By Gareth Stack
The podcast currently has 72 episodes available.
audio https://garethstack.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/08/45_technolotics.mp3
Listen: Episode 45
If you’re a mutant mouse that is
Science Blog story
Jajah
Free phone 2 phone calls, initiated via website
Hullo.
Practially free VOIP calls on your home phone or computer
VOIPDiscount
Offers free calls to landlines and computers in certain countries including Ireland.
Techcrunch comparison
‘Full Throttle’ streams Fox shows over the internet using downloadable player.
Techcrunch article
Study of the effects of the affects of being in a warzone on soldiers.
AMA Journal
Gerrymandering exists in the USA, with representatives deciding electoral districts rather than independent commissions.
Economist Article
US government could be considering giving up on democracy in Iraq and instead installing a dictator.
Times Article
All peers – the new bittorrent based firefox extention has launched
Techcrunch anouncement
Play Multiplayer Monopoly, Scrabble etc for Free
Track me Not
Listen: Episode 44
Owner-Free File System takes aim at copyright
What was the name of the previous effort at this? – we covered this in an early technolotics show
Pirate Party launches darknet
A heavily encrypted commerical Virtual Private Network at a cost of €5 per month.
BPI show how wonderful they are by banning a 12 year old from the charts merely for signing to a label that doesn’t support sueing file-sharers.
Arstechnica
Judge rules government’s warrantless wiretapping program violates the rights to free speech and privacy.
CNN Story
broken and entertaining engrish first post is a lengthy and heavily propagandist autobiography
The Iranian presidents power is limited in the extreme – with all bills passed by the Majles parliament are open to veto by a a variety of bodies composed primarily or exclusively of religious leaders – as are electoral candidates
BBC News Story
Journalist Seymour Hersh (the first to write about abuses in Abu Ghraib) alledges in the New Yorker that the two nations planned the attack as long ago as spring
Guardian Story
Anyone whose attended 3rd level education in recent years will likely have had run ins with problems related to onorous copyright restrictions
in my case it was clas notes for advanced neuroscience courses – which lacked all illustrations – making them meaningless!
A year long study by Berkman Center for Internet and Society – has found problems
unclear rules, DRM locking up content, difficulties obtaining rights, undue caution by publishers
Boing Boing Story
How airport security has become an irrational nightmare
Toronto Star Story
America in Colour
Bill Biggarts final exposure
Listen: Episode 43
Update to the email scanning story from #41
One of our viewers was so concearned by the encroachment on privacy represented by website blocking at the ISP / email scanning
MP responds stating that there is no reason to change this policy
Nothing wrong with the Internet Watch Foundation Quango (technically a charity) deciding what is and is not unacceptable
This unaccountable ‘voluntary’ censorship by ISPs will continue unless / until ISPs object – at which point it will become mandatory!
Reminder: While the IWF focus on the ‘potentially illegal child abuse’ element of their remind – they also monitor – and now how have the power to block – any ‘potentially illegal content’
Interesting to look at the IWF’s annual report from last year – and compare the number or ‘reported websites’ and the number of cases where illegal content was actually found
2003 – 2004 the amount of ‘illegal content’ found doubled, while reported images only increased by 28% approx (check this)
Over 2,000 – non child related ‘adult obscene content’ sites were reported last year
His MP’s response to email traffic scanning – ‘We have noted’ no further comment
DRI has written to Min. for Justice, Communications and Garda Commissioner asking for them to cease breaching the Constitutional, statutory and European rights of the citizens of Ireland.
Failing that, their solictors McGarr Solicitors will undertake legal action.
April 2002: Mary O’Rourke tells telecoms providers to retain data generated by their customers supposedly under Section 110 (1) of the Postal and Telecommunications Services Act 1983.
December 2002: Data Protection Commissioner deems previous direction as inadequate, constitutionally invalid and was in breach of the Data Protection Act and Data Retention Directive.
Telecoms traffic explicitly protected under European law.
Irish Government in 2005 gave the Garda Commissoner the power to request a service provider to retain, for a period of 3 years, traffic data or location data or both.
Again in breach of European law, Ireland pressed for alteration of European laws
Result Directive 2006/24/EC.
DRI believes Directive was not adopted in accordance with European Law, a view shared by current Minister for Justice Michael McDowell.
Proceedings undertaken my Min. for Justice to declare directive invalid by European Court of Justice.
DRI believe proceedings may be discontinued, meaning unconstitutional laws and directions will remain unchallenged.
They have requested relevant parties in writing to withdraw the directions to the telecoms providers and not apply the unconstitutional laws.
Failing to get a positive response they will prepare for legal proceedings.
DRI to Challenge Data Retention
Simon McGarr looks at the Terms and conditions of Youtube, blip.tv, Google video and more.
The Heros
Video Egg
They only have a licence to the content until you remove it.
The Villans
Includes Youtube, Grouper and Motionbox.
The In-betweens
Not as bad except
Google Video
Explicit clause stating content creator retains ownership of video an Google has non-exclusive rights are good.
Tuppenceworth Post
Ricardo Semler as CEO of Brazil-based company Semco has turned every aspect of traditional organization and management on it’s head.
Employees set their own working hours
Semler in his new book states that he believes life cannot be divided into work and free time any more.
The Seven Day Weekend
Online IM service Meebo continues to expand and extend its offerings.
allows for realtime chat between the creator of a site and his/her audience.
This marks meebos first move from a instant messaging aggregator to a network provider
Meebo Me
Cash-strapped schools sell naming rights to buildings/rooms even principle’s offices to corporations for one time payments.
What does it say about a country that forces schools to fundraise in this way?
Corporate Sponsorship of Schools
Deleting Online Predators Act (DOPA) social networking sites and chat rooms must be blocked by schools and libraries or those institutions will lose their federal internet subsidies
allow people to post profiles,
If law can be enforced it could have an impact on a large number of companies.
Would create big obstacles to accessing sites that pose no risk to children including media and news sites like, Slashdot, Amazon and News.com.
TechCrunch article
Audio Report from Drew @ Slick.comRemind them an IP is not a person
According to Tech Dirt – the RIAA are refusing to take to court cases where users point out that an IP address is not the same as a person
Remind them an IP is not a person
IPTV Boards
Street Performing World Championchips on this weekend!
Listen: Episode 42
Scientific capital is not being replenished via Blue Sky research.
Academia? No – increasingly accademic research is part funded by business
IP and trade secret laws prevent new ideas from coming to market.
Ars Technica article
We previously reported – plans are afoot to automatically scan the email of every uk citizen, and block ‘objectionable’ websites at the ISP level
Youtube star Brooke “Brookers” Brodack has crossed over into mainstream media.
Variety.com article
Your questions answered – social bookmarking, question asking and to-do lists.
Ask and answer questions, organise and comment on bookmarks and share goals which are called quests
Users rewarded for inviting new users and adding quests.
Can you import the bookmarks and to-do lists you might already have?
Otavo.com
MPAA and Universal Pictures are suing Shawn Hogan for downloading Meet the Fockers over BitTorrent.
Photos of computer screen and an IP address supplied to Tiscali to prove copyright infringement.
Hogan however has the means and the desire to fight.
How the associations get access to ISP records
Wired News:Shawn Hogan, Hero
Simple idea: Rather than throwing out something perfectly usable that you no longer want or need, give it to someone else for free: Freecycle it!
Freecycle.org
TCAL Story
Games for Change conference this month – showcased many games with political objectives
Will this trend make things worse, or even the playing field?
[1]
Techcrunch takes a look at the latest Web2.0 dating sites
with more traditional sites Match.com & Yahoo personals dominating
Consumating – hipsters, tagging, contests, celebration of wierdness
users act as daters or matchmakers – viral quality
Greatboyfriends.com (and girlfriends) – friends and family leave family – which is then verified
interesting as it moves away from just dating
Poddater (remember podato?) – uses create videos which other users download and review
[2]
New porn only clone of YouTube
Make a steadycam for $14
Listen: Episode 41
UK goverment unveils scheme to identify future criminals at birth.
Assessment tools will include value judgements, made by doctors, nurses, midwives: one person’s dysfunction is another’s normal.
Misses the point that we already know where many of the dysfunctional families reside, in the most poor and disadvantaged areas.
The Register article
Evolution in action again – as virus writers specifically test against the most popular packages
Kaspersky Australian computer emergency responce team – 80% of malware gets through Antivirus software is being defeated Why most antivirus apps dont work
YouTubes updated terms and conditions provide the company myspace like ownership of your posted content
Wired News Story
The European Commission is blocking individual municipalities who seek to provide free broadband for their residents
Ars technica article
As this horrific video demonstrates – US police show little hesitation in using dangerous and highly agressive non-lethal takedown techniques
Taze video
Artificial intelligence the name was coined 50 years ago
Medicial diagnosis, voice recognition, surveillence of the public, aeronautics
Is robotics relevent to AI? How much is embodiment a prerequeset for AI?
Wired News article
Slimtimer web based time tracking service
YYY’s Cheated Hearts
Listen: Episode 40
A physics graduate is fined £80 for describing a metal detector as “piece of shit that wouldn’t stop anyone” in public.
Main problem with an ASBO is that due process does not occur.
Makes it very hard to defend oneself.
But breaching an ASBO is a criminal offence. With penalty in the UK of 5 years in jail.
Asbos can be used to criminalise behaviour that would otherwise not be illegal. Including:
playing football,
Restricts individuals rights of free speech and association.
Little or no evidence they actually solve anything.
The Register news article
60,000 organ transplants recorded between 2000 and 2005 (by China Medical Organ Transplant Association)
18,500 of the organs came from identifiable sources.
There is a booming transplant industry in China.
Coalition to Investigate the Persecution of the Falun Gong in China (CIPFG)
Made recordings of phone calls to hospitals, prisons and transplant centres.
Ex-wife of Chinese surgeon alleges that he removed the corneas from 2,000 euthanized Falun Gong prisoners over a 2 year period.
All died and their bodies were burned.
China admitted in 2005 that it harvests and sells the organs of executed prisoners.
British Transplantation Society alleged China without the consent of prisoners or next of kin.
Report by former MP David Kilgour and Winnipeg lawyer David Matas.
CBC News
British Phonographic Industry (BPI) has requested 2 ISP’s to terminate the DSL connections of customers allegedly engaged in infringing file-sharing.
“Notice-and-takedown” regime allows censorship of web-pages if they allegedly infringe copyrright.
Embedded in law in Europe through the EUCD and in the US via the infamous DMCA.
Significantly it only works on material hosted on the ISP’s server.
Notice-and-termination, is the new proposed regime.
Requests for takedowns usually generated by software bots, which often mistakenly identify copyright infringements.
Boing Boing article: BPI: We should be able to cut off your Internet
Everyone has heard of Procedural Synthesis and what it can achieve.
Astounding graphics but with very small file sizes.
What is procedural synthesis?
Method of using mathematics to produce real-time graphics instead of pre-rendered imagery.
Drawback of procedurally generated graphics is that it’s computationally intensive.
Lack of computing power restricts the complexity of algorithms that modify textures.
Problems include:
It won’t be widely adopted.
Will Wright’s latest project: Spore uses procedural synthesis liberally.
About.com article
FBI has drafted legislation that requires ISPs to create wiretap hubs for surveillance
Measures included are:
Expanding wiretapping requirements to “commercial” Internet services including instant messaging if the FCC deems it to be in the “public interest.”
FBI claims changes in law needed to thwart terrorists and criminals who have turned to such things as VOIP.
Boing Boing article
Microsoft fined for failing to comply with anti-competition ruling.
Microsoft was ordered to supply “complete and accurate” technical information to rival developers.
Microsoft claims to have complied and will appeal the fine.
[1]
Friendster has received a patent that covers online social networks.
entering a personal description and relationships to other users,
Company could in future pursue licenses and litigation from its competitors.
Expecially LinkedIn (covered last week) that allows people to connect within a certain number of degrees of separation.
Patent could be challenged in the patent system or the courts.
“Once the patent is issued there is a presumption of validity that follows with it,” said attorney Bill Heinze of Thomas, Kayden, Horstemeyer & Risley.
Friendster has fallen on hard times, eclipsed by rivals such as MySpace.
Another 11 patents are in the pipeline for Friendster.
Red Herring Article
The Skeptics Guide To The Universe
Adult Swim on Bravo UK
Ask A Ninja
Balcony TV
The podcast currently has 72 episodes available.