 Wednesday, January 08, 2003
Spamwars (requires Flash)
"Let out your anger on SPAMWARS, a Flash game that pits you against the evil Sid the Spammer in the ultimate spam battle!
Sid is intent on spamming you to death, but you can fight back with a handy array of weaponry!
Shoot the spams before they reach your computer, and try to get Sid at the same time. Watch out for the occasional virus, too!" [via The FuzzyBlog!]
Trepia
"Trepia™ is a revolutionary networking application that lets you instantly meet other Wi-Fi users in your vicinity.
Using patent-pending technology, Trepia™ discovers other Wi-Fi users in your area by analyzing base-station access patterns.
Other users will simply appear on your contact list, allowing you to communicate with them. Seek out new people and make connections easily: Trepia™ makes you part of an instant community where ever you go." [via DotBlog]
Could be interesting for gaming, and it should do well on campuses (as noted by Richard).
A Microsoft Watch Will Provide Much More Than Time
"Microsoft, continuing its effort to extend its reach beyond computers, today introduced designs for a new class of watch that gives more than the time and a pocket audio and video player.
The designs, which will be available from several manufacturers by the end of the year, were presented by Microsoft's chairman, Bill Gates, in a speech today that opened the annual International Consumer Electronics Show here.
But even as the company extends its reach to new devices, Microsoft's vision is closely linked to the computer. Both the watch — which can provide weather information, text messages and other data — and the media player are designed to be controlled through wireless connections to their owners' PC's....
The watch will initially be made by Fossil, Citizen and Suunto. The simplest versions will cost less than $150, but the watchmakers will also make much more expensive designs. The watch will require a subscription to a data service, which Microsoft executives said might have a fee of $5 to $12 a month or might be included in the price of some watches.
All of the watches will have a small, rectangular liquid crystal display and the ability to receive short data messages, much like a pager. This technology will allow the watch to identify where it is and what the local time is — and the local weather forecast — as the wearer travels.
The watch will also be able to receive the wearer's personal calendar sent from a personal computer and instant messages sent through Microsoft's messaging service.
Microsoft has built a new national wireless data network, based on the data broadcasting ability of FM radio stations. The company says that compared with traditional paging systems, this network makes it cheaper both to broadcast data and build receivers. It said the microchips for the watch, which it designed, cost less than $10 each wholesale.
Microsoft's watch design is the first instance of what it calls smart personal object technology, or SPOT, which powers devices with access to information. William H. Mitchell, the general manager of the smart personal objects unit, said such a device could be sold for less than $20." [New York Times: Technology]
I don't think I could handle a blue screen of death on my watch. Actually, I don't even wear one. As Richard Lewis used to say, I tell time the way the Aztecs did - by asking the person next to me.
I can't imagine paying a subscription fee for a watch when I'll have my smartphone with me and it will do all of this and more via a wireless, always-on connection.
Lexmark Invokes DMCA in Toner Suit
"A federal judge in Kentucky has scheduled a hearing for Thursday in the case, which Lexmark filed against Static Control Components in an effort to slam the brakes on the toner cartridge remanufacturing industry. Lexmark is the No. 2 printer maker in the United States, behind Hewlett-Packard, and manufactures printers under the Dell Computer brand.
This lawsuit is the latest of several recent DMCA cases--both civil and criminal--that have tested the limits of the 1998 copyright law, which Congress intended to limit Internet piracy....
Lexmark claims that Static Control violated the DMCA by selling its Smartek chips to companies that refill toner cartridges and undercut Lexmark's prices.
The legal action escalates what has been a technological cold war pitting the aftermarket ink and toner industry against printer manufacturers, who try to prevent customers from buying products from third parties....
Jessica Litman, a professor at Wayne State University who specializes in copyright law, said it's likely that Lexmark would not have been able to succeed in its lawsuit without the DMCA, but stands a good chance with it....
'I think they almost certainly would have skated were it not for the existence of the DMCA,' Litman said of Static Control. 'I would have expected the eastern district of Kentucky to follow the 9th Circuit to say that reverse engineering and copying of the code was fair use because it was enabling interoperability.'
Cindy Cohn, an attorney at the Electronic Frontier Foundation, a civil liberties group in San Francisco that's one of the chief critics of section 1201 of the DMCA, said she expected more cases like the one brought by Lexmark.
'We have long said that the DMCA's potential use as an anti-competitive tool has been great,' Cohn said. 'Now we're seeing it happen.' " [CNET News.com]
Oh no... the DMCA won't be used for any purposes for which it was not intended. Remember when legislators said this as they passed the law? Thank heavens the Digital Media Consumers' Rights Act (DMCRA) is being introduced in the new legislative session. It's only a matter of time before a regular Joe is sued, so consumers' fair use rights obviously need protection from these companies that have found a new 800-pound gorilla.
Do you think every legal strategy session now includes a discussion of whether the DMCA can be applied to the problem at hand? Is it an exercise in ego to figure out the biggest stretch that will actually work?
'Gadget printer' Promises Industrial Revolution
"The idea of printing a light bulb may seem bizarre, but US engineers are now developing an ink-jet printing technology to do just that. The research at the University of California in Berkeley will allow fully assembled electric and electronic gadgets to be printed in one go.
 The idea was revealed at a December workshop on robotic algorithms in Nice. Instead of creating a casing and then laboriously filling it with electronic circuit boards, components and switches, the plan is to print a complete and fully assembled device.
The trick is to print layer upon layer of conducting and semiconducting polymers in such a way that the circuitry the device requires is built up as part of the bodywork.
When the technique is perfected, devices such as light bulbs, radios, remote controls, mobile phones and toys will be spat out as individual fully functional systems without expensive and labour-intensive production on an assembly line.
Three-dimensional printers are already valuable tools for making prototypes of newly designed products. They deposit layers made from droplets of smart polymers, which gradually build up into 3D shapes. Such printing techniques have become so sophisticated it is now possible to print working prototypes with mechanical parts that move as they would in the final product.
But Berkeley's crucial addition to this art is to allow the electronics to be included in the printed device, rather than being added at great cost later on....
Once they have developed ink-jet cartridges that can handle all the polymers needed for casing and circuit printing, Canny predicts they could make, say, a remote control for a TV....
But there is a downside. When a flexonic device breaks, it will be irreparable, because none of the embedded components can be replaced. So the technology will fuel the throwaway society." [New Scientist]
It would be pretty cool if I could just re-print a remote every time I lose one.
Edwards Moblog: Electoral Smart Mobs 2004
"Oliver Willis has set up a weblog with a mobile communications gateway to coordinate and disseminate information about the campaign of Senator John Edwards for President of the US in 2004.
'The site is updated daily, and contains signups for alerts/discussion by e-mail, AOL IM and SMS text messaging. We're attempting to build an American "smart mob" from the grassroots level to get the vote out.' " [Smart Mobs]
Broadband ISPs Mull Healing Power of Price Cuts
"Cutting prices for high-speed Internet service may not be the greatest thing for cable operators. But it won't kill them, either.
That's a lesson to learn from cable operators that are already offering high-speed Internet packages at prices about one-half (or even lower) of the $50 monthly fee that has become standard among the nation's biggest cable TV companies, including Comcast and Cox Communications.
Over the past year, marketing high-speed Internet connections, or broadband, has been a boon for cable operators, enabling them to reap high-margin revenue from cable systems into which they've poured billions of dollars in capital expenditures.
But, as TheStreet.com explored in an article last month, some analysts say growth in broadband will peter out in 2003 unless operators start offering lower-priced service packages, or tiers. That scenario has led at least one sell-side analyst to cut growth estimates for cable data and, in turn, equity values.
The situation could pose a difficult question for system operators. Do they hold the line on rate cuts and risk stalled subscriber growth? Or do they introduce lower-cost tiers and risk margins shrunk by consumers who downgrade their service?
The choice is difficult, but some of the few companies already selling lower-priced cable tiers say the benefits more than offset the risks....
One small operator that says it has achieved greater penetration through a budget-price tier is Massillon Cable Communications, a privately held company serving 45,000 households in Ohio. Massillon, which launched high-speed Internet service in 1999, now has 11,000 broadband customers, mostly residential. That amounts to about 24.4% of basic cable subscribers. That's a number that puts Massillon in the same league as larger operators....
Similarly supportive of lower-priced tiers is Michael Zammit, managing director of Advanced Broadband, a subsidiary of luxury homebuilder Toll Brothers that currently markets broadband to 1,600 homes in several gated communities. In communities where 128 kbps cable modem service goes free to every household, about a third pay extra for upgraded service. Of those upgraders, one-third pay $15 a month for 768 kbps download rates and two-thirds pay $25 for 1.5-megabit-per-second downloading.
In communities with no free broadband, Zammit says, about 25% pay for the service. Advanced Broadband charges them $25 a month for entry-level 128 kbps service and $40 for 1.5 mbps service. Again, two-thirds of upgrading customers opt for the more expensive tier.
Though Zammit's customers clearly demand broadband, he says selling high-speed Internet in the mass market is harder. 'That makes it all the more important to have a more attractive and less expensive entry point for less techno-savvy users,' he says.
'The bottom-line message is, we're capturing 50% more subscribers because that tier is there,' Zammit says. 'Those people would not have taken broadband Internet if we didn't have a lower price point....'
Butt downplays the problem of lower tiers cannibalizing higher tiers, saying that the low-priced tier tempts dial-up users to try broadband. "If you offer them a price point that's comparable to dial-up, you get more people to trade up,' he says." [TheStreet.com]
Exactly.
Handhelds Go Multimedia is a good primer on the convergence of cell phones and PDAs for those not already familiar with the topic. The good news: "the hardware is basically here and now." The bad news: "Plan to choose more than one, and then a new one every 18 months or so as technology advances." So basically Moore's law has transferred from PCs to smartphones. Of course, none of this will happen until we have cell phone number portability in the U.S.
"This Next Big Thing will result from a combination of three big things: rapidly advancing handsets and PDAs, fast wireless networks, and compelling applications.
While we can't say for sure whether the Next Big Thing will be a Treo, a Pocket PC Phone, a Nokia 3650, a T-Mobile Sidekick, or one of the other devices flooding the market, we can say this with confidence: Most of us will be carrying small, powerful devices, equipped with high-resolution color displays and connected to fast voice and data networks. We'll use them to send and receive video, music, and rich multimedia messages; play games; and access a host of location-based services." [ZDNet]
Today's AnchorDesk column, Where Mobile Tech Is Headed, goes into more detail. Consensus already seems to be that wireless is the "it" technology this year, but then we knew that last year.
First we had HipTop Nation, now we have FoneBlog for cellular carriers.
"NewBay FoneBlog V1 is a complete software system that allows mobile network operators provide their customers with easy to use websites (called web logs or 'blogs').
Blogging is the ultimate in personal publishing. FoneBlog gives mobile users the ability to create a unique, interesting and personal website from a mobile phone - including text, pictures and sounds.
FoneBlog transforms mobile phones into powerful internet publishing devices that will inspire people to communicate in a totally new manner. Users' blogs will reflect as many opinions and themes as there are mobile phones." [via Underway in Ireland]
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