Author: Serkadis

Google has been a big backer of OpenID, though that’s not exactly a surprise when you have the login standard’s creator, Brad Fitzpatrick, working for you. Fitzpatrick has announced that Google Profiles can now be used as OpenID logins. He has also added that WebFinger for Gmail now supports Google Profiles as well. While any push forward on this front is a good thing, OpenID, in its current form, has several problems and this definitely doesn’t solve them.

Adding Google Profiles to the list of sites which can be used as an OpenID identity may be convenient for some people, those already using OpenID or, at least, those who understand it. Google Profiles URLs are easy enough to remember and relatively short, something like http://www.google.com/profiles/user.name. But, it’s probably not going to drive adoption and certainly not solve the bigger issue.

There are several groups trying to tackle the online identity problem. With tens or hundreds of sites and services each with their login information and system it can be a nightmare to handle them all. Most people just use the same user name and password, but this opens up a whole lot of potential security issues. For a couple of years several solutions have popped up which promise one set of credentials working across a myriad of sites.

One of the … (read more)

Thanksgiving is the perfect time to reflect on how grateful we are for the special feline friends we have in our lives. I know I am thankful for every moment I have with my furry family members. They bring such joy to my life! And our beloved house cats express their gratitude with purrs and headbutts for what we give to them.

Unfortunately, there are countless unowned cats roaming the streets who do not have a warm house to return to on a chilly winter night, and worse yet, millions of cats are killed each year in shelters. One organization, Alley Cat Allies, is working to help change this. And on this Thanksgiving Day you can make a contribution to support the cause and leave a special message about the cats in your life that you are thankful for.

Alley Cat Allies has a special Thanksgiving Gallery on their website. Simply make a donation to support the work that this outstanding organization is doing to help improve the lives of cats in the U.S., and you can upload a tribute message along with a photo of your cats to show how much you care.

Alley Cat Allies is the leading national resource for educational information about Trap-Neuter-Release, the best method for humanely caring for unowned cats. They are also an advocate for changes to public policy that affect the humane treatment of cats in shelters. Please consider making a donation today.

>> Click to add your tribute to the Alley Cat Allies Thanksgiving Gallery

Homebrew coder Roman Adler has released the first version of STOPPUHR DS, a simple stopwatch for the Nintendo DS with an awesome looking GUI.Feature l…

Hey guys,

Here is my commentary of VAIO X and its contents. In this video I talk a little bit about everything from packaging to notebook’s design and its ports. If you would like to learn more about this VAIO and see what it looks like inside, check out this interesting  article where an engineer was invited to assess this VAIO ingenuity and at the end he was pretty impressed at how VAIO developers put their hearts into designing this notebook.  Here is a little abstract from that article:

Engineers felt that every part of the Vaio X shows ingenuity.

“I felt that Sony put its whole heart into developing this,” one of them said. “I would like to have a drink with the designers of the Vaio X. I think I will find a kindred spirit in those people.”

As for the employed components, the Vaio X is the integration of the best possible parts, engineers said. For example, if Sony had designed a PC that is very difficult to reassemble after being torn down, like the MacBook Air, the company would have not had to make that much effort. They were impressed by the fact that Sony realized the slimness while following basic design rules.

“I was surprised that Sony engineers were allowed to make efforts to realize such thinness,” an engineer said. “It requires cooperation with production plants. At which phase of the project, the plants started to be involved? No matter how much enthusiasm the engineers have, it wouldn’t be possible to realize such a design without the cooperation. Manufactures and engineers have to share the same spirit.”

Enjoy!

Congratulations to Morgen A (comment #607), winner of the new hot pink KatKabin! Morgen’s kitties will be toasty warm in their fancy new cat shelter.

Thanks to the folks at Brinsea for the giveaway!

We gently knocked Wil Wheaton recently for saying some things that we thought were a bit wrongheaded in terms of dealing with people copying his work — while noting that for the most part he absolutely seemed to “get” where things were heading and had a long history of embracing that. Whatever you think of that minor blip, it looks like he’s definitely got the right idea when it comes to new business models. Reader Avengingwatcher alerts us to a recent blog post by Wheaton where he’s inspired by the fact that people can just “get excited and make things” if they have an idea, rather than having to go through the old gatekeeper model that so many were stuck in for so long. Specifically, he talks about print-on-demand solutions that take much of the upfront risk out of creating just about anything — since you no longer need to pay for massive production at the beginning, and can just see what people want and order:

This is incredibly inspiring to me, and I hope that it’s just as inspiring to indie artists everywhere. Why not take a creative risk and see if it works out? Unlike the old days, when we had to purchase a lot of stock ahead of time and hope we could sell it, we can just Get Excited and Make Things, knowing that the very worst that can happen is that nobody likes that thing we made as much as we thought they would.

Much of this is inspired by some experiments some friends are doing and discussing — and one of the links he puts forth tries to tackle the “but this only works if you’re big and famous” fallacy that we’ve debunked in the past.

I have to admit that 2009 has really become the year of creators embracing cool, working business models. These days, we get probably five to ten submissions per day of more artists embracing these sorts of business models that we talk about. We used to write about many of these, but it’s reached the stage where we really only pick and choose to write about really interesting or unique ones, even as we see that many of these are working wonders. But the key point is the one that Wheaton hinges his post on, which is that more and more people aren’t worrying any more, but they’ve decided to

Get Excited and Make Things


Is there any better motto for what’s happening these days?

Permalink | Comments | Email This Story

When we talk about intellectual property issues, many maximalists on both the copyright and patent side of things have this inherent sense that “copying” is “bad.” Not just “bad,” it’s downright immoral. You hear words like “freeloading,” “parasites,” “pirates,” “thieves,” “copycats,” etc. Yet, time and time again, when we look at industries or societies where there is less (or no) intellectual property protection, we notice something interesting: while there is definitely a lot of copying going on, it hasn’t proven bad for overall innovation, and at times it’s been shown to be very good for overall innovation. When we’ve talked about things like the chemical industry in Switzerland in the late 19th century (which was not covered by patents), there were certainly many chemical companies who focused on copying — but there were also many who were quite innovative, and the overall impact to the economy was very strong.

The same is true if we look at the fashion industry, which does not have copyrights. It thrives without copyright protection in part because of all that copying. The copying serves a few very useful functions: first, it helps “perfect” the offering, as each “copyist” may improve on it a bit. Second, it helps diffuse the new idea throughout society, by offering it up in many places and ways that the originator was unable to. Third, it offers an element of price differentiation (the wealthy want the original/official version and pay more for it, others want the cheaper knockoffs). Fourth, it actually helps to validate the original idea (if there’s a knockoff, the original must be cool). Finally, it stimulates additional brand new creativity from the original creator, who must realize that he or she cannot rest on any laurels, and needs to get to work on the next great design.

Copying serves an important function in getting new concepts out there.

And, now some researchers have started to look into it, and actually have built a model that shows society is likely better off when copying is the norm. Aaron deOliveira alerts us to the research on this, which tries to model societies with creators and innovators, and finds that society is served best when 30% of the population is involved in creating new goods, while 70% is focused on copying. Now, you can read through the full research and quibble with the methodology, but the basic premise is sound, and has been borne out in real life, in situations where copying was widely allowed. Hopefully there will be more research done in this arena, to see if this sort of modeling can be refined a bit more to take more factors into account. But, for now, this is a good place to start, and a reminder to those who seem to think that “copying” is somehow bad, that it serves a valuable part in the overall ecosystem of building and distributing innovative offerings.

Permalink | Comments | Email This Story

 Still can’t get enough of Modern Warfare 2 (Xbox 360, PS3, and PC)? Well, here’s another reason to stay home as Infinity Ward has announced that…

MoPocket claims to have had a word with a Microsoft rep at a tech show, and asked them about what we call Windows Mobile 6.5.1.

In the apparently revealing response, the Microsoft tech said WM 6.5.1 was a made-up name, and that it may just be called Windows Mobile 6.5. 

He claimed, as has long been suspected, that the whole design is to cater for new capacitive devices being proposed by OEMs.

According to MoPocket he said:

True, the new HTC HD2 (a beautiful phone, I might add), is capacitive and running 6.5. However, in order to pull that off, HTC had to go off and develop countless new UI changes of their own and throw in a new TouchFlo (sense-ui) to make it all work.

With new devices being proposed with capacitive screens, MS realizes there is a problem and is stepping up to the task.

The end result may not be as pretty (yet- remember this is still a work in progress and leaked from their labs), but it proves that native capacitive support is possible.

The HTC HD2 navigates the capacitive mine field on Windows Mobile relatively successfully, and we have seen capacitive screens on roadmaps by other OEMs like Toshiba. I suspect, whether we are fans or not, we are all going to have to get used to these kind of screens very soon.

Read the full interview here.

Via WMExperts.com

I recently reported on the Blackfriday list that talked about some deal, well it seems HTC is giving more and more to us. HTC is now offering a rebate to help their carriers out there to sell more devices. HTC is giving a $100 rebate for purchasing the Imagio, Touchpro2, Tilt 2 and Ozone. This deal is only for their Windows Mobile phones and will go on for a while. This deal sounds great I bet and you most want to know what the catch is? well you have to bring in your old Smartphone—which i bet is more than $100—and trade it for the $100 rebate they are offering. The deal only goes for Nokia, Iphone, Blackberry and palm, or anything else that runs Windows Mobile. This is not the greatest deal, but at least it is something.

 

Once the new phone is purchased, the customer can go to the appropriate site below and enter their specific promotional code. This will provide them with a mailing label, which they use to send their old smartphone, a copy of the UPC code from the new phone, and a copy of the invoice from the new phone. After that, they get a $100 check in the mail!

More information is available at the HTC trade-in website.

Read more at Wirelessandmobilenews (long name)

WM

Reader mick alerts us to the story of a small eight-person startup that makes a popular app for backing up your iPod music, which had been called “iPodRip” until Steve Jobs and Apple’s lawyers got involved, demanding the company cease using the name and hand over its domain. It’s even told the guy that even if he rebrands his app, he can’t even say that it’s the app “formerly known as” iPodRip. While lawyers told him he could successfully fight Apple on this, the guy gave in and is in the process of changing the name to iRip. Someone involved with the company actually sent Steve Jobs an email about the whole situation, and got the response:

“Change your apps name. Not that big of a deal.”

Pleasant. Of course, at this point it seems worth pointing out that years long battle Jobs fought with the Beatles’ Apple Corp. over the “Apple” name. Would Jobs have been okay if John, Paul, Ringo and George had simply told him “Change your company name. Not that big of a deal”? Now, yes, it is true that a company needs to enforce its trademark, lest it become generic, but in this case it certainly seems like the name was descriptive in a way that certainly didn’t imply endorsement from Apple. But, of course, when you’ve got lawyers who can bully on your behalf, the details apparently aren’t that important.

Permalink | Comments | Email This Story

Remember ACS:Law? The shakedown organization that appears to have taken over where Davenport Lyons left off (including using some of the identical documents), and who has “partnered” with DigiProtect, the company that gleefully admits that it purposely puts files on file sharing networks just to collect the IP addresses of anyone who downloads, is asking for the identifying info on 30,000 UK users. To put that in perspective, in the years long campaign by the RIAA to sue people for file sharing, they apparently requested info on about 35,000 IP addresses. Of course, when spreading such a big net, it’s no surprise that tons of innocent people get caught in it. But that’s really of little concern, since no real lawsuits have been filed. They’re just hoping a bunch of people feel that it’s easier to pay up. It’s not about stopping piracy or getting people to buy — it’s about shaking people down for as much money as possible.

Permalink | Comments | Email This Story

We were just talking about how pretty much any government database will get abused by government employees eventually. But it’s not just on the accessing or revealing of data that this can happen. How about the collection of data as well? Jabberwocky alerts us to the news that police in the UK have supposedly been arresting innocent people just to add them to the UK’s DNA database. The report looking into this, sarcastically titled “Nothing to hide, nothing to fear?” finds that nearly one in five of the DNA records in the database are from innocent people. And part of that is an “arrest first, ask questions later” policy towards collecting DNA:

The commission had received evidence from a former police superintendent that it was now the norm to arrest offenders for everything possible. “It is apparently understood by serving police officers that one of the reasons, if not the reason, for the change in practice is so that the DNA of the offender can be obtained,” said Montgomery, adding that it would be a matter of very great concern if this was now a widespread practice.

Oh yeah, to make matters worse: “there is very little concrete evidence on the importance of the DNA match in leading to a conviction and whether the suspect would have been identified by other means anyway.” Don’t you feel safer now?

Permalink | Comments | Email This Story

Filed under: Aftermarket, Coupe, Performance, Europe, Mercedes-Benz

Say what you will about the retro design of the new Mercedes-Benz SLS AMG. Some call it a contemporary take on a classic shape, others may deride the lack of originality. But at least it’s consistent. Which is a heck of a lot more than we can say for what MEC Design has done to it.

The Berlin-based tuner has been dreaming up how it could butcher the gullwing’s lines, and from the looks of things, they’ve done a bang-up job. First thing you notice is the nose – you could hardly miss it – that apparently attempts to bring the preceding SLR McLaren’s F1-inspired treatment back. But MEC hasn’t stopped there. The full aero kit includes side skirts with integrated exterior lighting. The rear end fits in a spoiler, chrome tailpipes and a new diffuser. There are comically oversized and blinged-out rims. And they’ve theoretically fitted a carbon and Alcantara steering wheel.

And that’s where the sigh of relief comes in. Thankfully, MEC Design hasn’t actually gotten its hands on an actual SLS to perform these mods. And for the sake of everything we hold dear, we hope they never do.

[Source: MEC Design]

Continue reading Gah! MEC Design fantasizes over tuned Mercedes SLS AMG

Gah! MEC Design fantasizes over tuned Mercedes SLS AMG originally appeared on Autoblog on Wed, 25 Nov 2009 19:31:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Read | Permalink | Email this | Comments

Sweden, Europe | Weird Weather Phenomena

In the small village of Gravendal in Dalarna, Sweden there is an old wooden water tube, leading water to the local electric power station. Because of it´s age, this tube is full of holes so water squirts out in various places, in wintertime it forms amazing ice sculptures in the trees nearby.

Locally this phenomenon is called the “elk shower”. Whether the elks actually take a cold one once in a while is unknown, but if you are very quiet maybe you might be able to sneak up on one..

It seems pretty bizarre that companies and industry organizations would be against helping those with reading disabilities or vision impairment — but that’s exactly what you get in the discussion over creating some loopholes in copyright law to make it easier to reformat content to help those who would have difficulties reading it otherwise. Their concern, of course, is anything that can be seen as weakening copyright law. As we’ve noted in the past, there’s never really been any weakening of copyright law… ever. The only exception I can think of is when the US officially established that government documents could not be covered by copyright. But every other change has only strengthened it — so perhaps it’s no surprise that the usual suspects, including the MPAA and the RIAA are upset about this, claiming that this WIPO treaty on this subject would “begin to dismantle the existing global treaty structure of copyright law, through the adoption of an international instrument at odds with existing, longstanding and well-settled norms.”

Now, that’s funny, because you could pretty much say that ACTA is doing the same thing… and yet these same groups are strongly in favor of ACTA, which would also be at odds with existing, longstanding and well-settled norms.” Funny how their view changes completely when discussing treaties that would beef up copyright law vs. those that would create important and useful loopholes in it.

Permalink | Comments | Email This Story

Filed under: Performance, Videos, Dodge

Pushing a performance monster like the Viper ACR around a race track at ten tenths takes some pretty massive cojones. But few tracks require the testicular fortitude of Laguna Seca.

The iconic circuit in Northern California is packed full of decreasing radius corners, off-camber turns, and the indomitable corkscrew. Fortunately, Dodge test driver Chris Winkler was up to the task, and pushed the ACR around dry lagoon to a record-breaking lap time of 1:33.944, edging out its cousin the Devon GTX in the process to claim the fastest road-car lap time around the track.

Now we’ve got footage that takes us inside the cockpit for the record run, which may seem like old hat to the video game crowd, until you realize this was happening in real life. Follow the jump to check it out.

[Source: Chrysler via YouTube]

Continue reading VIDEO: Inside the cockpit of the Viper ACR’s record lap at Laguna Seca

VIDEO: Inside the cockpit of the Viper ACR’s record lap at Laguna Seca originally appeared on Autoblog on Wed, 25 Nov 2009 18:44:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Permalink | Email this | Comments

With newspapers struggling with declining sales and subscriptions, it seems that a few of the major newspaper chains have realized that when they have a newspaper with something of real value to a lot more people than usual, perhaps it makes sense to bump up the prices. Both Tribune Co. and E.W. Scripps are planning to raise the newsstand price of Thursday’s paper, treating it like a standard Sunday paper, recognizing that many people want the paper just for the ad circulars that detail “Black Friday” sales. In some ways, it’s yet another point of evidence that ads (relevant ones) represent content — in this case, content that a lot of people are apparently willing to pay for.

Permalink | Comments | Email This Story

Filed under: Aftermarket, Coupe, Performance, Europe, Chevrolet, Misc. Auto Shows

Loma Performance seems to think that its new BlackforceOne Corvette is somehow evocative of POTUS’ personal airplane. “Clearly reminiscent,” they go so far as to say in their press release. (We think the moniker sounds as if could have been the title of a 1970s action film starring Fred Williamson.) Anyway, labored connections to the Prez’s 747 aside, with the BlackforceOne, Loma appears to have come up with something pretty tasty.

It starts off as a base-engined C6 Vette, which is subsequently twin-turbocharged to make 783 horsepower (794 PS). Of that, a devilish 666 hp (675 PS) or so actually make it to the rear wheels. Accordingly, the sprint to 100 km/h (62 mph) takes a scant 3.4 seconds, and the top speed is 205 mph (330 km/h). The stock brakes are replaced with carbon-ceramic discs all around, and the suspension, wheels, tires, exhaust and other drivetrain components are also upgraded accordingly.

The package is then wrapped in a widebody kit drenched in one of three matte paint finishes. Production will be limited to 25 examples, according to Loma, which will formally unveil the BlackforceOne at the Essen Motor Show.

[Source: Loma Performance]

Continue reading Loma Performance unveils Corvette C6.BlackforceOne

Loma Performance unveils Corvette C6.BlackforceOne originally appeared on Autoblog on Wed, 25 Nov 2009 18:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Permalink | Email this | Comments