Tony Burkhart

I used Shazam to discover Go Down by The Bloodhound Gang

2012-01-29T09:21:00.001-05:00

	Hi, I just used Shazam to discover Go Down by The Bloodhound Gang and thought I'd share it with you.

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I used Shazam to discover Comeback Kid by Sleigh Bells

2012-01-28T12:38:00.001-05:00

	Hi, I just used Shazam to discover Comeback Kid by Sleigh Bells and thought I'd share it with you.

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I used Shazam to discover Only Happy When It Rains by Garbage

2012-01-27T23:06:00.001-05:00

	Hi, I just used Shazam to discover Only Happy When It Rains by Garbage and thought I'd share it with you.

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I used Shazam to discover Echoplex by Nine Inch Nails

2012-01-27T13:45:00.001-05:00

	Hi, I just used Shazam to discover Echoplex by Nine Inch Nails and thought I'd share it with you.

Posted via email from Tony Burkhart

I used Shazam to discover Angeldust by No-Man

2012-01-27T13:15:00.001-05:00

	Hi, I just used Shazam to discover Angeldust by No-Man and thought I'd share it with you.

Posted via email from Tony Burkhart

CASSETTE: A Documentary Film about the Cassette Tape #Kickstarter

2012-01-25T23:42:00.001-05:00

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Rotary phone-light-amp could be filed under bizarre

2012-01-25T21:10:00.001-05:00

Rotary phone-light-amp could be filed under bizarre

Hack a Day

[Samimy's] latest project is a little strange, but one man’s weird is another man’s wonderful so we’re not about to start criticizing his work. Nope, we’re here to praise the fact that his rotary phone turned reading light and audio amp is very well constructed.

He started by removing the phone housing. Those old enough to have used one of these devices will remember their bulk, and there’s a lot of unused space in both the handset and body housing. [Samimy] started by removing the speaker and microphone from the handset, and drilling a ring of holes to receive white LEDs. The circuit was wired so that lifting the handset turns on the lights.

But he didn’t stop there. A set of speakers and the audio amplifier circuitry from an old tape deck are also hiding inside the base of the phone. If you look closely in the image above you can see that he’s connected his cellphone and is listening to some tunes through the antique hardware. Take a gander at the video after the break to see construction and use of the project.

Filed under: digital audio hacks, led hacks

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Damn you Windows. Not a #BSOD, but still full of suck

2012-01-24T12:09:00.001-05:00

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One Year at My Standing Desk

2012-01-24T07:38:00.001-05:00

One Year at My Standing Desk

Smarterware

Last January I took apart my computer desk and rebuilt it at standing height. I've been standing at my desk every workday since. Just in my 2011 travels, I've seen standing desks everywhere from the offices of San Francisco startups to the White House.

Over the past 12 months, standing desks went from popular life hacks meme to eyeroll-inducing sign of a certain type of tightly-wound techie, similar to emptying your email inbox. Several people have asked me if I'm still standing. The answer is yes. Here's what I've learned from 365 days of being a professional stander.

Sitting is essential

My typical workday starts around 8 or 9am and wraps around 5 or 6pm. I don't stand the entire time. I stand all morning till lunchtime, and then stand again for a couple of hours after lunch. By 3 or 4pm, fatigue sets in, and my feet need a break. That's when I sit down at a small table I set up in my office or, if I want to put my feet up, push back in an old recliner I commandeered. I also sit at lunch, often sit during conference calls and TWiG, and sit to do paperwork or work on my iPad.

The point is: a standing desk doesn't mean you're standing for 8 hours a day straight. That's just not healthy. For me, standing a few hours a day has had its benefits and drawbacks.

The upsides of a standing desk

My back feels great. My posture is better than ever. My default work position is standing on flat feet, with my shoulders back, and my back slightly arched. I have a makeshift foot rest (a box of unsold books), and I often shift from one foot to another when my knees feel stiff. I lost 3-5 pounds in the first couple of weeks from standing alone. I'm way more active throughout the day, pacing, dancing, fidgeting. Because I'm used to standing all day at work, standing in line anywhere for long periods of time on weekends doesn't bother me in the least.

Thanks to my standing desk, I began naturally splitting activities up into active work (while standing) and passive work (while sitting). Since my legs and brain are fresh in the morning, I start my day by diving into the most effort-intensive work first, like coding and writing. By the afternoon I'm fatigued and ready to sit, so I use that time to process email, read Instapaper, catch up on Twitter and Facebook. Explicitly shifting gears like that helps my brain tackle the right kind of work given my physical and mental capacity at the moment.

The downsides of a standing desk

Ever since I got used to standing all day, sitting for long periods of time became uncomfortable for me. By the end of cross-country flights and even long movies, my back and backside feel stiff and achy. In the past 12 months I developed a silver dollar-sized case of spider veins on my right calf, just below my knee joint. It's not sexy. These are common for women my age, and both my parents had them, so it's difficult to say if I would have gotten these without the standing desk. Excessive standing (and sitting) are both known causes of spider veins.

The fatigue of a standing workday makes getting to the gym at the end of the day more difficult for me. When I was sitting all day, I'd feel so sluggish and sedentary I'd look forward to getting sweaty and exerting myself at the gym. At the end of a standing workday, you just want to sit down. For me, the gym has to happen in the morning, or it doesn't happen at all. While my daily calorie burn is definitely higher at the standing desk compared to sitting, standing at your desk is not a replacement for a good workout at the gym.

Finally, I work at home, alone in a room. Several people have told me that they don't want to be at the one standing desk in a sea of sitters at their office. I understand that. I'm not sure I'd pull this off in an office where I was surrounded by sitting co-workers and didn't have the luxury of two desks, one sitting, one standing.

That all said, once I got past the first couple of weeks, I haven't once considered switching back to a sitting desk full-time. Honestly, I barely give it a thought at all anymore. If you're considering it, here's how and why I switched to a standing desk.

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Apple Nets 350K Textbook Downloads In 3 Days

2012-01-24T07:28:00.001-05:00

Apple Nets 350K Textbook Downloads In 3 Days

Slashdot

redletterdave writes "On Jan. 19, Apple introduced iBooks 2, its digital solution to the physical textbook. In the first three days of release, users have downloaded more than 350,000 e-textbooks from the new platform, and more than 90,000 users have downloaded the authoring tool to make those e-textbooks, called iBooks Author. It makes sense that Apple's iBooks 2 platform is taking off in such a short period of time; there is very little merit to the physical textbook, and the education industry has been waiting for a viable solution like this for some time. Physical textbooks lack portability, durability, accessibility, consistent quality, interactivity and searchability, and they're not environmentally friendly."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

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Bird flies onstage to lead singer and lands on guitar - Josh Williams Band - Mordecai - YouTube

2012-01-22T06:00:00.001-05:00

Posted via email from Tony Burkhart

Verizon Wireless Outage in Central Ohio. Can anyone else confirm? #VerizonOutage

2012-01-21T22:17:00.001-05:00

I have not been able to make or recieve calls from my iPhone 4S since 9:00 p.m. My wife and my cousin both have iPhone's on Verizon and have had no luck either. Anyone else having this?

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Mozilla offers alternative to OpenID

2012-01-21T09:02:00.001-05:00

http://www.net-security.org/secworld.php?id=12259&utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+HelpNetSecurity+%28Help+Net+Security%29

Mozilla offers alternative to OpenID

Mozilla has been working for a while now on a new browser-based system for identifying and authenticating users it calls BrowserID, but its only this month that all of its sites have finally been outfitted with the technology.

Mozilla aims for BrowserID to become a more secure alternative to OpenID, the decentralized authentication system offered to users of popular sites such as Google, Yahoo!, PayPal, MySpace and others.

"Many web sites store extensive user data and act on behalf of the user. While the browser may be fully under the user’s control, many of the services that users enjoy are not. Sometimes, these web services handle data in ways that are of questionable value to the user, even detrimental," points out Ben Adida, Mozilla's Tech Lead on Identity and User Data. "It’s clear that Mozilla needs to step up and provide, in addition to the Firefox browser, certain services to enhance users’ control over their online experience and personal data."

Apart from BrowserID, Mozilla is also looking to launch Boot to Gecko (B2G), a standalone mobile web-based operating system, and an app store.

As the BrowserID technology is finally ready to be implemented, Mozilla made available detailed instructions for web developers on how to do it.

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The Week We Stopped SOPA | Smarterware by @ginatrapani

2012-01-21T06:43:00.001-05:00

The Week We Stopped SOPA

January 20, 2012

Anil sums up the history and future of web protest as we wrap up the week we stopped SOPA. I had chills on Wednesday, the day the web went black in protest of SOPA, because we were all witnessing—and more importantly, participating in—history in the making. I'm so very glad to be alive during these exciting times.

via smarterware.org

I couldn't agree more with GIna here... history and mass participation. All good!

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Firefox Users Engage Congress: #SOPA Strike Stats | The Mozilla Blog

2012-01-20T17:03:00.001-05:00

http://blog.mozilla.com/blog/2012/01/19/firefox-users-engage-congress-sopa-strike-stats/

Firefox Users Engage Congress: SOPA Strike Stats

Yesterday, we blacked out the default start page in Firefox and redirected visitors to the Mozilla sites to a special action page. We also sent direct messages to members of the Mozilla community through multiple online channels. All these steps were aimed at informing and mobilizing millions of people on the poorly drafted anti-piracy legislation – SOPA and PIPA – pending in Congress.

The result: Mozilla reached over 40 million people who, in turn, generated 360,000 emails sent to Senators and Representatives in Congress.

Here’s the breakdown of the stats from yesterday’s remarkable campaign:

Approximately 30 million people in the US who use the default start page in Firefox received the blacked out page with our call to action
We sent messages out to almost 9 million people via Facebook, Twitter and our Firefox + You newsletter
Our messages were retweeted, shared and liked by over 20,000 people (not counting MC Hammer’s tweet to his 2.4 million followers!)
1.8 million people came to mozilla.org/sopa to learn more and take action on the issue
600,000 went on to visit the Strike Against Censorship page, hosted by the EFF
Ultimately, 360,000 emails were sent by Mozillians to members of Congress, contributing a third of all the emails generated by EFF’s campaign site.

The debate is far from over. There’s a vote next week in the Senate. Keep the pressure on and make sure your elected officials understand the nuance of the issue and the importance of protecting the open Web.

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@JoeRogan - Newark police searching for escaped wolf hybrid | The Columbus Dispatch

2012-01-20T13:20:00.001-05:00

http://www.dispatch.com/content/stories/local/2012/01/20/wolf-dog-escape.html

Newark police searching for escaped wolf hybrid

By Josh Jarman

The Columbus Dispatch Friday January 20, 2012 12:05 PM

Enlarge Image

The hybrid wolf was last seen yesterday at about 9 p.m.

Newark police are cautioning residents after a hybrid wolf escaped from its owner late yesterday.

The animal escaped and was last seen by its owner at about 9 p.m. yesterday, in the area of Oakwood Avenue and the Rt. 16/Rt. 79 overpass, according to a news release from Newark police. Officers were not alerted to the animal’s escape until this morning, police said.

“The aggression level of the animal is not known, but it is an exotic animal,” the release states.

Police and animal-control officers have searched the area, but have not found the animal. Police notified local schools and asked them to keep children inside.

Anyone who spots the animal is advised to avoid contact and call Newark police at 740-670-7200.

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What Happens To Your Files When a Cloud Service Shuts Down?

2012-01-20T13:16:00.001-05:00

What Happens To Your Files When a Cloud Service Shuts Down?

Slashdot

MrSeb writes "Megaupload's shutdown poses an interesting question: What happens to all the files that were stored on the servers? XDA-Developers, for example, has more than 200,000 links to Megaupload — and this morning, they're all broken, with very little hope of them returning. What happens if a similar service, like Dropbox, gets shut down — either through bankruptcy, or federal take-down? Will you be given a chance to download your files, or helped to migrate them to another similar service? What about data stored on enterprise services like Azure or AWS — are they more safe?" And if you're interested, the full indictment against Megaupload is now available.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

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Father of the web backs SOPA protests

2012-01-20T01:43:00.001-05:00

http://www.smh.com.au/it-pro/business-it/father-of-the-web-backs-sopa-protests-20120119-1q7rm.html

Father of the web backs SOPA protests

Tim Berners-Lee says US government plan to censor the internet violates human rights.

The father of the web has added his voice to the global chorus of outrage at US Government plans to censor the internet, saying its plans are undemocratic and violate human rights.

The US Congress is pushing ahead with contentious legislation to censor internet communications, the Stop Online Piracy Act, that is backed by five-year jail terms. Although it applies ostensibly to only US entities, Australians who host websites or do online business or rely on resources on US servers would be impacted.

The bill is currently held for "markup" next month, a review that may mean alterations in light of wide-ranging criticism.

Advertisement: Story continues below

British computer scientist Tim Berners-Lee, who is credited with inventing the World Wide Web, has called for people to take action against the SOPA. Photo: AFP

As major websites including Wikipedia blacked out in protest overnight, the web's creator, Sir Tim-Berners Lee, urged people to let their feelings be known to block it before it is enacted.

"It affects all the stuff on the internet working and something which would affect what you want to connect to, where you want to connect to," Sir Tim said.

"If you're in America then you should go and call somebody or send an email to protest against these (censorship) bills because they have not been put together to respect human rights as is appropriate in a democratic country."

Sir Tim's call to arms was met with rousing applause and hoots from 5000 delegates to IBM's annual Lotusphere conference, held in the southern, state of Florida.

High-profile sites such as Wikipedia's English-language edition, Google, Yahoo!'s Flickr photo sharing site, news aggregator Reddit and web browser Mozilla are among a growing number of digital media companies who banded together to protest the proposed changes to America's copyright regime either blacking out entirely or carrying messages in condemnation. Google redacted its name in response to one of the biggest ever changes proposed to global copyright policing.

Critics from a broad coalition that includes most IT companies contend the bill's wording would make any internet use potentially impossible without fear of running foul of the law that they say undermines online security while its proponents backed by Hollywood's powerful film distributors say it is needed to stop rampant online piracy.

The bill, coupled to the related Protect IP Act, would grant the US Government unprecedented powers to:

# Block websites thereby erasing protections afforded by internet security standards;

# Demands search engines censor their results not to point to allegedly infringing content;

# Orders payment providers not to process funds deemed to be from alleged infringers;

# Erodes internet commerce by demanding online ad companies refuse to accept ads from allegedly infringing advertisers.

Those convicted of breaking the eventual law face up to five years in jail but compliant internet service providers would be immune from prosecution.

The writer attended Lotusphere as a guest of IBM.

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Nice work web! More than 13M of y’all fought SOPA

2012-01-19T19:05:00.001-05:00

Nice work web! More than 13M of y’all fought SOPA

GigaOM — Tech News, Analysis and Trends

SOPA protests in New York

On Wednesday, the web went wild (or dark) and more than 13 million people protested the potential passage of the Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA) and its companion bill in the Senate, the Protect IP Act (PIPA). Fight for the Future, an organization created to organize the online protests, offered some stats today to show exactly how wild things got. Here’s the organization’s breakdown of activism by the numbers, in infographic form:

The results were impressive. More than a third of U.S. senators are opposed to PIPA in its current form ahead of the vote on the bill next week — 36 are opposed, including 5 who were formerly co-sponsors. And as the Senate votes on PIPA next Tuesday, those 13 million are invited to watch the live stream and by submitting their stories on how they use the Internet to be read by Senators who have pledged to filibuster the bill. Go, online activism.

Related research and analysis from GigaOM Pro:
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Spire via Cydia with Siri for iPhone 4S from chpwn blog

2012-01-19T16:54:00.001-05:00

http://blog.chpwn.com/post/14689740472

Introducing Spire

Spire is my (along with Ryan Petrich) new tool for installing Siri on previously unsupported, but jailbroken, devices. Spire is a small download, but while installing it will download Siri itself (directly from Apple). Spire is available in Cydia right now — go get it! This will use about 100 MB of data, so please connect to Wi-Fi before installing.

However, Spire is not a complete solution. Apple still requires authorization to use Siri, so information from an iPhone 4S is still required. To insert this information, Spire allows you to enter your own proxy server address. I’ve put up a list of my ideas on how you might get access to a proxy; hopefully you can figure something out.

Spire uses a new method to obtain the files necessary for Siri, so it doesn’t have the copyright issues encountered by previous attempts. Similarly, rather than directing all traffic through a specific proxy server (and the associated privacy issues), Spire allows you to specify your own proxy server.

Thanks to planetbeing for PartialZip and Ryan Petrich for his fixes and improvements.

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A Mugful of Scam at Facebook - MalwareCity : Computer Security Blog

2012-01-19T07:42:00.001-05:00

http://www.malwarecity.com/blog/a-mugful-of-scam-1244.html

A Mugful of Scam

Free Facebook Mug gives scammers an unlimited pass to post threats on users’ walls

Scammers don’t waste any time as they always come up with new ways to avoid the Facebook security measures. As I am writing this post, a new type of scam is making its rounds on social networks, using an original propagation method.
The scam takes advantage of the Facebook option that allows users to post their content by e-mail. The scam bait does not appear to be special as it simply promises a free Facebook Mug.

After clicking the link, the user is taken to a page that requires him/her to hit a couple of Likes, a step this sample shares with other Facebook threats.

As you can see, the page tries to imitate the Facebook style in order to gain users’ confidence. After clicking the required Likes and the Continue button, the user is surprisingly taken to a page that provides details about the inexistent Facebook Mug.

While the latest Facebook scam waves have chosen the shorter “install add-on” approach, this kind of threats generally requires that the user go through at least one more step before they get to the core scam action. I believe that in this case the all of the other intermediary steps are skipped because the scam authors want to avoid raising suspicion and because they probably assume that providing details about the item makes it seem more real to the user.

Next comes the most interesting part of the scam: a step-by-step guide to obtaining the e-mail address that Facebook provides to each user for e-mail posting purposes.

Following the information on this page, I obtained my Facebook e-mail address or ID, which I was then prompted to enter on the scam page.

Providing this piece of information to scammers is a big mistake as they would then be able to post anything on your Facebook Wall. Even if it does not provide direct access to an account, in some ways, having this e-mail address is better than having your Facebook password. Here’s why:

1. Facebook has set up GeoIP security measures intended to block scammers from logging into hijacked accounts. Even if the highjacked account is not blocked, the account owner will at least receive an e-mail from Facebook warning him/her about the suspicious activity, which might prompt him/her to stop the hack.
2. Posting by e-mail does not prompt any warning from Facebook. Users might not notice the scam posts on their Walls until they visit their own Facebook profiles.
3. Scammers can easily post on Facebook in users’ name by sending in e-mails. Automatic posting by means of a software/script from within a browser is much more complicated.
4. The same scam can be distributed to a vast number of users just as spam.

The fact that the scam eventually reaches the fake survey step won’t matter much after all this.

An important wave of stolen e-mail addresses posting scams is sure to prompt additional security measures from Facebook, but how many users will have already been affected by then?

All product and company names mentioned herein are for identification purposes only and are the property of, and may be trademarks of, their respective owners.

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True Blood Season 3 on Amazon Instant Video - watch it today!

2012-01-18T12:50:00.001-05:00

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#SOPA #PIPA - End Piracy, Not Liberty – Google

2012-01-18T09:16:00.001-05:00

https://www.google.com/landing/takeaction/

Millions of Americans oppose SOPA and PIPA because these bills would censor the Internet and slow economic growth in the U.S.

Two bills before Congress, known as the Protect IP Act (PIPA) in the Senate and the Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA) in the House, would censor the Web and impose harmful regulations on American business. Millions of Internet users and entrepreneurs already oppose SOPA and PIPA.

The Senate will begin voting on January 24th. Please let them know how you feel. Sign this petition - https://www.google.com/landing/takeaction/ - urging Congress to vote NO on PIPA and SOPA before it is too late.

[PDF, 1.9 MB]

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Why I’m fighting SOPA: It’s hypocritical, onerous & dumb By Barb Darrow on GigaOm

2012-01-18T08:49:00.001-05:00

Full Story Here -> http://burkhart.bz/A4UEMH

Why I’m fighting SOPA: It’s hypocritical, onerous & dumb

The Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA) may have been shelved by Congress, but the Senate’s PROTECT-IP Act (PIPA) still looms and Jason Hoffman can’t stop wondering how we got to this place.

“It’s all just so dumb,” said Hoffman, CTO and founder of Joyent, a hosting provider that also offers IaaS and PaaS services. “The Senate bill is just as bad if not worse than SOPA. These are both dumb bills and [are] a classic example of industry-specific lobbyists creating stupid laws.”

Does that mean that the motion picture and recording industry has better lobbyists than SOPA opponents like Facebook, Twitter et al? Not really, it just shows that it’s easier to lobby when someone is supposedly a thief or a suspected terrorist, he said. “How do you lobby for freedom? That’s harder.” To be clear, Joyent has no plans to black out any sites and Hoffman has not been proactively front-and-center with his concerns. But when asked, he is eager to share them.

What really grates on Hoffman, is that the industries seeking protection — movie studios, record companies, publishing houses, broadcast networks — brought this mess on themselves. “Look at the list of companies supporting these bills. It could be a list of railroad companies a hundred years ago fighting the auto industry,” he said.

Had these SOPA supporters made their content available easily and affordably, they’d have no problem selling it, he said. ”If you ask someone why they ‘Bit Torrented’ a movie, it’s because they couldn’t buy it or rent it.” He added: It’s not the consumer’s fault that the content they want has not been made available to them. In short, these issues have nothing to do with piracy and everything to do with product distribution and pricing.

“If you look at how [the record companies] handled Napster well over a decade ago, you can’t tell me that EMI couldn’t have figured out how to do something with that model in all this time,” Hoffman said. But instead of building a viable, affordable electronic distribution system for their content ,these companies now want laws to protect their businesses.

Many people are actually willing to pay multiple times for the same content if it comes in a more convenient format. People like me (an admitted oldster) have vinyl album collections that they duplicated with CDs and now have re-purchased from iTunes. There are a ton of such “triple dippers” out there, Hoffman said. “People are willing to pay for convenience.”

Then there are the nuts-and-bolts issues of how web companies are supposed to comply with these laws if passed. Initially SOPA would have mandated that web companies block or re-route DNS (Domain Name Service) requests for sites deemed to be illegally hosting copyrighted content.

“My general frustration is that there’s no messing around with the DNS. You can’t just grab domain names, [it] creates a tremendous amount of work and doesn’t remotely touch the core problem. I’m not convinced there is a core problem”

SOPA hypocrisy

But what seems to get Hoffman’s goat more than anything is the double standard he sees. In early December, a minor furor arose when the “Great Firewall of China” blocked access to Joyent’s latest Node.js framework because the version number coincided with the date of the Tiananmen Square upheaval.

At the time Hoffman shrugged off the Chinese blocking issue and recommended that those in this country who made a federal case out of it pay closer attention to the restrictions SOPA would put on even the most popular web sites.

Thinking back on it now, he reaffirmed that stance: “Twitter and Facebook are awesome when they’re bringing down a dictator in the Middle East. They’re not awesome when someone is tweeting about some governor here.”

In other words, everyone should take a deep breath before enacting any legislation.

Related research and analysis from GigaOM Pro:
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Dog warden charged with animal cruelty | zanesvilletimesrecorder.com

2012-01-17T23:59:00.001-05:00

This is the most disgusting thing I've ever heard with regard to mistreatment of animals...

http://www.zanesvilletimesrecorder.com/article/20120105/NEWS01/201050312/1002/rss01

Dog warden charged with animal cruelty

WAVERLY --The Pike County dog warden is facing animal cruelty charges after live puppies were found in a bag at the pound Tuesday.

Randy Mustard is set to be arraigned on 11 counts of animal cruelty, all first-degree misdemeanors, at 9 a.m. Monday in Pike County Court. Mustard confirmed Wednesday he has been suspended, effective today, from his dog warden job pending the outcome of the case. He's been employed as a warden for nearly a decade.

The charges stem from a complaint made Tuesday to the Pike County Sheriff's Office. Maj. Jeremy Masters said a man and woman had been at the pound, located off Alma Omega Road, looking for a dog when they heard whimpering coming from a trash bag.

Masters responded to the scene and said they found an adult female dog dead inside the bag, one dead puppy and 10 live puppies who were young enough their eyes hadn't opened yet.

During his investigation, Masters said he spoke with an employee who had been placed through Job and Family Services to work at the shelter and had no formal training. The man allegedly told Masters the mother dog had died and Mustard told him to "bag them up" and throw them out, including the puppies. He alleged Mustard never administered a lethal injection to euthanize the puppies, Masters said.

Mustard told the sheriff's office and CentralOhio.com on Wednesday that he had administered the lethal injection to the puppies and told the employee not to discard them until they had died.

Mustard provided Central Ohio.com with a copy of a kennel card he said was made when the dog and her 11 puppies were dropped at the pound Monday. According to the card, a Beaver man had dropped off the dogs and indicated they were strays.

Mustard said he was off that day but was called when the mother dog died. He said she was extremely skinny and was not in good condition. He said he gave orders for the dog to be placed in a bag and put outside until it could be disposed of at the landfill, the Ohio Environmental Protection Agency's approved disposal method.

On Tuesday, Mustard said he looked at the puppies and determined he did not think they would survive and administered the lethal injection.

"I told one of the workers, I said don't put them in the bag until they pass away," Mustard said.

After the sheriff's office arrived and the puppies were discovered, Mustard said they placed them back into cages until they died. Mustard said he sent the employee home because "I don't want him here if he's going to do that."

"I'm the boss. I'm in charge, so someone has to take the blame," Mustard said.

Mustard maintains that he was not in the wrong and said he has been working closely with Pike County Pet Pals during the past three years to minimize the numbers of dogs he has to euthanize.

In 2011, Pet Pals president Wayne Dovenbarger, who was at the pound Wednesday, said they received 980 dogs from the pound. While Dovenbarger said he has experienced some shelters having a day where they euthanize, he hasn't seen that at the Pike County pound.

"I haven't hardly had too many dogs put down, maybe 50. ...I'm a dog person, too. Putting one to sleep hurts me, too," Mustard said.

Pike County Prosecutor Rob Junk said his office does not believe Mustard's version and that the employee is not a suspect. Masters collected video and photos from the scene, but they have not been released because they have been logged in as evidence, Masters said.

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Oops: Man gets $44 million hospital bill - TODAY News - TODAY.com

2012-01-17T10:08:00.001-05:00

http://today.msnbc.msn.com/id/46014824/ns/us_news-weird_news/#.TxWOupj6HBI

Hospital mistakenly sends man $44 million bill

NEW YORK — Patients don't normally get sick once they've returned home from the hospital, but one New York resident said he almost became ill when he received a whopping $44.8 million bill from the Bronx-Lebanon Hospital Center.

“I almost had an asthma attack,” Alexis Rodriguez, 28, told The New York Daily News.

Rodriguez, a doorman who is currently unemployed, is one of several hundred patients getting billed for tens of millions of dollars because of a computer error at the New York City hospital.

He told The Daily News that initially, he thought the bill was legitimate because he had received a large bill last spring when he was hospitalized for pneumonia for three weeks — although that bill was in the tens of thousands of dollars, not millions.

This hospital visit, again for pneumonia, was for outpatient services, reported The Daily News. The $44,776,587 bill should have amounted to no more than $300.

The error occurred beceause the company that prepares the bills had mistakenly put the invoice number in the space where the invoice amount should go.

"We are sending an apology letter to everyone who received" the multi-million dollar bills, PHY Services representative told The Daily News, adding that the company will send out corrected invoices.

The hospital didn't immediately respond to requests for comment on Monday, The Associated Press reported.

Rodriguez told The Daily News that while he was glad he wouldn't be charged more than his actual bill, he was still upset with the company's carelessness.

“I think they should have somebody look over the bills before they send them out," he said. “I understand manpower may be down, but to send out a lot of bills with numbers that big — someone could have had a heart attack.”

The Associated Press contributed to this report.

Posted via email from Tony Burkhart

Murdoch shows he doesn’t understand how content works

2012-01-16T12:57:00.001-05:00

Murdoch shows he doesn’t understand how content works

GigaOM — Tech News, Analysis and Trends

News Corp. founder Rupert Murdoch caused a stir over the weekend with some comments he made on Twitter after the Obama administration criticized the SOPA anti-piracy bill, in which the octogenarian billionaire accused Google of being the “piracy leader” and “stealing” content from movie companies and others. Whether he was trolling the social network or not, these comments reinforce the sense that Murdoch doesn’t understand how content works in a digital era — one in which, as venture capitalist Fred Wilson noted in an unrelated blog post, trying to impose scarcity is a sign of an increasingly broken business model. That fundamental misunderstanding has cost News Corp. a lot, and will likely continue to do so.

In one of his first comments, Murdoch criticized President Obama for siding with “Silicon Valley paymasters” who threaten software (and presumably content) creators with “plain thievery.” Then he attacked Google for being what he called the piracy leader online, and for streaming movies for free while selling advertisements around them — something that appeared to be a reference to copyright violations on YouTube. Finally, the News Corp. chairman said he had searched on Google for links to the movie Mission Impossible and found several sites offering free links.

Sure misunderstand many things, but not plain stealing. Incidentally google blocks many other undesirable things.—
Rupert Murdoch (@rupertmurdoch) January 15, 2012

It’s more than a little ironic that Murdoch made these comments just a day or so after admitting that his company screwed up royally with MySpace, the social-networking leader that it paid more than half a billion dollars for in 2005 — only to be forced to sell it last year for just $35 million after mismanaging it into oblivion. In a message that seemed to be a response to his many critics on Twitter, he admitted that the simple answer to the entity’s massive failure was that News Corp. had “screwed up in every way possible,” but that the company had “learned lots of valuable [and] expensive lessons.”

Failing to learn the lessons of digital content

Were any of those lessons about how content works now, in an age of digital abundance and the “democratization of distribution,” as Om has called it? Murdoch isn’t saying, but his repeated attempts to lock up content in as many ways as possible don’t bode well. In addition to exporting his paywall model from the Wall Street Journal to British papers like the Times of London — where readership immediately plummeted by as much as 90 percent — News Corp. has also launched expensive projects like the iPad newspaper The Daily, which took the bizarre step of posting articles to its website as images with no links.

Perhaps the News Corp. founder doesn’t mind blowing hundreds of millions of dollars on (arguably) failed experiments like that — or like the news portal/aggregator code-named Project Alesia that he spent a year trying to build and then shut down. But as author and journalism professor Jeff Jarvis describes in a post about Murdoch, he would be better off trying to understand the digital content market a little, instead of trying to recreate the scarcity that entities like the Wall Street Journal have had in the past.

Financier and digital veteran Fred Wilson of Union Square Ventures has written a couple of posts that sum up this problem quite well. In the first one, which he wrote earlier this month, Wilson complained that he was forced to find a pirated version of the New York Knicks game online because he couldn’t find any way of actually paying a rights-holder to watch the game in a more legitimate way — despite the fact that he pays hundreds of dollars a month to his cable company, and subscribes to the pay-per-view NBA service, and routinely buys tickets to Knicks games. As Wilson put it in his post:

I’ve long believed that piracy is largely a business model problem not a human behavior problem. If you give people a legal way to consume the content they want, they will pay for it. But when you make it impossible to legally consume the content they want, they will pirate it.

Make it easy — and reasonably priced — and people will pay

In a post on Sunday, the New York-based venture capitalist described another episode in which he and his family tried to find something to watch through their cable company’s “movies on demand” feature, as well as through Netflix, Amazon’s video service and some other methods. Unable to find anything worth paying for, Wilson said they wound up watching a free TV show — and reiterated his point that the kind of artificial scarcity the media and entertainment industries rely on is broken:

I am sure there was a time when scarcity was a good business model for the film industry… I understand their muscle memory in terms of the scarcity business model. But restricting access to content is a bad business model in the age of a global network that costs practically nothing to distribute on.

This is the simplest possible rebuttal to Rupert Murdoch’s claims about Google and the web, and how it engages in what he sees as rampant piracy. While there will always be people who prefer to find ways of accessing content without having to pay for it, the simple fact is that many more people who do so are like Fred Wilson, and would be more than happy to pay for that content if someone made it easy to do so, and charged a reasonable price. The recent experiment by comedian Louis CK was a great example — it proved that millions of people will pay for something even if it is available for free.

Can Fox and the Wall Street Journal and other mainstream media outlets operate the same way, and simply hope that people will pay them for their content if given the chance? Perhaps not, but one thing is for sure: if even well-off venture capitalists are admitting they pirate content because they can’t find any way to pay for the things they want to watch, Murdoch and his scarcity-mongers are in deep trouble — and railing against Google is going to get them exactly nowhere.

Post and thumbnail photos courtesy of Flickr users World Economic Forum and Paul Sapiano

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Posted via email from Tony Burkhart

Murdoch shows he doesn’t understand how content works

2012-01-16T12:49:00.001-05:00

Murdoch shows he doesn’t understand how content works

GigaOM — Tech News, Analysis and Trends

Sure misunderstand many things, but not plain stealing. Incidentally google blocks many other undesirable things.—
Rupert Murdoch (@rupertmurdoch) January 15, 2012

Failing to learn the lessons of digital content

I’ve long believed that piracy is largely a business model problem not a human behavior problem. If you give people a legal way to consume the content they want, they will pay for it. But when you make it impossible to legally consume the content they want, they will pirate it.

Make it easy — and reasonably priced — and people will pay

I am sure there was a time when scarcity was a good business model for the film industry… I understand their muscle memory in terms of the scarcity business model. But restricting access to content is a bad business model in the age of a global network that costs practically nothing to distribute on.

Post and thumbnail photos courtesy of Flickr users World Economic Forum and Paul Sapiano

Related research and analysis from GigaOM Pro:
Subscriber content. Sign up for a free trial.

Sent with Reeder

Posted via email from Tony Burkhart

@WinkingLizard 2011 #BeerTour party beer cup tower!

2012-01-14T21:18:00.001-05:00

IMG_1125.MOV Watch on Posterous

Posted via email from Tony Burkhart

The Value of Teachers - NYTimes.com

2012-01-12T08:31:00.001-05:00

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/01/12/opinion/kristof-the-value-of-teachers.html

The Value of Teachers

Suppose your child is about to enter the fourth grade and has been assigned to an excellent teacher. Then the teacher decides to quit. What should you do?

The correct answer? Panic!

Well, not exactly. But a landmark new research paper underscores that the difference between a strong teacher and a weak teacher lasts a lifetime. Having a good fourth-grade teacher makes a student 1.25 percent more likely to go to college, the research suggests, and 1.25 percent less likely to get pregnant as a teenager. Each of the students will go on as an adult to earn, on average, $25,000 more over a lifetime — or about $700,000 in gains for an average size class — all attributable to that ace teacher back in the fourth grade. That’s right: A great teacher is worth hundreds of thousands of dollars to each year’s students, just in the extra income they will earn.

The study, by economists at Harvard and Columbia universities, finds that if a great teacher is leaving, parents should hold bake sales or pass the hat around in hopes of collectively offering the teacher as much as a $100,000 bonus to stay for an extra year. Sure, that’s implausible — but their children would gain a benefit that far exceeds even that sum.

Conversely, a very poor teacher has the same effect as a pupil missing 40 percent of the school year. We don’t allow that kind of truancy, so it’s not clear why we should put up with such poor teaching. In fact, the study shows that parents should pay a bad teacher $100,000 to retire (assuming the replacement is of average quality) because a weak teacher holds children back so much.

Our faltering education system may be the most important long-term threat to America’s economy and national well-being, so it’s frustrating that the presidential campaign is mostly ignoring the issue. Candidates are bloviating about all kinds of imaginary or exaggerated threats, while ignoring the most crucial one.

Mitt Romney, who after his victory in New Hampshire on Tuesday seems increasingly likely to be the Republican nominee, refers to education only in passing on his Web site. The topic receives no substantive discussion in his 160-page “Believe in America” economic plan.

This latest study should elevate the issue on the national agenda, because it not only underscores the importance of education but also illuminates how we might improve schools.

An essential answer: more good teachers. Or, to put it another way, fewer bad teachers. The obvious policy solution is more pay for good teachers, more dismissals for weak teachers.

One of the paradoxes of the school reform debate is that teachers’ unions have resisted a focus on teacher quality; instead, they emphasize that the home is the foremost influence and that teachers can only do so much.

That’s all true, and (as I’ve often written) we need an array of other antipoverty measures as well, especially early childhood programs. But the evidence is now overwhelming that even in a grim high-poverty school, some teachers have far more impact on their students than those in the classroom next door. Three consecutive years of data from student tests — the “value added” between student scores at the beginning and end of each year — reveal a great deal about whether a teacher is working out, the researchers found.

This study, by Raj Chetty and John N. Friedman of Harvard University and Jonah E. Rockoff of Columbia University, was influential because it involved a huge database of one million students followed from fourth grade to adulthood.

The blog of the Albert Shanker Institute, endowed by the American Federation of Teachers, praised the study as “one of the most dense, important and interesting analyses on this topic in a very long time” — although it cautioned against policy conclusions (of the kind that I’m reaching).

What shone through the study was the variation among teachers. Great teachers not only raised test scores significantly — an effect that mostly faded within a few years — but also left their students with better life outcomes. A great teacher (defined as one better than 84 percent of peers) for a single year between fourth and eighth grades resulted in students earning almost 1 percent more at age 28.

Suppose that the bottom 5 percent of teachers could be replaced by teachers of average quality. The three economists found that each student in the classroom would have extra cumulative lifetime earnings of more than $52,000. That’s more than $1.4 million in gains for the classroom.

Some Republicans worry that a federal role in education smacks of socialism. On the contrary, schools represent a tough-minded business investment in our economic future. And, increasingly, we’re getting solid evidence of what reforms may help: teacher evaluations based on student performance, higher pay and prestige for good teachers, dismissals for weak teachers.

That, and not most of the fireworks that passes for politics these days, is the debate we should be having on a national stage.

Posted via email from Tony Burkhart

Unshredding Paper

2012-01-11T04:19:00.001-05:00

[Roel] had read that people won the DARPA shredder challenge, but that their technology was kept a secret, interested in this concept he also remembered an episode of the X-Files where they had reconstructed shredded paper using a computer system. Unlike most computer based TV show BS this did not seem to be too far fetched so he went about trying it himself .First a note is written, and then cut up into strips, the strips are then scanned into a computer where the magic happens. Next each strip outlined in polygons and then the software is to follow the polygon outline looking for a change in color at the pixel level. The software then goes into a pattern matching mode and reassembles the paper based on a scoring system.While not many people use old fashioned strip shredders anymore, the basic idea works and if you really wanted to expand it could be applied to cross cut or particle shredders.Filed under: misc hacks , security hacks http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/hackaday/LgoM/~3/zlMyjVGTgDU/

Posted via email from Tony Burkhart

Acura will build its luxury ‘supercar’ in Ohio | The Columbus Dispatch

2012-01-11T02:58:00.001-05:00

http://www.dispatch.com/content/stories/business/2012/01/10/acura-will-build-its-luxury-supercar-in-ohio.html

Acura will build its luxury ‘supercar’ in Ohio

By Dan Gearino

The Columbus Dispatch Tuesday January 10, 2012 7:10 AM

View Slideshow

The Acura NSX Concept was unveiled at the North American International Auto Show.

DETROIT — Honda will build a new central Ohio factory to make the Acura NSX “supercar” that it will offer for sale worldwide.

Honda, which owns the Acura brand, made the announcement and revealed a preliminary version of the sports car yesterday at the North American International Auto Show. The car will go on sale in about three years.

“The U.S. will be the strong hub of our global business for the Acura brand,” said Takanobu Ito, Honda’s president and CEO.

The specific location of the plant and the number of employees that would work there were not disclosed. The company did not say whether the car would be built at a new free-standing plant or whether it would build an addition to an existing plant, such as its production facility in Marysville.

This marks the revival of a model Acura produced from 1990 to 2005 in Japan. At the time, the $90,000 price tag was high for Acura, but its high performance and reliability made it a bargain, said Bill Visnic, a senior editor at Edmunds.com.

“It was a Ferrari-type car for way less than Ferrari-type money,” he said. “It was in every way a groundbreaking and trendsetting car.”

A high-performance vehicle like that would be a niche product, which means only a small number of employees likely would be needed to build it. The previous generation of the NSX topped out with annual sales of 1,940 in 1991.

More important than the number of vehicles sold is the technology being developed for it, work that will occur in Ohio, said spokesman Ron Lietzke. For example, the NSX will have an all-wheel-drive hybrid system, a new kind of gas-electric hybrid that aims to provide high performance and functionality.

“Honda associates are up to the challenge of producing the new NSX for global customers with a high degree of craftsmanship,” Hidenobu Iwata, head of Honda’s North American manufacturing, said in a statement.

Honda also unveiled new designs for the Acura RDX crossover, which is assembled in Marysville, and a preliminary version of a compact sedan, the ILX, which will be built in Greensburg, Ind. Both of those vehicles will go on sale this spring.

The new RDX will feature improved horsepower and fuel economy. Dealers sold 15,196 of the model in 2011.

Meanwhile, the ILX will be the brand’s entry-level model, with a price point that likely will start at less than $30,000.

Acura sales suffered in 2011 because of the bad economy and the production disruption caused by the March earthquake and tsunami in Japan, which cut inventories. Sales fell 8 percent compared with the previous year.

Company executives are predicting they will sell 180,000 vehicles this year, a 45 percent increase.

Honda does not plan to ask for any government aid or incentives to help pay for the NSX plant. This is in line with Honda’s practice on previous expansions in its three decades of building cars in Ohio. The company is one of the state’s largest employers, with 13,400 workers.

“That’s good for Honda and good for all of us,” said Sen. Sherrod Brown, D-Ohio, who attended the Detroit show.

He said that other companies can learn from the way Honda is expanding without seeking government money.

dgearino@dispatch.com

Posted via email from Tony Burkhart

Ira Winkler: Facebook is giving hacking a good name again - Computerworld

2012-01-10T18:07:00.001-05:00

With all my qualms and concerns with Facebook, this article exemplifies the effort put forth by them for the betterment of the Internet as a whole and obviously, their security hardening as well.

A hearty Google +1 to the Facebook security team :D

http://m.computerworld.com/s/article/9223307/Ira_Winkler_Facebook_is_giving_hacking_a_good_name_again?source=rss_security&utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+computerworld%2Fs%2Ffeed%2Ftopic%2F17+%28Computerworld+Security+News%29

Ira Winkler: Facebook is giving hacking a good name again

Computerworld - Whenever I see another "cyberchallenge" getting play in the press, I think our priorities are screwed up.

People seem to think that organizing teams of people to hack into systems is a way to bring together the best computer talent to square off against each other. I look at it as a waste of that talent. Maybe the press wouldn't be as interested, but I believe we all would be better served by competitions over who can better secure a nonprofit organization, who can develop a better fundraising database or who can teach underprivileged children math or programming better. Cyberchallenges are about who can destroy things most effectively. Doesn't it make sense to challenge young hackers to create something that can provide true value?

That's why I was excited to read about Facebook's latest Hacker Cup. This contest has become one of the few tests of creative computer talent. To quote the IDG News Service's report on the Hacker Cup: "The contest consists of successive sets of increasingly difficult algorithmic problems. Scoring will be based on how accurately and quickly the programmers complete the puzzles. Last year's contest featured challenges such as determining the optimum number of shield generators and warriors one should acquire for the Facebook game Starcraft II and calculating the best race car driving strategy given a variable number of opponents, race track curves and likelihood of crashing."

In other words, it's all about being creative, not destructive. Unfortunately, we often seem to highlight the people who destroy more than those who create.

For example, the National Security Agency is awarding scholarships based on cyberchallenges. This is muddied thinking. The NSA would get far more benefit if it awarded scholarships based on good, creative programming. By rewarding the forces of destruction, the NSA is sending a message. Is it one we want to send to the nation's young hackers?

Meanwhile, the media effectively lionize groups like Anonymous by breathlessly reporting on their latest hacks. But these hacks are really little more than random attacks that take advantage of vulnerabilities. The better story is admittedly much harder to cover, involving the IT staffs at hundreds of companies who create secure architectures and who, though subjected to hundreds, if not thousands, of attacks a day, repel them successfully.

For example, we don't hear about the talent it took to create our telecommunications infrastructure. We take for granted how seamless our communications have become. At this point, the Star Trek communicator seems outdated. Not only can we talk to people by saying their name, but we can also use our phones to text, download videos, run applications and buy a frappuccino from Starbuck's.

Then there's our financial infrastructure. We can walk around without any money, buy things with our cellphones, conduct commerce around the world with people we've never met and do many other things we never envisioned a decade ago. Now, try to name just one person who helped enable such an increase to the quality of our lives.

In both cases, we are talking about many thousands of creators who have done great things in relative anonymity. That's why I'm pleased with what Facebook is doing with its Hacker Cup. It's rewarding people who show they can use their knowledge creatively. And incidentally, it's restoring the original meaning of "hacker" in the process. It's about time that an organization stopped the nonsense of recognizing people focused on destruction and started to reward people for demonstrating an ability to solve problems in creative ways.

There is an irony in my saying this. (And I don't mean that I have been highly critical of Facebook in the past, though my editor did say it would be unusual to hear me saying something nice about the company. My criticism stands; a company enriched by its customers needs to have decent customer service in place.) I'm talking about the fact that I am mostly known for penetration testing and finding problems quickly. My work is in a way a criticism of the systems I test. But while I do believe that such testing and probing is necessary, I really do feel that the people who create the physical and technical infrastructures that I assess do the greater labor. There is a need for people to do penetration testing, but that need has been exaggerated compared to the need for talented professionals to give the penetration testers something to test.

My experience has shown me that penetration testing can involve a great deal of creativity. And admittedly, some hacks are extremely complicated and advanced. But again, the level of creativity is generally exaggerated when you compare it to the overall advances in computer-related innovation as a whole.

Even at the NSA, which possibly employs more professional hackers than any other organization in the world, hackers are only a small percentage of the total IT staff, with the majority of those staffers responsible for running some of the largest data centers in the world, maintaining one of the most complicated satellite communications systems, designing new cryptographic algorithms, developing new applications, maintaining a network of tens of thousands of computers around the world tied to thousands of mainframes and servers, programming and maintaining supercomputers, and much more. And as in any other organization, the skills of the world-class hackers employed by the NSA would be a moot issue if it weren't for the skills of the people who have developed the infrastructure that allows those hackers to exercise their skills.

Posted via email from Tony Burkhart

Former Apple Staffer Posts Rare Photo of Steve Jobs Flipping Off IBM - Softpedia

2012-01-10T12:26:00.001-05:00

http://news.softpedia.com/news/Former-Apple-Staffer-Posts-Rare-Photo-of-Steve-Jobs-Flipping-Off-IBM-243977.shtml

Former Apple Staffer Posts Rare Photo of Steve Jobs Flipping Off IBM

Andy Hertzfeld, a member of the original Macintosh development team, is using Google+ to show off a photo of a young Steve Jobs flipping off the IBM logo on a street in Manhattan, NYC.

Hertzfeld writes on his Google+ account, “In memoriam for Steve Jobs as 2011 draws to a close, here's one more rare photo that illustrates his rebellious spirit.”

The photo was taken in December 1983, a few weeks before the festivious Macintosh launch. As the story goes, Jobs and Hertzfeld had embarked on a quick trip to New York City to meet with Newsweek to talk about a cover story on their computers.

According to Hertzfeld, the photo was taken spontaneously as the duo walked around Manhattan with Jean Pigozzi at their side. Pigozzi is described as “a wild French jet setter who was hanging out with us at the time.”

Further weighing in on the photo featuring a rebellious Steve Jobs flipping off the IBM logo, Hertzfeld added: “Somehow I ended up with a copy of it. My editor begged me to include it in my book, but I was too timid to ask for permission, especially since IBM was still making CPUs for Apple at the time.”

On the early rivalry between Macintosh and "IBM-compatible" computers based on Microsoft's DOS, the Apple co-founder is quoted in a book (Steve Jobs: The Journey is the Reward by Jeffrey S. Young, 1987, p. 235) as saying:

“If, for some reason, we make some big mistake and IBM wins, my personal feeling is that we are going to enter a computer Dark Ages for about twenty years.”

The famous 1984 advertising masterpiece was also in direct correlation with IBM or, the Big Blue, as the company was referred to in those days.

In an interview about the release of the Macintosh (24 January 1984), Jobs said: “We're gambling on our vision, and we would rather do that than make ‘me too’ products. Let some other companies do that. For us, it's always the next dream.”

Posted via email from Tony Burkhart

The City of Lewisville has gone Google

2012-01-10T11:14:00.001-05:00

The City of Lewisville has gone Google

Google Enterprise Blog

Posted by Jason Kirkland, Technology Projects Manager, City of Lewisville

Editors note: Today our guest blogger is Jason Kirkland, Technology Projects Manager for the City of Lewisville, Texas. Jason is recognized by Google as a Government Transformer for his innovative usage of technology to improve information sharing among city staff.

As part of the Dallas-Fort Worth metropolitan area, the City of Lewisville in Texas offers a small community atmosphere with all of the urban amenities. We are always looking for ways to improve our community and the lives of the people who call Lewisville home.

The City is constantly evaluating its IT infrastructure and services to increase efficiency and effectiveness and reduce costs. One area of focus was email and calendar which were provided to our users via Lotus Notes along with a separate Blackberry server to sync mobile devices. After a thorough analysis of cloud-based solutions from various providers, we decided to migrate to Google Apps for Government. The migration not only reduced costs in software license and server maintenance, it also brought robust functionalities for our staff to collaborate better and be more productive. Employees automatically access the most current version of Google Apps, eliminating the need for software patching and upgrades. There is no more confusion caused by the various versions of software people are using. They are also able to gain mobile access to emails, calendars, and documents from virtually anywhere with Internet access.

Google Apps is also more reliable and customizable than the other cloud solutions we evaluated. It provides API access for our developers to harness and integrate with other internal systems. I created an online GIS Map using Google Spreadsheets, Google Maps, and Google Fusion Tables that allowed us to turn a static paper map into an electronic one that is interactive and easy to use. The City is even using Google Video to store and share footage of our water and sewer systems so that we can easily access and analyze this data. For less money than what we previously paid for system maintenance alone, we get much more than just an email and calendar replacement!

Google Apps implementation partner Cloud Sherpas made our migration a smooth process. During a two-week period, we migrated all of our 644 users from Lotus Notes to Google Apps.

The examples above are few of many, and surely more will come as our city continues to use Google’s products to simplify processes from project management to police dispatch. I am honored that Google recognized me as a Government Transformer. With the right tools, my colleagues and I can collaborate and communicate more effectively and efficiently than ever before.

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Posted via email from Tony Burkhart

Ohio’s brewers set to roll out tasting rooms | The Columbus Dispatch

2012-01-09T08:51:00.001-05:00

http://www.dispatch.com/content/stories/local/2012/01/09/brewers-set-to-roll-out-tasting-rooms.html

Ohio’s brewers set to roll out tasting rooms

By Akron Beacon Journal via AP

Monday January 9, 2012 6:59 AM

Enlarge Image

Paul Tople | Akron Beacon Journal

Chris Verich, owner of Ohio Brewing Co. in Akron, looks forward to the day when he can open a tasting room without having to pay for a second permit.

AKRON — Ohio craft brewers hope a new state law allowing production breweries to open tasting rooms and sell their beer by the glass without buying a second costly permit will help boost beer tourism by bringing breweries more in line with winery tasting rooms.

Breweries have been charged $3,906 annually for that second permit in addition to paying the same amount for their manufacturing license. The cost of the second permit had deterred many small-production breweries from opening to the public.

Ohio wineries pay $76 for their annual license and don’t have to pay for a second permit for tasting rooms, says the Ohio Department of Commerce, which oversees the Division of Liquor Control.

Wineries have flourished by marketing themselves as tourist destinations, and some have created “wine trails,” leading visitors from winery to winery to sample products.

Like wineries, microbreweries will now be able to “showcase their products in a relaxed setting,” said Chris Verich, who owns and manages brewing operations at Ohio Brewing Co. in Akron and plans to open a tasting room.

He said the bill signed in late December by Gov. John Kasich marked “a great day for Ohio microbreweries and the Ohio craft-brewing industry.”

The measure was scheduled to take effect in 90 days.

The president of the Ohio Craft Brewers Association said the change in the law is “long overdue.” John Najeway, who’s also co-owner of Thirsty Dog Brewing Co. in Akron, said his business has paid for a second permit for a couple of years to have a tasting room.

Other breweries looking to open tasting rooms include Black Box Brewing and Indigo Imp Brewery in northeastern Ohio, Mount Carmel Brewing and Listermann Brewing in southwestern Ohio and Neil House Brewery on the Far East Side.

“The wheels have always been rolling when it comes to the idea of building a tasting room, but we couldn’t justify the cost of the license,” Mount Carmel assistant brewer Patrick Clark said in an email.

The Mount Carmel brewery in suburban Cincinnati has provided in-depth explanations of the brewing process to people touring the facility.

“But let’s be honest — tasting is the most important part of the process,” Clark said.

State Rep. Casey Kozlowski, R-Pierpoint, who co-sponsored the bill, said he sees plenty of potential for economic development with the growing craft-beer industry, especially given the popularity of wine tourism.

The state-run Ohio Grape Industries Committee estimates Ohio wineries and festivals attract more than 2 million visitors annually.

The brewery issue was an amendment to a bill that focused mainly on micro-distilleries. Under the new law, the state also will allow the opening of more micro-distilleries, or businesses producing less than 10,000 gallons a year.

Previously, only three microdistillery licenses were available, and they were restricted to Cuyahoga, Franklin and Hamilton counties.

The state wants artisan distillers and brewers to have the opportunity to create and grow their businesses, which tend to use and rely on local products, said Lyn Tolan, spokeswoman for the Ohio Department of Commerce.

Posted via email from Tony Burkhart

Kaspersky Mobile Security Lite available for free

2012-01-09T08:30:00.001-05:00

http://www.net-security.org/secworld.php?id=12181&utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+HelpNetSecurity+%28Help+Net+Security%29

Kaspersky Mobile Security Lite available for free

Your smartphone is as likely to be lost or stolen as your wallet—and mobile payment systems on the horizon make the personal information on your smartphone more valuable than ever before. Kaspersky Lab released a free security application to keep your contacts, email and banking information from falling into the wrong hands.

Available through the Android Market, Kaspersky Mobile Security Lite lets you block sources of unwanted calls and text messages, and offers a basic level of protection for your Android-based smartphone.

By sending a text message to your missing phone—using any other phone or computer—you can remotely lock, block and track the device itself, or wipe all your information from your phone’s memory.

Missing smartphone?

For Android smartphones that are misplaced or left behind in the backseat of a taxi, Kaspersky Mobile Security Lite will use the smartphone’s GPS software to display its current coordinates to its owner. These GPS coordinates are automatically displayed on Google Maps, allowing users to obtain a real-time location of their misplaced phone.

Stolen smartphone?

If the phone has been stolen, the rightful owner can remotely lock access to the phone’s functions and address books and can block communications to and from the missing device. Kaspersky Mobile Security Lite can also remotely delete all personal data from the device—including contacts, addresses, calendars, text messages and email—preventing sensitive information from being illegally used or stolen.

Posted via email from Tony Burkhart

Crowded Animal Shelter Society giving away cats Saturday #Caturday

2012-01-06T08:29:00.001-05:00

http://www.zanesvilletimesrecorder.com/article/20120106/NEWS01/201060302/1002/rss01

Crowded Animal Shelter Society giving away cats Saturday | Zanesville Times Recorder | zanesvilletimesrecorder.com

ZANESVILLE -- Cats and kittens will be given away for free this weekend at the Animal Shelter Society to help relieve some overcrowding.

Executive Director Larry Hostetler said the shelter is full with more than 200 cats and this time of the year tends to be slow for adoptions.

"We've done this twice before and were very successful," Hostetler said. "It comes down to boarding all the cats or giving them away. It's more feasible to give them away at this point."

The Animal Shelter had financial difficulty in 2011, forcing it to lay off its shelter manager to save money in June. The shelter operates on a $1 million budget for expenses each year. The money comes from adoption fees, clinic fees, private donations and revenue from Mass Bingo at the Bingo Hall on West Main Street.

At one point in 2011, the shelter had 250 cats and 125 dogs.

The shelter is a no-kill operation, so it strives to find homes for all the animals it brings in. The giveaway, which will be from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. Saturday at the Newark Road shelter, will allow people to waive the normal $50 adoption fee for cats.

Most of the felines at the shelter are adults, Hostetler said. But there are some kittens.

All have been spayed or neutered, all have their vaccinations, been wormed, been given their FIV shot and have been checked by the veterinarian.

"You're not only getting a great deal if you want a cat, but you're getting a friend forever," Hostetler said.

Those who want to adopt a cat still will have to fill out the proper paperwork.

And if you rent, you will be required to bring a letter or lease from your landlord stating you are allowed to have pets.

"But we're pretty overwhelmed with the cat population," Hostetler said. "Last time, we had one of these, we gave away 79 cats, and the time prior, we gave 149 cats away."

Hostetler said he thinks this will be the last free cat day the shelter sponsors.

"We feel by doing this we are saving lives and money," Hostetler said. "Adoptions are really slow this time of year and we know a lot of people would like a pet but can't afford the adoption fees. This helps not only our cats out, but our patrons."

Posted via email from Tony Burkhart

Ramnit worm goes social, steals Facebook passwords

2012-01-06T08:09:00.001-05:00

http://www.net-security.org/malware_news.php?id=1952&utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+HelpNetSecurity+%28Help+Net+Security%29

Ramnit worm goes social, steals Facebook passwords

Ramnit - the file-infecting, financial-data-stealing worm that has been around since April 2010 - has been modified again and is now bent on stealing Facebook login credentials, warn the researchers of security company Seculert.

They discovered the fact after having accessed one of the command and control servers to which the worm sends the stolen credentials, and have seen and exfiltrated a list of 45,000 credentials (mostly from users in the UK and France), which the consequently delivered to Facebook.

"We suspect that the attackers behind Ramnit are using the stolen credentials to log-in to victims' Facebook accounts and to transmit malicious links to their friends, thereby magnifying the malware's spread even further," say the researchers.

"In addition, cybercriminals are taking advantage of the fact that users tend to use the same password in various web-based services (Facebook, Gmail, Corporate SSL VPN, Outlook Web Access, etc.) to gain remote access to corporate networks."

This variant and this capability of the Ramnit worm are quite new. When it first appeared, the worm concentrated its efforts on infecting .EXE, .SCR, .DLL., .HTML and other types of files and stealing FTP credentials and browser cookies.

Last year Trusteer warned that the worm had acquired the ability to inject HTML code into a web browser, which it is using to bypass two-factor authentication and transaction signing systems used by financial institutions to protect online banking sessions. By reverse-engineering samples of this variant, the researchers found the method used to configure Ramnit to target a specific bank is identical to the one used by Zeus.

Posted via email from Tony Burkhart

Symantec Investigating Possible Theft of Norton AV Source Code | SecurityWeek.Com

2012-01-06T01:09:00.001-05:00

http://www.securityweek.com/symantec-investigating-possible-theft-norton-av-source-code

Symantec Investigating Possible Theft of Norton AV Source Code

A group of hackers claim to have stolen source code for Symantec’s Norton Antivirus software.

Update: 01/06/12 12:20AM EST - Symantec has confirmed with SecurityWeek that hackers have accessed source code related to an"older enterprise product." Full update coming shortly.

The group is operating under the name Dharmaraja, and claims it found the data after compromising Indian military intelligence servers.

“So far we have discovered within the Indian Spy Programme source codes of a dozen software companies which have signed agreements with Indian TANCS programme and CBI,” according to a post on Pastebin that has since been deleted. “Now we release confidential documentation we encountered of Symantec Corporation and it’s [sic] Norton AntiVirus source code which we are going to publish later on, we are working out mirrors as of now since we experience extreme pressure and censorship from US and India government agencies.”

Thus far, the information posted by the hackers includes a document dated April 28, 1999, that Symantec describes as defining the application programming interface (API) for the virus Definition Generation Service.

“This document explains how the software is designed to work (what inputs are accepted and what outputs are generated) and contains function names, but there is no actual source code present,” Cris Paden, senior manager of corporate communication for Symantec told SecurityWeek.

A second post entitled ‘Norton AV source code file list’ includes a list of file names reputedly contained within Norton AntiVirus source code package.

Symantec said it is still in the process of analyzing the data in the second post, Paden said.

What if the Norton Source Code has Been Stolen?

"If the rumors turn out to be true, the implications of the anti-virus code leakage will not keep the Symantec folks awake too late at night, and certainly not their customers," noted Rob Rachwald, Director of Security Strategy at Imperva. "After all, there isn’t much hackers can learn from the code which they hadn’t known before." Why? "Most of the anti-virus product is based on attack signatures," he said. "By basing defenses on signatures, malware authors continuously write malware to evade signature detection."

"The workings of most of the anti-virus’ algorithms have also been studied already by hackers in order to write the malware that defeats them. A key benefit of having the source code could be in the hands of the competitors."

But hackers could use the source code to search out and exploit vulnerabilities in the software itself. "If the source code is recent and hackers find serious vulnerabilities, it could be possible to exploit the actual anti-virus program itself. But that is a big if and no one but Symantec knows what types of weaknesses hackers could find," Rachwald concluded.

Norton is one of the most widely used anti-virus products, being used by millions of users around the world.

Brian Prince is a Contributing Writer for SecurityWeek.

Previous Columns by Brian Prince:

<div class="disqus-noscript">View the discussion thread.</div>

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EFF Raises Concerns About the New AOL Instant Messenger | Electronic Frontier Foundation

2012-01-06T00:56:00.001-05:00

https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2011/12/effs-raises-concerns-about-new-aol-instant-messenger-0

EFF Raises Concerns About the New AOL Instant Messenger

The new preview version of AOL Instant Messenger raised privacy concerns for us when it was first introduced, first because it started storing more logs of communications and second, because it apparently scanned all private IMs for URLs and pre-fetched any URLs found in them. We met with AOL to discuss how these features work and why the company should take greater care with your data, and we’re happy to say that AOL is promising to make some important changes as a result, especially in response to our second concern.

However, we still recommend that AIM users do not switch to the new version, as it introduces important privacy-unfriendly features. Unfortunately, AOL's moves are in keeping with a general trend toward more pervasive cloud-based services in which your personal chat data is centrally stored in plain text and an easy target for law enforcement and criminals. This shift toward central logging is troubling in many situations, including in chat.

Chat Logging and the One-Way Toggle: More Change Needed

When you first sign into the new AIM, a flag is permanently set on your account to begin storing all of your conversations on AOL’s servers for up to two months, and perhaps indefinitely. AOL's intent is to make it easy to see the same messaging history even if you sign in from a different device, but the danger is that your private conversations are now available to, for instance, law enforcement agents with a warrant or a national security letter, or to criminals in the event of a data breach. In the case of government access AOL might not even be required (or allowed) to inform you that your private communications are no longer private. Because this concern will arise whenever your data is stored with cloud services or other kinds of third-party servers, EFF has long argued that whenever possible, no logs are good logs.

One important and good step AOL took was the inclusion of an "off the record" mode which disables logging of conversations on a per-contact basis. (Note: this mode should not be confused with Off The Record Messaging, or OTR, discussed below). However, we think they should go further. You cannot go "off the record" if you are using an alternative client like iChat or Pidgin, or if you switch back to an earlier version of AIM. And if the other participant in the chat is not using the new AIM, that person cannot toggle the conversation off the record, such that it is not stored by AOL. Finally, there is no off the record mode for the new group chat feature at all. All group chats on AIM will be logged.

All of these should change. AOL should not set logging as the default and it should not be permanent. Instead, logging should be opt-in and "off-the-record" mode should be robust and prominent in the user interface. Until AOL has either made this change or, better yet, worked to encrypt all of your logged conversations in such a way that only you can read them—a much harder solution, we admit, but doable—current AIM users who are worried about other parties accessing their data should think twice about upgrading.

AOL Downloading Private Message URLs: Improvement

Another new feature of the new AIM is the ability to embed an image or a video in a conversation simply by pasting a link. While this is a reasonable goal, AOL first implemented it in a massively overbroad manner: AOL has been scanning the text of all your messages for links and then having their servers follow that link to see if it refers to displayable media1. The goal is to have the central server render the image or video for you, with a possible speed gain, but this approach meant that all of your chats were scanned and links followed and fetched to AOL's servers in Virginia.

While we were pleased to hear that AOL was not planning to log, cache or store any of the data pulled down by this scanning and fetching, the approach was still tremendously overbroad. It was also likely to cause privacy and security issues for AOL's users. It meant scraping all the links out of private chats, even when no one in the chat is using the new AIM and even when the links did not go to embedded photos or video (which is of course likely to be only a small number of links shared). We pointed out that this implementation would reach private server links, links that might contain authentication data in the URL, or even one-time use pages like unsubscribe links, all of which were problematic.

But good news: after meeting with us, AOL agreed to limit the types of sites and URLs crawled by this technology, and to provide better notices to its users about how the links it sends will be used. The company also agreed to disable this "scan and pre-fetch" functionality for conversations that have been marked "off the record." We appreciate AOL’s willingness to discuss this with us and their openness to changing course in response to our concerns and will continue to watch to see how they implement what they've promised.

And bad news: unfortunately, it does not look like there will be a way to permanently opt out of the link downloading behavior. Since conversations can only be marked "off the record" from inside the new AIM, users of older versions or alternate clients will always be prone to having some of the links they send scraped, even though they won’t see them rendered. AOL’s planned changes limit the scope of the privacy concerns around this a great deal, but the only way to prevent it completely is to use end-to-end message encryption like OTR Messaging—a good idea in any case if you don't want your IM provider to record your conversations.

Notice and Opt-In

Another concern we raised with AOL was the lack of notice or control options it gave to their users about this change. AOL had given no clear indication of its aggressive URL-fetching behavior or logging in their terms of service or privacy policy. And this fetching behavior started even before the new version of the client had been introduced. We didn’t see any notice in their marketing materials, either. The new client software does advertise the ability to embed graphics and video, but it doesn't explain how this happens, and users of older versions and alternate clients had no indication that anything had changed.

As Facebook recently learned, failing to be up-front with your users about what you’re doing with their private data can create big problems. Happily, AOL now says that it will give clear notice to its users2. We look forward to that, and will be watching to see that users are clearly told that AOL will be parsing their private communications over AIM, following certain types of links transmitted in those private communications (with a clear statement of which kinds of links or to which websites), and downloading the content on those links to AOL servers in the United States, something that may matter to AOL's international customers who did not intend for any part of their communications to be subject to U.S. law and legal processes.

But notice isn't enough. AOL should also give users who upgrade initial notice with an opt-in check box, as well as an explanation in the terms of service that is clear and specific.

AOL and OTR Messaging Plugin: Cause for Concern

Many alternate clients such as Pidgin and Adium include the OTR messaging plugin, keeping anyone but your intended recipient from reading your IMs. Because we think the ability to have a secret conversation is vital to human rights activists, whistleblowers, businesses in "stealth mode" and many others, we gave a Pioneer Award to Ian Goldberg, one of OTR’s creators in 2011. Sadly, AOL has indicated to us that these clients may not always be able to operate with AIM, which is unfortunate since we viewed that option as one of AIM’s key features and we urge the company to reconsider. Luckily, OTR works with a number of other messaging protocols.

Conclusion

We appreciate AOL's willingness to discuss these changes with us and we're extremely pleased to see AOL taking some steps to safeguard their users' privacy and give better notice, which only becomes more important as the company moves toward providing more cloud-based services. Nevertheless, we think there’s more AOL should do to respect its customers' privacy and to fully inform them about, and get opt-in agreement to, these significant changes.

Bottom line: Because signing onto the new version of AIM permanently changes your account settings to log all conversations to AOL’s servers by default, we recommend that existing AIM users do not upgrade. As always, we recommend users stay safer online by using chat clients that are compatible with OTR.

Posted via email from Tony Burkhart

Why Is Aol Still Charging People For “Email”? | TechCrunch

2012-01-05T08:19:00.001-05:00

http://techcrunch.com/2012/01/04/aol-mail/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+Techcrunch+%28TechCrunch%29

Why Is Aol Still Charging People For “Email”?

Now this is just hilarious. Apparently this Arizona woman has been paying for “email” for almost a decade — even though it’s been available free for a while and free for Aol users since 2006. According to a year-old “New Yorker” article by Ken Auletta, over 75% of the dial-up portion of Aol’s 3.5 million subscribers are like Traci Casale. So why are these ~~idiots~~ people still paying for email? I mean you know things are bad when a publication called “Arizona Family” is making fun of you.

Well actually Casale and others like her are not being charged for email, they’re technically still paying for the dial-up plan they signed up for originally, which they didn’t cancel after Aol made its software package free.

“One day I just looked at, you know, you’re going through your bills and every bit helps right now and I’m like, ‘Why am I paying for email? No one else is,’ Casale says naively in the report.

Video | News | Weather | Sports

Tue Jan 03 14:55:32 PST 2012

AOL users still being billed for free email

It used to be known as America Online and was one of the first dial-up providers around. But although dial-up is being phased out, people’s bills are not. view full article

Maybe it’s not entirely her fault? According to one source, Aol intentionally doesn’t try too hard to educate these legacy customers about their email package now being free. We also heard that when Aol came out with the new “Project Phoenix” Mail product in 2010, many in Aol Consumer Applications wanted to market it as being free but their suggestions were overturned by higher-ups as the pecentage of misinformed subscribers still ponying up just to use Aol Mail is very profitable.

Aol’s over 3.5 million dial-up subscribers brought in $191 million in revenue last quarter — which is still where the majority of Aol’s profits come from according to Auletta.

The reason why these local news reports are so sad is that even Cave Creek, Arizonans have figured out dial-up is a dying business. Sure Aol tries to sugarcoat this in earnings reports by boasting about its lowered subscription churn rate, but in plain English this basically means that there are fewer people leaving because there are fewer people to leave.

“AOL Mail is a web-based product that is free to all users regardless of their paid relationship with us,” Aol PR told me when I inquired as to why these headlines (somewhat mistakenly) accuse them of charging for it. Well, that explanation is much more clear than this vaguely-worded “Project Phoenix” press release.

Disclosure (in case you live under a rock): Techcrunch is owned by Aol.

Crunchbase

IPO: NYSE:AOL

AOL is a global advertising-supported Web company, with display advertising network in the U.S., a substantial worldwide audience, and a suite of popular Web brands and products. The companyâ€™s strategy focuses on increasing the scale and sophistication of its advertising platform and growing the size and engagement of its global online audience through leading products and programming. On March 13, 2008, AOL Internet division announced their plans to buy social network Bebo for $850 million in cash. History of Aol: AOL was...

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Feds rip a page out of Amazon’s playbook in data center move

2012-01-04T17:12:00.001-05:00

Feds rip a page out of Amazon’s playbook in data center move

GigaOM — Tech News, Analysis and Trends

Much has been written about the U.S. government’s plan to shutter 1,200 data centers. There’s been considerably less chatter about the fact that some of the remaining, revamped federal data centers are now leasing out excess capacity to other government agencies.

That strategy of going big and selling off extra capacity is right out of the Amazon playbook. Amazon data center guru James Hamilton has long maintained that it makes zero sense for most businesses to build their own data centers any more given the huge economies of scale they can get by putting their workloads with a data center provider that gets the best possible pricing on energy, servers etc. But, the corollary that applies here is that very large organizations that must field their own facilities should build big. Real big. And sell off what they don’t use.

In the federal government example, the Census Bureau shut down a 6,570-sq-ft facility that was run by a third party, consolidating its servers in a remaining, updated data center. The remaining data center is now handling work for the International Trade Administration and offers co-location and hosting services to other government agencies, according to a recent blog post by Steven VanRoekel, the U.S. CIO. By consolidating its compute loads, the Census Bureau will save $1.7 million in operating costs this year, said VanRoekel, a former Microsoft executive.

In his blog, VanRoekel wrote:

While we continue to rack up closures and focus on consolidation opportunities to maximize savings, it’s equally important to focus on the efficiencies of the data centers that remain in our inventory. These data centers, which will take on additional work as we consolidate, will become the centerpieces of service delivery to American taxpayers. That is why the interagency group leading the effort has begun to focus on the efficiencies of the data centers we keep. We need to ensure we are delivering better service to the American people for less. Accordingly, agencies will focus on computing power and density instead of capacity, taking advantage of current technologies that deliver more bang for the buck.

The government’s original plan was to close 800 of 2,084 data centers (about 30 percent of the total) but late last year it revised its goal upwards, and now plans to nix 1,200 of 3,133 facilities. That 3,133 number includes telecom facilities as well.

This effort comes as the Obama administration continues to push to move more of its IT initiatives to cloud computing scenarios. even embracing cloud-first messaging that strongly recommends that government computing tasks be put on cloud infrastructure if at all possible.

Over the next year, VanRoekel wrote, more agencies will follow the Census Bureau’s lead.

Photo courtesy of Flickr user DUCKofD3ATH

Related research and analysis from GigaOM Pro:
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World Series of Beer Pong VII Live for the First Time on Facebook | Milyoni Press

2012-01-03T22:53:00.001-05:00

http://www.milyoni.com/news/press_world_series_of_beer_pong_live_for_the_first_time_on_facebook.php

World Series of Beer Pong VII Live for the first time on Facebook

Milyoni and TV Free Media partner to broadcast the Beer Pong championship live from Las Vegas

PLEASANTON, Calif. – December 28, 2011– Milyoni, the leader in F-commerce, and TV Free Media, a pioneer in live streaming, are pleased to announce they are bringing the first live broadcast of the World Series of Beer Pong VII to Facebook's 800 million users worldwide. Fans can get a front-row seat to watch the champions gather for the ultimate Beer Pong show-down streamed in high-definition from world famous hotel and casino the Flamingo Las Vegas. The live Facebook broadcast of the finals will be available on BPONG.com's Facebook page, www.facebook.com/BPONG, on Wednesday, Jan. 4 at 2 p.m. PT.

TV Free Media teamed up with Milyoni to provide Beer Pong fans unable to make it to the event in-person with a great social experience via Facebook. Using Milyoni's Social Live technology, fans can watch the finals from virtually anywhere in the world, and chat, comment and share the experience with friends and other fans. Viewers can RSVP or purchase access to the broadcast using one of two global currencies, Facebook Credits or PayPal. Access to the championship is available for 50 Facebook Credits/$4.99 if purchased in advance or 70 Facebook Credits/$6.99 once the event begins. DVD's will also be available for purchase on the event's Facebook streaming page and in the BPONG.com store.

"Beer Pong has a cult-like following, especially among the college crowd, making Facebook the ideal platform for fans that can't make it to the festivities," said John Corpus, founder and CEO, Milyoni. "Our goal is to bring a truly social experience to unique events like this, allowing fans to get in on the action, even if they are watching from miles away."

"We're thrilled to be uniting beer pong fans all over the globe by broadcasting the World Series of Beer Pong to every bar projector, smartphone, iPad, and web-enabled device that wants it," said Alex Rochestie, founder of TV Free Media. "There is a huge following for beer pong and with the help of partners like Milyoni, we're glad to reach more fans than ever before."

To RSVP or purchase access to the World Series of Beer Pong VII, visit www.facebook.com/BPONG.

ABOUT MILYONI
Based in the San Francisco Bay Area, Milyoni, Inc. is the leader in F-commerce. The company's technology provides entertainment and lifestyle companies with a way to connect and engage with Facebook fans, and turn them into customers. Whether it's watching a live concert, movie or sporting event or shopping your favorite brands, Milyoni enables companies to monetize fans pages through a unique level of engagement and a shared, social experience. Milyoni's services reach over 150 million fans from industry leading customers, including Universal Pictures, Lionsgate, Ridgeline Entertainment, Austin City Limits Live, Turner Broadcasting, University of Oklahoma and The NBA to bring a variety of digital content and physical goods to fans on Facebook. For more information, visit www.milyoni.com.

ABOUT TV FREE MEDIA
TV Free Media's revolutionary business model offers partners new and exciting techniques to engage fans and attract sponsors by delivering content to consumers whenever, wherever, and however they want to watch it. TV Free Media is a pioneering and dominating force in new media production, live event coverage and creative brand development. TV Free Media is dedicated to creating the very best media products available today and building strong relationships with partners for the future. For more information, visit www.facebook.com/tvfreemedia.

ABOUT BPONG
The World Series of Beer Pong is the largest organized beer pong tournament in the world, created by Las Vegas-based BPONG.COM. The 2012 event is expected to draw more than 500 teams from at least 48 U.S. states/districts and nearly a dozen countries, to determine who is the best in the world at the sport of beer pong. Those unfamiliar with the sport of beer pong may be surprised to know that it has become popular with celebrities, baby boomers, college grads and elite athletes alike. For more information, visit www.BPONG.com.

Media Contact: Sylvie Tongco / Atomic PR for Milyoni / 415-593-1400 / milyoni@atomicpr.com

Facebook® is a registered trademark of Facebook Inc.

Posted via email from Tony Burkhart

Microsoft Celebrates The Demise Of IE6 In The US

2012-01-03T22:47:00.001-05:00

Microsoft Celebrates The Demise Of IE6 In The US

TechCrunch

Internet Explorer 6 — long a thorn in the side of many web developers because of its quirks, limited feature support, and cockroach-like resistance to extinction —is finally on its last legs in the United States. And Microsoft is celebrating.

In a post on the Windows Team blog, Roger Capriotti, Director of Internet Explorer Marketing, writes that Internet Explorer 6 is now down to less than 1% market share in the United States according to the most recent data from Net Applications. It’s far from the first country to reach that milestone — Austria, Poland, Sweden, Denmark, Finland, and Norway have done it already — but it also had far more Internet users to convert. Alongside the US, Microsoft also notes that the Czech Republic, Mexico, Ukraine, Portugal and the Philippines have all dipped below the 1% mark as well.

And while it might sound a bit odd to hear about Microsoft celebrating the demise of software it built long ago, this isn’t a change of heart for the tech giant — the company has been doing its part to help IE6 die for quite a while. It created the IE6 Countdown, which tracks the progress of countries worldwide as they work to move people to more modern browsers (Capriotti writes that the site has been visited by 2.75 million people and has drawn 5.6 million views). And when Denver-based design firm Aten Design Group held a funeral for the woefully out-dated browser back in 2010, Microsoft sent along some flowers.

Of course, while Microsoft would love for all of these former IE6 users to upgrade to the latest version of Internet Explorer, that doesn’t seem to be happening. Recent reports from StatCounter and NetMarketshare show IE trending downward — from 59.22% to 51.87% between February and December 2011, according to NetMarketshare — while Google’s Chrome is making steady gains (11.41% to 19.11%, in the same report).

Update: Note that it’s only IE 6 that’s down to below 1% marketshare, not IE on the whole.

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Why Politicians Should Never Make Laws About Technology

2012-01-03T22:21:00.001-05:00

Great article and discussions thread on Slashdot

Why Politicians Should Never Make Laws About Technology

Slashdot

snydeq writes "As the world gets more and more technical, we can't let Luddites decide the fate of dangerous legislation like SOPA, writes Deep End's Paul Venezia. 'Very few politicians get technology. Many actually seem proud that they don't use the Internet or even email, like it's some kind of badge of honor that they've kept their heads in the sand for so long. These are the same people who will vote on noxious legislation like SOPA, openly dismissing the concerns and facts presented by those who know the technology intimately. The best quote from the SOPA debates: "We're operating on the Internet without any doctors or nurses on the room." That is precisely correct,' Venezia writes. 'The best we can do for the short term is to throw everything we can behind legislation to reinstate the Office of Technology Assessment. From 1974 through 1995, this small group with a tiny budget served as an impartial, nonpartisan advisory to the U.S. Congress on all matters technological.'"

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

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BBC News - Alzheimer's: Diet 'can stop brain shrinking'

2012-01-03T13:22:00.001-05:00

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-16344228

Alzheimer's: Diet 'can stop brain shrinking'

29 December 2011 Last updated at 00:12 ET By Helen Briggs Health editor, BBC News website

Diet affected tests of memory and thinking skills

A diet rich in vitamins and fish may protect the brain from ageing while junk food has the opposite effect, research suggests.

Elderly people with high blood levels of vitamins and omega 3 fatty acids had less brain shrinkage and better mental performance, a Neurology study found.

Trans fats found in fast foods were linked to lower scores in tests and more shrinkage typical of Alzheimer's.

A UK medical charity has called for more work into diet and dementia risk.

The best current advice is to eat a balanced diet with plenty of fruit and vegetables, not smoke, take regular exercise and keep blood pressure and cholesterol in check, said Alzheimer's Research UK.

The research looked at nutrients in blood, rather than relying on questionnaires to assess a person's diet.

US experts analysed blood samples from 104 healthy people with an average age of 87 who had few known risk factors for Alzheimer's.

They found those who had more vitamin B, C, D and E in their blood performed better in tests of memory and thinking skills. People with high levels of omega 3 fatty acids - found mainly in fish - also had high scores. The poorest scores were found in people who had more trans fats in their blood.

Trans fats are common in processed foods, including cakes, biscuits and fried foods.

The researchers, from Oregon Health and Science University, Portland; Portland VA Medical Center; and Oregon State University, Corvallis, then carried out brain scans on 42 of the participants.

They found individuals with high levels of vitamins and omega 3 in their blood were more likely to have a large brain volume; while those with high levels of trans fat had a smaller total brain volume.

Study author Gene Bowman of Oregon Health and Science University said: "These results need to be confirmed, but obviously it is very exciting to think that people could potentially stop their brains from shrinking and keep them sharp by adjusting their diet."

'Strong potential'

Co-author Maret Traber of the Linus Pauling Institute at Oregon State University said: "The vitamins and nutrients you get from eating a wide range of fruits, vegetables and fish can be measured in blood biomarkers.

"I'm a firm believer these nutrients have strong potential to protect your brain and make it work better."

Commenting on the study, Dr Simon Ridley, head of research at Alzheimer's Research UK, said:

"One strength of this research is that it looked at nutrients in people's blood, rather than relying on answers to a questionnaire.

"It's important to note that this study looked at a small group of people with few risk factors for Alzheimer's disease, and did not investigate whether they went on to develop Alzheimer's at a later stage.

"There is a clear need for conclusive evidence about the effect of diet on our risk of Alzheimer's, which can only come from large-scale, long-term studies."

Posted via email from Tony Burkhart

Man, 99, seeks divorce after discovering wife’s affair from 1940s | The Columbus Dispatch

2012-01-03T13:15:00.001-05:00

http://www.dispatch.com/content/stories/national_world/2011/12/30/man-99-seeks-divorce-after-discovering-wifes-affair-from-1940s.html

Man, 99, seeks divorce after discovering wife’s affair from 1940s

The Columbus Dispatch Friday December 30, 2011 1:15 AM

A 99-year-old Italian man has filed for divorce from his wife of 77 years after he discovered love letters from an affair she had in the 1940s.

The man, identified in court documents as “Antonio C,” found the letters in the drawers of an old chest shortly before Christmas, according to the Rome reporter for the British newspaper The Daily Telegraph.

The newspaper reported that the man confronted his 96-year-old wife, identified as “Rosa C,” who confessed to the affair. The man then demanded a divorce, and the couple prepared the court filings.

The marriage had faced difficulties before, with the husband temporarily moving into a son’s home a decade ago, the newspaper reported.

The couple has five children, twelve grandchildren and a great-grandchild, the newspaper reported.

Posted via email from Tony Burkhart

Comedian @DrewHastings takes office as mayor of Ohio town

2012-01-03T07:55:00.001-05:00

Comedian takes office as mayor of Ohio town

zanesvilletimesrecorder.com - Local News

HILLSBORO -- A veteran standup comic familiar to "Comedy Central" TV viewers and club patrons across the country has been sworn in as mayor of his economically struggling hometown in southwestern Ohio.

Sent with Reeder

Posted via email from Tony Burkhart

French Court Convicts Cyclist Floyd Landis In Hacking Of Doping Lab : The Two-Way : NPR

2012-01-02T15:03:00.001-05:00

http://www.npr.org/blogs/thetwo-way/2011/11/10/142211319/french-court-convicts-cyclist-floyd-landis-in-hacking-of-doping-lab

French Court Convicts Cyclist Floyd Landis In Hacking Of Doping Lab

Enlarge Bernard Papon /AP

Floyd Landis, left, and then-teammate Lance Armstrong during the 2004 Tour de France.

Disgraced American cyclist Floyd Landis, who was stripped of his 2006 Tour de France title, today was convicted in absentia by a French court "for his role in hacking into the computers of a French doping lab," The Associated Press reports. Landis was given a suspended sentence of 12 months.

"Prosecutors argued that Landis and coach Arnie Baker masterminded a [2006] plot to hack into the lab's computer system to obtain documents as part of an effort to defend the cyclist's name," the AP adds. Testing after the 2006 Tour found unusually high testosterone levels in Landis' system.

But here's something about the case that really popped out at us:

"Judges said that although no evidence directly linked Messrs. Landis and Baker to the hacking of the antidoping lab, both men benefited from the illegal intrusion." (The Wall Street Journal)

The Journal adds that "through their lawyers, Messrs. Landis and Baker have denied playing any role in the hacking. They said they did use some documents from the French lab as part of a campaign aimed at proving Mr. Landis's innocence in a 2006 doping case, but were ignorant of their fraudulent origin at the time."

In May 2010, Landis admitted using performance-enhancing drugs and accused fellow American cyclist Lance Armstrong of using them as well. Armstrong has consistently denied such allegations and says he's never failed a drug test.

Posted via email from Tony Burkhart

Same Platform Used to Develop Stuxnet and Duqu Created other Malware | SecurityWeek.Com

2012-01-01T12:46:00.001-05:00

http://www.securityweek.com/same-platform-used-develop-stuxnet-and-duqu-created-other-malware

Same Platform Used to Develop Stuxnet and Duqu Created other Malware

The Same Platform Used to Create Stuxnet and Duqu Could have Made Other Malware That Remains Unknown. As The Platform Continues to Develop, We’re Likely to see More Modifications in the Future.

New research from Kaspersky Labs has revealed that the platform dubbed "tilded" (~d), which was used to develop Stuxnet and Duqu, has been around for years. Moreover, while they are presently unknown, the tilded platform has been used to create similar Trojans.

"The drivers from the still unknown malicious programs cannot be attributed to activity of the Stuxnet and Duqu Trojans," said Alexander Gostev, Chief Security Expert at Kaspersky Lab. "The methods of dissemination of Stuxnet would have brought about a large number of infections with these drivers; and they can’t be attributed either to the more targeted Duqu Trojan due to the compilation date."

“We consider that these drivers were used either in an earlier version of Duqu, or for [an] infection with completely different malicious programs, which moreover have the same platform and, it is likely, a single creator-team,” Gostev explained.

Gostev and Kaspersky's Igor Sumenkov have put together some interesting research. The key point being the person(s) behind what the world knows as Stuxnet and Duqu, have actually been using the same development platform for several years. The platform, called tilded (~d) because of the naming convention used by the developers when creating new files, receives semi-regular updates to its code. Each update makes the Malware stronger, and trickier to catch.

“In terms of architecture, the platform used to create Duqu and Stuxnet is the same. This is a driver file that loads a main module designed as an encrypted library. At the same time, there is a separate configuration file for the whole malicious complex and an encrypted block in the system registry that defines the location of the module being loaded and name of the process for injection,” the research explains.

The history of Stuxnet and Duqu are established, but another interesting point in the Kaspersky research is the discovery of a previously unknown driver developed on the same ~d platform. The newly discovered variant used a stolen digital certificate from Realtek, but it was signed months after the previous Realtek certificate used by Stuxnet. Moreover, this new variant used a completely different registry key and data block. So it wasn’t Stuxnet, this was something different based on the same building blocks.

“We searched for additional information about other users who had the same file, but were unable to find anything! Moreover, we could find no information at all about the file’s name (rtniczw.sys) or its MD5 in any search engine. The file had been identified only once: it had been sent for scanning to VirusTotal from China in May 2011,” Kaspersky’s researchers reported.

If anything, it looks as if those responsible for ~d were testing the stealth of their variant. Interestingly enough, this variant was discovered by Kaspersky only because it was flagged as Stuxnet.A by their detection engines.

Adding to the evidence that the ~d platform has been in a constant state of development, was the discovery of a second previously unknown variant in the ~d family. This time, the file was discovered in Kaspersky’s Malware archive, and had been hidden there for over a year. This file had a compilation date one year older than the aforementioned unknown variant and its relative Stuxnet.A. It also had a different registry key and encryption key.

When it came to the registry data block, the previously unknown variant used ‘Config’ whereas this one used ‘Action’. For those keeping track, Stuxnet.A/B/C uses ‘Data’ – Duqu.A/B uses ‘Filter’. (Duqu drivers have unique file names for each of the variants. Their functionality, however, is identical, Kaspersky says.)

“From the data we have at our disposal, we can say with a fair degree of certainty that the 'Tilded' platform was created around the end of 2007 or early 2008 before undergoing its most significant changes in summer/autumn 2010. Those changes were sparked by advances in code and the need to avoid detection by antivirus solutions,” Kaspersky concluded.

“There were a number of projects involving programs based on the “Tilded” platform throughout the period 2007-2011. Stuxnet and Duqu are two of them – there could have been others, which for now remain unknown. The platform continues to develop, which can only mean one thing – we’re likely to see more modifications in the future.”

The entire research can be viewed here.

Additional Kaspersky research on Duqu was written in seven parts. Part One is here.

Previous Columns by Steve Ragan:

Posted via email from Tony Burkhart

Brute-forcing wireless access points made easy

2011-12-29T13:31:00.001-05:00

http://www.net-security.org/secworld.php?id=12147

Brute-forcing wireless access points made easy

A design flaw in the WiFi Protected Setup that can allow attackers to easily brute-force their way into wireless network devices has been discovered and made public by Austrian information security student and researcher Stefan Viehböck.

The WiFi Protected Setup is a computing standard devised for making the setting up, configuring and securing of a wireless home network an easier task for users who don't know much about the technology involved, and is included in many currently sold wireless devices, including those by Cisco/Linksys, Netgear, D-Link, Belkin, Buffalo, ZyXEL, Technicolor and TP-Link.

The flaw consist in the fact that when an incorrect 8-digit PIN required to access the device is rejected, additional information returned with the rejection makes it easier to modify following requests in such a way as to make the brute-forcing a lot faster.

To prove his point, he wrote a proof-of-concept brute force tool and turned it against several routers made by different vendors, and it took him an average of two hours to access a WPS PIN-protected network.

Viehböck and US-CERT advise users to deactivate WPS in order to mitigate the flaw, but a better solution would be for vendors to introduce sufficiently long lock-down periods in order to make an attack impractical. Vendors are yet to respond officially to this plea, but will likely have to soon, as
Viehböck promises to make the brute force tool available soon.

For more details about the attack, check out his paper.

Posted via email from Tony Burkhart

Self-healing electronics could work longer and reduce waste | News Bureau | University of Illinois

2011-12-26T21:50:00.001-05:00

12/20/2011 | Liz Ahlberg, Physical Sciences Editor | 217-244-1073; eahlberg@illinois.edu

CHAMPAIGN, Ill. — When one tiny circuit within an integrated chip cracks or fails, the whole chip – or even the whole device – is a loss. But what if it could fix itself, and fix itself so fast that the user never knew there was a problem?

University of Illinois professors, from left, Nancy Sottos, Scott White and Jeffrey Moore applied their experience in self-healing polymers to electrical systems, developing technology that could extend the longevity of electronic devices and batteries. | Photo by L. Brian Stauffer | View video of researchers

A team of University of Illinois engineers has developed a self-healing system that restores electrical conductivity to a cracked circuit in less time than it takes to blink. Led by aerospace engineering professor Scott White and materials science and engineering professor Nancy Sottos, the researchers published their results in the journal Advanced Materials.
“It simplifies the system,” said chemistry professor Jeffrey Moore, a co-author of the paper. “Rather than having to build in redundancies or to build in a sensory diagnostics system, this material is designed to take care of the problem itself.”
As electronic devices are evolving to perform more sophisticated tasks, manufacturers are packing as much density onto a chip as possible. However, such density compounds reliability problems, such as failure stemming from fluctuating temperature cycles as the device operates or fatigue. A failure at any point in the circuit can shut down the whole device.
“In general there’s not much avenue for manual repair,” Sottos said. “Sometimes you just can’t get to the inside. In a multilayer integrated circuit, there’s no opening it up. Normally you just replace the whole chip. It’s true for a battery too. You can’t pull a battery apart and try to find the source of the failure.”
Most consumer devices are meant to be replaced with some frequency, adding to electronic waste issues, but in many important applications – such as instruments or vehicles for space or military functions – electrical failures cannot be replaced or repaired.
The Illinois team previously developed a system for self-healing polymer materials and decided to adapt their technique for conductive systems. They dispersed tiny microcapsules, as small as 10 microns in diameter, on top of a gold line functioning as a circuit. As a crack propagates, the microcapsules break open and release the liquid metal contained inside. The liquid metal fills in the gap in the circuit, restoring electrical flow.
“What’s really cool about this paper is it’s the first example of taking the microcapsule-based healing approach and applying it to a new function,” White said. “Everything prior to this has been on structural repair. This is on conductivity restoration. It shows the concept translates to other things as well.”
A failure interrupts current for mere microseconds as the liquid metal immediately fills the crack. The researchers demonstrated that 90 percent of their samples healed to 99 percent of original conductivity, even with a small amount of microcapsules.
The self-healing system also has the advantages of being localized and autonomous. Only the microcapsules that a crack intercepts are opened, so repair only takes place at the point of damage. Furthermore, it requires no human intervention or diagnostics, a boon for applications where accessing a break for repair is impossible, such as a battery, or finding the source of a failure is difficult, such as an air- or spacecraft.
“In an aircraft, especially a defense-based aircraft, there are miles and miles of conductive wire,” Sottos said. “You don’t often know where the break occurs. The autonomous part is nice – it knows where it broke, even if we don’t.”
Next, the researchers plan to further refine their system and explore other possibilities for using microcapsules to control conductivity. They are particularly interested in applying the microcapsule-based self-healing system to batteries, improving their safety and longevity.
This research was supported as part of the Center for Electrical Energy Storage, an Energy Frontier Research Center funded by the U.S. Department of Energy, Office of Science. Moore, Sottos and White are also affiliated with the Beckman Institute for Advanced Science and Technology at the U. of I. Co-authors of the paper included postdoctoral researchers Benjamin Blaiszik and Sharlotte Kramer and graduate students Martha Grady and David McIlroy.

Editor's note: To contact Scott White, call 217-333-1077; email swhite@illinois.edu.
The paper, “Autonomic Restoration of Electrical Conductivity,” is available online or from the U. of I. News Bureau.

via news.illinois.edu

Posted via email from Tony Burkhart

Don't Break the Internet - Stanford Law Review #SOPA #PIPA

2011-12-26T12:25:00.001-05:00

Two bills now pending in Congress—the PROTECT IP Act of 2011 (Protect IP) in the Senate and the Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA) in the House—represent the latest legislative attempts to address a serious global problem: large-scale online copyright and trademark infringement. Although the bills differ in certain respects, they share an underlying approach and an enforcement philosophy that pose grave constitutional problems and that could have potentially disastrous consequences for the stability and security of the Internet’s addressing system, for the principle of interconnectivity that has helped drive the Internet’s extraordinary growth, and for free expression.

To begin with, the bills represent an unprecedented, legally sanctioned assault on the Internet’s critical technical infrastructure. Based upon nothing more than an application by a federal prosecutor alleging that a foreign website is “dedicated to infringing activities,” Protect IP authorizes courts to order all U.S. Internet service providers, domain name registries, domain name registrars, and operators of domain name servers—a category that includes hundreds of thousands of small and medium-sized businesses, colleges, universities, nonprofit organizations, and the like—to take steps to prevent the offending site’s domain name from translating to the correct Internet protocol address. These orders can be issued even when the domains in question are located outside of the United States and registered in top-level domains (e.g., .fr, .de, or .jp) whose operators are themselves located outside the United States; indeed, some of the bills’ remedial provisions are directed solely at such domains.

Directing the remedial power of the courts towards the Internet’s core technical infrastructure in this sledgehammer fashion has impact far beyond intellectual property rights enforcement—it threatens the fundamental principle of interconnectivity that is at the very heart of the Internet. The Internet’s Domain Name System (DNS) is a foundational block upon which the Internet has been built and upon which its continued functioning critically depends; it is among a handful of protocols upon which almost every other protocol, and countless Internet applications, rely to operate smoothly. Court-ordered removal or replacement of entries from the series of interlocking databases that reside in domain name servers and domain name registries around the globe undermines the principle of domain name universality—the principle that all domain name servers, wherever they may be located across the network, will return the same answer when queried with respect to the Internet address of any specific domain name. Much Internet communication, and many of the thousands of protocols and applications that together provide the platform for that communication, are premised on this principle.

Mandated court-ordered DNS filtering will also have potentially catastrophic consequences for DNS stability and security. It will subvert efforts currently underway—and strongly supported by the U.S. government—to build more robust security protections into the DNS protocols. In the words of a number of leading technology experts, several of whom have been intimately involved in the creation and continued evolution of the DNS for decades:

Mandated DNS filtering would be minimally effective and would present technical challenges that could frustrate important security initiatives. Additionally, it would promote development of techniques and software that circumvent use of the DNS. These actions would threaten the DNS’s ability to provide universal naming, a primary source of the Internet’s value as a single, unified, global communications network. . . . DNS filtering will be evaded through trivial and often automated changes through easily accessible and installed software plugins. Given this strong potential for evasion, the long-term benefits of using mandated DNS filtering to combat infringement seem modest at best.[1]

Indeed, this approach could actually have an effect directly contrary to what its proponents intend: if large swaths of websites are cut out of the Internet addressing system, those sites—and the users who want to reach them—may well gravitate towards alternative, unregulated domain name addressing systems, making it even harder for governments to exercise their legitimate regulatory role in Internet activities.

The bills take aim not only at the Internet’s core technical infrastructure, but at its economic and commercial infrastructure as well. Credit card companies, banks, and other financial institutions could be ordered to “prevent, prohibit, or suspend” all dealings with the site associated with the domain name. Online advertisers could be ordered to cease providing advertising services to the site associated with the domain name. Search engine providers could be ordered to “remove or disable access to the Internet site associated with the domain name,” and to disable all hypertext links to the site.

These drastic consequences would be imposed against persons and organizations outside of the jurisdiction of the U.S. courts by virtue of the fiction that these prosecutorial actions are proceedings in rem, in which the “defendant” is not the operator of the site but the domain name itself. Both bills suggest that these remedies can be meted out by courts after nothing more than ex parte proceedings—proceedings at which only one side (the prosecutor or even a private plaintiff) need present evidence and the operator of the allegedly infringing site need not be present nor even made aware that the action was pending against his or her “property.”

This not only violates basic principles of due process by depriving persons of property without a fair hearing and a reasonable opportunity to be heard, it also constitutes an unconstitutional abridgement of the freedom of speech protected by the First Amendment. The Supreme Court has made it abundantly clear that governmental action suppressing speech, if taken prior to an adversary proceeding and subsequent judicial determination that the speech in question is unlawful,[2] is a presumptively unconstitutional “prior restraint.” In other words, it is the “most serious and the least tolerable infringement on First Amendment rights,”[3] permissible only in the narrowest range of circumstances. The Constitution requires a court “to make a final determination” that the material in question is unlawful “after an adversary hearing before the material is completely removed from circulation.”[4]

The procedures outlined in both bills fail this fundamental constitutional test. Websites can be “completely removed from circulation”—rendered unreachable by, and invisible to, Internet users in the United States and abroad—immediately upon application by the government, without any reasonable opportunity for the owner or operator of the website in question to be heard or to present evidence on his or her own behalf. This falls far short of what the Constitution requires before speech can be eliminated from public circulation.

As serious as these infirmities are, SOPA, the House’s bill, builds upon them, enlarges them, and makes them worse. Under SOPA, IP rights holders can proceed vigilante-style against allegedly offending sites, without any court hearing or any judicial intervention or oversight whatsoever. For example, SOPA establishes a scheme under which an IP rights holder need only notify credit card companies of the facts supporting its “good faith belief” that an identified Internet site is “primarily designed or operated for the purpose of” infringement. The recipients of that notice will then have five days to cease doing business with the specified site by taking “technically feasible and reasonable” steps to prevent it “from completing payment transactions” with customers. And all of this occurs based upon a notice delivered by the rights holder, which no neutral third party has even looked at, let alone adjudicated on the merits. If they get the assistance of a court, IP owners can also prevent other companies from “making available advertisements” to the site, and the government can prevent search engines from pointing to that site.

These bills, and the enforcement philosophy that underlies them, represent a dramatic retreat from this country’s tradition of leadership in supporting the free exchange of information and ideas on the Internet. At a time when many foreign governments have dramatically stepped up their efforts to censor Internet communications,these bills would incorporate into U.S. law a principle more closely associated with those repressive regimes: a right to insist on the removal of content from the global Internet, regardless of where it may have originated or be located, in service of the exigencies of domestic law.

United States law has long allowed Internet intermediaries to focus on empowering communications by and among users, free from the need to monitor, supervise, or play any other gatekeeping or policing role with respect to those communications. Requiring Internet service providers, website operators, search engine providers, credit card companies, banks, Internet advertisers, and others to block access to websites because of their content would constitute a dramatic retreat from that important policy. Laws protecting Internet intermediaries from liability for content on the Internet are responsible for transforming the Internet into the revolutionary communications medium that it is today. They reflect a policy that has not only helped make the United States the world leader in a wide range of Internet-related industries, but that has also enabled the Internet’s uniquely decentralized structure to serve as a global platform for innovation, speech, collaboration, civic engagement, and economic growth. These bills would undermine that leadership and dramatically diminish the Internet’s capability as a communications medium. As Secretary of State Hillary Clinton noted last year:

[T]he new iconic infrastructure of our age is the internet. Instead of division, it stands for connection. But even as networks spread to nations around the globe, virtual walls are cropping up in place of visible walls. . . . Some countries have erected electronic barriers that prevent their people from accessing portions of the world’s networks. They’ve expunged words, names, and phrases from search engine results. They have violated the privacy of citizens who engage in non-violent political speech. . . . With the spread of these restrictive practices, a new information curtain is descending across much of the world.[5]

It would be not just ironic, but tragic, were the United States to join the ranks of these repressive and restrictive regimes, erecting our own “virtual walls” to prevent people from accessing portions of the world’s networks. Passage of these bills will compromise our ability to defend the principle of the single global Internet—the Internet that looks the same to, and allows free and unfettered communication between, users located in Boston, Bucharest, and Buenos Aires, free of locally imposed censorship regimes. As such, it may represent the biggest threat to the Internet in its history.

Copyright and trademark infringement on the Internet is a very real problem, and reasonable proposals to augment the ample array of enforcement powers already at the disposal of IP rights holders and law enforcement officials may serve the public interest. But the power to break the Internet shouldn’t be among them.

via stanfordlawreview.org

Posted via email from Tony Burkhart

New Kind of Metal in the Earth | Geophysical Laboratory

2011-12-24T13:16:00.001-05:00

https://www.gl.ciw.edu/content/2011/12/16/new-kind-metal-earth

New Kind of Metal in the Earth

Washington, D.C.,16 December 2011- The crushing pressures and intense temperatures in Earth’s deep interior squeeze atoms and electrons so closely together that they interact very differently. With depth materials change. New experiments and supercomputer computations discovered that iron oxide undergoes a new kind of transition under deep Earth conditions. Iron oxide, FeO, is a component of the second most abundant mineral at Earth’s lower mantle, ferropericlase. The finding, published in an upcoming issue of Physical Review Letters, could alter our understanding of deep Earth dynamics and the behavior of the protective magnetic field, which shields our planet from harmful cosmic rays.

Ferropericlase contains both magnesium and iron oxide. To imitate the extreme conditions in the lab, the team including coauthor Ronald Cohen of Carnegie’s Geophysical Laboratory, studied the electrical conductivity of iron oxide to pressures and temperatures up to 1.4 million times atmospheric pressure and 4000°F—on par with conditions at the core-mantle boundary. They also used a new computational method that uses only fundamental physics to model the complex many-body interactions among electrons. The theory and experiments both predict a new kind of metallization in FeO.

Compounds typically undergo structural, chemical, electronic, and other changes under these extremes. Contrary to previous thought, the iron oxide went from an insulating (non-electrical conducting) state to become a highly conducting metal at 690,000 atmospheres and 3000°F, but without a change to its structure. Previous studies had assumed that metallization in FeO was associated with a change in its crystal structure. This result means that iron oxide can be both an insulator and a metal depending on temperature and pressure conditions.

“At high temperatures, the atoms in iron oxide crystals are arranged with the same structure as common table salt, NaCl,” explained Cohen. “Just like table salt, FeO at ambient conditions is a good insulator—it does not conduct electricity. Older measurements showed metallization in FeO at high pressures and temperatures, but it was thought that a new crystal structure formed. Our new results show, instead, that FeO metallizes without any change in structure and that combined temperature and pressure are required. Furthermore, our theory shows that the way the electrons behave to make it metallic is different from other materials that become metallic.”

“The results imply that iron oxide is conducting in the whole range of its stability in Earth’s lower mantle.” Cohen continues, “The metallic phase will enhance the electromagnetic interaction between the liquid core and lower mantle. This has implications for Earth’s magnetic field, which is generated in the outer core. It will change the way the magnetic field is propagated to Earth’s surface, because it provides magnetomechanical coupling between the Earth’s mantle and core.”

“The fact that one mineral has properties that differ so completely—depending on its composition and where it is within the Earth—is a major discovery,” concluded Geophysical Laboratory director Russell Hemley.

FeO is the simplest iron oxide, and thus since most minerals in the Earth contain iron, the prototype for all iron bearing and transition metal bearing minerals.

Using the standard model (called band theory, or density functional theory (DFT)) for understanding materials, FeO would be a metal at ordinary pressure and temperature conditions, but it is a good insulator. It does not conduct electricity. It is known as a prototypical Mott or charge-transfer insulator, which means that it is the correlations between the electrons that make it an insulator. In other words, if the electrons could run about nearly freely, it would be a metal, but the motions of the electrons are correlated, and this essentially localizes them so that each electron tends to stay with a given iron atom for a long time, thus not allowing electrical current to flow. The theoretical calculations of Cohen and Haule showed that at high temperatures and pressures this correlated state breaks down and FeO reverts to behaving more like the standard model.

FeO is the simplest iron oxide, and thus since most minerals in the Earth contain iron, the prototype for all iron bearing and transition metal bearing minerals. Twenty-five years ago, Knittle and Jeanloz observed metallization in FeO under shock conditions. ¹ They assumed it was a structural transition to the B2 or B8 structures, and Fei and Mao (1994) suggested that they had seen the B8 (NiAs) structure based on diamond anvil measurements, ² but recently it was shown that the B8 phase does not form at those high temperatures, but at lower temperatures and high pressures. ³ So the old measurements were a mystery, but it is important for geophysics to know if any major oxides or silicates metallize within Earth’s mantle. Ohta, Cohen and colleagues applied in situ, high temperature resistivity and X-ray studies in the diamond anvil cell, and state-of the-art self-consistent many-body theory to study FeO under high pressures and temperatures. They found a new kind of isostructural insulator to metal transition that agrees with the shock experiments, which has important implications for metallization in transition metal compounds and to geophysics. For example, metallization in the FeO endmember implies two (Mg,Fe)O magnesiowüstite phases in the Earth, rather than one, one being insulating and the other metallic. The proportions of the two phases would depend on the amount of iron and temperature at a given pressure. Magnesiowüstite is believed the second most common mineral in the deep Earth, so this has implications for electrical and thermal conductivity in the Earth, important for modeling Earth’s magnetic field and dynamics.

¹ Knittle, E. & Jeanloz, R. High-pressure metallization of FeO and implications for the earth's core. Geophys. Res. Lett. 13, 1541-1544 (1986).

² Fei, Y. & Mao, H.-K. In situ determination of the NiAs phase of FeO at high pressure and temperature. Science 266, 1668-1680 (1994).

³ Ozawa, H., Hirose, K., Tateno, S., Sata, N. & Ohishi, Y. Phase transition boundary between B1 and B8 structures of FeO up to 210 GPa. Phys. Earth Planet. Int. 179, 157-163 (2010).

This study has been accepted for publication by the journal Physical Review Letters. A preprint is available at the arxiv.

Posted via email from Tony Burkhart

Facebook is selling you to advertisers — Tech News and Analysis

2011-12-24T10:13:00.001-05:00


	News flash: Yes, Facebook is selling you to advertisers. Full Original Story Here -> http://burkhart.bz/FaceBookTimeLineSellingYOU There’s a breathless report out today that provides an “exclusive look” at how Facebook plans to use the new Timeline feature to attract advertisers looking for more social ads. But is it really that surprising to think Facebook would be pitching brands on that kind of thing? After all, the social network has already said that it is launching “sponsored stories” into the news feeds of users in early 2012 — a development that also doesn’t come as much of a surprise to anyone who has thought about Facebook’s business model for more than five minutes. And it’s not just Facebook: making ads socially relevant is the future of advertising. The piece at Betabeat — written by someone the site describes as “a former CTO… who was briefed on Facebook’s advertising strategy” — describes the announcement about sponsored stories, as well as the blog post that the social network has been promoting on the site that responds to frequently-asked questions about its approach to advertising, and then says that Timeline was launched in “what seemed like an unrelated move.” But it’s not clear who exactly would see it as an unrelated move, however, since virtually everything Facebook launches has some kind of ad-related component to it. Yes, Timeline is also about advertising The Betabeat writer seems concerned that the giant social network is somehow pulling a fast one on its users by offering them a feature like Timeline and then promoting it to advertisers as a way to connect their brands to users who identify with them. As the post puts it (in bold type, so you don’t miss it how important it is): What most users don’t know is that the new features being introduced are all centered around increasing the value of Facebook to advertisers, to the point where Facebook representatives have been selling the idea that Timeline is actually about re-conceptualizing users around their consumer preferences, or as they put it, “brands are now an essential part of people’s identities.” The Betabeat post then goes on to suggest that the name Timeline was “cleverly designed” to conceal the fact that your profile no longer arranges information chronologically, and that the “graph rank” algorithm Facebook uses to determine what content to show you in your stream is influenced by a range of factors, including “direct payments to Facebook itself.” Scandal! The writer even refers to this as “payola” — which conjures up images of men in trenchcoats exchanging paper envelopes in dark alleyways. Is this really such a shock? As more than one person has pointed out during the meteoric rise of Facebook to almost a billion users, if you are not being charged for the service then you are not the customer — you are the product that is being sold. That’s a crude way of putting it, but the thesis is largely correct: since Facebook doesn’t charge you or anyone else for hosting the 250 million photos that get uploaded every day, something that likely costs hundreds of millions of dollars a year, it (like most other free services) makes its money from advertising and related features. Social advertising is the future, like it or not But more than that, the whole concept behind “social advertising” — whether Facebook’s version or the kind that Twitter is working towards, or the kind Google is trying to engineer with its Google+ network — is to find a way of making advertising more relevant to users. Banner ads are a dying medium, and have been for years. The clickthrough rates on typical ads are so low they can barely be detected, and even Facebook’s ads have relatively poor conversion rates. Ads like sponsored stories, which will feature friends and people from your social graph, are an attempt to solve that. Plenty of people will undoubtedly resent this (or even sue over it), just as they resent being shown specific ads based on their browsing history or their search terms. But connecting users to the brands they identify with is happening whether we like it or not — and some people actually volunteer to do this, because they like a brand or a product. In any case, it shouldn’t come as a surprise to anyone that Facebook would be at the forefront of such an effort, since this is just a more sophisticated version of what it has been trying to do since it launched the ill-fated Beacon project in 2007. Provided Facebook and other services give users an easy way to opt out of (or opt into) this kind of thing, as they have with “frictionless sharing” and other similar features, I don’t see how this is any different than what the social network has been doing since it first started offering advertising. In some ways, it might even be preferable to the irritating and untargeted ads we get everywhere online. And we can expect to see more of it, not just from Facebook but from every other free social service. *If you don’t like it, there’s an easy way around it — cancel your account!* Tony Burkhart Google+ Twitter

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@OedipusKitteh in a missile attack from Action Movie FX

2011-12-23T14:35:00.001-05:00

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AP Athlete of Year Voting Snub Shows How Far Mainstream -- Not MMA -- Has to Go @JoeRogan

2011-12-23T13:55:00.001-05:00

December 23 2011 Last updated at 11:50 AM ET

AP Athlete of Year Voting Snub Shows How Far Mainstream -- Not MMA -- Has to Go

By Mike Chiappetta
MMA Writer

16 5

Earlier this week, The Associated Press, which provides sports news to millions of readers around the world, named its male and female athletes of the year for 2011. Not a single mixed martial artist was named on a single ballot. It's not as if non-traditional, non-stick & ball sports were not represented. Among those who received votes were sprinter Usain Bolt, surfer Kelly Slater and marathon swimmer Diana Nyad.
But not a single voter thought to write Jon Jones' name on his ballot.
Given the consistent dismissal of MMA by the mainstream news establishment, this oversight is hardly a surprise. In the past, we've always shaped such snubs as part of a larger argument about how far MMA has to go. But not this one. Mainstream sports, this time, it's on you.
I'm not arguing that Jones should have won the award. The winner, Green Bay Packers quarterback Aaron Rodgers, had an amazing calendar year. He won the Super Bowl, led his team to a 19-game win streak and has them in position to possibly repeat. Runner-up Justin Verlander of the Detroit Tigers won both the American League Most Valuable Player and Cy Young awards, the first pitcher to do that in 27 years. Third-place went to tennis star Novak Djokovic, who won 10 tournaments -- including three majors -- and finished the year with an exceptional 70-6 record.
Those three are all deserving of the consideration they received, but it's a sign of the blissful ignorance of the AP voters that Jones wasn't considered alongside of other vote-getters like Derek Jeter, Robert Griffin III and Dario Franchitti.
Jones, MMA Fighting's Fighter of the Year, had arguably the best calendar year in MMA history, winning four matches overall, defeating three former UFC champions and becoming the youngest title holder in UFC history. He wasn't exactly invisible doing it, either. He was a guest on The Tonight Show with Jay Leno, Jimmy Kimmel Live, and on the day of his title win, helped thwart a robbery, an act that resulted in major national attention.
If a boxer like Manny Pacquiao or Floyd Mayweather put together a year like that, you better believe that they would have earned votes.
But because Jones fights in a cage instead of a ring, his accomplishments go unappreciated and unrecognized. It's not like this was a small sample size; 212 alleged experts in sports cast ballots for the award.
Some might suggest that awards like this don't matter. After all, in the big picture, it's the opinions of a few. But they are also the same people who help shape the national conversation of sports. As local newspapers continue their slow death spirals, the AP is called upon to provide more and more of the coverage that was once done in-house. That means a homogenized voice spreading a message that is not always indicative of the true, wider picture.
It's the same voice that shut MMA out of the newspapers for far too long. But at least on that front, there is progress. In 2011, AP consistently began to provide papers with UFC event results. It might not be enough, but it's a start.
Judging from their awards balloting, they still have a long way to go. MMA always blames itself for its shortcomings, and points out all the instances in which we're snubbed by the mainstream. It's proof, we say, that there is still much to do in order to truly break through. That's partly true, but we must also hold the sports experts to a higher standard. In any part of life, there's only so long you can disregard something popular before you can be accused of ignorance, and we've long passed that stage. At some point, it's up to the mainstream media to meet us halfway.

Read More: UFC Sports Business and Media Jon+Jones

16 5

via mmafighting.com

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RT @joerogan Dear Santa letter written 100 years ago found up a chimney

2011-12-23T12:31:00.001-05:00

Joe Rogan (@joerogan)
12/22/11 9:27 PM
Dear Santa letter written 100 years ago found up a chimney irishtimes.com/newspaper/fron…

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Utah K-12 Schools go Google

2011-12-21T10:05:00.001-05:00

Posted by Julia Stiglitz, Google Apps for Education Team Today, we’re thrilled to announce that the Utah State Board of Education has decided to begin offering support for Google Apps for Education to K-12 schools and districts across the state. The decision has the full support of the Utah Technology Coordinators Council (TCC), a group of IT professionals from Utah’s 42 school districts and other organizations that regularly advises the State Office of Education and Utah public schools on technology issues.
“The Utah State Board of Education and I are pleased to have worked out terms with Google to allow our Utah students and teachers to take advantage of Google Apps for Education,” said State Superintendent of Public Instruction Larry K. Shumway. “Google Apps for Education will allow greater collaboration between students, teachers, parents and schools to advance academic achievement.” Under the agreement, over 575,000 students and 25,000 teachers statewide will have access to Google Apps. To support educators transitioning to Google Apps, the Utah Education Network will provide professional development to any school across the state that would like to receive training on Google Apps. In addition, the Southwest Educational Development Center and Washington County School District have offered to provide technical support to schools. Charlie Roberts, the Technology & Media Director for 27,000 students at Washington County School District, estimates that his school district has saved more than $100,000 from switching to Google Apps. Beyond cost savings, teachers across the district are also using Google Apps to interact with students and parents in new way -- relying on Google Calendar to schedule parent teacher conferences, creating Google Forms for student elections, and setting up class websites using Google Sites. Roberts has also added a few labs of Chromebooks. "It is a very exciting prospect because we anticipate little or no increase in overall support even though we will be adding hundreds of devices,” he said. “As students move to the Chromebooks, use of other hardware and client based software will be reduced or eliminated entirely, which will cause a reduction of the necessary support."
Utah joins eight other states with statewide support for Google Apps for Education: Colorado , Iowa , Maryland , Missouri , New York , Oregon , Rhode Island , and Wisconsin . In addition to Washington County, many other districts within Utah are already using Google Apps, including Alpine, Nebo and Davis school districts. To learn more about the agreement, join representatives from Google and the Utah State Board of Education for a webinar on Monday, January 9, at 10:00am PT/11:00am MT. http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/OfficialGoogleEnterpriseBlog/~3/3G4V8GrX6mo/ut...

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@cspaceband at Skully's

2011-12-21T00:11:00.001-05:00

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As Facebook Aims at Millions of Users, Some Are Content to Sit Out #FacebookResister

2011-12-19T10:45:00.001-05:00

“I knew all these things about her, but I’d never even talked to her,” said Mr. Balcomb, a pre-med student in Oregon who had some real-life friends in common with the woman. “At that point I thought, maybe this is a little unhealthy.”
As Facebook prepares for a much-anticipated public offering, the company is eager to show off its momentum by building on its huge membership: more than 800 million active users around the world, Facebook says, and roughly 200 million in the United States, or two-thirds of the population.
But the company is running into a roadblock in this country. Some people, even on the younger end of the age spectrum, just refuse to participate, including people who have given it a try.
One of Facebook’s main selling points is that it builds closer ties among friends and colleagues. But some who steer clear of the site say it can have the opposite effect of making them feel more, not less, alienated.
“I wasn’t calling my friends anymore,” said Ashleigh Elser, 24, who is in graduate school in Charlottesville, Va. “I was just seeing their pictures and updates and felt like that was really connecting to them.”
To be sure, the Facebook-free life has its disadvantages in an era when people announce all kinds of major life milestones on the Web. Ms. Elser has missed engagements and pictures of newborn babies. But none of that hurt as much as the gap she said her Facebook account had created between her and her closest friends. So she shut it down.
Many of the holdouts mention concerns about privacy. Those who study social networking say this issue boils down to trust. Amanda Lenhart, who directs research on teenagers, children and families at the Pew Internet and American Life Project, said that people who use Facebook tend to have “a general sense of trust in others and trust in institutions.” She added: “Some people make the decision not to use it because they are afraid of what might happen.”
Ms. Lenhart noted that about 16 percent of Americans don’t have cellphones. “There will always be holdouts,” she said.
Facebook executives say they don’t expect everyone in the country to sign up. Instead they are working on ways to keep current users on the site longer, which gives the company more chances to show them ads. And the company’s biggest growth is now in places like Asia and Latin America, where there might actually be people who have not yet heard of Facebook.
“Our goal is to offer people a meaningful, fun and free way to connect with their friends, and we hope that’s appealing to a broad audience,” said Jonathan Thaw, a Facebook spokesman.
But the figures on growth in this country are stark. The number of Americans who visited Facebook grew 10 percent in the year that ended in October — down from 56 percent growth over the previous year, according to comScore, which tracks Internet traffic.
Ray Valdes, an analyst at Gartner, said this slowdown was not a make-or-break issue ahead of the company’s public offering, which could come in the spring. What does matter, he said, is Facebook’s ability to keep its millions of current users entertained and coming back.
“They’re likely more worried about the novelty factor wearing off,” Mr. Valdes said. “That’s a continual problem that they’re solving, and there are no permanent solutions.”
Erika Gable, 29, who lives in Brooklyn and does public relations for restaurants, never understood the appeal of Facebook in the first place. She says the daily chatter that flows through the site — updates about bad hair days and pictures from dinner — is virtual clutter she doesn’t need in her life.
“If I want to see my fifth cousin’s second baby, I’ll call them,” she said with a laugh.
Ms. Gable is not a Luddite. She has an iPhone and sometimes uses Twitter. But when it comes to creating a profile on the world’s biggest social network, her tolerance reaches its limits.
“I remember having MySpace for a bit and always feeling so weird about seeing other people’s stuff all the time,” she said. “I’m not into it.”
Will Brennan, a 26-year-old Brooklyn resident, said he had “heard too many horror stories” about the privacy pitfalls of Facebook. But he said friends are not always sympathetic to his anti-social-media stance.
“I get asked to sign up at least twice a month,” Mr. Brennan said. “I get harangued for ruining their plans by not being on Facebook.”
And whether there is haranguing involved or not, the rebels say their no-Facebook status tends to be a hot topic of conversation — much as a decision not to own a television might have been in an earlier media era.
“People always raise an eyebrow,” said Chris Munns, 29, who works as a systems administrator in New York. “But my life has gone on just fine without it. I’m not a shut-in. I have friends and quite an enjoyable life in Manhattan, so I can’t say it makes me feel like I’m missing out on life at all.”
But the peer pressure is only going to increase. Susan Etlinger, an analyst at the Altimeter Group, said society was adopting new behaviors and expectations in response to the near-ubiquity of Facebook and other social networks.
“People may start to ask the question that, if you aren’t on social channels, why not? Are you hiding something?” she said. “The norms are shifting.”
This kind of thinking cuts both ways for the Facebook holdouts. Mr. Munns said his dating life had benefited from his lack of an online dossier: “They haven’t had a chance to dig up your entire life on Facebook before you meet.”
But Ms. Gable said such background checks were the one thing she needed Facebook for.
“If I have a crush on a guy, I’ll make my friends look him up for me,” Ms. Gable said. “But that’s as far as it goes.”

This article has been revised to reflect the following correction:
Correction: December 13, 2011
An earlier version of this article misstated the percentage of Americans who do not have cellphones, as estimated by the Pew Internet and American Life Project. It is 16 percent, not 5 percent. Also, a caption incorrectly spelled Erika Gable’s name as Ericka.

via nytimes.com

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Kazakhstan Disables the Internet , Telecomix Restores

2011-12-17T22:43:00.001-05:00

Kazakhstan Disables the Internet , Telecomix Restores

Slashdot

bs0d3 writes "In the face of oil protests on their 20th independence day, Kazakhstan has blocked the internet and disabled cellphone towers in the city of Zhanaozen. As with previous internet blackouts, hactivist group telecomix is putting together free dial-up servers for people blacked out in this region."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

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Why you (yes you) should donate your medical data

2011-12-17T21:52:00.001-05:00

Why you (yes you) should donate your medical data

GigaOM — Tech News, Analysis and Trends

For all of those in a perpetual snit about personal data privacy, here’s bold proposal: donate your own medical data. And do it now — don’t wait till you’re dead.

Michael Driscoll, CTO of Metamarkets, (see disclosure) made this pitch in his blog earlier this week. Lots of people designate their organs for donation after their demise, but in his blog, Driscoll argues:

…why shouldn’t you be able to give your DNA sequence, your diet, and your disease diagnoses to science while you’re alive? Unlike your organs, you can donate your data away and yet still keep it.

Talk about the ultimate good use of big data. And HIPAA concerns aside, he thinks many people would go for it, provided it was easy for them to do so and the recipient organization was trustworthy. Devices like Jawbone Up and Fitbit (see disclosure), other body-born sensors, or even cell phones could send the data to construct what “could be the beginning of a valuable data bank,” Driscoll wrote. He attributed the idea to Gil Elbaz, founder and CEO of Factual.com.

Driscoll said sites such as Patientslikeme, which serves more than 122,000 users who share their own health information and Ginger.io technology which enables cell phone sensors to collect and send people’s health data, show what can be done.

There will be the inevitable knee-jerk reaction, but what better use of big data is there than to help existing and future patients with similar conditions? Of course, privacy advocates have a point: Misuse of personal data is dangerous and misuse of personal health data could be worse. Private health data, if it ends up with a potential employer, for example, might cost someone a job. It’s not right, and may not be legal, but it could happen. For that reason, this data would have to be anonymized. For real.

And, unlike past bad practices — the medical industry’s use of Henrietta Lack’s ”HeLA” cells without her knowledge is an egregious example — this model must mandate informed consent. (HeLa cells were taken from Lack, a cancer patient in the early 50s and are still in use today. They were termed “immortal cells” by researchers. But neither Lack, who died soon after the cells were harvested, or her children, were ever told that they were taken or that they were used in research.)

The key to medical data donation in the age of big data is full, informed and voluntary consent by people like you and me and ethical, trustworthy and technically-sound decisions about how to store, anonymize, analyze and manipulate data on the back end.

Disclosure: Metamarkets and Fitbit are both backed by True Ventures, a venture capital firm that is an investor in the parent company of this blog, Giga Omni Media. Om Malik, founder of Giga Omni Media, is also a venture partner at True.

Photo courtesy of Flickr user KWB57

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CPU Wars Volume 1.0 - The Card Game #CPUWars

2011-12-16T22:17:00.001-05:00

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FUEL TV to air six 2012 UFC events, will become home for 'UFC Prelims' specials

2011-12-13T17:07:00.001-05:00

FUEL TV to air six 2012 UFC events, will become home for 'UFC Prelims' specials

MMAjunkie.com Articles

While the broadcast partnership between the UFC and FOX continues to crystalize, FUEL TV executive vice president George Greenberg sees big things for his FOX affiliate.

One-quarter of the cable channel's hours will be allotted to the UFC starting in 2012, and plans to host the recently announced "The Ultimate Fighter: Brazil" are in process. The partnership officially kicks off on the New Year when FUEL hosts a marathon of UFC programming.

"We're very much looking forward to Jan. 1 when the UFC lands on FUEL TV," Greenberg said.

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Louis C.K. can’t stop the pirates — Online Video News

2011-12-12T18:30:00.001-05:00

With the release of his latest standup special, Live at the Beacon Theater, comedian Louis C.K. went straight to his core audience with a cheap, easy-to-stream and easy-to-download distribution strategy. He asked interested viewers to pay just $5 via PayPal, and in exchange, they were given access to two streams of the show and two downloads of the show.

(For anyone who’s a fan of Louis C.K.’s TV show or his comedy in general, I highly recommend buying Live at the Beacon Theater now. It’s a full hour of Louie goodness and well worth the $5.)

Importantly, the file comes DRM-free, meaning fans could download the show and share it between computers or transfer it to other devices without using proprietary software or entering any sort of password or authentication to prove they were the ones that paid for it. The idea was to make the special “better than free” — by giving easy access to streams and a DRM-free download, Louis C.K. hoped to combat piracy from good-natured fans who would appreciate not being tied into a proprietary software or streaming method.

Relying on the honor system

Of course, not putting DRM on a file has its disadvantages: Not only is it easier for users to transfer it between devices and watch it at their leisure, but it’s also easier to pirate. The standup comic admitted as much, with a message on his site to those who might want to watch the special:

“To those who might wish to ‘torrent’ this video: look, I don’t really get the whole ‘torrent’ thing. I don’t know enough about it to judge either way. But I’d just like you to consider this: I made this video extremely easy to use against well-informed advice. I was told that it would be easier to torrent the way I made it, but I chose to do it this way anyway, because I want it to be easy for people to watch and enjoy this video in any way they want without ‘corporate’ restrictions.

Please bear in mind that I am not a company or a corporation. I’m just some guy. I paid for the production and posting of this video with my own money. I would like to be able to post more material to the fans in this way, which makes it cheaper for the buyer and more pleasant for me. So, please help me keep this being a good idea. I can’t stop you from torrenting; all I can do is politely ask you to pay your five little dollars, enjoy the video, and let other people find it in the same way.

Sincerely,
Louis C.K.

In other words, Louis C.K. released the special on the honor system, hoping that his fans would recognize the value of his work and pay him accordingly.

No honor among thieves

As one might expect, not everyone was ready to hand over $5 for the standup special, and the file quickly found its way onto torrent sites like The Pirate Bay. One version of the file had this overly apologetic note attached from the original uploader [Ed: quoted exactly as posted, complete with errors]:

“yea its the new one yea i kinda feel bad putting it here but people like louis ck gotta realize without torrents and the net he wouldnt be anywhere bc honestly louis i know ur here and i know u mite be mad at me but u gotta realize not everyone has paypal , not everyone has credit cards, some people use net lounges, some have barely money for food, art = comedy should be shared with the mass , and Believe me u can judge the popularity more from the torrent downloads then the paypal sales, also if people like it , its easier to buy on there ipad/ipod or personal/work computers…more buzz = more fales

Hope you understand louie
sorry”

As of this writing, the most-downloaded version of Live at the Beacon Theater has more than 500 seeds, or users that are hosting the file. That’s a modest amount compared to some Hollywood blockbusters, which can have hundreds or even thousands of seeds for multiple versions of the movie. But it’s still a sizable amount for a lone comic with a niche viewing audience.

Did Louie’s experiment increase or thwart piracy?

So what’s it all mean? It depends who you ask.

I’m sure there will be those who will say that Louis C.K. could have avoided (or at least limited) the impact of piracy on his direct-to-fan experiment by tying some sort of DRM to the file, but I personally doubt it. Just take a look at all the Hollywood fare that makes its way to The Pirate Bay and you can see that making it harder to rip and re-encode does little to thwart committed pirates from uploading files — and more importantly, it does even less to stop others from downloading them once they’re available.

And I’m sure there will be those who say that the pirated version of the special might have actually served as promotion for the paid download. There are a number of commenters in the Pirate Bay thread who say that they downloaded the torrented version, watched a few minutes and decided to pay Louis C.K. to own it.

Finally, there will be those who theorize that regardless of however many people are downloading the torrent right now, there would certainly be more pirating the special if it were released straight to HBO. At least this way, Louis C.K. is benefiting from a direct relationship with consumers who may or may not have cable, as opposed to losing out on potential viewership and potential profits, if someone else were handling distribution and the files ended up on torrent sites anyway.

At the end of the day, it will be difficult to say what effect this experiment had, except that it put Live at the Beacon Theater in the hands of more people who might want to see it than your usual straight-to-HBO special would have. But how many of those got it because they paid for it, and how many avoided paying for it due to a lack of DRM, is still up for debate.

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Google TV update for Logitech Revue! w00t! #GoogleTV #LogitechRevue

2011-12-09T18:29:00.001-05:00

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I am so über Geeked out for this! Yay updates!

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Bridgestone rolls with air-free tire concept (video)

2011-12-06T23:48:00.001-05:00

Bridgestone rolls with air-free tire concept (video)

Engadget

The days of flat tires and spares are numbered. Sure, self-inflating tires are all well and good, but don't protect from the darn puncture itself. Similar to Michelin's tweels, Bridgestone has cooked up some air-free concept tires that use a use a tough but flexible thermoplastic structure that behaves like a normal tire with nary any horizontal force produced. Each wheel is able to support around 150kg, although on a typical electric mobility scooter the load is more likely to approach 50kg. Bridgestone is looking to show off those curved, hypnotic spokes on the retail model, but is still researching how to protect against objects getting lodged inside. Roll over the break to see those spokes in action and imagine a future without puncture repair kits.

Continue reading Bridgestone rolls with air-free tire concept (video)

Bridgestone rolls with air-free tire concept (video) originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 06 Dec 2011 21:12:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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10TV: Zanesville animals dashcams #AnimalsOnTheLoose

2011-12-04T07:15:00.001-05:00

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Wish me luck on this attic fish. #Cat5e

2011-11-29T09:19:00.001-05:00

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Police use radio encryption to stop iPhone eavesdropping

2011-11-28T22:45:00.001-05:00

Police use radio encryption to stop iPhone eavesdropping

Computerworld Security News

Anxiety over the public snooping of police radios using smartphones is persuading a growing number of US police forces to take the controversial step of moving their communications to fully-encrypted operation.

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Schmap Las Vegas Guide used my photo for their map promo. #w00T¡

2011-11-27T19:55:00.001-05:00

Hi Tony,
Back in 2009, you kindly gave us permission to include your credited photo in our Schmap Las Vegas Guide.
I’m writing now to let you know that we’ve recently completely reformatted and overhauled our Schmap Guides to include real-time local buzz for events, restaurants, bars and more:
lasvegas.schmap.com
Your photo in the new Real-Time Schmap Las Vegas Guide is at:
McCarran International Airport
sch.mp/0l9K38
I hope you like the changes we’ve made - if you’ve any comments or ideas, please do drop me a line!
Best regards,
Emma J. Williams
Managing Editor, Schmap Guides
P.S. If you're a Twitter user, I'm hoping you might help us test this before media launch: sch.mp/arh1f (advance notice for local Las Vegas events and deals via Twitter DM)
We also have two Twitter accounts for Las Vegas, well worth following:
Twitter-trending Las Vegas restaurants and bars:
www.twitter.com/LasVegas_Picks
Live music, parties and more happening right now in Las Vegas:
www.twitter.com/LasVegas_Now

via flickr.com

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Texas Town Used Three Character Password To Secure SCADA System | threatpost by @paulfroberts

2011-11-27T19:34:00.001-05:00

In an e-mail interview with Threatpost, the hacker who compromised software used to manage water infrastructure for South Houston, Texas, said the district had HMI (human machine interface) software used to manage water and sewage infrastructure accessible to the Internet and used a password that was just three characters long to protect the system, making it easy picking for a remote attack.
The hacker, using the handle "pr0f" took credit for a remote compromise of supervisory control and data acquisition (SCADA) systems used by South Houston, a community in Harris County, Texas. Communicating from an e-mail address tied to a Romanian domain, the hacker told Threatpost that he discovered the vulnerable system using a scanner that looks for the online fingerprints of SCADA systems. He said South Houston had an instance of the Siemens Simatic human machine interface (HMI) software that was accessible from the Internet and that was protected with an easy-to-hack, three character password.
"This was barely a hack. A child who knows how the HMI that comes with Simatic works could have accomplished this," he wrote in an e-mail to Threatpost.

Editor's Pick

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"I'm sorry this ain't a tale of advanced persistent threats and stuff, but frankly most compromises I've seen have been have been a result of gross stupidity, not incredible technical skill on the part of the attacker. Sorry to disappoint."
In a public post accompanied by screenshots taken from the HMI software, the hacker said he carried out the attack after becoming frustrated with reports about an unrelated incident in which an Illinois disaster response agency issued a report claiming that a cyber attack damaged a pump used as part of the town's water distribution system.
A report by the Illinois Statewide Terrorism and Intelligence Center on Nov. 10 described the incident, in which remote attackers hacked into and compromised SCADA software in use by the water utility company. The hackers leveraged the unauthorized access to pilfer client user names and passwords from the SCADA manufacturer. Those credentials were used to compromise the water utility’s industrial control systems, according to Joe Weiss, a security expert at Applied Control Solutions, who described the incident on ControlGlobal.com’s Unfettered Blog.
"You know. Insanely stupid. I dislike, immensely, how the DHS tend to downplay how absolutely (expletive) the state of national infrastructure is. I've also seen various people doubt the possibility an attack like this could be done," he wrote in a note on the file sharing Web site pastebin.com.
The system that was compromised was protected by a three character password, pr0f claimed - though not neccessarily the default password for the device.
Siemens Simatic is a common SCADA product and has been the subject of other warnings from security researchers. The company warned about a password vulnerability affecting Simatic programmable logic controllers that could allow a remote attacker to intercept and decipher passwords, or change the configuration of the devices.
In July, Siemens advised customers to restrict physical and logical access to its Simatic Industrial Automation products. The company warned that attackers with access to the product or the control system link could decipher the product's password and potentially make unauthorized changes to the Simatic product.
At the Black Hat Briefings in August, security researcher Dillon Beresford Dillon Beresford unveiled a string of other software vulnerabilities affecting Siemens industrial controllers, including a serious remotely exploitable denial of service vulnerability, the use of hard-coded administrative passwords, and an easter egg program buried in the code that runs industrial machinery around the globe.

Commenting on this Article will be automatically closed on February 20, 2012.

via threatpost.com

Amazing... simply amazing. Great article by Paul Roberts, hopefully it wakes up some admins and managers.

Posted via email from Tony Burkhart

GEICO BroStache. #BestApp ever!!!

2011-11-25T11:14:00.001-05:00

Check out this application on the App Store:

GEICO BroStache

GEICO

Category: Entertainment

Updated: Jun 14, 2011

7367 Ratings

iTunes for Mac and Windows

Posted via email from Tony Burkhart

Google+: Sharing but like real life - YouTube

2011-11-25T10:29:00.001-05:00

via youtube.com

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Fake Facebook account deletion warnings target users

2011-11-25T04:29:00.001-05:00

Fake Facebook account deletion warnings target users

Help Net Security - News

An email supposedly sent by the Facebook Team warning users about them having violated the social network's policies is currently hitting inboxes around the world: LAST WARNING : Your account is re...

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The Social Network 2 – If Zuckerberg Deleted Facebook Parody Trailer

2011-11-24T17:53:00.001-05:00

The Social Network 2 – If Zuckerberg Deleted Facebook Parody Trailer

TechCrunch

Would our society come crumbling down if Facebook suddenly disappeared? A hilarious new parody film trailer explores a ghastly future where “Zuckerberg deleted Facebook. And then he killed himself. Forever.” Watch and see the panic ensue:

I know Aaron Sorkin, writer of the Oscar-winning Social Network 1, is only considering making a movie about Steve Jobs. Still, I’d love to see Nice Piece Productions, the team behind this trailer, take on “Steve Jobs 2″. I’m imagining the beloved inventor being brought out of cryogenic sleep to fight off an alien invasion with his own line of sleek, stylish ray guns.

And if you want more Social Network fun, here’s another vision of the sequel where Julian Assange and Facebook team up to fight off Google+.

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10 things to be thankful for in greentech this year — Cleantech News and Analysis by @katiefehren

2011-11-24T06:11:00.001-05:00

As you sit down to your sustainably raised turkey (or Tofurky) dinner this year, it’s a good time to think about the things that have gone well for greentech in 2011. Yes, there have been a lot of clouds for the industry this year, with the Solyndra debacle and the overall recession, but there have been quite a few milestones this year. Here’s what I’m thankful about:

1. Cheap solar panels. The prices of solar panels and cells have dropped dramatically this year. That’s been difficult for solar makers trying to stay in business, but for solar consumers, that’s great news. According to a recent study from Lawrence Berkeley National Labs, between 2009 to 2010 the price of residential rooftop solar panels fell 17 percent to $6.20 per watt, or a $1.30 decline, and in 2011 fell 70 cents per watt, or 11 percent in the first half of 2011.

2. Spotlight on data center energy. Internet giants are now starting to recognize that energy efficiency and clean power are important parts for the modern data center. While last year Google was the main proponent of next-gen energy tech and data centers, in 2011 Facebook and Apple also joined the fray in paying attention to clean power and energy efficiency. Facebook’s open compute project pays mind to energy efficiency for data center cooling and low power servers, and Apple is building a solar array near its data center in Maiden, N.C.

3. LED prices coming down. Prices of energy-efficient LEDs are starting to come down. Samsung recently started selling a $20 LED bulb that replaces a 40 watt incandescent. Earlier this year, Lighting Science Group and Dixon Technologies India promised to sell an LED light bulb that can fit into a standard socket, will cost less than $15, and will last eight years. Many more LEDs still cost about $35 per bulb, which is still pretty expensive. I bought two LED bulbs from Toshiba the other week and they cost me $70 together.

4. Home energy breakthroughs. Gadgets and services to help home owners manage and monitor their home energy use haven’t taken off yet. But in 2011, there were a few breakthroughs. Startup Nest launched a gorgeous learning thermostat that sold out of production for months ahead in just a couple of days. The company is led by iPod and iPhone designer Tony Fadell. At the same time, both Verizon and AT&T are planning home energy services bundled with other digital home devices. Verizon’s home energy service went live last month, and AT&T told me it’s developing its own, too. Best Buy also decided to experiment with home energy this year, launching a dedicated website and sections at three of its stores.

5. The new U.S. fuel standard. The Obama administration launched a new fuel efficiency standard that will require passenger cars and light trucks to achieve a combined average of 54.5 miles per gallon by 2025. That could make a real difference in fuel reduction of U.S. cars.

6. Governments in developing countries. The U.S. might be struggling with how to fund greentech research in a post-Solyndra world, but that isn’t stopping the governments of China and India from investing heavily in clean power technology. Many people know about China’s huge investment, but India has a goal to have 20 GW of solar by 2022, and is supporting domestic Indian companies in a variety of ways to meet that goal.

7. Private investment in solar financing. In addition to solar prices dropping, investors are starting to realize that solar is a long-term, low-risk asset class. Google realized this year and made a variety of investments in solar farms, while new upstarts like Clean Power Finance have emerged to take advantage of this private funding market. A new company called Solar Mosaic even launched a sort of kickstarter for solar this year.

8. Smart meter installations. Despite some of the media attention on consumer push back, smart meters are actually being rolled out a fairly rapid clip. The penetration rate of smart meters in the U.S. has jumped from 6.5 percent in 2009 to 13-18 percent in 2011, according to a report from FERC.

9. The Internet is revolutionizing reuse. While companies like Airbnb aren’t really “green” companies, they are contributing to the trend of collaborative consumption, or using IT to help people share “stuff” from apartments to cars to tools. This is one of the biggest trends for the web this year, and it just happens to be a more sustainable use of resources.

10. Low-power ARM chips for servers. Startup Calxeda has been leading a shift of the idea to use low-power ARM chips for servers. Calxeda launched its EnergyCore ARM server-on-a-chip (SoC), which it says consumes as little as 1.5 watts (and idles at half a watt), and HP, the world’s largest server maker, committed to building EnergyCore-based servers that will consume as little as 5 watts when running all-out. Compare that to the lowest-power x86 server chips from Intel, which consume about 20 watts but deliver higher performance. It might seem like a niche tech, but if data center servers turned to ARM, that could equal a lot more energy-efficient data centers.

Image courtesy of Aine D.

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Report: Cleantech’s Third-Quarter Growing Pains

via gigaom.com

An awesome, well put together geek-thanks list. Thanks to @katiefehren for this great article. Be thankful everybody :)

Posted via email from Tony Burkhart

Ice on your turkey makes it tender, apparently via @hackaday - Great #Thanksgiving #Hack dudes!

2011-11-23T09:16:00.001-05:00

Turkey day is fast approaching and for those of us not cool enough to be rocking the deep-fried turkey this year we’ll have to suffer though a potentially dry oven-roasted bird. Chef [Justin] came up with a great way to prevent dried out white meat on a turkey using ice of all things.

The enemy of moist and tender breast meat is heat. Cooking meat for too long will dry it out. There’s a problem, though: the breast is the thickest part of the bird which means it will take longer than the legs or thighs to reach the necessary 160 degrees. [Justin] figured that if he could cool down the breast with ice, it will take longer to cook and both the white and dark meat will come out perfectly.

[Justin] set up a test with two 15-pound birds. Both turkeys were allowed to come up to room temperature, then ice packs were put on the breast of one bird for 15 minutes. This lowered the temperature of the experimental breast by a few degrees. Both birds were then thrown into the oven.

After coming out of the oven, both birds looked great. The bird treated with ice packs appeared to be more tender and moist. Sounds like the perfect thing to pull out of our bag of tricks next week.

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tagged: cooking, cooking hacks, kitchen hacks, turkey

via hackaday.com

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Fake FBI email threatens recipients with jail

2011-11-23T06:33:00.001-05:00

http://www.net-security.org/secworld.php?id=11995&utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+HelpNetSecurity+%28Help+Net+Security%29

Fake FBI email threatens recipients with jail

An email purportedly coming from the FBI Anti-Terrorist and Monetary Crimes Division has been hitting inboxes and threatening recipients with jail time if they don't respond, reports Cyberwarzone.

"We have warned you so many times and you have decided to ignore our e-mails or because you believe we have not been instructed to get you arrested and today if you fail to respond back to us with the payment then we would first send a letter to the mayor of the city where you reside and direct them to close your bank account until you have been jailed and all your properties will be confiscated by the fbi," says in the email. "We would also send a letter to the company/agency that you are working for so that they could get you fired until we are through with our investigations because a suspect is not suppose to be working for the government or any private organization."

The crooks continue with the threats, accusing the recipient of being an "internet fraudster".

"We have investigated and found out that you didn't have any idea when the fraudulent deal was committed with your information's/identity and right now if you ID is placed on our website as a wanted person, i believe you know that it will be a shame to you and your entire family because after then it will be announce in all the local channels that you are wanted by the fbi," claims the sender, "Robert Mueller II".

But, being a "good Christian and a honest man", he wants to help: all this will go away after the recipient has sent $98 via Western Union to one Chi Jacob in Nigeria, and his previous deal with another Nigeria scammer that would result in him receiving $10.500,000.00 will finally go through.

Needless to say, there is no way that the email is legitimate. But, as funny as it may look to the majority of the recipients, I wonder whether those who fell for a previous "Nigerian" scam might not fall for this one, too.

Posted via email from Tony Burkhart

Tony Burkhart - Google+ - Wow, what a warrior and a hero! … #SupportTheTroops

2011-11-22T07:33:00.001-05:00

Check out this website I found at plus.google.com

Five years after being wounded in one war, amputee soldier re-enlists in another A little more than five years after a bomb blast took part of his right leg, Staff Sgt. Brian Beem was lucid and upright on a prosthetic limb as he re-enlisted at a remote base in Kandahar province.

Full story here: http://www.stripes.com/news/five-years-after-being-wounded-in-one-war-amputee...

Posted via email from Tony Burkhart

Best Door to Door Salesman Ever! Kenny Brooks - YouTube

2011-11-20T18:41:00.001-05:00

Posted via email from Tony Burkhart

Revision3 bets on HTML5, drops Flash player development

2011-11-20T00:08:00.001-05:00

Revision3 bets on HTML5, drops Flash player development

GigaOM — Tech News, Analysis and Trends

Revision3 was faced with a dilemma: Its Flash player was getting a bit long in the tooth, but Flash isn’t supported by a growing number of devices that its viewers are using to watch its videos on. The company had already built an HTML5 player to be used by viewers with iPads and other HTML5-compatible devices, but it wasn’t as advanced as what the startup had built into Flash. As a company with limited resources, updating both players wasn’t really an option, so it had to choose between updating its Flash player, or placing more emphasis on HTML5.

So what did it do? It bet on the future.

Revision3 rolled out a new, HTML5-based video player Thursday to help standardize the video experience across web browsers online and those on new mobile and connected devices. At the same time, Revision3 made a strategic decision to phase out support of Flash and throw more development resources behind HTML5 instead.

The new player went live on Thursday, as the default option for Revision3 viewers. In addition to being available on more devices, Rev3 CTO Rob DeMillo told us in a phone interview that the new player has some other immediate benefits: The new player loads more quickly than its Flash player, and scrubbing through a video is much more responsive. It also supports all the same advertising and analytics that Revision3 had from the Flash player.

That doesn’t mean Revision3 is dropping Flash altogether: It’s keeping the old player around for those whose browsers don’t support the HTML5 player or H.264 video codec. When a viewer tries to access a video, Rev3 will automatically detect the browser and device a user is using and determine if it supports the player. If the browser isn’t HTML5-compatible, Revision3 will serve up its legacy Flash Player instead.

While Revision3 sees HTML5 as the future of video, DeMillo noted that the new player isn’t fully at parity with features that were available in Flash. In particular, there are things like theater mode — where the player dims out the rest of the page while a video plays — that don’t quite work yet.

DeMillo said that HTML5 isn’t exactly the panacea that it’s made out to be. Development meant tweaking the player to make sure it worked across different browsers and even across different versions of the same browser. “It felt very much like 1995,” DeMillo told us.

That said, the folks at Revision3 expect more video publishers — especially smaller independents with limited resources — to follow its lead over the coming years. Rev3 CEO Jim Louderback said he thinks others in the industry will be faced with the same decisions soon, and will likely choose to move to HTML5 more exclusively going forward.

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the disposable memory project / leaving disposable cameras around the world, and telling their story

2011-11-18T15:00:00.001-05:00

http://disposablememoryproject.org/

I heard about this on Leo Laporte's this week in Tech show today, and it seems like a really cool idea!

Posted via email from Tony Burkhart