. On the other hand, I think a lot has changed since 1998, when the DMCA was passed by Congress. We now have the formation of a number of groups that are dedicated to user rights. I would include among those the Digital Media Association (DiMA), which represents Webcasters. They were not a part of the debate in 1998. I would also include the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF), the Center for--what is it called, Electronic Democracy, something along that line? All of these groups have come to the scene since 1998 and are now here, expressing the concerns of people who are users of intellectual property.
M: Right.
B: I think there's also a growing body of scholarship that suggests that what I said previously is true, and that is that the balance, which we always respected in our law, between the rights of intellectual-property owners and the rights of the users of that property has now been dramatically shifted, and that the balance now lies on the side of the owners of copyright, and that that shift has occurred at the expense of the rights of copyright owners. It has certainly occurred at the expense of the fair-use rights, which underpins our right to speak freely in society. That growing body of scholarship includes a number of prominent law professors and writers on the West Coast.
M: Are you familiar with Lawrence Lessig and his work [Code & Other Laws of Cyberspace and The Future of Ideas ]?
B: Yes, I am. I've read his work, and I applaud it. I think he's exactly on target.
M: Right. I get letters from people all the time, I mean they read my column when I tell them what these laws say they can't do, and I think more people who have CD burners now, and the average person is starting to understand this a little more, maybe, we'll see...
Millions of Americans have now become accustomed to using their CD burners at home in order to perform a completely lawful act.
B: Well I think we will, and you're absolutely right in saying that the attempt by the labels to introduce copy-protected CDs into the U.S. market is going to have a profound effect on this debate. Millions of Americans have now become accustomed to using their CD burners at home in order to perform a completely lawful act. And that is to take music that they have purchased at the store and rearrange the tracks on those CDs on a CD they've compiled themselves, so that they have on that self-manufactured CD, exactly the music they want to hear in the order in which they want to hear it. And that is a classic exercise of Constitutionally protected fair-use rights.
M: Right.
B: And to the extent now that people are frustrated in being able to perform that legal act, I think you're going to see millions of Americans complain to their members of Congress that something is amiss when they go to the store, buy a CD, and then take it home and find that they can't space-shift from that CD onto another CD they want to create for their own personal use.
M: Right, do you think the Sony vs. Betamax case is going to stand up as sort of a precedent that reinforces our right to fair use?
Interview with a congressman--part one (continued)
B: Well, the Sony vs. Betamax decision is a very valuable decision. It was rendered 20 years ago. To a large extent it was reversed by the DMCA. What the Sony vs. Betamax decision held is that any time technology can be used for two purposes--a minimum of two, but two anyway, one of which is infringing, and another I have very serious problems with punishing the technology. And that is precisely what the DMCA seeks to do.
of which is noninfringing, that the technology is lawful technology as long as it has a substantial noninfringing use. And the court analyzed the Betamax and found that because it allowed time-shifting, it had a substantial noninfringing use (time-shifting is fair use), and therefore Betamax was found to be lawful technology. That's a very valuable legal principle: The presence of a substantial noninfringing use renders the technology to be lawful. Now unfortunately, the DMCA essentially reversed that, because it says that if the technology, even though it has substantial noninfringing uses, was primarily intended by the manufacturer to be used for an infringing purpose, then the technology is unlawful. Now the problem is, nobody's going to know at the outset what a court is going to rule about the intent of the manufacturer. How do you determine that extent? How does a court subsequently determine what was in the manufacturer's mind at the time that he produced technology that could be used both for infringement and also had noninfringing purposes? And so the Sony vs. Betamax principle was severely weakened by that provision of the DMCA. And then, of course, anybody who traffics in a device which is declared to be an infringing technology--such as Mr. Sklyarov from Russia--can be arrested for criminal conduct.
M: Right.
B: And I have very serious problems with punishing the technology. And that is precisely what the DMCA seeks to do. We should punish people who engage in acts of piracy. We should not punish the technology which can be used for infringing purposes but also for substantial noninfringing purposes.
M: So along those lines, I just came across a very interesting quote from John Ippolito of the Guggenheim, and he's talking about Senator "Fritz" Hollings's bill, the CBDTPA, and Ippolito says about that bill, "To disable the Internet to save EMI and Disney is the moral equivalent of burning down the library of Alexandria to ensure the livelihood of monastic scribes."
B: (laughs) Well, it's artful...(laughs) Well, without being quite that eloquent, let me endorse the general idea that he expresses. I think that Senator Hollings's bill is wrongheaded. It is inappropriate for the government to establish technical standards to be applied to digital media. The government is not a very good standards-developing body.
M: Mmm-hmm.
B: I do agree that we need to take some steps to assure that material which is, for example, broadcast across digital-television equipment should be protected in such a way as to disallow unauthorized copying and disallow uploading to the Internet. I actually endorse the idea of doing that. But I think that should be done in a collaborative process that involves the manufacturers of equipment and also involves the motion- It is inappropriate for the government to establish technical standards to be applied to digital media. The government is not a very good standards-developing body.
picture studios. And that very process is underway. That group has already achieved an agreement that will protect television content--broadcast and digital format--and received in the home by either cable television or by satellite. What they have not achieved is an agreement in regard to material that is broadcast over the air for receipt by an antenna or by "rabbit ears." But they're working to do that, and we expect that within another six weeks there will be a private-sector agreement that produces a standard for protecting that content as well. Now, at the end of that process, after the equipment manufacturers are satisfied that the standard is workable, after the motion-picture studios are satisfied that it offers sufficient protection, after the various consumer groups that are also working in this process are content that the employment of that standard will enable people to continue to exercise their fair-use rights for appropriate home recording of the material--after all of those tests are met, there may be a role for Congress to require that equipment respond to that particular standard, and all of the external stakeholders will have endorsed the standard and say that this technology works, and that consumer rights are protected. Now, at that point, I would be willing to entertain a proposal that Congress act and require that equipment respond. The Senator Hollings's bill is way ahead of all of that. Senator Hollings's bill would require that all digital media immediately respond to a standard that the government would wind up setting. There would be no assurance that consumer rights would be protected. There would be no assurance that the fair-use right to home recording of digital content would be preserved. There would be no assurance that the technology as applied to consumer-electronics products and information-technology products would allow those products to function effectively. And I'm convinced that if his bill becomes law, which I don't think it will, but if it were to become law, I think it would probably inhibit the introduction of a lot of useful new technology.
M: Exactly. I mean it seems to me that in fact it would incent people to buy used computer equipment from before the legislation were enacted...
B: Absolutely.
M:
B: I think that's right.
M: Right. OK, so since the Internet is international, then there's the aspect of will the DMCA become the basis for worldwide copyright law, and do you think that's realistic?
B: Well, that's a big problem. You put your finger on a major concern there.
Note: Check back in two weeks for the second half of the MP3 Insider's interview with Rep. Boucher.
TITLE 17 > CHAPTER 1 > Sec. 117. Prev | Next
Sec. 117. - Limitations on exclusive rights: Computer programs
(a) Making of Additional Copy or Adaptation by Owner of Copy. -
Notwithstanding the provisions of section 106, it is not an infringement for the owner of a copy of a computer program to make or authorize the making of another copy or adaptation of that computer program provided:
(1)
that such a new copy or adaptation is created as an essential step in the utilization of the computer program in conjunction with a machine and that it is used in no other manner, or
(2)
that such new copy or adaptation is for archival purposes only and that all archival copies are destroyed in the event that continued possession of the computer program should cease to be rightful.
(b) Lease, Sale, or Other Transfer of Additional Copy or Adaptation. -
Any exact copies prepared in accordance with the provisions of this section may be leased, sold, or otherwise transferred, along with the copy from which such copies were prepared, only as part of the lease, sale, or other transfer of all rights in the program. Adaptations so prepared may be transferred only with the authorization of the copyright owner.
(c) Machine Maintenance or Repair. -
Notwithstanding the provisions of section 106, it is not an infringement for the owner or lessee of a machine to make or authorize the making of a copy of a computer program if such copy is made solely by virtue of the activation of a machine that lawfully contains an authorized copy of the computer program, for purposes only of maintenance or repair of that machine, if -
(1)
such new copy is used in no other manner and is destroyed immediately after the maintenance or repair is completed; and
(2)
with respect to any computer program or part thereof that is not necessary for that machine to be activated, such program or part thereof is not accessed or used other than to make such new copy by virtue of the activation of the machine.
(d) Definitions. -
For purposes of this section -
(1)
the ''maintenance'' of a machine is the servicing of the machine in order to make it work in accordance with its original specifications and any changes to those specifications authorized for that machine; and
(2)
the ''repair'' of a machine is the restoring of the machine to the state of working in accordance with its original specifications and any changes to those specifications authorized for that machine
Introduction
This is our first official monitor review, and what a monitor we chose to do the review on. The NEC MultiSync LCD 2110 XtraView is a 21.3" (measured diagonally) LCD monitor. The monitor currently retails for about $3,800 which is quite a hefty price tag, but we managed to find it online for around $3,500. While the price does seem steep, LCD prices have come down quite a bit as the monitor originally had a $6,000 price tag on it back in September of 2001. As more and more larger sized LCD screens start coming out, we hope to see the price of the 2110 come down even more as even the 22" Apple Studio Displays are priced around $2,500, and the 23" at $3,500.
Why don't we just delve right into the review.
Specs
LCD Module: 21.3-inch (21.3" viewable image size),
active matrix, thin film transistor
(TFT), liquid crystal display (LCD),
0.27 mm dot pitch, XtraView® technology,
RGB vertical stripe color filter
arrangement, 200 cd/m2 white luminance
typical, 300:1 contrast ratio - typical
General
Limited Warranty: 3-Year Parts and Labor, 3-Year backlight
Power Management: VESA DPMS, EPA Energy Star
User Controls: Power, Brightness, Contrast, Vertical
and Horizontal Position, Auto Adjust,
Image Adjust, AccuColor® Control System,
OSM(TM) Lock Out, OSM Horizontal Position,
All Reset, Horizontal Size, Fine
Regulatory Approvals: UL/C-UL or CSA, TUV/GS, CE, FCC Rules Part 15
Class B, Canadian DOC, TUV/ERGONOMIE, MPRII, TCO '99,
Ctick, VCCI Class B
Plug and Play: VESA DDC1, DDC2B
A couple of things to take a look at here. The contrast ratio on an average LCD monitor is 200:1, the LCD 2110 is capable of outputting 300:1 so it can get much brighter. Also note that while there are many resolutions supported, the only one in which the image looks really good is at 1600x1200 so we would definitely recommend setting your display at that. We're glad that the 1600x1200 resolution was supported on such a large monitor, as many LCD's have a maximum resolution of 1024x768. This also helps applications that are mainly used with this monitor (graphic designers, hospitals, etc) view more data in one screen.
NuCycle Plastic: A special silicone compound for PC resin, being extremely flame-retardant, safe and environmentally friendly.
XtraView Wide Viewing Angle Technology: Allows the user to be able to see the monitor from any angle (170 degrees) from any orientation - Portrait or Landscape. Provides full 170 degrees viewing angles from either up, down, left or right.
Analog Advantage: Capable of displaying unlimited colors in a continuous spectrum, providing a truer representation of color. The monitor's high contrast LCD enhances color vibrancy and improves focus with no geometric distortion.
Wider Compatibility: Because the MultiSync LCD monitor is analog through and through, it does not require special analog to digital display or interface cords but can accept RGB input directly.
Reduced Footprint: Provides the ideal solution for environments requiring a superior image quality but with size and weight limitations. The monitor's small footpring and low weight allow it to be moved or transported easily from one location to another.
AccuColor Control System: Allows you to adjust the colors on your screen and customize the color accuracy of your monitor to a variety of standards.
OSM (On-Screen Manager) Controls: Allow you to quickly and easily adjust all elements of your screen image via simple to use on-screen menus.
ErgoDesign Features: Enhance human ergonomics to improve the working environment, protect the health of the user and save money. Examples include OSM controls for quick and easy image adjustments, tilt/swivel pivot stand for preferred angle of viewing, small footprint and compliance with MPRII guidelines for lower emissions.
Plug and Play: The Microsoft solution with the Windows 95/98 operating system facilitates setup and installation by allowing the monitor to send it capabilities (such as screen size and resolutions supported) directly to your computer, automatically optimizing display performance.
IPM (Intelligent Power Manager) System: Provides innovative power-saving methods that allow the monitor to shift to a lower power consumption level when on but not in use, saving two-thirds of your monitor energy costs, reducing emissions and lowering the air conditioning costs of the workplace.
Multiple Frequency Technology: Automatically adjusts monitor to the display card's scanning frequency, thus displaying the resolution required up to 160x1200.
FullScan Capability: Allows you to use the entire screen area in most resolutions, significantly expanding image size.
VESA Standard Mounting Interface: Allows users to connect their MultiSync monitor to any VESA standard third party mounting arm or bracket. Allows for the monitor to be mounted on a wall or an arm using any third party compliant device.
BNC/D-SUB: Offers dual inputs, allowing you to connect the monitor to one system via a BNC cable and another system via a standard D-SUB cable. You can easily switch between computers with a touch of a button on the up-front control panel.
Lets first discuss the design of the monitor. The monitor is the normal beige color, unlike most of NEC's other LCD's, there is no black option. The actual display has a widescreen format which is very nice for portrait mode. You have the option of either using the stand that is provided with the monitor or taking it off and attaching it on the wall or an arm via any third party compliant device.
We used the stand, which we found to work really well. First off, you have a lot of space underneath the monitor to put stuff. While this seems like a really small thing to worry about, it really does make a difference. The monitor essentially takes up practically no space at all, one of the major benefits to and LCD.
On the bottom of the stand there is also a wheel which allows you to move the monitor in a 360 degree motion very easily:
The stand also allows you to do things like change the rotation of the monitor to portrait mode:
Aside from that, you can move the monitor up and down, the stand allows you to go pretty high up, and also as low as almost touching the base:
The controls are pretty easy to use, but one of the best features was the auto setup which basically did all the settings automatically. I have another LCD here that has the same feature but it does not work all that well in terms of the color, brightness, and contrast. Aside from setting the screen perfectly to the edges, everything else was absolutely flawless, and the picture was crisp from the get go.
The back of the monitor attaches all the wires very cleanly by having a cover which hides the wires we have all come to hate.
XtraView & Portrait Mode
If you're like me, you were probably too lazy to read the features page to see the feature called XtraView. If you didn't read it, here's a re-cap:
XtraView Wide Viewing Angle Technology: Allows the user to be able to see the monitor from any angle (170 degrees) from any orientation - Portrait or Landscape. Provides full 170 degrees viewing angles from either up, down, left or right.
Basically a lot of LCD screens have this problem of not being able to see what's on the screen at any angles other then straight...You've probably had this problem when using a laptop. XtraView technology changes all this...I could see the entire screens contents at any angle I looked at. Check out these shots below:
Portrait mode is a feature that I found very useful with the 2110 because of the wide screen it has. Check out how tall the monitor is when put in portrait mode:
Portrait mode is enabled through a software called Pivot Pro which is bundled with the monitor (the software by itself costs about $50). The machine we tested the 2110 was running Microsoft Windows XP Professional, and the version of Pivot Pro NEC provided with us did not work. Fortunately a quick look at the Pivot Pro website enabled us to download a free upgrade of the software and we had no problems afterwards. The software is really great and works easily. You can pivot your screen by doing one of the three things:
Clicking the icon in the taskbar
Right clicking the desktop
Holding down Ctrl+Shift+R
Here's a couple screenshots of the menu's from the software:
A Couple Of Problems
We did have two main issues with the monitor, one of which we have already mentioned...The price. We hope to see the price come down a bit, but then again, if you are interested in purchasing a monitor like this, definitely be prepared to spend a good amount.
The second issue we had was a few dead pixels in the display. Most of the time the pixels aren't noticeable, but when you start having a solid dark (especially black) display on the monitor, you will start to notice them. I tried my best to capture them, but couldn't show the entire screen without even being able to see them, so instead a zoomed in on a section of the monitor:
Like I said, these are barely noticeable, in fact I can't even find one right now while typing this in Word. We hope that NEC ships brand new monitors with no dead pixels, but we had to mention it in this review because we did experience this.
The last issue we had was that the display looked perfect at 1600x1200, but if you scale down to any other resolution everything started to look pretty bad. Text was very dithered and image quality just came down big time. While at this size, you should be running at least a 1600x1200 resolution, it would be nice to have some lower options without having to compromise quality.
Pros & Cons
Pros
Huge
Crisp color
Auto setup
Pivot technology
XtraView technology rocks
Doesn't take up much space
Cons
Hefty price tag
Some dead pixels
Image degrades below 1600x1200
No DVI connection
Conclusion
The size of this monitor is monstrous, but so is the price. Aside from the few dead pixels and the fact that image quality wasn't too great at anything below 1600x1200, we loved every aspect of the display. The image and color was crisp and brightness was beyond what we needed. The portrait mode was great because of the wide screen, and the software that was bundled was a perfect selection. We also loved XtraView technology as we had none of the problems that many LCDs in the past have encountered with view ability from all angles.
If your budget can afford this beauty, we would definitely recommend it...I know we are going to hate to send it back to NEC!
SLRating: 7/10
The Naked Truth is a book about what it means to be a Macintosh user, in a world dominated by Windows. This should have tipped me off as to some troubles ahead, as I live as a Mac user in a predominantly Linux-dominated world. And I proudly use Linux (and, to a lesser extent, other forms of Unix, not even including Mac OS X) daily. As I write this, I have four terminal windows running in NiftyTelnet, connecting me to Linux boxes at work and at home. I am inserting a 700MB database dump into MySQL, scp'ing some MP3s, restarting some daemons, copying some source code for later porting, and monitoring disk space. I am a Macintosh devotee, and have been for more than 15 years, but I am a geek. A big, preemptively multitasking, geek.
But Kelly takes the perspective that Macintosh is not a computer for geeks, but for creative people who can't be bothered with geek-like things. So when he belittles those "PC users" who like to build their own computers, and I see the Linux box under my desk that I've recently been fiddling with, I just take it with a grain of salt. After all, geeks are allowed to like ease of use and a consistent and usable GUI, too.
This mischaracterization of some Mac users is also evident in his "definitive platform test." The questions, asking for things like a description of your own driving skills, are intended to tell you which platform you should use. On one end of the scale is the Macintosh user ("Average, I'm not a bad driver"), followed by borderline between Mac and PC user ("I'm an excellent driver, very cautious and alert") to obvious PC user ("I obey all posted traffic signs and don't exceed the speed limit"), to "militant" PC/DOS user ("I wish all those idiots would just get off the road!"). But clearly, any sane person would choose the latter response. I don't understand what the problem is. I selected the "Mac" and "DOS" answers evenly, which didn't do well for my overall score. I happily continue to use Mac OS nevertheless.
That said, Kelby is dead-on about many things, like how computer store personnel are mostly clueless (not that this is specific to Macintosh products, but it is more pronounced in that particular arena than in most); how most anti-Macintosh arguments by PC users either don't make sense any more or never made sense to begin with; how Apple has been the primary innovator of PC hardware and OS software; how Apple seems to succeed sometimes in spite of its own management. He tends to belabor his point on occasion (OK, we get it, CompUSA's Apple store-in-a-store is all the way in the back, we don't need you to spend two pages describing just how far back it is), but if taken in the good humor intended, it's a satisfying journey nevertheless.
His most interesting points, perhaps, have to do not with what it is like to be a Macintosh user in a foreign land -- I think everyone on Slashdot can understand these things, regardless of whatever non-Microsoft platform of choice they use -- but what it is like to be a Macintosh user in relation to Apple itself. He has some keen insights about where the passion comes from; why people love Apple; what's going on inside their heads.
But then again, reading his responses to letters written to Mac Today and Mac Design Magazine by PC users are just downright entertaining -- keenly insightful or not -- if you are the sort of individual who likes to see stupid people get smacked around. And who isn't?
Now, being a geek -- and a pedantic one at that -- I did take issue with him on some relatively minor issues, like claiming that Apple changed the name of Mac OS X to "OS 10.1" when it came time to do the first maintenance release; the fact is, the official name from day one was "Mac OS X 10.0," and that nothing has changed at all in that naming scheme. The current release is "Mac OS X 10.1.4." It's the same thing, with an incremented version number. He's absolutely right that this is a point of confusion, and in some ways poor marketing. For the next major release (Mac OS X 11.0? Mac OS 11? Mac OS XI?) there will surely be some more confusion, too. But nothing at all has changed in the naming scheme since the initial release. For now. I just want to make sure everyone is clear on this point. It is "Mac OS X, version 10.1.4," and "Mac OS, version 9.2.2." "Mac OS" and "Mac OS X" are OS names. "10.1.4" and "9.2.2" are version numbers. Got it?
Similarly, he bashes the Newton. Sure, the first release of Newton kinda stunk, but it was the first version. The last versions of the Newton MessagePad, aside from the size, were still by far the best PDAs around for the next several years. Newton still, to this day, has the best handwriting recognition in any consumer PDA, as well as the best (non-color) interface, and it was years ahead of its time in functionality. It was just too big. That was its only problem. Well, and too expensive. But maybe less so if it weren't so big.
And he also called Compaq's PDA an "iPac." And occasionally used poor punctuation. And I think I saw a run-on sentence in there.
But now I am getting worked up. I'll settle down. Deep breath, in, out, in, out. That's the thing about being a Mac user, Kelby points out: passion. Passion for Apple and its products, even the ones that stink, because Apple is more than just a company, it is an organization that changes our lives in important ways, by making products that make a difference to us.
OK, so maybe I am in the target audience after all.
Chapter List
Life after switching to Macintosh
Using a Mac is easy; being a Mac user sometimes isn't.
"I can't believe you actually use a Macintosh!" and other stupid things PC users say
Congress should rethink giving PC users freedom of speech.
Things Apple doesn't tell you about owning a Macintosh
Since Apple's not going to tell you, dontchathink somebody should?
The definitive platform test
Find out if you're really a Mac person, or just a PC person in cool clothing.
How to resist the overwhelming temptation to strangle Apple's management
Is "Apple Management" an oxymoron? And is "oxymoron" actually a synonym for a pimple cream for really dumb people?
CompUSA: Your own private hell
Tips for surviving the visualization of Apple's place in the world.
Why PC users need Apple
Heere's why they should be kissing Apple's butt (instead of Microsoft's)
"Don't pick fights with people who buy ink by the barrel"
PC users write me nasty letters, and I give them the public flogging they so richly deserve
Pot shots at Microsoft, the media, and anything else that gets in our way
Nobody gets out of here alive!
The 20 most important things I've learned about being a Mac user
There were actually 22 things, but that made for a really clunky chapter title.
The secret of Macintosh
Here's a hint: it's not Apple's advertising.
Sony hits back at game rivals with plans for PlayStation 3
By Leo Lewis
28 April 2002
The news will put an icy chill in the heart of every parent with school-age children. Sony, the Japanese entertainment titan striving for total domination of the video games market, is understood to be in advanced stages of developing PlayStation 3.
It is unlikely to get a warm welcome from Sony's two chief competitors - Nintendo and Microsoft - who have only just brought out machines to compete with PlayStation 2.
Plans for the third installment in the PlayStation saga were rapidly stepped up when Sony saw the capabilities of Microsoft's Xbox, says sources within its development team.
Although the company believes it has enough good games in the pipeline and a wide enough global customer base to compete for the moment, PlayStation 3 is being designed specifically to handle online gaming - seen by many analysts as the future of video games.
Sony has courted alliances with some of the technology industry's biggest hitters in an effort to "soundly beat whatever our rivals produce next''. IBM and Toshiba are jointly designing the central chip that will control the PlayStation 3 at a top-secret technology lab in Austin, Texas. The project, which aims to create the ultimate graphics and sound processor, is believed to cost around $1bn (£650m).
City analysts estimate that the global games market could reach $40bn within the next decade - riches that no one in the industry wants, or can afford, to miss. Because of the UK's strength in game design, the forthcoming console war will also benefit the many small software houses that have been making hit games since the heady days of the ZX Spectrum and the Commodore 64.
The British market is experiencing a glut of new launches. Nintendo's hand-held Game Boy Advance hit the shelves before Christmas, Microsoft's Xbox was launched six weeks ago, and this week will see the last piece falling into place: Nintendo's GameCube.
The three-way struggle for supremacy has seen each company adopt different tactics. Sony got its PlayStation 2 machine on the market before anyone else, and reaped the rewards of being the only player on the block for 18 months. Microsoft's Xbox, meanwhile, has made its appeal to what it sees as more serious gamers. Although the enormous Xbox - much larger than other consoles - is Microsoft's first step into the world of video games, its rivals cannot afford to dismiss the machine. After all, Sega and Nintendo seemed to have the market sewn up in 1993 when Sony arrived and sold 85 million PlayStations.
The Xbox's software makes full use of the machine's huge graphics and memory capabilities, and the games line-up includes "Halo", one of only a few games to which reviewers have given a "perfect" rating. Unfortunately, the past six weeks have not gone Microsoft's way: sales have been sluggish and, within five weeks of launch, the company decided to drop the price by 38 per cent to drum up custom.
The Xbox may have the best technology, but the market is only interested in the quality of the games. Nintendo, a past master at producing must-have titles, has not only got a meaty selection of games to accompany the launch of the GameCube, but is also selling the machine at less than half the original cost of the Xbox.
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Updated 2002 May 1.I
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OpenOffice.org 1.0 Office Suite 20020501
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.I
While this was widely hailed in the Open Source community as a victory over the "Microsoft tax," which usually afflicts buyers of Linux PCs, one major question remained unanswered: How well do these machines support Linux? Some PCs produced today are crammed with "value-added" (otherwise known as "brain dead") hardware that only works with specific drivers -- drivers that are frequently available under Windows alone.
So, in order to get the straight scoop, we went off to the Wal-Mart Web site to purchase a system and load Linux on it.
Choices, choices
As previously mentioned, the Wal-Mart site currently lists 14 machines without an operating system. All are listed under the Microtel brand, and include a selection of Celeron, Duron, Athlon, and Pentium 4 processors ranging from 1 to 2 GHz. The prices range from a consumer-friendly U.S. $398 for a 1 GHz Duron or Celeron box, to a top-end 2 GHz Pentium 4 at U.S. $868. The low end offerings start with a "mere" 128 MB of memory, while the upper end tops out at hefty 512 MB installed. And to think that I still have a few 256 KB (yes, that's one quarter of a megabyte) SIMMs sitting in my drawer. The low end is a heck of a lot nicer than it was just a few years ago.
For the purposes of this review, we ordered a 1 GHz Duron system for U.S. $398. We figured that this would be a relatively popular selection among the more cost-conscious Linux users. With shipping, the total was a manageable U.S. $413. We ordered the PC on the evening of April 11 and it came to my door on April 22.
First look
The order arrived in a single, well-designed shipping box. In addition to the standard mini tower, the system includes a keyboard, a two-button mouse with scroll wheel, a pair of inexpensive speakers, and all the usual cables. The mini tower reminds me of any number of PC clone towers I have seen recently, but people buying these units are interested in functionality, not geek chic. The system also included the manufacturer's booklets for the motherboard and CDROM drive, as well as CDs with Windows drivers.
Inside the unit, there is a 40 GB Samsung drive, 128 MB of memory (8 MB of which is shared as video), and 52x LG CDROM Drive. The motherboard is a Microstar MicroATX motherboard model MS-6378. It has 2 DIMM slots (1 used), 3 PCI slots (one of which is occupied by a modem card), and 1 unused CNR slot. Sound and ethernet are handled on the motherboard, which also sports an Award BIOS dated 2/25/2002.
For those so inclined, the motherboard manual does say that the board supports overclocking, but it also provides the usual warnings about the risks of overclocking. So, it appears that speed freaks may be able to tweak the clock speed at their own risk.
Setting up the system was the same as setting up any standard clone. Plug in the keyboard, mouse, speakers, and power cord. The only essential item that is missing is a monitor (you will probably want to add a mouse pad and a surge suppressor, but those are optional).
Running under DemoLinux V3
For a quick check of the system, I put a DemoLinux version 3 CD in the CDROM drive and booted the system up. I found that the video came up fine using the framebuffer driver. Sound, likewise, was detected without incident. The only two items that did not function on boot-up were the modem and the ethernet. The ethernet was brought to life easily by loading the tulip driver and configuring the network interface. The modem, however, was another matter. I decided to wait to until I actually installed Linux to tackle that problem.
Installing Mandrake 8.1
Figuring that it was time to get serious, I began installing Mandrake version 8.1 on the system. I selected the most automated form of installation (as a Linux newbie might) to see how the process would fare. I was pleased with the results.
The installation went without incident. The Mandrake installer detected and configured the video, sound, and network without pain. At no time was there any indication that the installer was fighting strange hardware. I was thrilled.
But there was one fly in the ointment: the modem. The modem clearly was not a true hardware modem. So, using the "lspci -vv" command from an xterm (you can get the same result by looking at the PCI Information from the KDE Control Center), I tried to identify the type of modem in the machine. It was identified as an unidentified "Lucent Microelectronics" device. Thankfully, this meant that there might be a working Linux driver for this modem.
I traveled to linmodems.org and found the link to Randal Oliveira's site for Lucent drivers. Note that the Lucent drivers require kernel modules that must be recompiled for each version of the kernel, so it is essential that you either find a module that is compiled against the appropriate kernel, or else you will need to compile it yourself. After a couple of minutes, I located an RPM that someone had created for the Lucent drivers under Mandrake 8.1. After downloading and installing the RPM, I decided to reboot to see if the device would now be found on startup. Much to my delight, it was!
Unfortunately, my delight did not last. When I actually tried to use the modem, I found that the AT commands all worked as expected, but I could not get the modem to go off hook, recognize the dial tone, or generate touch tones. I spent hours on this with no joy.
Running under SuSE v7.2 Live Eval
Next, I wanted to see how SuSE Linux would handle the machine. I didn't have a full SuSE kit on hand, but I did have a V7.2 Live Evaluation CD handy. Like DemoLinux, this allows you to run SuSE Linux from the CD with no actual installation. I found that the SuSE Live Eval system detected everything fine, except for the modem. Not a bad result from a non-installed system.
Installing Red Hat v7.1
I then tried to install Red Hat V7.1 and found results close to my Mandrake experience. Everything loaded fine, except for the sound card and modem. The sound card was quickly activated by choosing the automatic configuration option from the sound configuration utility. I then downloaded a copy of the Lucent modem driver for Red Hat V7.1 and promptly found that the modem was behaving exactly as it did under Mandrake. The AT commands all seemed to work until you attempted to dial. The phone line never went off-hook and touch tones were never generated.
After several hours of investigation on the Web and experimentation, I could not find an answer. I tried different IRQs, changed settings in the CMOS, checked the phone line ... nothing.
So, in my desperation, I decided to confirm that the darn modem actually worked. I pulled an unused Windows ME distribution off the shelf, installed it, and loaded the modem driver. To my surprise, the modem dialed the phone. I checked the settings under Windows and found they were identical to the default settings detected under Linux.
I reloaded Red Hat and played some more. No change. I could get replies to the AT commands, but I could not get it to do anything remotely productive with the telephone line. There may be a solution to this, but it certainly isn't obvious.
Conclusion
The Wal-Mart machine itself strikes me as a very reasonable clone. With the exception of the modem, all the hardware seems to work. I have had to live with useless modems in clones before, but at least this modem is a card that can be removed from the machine. I should also note that Mandrake installed on the box easier than Windows ME did. If I had wanted to keep Windows on the machine, I would have had to manually install drivers for both the ethernet and sound card, because Windows did neither on installation.
So it appears that the Wal-Mart machine as tested makes a very reasonable Linux box. But I suggest you lose the Lucent modem card and replace it with a real hardware modem.
What are you talking about?!
I'm the dean!
Email me and tell me what you think of widening!
Email me and tell me what you think of widening!
Email me and tell me what you think of widening!
First, I'd like to point out that quantum computation and quantum encryption are two almost completely separate concepts. Quantum encryption is based on the fact that quantum states cannot be measured without altering. The most common example is the polarization of a photon, but it will work for any quantum state, so long as there exist, effectively, two unique states that can transmit the data.
Quantum computation, however, is much more complex and much more interesting. Quantum computers are based on the concept of quantum entanglement, the ability of a quantum state to exist in a superposition of all of its mutually exclusive states: It's a 1 and a 0. However, this is not as easy to use as one might think. While it's true that if you have n quantum logic gates you have the ability to input 2^n data values simultaneously (as opposed to only 1 piece of data if you have n digital logic gates), this is not going to be the end of classical computing for a few reasons. First, quantum computers have to be perfectly reversible. That means for every output there's an input and vice versa. And there has to be no way of knowing the initial states of the data. You don't process data, you process probabilities in a quantum computer; if you know exactly what any one value is throughout the computation, you can find out all of the values: the superposition ends and you're stuck with a useless chunk of machinery. This means YOU CAN ONLY GET ONE RESULT FROM ANY QUANTUM COMPUTATION, THE END RESULT. You can't see what the data in the middle is or the computer becomes useless. (Landauer's principle makes heat loss data loss. When your processor gets hot, it's losing data. If the same thing happened to a quantum computer, it wouldn't be quantum anymore.) Decoherence is what happens when you randomly lose data to the environment by design, not by choice, and the superposition ends. This is bad for Q.C. Oh, and quantum computers can only do *some* things faster, like prime factorization and discrete logarithms. Not multiplication or addition. Plus, the circuits that would do basic arithmetic would be bigger and slower than what you've currently got.
So what does this all mean? It means that quantum computers are going to provide some advantages (real quick big number factorization), and some disadvantages (that whole RSA standard). The most realistic initial use of quantum computers will be as add-ons to existing super-computers to resolve certain types of NP-Complete headaches that regular math can't simplify yet. At best they will someday be an add-on to your PC; but they will never replace the digital computer.~
If you want more info, check out http://www.qubit.org, it's got some decent tutorials.