What Could Have Been

The defunct John McCain campaign has sold much of its used electronics recently and continuing in their tradition of perceived technological incompetence, some of the Blackberries they sold to the public contained phone numbers of Republican party officials as well as some official e-mails and e-mail addresses. They didn't delete them!

They also sold laptops which may or may not have had all of their files deleted but as most people know deleted files on a laptop are pretty easily recovered by someone who knows how to do that.

This group could have been in charge starting this January 20th.

Italy Accidentally Legalizes P2P MP3s

So a new Italian copyright law allows 'degraded' audio files to be shared via p2p for informational purposes. Well, mp3 files are considered 'degraded' since they are "compressed with an algorithm that implies quality loss". What does this mean for us Americans? We have no idea. But it sounds exciting. One step closer to freedom of file sharing. More details over at Slashdot.

File Sharing Site Pirate Bay in Swedish Legal Trouble

The four men that operate the site file-sharing site thepiratebay.org have been charged, in Sweden, with conspiracy to break copyright laws. Luckily, I have never, ever, nerver used this so called piratebay nor do I know anyone else who has. But, according to the BBC the site has between 10 and 15 million users. The plaintiffs in the case are, of course, a handful of salivating, stinking, monsters named Warner, MGM, Columbia Pictures, 20th Century Fox Films, Sony BMG, Universal and EMI. If convicted the four face up to two years in prison.

QTrax Music Service Not Ready For Close Up

We posted about QTrax recently and it sounded great. A new free and legal peer to peer music sharing service, funded by advertisements. We were even going to be able to put the music on our mp3 players, including iPods in the Spring. QTrax was supposed to have deals with all of the major record labels. There were initial snafus with the website and the availability of the service. The player is now apparently available but no music can be downloaded. It turns out there are actually no deals with any of the major labels, yet. Three of the four labels have said they have been in negotiations. So, according to the Wired story it seems that QTraz was mistating its position, I guess everyone will have to stick to the free but moral peer to peer services for now.

legal - established by or founded upon law or official or accepted rules

moral - refers to what is judged as right, just, or good

New Free and Legal Peer to Peer Music Sharing Application

All major record labels have agreed to allow the company QTrax to provide applications to individuals for free that would allow them to share music legally and free. The service will be free because it will be advertisement supported (which will probably be incredibly annoying). There already have been companies that provide a similar service but QTrax will allow the music to be transferred to mp3 players. iPods are the exception currently, but QTrax claims that music files will be compatible with iPods soon.

The QTrax website is down right now but says it should be up again in 24 hours.

Read the more in-depth Wired article here.

New Police State?

AT&T is considering becoming police of the internet. The company has been in discussions with technology companies as well as the the M.P.A.A. and R.I.A.A. about carrying out digital fingerprinting techniques on the network level. The point would be to sniff out any violations of U.S. Intellectual Property Laws and clamp down on piracy.

Anyone think that if this goes through, we should just shut down the internet? Say, "it's been great, but see ya" to the good ol' information superhighway?

Not to mention, this is a terrible idea for AT&T, as pointed out here:

On the technical side, if I were an AT&T engineer asked to implement this plan, I would resign immediately and look for work at Verizon. AT&T's engineers are already trying to manage the feat of getting trillions of packets around the world at light speed. To begin examining those packets for illegal pictures of Britney Spears would be a nuisance, at best, and a threat to the whole Internet, at worst.

Well, I suppose it is a noble goal to rid the world of illegal Britney pictures.

More about AT&T's nutty idea from the NYTimes here.

More Evidence that Tasers are Hot

The disturbing use and abuse of taser guns and their intended purpose by police has been a "hot" issue for plasticblog. Now taser guns being marketed to women are just plain hot.

How do we know? Because TASER(r) (the maker of taser guns) is releasing several new products, including leopard-print and hot pink tasers as fashionable self-defense options for women. Not to mention the taser with holster that serves as an MP3 player. Rockin' -- it's got 1GB of memory!

I approve Slate's "Human Nature" column take on it:

Company spins: 1) "Personal protection can be both fashionable and functionable" (sic). 2) Leopard print offers "a personal protection option for women who want fashion with a bite." 3) "The 1GB TASER MPH allows for both personal protection and personal music for people on the go." Cynical view: The leopard-print Taser—because when you're facing an assailant, there's nothing more important than feeling like a lady.

And we all thought tasers were so 2007. Kudos to the people at TASER(r) and police everywhere for making tasers hot again.

Pee Powered Batteries!

Now, in Japan, AA and AAA batteries can be purchased that are powered by certain liquids including water and urine. I don't think I really like the name of the brand, "NoPoPo", it just kind of sounds gross. Gross even for pee powered batteries. All of this means, now, you can finally recharge your batteries by peeing on them, kind of. A pipette is used to insert the liquid into a chamber in the battery. Using water may be the more hygienic option.

I think Nintendo needs to get on this ASAP and market this technology for the Wii controllers. There are some pretty good marketing opportunities there.

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