Archive for: May 2007

Wired News, with help from some readers, attempted to get real answers from the largest United States-based ISPs about what information they gather on their customers’ use of the internet, and how long they retain records like IP addresses, e-mail and real-time browsing activity. Most importantly, we asked what they require from law-enforcement agencies before coughing up the data, and whether they sell your data to marketers.
Only four of the eight largest ISPs responded to the 10-question survey, despite being contacted repeatedly over the course of two months. Some ISPs wouldn’t talk to us, but gave answers to customers responding to a call for reader help on Wired’s Threat Level blog.
Marc Rotenberg, the executive director of the Electronic Privacy Information Center, says ISPs should be more circumspect about keeping user data. Maintaining detailed data for long periods of time makes any internet company a huge target for law enforcement fishing expeditions.
“From a user perspective, the best practice would be for ISPs to delete data as soon as possible,” Rotenberg said. “(The government) will treat ISPs as one-stop shops for subpoenas unless there is a solid policy on data destruction,” Rotenberg said.

The results:

AOL, AT&T, Cox and Qwest all responded to the survey, with a mix of timeliness and transparency.

But only Cox answered the question, “How long do you retain records of the IP addresses assigned to customers.”
These records can be used to trace an internet posting, website visit or an e-mail back to an ISP’s customers. The records are useful to police tracking down child-porn providers, and music-industry groups use them to sue file sharers. Companies have also used the records to track down anonymous posters who write unflattering comments in stock-trading boards.
Cox’s answer: six months. AOL says “limited period of time,” while AT&T says it varies across its internet-access offerings but that the time limits are all “within industry standards.”

Comcast, EarthLink, Verizon and Time Warner didn’t respond.

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Planet-seekers who have spotted 28 new planets orbiting other stars in the past year say Earth’s solar system is far from unique and there could be billions of habitable planets.

The most recent planet discoveries bring the number of known exoplanets — planets outside our solar system — to 236, the researchers told a meeting of the American Astronomical Society in Honolulu on Monday.

“We are beginning to see that our home is not a rarity in the universe,” said Geoffrey Marcy, a professor of astronomy at the University of California Berkeley, who led the team.

“We are easily able to detect giant planets like Jupiter and Saturn around other stars. Most orbit far from the star like our own Jupiter and Saturn orbit from the sun,” Marcy said in a telephone interview.

“It’s a common structure among planetary systems.”

New techniques allow astronomers to detect planets that are not enormous although Earth-sized objects cannot yet be seen, said the researchers, who have posted details of their findings on the Internet at http://exoplanets.org.

Four of the systems also have multiple planets, like Earth’s own with its sun, eight planets (Pluto was demoted from planet status) and smaller orbiting objects.

“We are finding that most stars have not just one planet but when we find one there is a second or a third or a fourth,” Marcy said. “The … attribute which really has us the most excited is this new planet which we found three years ago,” Marcy said. The Neptune-like planet orbiting the star Gliese 436 has intrigued scientists because it appears to be covered with water — albeit rock-hard, hot water in a most un-Earthlike chemical state because of the intense pressures on the planet.

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Small Internet radio stations were offered a break yesterday, when a recording industry group offered to reduce the royalties it collects for music played online.

Web radio stations are facing new and higher royalty fees starting in July, but many have protested that the higher fees — triple current rates — would put them out of business. Fans of online music stations are concerned that the fee increase would wipe out a nascent Web broadcasting industry that is exposing listeners to a wide range of music that is not often heard on terrestrial radio.

The fees were instituted by a panel of judges appointed by the librarian of Congress, at a rate recommended by SoundExchange, which collects online royalties for the music industry. Yesterday, SoundExchange offered to let broadcasters with less than $1.2 million in annual revenue pay a reduced rate.

“There’s a sense in the music community and in Congress that small webcasters need more time to develop their businesses,” John L. Simson, executive director of SoundExchange, said in a written statement. “We look at it as artists and labels doing their part to help small operators get a stronger foothold.”

Under the SoundExchange offer, small webcasters would pay 10 percent of all gross revenue up to $250,000 and 12 percent of all gross revenue above that amount.

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The Panasonic Lumix DMC-FX100 features 12 megapixel capture resolution, a stabilized Leica lens capable of wide angle (28mm equivalent) and 3.6 optical zoom, and a 2.5 inch LCD. The FX100 will be available in mid-July in silver and black.
To get all those megapixels in, the sensor is just a bit larger than your typical compact point and shoot - with a 1/1.72″ form factor. Also, the lens has a nice maximum aperture of f/2.8. As with the rest of the Panasonic digital cameras, you get the MEGA O.I.S. image stabilization system and Intelligent ISO control. The Intelligent ISO control can detect subject movement and boost the ISO to get a shutter speed to stop the motion (and the blur caused by that motion). An Easy Zoom feature lets you instantly go to the full optical zoom setting.

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The Mio C520 widescreen GPS sells for $399 and comes packed with everything from Bluetooth to a 4.3-inch widescreen LCD,
built-in wireless, text-to-speech functionality and it plays MP3s and video files. It got 2GB storage and an SD card slot.
Use Bluetooth manager to synchronize with either a Bluetooth enabled mobile phone or stereo headset. Simply tap the screen to receive and make calls while driving.
View routes, upcoming turns and POI information effortlessly on the split-screen interface display.

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I have been a Replaytv user for years, but a couple of weeks back I cancel my replaytv account and got Tivo series 2, let me tell you, I love my Tivo. The three thing that I miss from my Replaytv are, 1-auto commercial skip, 2-poopli and 3-be able to go back (rewind) for weeks depending on the hard drive capacity and if I don’t change the channel to whatever I was watching. Anyway,

This site www.zatznotfunny.com (I love the URL by the way) has Top 5 hacks for you Tivo.

1-30 Second Skip
2-Expand Storage
3-Transfer Video To TiVo
4-Remove TiVoToGo DRM and
5-Stream Music

Boy, I didn’t see this one coming. The latest version of iTunes, 7.1.1, has been cracked, allowing you to strip off that annoying DRM so you can listen to your legally purchased songs however you’d like.

read more | digg story

3D printers have been around for industrial use roughly a decade, but they have been matched with outrageous price tags. The first models to hit the market were priced at about the same as a fully loaded Mercedes S-Class, while models today can be bought for about the price of a Honda Civic. The price erosion is expected to continue in the next few years with prices dropping below $5,000 USD by the end of 2007.

3D printers are already in use by doctors, dentists, architects and even the U.S. military. The high price tags of existing 3D printers may have not been a turn-off for the aforementioned group, but was completely out of reach for consumers.

Desktop Factory — a company founded by IdeaLab — is aiming to bring to market a consumer-oriented 3D printer this year for $4,995 USD while the cost of materials is expected to be $0.50 per cubic inch. “We are Easy-Bake Ovening a 3-D model,” said IdeaLab chairman Bill Gross.

The Desktop Factory 3D will build models layer by layer from bottom to top. The models are constructed using nylon which is mixed with aluminum and glass and then hardened by heat. The Desktop Factory 3D printer will measure 25″ x 20″ x 20″ and weighs less than 90 pounds. It can build 3D models up to 5″ x 5″ x 5″ constructed of layers 0.010″ thick.

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Warning that Earth is flying blind into its environmental future, a group of leading biologists will unveil the “Encyclopedia of Life” project today, an ambitious, $100 million effort to create a digital catalog of all 1.8 million known species.

The encyclopedia will be modeled after Wikipedia, the popular Internet encyclopedia, by collecting information from myriad sources and being continually updated. But it also will differ markedly, by being edited and reviewed by scientists.

Upon its completion in a decade, the project’s supporters say, it will provide an indispensable benchmark by which to measure and, they hope, slow the extinction of species.

“I’m relieved and excited this is finally happening,” said E.O. Wilson, 77, a Harvard University professor emeritus who has popularized the Encyclopedia of Life idea, and will serve as honorary chairman of the project’s advisory board.

“We need this badly. We were really letting life go down the drain, and this is one way of getting ahold of the situation,” Wilson said. “I’m glad I’ve lived long enough to be part of it.”

Six institutions — The Field Museum, Harvard, Marine Biological Laboratory, Smithsonian Institution, Biodiversity Heritage Library and the Missouri Botanical Garden — will lead the project. A $10 million grant from the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation helped launch it.

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The Epoq MP4 watch features a 1.5 inch 260k OLED screen with 128×128px resolution. Besides playing videos the media watch also supports MP3 music files and can display JPG photos. A voice recorder is also integrated in the Epoq MP4 watch. To play videos you need to use the included conversion software to compress and resize the video for the watch (to NXV format).

The 2GB Epoq watch sells for $169.95 on FirstToYou. The shipping date is giving with mid-May.

Cool!!

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