Considering everyone one else is going to be yapping about it we’ll just move along until all the smoke clears. Today’s story is brought to us by the powers who didn’t have the foresight to invest in infrastructure. AT&T is going to be forcing customers into a monthly bandwidth cap. In plain english you can only use so much internet in a month before they charge you more. Is this far? I think not. Currently its only going to be Reno, Nevada. That isn’t going to last long seeing what crap Comcast is pulling.
“Comcast has confirmed that all residential customers will be subject to a 250 gigabyte per month data limit starting October 1. ‘This is the same system we have in place today,’ Comcast wrote in an amendment to its acceptable use policy. ‘The only difference is that we will now provide a limit by which a customer may be contacted.’ The cable provider insisted that 250 GB is “an extremely large amount of data, much more than a typical residential customer uses on a monthly basis. ... As part of our pre-existing policy, we will continue to contact the top users of our high-speed Internet service and ask them to curb their usage,’ Comcast said Thursday. ‘If a customer uses more than 250 GB and is one of the top users of our service, he or she may be contacted by Comcast to notify them of excessive use,’ according to the AUP.”
I’ve said it before, I’ll say it again, and that’s, “FUCK COMCAST”.
“Can you trust your data to the cloud? For users of an online storage service called The Linkup, formerly known as MediaMax, the answer turned out to be a resounding “no.” The Linkup shut down on Aug. 8 after losing access to as much as 45% of its customers’ data. “When we looked at some individual accounts, some people didn’t have any files, and some people had all their files,” The Linkup CeO Steve Iverson admits. None of the affected users will get their lost data back. Iverson called it a “worst-case scenario."”
Although this isn’t the type of story that normally gets around these parts the first sentence of the article poses a very important question. How many of you would trust your data in the hands of someone else? What about your privacy rights? Its an issue with people on both sides of the fence.
In the west victorian style personal calling cards have been making a resurgence. In such a high tech world its a wonderful thing to see a low tech approach to a common problem of trading information without being bound by your business. The sad part is some people would try and list their favorite social networking profile as their primary homepage. The happy part is all the information one can include on it. Now the west just needs to embrace QR Codes.
Tucked inside this little robot is an MP3 player with which is the core of its storytelling sensation. The Murasaki-bot was designed by the kids at the Kyoto University’s Robo-Garage and ‘will read you Murasaki Shikibu’s classic and oft-considered oldest novel in existence, The Tale of Genji.’ It was also designed to make subtle movements along with the storytelling like the noblewoman Murasaki would have made well conveying the tale.
There is nothing quite like the future being upon us as robots creeping their way into every notch of life.
Thanks to a new bill in congress one small paragraph would allow distance education colleges and universities to install spy cameras into student’s homes. Of course none of our representatives are objecting to it. Think of the future when almost all education is done from home. George Orwell must be rolling over in his grave.
Tucked away in a 1,200-page bill now in Congress is a small paragraph that could lead distance-education institutions to require spy cameras in their students’ homes…
...The paragraph is actually about clamping down on cheating. It says that an institution that offers an online program must prove that an enrolled student is the same person who does the work…
...But some college officials are wary of the technologies, noting that they are run by third-party vendors that may not safeguard students’ privacy. Among the information the vendors collect are students’ fingerprints, and possibly even images from inside their homes.
“This is taking a step into a student’s private life,” said Rhonda M. Epper, co-executive director of Colorado Community Colleges Online. “I don’t know if we want to extend our presence that far."…
In another beautiful display of reducing the packaging of a product in an innovated way Kamakura-komachi is now storing tofu in balloons. A simple poke of a toothpick and the packaging ‘pops’. The world can take a lesson from Japanese companies on these notes.
Using Bone Conduction technology exhibits can ditch that old tape recorder and headphones in a damn cool way.
People just need to rest their elbows on the railing and cup their ears to be transported back to the night of the terrible air raid on 13th February 1945, using technology called “touched echo”. While leaning on to the balustrade the sound of airplanes and explosions is transmitted from the swinging balustrade through their arm directly into into the inner ear (bone conduction).
The sound is not audible to the people who are not touching the rail.
The future is here and it always is. Now we’re almost about to see 3-d holographic displays everywhere. Well, not everywhere. Just where they would be useful and entertaining.
The Graphics Lab at the University of Southern California has designed an easily reproducible, low-cost 3D display system with a form factor that offers a number of advantages for displaying 3D objects in 3D. The display is:
autostereoscopic - requires no special viewing glasses
omnidirectional - generates simultaneous views accomodating large numbers of viewers
interactive - can update content at 200Hz
The system works by projecting high-speed video onto a rapidly spinning mirror. As the mirror turns, it reflects a different and accurate image to each potential viewer. Our rendering algorithm can recreate both virtual and real scenes with correct occlusion, horizontal and vertical perspective, and shading.
While flat electronic displays represent a majority of user experiences, it is important to realize that flat surfaces represent only a small portion of our physical world. Our real world is made of objects, in all their three-dimensional glory. The next generation of displays will begin to represent the physical world around us, but this progression will not succeed unless it is completely invisible to the user: no special glasses, no fuzzy pictures, and no small viewing zones.
Japanese company Genepax presents its eco-friendly car that runs on nothing but water.
The car has an energy generator that extracts hydrogen from water that is poured into the car’s tank. The generator then releases electrons that produce electric power to run the car. Genepax, the company that invented the technology, aims to collaborate with Japanese manufacturers to mass produce it.
Anyone who has been backpacking knows the fear of getting lost. Luckily two wonderful ladies were found after being in the middle of “we have no idea where the fuck we are” for FIVE days.
Lost for five days in Denali National Park, a Gaylord, Minn., woman and her friend were ferried to safety after a surprising cell-phone call.
Searchers had scoured hundreds of square miles of Alaska wilderness for a young Minnesotan backpacker and her friend for five days and found not a trace.
Then, on Wednesday morning, a cell phone rang.
Eight hours later, Abby Flantz, 25, of Gaylord, Minn., and Erica Nelson, 23, of Las Vegas were safely back at park headquarters, hungry but unhurt, hugging emotional family members, thanking their rescuers and looking forward to a shower, a hearty meal and, Nelson said, “maybe a beer.”
In this case technology saved them. With a GPS device they wouldn’t have been in the situation in the first place, but where is the fun in that. Now that we have ‘tech’ camping all it’s doing is making people dependent on those devices we rely on. All I can say is one has to walk before they can run. That is especially true when it comes to learning backcountry survival.
Reports are stating that download day for Firefox 3 was successful with over 8 million downloads. They’re still pouring over the data before passing it off to Guinness, but it’s looking like they’ve made the record books. This is good since they’ve already found a major flaw in Firefox 3 that they’re keeping secret. Expect an update soon for that bug fix!
Have you ever wanted to just modify a Google map instead of going through a long process of screen grabs and working in Paint or Photoshop? Well QuikMaps is a free mashup that allows you to do so. They also include tons of custom icons, text labeling, and other tools that makes it my new favorite map maker.
Of course companies wouldn’t want congress to make net neutrality law. They’d love to keep it as FCC regulation!
“Executives from AT&T and Verizon Communications said Tuesday that it’s important for the Federal Communications Commission to take action against Comcast for slowing down some peer-to-peer traffic to prove that legislation is not necessary when it comes to Net neutrality.
Comcast, the largest cable provider in the U.S., has been under fire for months after it was discovered the company had been slowing down peer-to-peer traffic on its network. The company claimed it had singled out peer-to-peer, file-sharing traffic, because it was eating up an inordinate amount of bandwidth, which caused degradation across the rest of its customers.
Consumer groups were incensed by the tactic, and the blogosphere filled with criticism. And as a result the FCC has been examining whether Comcast violated any of the agency’s Net neutrality principles. A hearing was held earlier this year, and the FCC is expected to make a ruling on the matter sometime this summer.”
“Web traffic volumes will almost double every two years from 2007 to 2012, driven by video and web 2.0 applications, according to a report from Cisco Systems..
Increased use of video and social networking has created what Cisco calls ‘visual networking’, which is raising traffic volumes at a compound annual growth rate of 46 per cent.
Cisco’s Visual Networking Index (PDF) predicts that visual networking will account for 90 per cent of the traffic coursing through the world’s IP networks by 2012.
The upward trend is not only driven by consumer demand for YouTube clips and IPTV, according to the report, as business use of video conferencing will grow at 35 per cent CAGR over the same period.
Cisco reckons that traffic volumes will be measured in exabytes (one billion gigabytes) by 2012 and will reach 552 exabytes by that time.
Soon after 2012 we will have to adopt zettabytes (one thousand billion gigabytes) to express traffic volumes.
The report is based on Cisco’s own predictions and aggregates analysis from several market research firms.”
Nick Hasty is calling his thesis project the EM Brace. Its “a wearable device that lets you experience electromagnetic radiation emitted by devices and gadgets that are around us.” Very neat idea.
Firefox 3 is out in the wild. Go download it within the next 24 hours to help set a Guinness World Record for the most downloads in one day. Rock and roll.
It a turn of good news the Electronic Frontier Foundation filed a brief about reversing a decision that border agents can search laptops and mobile devices.
The Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) and the Association of Corporate Travel Executives (ACTE) filed an amicus brief on Thursday with the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals, asking the full court to rehear and reverse a decision by a three-judge panel that ruled that border agents can routinely search files on laptops and mobile devices.
The random searching of laptops is “widespread,” said Lee Tien, senior staff attorney with the EFF. The U.S. Department of Justice “claims that U.S. border agents have the power to do so, no suspicion needed, and there are plenty of reported incidents,” he added.
It’s not surprising that big companies hate Net Neutrality. Its the cornerstone concept of the internet model! Around here we try and track the issue as we do anything else. Most of the time we catch the big stories, but love it when something smaller shows itself. Well this is a big deal, but little is known about it. Its time to spread the word.
“I’ve worked in industry for many years, and I have no doubt that these kinds of plans are being made. But it will only happen if we let it. If you are a reporter, or know a reporter, there’s a huge story here.
Also, I urge everyone to join the Electronic Frontier Foundation, and donate to the cause of net neutrality. They’ve been fighting the good fight against usurpation of the internet by monied interests since dinosaurs roamed the Earth (or thereabouts…). And while you’re at it, buy Cory Doctorow’s bestseller, LITTLE BROTHER, a can’t-put-it-down thrill ride that deals with these kinds of issues.
I have said before, and I truly believe, that equal access to the internet is not just a First Amendment issue, but also a Second Amendment issue. The founders intended to create a power balance between and among the different actors in our democracy. The power people hold over our government is not through handguns and assault rifles; it is through our ability to share information and join forces to hold the powerful accountable to us.”
Shouldn’t people be taught good manners? This technology can be abused in such a bad way.
“Ars Technica reports that Microsoft has recently applied for a patent for a technology which would attempt to enforce manners in the use of cell phones, digital cameras, DVRs and other digital devices. According to the article the technology could be used to bring common social conventions such as ‘No flash photography’ and ‘No talking out loud’ to these devices by disabling features or disabling the device entirely. The article also points out that the technology could be implemented in situations involving sensitive equipment, such as in airplanes or hospitals. The patent application itself is also an interesting read, as it describes a number of possible uses for the technology, including ‘in particular zones to limit the speed and/or acceleration of vehicles, to require the use of lights, to verify an indication of insurance coverage and/or current registration, or the like.’ While this technology could certainly be of interest to any number of organizations one has to wonder how the individuals who own devices which obey so-called ‘Digital Manners Policies’ would feel about it.”
