Technolotics #31 – Ringing Up Osama

Technolotics - An antique show about technology

[audio https://garethstack.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/08/31_technolotics_dialup.mp3]

Listen: Episode 31
Watch: Youtube
Feed: RSS

Notes

Mac BootCamp

Intel macs now officially run Windows
http://www.apple.com/macosx/bootcamp/
Macs get mainstream – All silicon valley geeks must have PowerBooks (except me)
How will OSX cope with the competition – Who will reboot?

The hardcore will stay for the unix backend

But Mac enthusiasts already talking about a no-windows-booting pledge

http://www.applematters.com/index.php/section/comments/take-the-no-windows-booting-pledge/

Reasons to love Open Source DRM

Sun Microsystems has proposed, with its DReaM initiative open source DRM.
Central idea is to assign rights to users not devices, hence rights can follow user across devices allowing access to DRMed media from a multitude of devices.
Lawrence Lessig approved Sun’s plan apparrently because they have with the Creative Commons to support their licences.
However: Sun’s DReaM “Usage Scenarios” document says that its fair-use mechanism is purely optional for rights holders.
No obligation on copyright holders to support fair use.
who would certify the players, and what would block the non-certified players from playing DReaM-protected content, that is still not clear.
Not all are happy with Sun’s scheme: ‘I wish Sun would figure out a way to let me do less with my music and movies,'” Cory Doctorow.
EFF makes the point that “open” and “royalty-free” DRM doesn’t make it any less capable of restricting the public’s rights under copyright.
Link: Wired

Laser Eye Surgery for the Home!

LASIK@Home was founded in 2004 by Dr. Amir Khadim, M.D., Ph.D.
Key to the system is the Scal-Pal Scanning Adjusting Laparascopic Personal Laser.
Contains two lasers: first laser cuts a small flap in the cornea of your eye. Then the second laser vaporizes a tiny section of the lens without damaging the surrounding tissue.
Claim that “LASIK@Home is 100% safe” is a little hard to believe, especially for what it does.
Normally such surgery costs thousands of dollars and is carried out by trained professional who have years of experience. Would you trust yourself and a piece of plastic and electronics to do as good a job?
Risks of Lasik surgery include: loss of vision
Link [1]

Comment Tracking

CoComment – http://www.cocomment.com/

only comments on posts you’ve commented on
only shows comments by other cocomment users

co.mments – http://co.mments.com/

lets you track any comments

commentcasting http://commentcasting.bytesurgery.com/

Robin Blandford, final year DCU
leave comments on podcasts by phone, which are nicely wrapped up in an RSS feed

Short Stories

Listen to this NSA

Phil Zimmermann’s (creator of PGP)newest encryption software, Zfone.
The fruit of 10 years trying give the world easy-to-use software to cloak internet phone calls.
Open source, currently in Beta.
uses the industry standard SIP protocol, so it will work with a number of clients.
It has been submitted to IETF for approval as an internet standard, and rumours exist that it is indeed good enough to beat the acres of computers under Fort Meade.
Question is whether it will be adopted widely or will Skype continue to dominate.
Skype uses their own closed-source, own proprietary protocols.
may end up being used by the paranoids and geeks.

Face Recognition

riya – http://riya.com

launched publically a week ago after months of valley hype
recognizes common faces in your photos

You upload all your photos
it finds the faces automatically
then you train it by telling it who’s who
eventually it learns to recognize people and label them
you can search for other people’s photos of yourself (or whoever)

They employ lots of vision processing guys and plan to expand into more areas of image recognition
You can’t import all your photos from flickr yet
looks cool but haven’t used it yet

Can this level of technology beat the cutest kitten test? http://www.thepcspy.com/articles/security/the_cutest_humantest_kittenauth

better have a good supply of kitten photos and other animals to stop a brute force attack

Media Pimp

Rowan

Kleptones Latest Album

http://www.kleptones.com/pages/downloads_24h.html

Shadow of the Colossus – PS2 game

http://www.us.playstation.com/Content/OGS/SCUS-97472/Site/

Francis

Greg Apodaca’s Digital Portfolio

If you ever wondered how much photoshopping is used in glamour magazines then take a look at this… the skill of this guy is unbelievable! Nottie to hottie with a wave of his mouse!
Link: bikini_nottie_to_hottie

How to pull an all-nighter

How to pull an all-nighter when you have that all important assignment due in the morning.
Link How to pull an all-nighter