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Thursday, March 23, 2006

FCC Chief: AT&T Can Limit Net Bandwidth

FCC Chief Kevin Martin yesterday gave his support to AT&T and other telcos who want to be able to limit bandwidth to sites like Google, unless those sites pay extortion fees. Martin made it clear in a speech yesterday that he supports such a a "tiered" Internet.

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Monday, March 13, 2006

Class Action Lawsuit Filed Against Music Industry

It's finally happened, people have gotten fed up enough that proper legal action is being taken. The suit covers price fixing...it also alleges that major labels were conspiring to first take down Napster and then build online music services that purposely stunted their service to drive people away from the idea of online music...

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Sony loses another round in PlayStation DualShock lawsuit

An expert witness in Sony's battle with Immersion Corporation is deemed unreliable as Sony loses another round in its desperate fight to avoid millions in licensing fees for its DualShock controllers. If Sony loses again, they could be in trouble.

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Friday, March 03, 2006

Senator wants to ban 'fast lane' for Web

Network operators would be barred from blocking or degrading Internet connections and favoring those you would offer them sweeter deals.

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Friday, February 17, 2006

Homeland Security official suggests outlawing rootkits

"The recent Sony experience shows us that we need to be thinking about how we ensure that consumers are not surprised by what their software programs do," Jonathan Frenkel, director of law enforcement policy at the U.S Department of Homeland Security said in a speech here at the RSA Conference 2006.

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Tuesday, February 14, 2006

Gates sees end to passwords in sight

With Windows Vista, Gates feels he finally has the right weapons to supplant the password as a means of verifying who is who on computers and over the Internet.

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Thursday, February 09, 2006

Bad Tivo Bad PT 2

Tivo final releases a software driver for the new USB200M v.2 Ethernet adapter. As I said here on this Blog in December Tivo does not support the new usb200m USB network adapter. But they will on the next software release see http://research.tivo.com/wired/ but as you can see from there web site. You will only get the update within 3 days of signing up IF you buy the adapter from them, otherwise you will have to wait until late February to receive the update. This only goes to support my early theory that Tivo was trying to force people to buy only form them. I say to Tivo you should have put an Ethernet adapter in the series 2 to begin with



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Thursday, February 02, 2006

The End of the Internet?

"Industry planners are mulling new subscription plans that would further limit the online experience, establishing "platinum," "gold" and "silver" levels of Internet access that would set limits on the number of downloads, media streams or even e-mail messages that could be sent or received."

Mrmorden- We need to stop this before is get off the ground.
I urge you to call you sentor and congressmen and tell them not to listen to the lobbist.


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Sunday, January 29, 2006

iTunes Now Selling TV Shows Before Network Premiere

The iTunes Music Store is now starting to add television shows before they have made their network television premieres. The first two shows to do this are from Comedy Central and Nickelodeon. It looks like downloadable television shows have a great future ahead as they result in more profits for networks than traditional advertising.

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Double Phone Dipping: Free 411 and Free Skype calling.

Don't pay for your Skype calls and don't pay for your 411 on your cell or home phone!

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Dual-Booting Windows XP on a MacBook instructions

This person has listed instructions how to dual-boot Windows XP on a Macbook. The instructions have not been tested by the author but he believes his theory will work. Someone with an Intel Mac might want to give it a try.

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Thursday, January 12, 2006

Are the stars closer then we think ?

A leap into hyperspace

Fancy a trip to Mars but don't want to spend six months or more holed up in a rocket? Soon you may be able to leave Earth at lunch time and reach the red Planet in time for dinner, thanks to an astonishing new type of engine which apparently would propel a craft through another dimension at enormous speeds. There's just one catch: the machine relies on an obscure and largely unheard of kind of physics. If the experiment gets the go-ahead and works, it could reveal new interactions between the fundamental forces of nature that would change the future of space travel...



EVERY year, the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics awards prizes for the best papers presented at its annual conference. Last year's winner in the nuclear and future flight category went to a paper calling for experimental tests of an astonishing new type of engine. According to the paper, this hyperdrive motor would propel a craft through another dimension at enormous speeds. It could leave Earth at lunchtime and get to the moon in time for dinner. There's just one catch: the idea relies on an obscure and largely unrecognised kind of physics. Can they possibly be serious?

The AIAA is certainly not embarrassed. What's more, the US military has begun to cast its eyes over the hyperdrive concept, and a space propulsion researcher at the US Department of Energy's Sandia National Laboratories has said he would be interested in putting the idea to the test. And despite the bafflement of most physicists at the theory that supposedly underpins it, Pavlos Mikellides, an aerospace engineer at the Arizona State University in Tempe who reviewed the winning paper, stands by the committee's choice. "Even though such features have been explored before, this particular approach is quite unique," he says.

Unique it certainly is. If the experiment gets the go-ahead and works, it could reveal new interactions between the fundamental forces of nature that would change the future of space travel. Forget spending six months or more holed up in a rocket on the way to Mars, a round trip on the hyperdrive could take as little as 5 hours. All our worries about astronauts' muscles wasting away or their DNA being irreparably damaged by cosmic radiation would disappear overnight. What's more the device would put travel to the stars within reach for the first time. But can the hyperdrive really get off the ground?

"A hyperdrive craft would put the stars within reach for the first time"
The answer to that question hinges on the work of a little-known German physicist. Burkhard Heim began to explore the hyperdrive propulsion concept in the 1950s as a spin-off from his attempts to heal the biggest divide in physics: the rift between quantum mechanics and Einstein's general theory of relativity.

Quantum theory describes the realm of the very small - atoms, electrons and elementary particles - while general relativity deals with gravity. The two theories are immensely successful in their separate spheres. The clash arises when it comes to describing the basic structure of space. In general relativity, space-time is an active, malleable fabric. It has four dimensions - three of space and one of time - that deform when masses are placed in them. In Einstein's formulation, the force of gravity is a result of the deformation of these dimensions. Quantum theory, on the other hand, demands that space is a fixed and passive stage, something simply there for particles to exist on. It also suggests that space itself must somehow be made up of discrete, quantum elements.

In the early 1950s, Heim began to rewrite the equations of general relativity in a quantum framework. He drew on Einstein's idea that the gravitational force emerges from the dimensions of space and time, but suggested that all fundamental forces, including electromagnetism, might emerge from a new, different set of dimensions. Originally he had four extra dimensions, but he discarded two of them believing that they did not produce any forces, and settled for adding a new two-dimensional "sub-space" onto Einstein's four-dimensional space-time.

In Heim's six-dimensional world, the forces of gravity and electromagnetism are coupled together. Even in our familiar four-dimensional world, we can see a link between the two forces through the behaviour of fundamental particles such as the electron. An electron has both mass and charge. When an electron falls under the pull of gravity its moving electric charge creates a magnetic field. And if you use an electromagnetic field to accelerate an electron you move the gravitational field associated with its mass. But in the four dimensions we know, you cannot change the strength of gravity simply by cranking up the electromagnetic field.

In Heim's view of space and time, this limitation disappears. He claimed it is possible to convert electromagnetic energy into gravitational and back again, and speculated that a rotating magnetic field could reduce the influence of gravity on a spacecraft enough for it to take off.

When he presented his idea in public in 1957, he became an instant celebrity. Wernher von Braun, the German engineer who at the time was leading the Saturn rocket programme that later launched astronauts to the moon, approached Heim about his work and asked whether the expensive Saturn rockets were worthwhile. And in a letter in 1964, the German relativity theorist Pascual Jordan, who had worked with the distinguished physicists Max Born and Werner Heisenberg and was a member of the Nobel committee, told Heim that his plan was so important "that its successful experimental treatment would without doubt make the researcher a candidate for the Nobel prize".

But all this attention only led Heim to retreat from the public eye. This was partly because of his severe multiple disabilities, caused by a lab accident when he was still in his teens. But Heim was also reluctant to disclose his theory without an experiment to prove it. He never learned English because he did not want his work to leave the country. As a result, very few people knew about his work and no one came up with the necessary research funding. In 1958 the aerospace company Bölkow did offer some money, but not enough to do the proposed experiment.

While Heim waited for more money to come in, the company's director, Ludwig Bölkow, encouraged him to develop his theory further. Heim took his advice, and one of the results was a theorem that led to a series of formulae for calculating the masses of the fundamental particles - something conventional theories have conspicuously failed to achieve. He outlined this work in 1977 in the Max Planck Institute's journal Zeitschrift für Naturforschung, his only peer-reviewed paper. In an abstruse way that few physicists even claim to understand, the formulae work out a particle's mass starting from physical characteristics, such as its charge and angular momentum.

Yet the theorem has proved surprisingly powerful. The standard model of physics, which is generally accepted as the best available theory of elementary particles, is incapable of predicting a particle's mass. Even the accepted means of estimating mass theoretically, known as lattice quantum chromodynamics, only gets to between 1 and 10 per cent of the experimental values.

Gravity reduction
But in 1982, when researchers at the German Electron Synchrotron (DESY) in Hamburg implemented Heim's mass theorem in a computer program, it predicted masses of fundamental particles that matched the measured values to within the accuracy of experimental error. If they are let down by anything, it is the precision to which we know the values of the fundamental constants. Two years after Heim's death in 2001, his long-term collaborator Illobrand von Ludwiger calculated the mass formula using a more accurate gravitational constant. "The masses came out even more precise," he says.

After publishing the mass formulae, Heim never really looked at hyperspace propulsion again. Instead, in response to requests for more information about the theory behind the mass predictions, he spent all his time detailing his ideas in three books published in German. It was only in 1980, when the first of his books came to the attention of a retired Austrian patent officer called Walter Dröscher, that the hyperspace propulsion idea came back to life. Dröscher looked again at Heim's ideas and produced an "extended" version, resurrecting the dimensions that Heim originally discarded. The result is "Heim-Dröscher space", a mathematical description of an eight-dimensional universe.

From this, Dröscher claims, you can derive the four forces known in physics: the gravitational and electromagnetic forces, and the strong and weak nuclear forces. But there's more to it than that. "If Heim's picture is to make sense," Dröscher says, "we are forced to postulate two more fundamental forces." These are, Dröscher claims, related to the familiar gravitational force: one is a repulsive anti-gravity similar to the dark energy that appears to be causing the universe's expansion to accelerate. And the other might be used to accelerate a spacecraft without any rocket fuel.

This force is a result of the interaction of Heim's fifth and sixth dimensions and the extra dimensions that Dröscher introduced. It produces pairs of "gravitophotons", particles that mediate the interconversion of electromagnetic and gravitational energy. Dröscher teamed up with Jochem Häuser, a physicist and professor of computer science at the University of Applied Sciences in Salzgitter, Germany, to turn the theoretical framework into a proposal for an experimental test. The paper they produced, "Guidelines for a space propulsion device based on Heim's quantum theory", is what won the AIAA's award last year.

Claims of the possibility of "gravity reduction" or "anti-gravity" induced by magnetic fields have been investigated by NASA before (New Scientist, 12 January 2002, p 24). But this one, Dröscher insists, is different. "Our theory is not about anti-gravity. It's about completely new fields with new properties," he says. And he and Häuser have suggested an experiment to prove it.

This will require a huge rotating ring placed above a superconducting coil to create an intense magnetic field. With a large enough current in the coil, and a large enough magnetic field, Dröscher claims the electromagnetic force can reduce the gravitational pull on the ring to the point where it floats free. Dröscher and Häuser say that to completely counter Earth's pull on a 150-tonne spacecraft a magnetic field of around 25 tesla would be needed. While that's 500,000 times the strength of Earth's magnetic field, pulsed magnets briefly reach field strengths up to 80 tesla. And Dröscher and Häuser go further. With a faster-spinning ring and an even stronger magnetic field, gravitophotons would interact with conventional gravity to produce a repulsive anti-gravity force, they suggest.

"A spinning ring and a strong magnetic field could produce a repulsive anti-gravity force"
Dröscher is hazy about the details, but he suggests that a spacecraft fitted with a coil and ring could be propelled into a multidimensional hyperspace. Here the constants of nature could be different, and even the speed of light could be several times faster than we experience. If this happens, it would be possible to reach Mars in less than 3 hours and a star 11 light years away in only 80 days, Dröscher and Häuser say.

So is this all fanciful nonsense, or a revolution in the making? The majority of physicists have never heard of Heim theory, and most of those contacted by New Scientist said they couldn't make sense of Dröscher and Häuser's description of the theory behind their proposed experiment. Following Heim theory is hard work even without Dröscher's extension, says Markus Pössel, a theoretical physicist at the Max Planck Institute for Gravitational Physics in Potsdam, Germany. Several years ago, while an undergraduate at the University of Hamburg, he took a careful look at Heim theory. He says he finds it "largely incomprehensible", and difficult to tie in with today's physics. "What is needed is a step-by-step introduction, beginning at modern physical concepts," he says.

The general consensus seems to be that Dröscher and Häuser's theory is incomplete at best, and certainly extremely difficult to follow. And it has not passed any normal form of peer review, a fact that surprised the AIAA prize reviewers when they made their decision. "It seemed to be quite developed and ready for such publication," Mikellides told New Scientist.

At the moment, the main reason for taking the proposal seriously must be Heim theory's uncannily successful prediction of particle masses. Maybe, just maybe, Heim theory really does have something to contribute to modern physics. "As far as I understand it, Heim theory is ingenious," says Hans Theodor Auerbach, a theoretical physicist at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Zurich who worked with Heim. "I think that physics will take this direction in the future."

It may be a long while before we find out if he's right. In its present design, Dröscher and Häuser's experiment requires a magnetic coil several metres in diameter capable of sustaining an enormous current density. Most engineers say that this is not feasible with existing materials and technology, but Roger Lenard, a space propulsion researcher at Sandia National Laboratories in New Mexico thinks it might just be possible. Sandia runs an X-ray generator known as the Z machine which "could probably generate the necessary field intensities and gradients".

For now, though, Lenard considers the theory too shaky to justify the use of the Z machine. "I would be very interested in getting Sandia interested if we could get a more perspicacious introduction to the mathematics behind the proposed experiment," he says. "Even if the results are negative, that, in my mind, is a successful experiment."

From issue 2533 of New Scientist magazine, 05 January 2006, page 24

Thursday, January 05, 2006

RIAA's Worst Nightmare: Automatic Wireless MP3 Sharing

The Viktoria Institute in Gothenburg, Sweden, is working on a concept they call Push Music, which is software that enables peer-to-peer connections between music players, enabling people to "browse" the music collections of others and take a copy of whatever they like.

Mrmorden: This is the coolest thing since sliced bread. :)

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1 In 10 Now Use Mozilla's Firefox

"Firefox is very close to hitting a critical mass of 10 percent, which could mean a more rapid adoption rate," said Vince Vizzaccaro, vice president of marketing at NetApplications, in a statement.

Mrmorden: A 9.6 market share, way to go Firefox.


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Friday, December 30, 2005

RIAA Accused Of Coaching 15-Year-Old Witness In File Sharing Suit

Apparently, the lawyers for the RIAA had contacted her [15 year old girl], urging her to testify against the defendants, her employers. Combined with the fact that no other person who testified could recall the defendants ever using the computer to listen to music, it certainly seems to support the story that they did not do so.

Mrmmorden: This is just one more nail in the coffin of the RIAA

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New WOW Alliance Race Leaked by Feb. 06 Computer Gaming Magazine

According to some scans of what appears to be the Computer Games Magazine February 2006 Issue the Draenei have been confirmed as the new Alliance race. Read the full article for the rest of the info.

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Apple stock skyrocketed 128% thanks to the iPod!

It even outgrew Google in the last year and accounted for almost 4% of growth on the S&P500. What an amazing turnaround for a company.. all because of a trendy MP3 player.

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Friday, December 23, 2005

U.S. vs. the world on file-sharing

Is the United States getting increasingly out of touch with the rest of the world where technology matters are concerned? This week, members of the French Parliament voted to allow free downloads of copyrighted material, a move with provisions similar to a ruling last year by a Canadian judge.

Philosophical differences between the U.S. government and other countries have become abundantly clear in technology-related business matters, as seen in the European Commission's antitrust actions against Microsoft. And other nations have become frustrated with the United States' influence over accepted behavior on the Internet, a medium that ostensibly has no geographic boundaries.

Hollywood's powerful lobbying machine has managed to hold sway in Congress, but its influence wanes quickly beyond U.S. borders. Will an international backlash eventually force fundamental changes in long-held concepts of copyright protections?

BAD Tivo BAD

I thought that you should all know the tivo SEEMS to be forcing people to buy the wired USB adapter that would allow you connect to your tivo to your LAN from them. the adapter that I am speaking of is the Linksys USB200M which tvio says will work with Tivo, BUT, and here the catch Tvio does not mention that they do not support the new version 2 of this adapter and to my knowledge there is no information on the box that tells you that 200m has chagned.it version and there does not seem to be any change to the drivers download site @ linksys they still only show the drivers for version 1 So Here is what happen to me and how i found this out I have the two tivo's and one uses

The Netgear WG111 wireless 802.11g on one and usb200m on the other. The issues was that i was have problem with the wireless adapter and just decided that I had had enough with that adapter and was going to buy the wired one. So I went to BestBuy and bought the usb200m got home and plug it and too my surprise tvio came up saying that the adapter is not supported I tried it on my other tvio and got the same thing then i saw the adapter was version 2 i called tivo and they said that the device was not supported and i will have to order one from them. I returned the adapter and went out looking for a version 1 adapter and was not able to fine one any were in the city I should say that the only way I was able tell the difference between the two was that the version 2 is slightly smaller then version 1. so now any stuck using the crappy wireless adapter that does not work all the time I have to restart the tivo ant least twice a week.