Thursday, October 16, 2008

Show #101



[Download Show #101 as MP3]



News
  • Want to go to space and you're not next in line? Well cut the line then!
    • Multi-millionaires have been able to visit space for a fee, at least five of them have
    • For a mere $5MM deposit you can join the Space Adventures' Orbital Missions Explorers Circle which helps negotiate to get you into space.
    • Now one of the members of this club is getting their second chance to go to space, this time instead of just orbit, to the International Space Station
  • MySpace launches self-service ads
    • They've been talking about this for over a year.
    • Billed as "the affordable way to promote yourself", the MyAds service allows you to create your ad and target your audience on MySpace
  • Court bans RealDVD indefinitely
    • We knew Hollywood wouldn't let RealNetworks sell its RealDVD DVD-ripping-and-archiving software without a fight, and right on schedule, six major studios have filed a lawsuit seeking to prevent it from being sold.
    • RealNetworks has been planning on hiding behind that Kaleidescape ruling (a home hard-drive based network-enabled DVD jukebox) all along, but unlike that ruling straight CSS (Content Scramble System) circumvention isn't really what's at the heart of the suit: according to the studios' request for a restraining order, consumers won't be able to contain themselves in the face of RealDVD's voodoo magic and will start ripping rental DVDs en masse
    • Seriously, the suit calls the incentive to do so "all but overwhelming." Here's a hint, guys: if you believe the temptation to do something is that strong, it probably means you can get people to pay to do it, and you should probably be working out a business model that embraces consumers instead of funding new Mercedes for your lawyers while actual piracy tears down the fragile house of cards your entire industry is built on.
    • Hollywood wins over the consumer when Judge Maralyn Hall Patel (of Napster fame, remember her?) ruled last Wednesday that a temporary restraining order blocking sales of the software will stay in place indefinitely until she decides whether it violates the DMCA
  • Youtube hosting full-length shows
    • Star Trek (Original), MacGyver, Beverly Hills 90210, and The Young and the Restless
    • All of which allow the use of YouTube's new TheaterView which makes the rest of the screen dark and "theater like" -- FUN!
    • While you're at it, search for feature length videos that you can watch on YouTube by clicking this fantastic link right here.
  • Netflix adds $1 on Blu-rays

Tech Picks

  • Google's new satellite, GeoEye
  • Touchless SDK (Snake Demo/WebCam Control)
    • Have you seen MSNBC or other TV shows where they have screens they move items around on without using a mouse or keyboard? That technology generally uses syphosticated sensors to accomplish the magic, but a simple version using your webcam is here.
    • A free SDK, or Software Development Kit, from Microsoft allows developers to use a webcam as an input device, imagine games you control with your hands
    • Want to see it in action for yourself, you don't have to be a developer, download the Snake Demo for your Webcam
  • WiFi is no longer a viable secure connection
    • Graphics cards sure are powerful these days! What does that have to do with WiFi you ask?
    • Your graphics card is responsible for delivering 60+ frames per second of graphics to your screen while you play games with ever increasing complexity, its an astonishing amount of data that has to be processed, numbers that have to be crunched, to make those 3D graphics look life-like in your game of WoW or F.E.A.R.
    • And for sometime now you've been able to harness the extremely powerful math processing of your graphics card to help projects like SETi @ Home and Folding @ Home.
    • Our wireless networks that we take for granted and transfer data over for our laptops are secured using several different types of encryption and researchers are finding that with the help of something as simple as a graphics card, it is in the realm of near possibility that the traffic will be cracked.
    • Here's the good news, when you're on a secure website, the kind that starts with HTTPS and makes the bar at the top of your browser change colors and the lock appear on the screen, your traffic is encrypted in your browser, so EVEN IF the traffic on the WiFi is decrypted, you have one more very difficult layer of encryption to get through.
    • So the moral of the story: Security in computers is only as good as the new advancements in technology, but any computer security is better than just one phone conversation in which you say your Social Security or Credit Card Number over the phone -- something we've all done, perhaps even many times
  • Hey ST: TNG fans -- a tricorder is closer than you think: Microscope-on-a-chip
    • Implantable microscope, just without the optics
    • Uses a sensor just like the point-and-shoot cameras you have in your cell phone
  • Firefox coming to a mobile device near you


Power Tip
  • Clean up and keep spyware away with FREE SpywareBlaster
    • $9.95/year for automatic updating -- simply manually clicking to check for protection updates occasionally will save you this $10 -- think of it as a donation to help the developers make it better with an incentive of a button you don't have to click for you
  • m.seesmic.com
    • Video blogging via your cell phone
Gamer's Corner (Conferences, New Developments, Game Reviews)

Intarweb Gold Mine
  • Microsoft loses 21,000+ XBox 360s in train derailment
    • We should have been there right after that train derailed, I only need 3.
  • 1 person controlling 36 characters in WoW
    • Now that's powerleveling for ya
    • The amount of computers isn't that staggering. There's a utility that allows you to divide up each of your monitors into quadrants or maximize 2 instances of the game across a multi-screen -- what's the name of this app?
    • What's WoW's monthly charge now? (no clue, services trade for mine but this guys is paying $5,711 annually for all 36 of his accounts on 6 month plans)
  • Crowdsourcing & Micro-Funding (Push this to next week, we already have too much content)
    • Cool words, but what do they mean?
    • A guy named Wayne Sutton (Twitter / Seesmic) is trying to fund a new $1999 MacBook Pro from his Twitter followers
    • He says if only half give him $1, he'll have more than enough, and even better, the person who donates the most ($5, $10, or however much) he will give his first gen MacBook to.
    • Seesmic on your Windows Mobile device
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